The Boxing Day Murders - Chapter Four

Danielle leads us without another word to the drawing room, where Greyson, Ben and Penny are all standing around the fireplace, heaving.

A slender, bloodied arm dangles barely visible over the hearth from within the chimney breast.

"Dear God," Alice whispers, crossing herself. I pull her towards me to shield her from the view as the other guests gingerly bring the body down from its sooty grave. At a loss as to what to do with her, we gently carry Sylvie up to the Bedfords' bedroom and lay her on the bed next to them. The aroma in the chamber makes us all gag, and we can't lock the door behind us fast enough.

"She truly was the angel on top of the tree," Penny sobs later. I don't bother to remind her that she was as keen on the idea of Killer Sylvie as the others. More brandy is shared, more morose comments made. The only positive thing about the entire day is the scent of Alice's hair as she leans into me to stop herself shaking.

I sleep fitfully that night with no dreams or spectral visitors. I wake often, haunted not by ghosts but by fear. If Sylvie was not the killer, then who is? As I go through the potential suspects in my mind, each candidate seems more ludicrous than the last. Failed actor who used to run on the fundraiser circuit with Bess. Famous author with a franchise to lose by committing murder. Businessman with shady dealings but whiter than white reputation. And Kit, young charity worker who, it seems, Bess thought the world of.

"Were Kit and Bess close?" I ask Alice the next day, after tossing and turning over the question for half of the night.

"Kit and Bess?" Her brow furrows at the question. "Why would they be?"

"Well she invited him, didn't she?"

"Absolutely not," she corrects me.

"What?"

"Bess didn't invite Kit. She didn't even know him."

"So he was one of Baxter's guests?" Why would my friend have lied about not knowing Kit?

Again, Alice's answer is no.

"All I know is," she says, "he wasn't on the guest list that Baxter gave me. I wasn't actually here when he arrived, I was meeting you at the station. But later Bess said that Baxter had definitely invited him."

"Baxter told her that?"

"No, he told her that. Kit, I mean. Bess told me that he'd said he met Baxter when he was doing those guest law lectures at Exeter."

"He's a law student?"

"So Bess said."

"Interesting," I muse. "Because according to Baxter, Kit worked for one of Bess's charities."

"So neither of them knew Kit?"

"Which means young Mr Foster wasn't invited to the party."

My gut churns as the enormity of what we've just discovered dawns on us both.

"I think," Alice says, "we've just identified our killer."

"Indeed," I agree. "Now all we need to figure out is why he did it."

"Shouldn't we tell people?"

"Not yet. I'm going to go and find him, suss him out. You get everyone else into the kitchen, if the guests are all together then he can't hurt anybody else."

"He can hurt you," Alice protests.

"I'll be careful, don't worry about me. Just remember, Kit can't know that we know."

"Too late," a male voice says from the corner of the room. I instinctively shove Alice behind me as Kit emerges from behind a huge bookcase. I inwardly curse for not being more prudent.

"Alice, run," I shout. I am about to follow suit, but my world turns to slow motion. I see Kit swing something towards me, and I feel the pain, and then everything goes black.

Fanny welcomes me back with open arms.

"Am I dead?" I ask.

"Not at all, just bloody concussed," she says.

"Send me back," I say instantly in response. "They need my help. He's going to kill them all."

"Not if he's clever, he's not." Fanny shakes her head. "But then, since when has murder been about being clever?"

"Fanny, please. Send me back."

"You never did meet Estelle, did you," she says, and the change of subject disorients me further. Estelle appears behind her, as tragic and white as ever.

"What has that got to do with anything?" I ask.

"Everything, can't you see?"

"No!"

"Look closer," Fanny whispers in my ear. "Doesn't she have lovely eyes?"

Then it hits me. Kit's pale blue eyes, husky-clear like Estelle's. The rest of his personage so sculptedly handsome, so similar to how I'd always remembered a young Baxter...

"The affair," I gasp. "You were the other woman."

Estelle nods.

"Baxter never knew I was pregnant. I found out after we'd parted ways, and then..."

She shrugs, as if to say, 'here I am'."

"You died in childbirth," I realise. "That was the 'illness'."

"Yes. Christopher was adopted after I died. He grew up never knowing who his father was, he only tracked him down this year."

"The letters..."

"They were his way of getting Baxter's attention." She shakes her head. "He's been so lost. He feels that he's been cheated of what he deserves, a family name, a sense of belonging..."

