Sebastian's alarm went off earlier than usual the next morning. The other side of the bed was empty, but he heard the shower running when he opened his eyes. Relief rushed through him. Cassia was still here. Yesterday, he'd been surprised at how quickly she'd left for work. Today, he was going to make sure she didn't vanish before she'd eaten breakfast with him.
He strolled into the kitchen half-naked, and she joined him a few minutes later, her cheeks flushed from the hot water. They coloured a little more when they landed on his bare chest, and he smiled. He liked knowing he had the same effect on her that she did on him.
He crossed the kitchen and kissed her. "Good morning. I have to confess that I don't know what we're eating for breakfast."
"Banana and ginger porridge," she said. "Don't pull that face -- it's warm, wintery, and tasty. And healthy. You'll be thanking me for it."
He wasn't so sure, but he tried to smooth his expression. He didn't want to offend her. "Anything I can do to help?"
"You could chop up two bananas."
So he peeled and sliced the fruit while she warmed milk and oats in a saucepan. He chopped the ginger too, and she added both extra ingredients to the mix before serving. They sat down on either side of the coffee table, and she grinned at him. "Try it."
He ate a mouthful with trepidation -- and found that she'd been right. It was delicious and warming. He scooped up a big second spoonful. "This is good."
She tucked into her own porridge, still smiling as she ducked her head.
***
Sebastian's warm feeling faded when he and Otto arrived at Tobias Evans' flat.
According to Amber, his mother had lived in another of the city's glass skyscrapers, but this building was skinny, dark, and lacking in warmth. Sebastian shivered as they waited in the ground floor corridor, and Otto, who had been unbuttoning his greatcoat in preparation for removal when they sat down, buttoned it back up again. The narrow space smelled of sticky beer and old blood, reminding Sebastian of Cassia's less than savoury flat on the walkways.
The front door opened at last, and Tobias Evans peered out. Young but worn-down, he was a small man with too many creases in his face. Sebastian and Otto had introduced themselves via the door camera, but they held up their warrant cards for him again.
"Someone came yesterday," Tobias said as he stepped back.
That would have been Amber. She'd told Sebastian everything he needed to know, but he wanted to run through it all again anyway. He liked to get his information right from the source: to meet the relatives and read their body language as well as their words, and to see the place where the victims had lived.
Ruth Evans had lived a world away from here, of course.
Her son led them into a dark kitchen that stank of burnt food, the surfaces mucky and the floor crumbly with dirt. He sat down on one side of a plastic table. Sebastian and Otto sat opposite.
"I have to work a shift in an hour," Tobias grumbled. His tone spoke of a bygone upper-class life, the words clear cut. "Will this take long?"
"No," Sebastian said. "I've taken over the investigation from Inspector Rames, and I just wanted to clarify a few things."
Tobias grunted.
"When did you last see your mother?"
"The other week. She came into the shop."
"What shop is that?" Otto asked.
"Ever Empire."
The jewellery store on the high street. Everyone knew it. Sebastian nodded. "How did she seem?"
"Happy. She was always happy when she was shopping."
"She didn't mention any worries to you?"
"We didn't really talk. I was working. I can't stand around and chat."
"But she didn't seem afraid of anything?"
"No."
"Did your mother have enemies?" Otto asked.
"She did in the courtroom. The prosecution didn't like her because she was so good, and she didn't like them. But that's just stuff I heard. We never discussed her job while I was growing up."
His national profile had said he was twenty-two. That childhood had not been long ago, but Ruth clearly hadn't been helping him out since.
"And now?" Sebastian said. "Had you discussed it recently?"
"No. We never discussed much of anything. We've never been close."
"So you don't know who exactly she might have upset in court?" Otto asked.
"No," Tobias said.
Sebastian knew they'd have to look into the prosecutors Ruth Evans had gone against themselves.
"Mr Evans," Otto said, "where were you on Monday night between ten and eleven?"
"Right here." Tobias patted the sofa. "Drinking beer and playing tabphone games."
***
They spent the rest of the day at the station, trawling through court records and calling up barristers. The hours slipped by with no leads. By the time it was half four, Sebastian was seriously agitated.
"If Dixon sticks his head in, I've gone to vape." He stood up and dragged his coat on.
Otto frowned from his position bent over his tabphone, shirt sleeves rolled up but waistcoat still buttoned tight. "Where are you going, sir?"
