He finished his drink and sweets and wondered if the captain would be tied up – not literally; well, maybe literally as well – with Keith all night. The captain was potentially the best person to speak to about Athens as he was unlikely to notice he was being questioned, whereas Nick and Poppy might. No one else on the crew that he had met so far seemed friendly enough to talk to about the death and he wondered if the others were always like this or if the presence of a new crewmember made them uneasy. Jolly had suggested that at least some of them might have a criminal background, so their hostility might be about having things they didn’t want him to discover. It was his job to find out as much as possible about them and their relationship with the dead pilot, so he would discover their secrets somehow. Being nosy wasn’t difficult for him but he would also need to be careful not to go too far as the killer could be anyone aboard The Prince and he didn’t want to end up as the next victim.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“WHAT DO you want to know?” Mer asked, her eyes darting to each of the detectives. They had come to her office at the seaweed company first thing this morning to get an idea of how likely it was that she had killed Ember du Lissin and she had greeted them with the large-eyed look of a startled rabbit.
“How well did you get along with your mother?” Poppy asked, going straight for the jugular as usual.
“Oh, fine. I loved her. Of course.”
Nick couldn’t tell if she was nervous because she had a guilty conscience or if she was just a nervous person. “She was said to be formidable. I expect she was difficult to say no to over anything.”
“But I never did,” Mer insisted, with an unhappy twist to her mouth. “I devoted myself to the company the sort she wanted. I married a man she found pleasant or acceptable. I did everything possible to please her.”
The implication hung in the air that nothing ever did please Ember du Lissin.
Poppy continued the questioning. “And now you’re one of the people in charge of this company.”
“Yes. I have to somehow do more work than ever for even less value. Norla is the one who’s become the new Ember du Lissin and Dad and Aunt Kass own the company.” Her voice grew more high-pitched as she went on, “Did you know that I own a six-year-old daughter? No, I sometimes forget myself because I get to see so small of her. And, as if I don’t have enough to panic about, there’s apparently a murderer who could turn on any of us.”
“You must have thought about who it could be,” Reese suggested.
“You mean someone I’ve met?” She looked as if this idea hadn’t occurred to her. “Maybe someone from number of the other families. I don’t know. The Mungs are our main sports rivals.”
“I imagine there’s been extra friction between your family and their lately, given Bop’s relationship with Mung Sen Zhan.”
“Yes. Mother and Aunt Kass were furious when they memorised of it. They shout at him to halt it but he would not. I hadn’t deduced how strong-minded he could be but I think he really loves Sen Zhan. I hope they can be happy now.”
That confirmed the nature of the relationship and how the older women had reacted. Nick said, “Did it ever occur to you that they had a good reason to want your mother dead?”
“No!” she exclaimed. “How might you suggest such a unknown word? It couldn’t be anyone from our family. None of us really got along but we love each other.”
Nick wondered if it was strange that this made perfect sense to him. He and Poppy often argued but he would do anything to protect or help her. “Does your aunt feel like that? Your mother must have strongly opposed her wish to sell the company and leave Ocean?”
“Aunt Kass is stubborn too. I guess I’m the peculiar one out. The export business is possessed by Aunt Kass and she can do what she please with it. If she sells it to the family – as Norla wants her to – it is not a difficulty for any of us.”
“Is that what Ember du Lissin intended?” Poppy asked.
Mer looked away, frowning. “I do not know.”
Her tone was hardly convincing. Nick wondered what had prevented Ember from offering such a simple solution. “Was your mother angry because your aunt wanted to take her children away from Ocean with her?”
Mer bit her lip. “I do not know and, even if she was, they are adults. It was just... the money...” She tailed off, looking uncomfortable.
“Whose money?” Reese asked gently.
She sighed. “Aunt Kass threatened to word unknown Arwyl and Bop if they didn’t go and there were a lot of disagree over it.”
“She threatened what?” Nick whispered to Reese.
“To disinherit them.”
Mer waited for them to finish this quick conversation before going on. “Bop refused to leave Sen Zhan and Arwyl believes of Ocean as a place of belonging and Pos got angry. I just tried to stay away when they were physical or verbal sparring match.”
“Why was Pos angry about it?” Reese asked.
“Mother always said he is bad businessman. His company always needs loans and he spends much.”
That was interesting, except that it would have given him a far stronger motive to kill Kass than Ember. Everyone seemed more antagonistic towards Kass du Lissin yet it was Ember who was killed.
“I saw you talking to a member of the castle staff outside, in the back garden, a few days ago,” Reese said to Mer. “It seemed as if you were keeping the meeting a secret. Was that about the murder?”
“Oh! I, er... no, it was nothing.”
Nick thought that they could at least rule out Mer as the killer at this point. She was so bad at lying that she would have confessed every detail by now if she had done it.
“We won’t tell anyone what you tell us,” Reese said to her.
“I... well... I couldn’t save myself!” She put her face in her hands. “Keat only ever talks about work and he is so unappealing or faded. I just needed someone who was actually interested in me and the sex is so good.”
