A long second ticked past. Sweat pooled at the back of my neck.
Jasper hauled me upright, pushing the pistol into my temple. "Lower your gun, Sergeant."
Alex let it fall to his side, raising his free hand in surrender. His jaw was clenched tight.
"Put it on the floor," Jasper said, "and kick it over here."
Alex crouched and put his pistol on the ground. He kicked it in our direction. It slid across the carpet, stopping beside Brady's lifeless hand.
"Don't do this, Jasper," Alex said.
"Forgiveness is needed for all the people caught up in this. But forgiveness can only be found in death."
I licked my dry lips. "You know the truth about Ripley."
"It's taken you a long time to realise that...but then, so many other playing pieces have given you their motives. Clyde Edwards, Mary Daniels, Lars Stephenson, even my cousin Ronan...I knew about it all."
"You made a mistake when you killed Evan," Alex said. "You drew us onto the right tracks."
"Did I? You arrested Ronan, not me!" Jasper's grip tightened on my collar. "You would never have realised it was me. Not if I hadn't been betrayed by Brady."
"You used these backstairs," I said. "I guess there's a fire escape at the bottom. So, Brady saw you leave yesterday. But did he know at the time where you'd gone? Or did he only realise this morning?"
"Questions, questions, questions. I'm aware you like knowing all the answers, Inspector. I saw it in you when you came here as a sergeant all those years ago. Your curiosity has been both a blessing and a curse."
From the corner of my eye, I watched his finger slide down the trigger.
"I'll humour you," he said. "Let's start from the beginning. You know Kristina was my friend as well as my employee. It was she who told me the truth about Ripley's death. It had been weighing on her. At first, I didn't know what to feel. I was fond of Kristina, but I'd loved Ripley -- deeply, like a sister. She was my blood. She had to be avenged.
"I knew exactly how to avenge her when Evan applied for our part-time position. When I learned that he was taking a robotic science degree at Bright Light, everything fell into place. Kristina would suffer at the hands of the robots she loved -- and Zed, too. Better still, it was the perfect way to hide myself behind the crime."
"So you bribed Evan to kill them," Alex said. His gaze was locked with mine. The more Jasper talked, the more time we'd have, but that time was going to run out fast. And neither of us knew how to get the gun away from my head.
"Yes," Jasper replied. "He went to visit his family in Rosek the next day, and I sent Brady to follow him. Brady didn't know exactly why, and he wasn't very good at it -- he would have failed to deliver the note I'd given him without Clyde Edwards. It was pure luck that Evan was pushed to the floor and Brady was close by to lend him a hand. He put the note in Evan's pocket then."
"The note told Evan a date and time?" I guessed.
"Yes. And he came. At first he thought it was about the job, but I asked if it was possible for him to hack a robot without leaving a trace. He said yes; he'd done it once before. So I struck him a deal. He would kill Kristina and Zed using robots. I would pay him more money than he could ever expect to earn in his lifetime. He accepted.
"The punishment of Kristina and Zed went to plan, and it was easy for Evan to leave the gun in Zed's old room. I enjoyed the article Clyde wrote about you finding it very much, by the way. I enjoyed watching you run in circles. But the problem was that you were not as confused as I was hoping. Instead of dismissing Ripley's death, which to the authorities had always been unquestionably a suicide, you examined it thoroughly. The moment you came back here to talk about it, I knew that something needed to be done."
"So you told Evan to kill Amber." Alex stepped forward, his eyes dark.
Jasper jerked me back to the top of the stairs. "Stay there!"
Alex froze.
"That is exactly why I wanted to kill her," Jasper snarled. "You love her. No, don't argue about your relationship -- I can see it in your eyes. I wanted her eliminated, I wanted you distracted, and I wanted someone else leading the investigation. Someone who would take it in the wrong direction. Someone who would dismiss your hang-ups on Ripley."
"You also wanted to dispose of Evan," I said.
"When he saw you in his lecture after he'd killed Kristina, he panicked. He thought you were on to him. That paranoia wore him down. He threatened to come to you. He thought his arrest was inevitable, and that turning himself in and being honest would land him in less trouble. I applied my own threats in relation to his family and persuaded him to poison you instead. I told him that would solve the problem.
