It was yet another scorching hot day in Goldenrod; a perfect day for murder, apparently. Zam made a mental note, thanking his always pristine white suit for keeping him cool in the unusual weather conditions before beginning a much longer mental note about his impeccable sense of fashion. He truly was a genius in all realms.

He shook his head as he walked down the street, trying to focus himself. He could compliment himself later, or maybe Taylor could compliment him. Yes, that would be excellent. Eventually, he got his somewhat narcissistic thoughts out of his head and began thinking about what lay ahead of him on this fine day.

Later in the day, he was supposed to attend a preliminary hearing in court as a certain committee were trying to sue him. It was an obvious move, one that had been part of Zam's plan from the start but he had no doubt that it was a calculated move from the MPC. After threatening Melvin, it had been all too obvious that the poker cheat would go running off to his big brother to sort the mess out before he was exposed as the fraud he was. So naturally, the MPC had tried to dig up some dirt on Zam when they'd probably come to the realisation that the money he used in the poker event had been Lord Salt's business investment which could have been seen as a breach of their contract. Maybe they had a point and maybe their allegedly brilliant lawyer Crawford could make a good enough case against him but it wouldn't be enough. He was Zam the Hybrid, he couldn't lose to some bloke in a battle of wits, it was simply impossible. And even if by some miracle he lost, he could only lose two hundred and fifty thousand Poképounds and thanks to his poker winnings, he could easily afford to pay that.

He tried not to think about the court case for the time being; Taylor had been worrying about it enough already. For now, he had to remain focused on the task at hand, and that was helping out his friend in the police force, Emily Jenkinson. She'd phoned him up this morning and told him that he was wanted down at the scene of a crime, a murder in apparently unusual circumstances. Zam loved an interesting case and had been all too eager to jump on board.

He wondered what odd way someone had been killed today as he walked down the street towards the location Emily had told him. He was so absorbed in his own excitement that he hardly even noticed the usual hustle and bustle of this magnificent city that he loved so much. People frantically barged their way through slow moving crowds in a desperate attempt to get to work on time, angry drivers honked their horns at reckless pedestrians who tried darting across the street even after the green man had gone and of course there were scheming Pidgey who laid in wait, just hoping for some idiot to drop their lunch for them to feast upon.

It wasn't too long before Zam made it to some white and blue tape with the bold words 'POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS' written across it. Naturally, Zam crossed it, ducking under the tape and stepping forwards where he was met by several angry looking policemen.

"Can't you read son?" one of the men said in a gruff voice.

"On the contrary, my reading abilities surpass that of most, probably including your own."

"Well then why did you cross the line?"

"Don't worry boys, I called him here." All of the men who had been harassing Zam quickly turned around to see a young woman in a white shirt and a grey suit striding towards them. "He's helping with the case."

"Detective Inspector Emily Jenkinson," Zam grinned once the policemen had begrudgingly allowed him to pass. "You're doing well."

"Mostly thanks to you," she admitted. "It's not difficult to make your way up the ranks when you have a genius who's willing to help you out."

"It is when the system is corrupt and sexist," Zam pointed out. She nodded. "Anyways, what've we got today?"

"A woman named Amelia Humphries, aged thirty-two was murdered last night," Emily started, reading from a small notepad. "She was staying late at her workplace, Lawyers4U, when she was killed. We're still trying to get more information but it looks like a robbery gone wrong."

"Right then, where's the body?" Zam asked, still unsure as to how this case was unusual at all.

"We haven't got a body."

"What? Then how do you know so much?"

"Listen to this." Emily reached into one of her inside blazer pockets and brought out a phone. She typed in the passcode and then played a voicemail. It was the voice of a woman, presumably the late Amelia.

"Hi Tom, it's Amelia, just phoning to let you know that I have to work late at the office tonight, I've got a very important case that I have to work on. I know we said we'd have dinner but it doesn't look like—" Suddenly there was a loud crash, like shattering glass and the woman yelped, maybe in surprise, maybe in pain. "What was—hey! Oh! Please stop! Please, no! Please!" Zam couldn't make out the rest of what her muffled screams were trying to say. All he knew was that this poor woman was being strangled, or smothered or asphyxiated. She was being brutally murdered and it had all been recorded on her phone message.

"She was just phoning her husband to let him know that she was working late. Whoever killed her got the jump on her and murdered her in cold blood, despite all her begging. When Tom picked up his phone he called us and ran straight to the scene of the crime but when we got here, there was no body. Just a great big mess and of course, no CCTV footage."

"Well this is certainly interesting," Zam admitted after a few moments. It had only been a voicemail but it had been very intense and the woman's very real screams of desperation had struck him. Even Zam found it difficult to stay composed. "Let's see her office."