"Not to mention the Bedford fortune."

"I'm sad to say, yes."

"So he killed his father and Bess, not to mention his cousin, so that he could claim the estate?"

"He's ill. Marcus, you have to help him."

"He murdered three people in cold blood. If his soul needs saving, it's no business of mine."

"You're going to kill him, aren't you." Estelle's eyes glisten. "You're going to send him here, so that Delilah Bedford can have her revenge."

"I don't kill. But he will be brought to justice, Estelle. In that I have no doubt."

"Please, Marcus. He's my child."

"Children don't do what Kit has done." The sight of Sylvie's arm dangling from the chimney comes to me again, and I nearly retch. "He's no man. He's a monster."

Estelle vanishes, too upset by my words to remain here. Fanny tuts.

"Nothing like telling it how it is to upset some people."

"Fanny..."

"I know, I know. The dream has to end."

"This whole nightmare must end," I say, before the ghostly manor around me begins to melt away, replaced by bolder colours and more solid walls.

"...And he was going to fabricate some blackmail plot, a contested paternity, to cast the blame on somebody else."

What?

I'm tied to a chair, I can tell before I even open my eyes. As I raise my throbbing head, I see Kit standing over me, gesticulating to the other guests. We are in the drawing room and Alice is tied to the chair next to me, dazed. We're props, I realise. He has gathered the other guests to reveal the culprits, in true detective style. In his hand he is holding the letter that I had put in my nightstand, the letter that he himself had written to Baxter, and Baxter had given to me.

"This letter," he tells everyone, "is what he intended to use, I found it in his room."

"The letter you wrote," I rasp. The other guests jump when they realise that I am conscious. "The jig is up, Kit. I know who you are."

"I'm the man who stopped you," he says, pitch-perfect, "you and your accomplice," nodding to Alice, "before you could hurt anybody else."

The drawing room is silent, and it isn't just the rapt audience that contributes to the unearthly quiet; outside, the blizzard has ceased, and Kit's lies are the only sound in the manor.

"Christopher," I say, "tell them who you really are."

"You can stop now, Swift. Your games, your lies, it's all over."

"Fine," I feign defeat. "Then just tell these good people how you came to be at the party."

Kit scoffs.

"I was invited, like everybody else. What are you trying to achieve, Swift?"

"Who invited you?"

"Ba... Bess."

"Really."

"Yes. We were very close, she helped me when I first started doing fundraising. Such a good woman. And you killed her in her sleep."

"You're sure it wasn't Baxter?"

I see Penny raise an eyebrow.

"I thought that you met him at a law lecture," I say. "Wasn't that the case?"

"Shut up," Kit snarls, his mask slipping for a split second.

"You weren't there when I woke up," Danielle whispers. My mind flashes back to Christmas Night, to Danielle leading Kit to her room. The poor girl. She wanted a companion for the night and he wanted a place to lie in wait, close to the Bedfords' own chambers.

"Don't listen to him," Kit says, losing his composure. "He's lying!"

"No," Alice lifts her head and looks him in the eye. "You're the liar. You're the killer. You're the villain, Kit. And you have truly terrible hair."

The carefully constructed performance crumbles before us, and the young man shrieks in rage. He lunges for the wall and pulls an antique pistol down from Baxter's military display.

"Don't panic," I hear Greyson say, "there's no way that thing is loaded." He screams like a little girl when Kit puts a bullet into a sofa. A contingency plan, I see. Very clever.

I strain against the ropes around my wrists and chest, expecting huge resistance, but a sudden chill comes over me, and the scent of cloves fills my nostrils. A moment later my binds lie tangled on the floor.Thank you, Fanny, I think, and I leap to my feet.

Kit flees the drawing room, and I chase him out into the main hall. He opens the front doors and runs out into the night, where a dense fog has fallen on the grounds. I follow him by his footprints in the snow, as he soon disappears in front of me. After a few minutes of running, I slow down, hearing him struggling for breath under a yew tree.

"It's over, Kit," I call out. "You can't achieve anything by this."

"Stay away from me," he yells, waving the gun in my direction.

"Please, just hand yourself in. Save yourself." He says nothing. "It's what your mother wants."

"Don't talk to me about my mother! You never knew her, I never knew her! Nobody knew her!"

"I know you have her eyes," I say, taking a step closer. Kit takes shape in the fog ahead of me. I take another step and I can see him clearly. "And the rest of you, it's all Baxter."

