Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
‘Right, we’re done. I’m calling it for the night.’
Around the Incident Room, pens stopped scratching, keys stopped tapping, and a few groans of relief were heard.
It had, as Logan had warned them it would, been a long day. There wasn’t a lot more they could squeeze out of it. Nothing that would make a difference.
The post-mortem report on Victor Belov had come through from Shona an hour ago.
It had contained precisely zero surprises.
He’d died in his car due to loss of blood brought on by having his throat slashed from ear to ear.
The blow to his forehead was relatively minor.
It would’ve hurt like a bastard at the time, but it would have stunned him at most, nothing more.
Sinead had chimed in with a theory then that neatly connected the head injury to the footprint pattern on the muddy verge.
‘Someone was standing there by the driver’s side door. Then we had one other print facing away from the door,’ she’d reminded them, indicating Palmer’s photos on the board. ‘So, what if the driver was trying to get out, then the person standing there hit him, forcing him back into the car?’
‘Then what? They climbed in behind him and cut his throat?’ Tyler had asked.
‘Or someone was in the back seat already.’
‘Victor clocked them behind him and was trying to get away from them, maybe,’ Hamza had suggested, and they’d bounced ideas back and forth from there.
Shona’s preliminary report on Kendrick Crichton had dropped an hour later. That one had also confirmed the suspicion that the man had died on account of seventy percent of his head having been blown off by a shotgun fired at close range.
The one interesting bit of data on Crichton was his estimated time of death, which was somewhere between three and four in the afternoon of the day before, which meant that Kendrick Crichton had almost certainly been murdered before Victor Belov.
That put a dunt in the theory that Victor’s brothers had killed Crichton as revenge for their sibling’s death. It still didn’t mean they were innocent, though. Their mad dash out of town and south towards the Borders heavily implied some sort of involvement.
The team had discussed timelines for a while after that, until the yawning had started and the informed speculation had turned into random bursts of guesswork.
It was at that point, with evening rush hour nothing more than a fading memory out on the bypass, that Logan had taken the decision to send everyone packing.
‘Be back here sharp in the morning. Sinead, Tyler, I know you’ve got your interviews, so we’ll work around those as best we can,’ Logan said.
‘But, if the interview panel asks either of you if you’ve got any questions for them, you can ask them what the fuck they think they’re playing at doing all this in the middle of a murder investigation. ’
‘I’ll, eh, maybe let you ask that one, boss,’ Tyler said. ‘On account of me not wanting to be sacked, and that.’
‘They can’t sack you for asking a perfectly valid question, son,’ Logan assured him.
‘Maybe not, but they could do something worse,’ Tyler reasoned. ‘Like transfer me to Dundee.’
A grim silence fell at the very thought of such a fate. The others agreed that it was probably best if he didn’t ask the question, after all.
When everyone had packed up for the night, they gathered together over by the door, pulling on jackets and coats. Or, in Dave’s case, a Guns N’ Roses hoodie.
‘Well, I can’t say I haven’t had a bloody wonderful day,’ Ben said, beaming at them all as he fastened up the buttons of his blue duffel coat.
Moira had picked it up for him from a city centre charity shop a few weeks back.
It was a couple of sizes too big, and the material was thinning here and there.
When Ben had suggested that it made him look like a down-on-his-luck Paddington Bear, she’d simply said, ‘I know,’ like this had been the entire point of the exercise all along.
‘Seriously, two murders. You really spoiled me,’ Ben said.
His smile continued unabashed, but the rest of his face didn’t share the same commitment.
‘But you don’t need an old bugger like me getting in the way,’ he continued. ‘There’s not a whole lot more I can teach Hamza that he wouldn’t be better off figuring out for himself. I’m only going to get in the way here.’
‘Aye, fair enough,’ Logan said, which drew a scowl from the older man.
‘Cheeky bastard!’
Logan smirked. ‘‘We could still do with your help, Benjamin. You’re no’ getting off that easily.’
‘He’s right,’ Hamza agreed. ‘I’ve still got a lot to pick up. You’ve not shown me that secret drawer yet.’
‘What secret drawer’s this?’ Tyler asked, but Ben waved him away like he was shooing a bug.
‘Never you bloody mind. It’s DI business.’
‘They’re right,’ Sinead said. ‘With the interviews tomorrow, and everything else going on, we’re going to be short-handed.’
‘We could really do with you sticking around, boss,’ Tyler said. He frowned. ‘Um, ex-boss, I mean.’
There was a sudden blockage in Ben’s throat. He had to spend a few moments harrumphing it away. ‘Well, I mean, if you’re desperate…’
‘I’d say we’re a pretty desperate bunch,’ Dave volunteered.
‘Then, I’m sure Moira’ll manage to cope for one more day,’ Ben said. ‘I mean, it’s no’ like any bugger ever comes in. She’ll probably enjoy the peace.’
‘Great!’ Hamza said, smiling as he gave the older man a grateful pat on the arm. ‘Same time tomorrow, then.’
Ben looked around the Incident Room, before nodding. ‘Same time tomorrow.’
They locked up, said their goodbyes, and headed down in the lift together. At the front door, Logan let Hamza, Ben, and Dave shoot off, but had Sinead and Tyler wait with him by the door.
‘You alright, sir?’ Sinead asked, pulling her jacket in tighter to fend off the cold. ‘You look a bit concerned about something.’
‘That’s just my face. That’s how I always look,’ Logan pointed out, and neither of them could really disagree. To the casual onlooker, the DCI’s emotional spectrum was concerned, annoyed, and not a whole lot else in between. It didn’t even qualify as a spectrum, really, so much as a binary switch.
Tonight, though, he looked more concerned than usual.
‘I just want you to know I’ll be rooting for you tomorrow. Both of you. I’m not going to play favourites. My feedback on the pair of you was damn near identical, and I made clear that either one of you could do the job with your eyes closed.’
‘Cheers, boss.’
‘Thanks, sir.’
‘Whatever happens, we’re still the same team we’ve always been,’ Logan told them. ‘We just change the voicemail greetings.’
He looked out across the car park. It was much emptier at this time of night. His car stood isolated and alone.
‘And whatever happens, whoever wins, you’ll have my full support,’ Jack continued. ‘Even if it’s Tyler.’
Sinead smiled. Tyler pulled an expression of mock outrage, but then laughed it off.
‘You’re just scared I’m coming for your job, boss!’
‘Oh, I have no doubt you are, son,’ Logan told him. He took his car keys from his pocket and twirled them around a finger. ‘But I intend to be long bloody retired before you get anywhere close.’