“You’re a crap mate, you know. You only ever message me when you need something.” Mia says it lightly, but her words have an undercurrent that is hard to ignore.
“That’s not true.”
“Whatever.” Mia walks away.
“I haven’t told anyone, by the way,” Ffion calls after her. “About what you’ve been up to.” Mia stops but doesn’t turn around, and a second later, she’s heading for her car. Ffion chews the inside of her cheek. She’s not a crap mate. A crap mate wouldn’t keep a secret, would they? Especially in the middle of a murder investigation.
Ffion speaks to the uniform outside the Lloyds’ lodge. “Is DC Leo Brady in there?”
The officer checks her clipboard, on which everyone’s movements are neatly marked. “Just arrived.”
Ffion gives her number for the list, then ducks under the blue-and-white tape and pulls on PPE from the box by the front door.
Upstairs, Leo is speaking to the lead CSI.
“Sorry I’m late,” Ffion says.
“Tough commute?” Leo’s voice is muffled by his mask, and Ffion can’t tell what kind of mood he’s in. “The lads have seized a bunch of medication from Lloyd’s bedside cabinet.”
“Mostly over-the-counter,” the CSI says. “Some prescription. We’ll get them submitted to the lab.”
“Any evidence of a crime scene?” Ffion says.
“Blood spatters. Here, by the desk.” The CSI indicates. “It’s been cleaned up pretty well, but there’s also blood and fibers that suggest the victim was dragged from the study through the master bedroom.”
Ffion and Leo follow her across the stepping plates, positioned to protect evidence. There are more plates on the balcony, and the metal railing bears the telltale traces of fingerprint dusting.
The CSI bends down and points to the bottom of the glass barrier, which stops around thirty centimeters above the deck of the balcony. “There’s blood on the underside of this glass. It looks as though the victim was pushed underneath it.”
On the main deck, a yellow cone marks a spot around which a white-suited officer is swabbing. Leo looks down. “And that’s where he landed?”
“Ten out of ten,” the CSI says. “We’ll push on in here, but it’s going to be a real needle-in-a-haystack job: there are prints everywhere. The awards shelf isn’t so bad, but I’m not sure that’s much help. The offender wouldn’t need to touch the shelf itself to take an award.”
“Maybe it wasn’t personal,” Leo says as they make their way back outside. “Maybe someone came to burgle the place—the awards are plastered all over Instagram, after all—and Rhys got in the way.”
“So why not take the other trophies?”
“No time?”
“They had time to drag his body onto the balcony, push it onto the deck and then the dock, get it on a boat, and dump it in the middle of the lake, but they didn’t have time to bung a few awards in a bag?”
Leo grins. “I admit, it’s not my best theory. We’ll see if the CCTV yields anything.”
Ffion feels hot. “That’s on my list. I’ll go and seize it.”
“Already done. I got the keys while I was waiting for you this morning.”
“I said I’d do it!”
The force of Ffion’s response makes Leo hold up his hands in surrender. “Easy. I thought I’d lighten your load, that’s all.”
“I don’t need your help.”
Leo shakes his head. “You’re hard work, you know? You don’t do briefings, you don’t do teamwork…” He blows out his cheeks, letting out the contents in a slow, noisy stream. Ffion says nothing. “Anyway, I seized the hard drive and downloaded twenty-four hours from nine a.m. on New Year’s Eve. There’s a glitch in the afternoon, around three p.m., where the footage skips forward an hour.”
“Rhys Lloyd was alive for several hours after that.”
“Exactly, and it seems fine from then on, so we can cross-reference people arriving at the party with the guests already on our list. See who’s missing. The cameras are trained on the drive rather than the footpaths, but it’s a start.”