"Baxter who liked to pretend I was never born."

"He wasn't pretending. He never knew."

"Lies."

"It's the truth." I come even closer. "Please, Kit, put the gun down. Before it's too late."

"It's already too late," he sobs. I see it all, and I nearly cry too. I see his hands around Baxter's throat, I see Bess open her eyes a moment too late. I see Sylvie fighting for her life with all the strength in her body.

"This is where I began," he says. "I was conceived here, at this manor. And this is where it ends." Before I can even move to stop him, he raises the pistol and puts it to his own head.

"No!" My protest echoes with Estelle's voice, one that only I can hear.

The gunshot breaks through the night air like a pin in a balloon. It rings in my ears as I run to Kit, as I fall to my knees, red on white flashing before my eyes.

"No..." I say again, my throat thick with a grief that isn't my own. I failed Estelle, I failed to save him.

In the distance, I hear chimes. The village down the road is seeing in the New Year. I kneel in the snow with a dying man in my arms and feel Alice at my back, wrapping herself around me like a blanket. She weeps into my neck and I cry too. Around us, the ghosts stand silent.

The Boxing Day Murders - Chapter Three

The next morning I decide that I need to tell someone about Baxter's affair. When I ask myself the question of who I can trust, one name comes to mind straight away.

"Are you sure?" Alice asks me, when I tell her about Baxter's indiscretion.

"He told me so himself, the night before he was murdered." I've brought her into Baxter's study; everybody else is attempting to make breakfast, Warwick is still absent. "Here," I show her the letters in Baxter's desk. "Somebody knew about the affair. No demands, no extortion, but they wanted to make him aware that they knew."

"So Baxter was unfaithful to Bess, what, twenty odd years ago? And he more or less got away with it..."

"Nobody found out. There was no contact between Baxter and the other woman after the fling, and she died shortly afterwards."

"Foul play?"

"Natural causes, according to Bax."

"So for two decades Baxter gets on with his life, then out of the blue he starts getting letters about this woman. And as soon as he tells somebody about it, he and Bess are both strangled."

She shivers, and I instinctively rub her arms for warmth. The dandy's words echo in my ear.

"Dark times at Bedford Manor," I murmur.

"What?" Alice asks.

"Oh, nothing."

"So is everybody a suspect?"

"Not everybody." I gesture between the two of us, "I mean I'm certainly innocent, and I know how much you thought of Baxter and Bess both."

"Who does that leave, then? Danielle, Sylvie, Kit..."

"Danielle, unlikely. She's got a shady past but murder is a little dark for even her reputation."

"Sylvie?"

"I get a funny feeling about that one. Incredibly frail, but there's something she isn't telling us."

"I think I may know what that something is."

"Do tell, by all means."

Alice leans in conspiratorially, even though we are the only two people in the room.

"I overheard Bess telling Baxter that Sylvie has recently spent some time in a facility for the mentally unstable."

"Any details?"

"I'm afraid not. All I know is, the doctors weren't particularly keen on the idea of her being let out for Christmas. Bess had to assure them that she would be very closely watched."

"So we have an heiress to a sizeable fortune, with a screw loose. That sounds like a fairly simple equation to me."

"Shall we go talk to her?"

"Lead the way."

Alice and I never get the chance to speak to Sylvie about her recent institutionalisation. She is nowhere to be found among the other guests, and a quick search of the manor yields no results. Everybody takes this absence as a form of confession.

"Makes sense," Danielle says. "She was Baxter's niece, the closest thing he had to a child. Wouldn't surprise me if she were to be left everything in the will."

"But killing her aunt and uncle, only to run away – it smacks of guilt, doesn't it?" This is from Kit. "Acting that way, like a criminal, it ruins the whole plan."

"Maybe she panicked." Greyson chimes in. "She could be stranded out there in the storm now, a fugitive from the law..."

"Don't be so dramatic," Penny interrupts. "For all we know, she never left." She adds, sinisterly.

The author's words chill me to the bone. It's entirely possible that Sylvie is still somewhere in the manor; there are enough servants' corridors and obscure doorways to keep a killer hidden for days on end.

Theories about Sylvie's motivations and whereabouts dominate conversation for the rest of the day. Alice prepares a hearty stew for supper, and we retire. This pattern of waking, fretting, pacing and then sleeping is taking its toll on everybody. A couple of times we've had to dissuade Ben from clawing his way out into the snow, desperate to escape.

