The crime scene was photographed, the body shipped off to the coroner—not that that was particularly necessary, but procedure was procedure—and Basira wasn’t answering her phone. Which wasn’t relevant to the case, precisely, but it did put Daisy in a shitty-ass mood as she prepared for her least favorite part of this investigation.
She knew who the killer was, of course. Well. Knew was maybe a strong word for it. But the evidence was good. The night cleaner—not the regular woman, who’d been very emphatic about the fact that Mr. Wright said when he hired me, not the Archives, not Artifact Storage, and not his office, that’s for the day crew, but a new girl who’d been covering her shift because of a wedding or something—had noticed the door ajar and a smear in front of it, and had followed the trail to the Archivist’s office, where she’d found the body and raised the alarm. They had evidence that Sims had stayed late after all his assistants had gone home, and most of the staff on the upper floors as well. They had evidence he’d gone up to that Artifact Storage place with an axe and smashed up a valuable…artifact. If he’d surprised an intruder after heading back to the Archives and fought back, he’d have called the police himself rather than just leaving the body behind. He hadn’t come back to work, either, so he was almost certainly on the run. She didn’t have proof yet, but there was no doubt in her mind that Jonathan Sims had murdered…whoever the unlucky bastard was.
Nobody was looking over her shoulder on this one. No supervision, no guidelines, no partner. Basira wasn’t the only one who hadn’t come back to work after the Brodie case. Two officers who’d filled out their first Section Thirty-One forms were still out on medical leave, the mouse who’d been partnered with Altman had followed Basira’s lead and chucked the force over completely, and six more had quit with more…extreme prejudice, not including one officer who’d been collateral damage when his partner had driven their patrol car at top speed into a brick wall. There was a lot of noise being made in Parliament about policing shortages and better mental health care for the officers remaining, but that was all weak nonsense and didn’t do much to address the current issue, which was that the people they were pulling in were soft, weak-willed cowards who couldn’t stomach what had to be done. Sectioned officers were even scarcer than the regular ones and there wasn’t anyone to spare, so Daisy was on her own.
She liked that, actually. Especially because Sims had run. A part of her liked it when they ran. Full operational discretion meant she got to chase them down, ferret them out, and deal with them on her own. Save the Crown the expense of a drawn-out investigation and trial, just handle it all at once.
And she had him dead to rights, or could spin it that she had. It wasn’t just this dead body. Nobody had seen Rose Zampano since Tuesday either, but the CCTV footage for that evening was mysteriously missing, so it wasn’t without the realm of possibility that Sims had killed her to keep her from identifying the corpse or being able to give evidence he’d done it. With not one, but two dead bodies she could pin on him—maybe more if she played her cards right—nobody would think twice if she said he was dangerous and couldn’t be brought in. He was hers.
She just…needed a lead. One little lead, one little hint of where to find him. Fortunately, she was set up for that.
The office wasn’t cleaned up, as Bouchard had pointed out, but Daisy didn’t care. In the first place, all the relevant crime scene work had been done, so they weren’t messing anything up, but in the second place, she’d found it helped sometimes to get people to tell her what she wanted if she made them a little uncomfortable first. Like forcing them to talk to her while sitting in front of a bloodstained desk.
The door opened, and in came the first of the three people she wanted to interview.
She’d told Bouchard she didn’t care who he sent in first, but she had to admit she was pleased he hadn’t sent Blackwood in yet. A few more minutes wouldn’t make much of a difference to him in coming up with a good story, but it would hopefully make him more nervous and likely to blurt out the truth accidentally, especially if she could spin up the other two first, draw out his nerves. Daisy knew how to play on emotions, and while she wasn’t particularly good at the small-talk thing some of her colleagues did to make suspects relax enough to answer questions, that whole we’re all buddies here bullshit, she could intimidate with the best of them. So it filled her with a sense of satisfaction to see the tall woman with the thick black plait draped over one shoulder come into the office and check briefly at the sight of the mess.
“James, right? Sasha James?” Daisy asked. It wasn’t much of a stretch; there was only one woman down here, go fucking figure, so it would have to be her, but it’d be just Daisy’s luck if the Tim stood for Timberly or some other bullshit name like that.
