Nymphaeales was as beautiful as he remembered it being the day before, and with the sun shining radiantly over Heliopolis as it almost always did, Laith felt he was stepping into a holiday resort, despite the weight of his business here. Afan Ayyash, Grove’s business partner and one of the executives of the club, was still on the premises, according to Ms. Verdi, and Laith was determined to interview him. But the man was also about to have his lunch, and apparently, Ayyash always dined in style.

So it was that Fleur Verdi, wearing the same immaculate white suit she had been wearing the day before, led Laith into the giant jewel-like structure that served as the main building of Nymphaeales, and for the third time this case Laith was able to peek behind the curtain and into the world of others, taking it all in with a healthy curiosity and a deep-seated hope to one day bring Warda here, if even for a meal. Though it might cost me half my month’s salary, he thought to himself.

They passed through the small lobby, and a receptionist seated at a moss-grown desk and dwarfed by two giant potted ferns smiled warmly at them, giving Fleur a nod. With the entire structure made of glass, even from within, Laith could see into various parts of the building, noticing a couple of lounges and the library before Fleur came to a halt in front of a sleek elevator shaped like a jewel cut into the marquise style. “This elevator is actually one large synthetic diamond,” Fleur told him, admiring it. “We had it made at one of the laboratories in Novus Atlantis and shipped here. It is their largest product to date, and one of a kind.”

She waved her Slate over the sensor and stepped into the compartment, motioning for Laith to follow. He’d never ridden a diamond elevator before, but there was a first time for everything, he supposed. How much did a synthetic diamond the size of an elevator cost? He didn’t really want to know.

“Mr. Ayyash is dining in Aquarius today,” she explained as she pressed a button and the elevator started going down. “It is one of our finest and most sought-after restaurants,” she explained. “He would very much appreciate it if you would join him for lunch.”

“That’s kind of him,” Laith replied, wondering what in the world made this restaurant so great. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to stick around for a full meal, though. He also wasn’t entirely sure that that was ethical – to enjoy a meal with a person of interest. “I just have a few questions for him, and then I’ll be off. Have you told him what this might be about?”

“Not quite,” Fleur admitted, crossing her arms. “He knows it has something to do with Ms. Grove, of course. She didn’t come into work today, and she hasn’t been responding to his attempts at contacting her. He suspects there must be something wrong.”

The elevator came to a smooth stop and whished open. Fleur stepped out, and Laith followed her through a long tube-like corridor. It took him a moment to realize they were underwater, and as they reached the entrance of Aquarius, their surroundings lost their darkness and took on a lighter tone, as if there were some source of illumination outside that lit up the water. He saw a small group of silver-scaled fish flitter through the water, disappearing out of sight almost as soon as they’d arrived.

Inside, Aquarius was a marvel. He realized now why they had had to walk through a tunnel to get to it – the underwater restaurant was located apart from the main building, off to on side so that its thick glass roofing could allow for guests to enjoy the sights above – and what sights they were! Schools of fish swam about above and around the restaurant, flashes of brilliant colours and beautiful creatures going about their lives. Long cables fashioned with glowing underwater lights lifted away from the roof of the restaurant and reached up, up, up towards the surface, where they attached at last to large, lily pad shaped solar panels floating atop the surface of the water. For a moment, it was all Laith could do to stand there and stare at this lovely scene, completely awe-struck.

“Detective?” Fleur Verdi said after a moment. Laith dragged his eyes away from the roof and back to her. “Please,” she said with a small smile. “Mr. Ayyash is right this way.”

As they walked over the black-tile floor, Laith watched the space around their footfalls light up with a bright blue glow. As soon as he lifted his foot, the glow would fade back into darkness. Pressure-activated bioluminescence? he wondered as he watched the same happening under Ms. Verdi’s shoes. Very cool.

Afan Ayyash was a heavy-set man with a particularly shiny bald head and a suit that probably cost more than Laith made in a month. He sat comfortably positioned in a polished wooden chair, leaning back, one leg folded over the other, reading something on a tablet and tapping his thick fingers on the glass surface of the dining table. As they approached him, Laith realized there were two couples in the restaurant, enjoying an early lunch within the exclusive bubble that was the Nymphaeales.