"For a walk. This is getting us nowhere, and I need to think." He strode to the door. "I'll see you tomorrow."
He wove through the city of glass cubes, taking his vape from his pocket. As soon as he was outside, he turned it on.
Two random shootings. No suspects. It did not bode well for the investigation or his mood.
He took a drag on his vape as he walked up the drive, waiting for the nicotine to kick in. When he reached the high street, he turned left, instinctively beginning the journey to the hospital. He wondered if Cassia had experienced a better day than him. Perhaps he could be there when she left to find out.
Vaping on the tram sent him no more useful thoughts, and he gave up when he disembarked. Socrico Hospital stood at the end of the long drive ahead, the walk lined by paramedic vans. The skyscraper was made from battered steel like something from a dystopian film, and it was marked by a big, foreboding cross. Sebastian examined it as he approached. It wasn't as bright or vibrant as the other signs in the city, but he wondered if Cassia liked it anyway.
Inside, he made his way straight down to the basement, following the strongest stench of bleach and disinfectant. He waited in the mortuary's entrance hall, standing just beside the mistletoe. Staff were already trickling out, and some looked oddly at him. Others had worked with him before and greeted him as they passed. He refrained from asking them where Cassia was, although with each passing minute, he wondered.
Finally, she emerged from the double doors at the end of the room. Her eyes lit up when she saw him, and he felt glad that he'd come. No one had ever looked so pleased to find him before.
He stood under the mistletoe, and she came to him. Her platinum waves shone in the fluorescent light, and a smudge of glitter twinkled on her nose. She was beautiful, a star in his world, and he kissed her soon as she was close.
When they pulled away, he brushed her nose with his thumb. "Were the bodies sparkly this morning?"
"No, but our office is. Were you waiting long?"
"A little." He searched her eyes. "Is everything okay?"
"I was just trying to make up for the time we spent decorating yesterday."
"How do you feel about doing more decorating today?"
She looked up at him, a slow smile shaping her full lips. "You want to get a tree now?"
"Why not? There's no time like the present."
They left the mortuary hand in hand and rode a tram to the centre of the city. This time, they looked for Christmas decorations and an artificial tree. Festivity seemed to be everywhere: baubles gleamed and fairy lights winked, glass sculptures shone and miniature wooden horses clattered as they were lifted. Because he had no decorations at all, Cassia wanted to buy almost everything. It was a struggle to carry it back to the flat.
They began decorating immediately. Sebastian unboxed the tree while Cassia unpacked the decorations. They overflowed from the coffee table, filling the floor like a golden sea. By the time the tree was standing, reindeers had appeared on his mantelpiece and a wreath was hanging on his front door. Cassia was playing festive music on her tabphone and singing at a whisper as she lit some candles.
"Right, time for the lights." She picked up a coil of golden fairy lights and approached the tree. "Could you start them off up the top, please?"
He dutifully wound the lights around the highest branches, and then she took charge. He stood back and watched her go around and around, her sharp eyes narrowed in concentration as she settled the lights exactly where she wanted them.
As she moved, the long chain of bulbs began to tangle at her feet. Slowly, the chaos spread upwards. As she emerged from the back of the Christmas tree again, they snagged around her waist.
She stopped still and tried to pull them away, but they were well and truly knotted around her. "Fuck. Can you --"
He turned the lights on. She sparkled and glowed like the glitter that was still across her nose, and he decided that she was the best bit of Christmas he could ever have.
"Sebastian!" Her cheeks were flushed a pretty pink, and she looked torn between amusement and annoyance. "What are you doing?"
"Helping you turn into a Christmas decoration," he drawled. "You're so tangled that I assumed you were set on it."
He allowed himself another moment of admiration, then switched the lights off and untangled her. As he freed the last knot, her jumper rode up, and his fingers brushed against her bare curves. A jolt of electricity swept through his system, and he turned her in his arms. Their mouths met. The fairy lights fell to the floor.
She was the first to pull away, breathless. "This is going to take all night."
"I sincerely hope not, because there's something I'd like to do to you later." His voice was husky, not in his control. He'd never lost control with anyone but Cassia.
They finished winding the fairy lights around the tree, then wrapped it in silver tinsel. The branches were infused with the artificial scent of pine, and the candles smelled like winter berries. The music turned softer and Cassia whispered along again, not always in tune but never dropping her smile.
