Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘Victor’s not here yet. The boys are through there,’ the woman with the baby said, tilting her head towards a set of heavy double doors at the far end of an open-plan living and dining area. ‘He shouldn’t be long.’
Logan didn’t say anything. Not right away. There were often things to be learned in moments like these.
She appeared to be in the dark about Victor’s current condition, or was at least pretending to be.
She thought he was someone else. Someone Victor and “the boys” were meant to be meeting, presumably.
And yet, she’d called him by name.
‘Why are you just standing there?’ she demanded.
Her accent seemed reasonably local. She’d married into the surname, then.
Whoever it was she’d been expecting, she wasn’t afraid of him. ‘You deaf, or something? They’re through there.’
She was young. Early twenties at a push, with carefully styled silver-blonde hair, porcelain-white teeth, and a full face of makeup so thick it’d make a clown blush. Although, presumably, it would be hard to tell.
The baby, seven or eight months old at most, gnawed on her sleeve as she bounced and rocked from foot to foot.
She looked Logan up and down. Her eyes took on a frowning sort of appearance, but there was so little sign of movement from her eyebrows and forehead that it was difficult to read the expression for sure.
‘Hold on. Who are you?’ she asked.
Logan was tempted to ask who she thought he was, but decided it wasn’t the time.
‘Are you Eleanor?’ he asked. ‘Eleanor Belov?’
She stopped bouncing, and shot a wary look in the direction of the double doors. The baby pulled back from chewing on her arm, revealing a dark patch of drool on the tracksuit sleeve.
‘Who are you?’ she asked him again. ‘I’ll shout for my brothers-in-law. They’re right through there. You don’t want me to call them in, trust me.’
‘I thought you knew? At the door, you…’ Logan glanced back over his shoulder to where the boy was now running up and down the hall, waving the banana skin above his head. ‘The wee man. Is he Jack?’
‘How do you…?’ the woman began, before giving a single, curt nod. ‘I mean it, you’d better tell me who the fuck you are, or else—’
Logan reached for the inside pocket of his jacket. The woman jolted back, angling her body between him and the baby.
‘It’s just my ID,’ Logan told her. He opened the wallet to reveal his Warrant Card. ‘DCI Logan. Also Jack, hence the confusion.’
It was hard to tell beneath the mask of fake tan and makeup, but Logan would’ve sworn the woman’s face turned pale.
‘Police? You’re the police?’
‘Aye. Eleanor?’
She swallowed. Nodded. Her eyes flitted to every possible exit in the room, like she was considering making a run for it.
‘You said your brothers-in-law were next door? Are they Victor’s brothers?’ Logan asked. ‘If so, it might be worth bringing them through. I’m afraid this concerns them, too.’
‘You… you don’t want that,’ she said, and there was a shake to her voice now that had been missing just a moment before. ‘They don’t like the police.’
‘We have that effect on some people, right enough.’
‘No, you don’t understand.’ This time, her gaze lingered on the double doors for a few seconds, before she met Logan’s eye again. ‘They really don’t like the police.’
Logan shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his coat. ‘Aye, well,’ he said. ‘I’ll try and not take it personally.’
Eleanor made no move to alert the men, but she didn’t have to. The doors opened with a heavy-sounding clunk and swung slowly outwards.
For a moment, Logan was reminded of Roman Gladiators, and arenas, and packs of hungry predators. What eventually emerged wasn’t too far off the mark.
Two men, one in his early forties, the other maybe late-twenties, came striding out, puffing on fat, sour-smelling cigars.
Aside from the age difference, they were functionally identical.
Both bald, both bearded, both sporting neck tattoos, and both wearing sunglasses inside.
At night. Like a pair of absolute fannies.
They were big, too. Not Jack’s height—not even close—but more densely packed and meticulously put together. They wore gold chains, and gold bracelets, and gold rings. One of them, the older one, showed two gold teeth when he sneered at the sight of the stranger in the living room.
‘Who the fuck is this?’ he demanded, looking to Eleanor for the answer rather than the detective himself.
There was an accent there, but not strong. He’d worked out the kinks of it, or maybe had them hammered out of him.
‘I’m DCI Logan,’ Jack said, before Eleanor could reply. ‘Police Scotland Major Investigations. And you are?’
The man continued to stare at Eleanor. The baby on her hip began to gurn.
‘What I am is confused. What are you doing in this house?’
He finally shifted his gaze in the detective’s direction. Behind him, his younger counterpart stood cracking his knuckles, saying nothing. Veins bulged on the sides of his head, suggesting he was clenching his jaw so hard the rest of his face was suffering the consequences.
Logan regarded both men in silence for a few seconds, then deliberately turned away from them and addressed Eleanor instead. Out in the hallway, he could still hear the boy rushing around. He was making aeroplane noises now, clattering up and down the corridor with his arms at his sides.
‘I’m sorry to arrive unannounced on you like this, Mrs Belov,’ Jack said.
He gestured to an ostentatious white leather couch behind her. It was a brute of a thing, with two corners, three sets of cup holders, and a chaise longue at each side.
