The last place I wanted to go was back to that room, but Lukas was a vampire. He might notice things that I couldn’t. I didn’t believe Tony’s death was an accident or suicide – and I realised that, deep down, I needed someone else to believe that too.
Chapter Fourteen
Kennard had posted a security guard outside Tony’s room. I couldn’t imagine why anyone not on official business would want to go in there, but I guessed that whoever she’d spoken to when she’d called the police had insisted upon it. I was prepared to argue my way back in and insist that I had every right to be there, trainee or not, but Lukas already had the matter in hand.
‘You will open the door and step aside,’ he intoned. I caught an odd rasp in his voice. Whatever strange vampire magic he employed, it worked: the guard, who I’d been certain was about to deny us entry, did exactly as instructed.
‘Jedi mind tricks again?’
Lukas glanced at me. ‘I don’t have a light sabre, but I’d take on Luke Skywalker any day. He wouldn’t stand a chance.’
Did that mean the vampire belonged to the dark side? It wouldn’t have surprised me.
The odd sour odour clinging to the air seemed stronger. Lukas paused inside the door, his nostrils flaring. ‘The smell of fear?’ I asked.
He shook his head. ‘Death.’
Was that what I’d smelled like? I pushed away the unbidden thought. Focus, Emma.
I straightened my shoulders and followed Lukas into the room. I was on the verge of becoming a fully qualified police detective; I couldn’t let a dead body get to me. I knew it was the fact that it was Tony’s dead body that bothered me, but a corpse’s identity shouldn’t matter. It should simply make me more determined to find out what had happened.
‘Be careful not to touch anything,’ I said, in a bid to re-assert my authority. ‘Assuming this is a crime scene, we don’t want to contaminate any evidence.’
‘Not my first rodeo,’ Lukas replied mildly. ‘But thank you for the tip.’
He walked round the room, glancing at the porn magazine and the rumpled quilt on the bed. When he reached the wardrobe, he gazed at Tony’s body for a long moment. I thought his manner was detached and clinical until he looked at me and I saw the anger in his dark eyes. ‘Check the window,’ he said. ‘Can it be opened?’
I stared at him. ‘We’re on the fourth floor.’
‘We’re not in your world any longer, D’Artagnan,’ he retorted. ‘Humour me.’
Supe or not, I failed to see how anyone could clamber in from the outside; even so, I did as he asked. I pulled my cuffs over my hands so I could tug the catch without leaving fingerprints. It slid upwards without so much as a whisper.
‘Unfortunately for Brown,’ Lukas said, glancing at the open window, ‘this is an old building that’s not sealed its windows to guard against jumpers. Unfortunately for all of us, jumpers aren’t the only thing we need to guard against.’
I peered out. ‘I still don’t—’ My voice faltered as I stared at the marks etched into the grey stone wall beneath the window frame. If I hadn’t been looking, I wouldn’t have seen them. Without Lukas, it wouldn’t have occurred to me to look.
He joined me, his body brushing against mine as he leaned out. He stiffened when he saw the gouges in the stone.
I measured the distance between us and the pavement below. It seemed an impossible height to scale. ‘You don’t mean that a werewolf climbed all this way up?’
‘Do you believe that Brown was murdered?’
I didn’t hesitate. ‘Yes.’
‘Then,’ Lukas said simply, ‘this is the only way they could have got in.’ He pulled back. ‘Although the question remains, why go to the bother of making Brown’s death look like misadventure then leave your murdered body out in the open so ostentatiously?’
‘And why kill either of us in the first place?’
Lukas nodded abruptly. ‘You’ve spent less than two days with Supe Squad. Did you have any interaction with wolves when you were with Brown? Did any of them visit the office?’
Before I could answer, the door opened. I whirled round. When I saw who it was, my mouth dropped open.
‘Ah,’ Lukas said, ‘I was wondering when you’d get here.’
Detective Superintendent Lucinda Barnes frowned. ‘The pair of you are disturbing my scene.’
‘DC Brown doesn’t mind,’ Lukas answered.
