‘From what I understand,’ I said, ‘a police presence is neither required nor desired.’
‘That’s what we keep saying,’ Lukas said. ‘However, we also wish to expand. We find the current limits placed on our kind constricting. For example, we can only turn one in every thousand applicants. We are virtually ghetto-ised and prohibited from trading outside our area. All supes are seeking to ease some of those unfair restrictions placed on our kind.’
‘Unfair restrictions? We can’t let you turn every Tom, Dick or Harry who shows up at your door into a vampire,’ Barnes returned. Despite her obvious irritation at vamp methods, I had the sense that she was holding herself back out of some strange deference to Lukas. Perhaps DSI Barnes was actually afraid of vampires.
‘It is not a process we take lightly,’ he growled at her. ‘You know that. Neither is it a case of biting someone and suddenly they’re a vampire. It takes weeks. The vampires we turn become part of our family. Even without the restrictions, very few would make the cut.’
‘It’s not just about that. We can’t allow you to grow your wealth to such a point that you have a stranglehold over the country. You take enough blood from us as it is!’
‘All our blood comes from willing participants,’ Lukas said. ‘And you know very well that we only need to sup once a month to survive.’
‘You live twice as long as the average human. That’s a lot of months.’
Lukas looked calm, but I sensed that inside he was seething. ‘Vampires are not the only ones seeking concessions. The wolves want to expand into another pack, turn more humans and make better use of the countryside.’
‘Which is all very well,’ Barnes snapped, ‘until the next full moon when they lose control and end up killing innocent farmers! Regardless of its failings in recent years, Supe Squad exists for a reason!’
‘Supe Squad is all but superfluous,’ he shot back. ‘As you know.’
I held up my hands. ‘This is all very well and good,’ I said. It looked like this argument could go on for hours. ‘But what exactly does it have to do with me?’
Barnes calmed down slightly. ‘DC Brown would have acknowledged that he had a somewhat laissez-faire approach to his job. But he was approaching retirement and he wasn’t … enthusiastic about giving it up. His wife died not too long ago, and he feared losing himself to the loneliness of old age. We had agreed that he would insinuate himself more into the supes’ day-to-day lives. In return, we’d delay his retirement and try to find a second Supe Squad detective to continue the process alongside him. One new detective to begin with, then the plan is to introduce more.’
She glanced at Lucas. ‘It has to be someone who both the vampires and werewolves can accept. I acknowledge that many of the police officers who’ve worked out of Supe Squad have been less than … effective. We’ve been searching for a detective who is willing to learn, and has the potential to grow into the job, but who won’t let their head be turned by what the supes have to offer. Someone who won’t take any shit.’
I met her eyes. ‘Me,’ I said flatly.
‘You are our opening gambit. You meet our skill requirements and, as a trainee, you haven’t got the baggage that other detectives might carry.’ She leaned forward. ‘Please understand that you’d never be forced into taking a position at Supe Squad. The plan was that we would discuss it with you at the end of your rotation. If you found the notion distasteful, we would never mention it again. There are plenty more trainees where you came from.’
I frowned. ‘You should have explained this to me at the start.’
‘If we had, your attitude would have been different. We need someone who is completely unbiased.’
‘Well,’ I remarked, ‘you won’t find a much more unbiased police officer than a dead one. Good work.’
DSI Barnes winced. Lukas was unmoved, however. ‘Very few vampires, werewolves or humans know what’s been going on, or that the Metropolitan Police are seeking a more active role. If Brown was murdered because some supe is unhappy about the police wanting to involve themselves more in our lives, the killer wouldn’t have tried to mask his death as an accident. They would have made it as bloody as possible in order to make a point.’
‘My death was pretty damned bloody,’ I said. ‘And I think that killing two Supe Squad police officers in one night would be more than enough to scare off any others from wanting to work there.’
‘I don’t believe that’s why you were murdered,’ Lukas said, grinding his teeth. ‘Either of you. It might be hard for you to understand what it’s like to be a supernatural, but I’ve been doing this for a long time. We don’t care about subtleties. We don’t send coded messages. We don’t have to. The motive for the killings is something completely separate.’
I think that he believed that but, until I had proof to the contrary, I was withholding my judgment.
‘But you do think it was a supe who did this?’ Barnes asked.
