Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
There were a lot of police vehicles parked along the roadside at the bottom of Kendrick Crichton’s driveway. A section of the road had been cordoned off, and two small armies of uniformed officers stood gathered at opposing strips of tape.
Hamza wound down his window as he pulled in behind a marked car, beckoning over a sergeant he recognised from the station.
‘What’s going on?’ Hamza asked. ‘This is a lot of bodies.’
The sergeant scratched at the back of his head. ‘Aye, sir. It’s, eh, it’s the Grampian lot. North East. Whatever we’re calling them now. They’re saying it’s their case.’
‘Aye, well, they’re wrong,’ Hamza said. He pressed the button to slide the window back up, and got out of the car. Ben scrambled out of the passenger side, and followed as the DI set off towards the tape.
‘They say it’s their turf, sir,’ the sergeant continued. He winced. ‘They’re not wrong. It’s technically in Moray, so…’
‘It’s our case,’ Hamza told him. ‘There’s a very clear connection to an ongoing investigation.’
The sergeant, who looked young, and was looking younger by the second, could only shrug. ‘I, eh, I don’t know anything about that, sir. But if it’s true, it’s not me you need to be talking to.’
He pointed past the cordon to the end of the victim’s garden path.
A man stood there, surrounded by other men and women in white paper suits.
He was standing on a step, putting him a full head taller than the Scene of Crime team members gathered around him.
It made them look like schoolchildren sticking close to their teacher.
The man was tall—not Logan tall, but few people were—and dressed in a red and black checked shirt which had the whiff of a lumberjack about it. He was smiling—a big, warm, open grin that seemed to be working wonders on the SOCOs, who giggled and fawned, hanging on every word.
‘Who’s that?’ asked Ben.
‘No idea,’ Hamza admitted. ‘He new to you?’
‘Never seen him in ma puff.’
‘He’s, eh, he’s the new DCI, I think. For Aberdeen. I mean, Grampian. North East.’ The sergeant tutted. ‘Whatever it’s called.’
Hamza looked back over at the man. He was in his early forties, at a guess, with a head of curly ginger hair, and shoulders like a rugby player on steroids.
There had been talk of some restructuring at MIT North East in recent months, but Hamza had been so fixated on his own promotion, then so stressed out by the new job, that he hadn’t been paying too much attention.
Now, though, a name popped into his head, like it had been shoved in there through an earhole.
‘Reeve. Something Reeve,’ he said.
‘Oh, yes. God, aye. I remember!’ Ben said. ‘There was something about him just before I left.’
He clicked his fingers in a way that suggested that last remark had been a lie, then jumped in with a name.
‘Daniel?’ He shook his head. ‘No. David? Davie? Davie Reeve?’ Ben wrinkled his nose. ‘Don’t think that’s right. Donald?’
‘Nathan,’ Hamza said. ‘There was a briefing about it. Last month. Nathan. Nathan Reeve. I’m sure that’s right.’
He looked to Ben for confirmation, but the former DI just shrugged. ‘Damned if I know. I had him down as a Daniel, a David, and a Donald. I’ll take your word for it.’
He lifted the cordon tape and held it for Hamza to pass under, like a trainer escorting a boxer into the ring.
‘Whatever the bugger’s called, let’s go tell him to sling his bloody hook!’
‘Jack?’
Shona was shouting to him before she’d even got the front door closed. She rushed in, almost tripping over Taggart, who came racing along the hallway to meet her.
‘In here,’ Logan called, and she followed his voice to the kitchen, shrugging off her jacket as she ran.
‘What is it? What’s wrong? Your message, you sounded—’
She choked on the final few words as she arrived in the kitchen and saw who was sitting there at the table, holding a bag of frozen peas to the bridge of his nose.
Olivia sat across from him and one chair to the left. It was the furthest possible seat from her father’s, like she was deliberately putting herself beyond his reach.
Logan stood with his arms folded, leaning against the sink. There was a wooden block filled with kitchen knives beside him, right within grabbing range.
Shona was fairly certain they hadn’t been sat there when she’d left.
‘What…? What the hell is this?’ she asked.
She knew who Bosco Maximuke was, of course. She had a pretty good idea of precisely what he was, too. And welcome in her house was not one of them.
‘Please, do not be concerned,’ Bosco said. He smiled, but his teeth were still pink, and his appearance did nothing to put Shona at ease. ‘I come in peace, yes? I am here for good reason. Best reason.’
He slid a hand across the table towards his daughter. She didn’t move or even acknowledge the gesture.
Bosco continued, undeterred, his fingers stopping a few inches from hers.
‘Olivia. My Olivia. Apple of my eye, fruit of my loin.’
Olivia’s nostrils drew up in distaste. ‘Ew. Jesus.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Shona asked. She didn’t wait for him to answer, and turned her attention to Logan instead. ‘What’s he talking about?’
