Inspector Rames

Chapter 5

Alex and I travelled back to the station under a cloud of confusion. As soon as we'd reached our chilled office, I produced my tabphone. "Alex, look at the Xplora pages for the Castle-Ackermans. See if any of them are friends with that girl. I'll take the rest of the national profiles."

Jason Castle-Ackerman was their youngest child, so I started with him as I sat down. Eighteen. A student at Socrico University and a part-time employee at Ackerman Electronics.

Then there was Lynn Castle-Ackerman. Twenty. An employee at Castle Robotics.

I looked again. Yes, that was everything in the status category.

Putting my tabphone down, I glanced across the office at Alex. "Didn't Lynn tell us she's a student at Socrico University?"

"Yeah. She isn't?"

"Not as far as I can see. But Jason is."

"Maybe such a famous family likes to pretend Lynn was clever enough, too. I've identified that girl: Bryony Gold. I'll send you the Xplora link."

His message appeared on my screen a second later, and I followed the link he'd provided. The Xplora page definitely belonged to the girl who'd barged into the Castle-Ackerman residence. Bryony Gold glowered at the camera in her profile picture, her rosy curls tumbling around her face. I glanced over the basic information she'd provided. Eighteen. Worked at Ryker's Repairs.

"She's Jason Castle-Ackerman's girlfriend," Alex said as I read it.

"That explains why she has automatic access to the flat, then."

But little else. If she worked at Ryker's Repairs, had she been there last night?

We spent hours looking through every detail on the national profiles and Xplora pages. Next door, tabphones buzzed, officers murmured, and PRBs squawked. A growing need for caffeine kicked in, but I couldn't bring myself to stop urgently scouring reams of information for something useful. Something to clarify what had happened to Zoe Ackerman last night.

As the afternoon slipped away, another message arrived on my tabphone. It was from Cassia, containing the preliminary post-mortem report. She'd obviously put everything else on hold for me, but even so, she'd worked fast.

It was long, and I skim-read, voicing just a handful of parts so that Alex was aware of them. "Cassia's still standing by the cause of death and rough timing she gave us earlier."

"Dixon told me she's your older sister," he said.

"Yes -- we look nothing alike, do we?" I carried on reading. "Her stomach contents match up with having a meal at the Castle-Ackerman flat not long before she died... Oh, she'd had a recent caesarean section."

"When she had Harley."

"Yes." I looked up, the cogs in my mind spinning. "That could have had an impact on her relationship with Maxx, because you're not supposed to have sex for at least six weeks afterwards. Plus, during the third trimester, it would have been difficult. So their lives might have been lacking in that department for quite a while."

Alex didn't ask how I was so well-informed on the matter -- not with a doctor (of sorts) for a sister. He only raised his eyebrows. "That might have raised tensions. Or even been a topic for their argument?"

I put my tabphone down. "It could well have been. I'd like to have a proper talk with Ryker and see if he changes his mind about not seeing Zoe. She might have gone to him for support, at least, if times were tough with Maxx."

"I'll track him."

All members of the police force had tabphone-tracking software on their devices, and we were within our rights to use it on whoever we liked. It didn't take long for Alex to discover Ryker's location.