Page 80 of Carbon

“She wasn’t scared of Davies, and he didn’t treat her like a stranger,” Xav said. “But however the evening started out, he didn’t plan on her riding pillion. He cared enough to get her medical treatment and risk being spotted by waiting for her afterwards, but he didn’t care enough to put a helmet on her? Doesn’t stack up.”

Emmy reached for the jug of coffee in the centre of the table. “In those clothes, she looks like a hooker, and he looks like he’s been sleeping rough. Maybe they met on the streets?”

“Or he was using her services?” Black suggested.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sofia snapped.

Black fixed her with his gaze. “Why do you say that?” The question wasn’t argumentative, merely curious.

“Because a man on the run’s going to have other priorities.”

“Not if he’s fucked in the head.” He held up a hand before she could argue. “I agree with you, but your reasoning’s off. You need to keep your head and think objectively.”

“Fine. You do the reasoning.”

I felt nauseous at the thought of Ben consorting with a prostitute, and Black’s cold demeanour didn’t help matters.

“Where’s Angelica Fordham’s autopsy report?” He turned to me. “Augusta, do you want to wait outside?”

Yes. “Will there be photos?”

He looked at the table for a second, then at Luke. “Send them directly to my tablet.”

Bile rose in my throat as he studied the broken body that would forever be fixed in my mind, his face impassive. Would he remain so calm if it washissister in the pictures? Was he even capable of emotion? The man appeared to have all the compassion of a toaster.

“Yes, it’s as I remembered. Angelica had seventeen stab wounds with sixteen to her torso, but the pathologist reckoned the first, and the one that did the damage, was to her femoral artery. Sound familiar?”

Nye nodded. “You think our second guy stabbed the girl from the hospital and Beau found her.”

“I’d say he did more than that, judging by the damage to his face. Looks like Mr. Davies is doing the same thing we are: hunting for Angelica’s killer.”

“Playing devil’s advocate here, what about all the evidence against him?”

Sofia let out a huff and waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “That could have been faked.”

“The police are going to want proof of that, and indeed the courts if it gets that far,” Nye said. “So, how? Let’s start from the beginning, shall we? How did Angelica and her killer meet?”

“That’s obvious—at the party.”

“We’ve cleared everyone on the guest list.”

“He could have crashed. Nobody would have noticed. It was a masked ball, after all. He picked the perfect night.”

“Augusta, would it have been possible for a stranger to attend?”

Finally, a question I could answer. “Mother always put a person on the door to collect the invitations and hang up coats, but only for the first hour, then he got reassigned to drinks duty. And he’d be from an agency, so he wouldn’t know the faces that went with the names. Oh, and the side door was always open for the smokers to go in and out.”

“That’s a yes, then. And how would he have convinced your sister to go to the pool house with him?”

Much as I hated to tarnish her memory, I had to be honest. “Without much difficulty. A fancy watch, nice clothes, a posh accent. She tended to go for the superficial.”

“No particular type?”

“Rich.”

He nodded. “I see. Right, we’ve also got the forensics, and some of that’s fairly damning at first glance. We’ve already discussed the message on Angelica’s phone, so...initials and clear fingerprints on the knife?”

“The initials mean nothing,” Xav said. “Anybody could have engraved them, but the fingerprints... I’d have stolen the knife in advance, killed her with an identical blade, then inserted Davies’s knife into the final stab wound.”

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