Part 4: Boys Will Be Boys

The young man, blonde and relatively handsome, glanced up at the two detectives as they entered the office. Deep into a phone conversation, he gave them a nod then proceeded to get rid of the person on the other end of the receiver. After hanging up, he stood and offered them a hand. "Hi, I'm Josh. I'm glad you could come see me. You have some news about Sarah?"

Jen looked at Simon then back at Josh. "Yeah, we do." She paused and took a deep breath, but Simon spoke over her.

"Very few people that would come into work on a Sunday Mr. Simmons." He glanced about the almost-empty office with the hint of a smile. "You must be pretty dedicated."

Josh shrugged. "You have to be to get ahead around here. I mean, I'm a nobody."

Simon frowned. "A nobody? But you approved the shipping lease on behalf of the Premier. I'm sure there's very few nobodies that get a chance to do that." Jen glanced at him to try and figure out what he was trying to say, but as usual she couldn't read Simon's expressions.

"That was mainly Joy. She's kind of the favourite around here. Say she'll be working WITH the Premier soon." Josh's smile fell. "Wait, you guys didn't say where you were from."

Jen took this one. "Mr. Simmons, we're from homicide. We need you to come down and take part in a formal interview for us."

Josh gaped. "What? What's happened? Was it Sarah? Oh god, Sarah? Or Joy?"

Jen glanced at Simon, this time in the hope he'd bail her out, and he did. "It's both of them."

Josh had to sit down.

***

Kieran McPherson was a cold young man, that much Matt could determine from the look on his face when he was told that Joy Robinson was dead. He didn't seem too upset at all. In fact, he looked rather interested.

Duncan seemed enraged by this and was determined to find out why, but Matt simply found it interesting.

"So, Kieran, when did you and Joy finish?" Matt asked, talking before Duncan could lest the fiery detective take a small chunk out of the cocky young man sitting across from them. Despite his father's appearance, Kieran was your average well-educated type and didn't look too interested in taking over his father's business at all. And it clearly appeared that Duncan was not a fan of the private school type before them.

"What makes you think we finished?" He asked with a smug smile. Matt just shrugged. Kieran continued. "We finished a week ago. She was getting, oh, what's the word, possessive." He leant back in his chair and crossed his arms. Matt put his hand on Duncan's shoulder as the man in the chair seemed ready to jump over the table between them and throttle the kid. Matt didn't blame him. He too wanted to punch the smug little prat, who had made them wait an hour before he'd come in so he could watch a show on the business channel, square in the face.

"You don't seem too upset that this has happened to her."

Kieran shrugged. "Good things come to those who wait." Then, with a smile, he answered no other questions.

***

Stanley assessed the whiteboard. "Okay, so, Joy and Sarah were friends by association with this man." He tapped the picture of Joshua Simmons. "He and Sarah dated and he and Joy worked together." He moved across to Kieran. "Joy dated him, who's the son of Samuel McPherson the licensee Joy appeared to do a favour for. As well as that, he's the business enemy of Anderson Holdings, the company belonging to her dad." He traced his finger along the line to Anderson Holdings and then back down to Sarah. "This is one very tangled web."

"As well as that we have one very suss boyfriend slash best-friend who is currently crying in an interview room. One ex-boyfriend who seems positively overjoyed that his ex-girlfriend is dead…"

"Cocky little jerk." Duncan muttered under his breath.

Matt continued. "And one strange and lonely witness who blundered across the bodies while out walking his dog." Matt tapped the pictures of Josh, Kieran and Mitchell in turn. He then turned to Stanley. "Sir, tangled in the understatement of the century."

"What do you want us to do sir?" Jen asked, rubbing her eyes and sipping from a large styrofome cup of coffee. It was a little after 4pm and the crew looked tired. Even Simon was struggling to keep his eyes open.

Stanley frowned. "Okay, Matt you keep on at Kieran. See if you can crack anything out of him. Simon, you and I will go see Josh and see if he can shed any light on this thing with Kieran. I don't like it one bit. Jen and Duncan, you go see Joy's sister."

"So, we're focusing on Joy for now?" Duncan asked as he pushed himself up off the desk.

Stanley nodded. "Yeah, one at a time is our best option. Plus this…" he tapped the whiteboard. "Is confusing enough at the moment without adding Sarah Anderson's history into the mix."