"Good afternoon," my coffee machine said the next morning. "What would you like me to do today?"

"Make coffee."

"I can set a reminder for you," it said. "Let me check: I should set a reminder to 'Make coffee.' Is that correct?"

"No. Make me a coffee now."

"The reminder has been set."

"No!" I slammed my fist into the kitchen counter. "I need coffee. You're the worst Christmas present I've ever been given!"

The machine was a sleek, black and silver half-moon, like a little creature from outer space that was curling up in self-defence. And no wonder, when it lived with me!

"Let me check," it replied. "I should set a reminder to 'Buy Christmas present.' When would you like this reminder to be set?"

I growled and hit the switch. Whoever had decided that the machines should do more than just make coffee was an idiot.

My kitchen didn't usually have anything high-tech in it -- or anything much at all. It was a narrow room like a galley, lined with counters and glass cupboards. Although there was just enough space at the far end for a small table, I'd clogged it up with a punch bag instead.

A glance at my tabphone told me that I still had time to visit Coffee Glitch and caffeinate my annoyance, so I grabbed my jacket and entered another bout of rain.

My trip put me behind Alex, who was already in our office when I arrived at the police station. He was wearing a dark suit, his appearance polished except for the five o'clock shadow still shading his jaw.

"Good morning." His gaze darted to my drink. "That coffee looks much too nice to have come from here."

I supposed it was the moving snowflakes on the cup that gave it away. "So you've already discovered the terrors of the station's coffee machine? It's from a proper shop."

Putting the cup on my desk, I fished a half-eaten chocolate bar out of my pocket. As I shoved the rest in my mouth, Alex grinned. "How many of those do you have left now?"

"Never you mind," I said when I'd finished chewing, because I didn't want him to know that I'd already eaten three. I hadn't been able to help myself. "And you can stop sitting there looking so smug. We're going straight back out in the rain to Ryker's Repairs."

That wiped the grin off his face.

***

We went to Terra Road on foot, Alex snug beneath his hood and me freezing as my wet hair stuck to the back of my neck.

Ryker's workshop was open again, so we ascended to the lowest metal walkway and strolled straight in without preamble. It was so dark that we immediately had to stop and wait for our eyes to adjust.

Green holograms were the only things I could see at first. They floated abstractly around the room, shaped like new tabphone models or small kitchen appliances. Then steel tables slowly emerged from the gloom. I spotted wires crawling across the floor, then finally the location of all four walls in close proximity to each other.

Faint synth-rock music drifted from the back of the room, where Ryker James was wearing a welding mask as he fiddled with a small drone. Bryony Gold was standing beside him in a smeared apron, observing and chewing gum. A robot was pottering about nearby with a bottle of oil.

Alex rapped his knuckles on the nearest table, and the sound echoed around the room. Ryker flinched and looked up, turning the welder off. He lifted his mask onto his head and stared at us. Bryony retreated through a door in the back. The robot dropped the bottle.

Ryker glared at it. "Indium!"

I tucked my hands in my pockets. "Got five minutes?"

"Not really," Ryker said, but he came over anyway, stripping his gloves off. "Is this about Zoe?"

"Yes, sir. We wanted to ask you some more questions yesterday afternoon, but you'd closed up."

"I went home early. After what happened to Zoe, I found it hard to work."

"You didn't go home," Alex said. "You went to Victory Casino."

Ryker stilled, staring at him. "How do you know that?"

"We tracked you," I said. "And we know you were arrested there a few years ago. It seems to be the place you haunt. Did you really go home on Monday night, or were you there?"

He lowered his gaze. "I was there."

"Why didn't you tell us?" Alex asked. "It left you without an alibi."

"Because I wish to God I hadn't been there! I wish I didn't spend every penny I earn in that place." He took his welding mask off properly and glared at it. "I work to gamble."

"You were embarrassed."

"If you want to put it bluntly." Ryker transferred his glare to Alex. "And lying didn't leave me any worse off, because no one from Victory Casino will alibi me. They don't like the police."

Indium the robot finished mopping up the spilt oil and walked into a table. A pile of screws fell off.

Ryker sighed. "Bryony! Can you come out here and help, please?"

Bryony emerged from the back room, refusing to make eye contact with us.

"Did you lie about Zoe, too?" I asked. "Had you been seeing each other?"

"No," Ryker said. "I don't know what her intentions were when she tried to find me -- but she probably did believe I was in here. I didn't go to the casino on Monday nights when we were together. I stayed here late, trying to get extra work done."

"You're sure she wasn't angling to get back with you?"

Ryker's jaw tightened. "No. She and Maxx were in love, for God's sake."

"They weren't," Bryony said.

All eyes went to her.

She straightened up from the floor and dumped a handful of screws on the table. Her gaze was hard as it locked with mine. "Maxx didn't love Zoe. He loved me."

