Chapter 18 #2
Hamza and Ben both looked at the DCI as they finished pulling on their coverings, expecting to see he’d been reading from a notebook. He hadn’t, though. The details had all come from memory.
‘So, naturally, we rushed out here right away, and, well, you’ll see for yourselves in just a few moments.’
Reeve placed hands on their shoulders and looked at them both with a sincerity so heartfelt it could’ve cut glass.
‘I’ll warn you both now, it’s not pretty. I get that we’re all used to dealing with these things, and I have no doubt you’ll have seen worse. But I’d rather be accused of being condescending than have you both step in there unawares.’
Ben made a sound at the back of his throat that was impossible to quantify. A laugh, or a growl, or a grunt. He shifted position, ever so slightly, so the DCI’s hand slipped off him.
‘I’m sure we’ll be grand,’ he said.
Reeve’s smile returned with a vengeance. ‘I am absolutely positively convinced of it,’ he said. ‘No harm in saying, though, right?’
He continued past them, up the step, and onto the red brick path that led to a sandstone cottage with two big bay windows and a dormer window conversion in the roof.
‘We’ve got the pathologist en route,’ Reeve announced.
‘Shona?’ Hamza asked. The question was met by a frown of confusion. ‘Dr Jarrett. From the ARI.’
‘ARI?’ Ben asked.
‘Aberdeen Royal Infirmary,’ the other two men said in tandem.
‘And, as I’m sure you saw, the Scene of Crime crew is already assembled,’ DCI Reeve continued. ‘Not sure if you guys have dealt with Mr Palmer, who heads up the team, but you’re in for a treat. He is quite a hoot. A real character.’
Hamza looked at the DCI’s broad back as they continued up the path towards the house.
‘And to think,’ he said below his breath. ‘I was just starting to like him.’
There were a lot of things Logan didn’t like about Bosco Maximuke. Even before the Russian had got mixed up with the serial killer, Owen Petrie, he and Jack’d had a long, violent, and bloody history.
There had been threats. Intimidation. At least one failed attempt on the DCI’s life.
Aye, there were a lot of things Logan didn’t like about the man, but the thing he hated most of all right now was the way he was slurping his coffee.
Shona had made him it, despite Logan’s very vocal objections. She had insisted, though. Whatever else he might be, he was Olivia’s father. Olivia had invited him in, which meant he was their guest. And guests, whether Jack liked it or not, got an offer of tea or coffee.
The slurping had to be deliberate, Logan thought. Same with the smacking of lips and the self-satisfied wee, ‘aah,’ after every bloody sip.
He was on the wind-up. He was trying very hard to get on Jack’s tits. And he was excelling at it.
Bosco’s time in prison had changed him physically. Before jail, he’d been heavy set. Not fat, not really, but bulky and dense, with plenty of weight to throw around.
A lot of that weight had left him now. He was more toned than hefty, and though his heart was probably thanking him for it, the loss of weight had robbed him of the physical presence that had helped him intimidate so many people over the years.
According to Olivia, he had arrived uninvited on the doorstep half an hour before Logan had come home. She’d thought it was the postman knocking at the door, and had immediately slammed it shut when she’d seen her father standing there smiling back at her with his arms held wide.
She had shouted to him to go away, she said, which Bosco had been quick to confirm.
‘Such language. Very bad. I don’t know where she learns it. Still, I understand. She is shocked to see me, I think.’
Logan had ordered him to shut the fuck up, then urged Olivia to continue.
Despite being told in no uncertain terms to leave, Bosco had remained on the front step, offering apologies, and explanations, and garbled promises through the letterbox.
In the end, she’d been so mortified at the thought of someone she knew seeing him out there that she’d relented and opened the door.
‘Oh. Right! So, he manipulated his way inside,’ Logan said, clapping his hands together. ‘Then I’ll turf the bastard back out again.’
‘Wait!’
Olivia looked up at him from the far end of the table, shoulders hunched, hands pressed together as if in prayer. She chewed at some loose skin on her bottom lip, and shot her dad the briefest of looks. It was barely the span of a blink, too fast for Logan to identify any meaning in it.
‘I just… I want to hear him out.’
‘Hear him out?’ Logan barked. ‘There’s nothing to hear!’
‘Jack,’ Shona said. She stepped in, putting a hand on his chest. ‘We should give them some space.’
‘Him? No bloody way! I know what he is. What he’s capable of.’ He looked very deliberately between Shona and Olivia. ‘We all know what he’s capable of. If you think I’m leaving the bastard alone here with—’
‘I’ll be fine,’ Olivia told him. Her gaze lingered on Bosco a moment longer this time, sizing him up. ‘He’s not going to hurt me.’
Bosco’s eyes widened in horror. ‘Hurt you? No. No, never, my baby girl.’
Olivia got up from her seat and crossed to the counter.
‘And if he tries to…’
There was a shink as she drew one of the knives from the block and turned back to face her father.
‘I’ll cut his heart out.’
Bosco smiled, like this was a joke. The complete absence of any reaction from Olivia soon made him reconsider.
‘I, uh, I think it best you stay, Jack. You see, I come to see Olivia, of course. Baby girl. But I come for you, too.’
Logan adjusted the fold of his arms and scowled.
‘For me?’
Bosco took another sip of his coffee, but without any of the theatrics this time.
‘Yes, for you,’ the Russian confirmed. He set down the mug and wrapped his hands around it. ‘Because you, Jack Logan, are my only hope.’