I checked the time and turned to Channing, who’d finished photographing the scene to within an inch of itslife. ‘Can you go door to door, see if anyone saw anything before it gets too late?’ It was 8pm. The majority of people would be home, fed and firing up their TVs. Maybe we’d catch a break and find ourselves a witness.
‘You got it.’ Channing moved off, all efficient squeaky uniform even after a long day on shift. We were due to clock off, but we’d caught this one in our eleventh hour, so we’d work it until the scene was closed.
I watched with mixed feelings as ME Percival Crane arrived. He drove a Porsche Boxster, no doubt his attempt at buying a personality.
Crane was a misogynistic arsehole who dressed like he was a Connection Inspector: black suit, white shirt, badass attitude. The thing with Crane was that he had nothing to back it up. He was a level one wizard, which meant he could probably stir a cup of tea with the IR and that was about it.
He parked kilometres away from any other car, lest his car be inadvertently dinged, and revved the Porsche engine ridiculously on purpose.
He had complained before about his precious car getting scratched a time or two, but I suspected none of those dings had been inadvertent. He was a man who inspired thoughts of criminal damage, even in me.
As Crane walked towards me, I braced myself for the incoming twattery and promisednotto punch him, no matter how much of a wanker he was.
His shoes were polished, his smile was smug, and his cologne reached me before he did.
‘Hey, Wise,’ he started. ‘So a woman is on a plane, and it starts going down. She stands up and says, “If I’m going to die, I want to feel like a woman first!” So one of the men takes off his shirt, throws it at her and says, “Here, iron that.”‘
He burst into sniggers while I reminded myself that the disembowelment of a colleague was strictly frowned upon.
‘I’ve got a dead body,’ I said, ignoring his pathetic ‘joke’ entirely. Across the last decade I’d learnt that engaging with misogynists was a waste of time and energy. You could call them on their douchery all day and all night, and they’d call it feminist rage rather than correctly identifying it as simple human decency.
‘Yeah,’ Crane said. ‘I figured, you know, since you called me.’ The ‘duh’ in his tone was thick and rude. ‘What, Kate’s too busy washing her hair or something?’
‘Or something,’ I agreed flatly. He didn’t need to know why Kate was compromised. There was zero chance I was telling him where Kate lived. If she stayed inside herhome, he’d never find out this was her residence. I certainly wouldn’t want Crane knowing my home address.
‘What can you tell me?’ I asked Crane.
‘Jeez, Wise, I literally just arrived on scene. Give me a damn second, won’t you?’
‘Stop cracking shit jokes and do your job then,’ I shot back and pointed to the body.
Crane walked over to it, ignoring Ed completely. Ed didn’t seem bothered by that – if anything he seemed quite happy to be ignored. I could relate. I wished Crane would ignore me. Another ‘joke‘ and I’d be too tempted to punch him.
‘Beaten to death,’ Crane announced a few minutes later. ‘Beaten by just a few truly powerful punches. We’re looking at an Other death here. No human could have punched hard enough to sever the spinal cord. I’d say you’re looking at a male perpetrator. No woman could do this.’
With effort, I pushed down the urge to point out that a female ogre, griffin or dragon would have precisely zero difficulty in doing just that.
‘Time of death?’ I asked tightly.
‘Recent, very recent. He can’t have been dead more than an hour, hour and a half tops.’
‘Blood spatter on the grass,’ Ed called over. ‘He was killed on site.’
Crane ignored him again. ‘Your victim caught a couple of extremely strong punches by an Other male, his spinal cord snapped, and that was the end of this particular dryad.’ His flippancy was infuriating and he topped it off by winking at me. ‘I’ve basically solved the case for you, Inspector.’
‘Aspen,’ I snapped. ‘The dryad’s name was Ash Aspen.’
Crane shrugged like the victim’s name didn’t matter a damn.
It mattered. It always mattered, but even more so in this case.
Jude Jingo had controlled Ash Aspen, but I didn’t know enough about doppelgangers to know whether Aspen himself had died at the point of subsummation or now. The relief Kate had felt suggested the latter, and that justsucked.
Regardless, the Connection didn’t have any record of anyone surviving a hostile takeover by a doppelganger. Once a doppelganger had your body, it was just a matter of time until you died.
Somewhere, someone was a walking ticking time bomb, and the prime suspects were in Kate’s house.
Chapter Two