"Then I prepared to paint a suicide, as Kristina and Zed painted one all those years ago. A little push, away from the cameras...it would not have been difficult. His co-workers at the coffee shop would have identified him as the man who served your lethal drink, and everything would have fallen into place. This clever but deranged hacker had gone on a murdering spree, then thrown himself in front of a train in madness or despair.
"The problem was that Evan failed to kill you and panicked. He did not turn up at the train station when he was supposed to, and when he eventually did, who should I see but you behind him! There was no time to do anything except get rid of him. The plan had backfired: you were alive, and you did not believe him to be the true killer." He lowered the gun; pushed it into my neck. "But I finally have the opportunity to kill you now."
"No!" Alex took another step towards us. "Put the gun down, Jasper. You don't have to do this."
"I want to. She's been such a pain." The pressure against my neck suddenly slackened. "But I want to make her watch you die first."
He moved so fast that everything was over in a heartbeat. Releasing my collar, he raised the gun and fired at my sergeant.
The last thing I saw before Alex fell was his surprise.
"No!" I screamed.
Jasper turned towards me. Instinct overrode everything else, and I dropped to the floor. I rolled as I fell, trying to get away, but my feet flew backwards over the steps and suddenly I was in the stairwell.
I flew until gravity took hold. The first step I hit jabbed into my shoulder like a knife, and my forefinger cracked as it caught beneath my body. The sound was replaced by an explosion.
A bullet passed over my scalp, leaving burning fire in its wake. Pain came from the stairs again as I hit another, carving between my ribs. My head crashed into something solid. I didn't know what it was, because I didn't know which way was up. The whole world spun around me. The only thing I understood was the falling.
My foot caught beneath me near the bottom, then slipped through the railings at the side. It twisted between the wood and snapped. Pain flared in my ankle, and my head smashed against the floor.
Something went missing after that.
I was revived by the clanking of PRBs above me. I pushed myself upright, staring at what I thought was the top of the stairs. No one was there.
"Alex! Oh, God, no..."
"Jasper Jaydes, I am arresting you for the murders of Kristina Nixon, Zed Croft, Evan Archer, and Brady Haywood. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence."
My heart stopped. "Alex? Alex!"
He appeared at the top of the stairs. "Amber?"
"You're alive." I stared at him, confused and relieved. "Jasper shot you."
"The gun hang-fired. You got my bullet."
It took me a moment to understand the implication. Alex had been acting on instinct like me -- dropping to get out of the way. The bullet hadn't left the barrel until Jasper had swung the pistol around.
"Oh, God." My stomach heaved. "You almost -- "
"Shh." He jogged down the steps and crouched beside me. "I'm okay. But I need to stop the bleeding while the PRBs call for paramedics. Where were you shot?"
I looked at him blankly. "Shot? I wasn't shot. It just grazed me. But I hit my head, and I've broken my ankle."
He looked down at my feet; took a punt and unlaced my right boot. "Anything else?"
"I'll check." Everything was aching, but I supposed if it moved, it was just bruised. I already knew my back worked. I wriggled my left foot. My left leg. Both arms. My fingers --
Pain and nausea coursed through my system. "And my left forefinger. Shit."
Alex pulled the tongue of my boot down gently. "Your ankle's swelling up already. It looks like I'll be carrying you out of here to meet the paramedic van."
I closed my eyes. "I'm too heavy."
"Don't be stupid." I felt him tug my boot off. Then his shoes tapped down the last steps to the floor, and the air moved as he sat next to me. "Two broken bones and a bump on the head. You'll mend. Thank God."
"I must have jinxed myself when I was at the hospital earlier. I'm going to be having a good, long look at the rooms in there now."
"Yeah." His fingers brushed against my hair. "Amber, open your eyes. You're worrying me."
I opened them. "Sorry. I feel sick. I don't know if it's my head or my bones."
He looked at me with concern. "Do you know what day it is?"
"Valentine's Day. I'm coming to your flat later." I glanced at my ankle. "Well, I was. And before you ask, I'm not seeing double. Although I'd say that's a shame when you're in front of me."
A touch of amusement shaped his lips. "I think you're on the mend already. Let's get out of here."
"Where's Jasper? Don't you need to take him to the station?"
"The PRBs have him. They should be escorting him out of the hotel as we speak." Alex stood up and lifted me into his arms. "Now it's your turn."