James’s hand flexed into a fist, then splayed out as he forced the tension out of his joints. ‘Let’s go find Bakare, then.’
Gabriel jammed his hands in his pockets. ‘Do you think she’s right?’
‘Of course she’s not bloody right. You’re no killer.’
‘How do you know?’
Takes one to know one. James quashed the notion. He had more factual reasons for knowing it to be true. He’d have smelled the blood on Gabriel, for a start. He’d have smelled the burned meat on him, if he’d killed Daryl Mulloway. That kind of stink took a long time to wash clean. He’d been to burned-out villages where the stench of firebombed homes lingered for months.
‘I’ve met killers.’
‘Feel free to be a character witness for me, then. Datta aims to pin something on me if she can.’ He fell into step beside James and they walked together towards the nearest bus stop.
‘Aren’t you going to ask why she doesn’t like me?’ Gabriel prompted.
Dinnae care, do ye, Jamie? Ye like the braw lad plenty for everybody.
‘I assume she’s fickle and deranged.’
The reminder of his words about the failed date washed the tension out of Gabriel. ‘Maybe. I’ve never understood it, otherwise.’
Fortunately, Bakare was in when they reached the station. Less fortunately, he was on his way out, Datta in his wake. ‘We’ve got another body,’ Bakare said through gritted teeth, ‘You’ll have to come back tomorrow if you–’ Then he pulled up short. ‘This Ben Tiller you were looking for. Can you give me a description?’
‘Twenty-two. About James’s height. Dark hair, hazel eyes. He’s got a scar on his…’ Gabriel waved indicatively towards his own chin. ‘He was glassed by a gang of pricks in a park last year.’
‘Think you could ID him?’
Gabriel’s fists clenched. ‘Yes.’
‘Come with us, then.’ Bakare regarded James sourly as he fell into step with them. ‘Don’t recall inviting you, Doctor Sharpe.’
‘You want to take Gabriel to a crime scene to identify a body and you’re telling me you want him alone?’ James’s voice was calm, but his posture was military-rigid, his eyes hard. ‘I can always call his lawyer if you don’t want me along.’
‘Fine. Get in the car. Do what you’re told when we get there and stay out of the way. Datta, take your own car.’
With a glare at both James and Gabriel, Datta obediently went to her own vehicle.
James wondered what the hell he was doing, drawing attention to himself this way, but Gabriel’s small nod of thanks settled the matter. James would be damned if he let Gabriel get dragged off to a murder scene in the company of one, and possibly two, police officers who seemed to think him guilty of a gruesome crime.
James slid into the back seat of Bakare’s car beside Gabriel. ‘Should I be calling a lawyer?’
‘Not yet,’ replied Gabriel quietly. ‘There’s nothing they can charge me with. I didn’t do it.’
‘I know.’
Gabriel drooped his lanky frame against the seat, long legs bent and his angular face pensive. He closed his eyes. He looked terribly vulnerable, with his dark hair in customary disarray and mouth pursed. When he opened his green eyes again, his gaze met Bakare’s reflected in the rear vision mirror.
Bakare’s brown eyes crinkled apologetically. ‘Gabe, I don’t think it’s you. But you’re the only link so far.’
‘Me and the fact they’re all living on the streets. I think you’ll find a lot of other links if you bothered to look.’
Bakare scrubbed his hand through his thinning hair. ‘Let’s eliminate you from the suspect list, shall we? Then I can get Datta off my back about you and we can follow the other leads’
James wanted to take the DI to task over it all – the irregularities and lack of proper protocol, Datta’s clear prejudice, the idiotic assumptions. He was sure that Bakare was aiming to observe Gabriel’s reactions, and attempt to catch the artist in a cover-up or lie, and it simply wasn’t going to happen. Gabriel was innocent.
More to the point, if vampires had killed Daryl Mulloway, vampires might also be involved in the deaths of Alicia Jarret and this new corpse. Gabriel Dare was no vampire. He hadn’t even recognised James as being one.
James very much wanted to see, first-hand, if this new corpse had been killed in the same way as Mulloway. Because if it had, some arsehole vampire was on his patch and he was not fucking having it. Not for one hell-damned second longer.
Aye, I’ll feckin’ skelp the bastard.
Fifteen minutes later, the DI’s car, then Datta’s, pulled up in a small square of park next to a boarded-up shop and a derelict garage. Soon after, James was standing next to Gabriel at the tape barrier, staring up into a tree.
A body was draped between its branches, head hanging back. The dark hair fell away from the young man’s face, which was frozen in a rictus of horror. A scar ran from beside his mouth to just underneath his chin from the glassing. The faintest rust red was smeared on his lips and teeth. His throat had been gashed open on the left, but there was no other blood at the scene.
Gabriel stared at the body. ‘That’s Ben,’ he said dully.
Bakare looked at Gabriel, at the body, at James. ‘You’re going to give an alibi to Gabe, aren’t you?’ he said.
‘Of course I fucking am,’ snapped James. ‘We were together at home all evening, except for those few hours under the Chelsea Bridge. Then we went home.’
‘You can vouch for him all night?’
‘Yes.’
‘He could have slipped out while you were sleeping.’
‘I don’t sleep. I’m an insomniac.’ When Bakare didn’t look convinced he added, ‘Ex-army, active front line service in a warzone. I don’t sleep well at the best of times. Last night was not the best of times. I was awake all night. Gabriel didn’t leave the flat after we got home. Happy now?’
‘Yeah. Pretty happy.’ Bakare cast a glance at Gabriel, who had not taken his eyes off the body in the tree. ‘I’m sorry, Gabe. It’s my job to ask.’
‘Fine. Go ask some other people. Find out who’s doing this. We’re done here.’
James regarded the corpse in the tree closely. He tilted his head and inhaled deeply, passing it off as the settling of nerves, but he could smell it, even from here: the vampire blood in Ben Tiller’s mouth. Not enough to turn him, even given there was no guarantee a turning would work. Ben had bitten the vampire who murdered him.
Brave lad. Poor brave, terrified boy. It took courage to bite a vampire. Not much damage caused, but he’d drawn blood, with its distinctive scent for those with the power to detect it.
What made James particularly angry was knowing that murder wasn’t necessary. There were clubs for this sort of thing, with willing volunteers who offered their throat to the beast and off they went, happy as crazy, crazy Larry. Vampires didn’t need that much blood in a sitting. Even for the greedy, a mouthful from each of a dozen volunteers provided sustenance without hard-to-hide deaths. Too many of those and the police investigations would start, and those were, James gathered, irritating and inconvenient.
James hardly thought that London’s vampires would bother acting against this particular killer, though, no matter the inconvenience. It wasn’t as though vampires had any real hierarchy. As far as James had learned, the individuals in London’s small vampire population had their petty