Inspector Rames

Chapter 38

"I might have forgotten," I said as we stood in the doorway of Socrico's hottest pub, "that it's a Friday night."

The Silver Star was packed with people talking, laughing, and shouting at each other. Everything was lit up in electric blue -- including the glass bar in the centre. It was a sprawling three-hundred-and-sixty-degree masterpiece so large that there was a robotic chef inside the pillar in the middle. Two human and two robot bartenders were working around it, but customers could also order using the touchglass surfaces on their own tables. Some of them were doing neither, and instead just dancing to the electric music in the limited walking space.

"I don't think there's a free table," Alex said.

"There probably is upstairs," I replied. "Have a look while I order. Do you want your usual?"

"Yes, please."

Alex moved through the crowd towards the glass staircase at the back of the room, and I fought my way to the bar. Gem Robinson, her hair dyed peach today, was one of the humans working behind it. She served a cocktail jug to a group of young grinders and glanced over her shoulder as they paid. Her eyes landed on me and lit up.

The grinders took their jug, and she hurried over with a grin. "Amber! You haven't been in for ages!"

Gazes turned our way at the sound of my name. I dipped my head, letting my dark hair fall across my face like a curtain. "When I'm not on duty, I've been trying to keep a low profile."

"Oh! Sorry." Her excited smile stayed. "Are you here with the others?"

"Just Alex."

"Ooh! Is it a date? But you're still dressed for work!" She picked up two glasses from beneath the counter and started preparing our usual drinks. A lime crusher for Alex. Just water for me.

"It's a date and a work enquiry. I know this place is usually packed, but you pay a lot of attention to your customers. I was wondering if you could confirm what time someone left last night? She's called Ri--"

"Janet Temple? The wife of the guy who died at Socrico University? Yeah, it's all over Xplora. You're finally doing the Trials with Alex!" Gem pushed our drinks across the counter. "You're eating as well, right?"

Shock almost paralysed me. "Janet was here? When, exactly?"

"Uh, kind of early in the evening. I noticed her just after seven, and she'd left before nine. She was with some other guy, but I don't think he was her husband. He looked a bit younger than the picture in the news article, and I think his hair was different. Brown? Plus, he wasn't nearly as good-looking as Lonn Temple."

Hell. I tried not to dwell on the fact that the man Gem found attractive was thirty years older than her. And dead. "Janet was definitely out of here before nine?"

"Yeah." Gem closed her eyes. "Maybe even half eight."

"What about a woman called Riannon Sotello? Do you know her?"

Still with her eyes shut as she consulted her memories, Gem shook her head. "I don't recognise the name."

I found Riannon's Xplora profile on my tabphone. "What about her face?"

Gem leaned over the counter and had a good, long look at my screen. "Oh! Yeah, she was in here last night. Also with a man. He looked older than her."

"Can you remember roughly what time they came and went?"

"They might have come just before Janet had left, or not long after she'd gone. They left much later. Maybe eleven?"

At least that matched up. I pocketed my tabphone. "Thank you."