He followed Emily through a set of large oak doors and then up a staircase to the second floor of the building. It definitely looked like a crime scene. There were policemen with cameras all over the place, taking pictures of every minute detail. At the back of the room was an overturned desk, a smashed laptop, books and papers were all over the place.

"As you could've probably guessed, that was Amelia's desk, the one underneath the smashed window," Emily informed him. Zam strode over to the desk. He got down on his hands and knees and gave the floor a good sniff. Then he sniffed the broken chair. Then he sniffed the overturned desk. Once he was done, he jumped back up to his feet.

"Definitely smells like some kind of chlorine-based compound, bleach seems highly likely. Your lot can get it down to the lab and check it of course but it seems like an effective way for our killer to clean up any blood or evidence they might have left behind. The question is, where did they get a whole bottle of bleach from and if they didn't get it from anywhere, why did they have it on them in the first place?"

"Maybe they found some on the cleaning trolley?" Emily suggested.

"We found that trolley earlier guvnor," one of the men working at the scene said. "Didn't look like anything was missing."

"And even if they did take something from it, picture the scene," Zam started, trying to visualise the situation. "You're a burglar and you want something from this room so you climb up outside, maybe using a ladder, and smash through the window when you see someone still working here. You then immediately suffocate them, search for a cleaning trolley which is probably locked away somewhere, find the trolley, bleach the scene and then carry the body and an empty bottle of bleach out with you. That would all take time; time you realistically wouldn't have. It seems to me like an oddly calm and well thought out way of managing the unexpected situation."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying I disagree with your original theory," Zam replied. "If this was the work of a burglar and this is a burglary gone wrong then why did they manage the situation of murder so well as to not even leave a single drop of blood and why didn't they steal anything? Not one computer?"

Emily glanced around the room to see if Zam's story checked out. He could see in her eyes the moment she realised that he was more than likely to be correct. There was an awful lot of mess and a lot of damage but from the looks of things, nothing was stolen. This wasn't a robbery gone wrong at all, it was a planned and calculated murder.

"Guvnor!" a policeman cried out as he stumbled into the room. "We got footprints!"

"Where?" Emily demanded. The man beckoned the pair to follow him back down to the stairs where he led them out through the main entrance and then round to the back of the building almost directly underneath the broken window. There on the ground were two unmistakable impressions that feet were once there.

Zam inspected the evidence before anyone else could tamper it. With only judgement from his eyesight, Zam determined that the shoes worn by the killer were a size eight. He could also guess that they were sneakers based on the shape and zigzag pattern on the ground. At the heel of both feet was something very interesting. A small circle, seemingly scorched into the ground. He and Emily both gave a puzzled look.

"What is that?" she asked.

"It looks like the ground has been burned, a bit like what happens when I land with my jet boo—" Zam cut himself off when the realisation hit him. It wasn't just similar to his jet boots. It was identical. He glanced at his foot next to the print on the ground. There was no doubt in his mind; the two were the same. Somehow, his footprint was on the ground outside the scene of a woman's murder and he had no idea how.

"Sorry what?"

"Oh, nothing, I was just thinking out loud," Zam said quickly. Emily gave him an odd look. She knew he was hiding something.

"Ok, well if you think we're done here, we'd better go talk to Amelia's husband," Emily suggested. "Maybe he can clue us in as to who might have done this and hopefully he can get us a picture as well, we don't even know what this woman looks like yet." Just as Zam was about to respond, his phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Zam, it's Taylor."

"Oh hey, what's going on?"

"Your preliminary hearing that's what!" Taylor cried. "It starts in less than two hours and I have no idea where you are!"

"Oh bugger, doesn't time fly when you're solving crime," Zam cursed. "Look, I'm helping Emily on a case, can't I meet you there? I might end up being a bit late."

"Zam, this is really important, you can't be late!" Taylor insisted. "And also... you left so early this morning that I haven't even seen you today. I miss you." Zam was about to make some clever, snarky comment about how little time it had actually been since they'd last seen each other but he bit his tongue. Taylor got oddly sensitive about little things.

"How about this. There's a Pizza Express between here and the flat, I'll meet you there and treat you to a nice lunch and then we can go to the hearing together, how does that sound?"

"That – that sounds great! I'll see you there!" she said in a tone of excitement he hadn't really heard from her before. Zam hung up the phone and looked at Emily.

"Emily, I'd love to help out but... I have to go," he tried to explain.

"I get it," she grinned. "She's a special girl, isn't she?"

"She's... she's... yeah," Zam stuttered, not entirely sure what Emily meant or what his answer was supposed to be.

"Go on then," she gestured. "Go and treat her nicely. And try not to cock it up."

"Thanks, I'll see you later. Let me know what you find out."