"Help me," I say under my breath as I crawl into bed. "Give me a sign, please..."

The Victorian dandy is my host this time. He pours me a glass of crème de menthe and takes me on a tour of the grounds.

"Things are getting out of hand at the manor," I say, meaning of course our manor, the manor of the living. "Something needs to be done soon. Sylvie needs to be found."

"She'll turn up soon enough," he says, "don't you worry about that. Our killer has a troubled, haunted mind. I feel sympathetic, almost."

"Almost?"

"I'm a murder victim myself, you know. I agree with Delilah, when the criminal resurfaces, we want custody."

"I'm not going to kill Sylvie. If I find her, I'll make sure she's arrested."

"You want justice, Mr Swift. It's admirable. But we want retribution. They are markedly different."

"I don't doubt you. But I refuse to take a life."

"That choice may not be yours to make, Mr Swift. There is a curse on this house, and it can only end in death."

"I think I preferred it when Fanny was my ghost."

The dandy laughs.

"They all say that," he says, knocking back his crème de menthe.

It is morning, and I am taking coffee with Alice and Kit when Danielle shuffles into the kitchen, her face ashen, all kittenish sway absent from her step.

"We..." She chokes back a sob: "...We've found Sylvie."

~

The Boxing Day Murders - Chapter One

"Anybody would think you'd never seen a ghost before," Alice says to me as we walk down the drive to Bedford Manor. "They're harmless, you needn't be afraid."

She is referring, of course, to the transparent woman that we encountered a moment ago upon entering the grounds. Dressed in a Victorian style, with more than a little of the Moll Flanders about her, she had passed like smoke through me and I was left chilled to the bone. I'd then turned around to catch another glimpse; with a bawdy wink and suggestive curtsy she had promptly vanished into thin air.

Now I'm no fool, I know that Bedford Manor is famous for its spirits. And ghosts at Christmas are a fact of life, the same as turkey and drunk uncles. But before today I'd always acknowledged the existence of spectres as a nothing more than a vague fact, formless as an idea in very much the same way as gravity; we know it is there, but it is out of sight and therefore need not be questioned.

"I'm not afraid," I say, more to myself than in response to Alice's statement. The ghostly chill that came over me a moment ago is rapidly fading, only to be replaced by the more earthly cold of a Cheshire winter. It had been at my own suggestion that we'd chosen to take our leave of the car that had picked me up from the station; I'd fancied some fresh air and perhaps a moment or two alone with the delightful Alice. Longtime secretery, valet and practical lifeline to my old friend Baxter Bedford, it was the thought of time spent in her ever genial company that made me accept his rather out-of-the-blue Christmas invitation. For years Baxter and I had exchanged greetings cards from afar – I struggle to actually remember the last time we saw each other face to face. I would imagine that to place it within a decade would be a stretch.

When the front doors of the manor open and Baxter emerges, arms open wide to greet me, it takes me a moment to recognise him; his hair has gone from black to almost entirely grey and his eyes appear sunken in his face. I've always remembered Bax as he was when we were at Cambridge together; it is like a slap in the face to suddenly see him now as a man old before his time, looking like the grandfather of the friend I keep in my mind's eye.

Bess appears at her husband's side, as glamorous and effervescent as ever, every bit the successful QC's wife, not to suggest that her own charitable achievements are to be scoffed at. Bess Bedford is something of a powerhouse in the humanitarian world; an ambassador for UNICEF, advocate for battered women and patron of nearly every children’s charity going. All that, and she throws the best parties. In the case of the Bedfords, it is definitely true what they say; behind every great man is one hell of a woman.

"Marcus," she purrs, "Merry Christmas, I'm so glad you could join us!"

"Bess, a pleasure as always," I reply, wondering how many times I've uttered those words and pleased that on this occasion they are sincere.

"You're the last to arrive," Bess says, ushering Alice and I in from the cold, "Warwick has already brought the car back and taken your bags to your room, come on in and meet everyone."

Warwick, the Baxters' butler, brings me a glass of the same single malt that I'd enthused over on my last visit twelve years or so previously, and I am led into the drawing room.

"You remember Hector, the neurosurgeon?" I find myself shaking hands with a portly, ruddy-faced gentleman that I have never met. "And his fiancée, Ameera." The stunning Indian woman on Hector's arm is old enough to be his daughter, there's no doubt about it. If Bess hadn't introduced Ameera as his fiancée I would have pegged her as an incredibly high class escort. I kiss her hand and move on.