His answer was terse. ‘Yes.’
‘Which brings us back to the need for Supe Squad’s existence. And you, D’Artagnan.’ She smiled slightly. ‘DC Brown wouldn’t have given you a nickname if he didn’t think you were good enough to stay. He was giving you his blessing as his successor.’ She linked her fingers together. ‘So let’s get down to it. If you died last night, why are you alive now? Are you a vampire?’
Lukas rolled his eyes. ‘Obviously she’s not.’
‘There’s no obviously about anything. Not any more.’
These two were giving me a headache. ‘I don’t know what I am,’ I said aloud. ‘And frankly, right now I don’t care.’ I pointed at the door. ‘My mentor is hanging in his wardrobe across that hallway. He is dead. And whoever killed him has tried to make it look like he committed suicide. Whatever their motives, I will find the bastard that did that to him and who also murdered me. The rest of this is bollocks.’
There was a knock at the door and a uniformed police officer put his head round. ‘DSI Barnes,’ he said. ‘Can I have a word?’
She nodded and walked out, leaving Lukas and I alone.
‘I wish you hadn’t told her about me,’ I complained.
‘She needed to know. And DSI Barnes, for all her designs on Supe Squad, isn’t a bad sort. She’ll keep your secret to herself.’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘I want you to be aware that my dislike of Supe Squad is not personal to you,’ he said quietly.
‘Ditto.’ I met his dark gaze. ‘And I want you to be aware that I don’t care what you think, and I don’t care what’s gone on in the past. I’m going to find the bastard responsible for this and bring them down.’
‘So am I.’ He smiled humourlessly. ‘Finding whoever murdered you and Brown is the only way I can keep your lot from sticking your noses in where they don’t belong. It’s why I involved myself in your death. We both have a vested interest in locating the killer. You don’t want to be in Supe Squad any more than I want Supe Squad to continue. We might as well join forces since our interests align. And perhaps,’ he added, ‘we can find out what you really are along the way.’
It made a sort of warped sense, but I wasn’t prepared to shake hands on it yet. ‘Why did DSI Barnes want to know if you’d tasted me?’
His eyes shifted. ‘In the past, there’ve been a few detectives in Supe Squad who’ve become … close to vampires.’
‘They allowed themselves to be bitten?’ I was incredulous.
‘They didn’t just allow it, they wanted it. They asked for it.’
I felt sick.
Lukas continued. ‘And to taste someone’s blood is to understand their essence. If I drank from you, it might help me to understand what you are and why you cheated death so successfully.’
‘That,’ I said, ‘is never going to happen.’
‘It wasn’t an invitation.’ He said it almost primly. ‘And I’d never drink from someone without their permission first. No vampire would be so uncouth.’
I snorted. ‘That’s a pretty sweeping statement. You can’t speak for all of your kind.’
‘Yes, I can,’ he said.
Barnes re-entered the room, her expression troubled. ‘I sent two uniforms round to Tony’s flat. You said it had been ransacked?’
I nodded.
‘They broke down the door. The place is pristine. There’s not so much as a speck of dust out of place.’
I started. ‘But—’
‘The killer is covering his tracks,’ Lukas said. ‘He still wants us to believe that Brown died by his own hand.’
I sucked in a breath. ‘I only went to Tony’s place because of what had happened to me. I wouldn’t have gone there to search for him so quickly otherwise. I wanted to confront him because I thought he was responsible.’ My voice dropped to a whisper. ‘I thought he was the one who’d killed me.’
‘That’s understandable. And this is a good thing.’ Lukas sounded satisfied. ‘The real killer doesn’t know that you’ve returned to life, otherwise he’d have cleaned up the mess at Tony’s flat sooner. He wouldn’t have risked anyone seeing the devastation there and becoming suspicious.’
‘So you think our perp attacked Tony in his own home? Then Tony escaped and came here, thinking he’d be safe?’
Lukas nodded. ‘But he was followed. The killer broke in through the window and finished what he’d started. He took his time tidying up because you’d not been identified, and no one suspected that Brown’s disappearance was anything but innocuous.’
‘Well,’ DSI Barnes marvelled, with a definite hint of sarcasm, ‘look at the two of you. It’s like watching Cagney and Lacey.’