The man in front of her was a killer. His corporate bio said he was a senior vice president of accounts Europe at Bloom International but Fros knew he was more than that. He was a killer.
Fros had zero doubt about that. In fairness, every single person was a killer – a potential one – until the right circumstances came along. But this man may have already killed. His posture, his expression, and his smell all told her he went through life with the same arrogance she had sensed on some of her victims – the killers.
“So, what can I do for you, Fros?” the killer said and took a sip from his cup of coffee. He’d offered her one, too. Fros had refused.
“You can tell me about Vinita Damani,” she said. “Her family. Anything you remember about them.”
Jasper Collins looked her up and down with a total absence of any compunction or even the slightest attempt to be surreptitious.
“You know, it’s funny – it’s the twenty-first century and we’ve got all that feminism and equality, but you’d never think of a private detective as a woman.”
“And yet we exist,” Fros said more dryly than she wanted. If Jasper Collins could see inside her head, he’d speed the interview up. He was a tall, well-toned man and he was an arrogant man – arrogant enough to have committed a murder. And Fros was not getting less hungry. “The Damanis, please.”
Jasper narrowed his eyes at her for a second and sipped some more coffee.
“I didn’t really know them that well. Yeah, I know, Vinita and I have been colleagues for about ten years but just because you work with someone doesn’t mean you get to be friends with them.”
“You were married to her sister,” Fros pointed out.
“So?” he shrugged. “It’s not like we lived all together as a big happy family. We had our own life, and Vinita and her husband had theirs. We got together occasionally and that was it.”
“Were the sisters close?”
“As close as any two sisters, I guess. I’m an only child so I don’t really know what’s normal and what’s not. They talked on the phone often. Went out to lunch from time to time. This sort of thing.”
“Okay. What was Vinita like here, at work?”
“Oh, she was a rare jewel,” Jasper said and a spark lit up in his eyes. “That woman managed to single-handedly win us an account with the Saudi ministry of natural resources. Do you know how much those people pay for their public relations? Well, I can’t tell you but it’s a lot. And Vinita got that for us despite really stiff competition. The bosses were very happy.”
“So she liked her work?” Fros suppressed the twitch her nose wanted to perform in response to the change in Jasper’s smell from ordinary greed to a general thirst for more of everything. It smelled like almonds. Almonds in a thick caramel coat.
“She loved her work. That’s what made her so good.” Jasper hesitated for a split second before looking up at her. “I know how this will sound since Vinita had a family but I think her work was the most important thing in her life. Sure, she loved her husband and her daughter but I believe she was a work-above-all sort of person.”
Fros was curios despite herself and the hunger, which was digging a deeper hole in her belly because apparently this was possible. A slight shiver down her spine made a quiet alarm bell start ringing in her ears. She was getting close to the stage where transformation could happen at any time, regardless of her wishes.
“How do you think it would sound?” she asked.
The man in front of her grinned, which completely transformed his face into that of the next-door neighbour who goes through life enjoying every second of it. The smell, however, did not change.
“Come on,” he said. “We’ve come a long way but not long enough. It’s still considered bad manners to say that someone – especially a woman – cares more about their job than their family. It sounds wrong.”
“I don’t care about people’s reputations, Jasper. I care about their actions, especially when they end in someone else’s death. Or disappearance,” she added.
“Yes, that little girl.” He nodded. “That’s really horrible. Do you have any leads?”
“No.” And they weren’t getting any from Jasper, either. Besides his copious arrogance, he sounded genuinely curious and devoid of any secret knowledge about little Meena Damani. And he still exuded the almond smell of those with overwhelming lust for life. Not an ounce of guilt or fear.
“Maybe some other member of the family took her in,” Jasper said suddenly. He was no longer grinning. “With her mother always busy and her dad working all day, too.” Now he grinned again but he didn’t put his heart into it. “I’m joking, of course.”
“Are you?” Fros said sweetly. Sparkly blue eyes and a sense of humour. Jasper Collins surely had success among the ladies.
“I’m sorry. I thought it might lighten the mood.”
“Thank you for your effort,” she said and took out a business card from the stack she carried in the pockets of all her jackets. “If you remember anything else, please call me. Any time is fine.”
“Evil doesn’t sleep and neither does good,” Jasper murmured as he took the card.
“Right.”
“Do you like your job?” he asked, causing a tiny little shock. The people who Fros, Tom and the rest of the firm interviewed rarely if ever expressed any counter-interest in their interviewers. They knew the rules – the detective asked the questions and you answered them. But not this man.
“I do,” Fros said, bracing for traps.
“Do you?” Jasper insisted, leaning forwards across his desk.
