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Tristan stilled for a moment, “He’s not here,” he muttered and gave me a quick, furious sideways look.
Thank God.
“Melina the cleaner?” I whispered.
“Gone.”
“Good.”
“Finished with the roll call?” Tristan growled.
“Yes. Sorry. What now?”
“Let me check the fireplace. Watch him. I’ll try to hold him, but my attention will be elsewhere.”
Tristan disappeared.
Shit. I glanced anxiously at Webster, and his bitter glare raised every hair follicle on my body. I’d never seen such antagonism. I swallowed.
Tristan reappeared, and I let out a sharp breath with relief.
“There’s nothing there. The box has gone,” he said.
“Gone? The box?”
“What!” roared Webster, and he scrambled over to the fireplace, taking both Tristan and me by surprise.
“Oh, no you don’t!” Tristan announced, and Webster was pinned back against the wall.
“No,” he cried out. “What have you done with it, you bitch?” he screamed and tried to clamber to his feet. His eyes blazed with incandescent rage, and I felt a shudder run through me.
“No chance, matey,” Tristan said. Webster’s knees buckled, and he was on the floor once more.
“No!” he raged. “Let me go!”
I quailed under his vicious glare.
“They’ll kill me. Don’t you understand? You stupid, fucking bitch.”
Webster’s head bounced off the wall.
“Mind your language, you fucker,” Tristan shouted. “Now, Beauchamp, ask him who hit me?”
“Okay.” I blew out a breath. “Whatever you’re looking for, it’s not here,” I said to Webster. “It must have gone long ago. Tristan wants to know who hit him.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Webster gazed at me with malice.
“It wasn’t him, remember? He took the rap for it,” said Tristan.
“The ghost. Tristan Fairfax. He wants to know who killed him. He knows it wasn’t you.”
Tristan vanished again, and I knew he was back in Webster’s headspace. He reappeared. “It’s Bluey. Some bloke called Bluey. We need a surname. Something. Ask him.”
“Who’s Bluey?” I asked.
Webster sat back, terror widening his eyes. “How—” He stopped dumbfounded.
“We need his real name, Beauchamp. Or his full name, whatever.”