*

"How are you feeling?" Taylor asked as they walked down the grand hallway, complete with ridiculously expensive paintings lining the walls and exceptionally shiny and clean tiled flooring. They were heading for a courtroom for the beginning of the preliminary hearing phase of the trial and would be Zam's first taster of what he was up against. It was time to test himself against whatever the MPC and their lawyer Crawford could throw at him. "You nervous?"

"Why would I be nervous?" Zam laughed. "I'm in a great mood. If anything, I'm happy."

"Why are you so happy?" Taylor asked.

"Because I'm a babbling, bumbling, bundle of positivity," Zam shrugged.

"Yeah, a bundle of positivity that's being sued," Taylor reminded him for the millionth time.

"But why wouldn't I be happy?" Zam asked, ignoring her comment. "Finally, something exciting and challenging for me! And finally, I get to beat the MPC! But more to the point I just got to spend the last hour and a half having a great meal with the woman I... really care about." For some reason, his words had become a little stuck near the end of that sentence.

"Oh... well yeah, that was really nice," Taylor blushed. "I think we should do stuff like that more often. I love... spending time with you."

"And in any case, I'll be fine, they've got nothing on me. I can't lose this." Zam said confidently. "It doesn't matter how good of a lawyer this Crawford is; there's no bloke in the world who can beat me in a battle of wits."

"Well it's fine for you to be happy and confident but I'm worried about you," Taylor confessed. "These people are powerful. All they have to do is pull a few strings and it doesn't matter if they have anything on you or not. If they want to bring you down they will."

"Taylor," Zam said firmly as he squeezed her hand. The two stopped walking for a moment and their eyes met. They were incredibly close. "Trust me, I'll be fine. So far everything's worked out perfectly and they've moved exactly as I've anticipated. You've got to believe me when I say that whatever lawyer they send in through that door and whatever tricks they try and pull, I can deal with it. Ok?"

"Ok," she replied after a few moments, before a small smile appeared on her face. She then leaned in and gave him a small kiss before Zam broke away, a large grin on his face as he rubbed his hands together.

"Now let's see what they've got!" With a grin on his face and his excitement building, Zam swung the courtroom door open, revealing his opponent for the day. Zam's mouth hung open slightly as his eyes found a red-haired woman, dressed in a tight pencil skirt with a long slit running down the side of her leg, and a white button up shirt that definitely could've done with at least one more button done up.

Zam tried to think of big clever words to describe her but there simply was no other way to put it; she was staggering to look at. His brain was never quite sure what to make of human beauty but his male hormones most certainly did and right now they were all in agreement that this woman was incredibly beautiful.

"Crawford. Susan Crawford," she said in a smooth voice once Zam had reached her. He was about to go for a handshake when she unexpectedly leapt at him, throwing her arms around him in a hug so tight he could actually feel the air being squeezed out of his lungs.

"Crawford..." Zam said after a gulp of air when he was finally released by his opposing lawyer. "Crawford's a woman." She smiled an almost perfect smile at him, winked and then turned and walked towards her seat, adjusting the slit in her skirt to give Zam an exceptional view of her... legs.

"You can stop staring now," Taylor whispered, evidently somewhat cross at his interests in other women.

"I wish I could," Zam muttered. "Damn human hormones..." He couldn't explain why but he was completely fixated with her. Her skin was tanned so that it was golden, her ginger hair flowed beautifully down her back and looked silky smooth to touch. Her blue eyes sparkled, her white teeth practically glowed... there was a slight chance that Zam wouldn't be able to deal with this.

"I mean it!" Taylor warned. "It is not ok for you to ogle a woman who isn't me!"

"Can you blame me?" Zam whispered, still unable to take his eyes off her. "She's... wow... I mean, can you imagine her in a bikini?"

"I don't think anybody wants to see that," Taylor huffed.

"Well now that we're all here, shall we begin?" the judge in the high seat said when Zam and Taylor took their seats on the table next to Crawford's. The judge also seemed slightly captivated by Crawford.

Crawford turned to him as the judge droned on about something or other—whatever it was it probably wasn't important—and their eyes met and the moment was beautiful, like something out of a really cheesy, yet oddly endearing movie come true. She smiled at him and mimed yawning at the judge before running a hand through that silk-like hair, twirling it around a mesmerising finger.

Zam found himself involuntarily laughing and found his eyes wandering to places they definitely weren't supposed to look. Why could he not control himself? What was wrong with him? He needed to be stronger. He needed to remain focused on the task at hand. This was fine. It was all fine. Nothing to worry about.

"Right then, if we're all ready, shall we get started?" Crawford asked, her voice sounding sweet. The judge nodded. "Right then, Zam, let's see about this. The MPC is suing you for two hundred and fifty million Poképounds and this is our case."

"Oh cock," Zam muttered. That figure was considerably higher than the one he'd been led to believe. He couldn't pay that. There was a slight chance that he may be in trouble.