Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
They all sat around in the Incident Room in stunned, slack-jawed silence. With the exception of Dave, who didn’t seem all that fussed.
But then, he hadn’t been there. Tied up. Helpless. Facing death on hands and knees. He hadn’t been through it, endured it, survived it, like the rest of them.
‘So, he’s an arsehole then, from what I’m hearing?’ Dave asked. He looked around at the ashen faces of the others. ‘That’s the vibe I’m picking up.’
‘Out? How can he be out?’ Ben asked, brushing past Dave’s remarks. ‘He shouldn’t be out. He doesn’t bloody deserve to be out!’
‘You don’t have to tell me that,’ Logan said.
Ben didn’t stop there. ‘He got twelve years. Twelve! What’s it been? Three?’
‘Four,’ Sinead said. She clasped her hands between her knees, shoulders hunched. ‘Four in March just past.’
‘Nowhere near long enough!’ Ben protested.
Sinead looked up at Logan, who stood in front of the Big Board, coat off, arms hanging limply by his sides.
‘Are we safe, sir?’
‘Aye. We’re safe,’ Logan assured her.
‘How do you know that, boss?’ Tyler asked. ‘He could be anywhere, up to anything. He could be watching us right now. Planning God knows what. We’ve got kids!’
‘I spoke to him,’ Logan said.
The words seemed to resonate through the silence that followed, like the fading echo of a bell.
‘You spoke to him?’ Hamza asked. ‘When?’
‘Today. This afternoon. Just before Forres,’ Logan said. ‘He came to my house.’
Tyler jumped to his feet. ‘To your house? He knows where you live? Does he know where we live?’
‘No. I don’t think so. I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know?!’
Sinead slipped her hand into her husband’s, anchoring him.
‘I get it, son,’ Logan said. ‘You’re worried.’
‘I’m more than worried. I’m scared. If that fucker tries anything—’
‘He won’t.’
‘How do you know, sir?’ Sinead asked.
‘Because…’
Logan stopped. He didn’t want to say it. He didn’t want to face the possibility that it might be true. His gut told him it was bullshit, but some more rational part of him was putting up a strong counterargument.
‘Because he’s changed,’ Logan said, and the words tasted wrong in his mouth.
‘He’s changed?’ Tyler cried. ‘Bosco Maximuke has changed? He tortured me! He was going to kill us. All of us.’
‘I know, son. I know. But… I don’t know. He’s different.’
‘Oh, so he’s a good guy now, is he? One of the boys?’
‘No. I’m not saying that,’ Logan replied. ‘I’m just saying… This. These victims. Belov. Crichton. I don’t think it was him.’
‘It’s pretty coincidental timing if not,’ Hamza countered.
‘No. I don’t think it is. I think someone chose now to act, expecting us to blame it on Bosco.’
‘Because it probably was him!’ Tyler insisted. ‘And even if it wasn’t, if it means we can sling him back in jail, sounds good to me.’
‘He doesn’t mean that,’ Sinead said.
Tyler deflated back down into his seat. ‘No. No, I don’t mean that. But… I just…’
‘Like I say, son, I get it,’ Logan told him. ‘I reacted in much the same way. Pushed him through a shower and tried to strangle him with the hose.’ He flinched. ‘Shite, forgot to warn Shona about that.’
‘You… strangled him?’ Ben asked.
Dave nodded his approval. ‘Hardy.’
‘More or less, aye. I mean, I didn’t kill him, obviously.
I wanted to. Might’ve done, if I hadn’t come to my senses.
’ He rubbed at the back of his head, and felt electric shocks of pain where the mirror had been smashed.
‘He’d heard about Victor Belov’s death, but Kendrick Crichton took him by surprise. ’
‘And you believed him.’
‘To my deep and lasting regret, aye. Aye, I believed him,’ Logan replied.
‘How did he know about Belov?’ Hamza asked.
‘He was vague on that. Kept his ear to the ground, apparently.’
‘Not close enough if he didn’t hear about Crichton.’
Logan conceded the point to the DI. ‘No, seems not. He reckoned Belov was trying to step up, and had got himself on Crichton’s radar.
‘Why bother?’ Tyler asked. ‘Stepping up, I mean. Going to all that trouble trying to expand your empire when your wife’s sitting on a hundred-and-thirty million dollars.’
Ben choked on a sherbet lemon he’d barely had a chance to suck on. ‘Christ,’ he wheezed. ‘How much?’
‘She’s got a hundred-and-thirty million?’ Hamza asked. His eyes bulged, like his head could barely contain the thought of it. ‘Where? How?’
‘Actually, that’s something I’m hoping you can help us figure out,’ Logan said. ‘Tyler, teas, coffees, go.’ He rapped his knuckles on the board behind him. ‘Sinead, let’s get this thing updated.’
Logan flexed his fingers. Cracked his knuckles. Stretched his neck.
