Inspector Rames

Chapter 53

One PRB was already in the room, staring listlessly at the counters. I knew that it would be examining the nothingness that lay there very carefully with lenses almost as powerful as microscopes in its bright blue eyes. I went to the table instead, deciding that it would probably hold more clues.

The mug was half-filled with coffee, cooling but not yet stone cold. Iberia had already risen when her murderer had arrived, and the attack hadn't occurred long ago.

I lifted up a muffin wrapper, but it revealed nothing except the magazine beneath it. Peaking under the glossy volumes also proved to be fruitless, but they did stoke some envy in me. The paper felt nice beneath my nitrile fingers. If there was one thing I should have splashed out on for my wedding, perhaps it ought to have been magazines. Curling up on my sofa with Alex and a real magazine on a cold autumn night sounded much better than what had really happened: browsing through e-versions on sweaty trams in the middle of summer.

But it was too late now. One week.

My stomach tightened. Turning my back on the magazines, I went to the bedroom.

Pitifully small, it contained a single bed tucked against the far wall, a desk, and a wardrobe. White wood, cream sheets, and bright yellow cushions had been used to give the illusion that it was big and airy, but among them were a clutter of discarded clothes, electrode earphones, and sentimental knick-knacks.

And a body.

Iberia Mills was lying face-down on the carpet beside the wardrobe, clad only in a dressing gown. Her legs were drawn up towards her head, and her bouncy, brown hair was streaked with blood and gore. A stained stiletto was lying beside her. The other was standing by her bed, underneath a wedding dress spread across the yellow cushions.

Cassia looked up. "She's been beaten with this shoe. Time of death was very recent -- I won't be able to tell you who was killed first."

"It must have been Iberia." I crossed the threshold and looked at the woman, noting again the way she'd curled up to protect herself. "The one who called for an ambulance, Jade Beaumont, says she arrived here at almost the same time we heard Ruby..."

My sister picked up the stiletto and handed it to me. "It's another stabbing with another wedding weapon."

It looked like the most lethal shoe in Socrico. Open-toed, lacy, and white, its platform was enormous and the heel was at least six inches. It was also uncovered, the metal stiletto exposed like a cybernetic implant in the lace. Blood caked the heel.

"Yes." I lowered it. "Kill the bride with her own wedding shoes and the bridesmaid with a cake knife. I wonder who was intending to give Iberia and Ethan that knife at their wedding. Ruby?"

"She wasn't carrying anything to suggest it. No case, no gift bag..." Cassia's eyebrows puckered gently.

"So it was the murderer's."

"Makes sense." She bent over the body again. "We've already taken photos, so I'll turn her over now."

She rolled Iberia onto her back, and we studied the victim's face. Bare of make-up, she looked much younger than her friends. She was marred with blood and bruises, her expression pained in death. More stiletto-shaped scrapes had been made over the top of her chest, visible where her dressing gown had loosened.

My ilenz scanned her face automatically and displayed her national profile. Iberia Mills. Twenty-three. Orphaned. Journalist. A sea of links to her most recent articles swam beneath her job title. They were all details that could be examined later.

I closed the profile down and crouched beside Cassia, my gaze fastening on the ragged edges of a cut across Iberia's jawline. "This is everything that Ruby's attack wasn't. Private, brutal, drawn-out. You've got to have guts to keep wounding someone like this."