‘Emma.’
I didn’t look up. ‘Lukas,’ I said dully. I shivered and pulled the blanket tighter around me. Lukas immediately sat down next to me and put an arm across my shoulder, drawing me in close. ‘You need to get inside. It’s freezing here.’
I didn’t want to go anywhere. I wanted to stay there. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. His arm gripped me a fraction tighter. ‘I was at the graveyard,’ I said. ‘I really was there waiting for you. But then I … I heard about this and had to come.’
‘It’s fine,’ he told me. ‘As soon as I got the call about the fire, I knew you’d be here. Don’t worry about it, Emma.’
But I had to worry, I couldn’t help it. My eyes drifted towards Phileas Carmichael, his head held high as he answered questions from a grim-faced uniformed policeman. Then I heard the trundle of wheels from the gurney and I stiffened as Alan Cobain’s shrouded, but no doubt charred, body was wheeled out. He was bundled into the back of the ambulance while Lukas and I watched, neither of us uttering a word.
Heels clicked towards us. I didn’t need to look up to know who was approaching but I couldn’t help raising my head to check her expression. DSI Barnes gave me a flat look; neither her dark eyes nor her blank face yielded any clues as to what she might be thinking.
‘Well,’ she said, in a brisk, business-like tone, ‘that’s one question that will soon be answered. In twelve hours we’ll know if Alan Cobain is a phoenix.’
I strongly suspected that Alan Cobain was merely dead. I should have saved him; I should have realised that the image of Carmichael’s sign in my prophetic vision had come at an angle. It would have been what Cobain – or his killer – saw from the flat’s window in the seconds before the fire was lit.
Next to me, Lukas snorted. ‘He’s not going to resurrect, DSI Barnes, and you know it.’
Barnes’s eyes flicked to him then back to me. ‘I need to speak to you alone, DC Bellamy.’
My stomach tightened. I knew what was coming.
Lukas didn’t move an inch. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
Barnes didn’t say anything, she simply waited. I sighed. ‘It’s fine, Lukas. Give us five minutes.’
I knew he wanted to argue but I also knew he wouldn’t do so in front of DSI Barnes. ‘You’re sure?’ he asked roughly.
I smiled slightly and touched his arm. ‘I’m sure. This won’t take long.’
A muscle throbbed in his cheek as he stared at me, then he nodded reluctantly and stood up. He stalked across the street to give us some space. As I watched him go, I was aware that his enhanced vampiric senses meant that he could still hear everything Barnes said. I wondered if she realised it too.
‘What a shitstorm.’ Barnes shook her head, sat down next to me and reached into her pocket to pull out a packet of mints. She offered me one but I shook my head. She popped one into her mouth and began to chew slowly. ‘The solicitor says that you smashed in his door before the fire became obvious.’
Here we go. ‘Yes,’ I said. I wasn’t going to deny it.
‘How did you know Cobain was in danger?’
I looked away from Barnes and towards Lukas. His head was tilted an inch to one side and, when a serious looking vamp approached him, he waved him away. Then his glittering eyes met mine. Lukas wasn’t even pretending not to eavesdrop. But that alone wasn’t why I suddenly lied. ‘I received a tip-off.’
Barnes eyebrows rose. ‘From?’
‘An anonymous source.’
‘I see. How did they contact you?’
‘Phone. I didn’t recognise the voice.’
‘Male? Female?’
I’d only just begun and I was already losing myself in a quagmire of bad lies. ‘It was an automated voice,’ I muttered. ‘Computerised. It could have been either.’
‘And where were you when you received this call?’
That part was easier. ‘I was in the graveyard of St Erbin’s church. In Soho. I was supposed to meet Lukas there at ten o’clock.’
‘Did you meet him? Will he corroborate that?’
‘No. I was early and he hadn’t arrived.’