You could have heard a screw drop.

"He was having an affair with you?" I said eventually.

Bryony raised her chin. "Yes. I treated him better than Zoe. No nagging, no complications, no ruining his reputation..."

"What about Jason?" Alex frowned at her. "According to Xplora, you're his girlfriend."

She shrugged one shoulder. "And?"

Ryker's face had morphed into a scowl. "I had no idea..."

"Does that make you angry for her?" I asked. Despite my wet hair, sweat trickled down the back of my neck. "Are you angry she was cheated on? Or did you know already?"

"No," he growled. "Whatever you're trying to imply, I would never have taken Zoe back. Once shocked, twice shy. Are you done now?"

"Yes. But I'd like to borrow your employee."

***

Alex tracked Maxx Ackerman to see if he was home and pinpointed his location at the main Castle-Ackerman duplex instead. Getting there took longer this time around, because there was no room on the first tram we tried to catch, and the next one was so full that it was standing room only. Alex, Bryony, and I squashed in between students with spinning tattoos and late commuters until we eventually reached the swanky neighbourhood of squid-worm buildings.

We entered the Castle-Ackermans' skyscraper and rode a lift to the top floor, where Bryony let us into the duplex. She still had an arrogant tilt to her chin.

"What was your relationship with Zoe?" I asked as we entered the hallway.

"There wasn't one." Bryony chewed her gum viciously. "She didn't approve of me. I'm too common for this family."

"Oh, Bryony," someone said sweetly, "that's not true."

Jason emerged from the nearest doorway, wearing a winning smile.

Bryony scowled at him. "It is."

He reached us and slid an arm around her waist. Then he looked at me, and the smile dimmed. "Inspector...what was it?"

"Rames."

"Inspector Rames, perhaps you could leave my girlfriend alone? She has nothing to do with this."

Bryony's scowl only deepened, and she chomped so hard on her gum that I thought she might dislocate her jaw.

"Okay," I said. "I'll question you. Where were you on Monday night between eight and ten?"

"I went to the gym."

"Your university's gym?"

"Yep." He smiled as if he was making a joke I didn't understand.

"Thanks. I'll check what time you scanned in and out."

"I don't scan. I just go in when someone opens the door."

Alex frowned. "Surely you can afford a membership."

"Yeah, but why bother when it's so easy to walk in?"

I rolled my eyes. Why is it that some people with all the money in the world try to get everything for free? "Did anyone see you there?"

"There was that guy I followed in, but I don't know who he was. He went off on his own, and I did my thing alone. Hardly anyone uses that gym. It's shit. But it's the closest."

"So you have no alibi." I turned to Bryony. "And you?"

"I was studying in my dorm."

The lift doors squeaked open at the end of the corridor to our right, and I turned. Daniel Castle stepped out and frowned at the doors as if he was deeply concerned for their health.

"I'll have to fix that," he said, presumably to himself. Then he looked up at us, his eyes shadowed. "I heard Bryony letting you in."

"Yes, sir. We'd like to speak with Maxx. Where is he?"

"The living room. I'll take you through."

Leaving Bryony and Jason behind, we followed Daniel to the open-plan living room. The fake fireplace had been turned on, and hologram photographs of the family had appeared across the mantlepiece. I glanced over them, searching for clues to hidden unhappiness between Maxx and Zoe. There was nothing. The pictures were old and had been chosen carefully so that they never appeared in a snap together. It seemed that the rest of the Castle-Ackerman family didn't want to acknowledge what their relationship had turned into.

Maxx was sitting beside his mother, talking quietly. Lynn was reading a hoverbook with a sensual cover on the opposite sofa. They all looked up, and Maxx scowled. "What are you doing here?"

Elena was marginally more tactful. "Inspector Rames, Sergeant Sullivan, we weren't expecting you back so soon."

"Some new information has come to light," I said, "which we'd like to talk about with Maxx. It might be better if we discussed it in private."

Elena's cold eyes turned colder. "No. You upset him last time, prying into matters that don't have any relevance. Whatever you want to say, you can say it in front of me. Perhaps you won't harass him with an audience."

"Right." I sat down.

"Inspector Rames was just talking to Bryony," Daniel said, his voice like honey as he tried to smooth things over.

"Bryony Gold-Digger?" Elena said frostily, arching an eyebrow.

An awkward silence fell over the room.

Daniel cleared his throat. "I'll call for tea."

He didn't say anything else, but a white-shelled robot brought a tray through half a minute later, laden with six mugs. It had obviously responded to an implant in Daniel's brain. A gigantic glass coffee table stood between our sofas, and it laid the tray down there, at the opposite end to Alex and me.

Maxx was in the best position to hand mugs to us, so he gave one to my sergeant and picked up mine. "What is it you want to bug me about this time?"