“Yes. Very much,” Fros said slowly. “And the reason you are asking is?”
Jasper narrowed his eyes at her again, suspicion lacing his caramel smell with burning acid. The grin had gone without a trace.
“Because you look like someone who wants to die. You look like my brother before he hanged himself. He was sixteen.”
The house stank of paint from a mile off. Tal and Tony had finished the kitchen two days ago and had suggested they continue with other rooms. Fros had politely but firmly refused after thanking them as profusely as she could manage without it looking too artificial. Her kitchen stank. She could spend no more than a few minutes in it. And the weather had been windless in the past couple of days because insult likes injury.
Today, however, the stink was mixed with something else – dairy.
“Tony? What are you doing here?”
The deputy CFO of Fang in Fang was sitting on the threshold of the gate to Fros’s back yard, radiating anxiety.
“I messed up,” he said, looking up at her like a puppy – a puppy that’s chewed up its master’s favourite pair of shoes. “I wanted to tell you first. I wanted you to know. I didn’t want to have any secrets from you.”
“That’s… nice,” Fros managed. It wasn’t just anxiety, there was also guilt and embarrassment. “But I think there’s nothing wrong with a secret or two. You know, we all have them.”
“I lost ten thousand pounds,” Tony blurted out and shifted as if the threshold wasn’t particularly comfortable. It really wasn’t but he didn’t stand up.
“Of company money?” Fros asked as calmly as she could.
“No! No, no, my money.” A small wave of relief washed up against the coast of anxiety and embarrassment. “But I thought, if I didn’t tell you and you found out from Tal because of course he would tell you the first chance he gets, you’d think I’m an idiot and you’ll fire me, and I really like working at Fang in Fang, Fros. Really! Everyone is so great at your company and Julianne is the best. I should’ve done it sooner, leave my old job, that is.” He took a breath. “So that’s what I wanted you to know.”
Fros almost moved to sit next to her crestfallen employee but suddenly his smell changed. He no longer smelled of food. He smelled like food. Fros froze.
“Tony, I don’t care what you do with your money. I’m sorry you lost it but as long as you don’t gamble with company money it’s all right by me.” There was no bitterness descending into her mouth and no heat behind her eyes but Fros nevertheless tried to move her lips as little as possible and not look at Tony. “Now, if you’ll excuse me I really have to—”
“I didn’t gamble,” Tony said and this time stood up, making things worse for Fros’s nose. “I bought cryptocurrency. And it lost half of its value in a day. I mean, I know these things happen and maybe I should just wait it all out. Or buy more, like Buffett says,” Tony murmured, more to himself now.
To Fros, this sounded very much like gambling but it wasn’t safe to point that fact out right now. Tony was in an unstable state. He might start justifying his actions and Fros didn’t trust herself she could handle this without a reaction.
“I’m sorry you lost your money, Tony,” she repeated. “Maybe the price of will rise again. That happens often on markets, doesn’t it?” Fros had no idea what happened often on markets but Tony’s smell was intruding on her sinuses, sending sparks of tension along her spine. It was beginning to get itchy. “I really need to go. I have something urgent to do,” she said and tried to pass by him and enter her house.
“Yes, of course. Sorry I came without calling first. And, you know, thanks for listening. I think I just wanted to tell someone and I don’t exactly have a lot of friends, so…”
The anxiety had subsided. The embarrassment was still strong but the guilt was weaker, too. Only Fros could hardly notice any of these because Tony smelled so deliciously fresh and there was so much flesh on him, and if he didn’t have any friends maybe he didn’t have family either.
“Bye, Tony, I’ll see you at the office,” Fros said through gritted teeth and a growing itch in her spine. “And thanks for the kitchen.” With that she slipped across the back yard and unlocked the kitchen door as quickly as she could, without turning back.
“No problem, it was a pleasure,” he called after her.
The door opened, Fros walked through, slammed it and leaned on it, fully aware this looked like an old movie cliché but equally aware that there was no one to see it. The cool wood of the door helped with the itch. It wouldn’t help for long, however. Fros had to do something about it and soon.
“Soon” turned out to be half an hour later, when, after a lot of pacing around the kitchen, a quick Google search and a phone call, Fros left the house as though she was on fire and took off in her car as though eager to share the fire with the world.
The house was smooth, more angular than most houses, and quiet. A small sports BMW was parked in the drive. Fros parked next to it and got out a lot more slowly than she’d got in.
The lawn in front of the house was cut meticulously and shone in bright spring green. The neighbouring houses were invisible thanks to a tall hedge, also meticulously cut to a perfect rectangle. The air smelled of grass, exhaust fumes, and peace. Fros filled her lungs with it, which didn’t help at all, and walked to the door.