Bess takes me around the room, introducing me in turn to Penny, a famous writer of children's books; Ben, a once-famous actor; and Greyson, a businessman who exudes sleaze, before reaching an individual I remember very well.

"And of course you know my cousin, Danielle," Bess says, slightly less enthusiastic than with her other introductions. This is an understatement; you'd struggle to find a newspaper reader in the UK who hadn't heard of Danielle Harding or read one of her many kiss and tell exclusives. In fact, I'm surprised Bess has deigned to invite her to the manor for Christmas when there are so many respectable figures here. I can only deduce from the very large glass of wine in the statuesque blonde's hand that Danielle is still smarting from her latest amorous disaster, and Bess has taken pity on her. Suffice to say the incident involved a pair of handcuffs and your local MP.

Danielle is wearing appropriately festive attire, which for her means a short dress that sparkles with every slight movement. Panda eyes look me up and down in a way that is half suggestive and half, I hazard, just plain old habit.

"How are you, Danielle?"

"All the better for seeing you, Marcus," she clinks her wine against my scotch. "What brings you this way?"

"Baxter and Bess were good enough to invite me, and I was at something of a loose end."

"Likewise," Danielle says, no doubt assuming I know the most intimate details of her very short career in politics.

"Oh Marcus," Bess touches my elbow and guides me toward a pretty, slight-looking girl in the corner, "I don't believe you've met Baxter's niece."

"No, I don't think I've had the honour," I extend a hand and her grip is surprisingly firm.

"Sylvie Bedford-Jones," she whispers. "And you're Marcus Swift."

"That's right," I say. "I'm sorry, have we met?"

"No," she shakes her head. "But I knew you were coming.  I had a dream about you."

"She's had such a tragic life, the poor girl," Bess tells me later. "Her parents died in a car crash when she was at boarding school and she's been fragile as anything ever since. Baxter's her only family now."

I nod thoughtfully. Call me cynical, but "fragile" isn't the word I would choose to describe Sylvie. Something about her is delicate, yes, but I sense formidability in her too. She strikes me as a steely flower, guarded closely by her remaining family. Which reminds me, I’ve yet to catch up properly with Baxter.

"Excuse me, Bess, do you know where I'd be able to find that husband of yours?"

"Oh, he's here, there and everywhere, you know how Bax gets. Pretends he's above it all but if there's one thing he knows, it's how to work a room. How else do you think he has judges eating out of his hand?"

I laugh and leave her chatting with Ameera. When I eventually manage to track Baxter down, he is not flitting from guest to guest as Bess had assumed, but rather standing at the fireplace, nursing a glass, staring into the flames.

"Bax?" He jumps at the sound of his own name. "Can we talk?"

"Of course, let's use my study.”

Once we are alone, I voice what's been on my mind since I arrived.

"Baxter, please take no offense with what I'm about to say, but... you look awful. What on earth is going on?" My old friend looks almost relieved when I say this.

"Believe it or not, it's not news to me," he grimaces, gesturing at his own haggard appearance. "The last ten years haven't been kind, but more recently..." He sighs, finishes his drink, and continues; "Look, Marcus. I had an ulterior motive for inviting you to the manor this Christmas. Don't get me wrong, you were always a decent friend, to both Bess and myself, but... it's your skills I'm interested in."

"My skills?"

"I understand that you're a lawyer these days and that's all well and good, but I was under the impression that you still do a bit of the old sleuthing from time to time."

"Not for ages now, truth be told.  Less and less money in it.  But if there's anything I can help you with-"

"I'm being blackmailed."

"Oh. Bloody hell, Bax. Why?"

"Various... indiscretions. It's all such a mess, Marcus. Such a mess." He reaches into his desk drawer and pulls out a sheaf of letters.

"Here, read these."

I leaf through a few, and it becomes apparent that they are the same letter, sent over and over. Somebody who has signed the letters simply X claims to have knowledge of an affair of Baxter's some years ago, something that knocks me sick. He must see it in my eyes, and jumps to his own defence.

"It was years ago, back when Bess was doing her work in Peru. Lasted barely any time at all. Long forgotten, or so I'd thought..."

"What demands have been made?"

"Well there's the crux, Marcus. No demands, nothing. For the last six months I've been receiving this letter, the same bloody words, over and over. Someone out there is toying with me, and nobody toys with Baxter Bedford."