“That’s right.” James came hesitantly forward and took the seat opposite Daisy. She glanced at something on the desk. “Did you bring the tape with you, or is it one of ours?”
“What?” Daisy frowned, then realized James was looking at the tape recorder. “I’m not using that.”
“It’s running.”
Daisy looked fully at the recorder, and sure enough, it had somehow got turned on. “Want me to leave it running, then?”
James licked her lips. “I’d prefer it if you did, actually.”
“Fine.” There wasn’t a recorder at the station anyway and it wasn’t like anyone was going to listen if there was. She could always leave it here after.
“Okay.” James took a deep breath. “Um, statement of Sasha James, interviewed by Detective Tonner—”
“What are you doing?” Daisy interrupted.
James looked, if anything, more uncomfortable. “Making my statement? Isn’t that what you want?”
“I just want an answer to my question.”
“Oh. I—I thought you’d want…more than that.” James fidgeted slightly. “Your partner did last time.”
“Didn’t know who the killer was last time. This time it’s simpler.” Daisy clenched her jaw. “And…and Basira’s not a police officer anymore.”
James looked genuinely surprised. “You know who did it? Then why are you here?”
Christ, this woman could not possibly be that stupid. Daisy narrowed her eyes. “I still have to find him. Hoping one of you lot know where he is. How long have you known Jonathan Sims?”
“Since he joined the Institute,” James said. “About five years now.”
“Any idea where he could be? Friends, family, places he feels safe?”
James’ eyes widened dramatically. It had to be fake. She did, at least, answer the question without prevaricating. “I don’t know. He’s never really talked about his life outside the Institute. Not to me, anyway.”
“If you had to guess?” Daisy prodded.
James shrugged. “He’s originally from Bournemouth, I think. Mentioned something about it in the summing-up of one of our earliest recordings. Maybe he went back there?”
Daisy didn’t think so, but all she said, noncommittally, was, “Maybe.”
James started to stand, then paused. “Is that all?”
“That’s all. Send in the next one.”
James nodded slowly, then walked out of the room, closing the door behind her. A moment later, it opened again, revealing the man who’d found Gertrude Robinson’s body. If she hadn’t already pegged Sims as the murderer, Daisy would probably have pinned it on him.
“Tim Stoker?” she said, just to confirm.
“Yeah.” Stoker took the seat opposite her and folded his arms over his chest. He looked thoroughly unimpressed.
Daisy gestured at the recorder. “Want me to leave it running?” she asked dryly.
“Up to you.” Stoker didn’t seem particularly concerned.
Daisy snapped the recorder off—she didn’t particularly enjoy being recorded—but before she could even open her mouth, there was a quiet click and she looked over to discover that the tape recorder had turned itself back on.
“Huh.” She narrowed her eyes at Stoker. Had he somehow sleight-of-handed it and turned it back on without her noticing?
Stoker shrugged and rolled his eyes. “Happens a lot around here. Just leave it, I guess.”
“Fine,” Daisy said, suppressing the urge to sigh.
“I guess you want my statement then.”
Jesus, what did these people think she was doing here? Daisy bit back a growl. “I just need anything you know on the possible whereabouts of Jonathan Sims. Anywhere he feels safe, any friends or associates he might turn to?”
“Jon? Feel safe?” Stoker barked out a laugh that didn’t sound particularly amused. “Man’s more paranoid than a long-tailed cat in a rocking chair factory.”
“Friends or associates, then?”
“Don’t know.”
Daisy was beginning to get frustrated. “You’re sure? Nothing that might help me find him? If you’re hiding something out of some sort of loyalty…”
“Look, I’m not the one he’d talk to, all right?” Stoker gestured vaguely. “We get on all right, but I’m not the one he trusts. We talk about work and that’s about it.”
“What about Rose Zampano?” Daisy shot the question out, hoping Stoker would give her something to go on.
He didn’t so much as blink. “What about her?”
“Have you seen her lately?”
“No. But I don’t come in that door usually.”
Daisy gave Stoker an extremely sharp look. “What door do you usually come in?”
Stoker jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “The one that leads directly into the Archives. West side of the building, just off the courtyard there. It only locks from the inside, but Jon’s usually here first and he unlocks it for the rest of us. Saves time, you know?”