It was so big he didn’t think it would even fit inside his house. Although, if someone somehow managed it, he’d be quick to take an axe to the awful bloody thing.
‘You might want to take a seat,’ Jack urged. ‘I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.’
‘Oh, God,’ Eleanor groaned. ‘Don’t tell me he’s been arrested.’
‘That’s enough,’ the older of the brothers-in-law warned.
‘I knew this was going to happen. I knew it.’
‘Stop talking!’
Logan didn’t see the look on the man’s face, just the reaction on Eleanor’s. She averted her eyes, turning away like she’d been struck.
‘No. It’s not that, Mrs Belov,’ Logan said, stepping between her and the men. ‘There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to come right out with it.’
He didn’t. Instead, he waited until the running boy had gone clattering off down to the far end of the hall again.
By then, she knew. He could see it in her eyes.
‘I’m afraid your husband’s dead.’
‘And what do you think we have here?’ Geoff Palmer cried, as he thrust an evidence bag into the unsuspecting face of DI Hamza Khaled.
Hamza drew back far enough that he could actually focus on the bag’s contents. Although, this didn’t help much, since the bag appeared, at first glance, to be completely empty.
‘Fuck all, by the looks of it,’ DC Neish chimed in. He had been updating the DI on Uniform’s progress with the neighbours when Geoff had come barrelling in between them.
Not that the update had been that useful, given that everyone the officers had spoken to so far claimed to have seen and heard nothing.
‘That, young sir, is where you’re wrong,’ Palmer declared.
If he’d had a moustache, he would’ve twirled it. Since he didn’t, he just stood there in his paper hood, looking red-faced and gormless.
‘What you’re looking at is a heady mix of silicon dioxide, sodium carbonate, and calcium carbonate.’
The sound of Tyler’s brain whirring was practically audible, even over the sound of the wind and rain.
‘What’s that? Air?’
Palmer tutted. ‘How would that be air? Those are three solid things.’ He held the bag a little higher. ‘It’s glass.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ Tyler muttered. ‘Could you not have just said that like a normal person?’
He and Hamza both leaned in and looked more closely. Sure enough, if they squinted, they could just make out a few small diamond-like shards clustered at the bottom of the bag.
‘Found it on the ground just to the right of the driver’s door,’ Palmer explained. He turned and pointed to the verge at the side of the lay-by. ‘On the mud there.’
‘Could’ve been there for a while,’ Hamza reasoned.
‘On the mud there, not in the mud,’ Geoff said. ‘Resting atop the mud, if you will. Important distinction. Couldn’t have been there long, or the rain’d have sunk it in. Eh?’ He grinned and tapped the side of his head. ‘Not just a pretty face and a boatload of talent.’
Hamza took the bag and studied the glass up close. A couple of the pieces were dotted with flecks of brown mud, but the rest were mostly clean. It looked like it shattered in much the same way a windscreen would—little chunks, rather than pointed slivers.
‘Could it have come from the car?’ he guessed. ‘Windows are intact, but… I don’t know. Something internal? The headlights will be polycarbonate, so not that.’
‘Nope. Checked it over, and all intact. Lovely motor. Very nice condition throughout,’ Palmer replied. ‘Apart from, you know, all the blood everywhere. But, no, mirrors, windows, lights, internal glass, we checked it all, and there’s nothing broken. Which means, gentlemen…’
‘This could have come from the killer,’ Hamza said.
Palmer pressed a finger to his nose and pointed with the other hand. ‘Prize for the newly appointed detective inspector.’
Hamza handed the bag back to the Scene of Crime man. ‘Right. Aye. Good work.’
Palmer waited. DI Khaled shifted on the balls of his feet, aware that something more was expected of him. Panic gripped him by the throat, so even if he could think of the words to say, he wouldn’t be able to get them out.
‘I’ll tag and record it,’ Geoff eventually said. ‘Get it boxed up.’
‘Get it boxed up, yes!’ Hamza practically shouted the words into his face. The ringing of his Aberdeen accent drew a few looks from the officers and staff nearby. ‘Um, aye. Yes,’ he said, lowering his voice. ‘Please. Do that. That’d be great.’
Palmer gave him a brief up-and-down look, then nodded and headed for the SOCO van. Hamza ran a hand down his face, partly to wipe away the drizzle, but mostly to hide his embarrassment.
‘You alright, boss?’ Tyler asked.
Hamza grimaced. ‘Please don’t call me that.’
‘I don’t know. Senior officer, and that…’
‘Tyler.’ Hamza met the younger detective’s eye. ‘Just… Just please, mate, alright?’
‘Eh, aye.’ Though he’d been caught off guard, DC Neish pulled together a reassuring smile. ‘Aye, sorry, Ham. No bother. You know me, I was just being a dick.’
Hamza exhaled slowly through his nose, then mustered a smile of his own. ‘That’s fine. That I can handle.’
Tyler snorted. ‘You can handle a dick? That’s a bold admission out of nowhere, but it means a lot you chose me to share it with.’
‘Haha,’ Hamza said. ‘Very funny.’
But his anxious glances at the faces of the officers around them suggested he was a long, long way from laughter.