"Perhaps if that were true then you wouldn't be in this situation," I say before I can stop myself. "Sorry, Bax, you've just shocked me a little with this. Tell me exactly what it is you want me to do."

"I'm going to give you a list of names, people who were around at the time of the..."

"Affair?"

"Yes, yes, the goddamn affair, Marcus. I'm going to give you a list of names and when you get back to London I'd like you to do some digging."

"Shouldn't be a problem. Although I have to say, I think the other woman is a fair bet."

"Impossible. The girl in question is no longer with us.  She was taken ill the year after we parted ways."

"Maybe somebody thinks you wanted her kept quiet?"

"Nonsense!  On that count I can assure you, I am one hundred per cent innocent. I may have been a bit of a philanderer in my day, Marcus, but a killer I am not."

"I believe you."

"I'm glad."

"I suppose we'd best get back to the party."

"Absolutely. If anybody asks, I've been running some investments past you."

"Of course. Brandy?"

"You read my mind."

When we re-enter the drawing room, it is clear that we've not been missed. A handsome young man whose crow's nest hair seems at odds with his dapper suit is holding court, telling a story that has everybody in stitches.

"Who's that?" I ask from the corner of my mouth; I could probably have shouted the question to Baxter and everybody would still be in this newcomer's thrall.

Baxter pauses for a moment, grasping for a name.

"Foster... Yes, Christopher Foster. 'Call me Kit', I heard him say earlier, can you believe it? Bess invited him, he works for some charity or other."

"Seems popular," I comment.

"Trendy little pecker if you ask me. But, Bess seems to think a lot of him," he nods at his wife, who stands rapt, clapping at some particularly hilarious part of his anecdote.

"And everybody else by the look of it." I say, and then an uncomfortable silence settles on the two of us like British snow – not thick, not oppressive, but every time one of us attempts to make a remark, the other begins at the same moment, and then we stutter off in different directions, lurching on the social black ice. I begin to fear that what I have just learned about my friend has changed the way I think of him. I try so hard to find something, anything to say to him, and fail, filling the long silences with Baxter's salubrious cognac.

I eventually take my leave of the party; exhausted, disturbed and more than a little drunk, I make my way up to the room that Bess has so kindly prepared for me. On the landing, I press myself against the wall and avert my eyes as further up the corridor, Danielle Harding leads Kit, the frightwigged charmer, to her own room.

"Merry Christmas," I murmur to nobody in particular, before turning in. As soon as my head hits the pillow, all of the unsettling thoughts about Baxter and blackmail leave my mind, allowing a much-needed, brandy-induced slumber to fall upon me.

~

Rude Awakening: An Adonis Jones Mystery (Part Two)

In Part One, readers were introduced to Adonis Jones - detective, hedonist and hero of this story.  Now follow our intrepid team of crime solvers (loyal companion Willy, housekeeper Tatiana and police inspector Roderick) into a seedy underworld of murder and seduction...

~

     Rod reluctantly “allowed” us to accompany him to The Cooch Club; this was after all, he informed us, an official police investigation. I've learned over the years that a good dose of gumption and a dash of violence get you a lot further than following procedure, but I wasn't about to tell him that; I suspected his patience was wearing thin. And beneath that slightly sleazy but gorgeous Errol Flynn moustache of his was a man with quite the fiery temper. I'd only ever cross Roderick Sexton if I was in the mood to be tied up and punished.

The Cooch Club was nothing like I expected; I'd imagined a run-down, backstreet Coyote Ugly affair. In reality it had the appearance of an exclusive establishment, albeit one with a bloody awful name. I was familiar with the concept of “cooch”: a sideshow striptease performed at Twenties speakeasies and carnivals. A nasty little dance done on the cheap for some extra cash; I felt glad that Tatiana was above this now. A little degradation is good for us all, and Lord knows I’ve enjoyed my fair share, but I found it unsavoury to think of a horde of sleazy men leering at my Russian doll. 

Again, I was taken by surprise; the interior of the club appeared just as respectable as the exterior. White marble pillars, Grecian murals on the walls; my godly namesake would have felt right at home. But Tatiana assured me this was still the club's exterior; the real party lay beneath. Underground.

Roderick flashed his police badge to anyone who'd look until we finally caught the attention of someone who appeared to be the proprietor; a swarthy, bearded medallion man by the name of Helios.