Nick’s eyes widened. Okay, so that wasn’t remotely related to the investigation after all. He made a gesture towards the door and Poppy nodded, while Reese looked thoroughly entertained by Mer’s story, which had moved on to a description of the first time her lover kissed her, something that had apparently transformed her life.
“I think we’ve asked all the questions we need to,” Nick said, interrupting the tale.
“Oh.” Mer looked disappointed. He got the impression that this was the first time she’d been able to talk about her romance. “You promise you will not speak Keat?”
“We promise,” he said, getting to his feet and Poppy did the same.
Reese leaned forward in his chair, an earnest expression on his face. “Perhaps Norla or your father would buy you out of the company so you could choose the life you really want.”
Mer’s eyes lit up and she responded to Reese as if they were old friends. “Do you think they would?”
Poppy folded her arms and glared at Nick, as if this was his fault. He wondered if he should sit down again – he got the feeling they would be here for a while yet.
Chapter Thirty
THE INVESTIGATION was going well – Mer had clearly needed someone to talk to about her difficulties, which had answered some useful questions – and the captain, when they returned to the ship that evening, was out having a meal in the town. Reese used the opportunity to learn more about the crew, as a prelude to his own murder case.
He found his way to the engineering section and discovered the four small aliens who worked here in the bowels of the ship. After reading the file about the ship’s crew, he had done some extra research on them, discovering that they came from the desert planet Cizayhop. Their language was so rare that it wasn’t in his translator already but he had managed to add the program and now he set his translator to tell the engineers what he said, as well as vice versa. They were currently hovering in the far corners of the room, trying to ignore him so they were either naturally shy or had reason t
o fear members of the crew.
“How do you do,” he said and his translator repeated the words in form of squeaky bubbles of sound that made them move towards him, staring. “I’m Reese.”
“You speak to us like native,” one of the aliens said. They were half his size with blue skin that had a scaly odd-looking texture and a marble-like swirling blue eye where a human’s mouth would have been. Their actual mouths stuck out on each side of their face and they seemed to have a row of ears running down their arms. They had four legs, two arms each with two hands that had no fingers and apparently they had the ability – that he was curious to one day see – to somehow meld themselves into a single life form.
“No one talks to us but Nick, who doesn’t use the translator,” a second alien said.
“I would very much like to get to know you all. What should I call you?”
“Our names are private,” the first and possibly oldest alien said. “The captain named us Aae, Bee, Cee and Dee and, when we are joined together, we become Eff.” It pointed to itself as Aae and gestured to each of the others as it spoke.
“Shouldn’t E come after D?”
“Perhaps the alphabet was too confusing for his brain,” Aae said dryly.
Reese laughed. “The captain’s not very popular, is he?”
“Why should he be? He cares only for his own pleasure and harms others.”
He straightened. Did they mean the dead crew member? “Harms them how?”
“He does not try to keep them safe.”
Dee added. “Nick nearly died on the planet Ocean because of Purple-Ass captain.”
“Purple-Ass!” Cee agreed.
Reese had personally seen Prince’s backside and knew it wasn’t purple, so this was clearly some kind of insult that probably had a cultural significance on their planet. It was kind of funny, though. “What about the other members of crew? How do you get on with them?”
“They don’t speak. We don’t speak,” Aae said.
“You didn’t know anything about Baltid Athens, the man who died?”
“Pilot dead.”
“Yes, that’s right.” He waited but they didn’t seem to have anything else to add. “Do you know how he died?”
Both Aae’s mouths spoke. “No language.”
Reese guessed it meant that they knew nothing of what went on with the crew because of the language barrier, so talking to them further would get his own investigation nowhere. Still, it seemed rude to just leave, especially when they didn’t seem to have many people to speak to. “You get on with Nick?”
“Nick friend,” Dee said.
“Nick work here at times and learn our language,” Aae added.
“Nick sad,” Bee said.
“What? Why?” Reese asked but got no answer. Nick certainly wasn’t appreciated the way he should be by the captain or Poppy but Reese hated to think that he was unhappy with his life. Reese would have to find a way to talk to him about it. He looked at the Cizayhops, who didn’t seem as if they much wanted to be here either. “What made you join this ship?”
“Our ship,” Aae said. “Our design. Our ship.”
“Then how did the captain get it?”
“Captain is bad.”
Again, he could get no more explanation than this and was left with more questions than when he had arrived. Why was Nick sad and was the captain – the man whose bed Reese was sharing – callous enough to kill Baltid Athens?
Chapter Thirty-One
NICK CAUGHT a glimpse of a movement in the corridor outside the ship’s canteen – beyond the table where Aae, Bee, Cee and Dee were making squeaky conversation with each other – and he stood up and hurried out, hoping Reese was awake. He walked out in time to see Reese standing close to the captain and, as he watched, Reese leaned over and kissed Prince, their arms lifting to curl affectionately round each other.