Once the tinsel was secure and sparkling in the glow of the flickering flames, they added the rest of the decorations. It was difficult to find a branch for them all, and by the time the tree was so full that it sagged, the coffee table was only half empty.
Cassia stood back and surveyed their work, hands on her hips. "Perfect."
"I'm worried it's going to fall over."
"It won't. They're made to brim with Christmas." She moved her gaze to the table, searching for something, then pounced. "We just need the star on top."
At his height, that was unquestionably his job. He took the big, sparkly decoration and slotted it on the crown of the tree. "What are we going to do with the rest of this stuff?"
She gathered an armful of it. "Decorate the flat."
"I thought we had decorated the flat." He glanced at the heaving Christmas tree with alarm.
When he looked back, she'd gone.
***
Cassia crept out of the bedroom the next morning, trying not to wake Sebastian up after another night of being shagged ragged. She swung open the bedroom door, then winced as the bauble she'd hung there clattered against the wood.
Behind her, Sebastian groaned. She turned around as he opened his eyes, smiling apologetically. "Sorry."
He sat up, dragging a hand down his face. "Where are you sneaking off to?"
"Work."
"Shouldn't you put some clothes on first?"
She cocked an eyebrow. "I thought you liked me best when I'm naked?"
"I do when you're with me." His gaze trailed down her body and darkened. "Not when you're with anyone else."
Her heartbeat quickened, and she turned away. "I'd better shower and put some clothes on, then."
***
She arrived at work fully-clothed, feeling at ease despite the early hour and the rain outside. Her first body of the day was an old homeless man who'd been found stark naked in a shop doorway.
The first thing she examined was his level of rigor mortis -- the stiffening of the limbs. It usually began about two hours after respiration had ceased, when adenosine triphosphate was no longer being produced. The chemical was required for the separation of the actin-myosin cross-bridges when the muscles were relaxed, and it was usually made using oxygen. After death, it could be made anaerobically for a while. But that could not last forever, and as the levels of adenosine triphosphate diminished, the separation of the actin-myosin cross-bridges would not occur.
Cassia usually lost police officers somewhere in that explanation, so now she'd settled on giving them a simpler one. Respiration ceased, decreasing the oxygen in the body. No oxygen eventually lead to the limbs stiffening.
Livor mortis was also present. That was the settling of blood in the lower parts of the body, due to gravity, because the heart was no longer pumping it. The man's livor mortis was cherry red -- a much brighter colour than usual. One possible explanation was that he might have increased amounts of haemoglobin in his blood, something that would be a sure indicator of hypothermia. His hands, elbows, knees, and feet were blue with frostbite, which made the case more certain.
The fact that he was naked was the final external clue.
It was easy for the police to assume that they'd stumbled upon a sexual crime when they found a body like this, but the post-mortem was not a forensic one. This time, they -- and Cassia -- were confident that the man had undressed himself.
The phenomenon was known as paradoxical undressing. As the man had grown colder, his blood vessels had contracted to reduce the loss of heat from his extremities. But as his hypothermia had progressed and he'd neared the end, his muscles would have grown fatigued and relaxed, causing blood to flow back to his extremities. The sudden rush would have given the man the sensation of having a hot flush, and he would have removed all his clothes in desperation to feel cooler.
When they opened him up, she and P17 found that his airway and lungs were dry, and that blood had clotted in his heart because his death had taken a long time. He'd also retained a lot of urine in his bladder. All of it pointed to hypothermia.
As they reconstructed him, she felt a familiar loneliness sink in and realised she'd gone a while without it. This man had been isolated, and so had she, albeit in better circumstances. He'd died alone with no one to love him. Had he survived, he would have spent Christmas alone.
Sebastian had saved her from a similar situation of despair. Now she had someone to truly share Christmas with, and she was glad of it.
***
He wasn't waiting for her under the mistletoe that evening.
She squashed a surge of disappointment as she walked out the door. Of course he couldn't pick her up all the time. He had a murder investigation to run, and anyway, she wasn't his wife. Just his friend.
It was still raining when she got outside. More people than ever were clamouring for trams, and she stood at the stop for half an hour, icy droplets sinking through her clothes. By the time a free tram came, her teeth were chattering.