He answered on the first knock.
“Hello again,” Jasper said and waited.
Fros rammed into him so hard her teeth smashed against her lips and presumably so did his. She heard the door slam and the sound echoed in her head but not for long because a moment later her feet left the ground. Jasper carried her quickly up the stairs and into what was clearly a bedroom from the passing glance Fros allowed herself before closing her eyes again. Not a word was spoken until much later.
“Why did your brother hang himself?” Fros said. It was much later, she was exhausted and the call of hunger that had dug that bottomless pit in her belly was muted. Just like it had before, in the times Fros forbade herself to think about right now.
“Really?” Jasper asked and propped himself up on an elbow to look at her.
“Really what?”
“First you question me, then you seduce me and now you want to know about my brother?”
“You said I looked like him.” This was a mistake. She should have left immediately after they were done. Instead, she had initiated a conversation she did not want to have. “Never mind, I have to go anyway.”
Jasper’s hand shot out and gently but firmly clasped her arm. Fros considered shaking him off and punching him in the face but decided on a third course of action, which was waiting to see what happened next.
What happened next was that the man she had realised was a killer the moment she had laid eyes on him slid over her, pinning her legs down with his. His free hand pulled down the blanket covering Fros and the tips of his fingers traced her right collarbone. Then the left one.
“He was depressed,” Jasper murmured. His smell had not changed one little bit when she had brought up his brother. No sour hint of sorrow, no spicy tang of emotional pain of any sort, just the caramelized almonds of an insatiable thirst for everything life could offer.
“That I kind of gathered,” Fros said and slid her own hand across Jasper’s chest. “But I’m not depressed.”
“I can see that.” He nuzzled the side of her neck, solidifying her decision.
“But I really have to go now,” she said and pushed against him gently.
“So that’s it? You come here, make love to me and just leave?”
“Is this a problem for you?” Fros asked. Jasper wasn’t moving and that was beginning to be a problem for her.
“Maybe,” he said and lowered himself over her. “Maybe I’d like you to stay a while longer.”
He had already proven he could be fast but Fros wasn’t slow either. She pushed into the bed, her hand snaked its way down his body and grabbed the evidence that pointed to the fact Jasper was speaking the truth. He really wanted her to stay.
“I can’t stay,” Fros said politely. “And if you continue to stop me from leaving I will twist and pull, and you will bleed to death in minutes. I’m stronger than I look.”
“I can see that,” Jasper said carefully after a momentary pause. He raised his free hand in surrender and then, slowly, lifted his weight off her. Fros let go of his surprisingly resilient erection, got out of the bed and began getting dressed with her back turned to Jasper.
“He hanged himself because he couldn’t handle the fact people were killing the planet and nobody cared about it.”
Fros stopped halfway through zipping up her jeans and turned.
“What?”
“Colin was concerned about the environment that we were destroying and he got depressed that nobody else cared about it.”
Fros picked up her bra.
“There are millions of people who care. Greenpeace, WWF, all the new green groups that have been popping up everywhere.”
Jasper shook his head.
“Not enough, according to Colin. They weren’t doing enough.” Now his smell began to change, the almonds and caramel infused with a trace of dust and old books, the perfume of sadness.
Fros clasped her bra and pulled her sweater over her head.
“So he took himself out of the picture to save the planet?” she asked.
Jasper, who’d been staring at the creased and crumpled bed sheet, now looked up at her. Then he nodded. The smell of old books intensified.
“I’m sorry,” Fros said, still for a moment before she pulled her boots on. “I really am.”
Jasper shrugged.
“There was nothing anyone could do to help.”
There never was, after a certain point. She remembered that from one of her lecturers in university during her second time as a student. There were some mental conditions with a point of no return and once that point had been passed, there was nothing anyone could do except incarcerate the patient to keep them alive. “But is that the kind of life you would wish on anyone?” the lecturer had asked rhetorically. Fros didn’t think so.
“I really do have to go,” she said, tossing her hair back from her face as embarrassment began to seep into the void previously occupied by blind lust.
“Okay.” He got out of the bed, forewent wrapping a sheet or a towel around himself, which scored him a couple of respect points, and walked her down the stairs and to the door.
“So I’ll see you?” Jasper asked and caressed her cheek.
To her surprise, Fros did not draw back. To her further surprise she did not say “No” as she’d planned.
“Maybe,” she said and then, to her horror, she leaned in and kissed him goodbye.
“You know where to find me,” Jasper said and waited at the door until she reached her car. Fros didn’t look back. She was busy watching where she was going, because her vision was blurry with tears of fury. Embarrassment and guilt were the fuel making it burn high and mighty.