Page 47 of Into the Rain

He’d arrived at the station bright and early this morning feeling buoyant and ready to get back into this case. After he and Lacey had returned from lunch at Gabe’s, he hadn’t got nearly as much work done as he was hoping. Lacey had distracted him the moment they walked in the door, taking him by the hand and leading him straight to the bedroom. He hadn’t been surprised, as the sexual tension in the car while they’d driven home had been almost palpable. Lacey had laid her hand gently on his knee as he drove, her light touch telling him everything he needed to know. She wanted him. And he wanted her. She was all he’d thought about the whole time he was eating lunch at Gabe’s. He could hardly believe he’d allowed this woman to worm her way so deeply into his psyche. And she was leaving at the end of the week. Which was the one driving factor that’d led him to decidestuff work; for once, he was going to spend a Sunday afternoon with a fascinating, sexy woman. Admittedly, he had left her curled up all warm and snug in his bed and done a few hours work later in the evening, but he’d been feeling relaxed and less stressed.

Until this morning, when he came back to reality with a loud thump.

Things were progressing at lightning speed. He’d requested Jayden Melman, the baker’s apprentice to come in for an interview. That was scheduled for later this afternoon. But Jayden’s statement may not even be relevant, as his team thought they now had enough evidence to arrest the killer.

The results had come back on the knife found dropped near Nico’s place after the attack on Lacey. It was a positive match for the stab wounds found on the murder victim’s body. And it was also a positive match to the set in Rania’s kitchen. In other’s words, it seemed they’d found the murder weapon.

But that wasn’t the end of it. Karim Khaled’s partial fingerprint was also found on the knife handle. Theonlyfingerprint found on the knife. The man who’d attacked Lacey on Friday night had been wearing gloves. If that man had been Karim, why would he be stupid enough to leave a fingerprint when he stabbed Rania, but not when he attacked Lacey? It was a riddle he was yet to untangle.

He had a junior officer still trolling through hours and hours of CCTV footage, to see if Karim’s claim that he’d been out walking the night of Lacey’s attack could be verified. But so far they’d had no joy. The one camera that could possibly give him an alibi on the corner of the street where his hotel was situated had been offline for maintenance at the time.

Together with the mounting details about Karim’s drug habit, the constant fights between himself and Rania, and the young man’s anger management problems, including his altercation with Floyd, Charles had deemed it was enough hard evidence to arrest Karim and formally charge him with murder.

Nico had begrudgingly agreed and dispatched Sally-Ann and First Class Constable Gorman to do just that. He never asked any of his people to do anything he wasn’t prepared to do himself, and truth be told, he’d much rather be the one snapping the cuffs on Karim right now. But Shadbolt mentioned that he’d like a reason to promote Sally-Ann, and so Nico had taken the opportunity to give her more responsibility. He agreed with Charles; Sally-Ann would make a great senior constable, it was time for her to move up. And he trusted her implicitly to get the job done. Making the arrest in a high-profile case such as this would surely put Sally-Ann on the radar.

But instead of sitting back in his chair with a satisfied grin while he waited, there was an uneasy sensation hanging heavy in his gut.

Because that knife had come from Karim and Rania’s house. So, of course it’d have Karim’s fingerprints on it. It was almost too convenient. If Karim had killed Rania, had the couple perhaps been arguing late that night, Karim potentially high on drugs, and the argument had escalated? He’d grabbed the knife and stabbed her out of an uncontrollable rage. It’d been a spur-of-the-moment thing, which was why he’d been sloppy enough to leave a print the first time. Then what? He’d just left to go to work, leaving Rania to bleed to death? Taking the knife with him? Why hadn’t he checked if she was alive or dead? Had someone interrupted his killing spree? It didn’t add up. But then, murder often didn’t. It was often messy and spontaneous. Nico paced back and forth across the command room, flipping from self-doubt—did the evidence really point to the truth?—to being convinced they had the right man.