“Was it locked when you came in yesterday?”
“No.”
Mentally, Daisy fired off a string of Welsh that would have had her mother washing her mouth out with soap. It had never occurred to her that there was another way in or out of the Archives—Basira always came and went by the front door and she had too. But there was a whole other door leading in, which meant that Gertrude Robinson’s killer could have come in that way. She supposed it meant that whoever had actually killed the old man could have come in that way, too, but she was still bent on it being Sims. At least it would explain how he’d escaped so quickly and cleanly.
She took a deep breath. “All right, you can go.”
Stoker stood. “I’ll send Martin in, then.”
Daisy reckoned she would get the twitchy, jumpy rabbit she had spoken to twice before now, who would come in stammering and making excuses and be really, really easy to push into telling her where Sims was. Instead, Blackwood came into the room with a slow, measured gait and closed the door quietly behind himself, then took a seat and folded his hands in his lap, radiating an aura of patience. His posture was absolutely correct, his face perfectly blank, and he met her eyes steadily and without flinching. It was utterly infuriating, and she wanted to provoke him into an extreme reaction that she could exploit, or hurt him for in a pinch. She could smell his fear, though.
Fear she could work with.
Daisy let her eyes roam over him for a minute, then said abruptly, “I don’t think you killed him.”
Blackwood’s expression never wavered, and his voice was almost eerily calm. “I know you don’t think I killed him.”
“And how do you know that?” Daisy challenged.
“Because if you thought I killed him, you wouldn’t have wasted time coming back to the Institute. You know where I live, you know where to find me outside of work.” Blackwood’s jade-colored eyes glinted slightly in a way Daisy couldn’t quite explain as he regarded her. “And you’ve felt that weird sensation here, too—the sensation of being watched. If you thought I was the killer and you wanted to hunt me down, you’d do it somewhere without witnesses.”
The words, spoken so evenly and without evident fear, infuriated Daisy. It was almost enough to tempt her to look at him as the killer after all, but even knowing about the other door, she probably couldn’t make it stick. He probably had an ironclad alibi. And she didn’t think she could intimidate him into believing she was measuring him out as a suspect, not when he’d so accurately pegged her.
Blackwood was still watching her closely. “So nobody else got hurt, of course.”
“Of course,” Daisy said, voice dripping with sarcasm. She took several deep breaths to stop herself from leaning over the desk and snapping Blackwood’s neck like a twig. “Well then. Since we’re both here…”
“You want my statement.”
“What is it with you people and statements?” Daisy blurted.
Blackwood shrugged. “It’s…kind of what we do here?”
“Yeah, well, it’s not what I do,” Daisy growled. “I’m here to get an answer to my question, and that’s it. Where is Jonathan Sims?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not. I haven’t seen him since Tuesday.” Blackwood’s voice cracked, ever so slightly.
Daisy seized on that. Blackwood cared about Sims, that was a weakness she could exploit. “You sure? Everyone says you two are close.”
“We are,” Blackwood agreed. “That’s probably why he didn’t tell me where he was going. I know you don’t believe it, but Jon didn’t murder anybody. He wouldn’t. If he’s running, it’s because he’s scared that whoever did kill that…person, whoever he was…is after him, too.”
“And he didn’t come to you,” Daisy said with malice aforethought. “There’s somewhere he thought would be safer.”
Blackwood, damn him, didn’t even flinch. “He wouldn’t have come to me if he thought someone was chasing him, because he wouldn’t have wanted it to come after me. Or Tim, or Sasha. He’s gone somewhere nobody he knows is, somewhere people don’t know him and won’t get hurt because of him. That’s all I can tell you, and it’s just a guess. I don’t know where he is.”
“Sure he didn’t go to someone he knew before?” Daisy prodded. “Someone not involved in all this?”
“I don’t think he has anybody from before the Institute that he’s close enough to go to. His grandmother died five years ago, and she was his only close family.”
Daisy ground her teeth together. “Any other relatives?”
Blackwood thought for a moment, or seemed to anyway, then shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m sorry. You can ask R—” He actually flinched at that, biting his lip, then corrected, “Um, Elias might be able to tell you who his emergency contact is. I-I assume he has one.”
“You’re not helping him by lying for him, you know,” Daisy growled.
