Iberia Mills had lived in a brownstone building just one street away, built on grey concrete against a dull sky. Cassia and I walked there with her pathologist robot a step behind us, lost in thought.
We entered the building and rode a lift up to the second floor. Iberia's flat wasn't too far down the hallway, easy to identify because she'd chosen to replace the standard black wood with a sheet of mirrored glass. A PRB was standing on duty outside it, watching us with eerie blue eyes.
Near the robot were Detective Constable Emily Laney and a young woman who looked like Ruby Beaumont. A folding umbrella hung limply between her fingers, glowing neon blue.
I flashed my warrant card at the PRB, and it handed us two forensic suits before stepping aside. I was grateful that I didn't have to make a verbal request -- they rarely did what I asked them to.
I left Cassia to suit up and enter the flat with her robot assistant, drifting towards the young woman instead. Laney was attempting to take an informal statement from her, but she fell silent as I halted beside them.
"Inspector Rames." I held my warrant card up again. "Are you Jade Beaumont?"
"Yes." The woman's voice thickened, and her lower lips trembled. "I was the one who... I kept ringing the doorbell, but Iberia wasn't responding. Oh, God..."
"What time did you arrive?"
"Just before ten. We were supposed to arrive between ten and half ten so that we could begin getting ready for the afternoon ceremony -- she was getting married."
"Who to?"
"Ethan Sharpe." She scrubbed away a tear. "Someone will have to tell him."
"Leave that to us." I glanced at the detective constable. "Laney, could you sort it?"
"Yes, ma'am." She broke away from us.
I turned back to Jade. "You were a bridesmaid?"
"Yes. And the others should be here soon." She looked over my shoulder anxiously.
"What are their names?"
"Danielle -- Ethan's sister -- and Ruby."
"Ruby Beaumont? Your sister?"
"Yes." Her eyes came back to mine and narrowed. "How do you know that?"
Oh, fuck. It was the moment I'd been dreading.
"I'm very sorry, Jade. Ruby was stabbed to death this morning."
***
When Laney returned, I left her with a hysterical Jade and instructions to let me know when the remaining bridesmaid turned up. Until she did, all the other answers would be inside.
I attached my ilenz, then put my forensic suit on and approached the front door. It had been left open a crack so that we didn't have to keep requesting access, and I almost smiled as I entered the crime scene. If Alex had been here, he would have already disengaged the doorbell system to solve that problem.
The entrance hall was plain: bright magnolia walls, pine floors, and not a hologram photograph in sight. It smelled of cheap perfume and instant coffee, but expenses had been splashed out on the doors, which were all mirrored.
Ahead of me, Cassia was bending over something in the bedroom, her blonde ponytail flopping forward. She didn't notice my arrival, so I postponed meeting the body in favour of passing through the only other open door.
It led to a small kitchen, arranged in a galley style with a little blue table at the back of the room. The counters were clear, but the table was piled with real wedding magazines and bits of breakfast debris. A mug emblazoned with BREAKING NEWS: CAFFEINE TIME was balanced on an old, clunky tablet.
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."
Cassia, wrapped up in examining what we'd just uncovered, didn't reply.
Too restless to wait, I rose and did a sweep of the rest of the flat, seeing what rooms lay behind the mirrored doors. Living room, dining room, bathroom. Only the last one caught my interest.
It was a mess. A long counter stood against the right-hand wall, and several bags had been pulled out of the cupboard underneath. Their supplies had been ripped from them and spilled across the counter. Bottles of foundation, tubes of concealer, jars of nail varnish, hundreds of lipsticks...there was so much that several items had rolled off and landed on the floor.
Had Iberia been searching for something special to wear on her big day?
I turned my attention to the shower. The glass wasn't steamed up, and when I pressed a gloved hand against it, I couldn't feel any moisture collecting on the nitrile. I also found Iberia's hair products arranged neatly in an overhead cupboard. But for the make-up, it would have seemed like she hadn't begun getting ready before the murderer had arrived.
I turned around, thinking of the coffee cup in the kitchen. She'd definitely been awake. Perhaps an alarm on her tabphone would be able to narrow down the time of --
In the corner of my eye, my reflection moved. It looked oddly red. I turned to get a proper look and caught my breath.
FUCK YOU was scrawled across the mirror in lipstick.
Surprise injected me with adrenaline, and my heart skittered as I glanced at the cosmetics spilling from the counter. That was why they were such a mess. The murderer had been in here.
I turned back around. As I moved my feet, one boot landed on a thin tube of lipstick and shot out from underneath me. I fell forward just as a tall, dark shape filled the doorway.
Alex caught me before I could make us a set of human dominoes. "Are you that pleased to see me?"
Another surprise. My mouth turned dry as his fingers tightened on my biceps. We'd been intimate for almost a year, but his touch still did funny things to me.
"Okay?" His lips curved up on one side. He knew exactly why words weren't forthcoming.
I cleared my throat and tried again. "Yes. I wasn't expecting you so soon."
He glanced around the bathroom, and when his gaze landed on the mirror, his eyes narrowed. His hands fell from my arms. "No hard feelings there."
"Clearly." I squeezed past him into the hallway. "Now that you're here, you can do the honour of fetching the PRBs. Is there anyone else hanging around outside apart from Jade Beaumont?"
"Yes, actually." Alex followed me. "Laney asked me to let you know that Danielle Sharpe's showed up. She also told me there's no sign of a break-in here."
"Yes. Iberia must have let the murderer in herself -- she must have known them." I stopped between the kitchen and the front door. "Tell the PRBs to look in the bathroom, get caught up with Cassia, and then meet me out here."
I checked Iberia's coffee machine for the time of the last drink it had made. 9:08 a.m. Armed with that information, I went outside to talk to the bridesmaids.