“We're here about Carl Van Der Wood,” Rod told him. Before he could say any more, Helios erupted in denials. 

“Never heard of him,” he began, followed by; “he's not been here,” and finally; “he was fine last time I saw him.”

“Of course...” Rod stepped closer to Helios, and I could hardly believe how he towered over the stout Greek; such presence! He didn't even have to say anything else, Helios dissolved into a panicky confession. I couldn't make much sense of it, but when Rod turned back to us, I knew he had the answer.

“The culprit is downstairs,” he told us. “There's a member's area, Helios is going to take us there now – isn't that right, Helios?”

“Y-yes,” he stammered in response. Anything for leniency at this point, I supposed.

And so Helios led us into the underworld of cooch; and I have never been so horrified and aroused in such equal measure.

It was a Caligulan orgy; bodies writhed and intertwined seamlessly, the only incongruity among the waves of flesh being the occasional strap of leather or glint of steel. 

Willy's cheeks flushed, and it came back to me how green he was to this world. Tatiana's only response was a single raised eyebrow, but what can one expect? She said she'd worked here, no doubt she'd seen revelry of this kind before.

Roderick stood on the shore of this sea of sex, and turned to Helios.

“The killer?” He asked, and I'll be damned if the club owner didn't almost bow in deference to this copper!

“Lucius,” he called out into the writhing throng, and added to us; “nobody here uses their real name.”

“Shocker,” I said.

A head of dark hair arose from the mass of bodies, and “Lucius” made his way towards us. I couldn't help but be impressed and a little distracted by his roughly hewn jaw, taut muscles and tumescent cock. Believe me, I do not have a one-track mind, but this man looked like an unfinished statue, something raw and hot to the touch. 

It was only when he flicked his dark curls out of his eyes that I recognised him. 

“Dominic Eyre.” I uttered his name as I would a curse. 

“Hello, Adonis.” He smiled at me, a hateful but, shame me, beautiful thing to see.

“Who is this?” Roderick asked, a question that I could see on the lips of both Willy and Tatiana as well.

“This is the man who killed three people before I found him and handed him over to the law.” Dominic almost seemed proud of that fact as I voiced his sins to my friends and the roomful of rutting strangers.

“I wouldn't call him a serial killer,” I continued, “just a deranged deviant who went too far. Three young men ended up in the morgue after spending the night with him. How on earth did you get out of prison?”

“Never went,” Dominic said, smiling again. “Although the prospect of a castle full of men does sound appealing, I prefer the discipline to be on my terms. I had a very good lawyer.”

Ha! The system. I felt like spitting (something I neither practise nor preach).

“I should have known it was you as soon as I saw the bruises on Van Der Wood's neck,” Roderick said. “But why leave the card with the body, if you wished to frame Adonis?”

“Who said anything about framing? I just wanted to make sure he knew I was on the market. Did you like my gift, Adonis? I know you have a soft, or should I say hard spot for the wide-eyed, youthful type.” He fixed Willy with a perverse look, and my latent lust turned to anger.

“You're crazy,” I said, “and at the risk of putting words in my friend's mouth, you're also under arrest.”

“Damn fucking right he is,” Rod said, laying his handcuffs on the bastard. “And this time, the Van Der Woods will make sure you go to prison for a long, long time.”

“It's your turn to be the bitch,” Willy offered, and I put my arm around him proudly. 

“Good,” Dominic leered. “I told you, I like discipline. On my terms. My work wasn’t finished. Van Der Wood was my cherry on the cake.”

“I hope it was worth it,” Roderick grunted into his ear as he man-handled him towards the stairs. “I doubt even a deviant like you will enjoy sleeping on prison issue sheets.”

Roderick dragged Dominic upstairs into the club and out to his car, none too gently either. Tatiana gravitated back up to the bar, leaving Willy and I alone together at the edge of the orgy that had continued regardless throughout the entire exchange. 

“Asphyxiation,” Willy said thoughtfully, poor young Carl’s demise still clearly on his mind. “What a daft way to go.”

“Oh I don't know...” I pulled him closer. “If I could pick any way to die, I wouldn't turn down the chance to be suffocated between your legs.”

Willy raised an eyebrow, mimicking Tatiana perfectly, and nodded towards the orgy.

“Shall we?” He asked.

“Why the heck not,” I said. “We've just caught a killer, I think we should celebrate!”

~

The End