“I’m not lying. Believe me. If I knew where he was, I’d tell you, because I know it’ll be worse for him if you have to h—find him. That’s how it works, right?”
Stung, Daisy said in a deathly cold voice, “Let me tell you how this works, Mr. Blackwood. I’ve got two dead bodies, no partner, and a whole lot of operational discretion to make all of this go away. So either you tell me what I want to know, or I pin it on you.”
“Pin it on me, then.” Blackwood’s voice sharpened to a point that actually drove Daisy back for a moment. “Come up with a reason you think it’s me and not Jon. You’ve probably got just as much evidence against me as you do against him, maybe more. Obviously my friends would lie for me, why should you believe them if they give me an alibi? Take that tape out of that recorder and smash it into a million pieces so it’s your word against mine, and I don’t doubt for a minute you won’t bother leaving me alive to give a word against you. You already know I’m a monster. I’m going to end up on the wrong side of your gun at some point, so why not get it over with now? Even if I did know where Jon was, I’d slit my own fucking throat right here rather than tell you. You know that and I know that, and Basira’s not here to make us play nice.”
“Don’t you fucking say her name,” Daisy snarled.
“You’re not the only one relying on someone else to keep you human!”
The words hung between them like a physical force. Blackwood…actually looked shocked that he’d said them. His eyes widened and his mouth snapped shut. He seemed to be physically holding himself back from saying more. Daisy stared back at him, speechless, torn between incandescent rage and wanting to know what the fuck that was supposed to mean. There was, she told herself, only one monster in this room and it wasn’t her. They both sat, tense and silent.
After almost a full thirty seconds, Blackwood seemed to relax. He looked tired and…haunted. Quietly, he said, “It’s not good for any of us, you know. Outsourcing it like that. We both need to learn how to do it on our own terms or it’s never going to stick. And it’s not fair to them.”
“Get. Out.” Daisy wanted to shout the words, but it was all she could do to spit them out.
Blackwood rose without another word and walked out of the office, shutting it slowly and carefully behind him. Daisy remained where she was, seething and…shaken, more than she was willing to admit. What the fuck had just happened?
Before she really had time to gather herself, Bouchard walked in and seated himself opposite her. He looked remarkably composed, despite the eye patch—a red-orange color today, how many of those fucking things did he have?—and regarded her with a faint air of superiority. “I assume you wish to speak with me also.”
What she wished was for a very stiff drink, and for a much more simple and straightforward hunt than this…bullshit, and for Basira to call her back, and for her to never have to ever deal with the Magnus Institute or the Archives staff again, but if wishes were horses she’d still probably be standing outside the fucking glue factory with an empty bridle. She took a deep breath. “Yes. I don’t want a statement. Just the answers to a couple questions.”
“Of course.”
The next twenty minutes unsettled her much more deeply than the conversation with Blackwood had, and resulted in her slamming her way out of the Archivist’s office so fast she didn’t even stop to see if the assistants were still in the Archives. She didn’t even care about the second door Stoker had mentioned, she just needed to go.
That…that fucking asshole. How the hell had he learned all of that? Nobody knew all of that. Not even Basira. She’d never told Basira about…a lot of things, really. Basira didn’t need to know all that. She didn’t need to get involved. She had no idea how many cases Daisy had found a way to get around working with her on to keep her away from all this bullshit. Two real ones was too many. If Basira hadn’t quit when she had, if she’d kept getting into these goddamned cases, she’d have ended up broken, she’d have ended up trapped, she’d have ended up…
She’d have ended up like you, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Blackwood’s said in the back of her mind.
Daisy screamed. She didn’t even care that she was in the middle of a street in Chelsea in broad daylight and there could be any number of people around, she just screamed. Part of her wanted to do exactly what Blackwood had practically dared her to do, turn around and go back in there and grab him and shove her gun down his fucking mouth. She could justify it. It would be easy.
Instead, she threw herself into her car, slammed her foot on the accelerator, and peeled out of London as fast as she could get the old bucket of rust to go. She needed to get away, to think. A few hours or so in the woods, or somewhere like it, would recharge her, give her a chance to get her head on straight, and then…then she would see. Then she could get back to figuring out where Sims was.
Then she could get back on the hunt.