Clearly, he’d gotten into the wrong business. What would life be like for Warda and him if he was one of these people, making oodles of money to spend on a membership that could feed three families for a month? He shuddered at the thought and shook his head. As nice as this place was, he was perfectly content to be where he was now, in his cozy apartment in the Forest, making enough for them to live on and a little more to spare. He didn’t need more, and to want it seemed excessive. In fact, it almost seemed to go against much of what Heliopolis stood for. But then, theory and practice often diverged significantly.

“Mr. Ayyash,” Fleur said, catching the man’s attention. “This is Detective Alazraq, from the Heliopolis Police Department,” she introduced him.

“Ah, yes!” Ayyash said, reaching out to shake Laith’s hand. He had a firm grip, but his hand was cold. In fact, this whole restaurant was a bit on the cold side. “Please, sit down and join me, Detective. You’ll have to excuse me, but I’m on a bit of a time crunch, and I need to get some food in before my next meeting. What can I help you with?”

Laith took a seat as Ms. Verdi left the two of them alone, and it wasn’t a moment later that a server came by with a salmon fillet and roasted potato side for the businessman. “Would you like to order something to eat? It’s on me, of course.”

“No, thank you,” Laith said. As appetizing as his meal looked – and certainly halal, which was a must for him – Laith had a perfectly delicious lunch waiting for him in his office, courtesy of Warda’s gifted hands. “I’ll have a glass of water, though, if you don’t mind. I won’t be staying long. I just have a few questions for you concerning your business partner.”

“I thought as much,” Afan admitted with a sigh. “We were supposed to have a meeting earlier this morning, and when she didn’t show up, I knew something was wrong. What has she gotten herself into? If you’re here, then this must be serious enough to affect the company.”

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” Laith said, and for the second time, he broke the news of Grove’s death to yet another colleague. “Mr. Ayyash, your business partner Cassia Grove was found murdered in her home yesterday afternoon. I am the detective assigned to this case.”

To his credit, Afan Ayyash blanched a bit at the news, completely taken aback. “I’m sorry – did you say she was murdered? In her own home? How…?” He trailed off, setting his fork down with a clatter. “Do you know who did it?”

“We have a couple of leads,” Laith said, purposefully keeping his response vague as he watched the man’s reactions closely. So far, he wasn’t acting like a particularly guilty man, despite being the last person to see Cassia Grove alive. That we know of. “I wanted to ask you some questions about Ms. Grove, if you don’t mind. How would you describe her character?”

Afan rubbed the back of his neck, slightly pushing the plate of food away from himself. “Well, there is not much to say, really. We are business partners, so our relationship is purely professional. I have known Cassia was a good businesswoman from the first time we met. She had her head screwed on straight, and she always knew what she was doing. Very straightforward, too. I’ve always admired that about her. She didn’t mince her words; she said it like it was, and that is a great deal more than I can say for a lot of those so-called business yahoos running companies these days. She didn’t look at her bottom line; she looked at the company’s bottom line. A good businesswoman.”

“I see,” Laith said. Both Ayyash and Verdi seemed to have a professional respect for Cassia – he imagined that would be hard-won if she had an unpleasant personality to go along with the straightforwardness her business partner seemed to admire. “Would you say the two of you were friends?”

Mr. Ayyash tilted his head to one side, his skin retaining its paler pallor. “No, not quite,” he admitted. “Like I said, we have a purely professional relationship. In fact, I think she preferred it that way.”

“Yesterday afternoon, you and Ms. Grove had a meeting before she left the club,” Laith said. “Can you tell me how she was at the time of the meeting?”

“I can tell you how she was throughout the whole day,” he replied, straightening his navy suit jacket. “She was bothered by something, and it was obvious. She kept looking at her Slate and zoning out. She even stayed away from all of the guests. It wasn’t like her at all.” Laith raised a questioning brow at that final comment, and Mr. Ayyash quickly explained. “Cassia liked to check in on guests herself. She made rounds a few times a day, and it always took up a good chunk of her time. She would talk to them, sit with the more important guests for a while, and try to strengthen their emotional and personal bond with the club. I even think she enjoyed it. But yesterday, she did not speak to a single guest. It was completely out of character.