The flat was empty when she reached it. She stripped everything off in the living room, too cold to wait, and then stood under the hot spray of the shower until she'd stopped shaking. Afterwards, she dressed in her favourite pair of fluffy pyjamas. It was the first time she'd worn nightclothes since she'd moved in.
Feeling she deserved a treat, she put the kettle on and heaped a spoonful of hot chocolate into a mug. Then she checked her tabphone. Six-thirty. Still no sign of Sebastian, and no message, either. She knew his work sometimes kept him late, but was an hour and a half normal?
Had something happened to him?
She had to occupy herself, so she searched for baking recipes on Xplora. Settling for peppermint cupcakes, she put Christmas music on and weighed out the ingredients. She'd just finished mixing everything when she heard the front door open.
By the time she'd turned around, Sebastian had already reached the living room. His eyes were shadowed with dark circles. "Sorry I'm late."
She turned her music down, tuning into the sound of raindrops thrumming against the roof. He looked as soaked through as she'd been.
"It's okay," she said. "Go and warm up. I'll make you a hot drink."
"Go and warm up?" He came into the kitchen, his movements languid. "Where under earth would I be going to warm up?"
He slid his arms around her waist and kissed her neck. She sucked in a soft breath. "Sebastian..."
He raised his head, a mischievous glint in his eyes. "Yes?"
"I am not warming you up. You're wet, and I've only just dried off."
"You still feel a little chilled." He frowned, moving his hands to her biceps and rubbing gently.
"I'm finishing the process with hot chocolate." At least, if she remembered to drink it. She reached for the mug guiltily. "You can have some if you go and take a bloody shower."
"All right, all right." He backed up, muttering something under his breath about bossy Rames sisters, and vanished into the bathroom.
When he emerged, she'd put the cupcakes in the oven and was trying to decide what to make for dinner. He entered the kitchen with another frown, and she handed him a warm mug. "Are you okay?"
He sighed. "The ballistics report came back for the shootings, and we spent the afternoon looking up people who are licensed for the same gun. I was late because we were chasing a lead -- but it turned out to be nothing. The shooter probably isn't even on the list. Probably bought the gun from a black market."
Should she say she was sorry? Should she tell him he'd crack it when they both knew that wasn't certain? Plenty of cases turned cold.
Frustration rippled through his body as he leaned against the counter, but his gaze softened. "How was your day?"
Her day had reminded her of how lonely she'd been. She didn't want to talk about it. "Fine. Should we put the fairy lights on?"
Sebastian switched them on. They filled their corner of the room with a golden glow, casting shadows between the tree branches. Cassia steadied her breathing to match their display.
"Do you like them the way you like the skyscrapers?" Sebastian's voice came in her ear. "Or are they too tame for you?"
She turned around and tilted her head back. "I suppose they're alive in a softer way: like the times when we feel safe and content."
Their gazes locked. The electric fire crackled.
"I love it when you talk about lights to me." His voice was soft and a little bit sexy. "How long until the cakes have to come out of the oven?"
"What?"
He leaned over her and checked the timer. "Ten minutes. Think of all the things we can do while we wait..."
***
Cassia discovered that she didn't want to cook dinner, because she'd much rather be doing something else instead. So dinner was the cupcakes, and dessert was sex. It was slow and drawn-out, their passion burning steadily. When they'd come, they did it again. And again.
Sometime later, she lay beside him, every inch of her skin tingling and every muscle in her body aching. She closed her eyes, wondering if she'd have the strength to move again. "How often do you go to the gym?"
"Considerably less since you moved in," Sebastian drawled. "Why?"
"You have stamina. I haven't had this much sex in...well, ever."
"Is it too much?" The mattress shifted, and she opened her eyes to see him looking at her with concern.
"I'll let you know tomorrow. And maybe get a gym membership."
"You have more stamina than someone who doesn't exercise at all."
"I do bicep curls with dead bodies."
The corners of his mouth twitched. "They have dumbbells at the gym. You might find them more to your liking."
"I'm sold on the membership, then. But what am I going to say if they ask me why I'm joining? So that I can have more sex with my..."
Friend? That didn't sound quite right.
"Forget the gym membership," he said seriously. "We'll tone things back a bit. To tell the truth, I've never had this much sex before, either."
"Really?" She was surprised to hear that from him. "Are you aching, too?"
"Only in the best places." He smiled, but it quickly faded. "You look so tired. Are you sure you're okay?"
She closed her eyes again. "I'm fine. I promise."