Then there was Rania’s journal. What would that reveal?

He had Tyrell feverishly scanning the journal right now and had told him to come to him immediately if he found anything incriminating.

Perhaps there was solid proof in there that Karim was the murderer. Maybe Rania had written that she was afraid for her life, especially when he was on drugs. Perhaps she had been planning to leave him, as Herb had suggested. Perhaps he’d even tried to kill her before, and that was why she was secretly trying to leave him.

An image of Herb and Margie in his house yesterday appeared in his mind. Nico still wasn’t one hundred percent convinced that Herb was telling him the truth.

Just because the man was in his seventies didn’t rule him out as a murderer. It was rare to find a senior citizen who was a killer, but it did happen. There was the famous serial killer Sam Little, who’d been arrested when he was seventy-two. Then there was the Granny Ripper, an elderly Russian woman who was declared mentally ill after she murdered several people in her building. And the old couple in their eighties from Missouri, who delighted in killing drifters who came onto their farm. And Herb was extremely fit for his age. Maybe he and Margie were in it together, like the Missouri couple. So no, Nico definitely wasn’t ruling him out.

There was a knock on the open command room door and First Class Constable Gorman stepped in, a grim look on his face.

“What?” Nico asked, but he was already dreading Gorman’s answer.

“Floyd seems to have gone AWOL.”

“What does that mean?” Nico snapped.

“His boss reported that he didn’t turn up for work this morning. So I took it on myself to take a drive past his house. His flat mate confirmed that Floyd got in his car and drove away yesterday afternoon, and he hasn’t seen him since.”

“Shit.” Nico began to pace again. Now Floyd was missing. By this stage, he could already be on the mainland. “Get an Australia-wide APB out on him, with instructions to arrest him if they see him,” he commanded. There were lots of reasons for people caught up in a murder investigation to run, but most of them weren’t good. Floyd could just be scared and had taken off. Or he could know something vital to the case. He could even be the killer, and Nico had let him slip through his fingers.

“On it, boss.” Just as Gorman stepped out of the room, he was nearly bowled over by First Class Constable Hickey as he burst in.

“They’ve just arrived, sir.” Nico didn’t need to ask who he was talking about. It was Karim. “They’re bringing him up to interview room three.”

“Right. Thanks.” Nico straightened his back. If Karim was here, Nico needed to concentrate on him for now, and leave Tyrell to hunt down Floyd. “Has he requested a lawyer?”

“Yes, sir.” Hickey gave a grimace of distaste, but the young constable would learn in time that even a criminal had rights, and lawyers were a necessary evil. A lawyer might try and stymie the interrogation, but Nico was good at keeping his cool, asking the right questions, and making sure he didn’t put the lawyer offside. Things needed to be done by the book. He absolutely hated it when a known criminal got off on some vague technicality when a cop became sloppy and let procedure slip in an attempt to get a confession, and he was determined not to let that happen.

Striding down the corridor, he cursed Floyd Hamilton one last time, then put him out of his mind. Perhaps, if Karim confessed, they wouldn’t need to track down Floyd after all.

* * *

Nico sat down at his desk, taking a sip of his coffee with a sigh of relief. Interrogations took it out of him. It was mentally draining, and he was glad it was over. For now. Although they didn’t have a confession from Karim, yet, Nico was hoping it’d come.

Karim had been distraught when they first brought him in. Spouting the same mantra he had the other night when he’d appeared at Nico’s house. “I’m innocent. I didn’t do it. I’m being framed.”

But they all knew Karim wasn’t innocent. Far from it. And soon, he’d admitted that Rania and he would sometimes fight. But didn’t every couple fight? When Nico pressed him, he revealed his drug habit was the reason he and Rania fought, because she wanted him to stop—just like Herb had suggested. Karim had already admitted he had a cocaine habit, but today, Nico delved more deeply into the reasons he used the drug.

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