‘He wants Olivia to go and live with him,’ Jack replied.
His sights were locked on the man. They hadn’t shifted a millimetre since Shona had entered the room.
‘What? No. But… Why’s he not in jail?’ This time, it was Jack she didn’t wait for. ‘Why are you not in jail?’ she demanded, aiming the question at Bosco himself. ‘You’re meant to be in jail.’
‘I am free now. I have learned error of ways,’ Bosco said.
‘My arse,’ Logan spat.
‘No, is true. Is true, I promise, Jack. You and me, we go back long way, yes? Many years. Back to Glasgow. Back to old days. You know me.’
‘Oh, I know you only too well, Bosco.’
‘Then look in my eyes. Look in my eyes and see that I tell you truth. In prison, I had… What is word? Like idea-fart in brain.’
‘Epiphany,’ Olivia said.
‘Yes! Yes, that is word. My girl! Smart girl, always so smart!’ Bosco cheered.
‘I had epiphany. Realised that my whole life, I have wasted. Thrown away in pursuit of wealth. Power.’ He thumped a fist against his chest. ‘Reputation of big man. That is what I go after. What I care about. But it is waste. I am not big man. There only one big man.’
Logan groaned, already sensing what was coming here.
‘Don’t. Don’t even start,’ he muttered. ‘Don’t you fucking dare.’
Bosco smiled. Despite the blood between his teeth, and the big bag of peas on his nose, there was something almost serene about it.
‘In prison, I am introduced to man by name of Jesus.’
‘Whoa! Detective Inspector Khaled!’
DCI Nathan Reeve’s smile hit Hamza in the face like a spotlight. Reeve took a moment to thank the gathered SOCOs for their hard work, then they parted like the Red Sea before Moses, and he came striding up to intercept Hamza and Ben.
He gripped Hamza’s hand in both of his and shook it, staring into the DI’s eyes like it was love at first sight. The grip was strong, the hands rough and calloused, but there was a warmth in Reeve’s smile that radiated out of him.
‘I read about your promotion in the last briefing. Well deserved. CID in Aberdeen still talks about you like you’re some kind of legend. Which, I mean, you are, obviously.’
‘Hang on,’ Ben said, looking the DCI up and down. ‘Are you American?’
Reeve relinquished his grip on Hamza’s hand. Hamza stared at his open palm for a few seconds, like he was trying to figure out what had just happened, then let it fall back to his side.
‘No. I mean, yeah. I mean, it’s complicated,’ Reeve replied. ‘It’s the accent, right? Kind of a giveaway?’
That, Ben confirmed, had been a big clue.
Reeve’s voice was rich and deep, and very clearly hailed from somewhere on the other side of the Atlantic.
There wasn’t a specific twang that Ben recognised—it didn’t have that New York nasal thing, or a Redneck drawl—but it was definitely from somewhere in North America.
‘You got me. Born in Cumbernauld, raised in Tennessee.’
‘That must’ve been quite an upgrade,’ Ben said, and Reeve’s smile only widened.
‘Ah, both have their charms, if you know where to find them.’
His brow, weathered by the sort of sun that rarely troubled Scottish skies, creased. He tilted his head, just a fraction, like a dog trying to identify an unfamiliar sound.
‘Wait. Hold up.’ He looked Ben up and down, like he couldn’t believe his luck. ‘DI Benjamin Forde?’
‘Just Ben these days. Retired.’
‘Oh! So…?’ He clicked his fingers. ‘Gotcha. Some kind of handover, right? Passing of the torch.’
‘Someting like that, aye,’ Ben confirmed.
Hamza gently cleared his throat and glanced at the entrance to the dead man’s driveway. DCI Reeve took the hint immediately.
‘Yes! Thank you, good call, Detective Inspector! To business, right?’
He gestured for Hamza and Ben to lead the way, and guided them both with a gentle hand on their backs.
‘Call came in at eleven-fifty-four in the a.m.,’ he began.
‘At approximately eleven-forty-eight, a delivery driver attempting to drop off some packages got no response out front, so went round to the back to leave them there. Apparently, happens all the time. The driver, Frank—real nice guy, total sweetheart—this is his regular route, so it’s an established arrangement. Shoes!’
Hamza and Ben both stopped and looked down. Reeve handed them both a set of bright blue shoe coverings, and nodded encouragingly.
‘I know, we’re still some distance from the scene, but belt and braces, right?’
‘Uh, right. Aye,’ Hamza said.
He and Ben both took the shoe coverings and leaned against the garden wall while they pulled them over their feet.
‘So, Frank knocks on the back door. Checks it. Locked. Car’s out front, dog’s barking inside, something about the whole situation feels a little off, so at eleven-fifty-one, give or take, he looks in through the window, sees blood on the wall, realises something untoward has happened, and places the call to nine-nine-nine. ’