‘We’ve got a long day left ahead of us.’
A second Big Board had been wheeled in. Tyler had helped Sinead pull the information together until he’d become too annoying and been dispatched for yet another round of teas and coffees.
Ben had suggested he go pick them all up some rolls for lunch from Alice’s, the café he was now technically an employee of. It was his name on the lease, but he wasn’t the boss. Moira was the boss, and he just worked there.
‘Aw, cheers, nice one!’ Tyler had said as he’d pulled on his jacket, before Ben had pointed out that the rolls wouldn’t be free, and that Moira would likely have Tyler’s head on a spike if he so much as implied they should be.
Tyler had looked around for support that hadn’t been forthcoming.
‘Oh, so… what? Should I just pay for them myself?’
‘That’d be great, son,’ Ben had said approvingly. ‘I’ll have a cheeky wee extra tattie scone on mine, in that case.’
By the time Tyler returned, laden with paper bags and still smarting from an earbashing Moira had given him about being left to run the café on her own, and how they were all a shower of bastards, the rest of the team was ready to go.
While he dished the food out, the team spoke about what was going on out at Forres.
Palmer’s crew was still working the scene.
The pathologist from Aberdeen had popped in to confirm that the headless man in Kendrick Crichton’s kitchen was, in fact, dead.
The body was going to be transported to Raigmore later that day for Shona to make a start on.
‘What about the dog?’ Sinead asked.
‘Goldie,’ Tyler added helpfully.
Logan didn’t have an answer for that. ‘That’s a point. Where is the dog?’
‘I think DCI Reeve might still have it,’ Hamza said. ‘He put her in his van, apparently, to calm her down.’
‘I could phone him and ask, if you want,’ Sinead suggested, then she smiled at the dirty look this earned from her husband.
‘What do we make of him, this guy? I mean, who is he?’ Tyler asked.
‘Who, Captain Stars and Stripes? Don’t know. Never come across him.’
‘That’s weird, isn’t it, boss? I mean, Police Scotland’s no’ exactly huge. And you think you’d remember a guy like that.’
‘I know you definitely will,’ Dave said. He waved a hand in front of his face like he was trying to cool down his cheeks.
Tyler gave him the middle finger, which only made Dave cackle gleefully.
‘What I’m saying is, he’s based, what, a hundred miles away, and none of us has ever met him? I’m just saying, that’s weird.’
‘You think he might be dodgy?’ Ben asked.
Tyler shifted around in his chair as he unwrapped his bacon roll. ‘I’m not saying he’s dodgy, exactly, but it’s definitely weird.’
‘Not really,’ Logan said after a few seconds’ thought. ‘It’s not like any of us really pays much attention to polis politics.’
Tyler conceded the point, and took a big bite of his roll while the conversation continued around him.
They speculated while they ate, considering the bigger picture possibilities as to the why of it all. Figure out why someone had killed those men, and they’d be a step closer to working out who was responsible.
Unfortunately, the why was, so far, proving to be problematic.
Rival gang hit was a definite possibility. Bosco Maximuke’s name was never far from anyone’s lips, but even if it wasn’t him, then a turf war remained the most likely scenario.
The time of Kendrick Crichton’s death was going to be interesting.
The dog hair in the back of Victor Belov’s car, and Eleanor’s son Jack’s reveal about the bad man’s Golden Retriever, potentially connected both men.
That was even before you dug into the CID files that painted them in a potential business relationship.
Bosco had pointed a finger at Crichton as being the one responsible for Victor’s death. Had Victor’s brothers thought so, too? Had they headed round there when they’d left Eleanor’s that night, after Logan had broken the news? Was Kendrick Crichton killed as revenge for Victor Belov’s death?
It was possible. It was neat. Too neat, maybe?
Logan couldn’t get away from the timing of it all. CID had been watching these bastards for months. Years, in fact. Things had remained low-key and under the radar for that entire time.
And then, a couple of days after Bosco Maximuke gets out of prison, they start killing one another?
Convenient.
Too convenient.
Bosco wasn’t an idiot. Logan had known that before the Russian had pointed it out. If he was involved in this, it was reckless. It was madness.
And why would he come to Logan of all people for help? The one man who would judge him more harshly and doubt his word more than anyone else on the planet.
There was nothing Logan would enjoy more than finding out Bosco was involved in this. The moment he slapped the cuffs on the bastard would rank up there with the greatest of his life.
If Bosco was guilty, the last person he should want digging around in his affairs was Jack Logan. And yet, he’d practically come begging.
It could be a double bluff by the Russian, of course. But, by God, given Logan’s feelings on the man, it was a risky one.
So, what if the timing was still important, but the motive was different? What if someone was doing this now precisely because Bosco was out, and therefore around to take the heat?
‘You think someone’s trying to frame him?’ Sinead asked, dusting the flour from her roll off her hands.