Inherit the Dead

of smiles then turned and began to lead Angel away toward the stairs. Was he running the show now? Had he been all along?
    Perry followed, a step or two behind. “I mean, you are upset, aren’t you, Angel?” She kept walking, but he could see the tension in her shoulders. “You certainly look upset, but it’s so hard to tell with you. I mean, I thought you were upset when you told me about why you ran away, when you told me how scared you were. But you also told me that you knew about your inheritance, that the stakes were high, remember? You know, I’m thinking that maybe you’re pretty damn good at getting people to think all sorts of things. The boyfriends who all think they’re special. That politician who seems to think you’re worth cheating on his wife for.” Perry’s voice was raised now, and people in the corridor were staring as the three of them marched toward the top of the stairs. “All of them happy to believe whatever the hell you want them to believe . . . ” Perry needed to get a rise out of her. He wanted her to prove to him she was innocent. He needed her to, and yet . . .
    A few steps farther on, Angel stopped suddenly. Loki kept walking, then stopped to wait for her when he reached the stairs.
    “Me, too,” Perry said. “That’s the stupid thing.” He walked slowly toward her. “You had me believing . . . all sorts of things.” Damn it, what was it she’d said that he was trying to remember? “For a while, anyway.”
    Angel moved toward him until they were only inches apart. She removed her sunglasses, and he could see that her eyes were wet. Then that smile flickered again, just for a second, before she raised her arm and slapped him hard across the face.
    Perry closed his eyes for a few seconds against the pain, and when he opened them again, he could see the potato-faced sergeant bearing down on him, shouting.
    “Everything okay, here?”
    “Everything’s fine,” Angel said, her face set hard, the sunglasses already back in place.
    As the sergeant took a firm hold of Perry’s arm, he could only watch as Norman and Angel Loki turned and walked casually away down the stairs without looking back. He tried to yank his arm from the cop’s grip, and just as the struggle threatened to become something Perry might easily have been arrested for, a familiar figure appeared at the sergeant’s shoulder.
    “I got this, Jimmy,” Watson said.
    Spud-Face nodded and reluctantly let go of Perry’s arm. He walked away, seemingly frustrated at not being given an excuse to throw a punch. Perry watched him go, equally disappointed.
    “In there.” Watson hissed in his ear, and pointed back along the corridor toward the interview room with the brown door. “Now!”

    “What the hell do you think you’re playing at?”
    Perry dropped into a chair and undid a button on his shirt. Cold as it was outside, the interview room was hot and stuffy. There were no windows. “What am I playing at?”
    Watson folded his arms, eyes narrowed. “Okay then, let’s hear it. It’s not like you can make yourself any less popular.”
    “Why did you let them go?”
    “No reason to keep them.”
    “Come on, Henry, you really think Julia Drusilla killed herself?”
    “For Christ’s sake, Perry, we already went through this. The woman was sick.”
    “You got any proof of that? A doctor’s letter? Hospital records?”
    “You got any proof of anything ? You got any reason at all to be harassing these people. They make a complaint, I’m not going to think twice about busting you.”
    “Sounds like they did quite a job on you,” Perry said. “Father and daughter. Angel sitting where I am now, drying her big doll’s eyes and wrapping you round her little finger. Jesus . . . ”
    “You need to drop this,” Watson said. Steel inside the whisper.
    “I can’t.”
    “That wasn’t advice, Perry.”
    Perry blinked. “You ask them where they were when she died?”
    “You think I’m a moron? You heard her, she was with her nanny—and the nanny confirmed it.”
    “And Loki?”
    “He was on Long Island, remember?”
    “Who says? His pool boy? Come on, Henry . . . ”
    “He’s vouching for her, and she’s vouching for him.”
    “That’s convenient.”
    “Doesn’t mean it isn’t the truth.”
    “ None of these people are telling the truth—you need to know that.” Perry leaned across the small table. “I have a feeling Julia was lying about being sick, her old man’s lying about