“When I asked her what was wrong, she told me it was a family matter – some relatives from back home were getting on her nerves about something or other, but she insisted it was not a big deal.” He brushed an invisible piece of lint off his trousers with a shake of his head. “It was evident to me that whatever it was that was bothering her, it was more important than she was letting on. But, like I said, we were not friends. I didn’t have any reason to get involved in her personal matters. So, I let it be and hoped that by the time our meeting rolled around, she wouldn’t be as distracted as she obviously was.”

“And was she?” Laith asked, picking up on the possibility of a new lead.

“No, to my relief, she was not,” Mr. Ayyash said, playing with the hem of the folded napkin on the table, his food probably cold by now. “If anything, she was back to her usual self. Whatever it was seemed to have been resolved. Business continued as usual. And that was the last time I saw Cassia. It’s such a shame, to think that she’s...” He trailed off, looking out at the ocean above with a troubled expression. “I can’t think of anyone who would despise her enough to want her dead.”

Laith decided to change his line of questioning. “Have you ever met Ms. Grove’s husband?” he asked.

“Ah, Mr. Lockwood,” Afan said, turning back to Laith. “Only one or two times, I think. He does not come here often. In fact, I have it on good authority that he has a membership in all of the other clubs on the Floats, but avoids Nymphaeales. I could never quite understand why that is.” He shook his head, crossing his arms. “The couple of times that I did see him, though, I had the distinct impression that he and Cassia were not… Well, that their marriage was not faring very well. But I do not know either of them well enough to know that for certain – it was only an impression based on a couple of meetings,” he added quickly.

Yes, Laith had gotten that very same impression very early on in the case. That Mr. Ayyash was seconding it meant that it wasn’t entirely Laith’s own bias or a conclusion he was clinging on to. There was most probably something not quite right about their marriage, and he wanted to know whether or not that had any bearing on Cassia Grove’s murder.

It seemed more and more likely that Aster Lockwood was the best suspect he had. The only thing standing in the way of that conclusion were the unknown fingerprints on the murder weapon…

☀️ ☀️ ☀️

The drive back to the Official Quarter led Laith back through the pleasant landscapes and vistas that Heliopolis had to offer, but he could hardly enjoy them. He was too busy swinging through theories in his mind.

If I assume that Lockwood killed his wife and ran off, it may explain his Slate being in the Ruins and his disappearance so close to the time of Cassia Grove’s murder. Laith could imagine Lockwood returning home, getting into some kind of heated argument with his wife, grabbing a knife from the kitchen and stabbing her in the back. He wouldn’t even need to use her Slate to get out of the house; he would simply use his own. He would need to check the logs on the door to see whose Slate had been used to open the front door at the time of the murder – something he was now downloading from PATET – and see if his theory held any water.

The matter of the fingerprints kept nagging at him, however. Whose fingerprints were they? Could they have been false prints – fakes, like the kind the [Robber Name] used when trying to steal various luxury vehicles? But why go through all that trouble if you’re going to make a run for it and escape the city limits, anyway? It didn’t make much sense.

Laith rubbed his eyes tiredly and checked the logs, the download now complete. He opened them, focusing on the entries starting from when Cassia Grove returned to her home in the Hills that day and beyond.

16:24 – Slate: Cassia Grove – E – U/L

16:37 – Slate: Cassia Grove – I – U/L

16:47 – Slate: Aster Lockwood – I – U

The records showed that Cassia Grove had unlocked the door externally – from the outside – and closed it shut behind her, setting off the automatic locking mechanism. About 13 minutes later, she unlocked the door from the inside – presumably to answer it and see who was outside, Laith supposed. It had to have been Aster Lockwood, because ten minutes later, his Slate was used to unlock the door from inside, and from there it was left open, which corroborated the fact that the emergency medical response team had not needed to break down the door or force unlock in order to enter the house and attempt to assist the victim.

Laith was beginning to think that Aster Lockwood had indeed killed his wife and managed to disappear before anyone could find him, leaving behind the fake fingerprints in order to throw the police off long enough for him to escape Heliopolis. He could be anywhere in the Ruins now.

Laith hated to think that the man had gotten away with murder. As his car rolled to a smooth stop at the front of the Heliopolis Police HQ, Laith checked to see if the Rinvestigator Captain Fox had requested for him had arrived yet.

R-Investigator 24955: Access granted. Awaiting instruction.

Thank God. At the very least, I can try to locate him before the day is through, Laith thought grimly as he made his way into the building.

It was time to go hunting in the Ruins.