Guilty Conscious by Oliver Davies (best ereader for students .txt) 📗

this very studio, perched on the stool with a knowing smile, curled up in a jumper on the bed, hair mussed. I grumbled, putting them down, and pinched the bridge of my nose.

“She knew him better than she let on,” I muttered.

“Much better,” Smith said darkly. “There’s a few here that I haven’t shown you.” I rubbed at my face with my hands, guilt and annoyance whipping through me.

“Sir?” Mills caught my attention, and I turned around. He’d gone over to a little cupboard, filled with brushes and pens, and had frozen in the middle of digging through some folded sheets.

“Christ, what is it now?” I muttered, striding over to him in a few steps. He backed away slightly, his face grim, and I looked into the cupboard. He’d pushed a sheet back, a sheet stained with a dark, blackish-red, a rancid smell lingering on the fabric. I pulled a glove from my pocket and yanked it on quickly, peeling the sheet back further. A trophy was nestled inside, the base of which was crusted in dried blood.

I breathed in sharply. A flat edge, hard corner, weighted on one end.

“Is that it?” Smith asked quietly from behind my shoulder.

“I think it is,” I answered in just as quiet a voice. “Got any evidence bags, Smith?”

She nodded, pulling one from her coat pocket, and I could have kissed her for her hindsight. She held it open as I reached in and picked up the trophy, finding it heavier than I had expected it to be. On the top was a figure, poised in dance, and I looked at the little engraving as I pulled it into the light.

“Young Achievement in Ballet Award,” I read it aloud. “Stella Helman, 2018.”

“How did a murder weapon that belonged to Stella Helman end up here?” Smith asked as I placed it carefully in the bag.

“Someone left it here,” I told her, looking over her head to the photos on the desk, to the drawing of the vaguely familiar face. “Someone who’s been here before.”

Twenty-One

Thatcher

My mind felt strangely blank, my body going through all the motions as we left the studio and returned to the station. Even I could not overlook what we had found, the evidence that had stacked up against Billie. I sent Smith to her flat to bring her in, and Mills and I headed straight for the station, dropping off our murder weapon to a grim-looking Crowe, who set to work analysing the blood, letting forensics sweep it over for fingerprints. I’d brought the photographs back from the studio, and we took the lot of them, the drawing of Billie and a few photographs we’d quickly taken of the trophy, taking them all up to the interview room where we laid them out on the table.

Mills stepped out to fetch us both a coffee, and in his absence, Sharp joined my side. She looked over the contents of the table, breathed in deeply and looked me in the eye.

“Well?”

“We’re bringing her in,” I told her darkly. “I told Smith to be subtle about it, but Billie is to be brought in, whether or not she comes voluntarily. We also have our suspected murder weapon; it’s being analysed now. A trophy belonging to Stella Helman.”

Sharp said nothing, but raised her hand and placed it on my shoulder. “Good work, Thatcher,” she said simply before turning and walking from the room.

I braced my knuckles on the table, looking over everything we had pooled together. When we laid it out here on the table, it was fairly clear what had happened, fairly clear that Billie was tied into this in every possible way. I swallowed down the hesitation that I still felt, determined to treat this and Billie properly, like every other suspect that walked through those doors. Mills stood in the open doorway, silently offering me a steaming cup of coffee. I took it from him gratefully, and we stood in the hallway, sipping our drinks slowly, waiting for a sign of Smith.

“How do you want to proceed?” Mills asked me, his voice loud in the quiet corridor.

“I say we show Billie what we’ve got, give her a chance to explain. If she does, we question to make things clear. If she doesn’t, we interrogate.”

Mills nodded, looking down at his coffee. “I know you didn’t want to believe it was her—”

“We still don’t know that it was,” I countered, sighing heavily. “But even I’m not too proud to admit when I might have been wrong. She owes us an explanation, and until we get one, we treat her accordingly.”

“I’ve spoken to the lab,” Mills said. “The second they know if it’s Edward’s blood, they’ll send me a text.”

“We’ll take Billie’s fingerprints when she comes in,” I added, “be useful to have on hand at this point in the game, I think.”

Mills nodded, and we both turned to look down the corridor. Smith appeared, her face drawn, and she walked quickly down to us.

“She’s here. Came willingly, no trouble.”

“That’s good,” Mills pointed out.

“Get her prints,” I told Smith, “then bring her through.” She nodded once and strode away again, and I handed Mills my mug, popping to the bathroom before we ended up in that room for God knows how long. When I came back, he went, and a few minutes later, we were both sitting in the interview room. The door opened, and Smith showed Billie in.

She huddled in a large jumper, her face clean from any makeup today, dressed very much like she hadn’t been expecting to leave the house at all today. Smith showed her to her chair, passed her a cup of water, then nodded to me grimly before walking away, shutting the door firmly behind her.

Billie swallowed, looking down at the table with wide eyes. She tucked a piece of hair behind her ear and lifted her face until her eyes met mine, wary and closed off.

“Morning, Billie,” I said, turning on the recording device. “Thursday the 28th