Lytton’s mind reeled, overwhelmed by this latest shock. He stared, incredulous.

“You?”

It was as much as he managed before something very hard, travelling very fast, hit the back of his skull. The ceiling cracked open above him in a shower of light and sparks swiftly followed by intense pain, a sense of falling, and darkness.

130

Dmitry stood over the inert body of Matthew Lytton, the baton in his hand. He was breathing hard.

Myshka stood up, unfolding herself like a model. She strolled over with an exaggerated sway, assured and back in control. Then she took hold of Dmitry’s face again and, when he continued to stare down at the man on the floor, she kissed him hard on the mouth.

He reared back, eyes a little wild.

“Don’t!”

Myshka simply smiled at him.

“Is time,” she said.

131

Kelly jabbed a finger onto the call button again, eyes flicking between the floor indicators above each of the two lifts. For a building that only had five storeys it seemed to take forever for the damn things to arrive.

She had flipped a mental coin and chosen to go down to the office first instead of up to the private box. A mistake, she acknowledged. The office door was locked and she heard no signs of movement inside.

Of course there were no guarantees that Lytton was even in the building but it was somewhere to start. And besides, her disguise only worked in here. As soon as she went outside her waitress garb would make her stand out.

The lift indicator on the right rose slowly from the ground floor and reached her level. The doors opened and she had taken half a step towards the opening before she recognised the man inside.

“Ray!”

“Hello Kelly love,” McCarron said giving her a weary smile. He was leaning against the back wall looking dog tired. He took in her change of attire, the tray and the concealing make-up in a single brief survey. “You’ve made yourself at home I see.”

She moved into the lift and the doors slid closed behind her. “How did you get in?”

“As Matthew Lytton’s mythical guest. I suppose I don’t need to ask you the same.”

Kelly lifted the tray. “I’m fulfilling his mythical request for coffee,” she said.

“Where at?”

“Ah, well that’s more tricky. He’s supposed to be either in his office or he’s got a private box on the top floor. I struck out on the office so I’m giving the box a whirl.”

“And when you find him?”

“I’ll pour his coffee and ask him if he killed his wife.”

“What if he doesn’t want to answer?”

“Well then he won’t get any mints.”

McCarron gave a harrumph that almost made it to laughter. The lift reached its designated floor and stopped. The doors opened at a leisurely pace. Kelly was through them almost before the gap was wide enough and would have hurried along the corridor to the boxes had she not realised McCarron was still unable to move quickly. She paused, masking her impatience as she waited for him to catch up.

But as her gaze swept almost idly across the area surrounding her she froze.

“Stop,” she said in a low urgent voice. McCarron had worked enough crime scenes to respond instantly to the tone as much as anything else.

“What is it?”

Kelly shifted her grip on the tray and pointed, eyes fixed on the floor. “Cast-off,” she said.

There was a small side table with an arrangement of flowers on it against the wall a little further along. She carefully stretched across to deposit the tray. Unencumbered, she checked the area around her feet before crouching to inspect the blood drop as closely as she could.

“Still liquid,” she said over her shoulder, keeping her voice hushed. Kelly knew as well as anyone that blood clotted in minutes. For it not to have done so meant whoever left this trail was close by.

She glanced both ways, wary, then widened her gaze, found a second droplet and a third stretching away along the polished floor. They were elongated ovals with a distinct tail at one end like a comet. The tail was at the front. It would have dropped from the wound and hit the ground at an angle, breaking the surface tension that had held it spherical in freefall.

“Which way are they headed?” McCarron asked from above her.

Kelly just pointed, back towards the lifts. From her vantage point she could see the trail stopped neatly by the doors to the second lift. She remembered pressing buttons for both. If the wrong one had stopped, the chances were she could have been faced with the unknown victim—or assailant.

She rose, stepped back carefully and summoned the lift again. It arrived quickly but was empty when it arrived except for more blood. Stationary cast-off this time, the drops circular, almost 20mm in diameter but with a crown pattern around the edges that told Kelly they’d fallen from a height.

“Whoever it was, they were either still walking or being carried, and they were leaking steadily,” she murmured.

“Could just be a nosebleed,” McCarron said quietly behind her. “You know how they can gush.” But he kept still so as not to contaminate possible evidence, she noticed, and his words lacked a certain conviction.

Kelly frowned, remembering the layout from Lytton’s guided tour. “The private boxes each have their own bathroom,” she said. “If somebody had a sudden nosebleed surely they’d head for one of those rather than drip all over the building?”

“Not if it was staff rather than guests.” McCarron gave a one-shoulder shrug and offered her a worn out smile. “Just playing devil’s advocate, Kelly love.”

She didn’t respond to that, backtracking to follow the blood trail upstream towards its source. She found it in the doorway to one of the boxes. It did not altogether surprise her to realise it was the one that had been assigned to Lytton and Warwick.

They hugged the wall outside the box. There were several drops of blood clustered on the smooth floor surface near the handle side where someone might have paused to shut or lock the door before moving off along the corridor. Kelly unbuttoned the waistcoat that formed part of her borrowed uniform and wrapped her hand in the material before reaching for the doorknob.

Just before she got there, McCarron stayed her arm.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he whispered.

“No, but if I hand it over to the cops at this stage who knows what the hell will happen,” she whispered back.