DC Laney was still standing with Jade Beaumont, her bright face now crushed in devastation. They'd been joined by a young woman with mousy brown hair, the first section combed back and secured with a clip so that none of it could tumble over her long face. She watched Laney with a clear but hesitant gaze, one arm looped loosely around Jade. My ilenz identified her as Danielle Sharpe. Both women were twenty-three, like Iberia. Jade ran a cake shop. Danielle was a paralegal at a nearby solicitor's firm.
I stripped off my nitrile gloves and unzipped my forensic suit so that I could tie the arms around my waist. Then I removed my ilenz and approached the group. All heads turned to me.
Digging my warrant card out to show Danielle, I said, "Inspector Rames. I'm sorry for your losses. I was hoping to ask some questions, but if you're not feeling up to it yet, I can wait."
Jade cleared her throat, another tear spilling onto her cheek. "I don't think I will ever feel up to it. So it doesn't matter when."
"Informally?" Danielle checked.
"Yes. Your statements will be taken at a different time. First of all, I'd like to know where you were between nine and ten this morning."
They both mumbled something about being in their flats. Danielle lived with her twin brother. Jade had shared a flat with her sister.
"So why weren't you walking here with her?" I asked.
Jade gulped. "She wasn't on her way here. She'd gone out to get some milk. Iberia said that we could arrive between ten and half past. I wanted to be early, but Ruby...she was more laid back about it all. She said she was going to have a cup of tea and chill out before she entered all the drama. She was --" Jade stumbled over the word. "Was aiming more for half-past."
I wondered what the murderer would have done if Ruby had still been in her flat. Easily gained access like they had with Iberia?
"Tell me a bit about this wedding," I said. "Iberia was going to marry Ethan Sharpe?"
Nods all around.
"Were they a happy couple?"
"Yes," Jade said quickly. "They were a perfect couple, like something from a fairy tale. They were so in love."
"How did Iberia seem as the wedding approached?"
"Excited. She'd bought us all matching dressing gowns that said we were bridesmaids. She couldn't wait for us to get ready together and then follow her down the aisle..." Jade pressed a hand against her mouth.
"She'd been making vlogs for months," Danielle added quietly. "She filmed a lot of the preparation for the wedding and uploaded it to Xplora. They're called Diaries of a Fiancée."
Those were something we'd have to watch, then. "Who else was supposed to be coming to the flat this morning? Any hairstylists? Make-up artists?"
"I was doing our hair," Danielle said. "And we were all doing our make-up ourselves."
"Okay. What about Ruby? Was she excited to be a bridesmaid?"
Jade's fingers curled up at her sides. "Yes. Almost as excited as Iberia."
"What was Iberia like yesterday?"
Jade shook her head and looked down at the floor. Danielle stepped in. "Bright and happy. Looking forward to the wedding."
Behind me, the front door creaked open. I glanced over my shoulder to see Alex striding out of Iberia's flat. He spoke to the PRB. "Shut that properly. I've disengaged the locking system."
I smiled.
He came to my side, and I turned back to the bridesmaids. "This is Sergeant Sullivan."
Lift doors slid open behind me. I sighed and glanced over my shoulder again, expecting to see more PRBs or police officers. Two citizens arrived instead, dressed in jeans and winter coats. One was Levi Ford. I didn't recognise the other, but I thought I could probably guess who he was. A gaze like thunder swung around the corridor, skimming over me and settling on Alex. Obviously deciding that my immaculate sergeant was the person to talk to, he lumbered towards him with a tight, square jaw. "You have to let me see her!"
Levi followed, and it was only then that I realised we were not in the company of two new people, but three. He was carrying a little boy, his stance unnatural as if he wasn't quite sure he was doing it right. Danielle lifted the child from his arms.
I cleared my throat, bringing everyone's attention back to me. "I'm sorry, sir, I can't allow anyone inside. I assume you're Ethan Sharpe?"
The man frowned. "Who are you?"
"Inspector Rames. This is Sergeant Sullivan." I jerked my thumb at Alex. "We're sorry for your loss."
"I want to see her."
"You can't. But you can answer some questions to help us." I thought it was best to just fire them at him before he tried to walk straight into the crime scene like Levi had done on the street. "Where were you this morning between nine and ten?"
"I was at home with Danielle," Ethan said. He was still watching the door, his gaze starting to space out.
"I was at home, too," Levi added. "I live alone."
An alibi I hadn't asked for. Interesting.
I looked at Ethan. "And how did Iberia seem to you in the run-up to the wedding?"
"She...she is -- she was..." He swallowed. "She was very excited. She believed it was going to be perfect." He looked away, rubbing a hand over his face. "If she could have lived to see one day only, it would have been this."
"And you?" Alex asked. "Were you excited about the wedding?"
"Of course."
"So nothing was worrying the pair of you?" I checked. "Nothing was worrying Iberia?"
"No." His voice sharpened as he glanced back at us. "She was so happy. What kind of monster could have taken that away from her?"
"I don't know, but I intend to find out." I looked around the whole group. "Are you all sure there was nothing worrying Iberia, related to the wedding or otherwise? Or Ruby?"
"There couldn't have been a better time in our lives," Jade whispered.
"So neither of them had any enemies?"
Danielle looked at her brother. Jade looked at Levi.
"No," Ethan said for them at last.
"All right. Thank you for your time. We'll escort you back downstairs now -- and I advise you to go home."
We herded them towards the lift. Ethan, Levi, and Danielle took the hint. Jade Beaumont lingered, casting a wary glance at her companions.
I lowered my voice. "Is there something else?"
"I don't know what it has to do with my sister," she said softly, "but Iberia does have an enemy. Ethan's father, William Sharpe. He hated Iberia's guts, and he threatened to disown Ethan for marrying her."