"Your affair with Bryony," I said.

His hand spasmed. The teacup dipped, and its contents spilled onto my jumper. I flinched and grabbed the china, tilting it the right way up. Thank God for the robot, which had given it to us at a drinkable temperature.

"I'm sorry." Maxx reeled back with wide eyes. "I never normally -- I mean, I -- "

"Was caught by surprise." I dumped the empty cup on the table. "You didn't think we'd find out."

"You twat!" Lynn leapt to her feet with the abruptness of a jack-in-a-box. "How could you have done that to Zoe?"

Maxx straightened his collar with shaking hands. "Bryony doesn't mean anything to me. She knows that. It's just that Zoe hadn't been up to anything for ages, and Bryony looks so much like -- "

Lynn squeezed past the table and stormed out.

Daniel got to his feet as well and started pacing, his jaw tight. "How long?"

"Five weeks." Maxx hung his head.

Daniel nodded, taking himself to the window and staring at the artificial garden scene. It struck me that he'd now been placed in an even stranger situation than when Maxx and Zoe had married -- because his precious daughter had been betrayed by a man who he was supposed to think of as his son.

Elena frowned at Maxx. "You know what I think of Bryony. And your behaviour. I thought your playboy ways were in the past."

"I'm sorry, Mother."

She scoffed bitterly.

"Did you see Bryony last night?" I asked.

"What?" He looked up. "After Zoe was murdered? Of course not! What kind of heartless bastard do you think I am? I loved Zoe!"

"You haven't been making a good case for that so far."

"I'm moving in here because I can't stand being in the flat without her. Mother said it would be for the best."

"Is Bryony what you and Zoe were arguing about on Monday night?" Alex asked.

"Yes." Maxx scrubbed a hand over his face. "She caught us kissing before we all sat down to eat. It wasn't my fault -- Bryony just threw herself at me, thinking we were alone and that I'd been missing her!"

"What a lovable man you are," I said dryly.

He glared. "How do you know about it, anyway?"

"Bryony told us. She thinks you're infatuated with her."

"I swear, she doesn't mean anything to me!"

"But someone does," Alex said. "You like having fun with Bryony because she looks like someone else. You almost said her name. Not Zoe -- they're polar opposites. So who does Bryony look like?"

Maxx closed his eyes. "Just a girl behind a bar. I don't even know her surname. I can't explain it, but every time I look at her, I feel something...something I've never felt before. But she won't give me the time of day."

"Good on her," I said. "So, if you were lusting after a bartender, I don't suppose you were ever jealous of Ryker?"

"Ryker? No. Well, maybe before we got married. Zoe and I had been in love since we were children." He looked at his mother uncertainly. "But she dated Ryker to convince herself otherwise. It didn't work. On the day of the wedding, she knew she couldn't go through with it. She came to me."

"Stupid girl," Elena said. "She led you astray."

Daniel turned sharply from the window. "Maxx is capable of making his own decisions."

Elena glared at him. He glared back.

I exchanged a look with Alex and stood up. "I think that's everything."

No one so much as glanced at us as we escaped the brewing domestic.

In the hallway, different shouting drifted from above, and sobbing bounced off the walls. Partway down, a door had been left open, and I looked in to see Lynn Castle-Ackerman. Strangely, the room was another reception space, only smaller. It was dark, and she was curled up on a sofa near the door. She was typing furiously on her tabphone.

My presence didn't attract her attention, but when Alex stopped behind me and blocked all light from the hallway, she looked up. She lowered her tabphone and gulped loudly.

"I'm sorry, Lynn." I leaned against the doorway in the knowledge that Alex would be able to see her over my head.

"I can't believe he betrayed Zoe." Her voice wavered. "She was my only sister and my best friend. Brothers aren't the same. They only give tough love. Or hurt!"

I wasn't going to defend Maxx, so we stood in silence for a moment.

"I told Jason," she added. "He's having it out with Bryony now."

That explained the racket. But the mention of her younger brother reminded me of something else. "You know, we looked at your national profile yesterday. You don't attend Socrico University. Why did you lie to us?"

She lowered her gaze. "I tell everyone that because I really wanted to go, but I was too stupid. Everyone expected me to get in. Mom and Dad were students there, and Maxx, and now Jason." Her lips wobbled. "And Zoe..."

"You were very close to her."

She nodded, her eyes filling again.

We left her to grieve.

The lift took us back down to the botanical lobby on the ground floor. The plants were sprinkled with frost like dust, and the mosaic walkways were tinted white. As we neared the end of the room, I shivered.

Alex frowned. "You have a talent for getting drenched. Maxx managed to tip the whole teacup over you."

I smiled wryly. "I just have a talent for attracting trouble."

Handsome sergeants drifting around outside train stations included.