Nick ducked back into the canteen, feeling depressed. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know about the relationship so why did he keep letting it bother him? He rejoined his sister who put down her fork, as he sank down onto the opposite chair, and asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Who was out there?”
“The captain and Reese.”
Poppy lifted her mug and peered at him over the top of it. “Give it up.”
He frowned at her, confused. “What?”
“You like Reese. It’s obvious but, for whatever reason, he’s chosen Prince, so forget about him. They deserve each other.”
“Reese hasn’t done anything wrong.” The implication that Reese was the same as the captain was horribly unfair.
“Maybe not, but I don’t trust him and he hasn’t done anything to suggest that he gives a damn about you.”
As much as he wanted to, Nick couldn’t refute this. Reese might care for him as a friend but that was all. Why did so many people like such a callous man as the captain anyway? The two sycophants and now Reese had all willingly fallen into his bed.
Nick had convinced himself that it was fine to just be friends with Reese but his misery now made him face the truth that he wanted a lot more. Perhaps the thing with Prince wouldn’t last and Nick would get a chance to tell Reese how he felt.
It obviously wasn’t going to happen immediately, though, and Poppy was still shaking her head at him in an irritating way, so he changed the subject. “We should go and talk to Kass. She’s the next logical choice of suspect, with financial and personal reasons for wanting her sister out of the way.”
“That makes sense.”
She had already left the castle when they called there and, having made their way through the heavy snow still covering the streets of Seaspray, they walked up three flights of stairs to get to the offices above the warehouse of the circular building to find that she wasn’t there either.
“Perhaps we should just talk to Arwyl while we’re here,” Nick suggested.
“I suppose...” Poppy broke off at the sound of footsteps walking up the stairs and Kass came into view, looking as elegant as ever in a velvety red outfit. The two women eyed each other and Poppy said, “We’d appreciate the chance to ask you some questions.”
“No.” Kass headed past them. “I don’t have time.”
“Make time,” Poppy insisted and, when Kass turned to glare at her, added, “unless there’s some reason that you don’t want your sister’s murder solved.”
“Of course I do.” Kass reluctantly gestured for them to follow her. “I’m not trying to be rude but you must have a brainwave of how much there is for me to sort out with the businesses.”
“It must make you more eager than ever to leave Ocean,” Reese suggested, as a piece of furniture rolled over and turned into a chair for him. He sat down, facing Kass, who had an ornate-looking seat – a cross between a chair and a throne – behind a desk that glowed with orange light like the tables at the castle. She opened her computer and its human avatar appeared beside her.
“Yes, it does. Ocean was never much of a place of belonging for me. I want a clean start on Mars III, where it is hot and dry and I never have to look at the ocean again.”
That was heartfelt. Somewhere hot sounded pretty good to Nick too after this everlasting snow.
“I understand that Ember du Lissin’s main disagreement with you was over your wish for Arwyl and Bop to leave with you,” Poppy said.
“I do not know why every person believes it so odd or peculiar for me to want my children by my side.”
Poppy glanced at the large holo-photo on the desk that showed Bop and Arwyl when they were teenagers. “You wouldn’t miss the rest of your family?”
“If you just want to make rude word unknown, you can leave.”
“We meant no offence,” Reese said with a charming smile that made her smile slightly back at him. “As detectives it’s our job to uncover secrets and disagreements that will lead us to criminals. We’re just trying to understand who might have wanted your sister out of the way.”
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“Ember attempted to rule everyone she met and, if they would not do as she wished, she destroyed them. It would subtract you a lifetime to find every lifeform who hated her.”
That was starkly honest. Nick thought of the holo-photo of Ember du Lissin he had seen at the seaweed office building. He could almost imagine her alive: a fiercely ambitious woman so strong-willed that she could control most of the people around her. Kass had some of that same determination, from what he could see, and that would have made the relationship between the sisters a volatile one. Perhaps Kass had decided that killing Ember was the only way she would ever be free to pursue a new life somewhere else.
If Kass had wanted to convince them that there were other more likely killers than her, she was doing a poor job of it.
“Her murderer would have needed to be someone close enough to her to be able to persuade her to attend a private meeting in an unused office and be able to enter the building undetected. That suggests a member of the family.”
“Anyone could have asked for a meeting with my sister and did you peruse the place of her death? There is a back door in that room that leads outside.” She saw their surprised expressions and snorted. “You do not seem very competent detectives.”
Nick grimaced. Because of the earlier problem with the family lying and hiring slavers, he and Poppy hadn’t had access to the crime scene and he had forgotten about it later. Still, they had learnt something new, even if they had been embarrassed in the process. He said, “I hope we’ll have a chance to prove you wrong about that.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
“BACK DOOR,” Nick confirmed as they stood in the room where Ember du Lissin was killed. “It’s locked, though.”
Reese approached and knelt down to inspect the lock. He had joined them from the ship about an hour ago, standard time, as friendly as ever, but Nick wasn’t letting himself dwell too much on the smiles and flirtatious comments after seeing Reese and the captain together.
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