Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
It was almost three. Three o’clock on a Friday afternoon, and Olivia was nowhere to be found.
School finished at lunchtime. Twelve-something. One, maybe. He could never remember. But it was a short walk from there to the house.
And Olivia was nowhere to be found.
He hadn’t tried calling her. Not yet. He’d fought the urge for the past hour, pacing from room to room, taking calls from the office, keeping up to date with the latest developments.
Callum Walker and his nosy neighbour had drawn a blank on Victor Belov being in a relationship with anyone in Aviemore. He was apparently quite distraught over this failure.
Geoff Palmer’s team had turned up a fingerprint on the bag Joe Robertson had snatched, which was currently unidentified. Joe’s, Sergeant Fleck’s, and anyone else who might have touched it between the car and the station had been ruled out.
Joe Robertson himself was still missing.
Victor Belov’s brothers were both somewhere in the wind.
DCI Reeve continued to interview Bosco Maximuke.
And Olivia?
Olivia was nowhere to be found.
He should call her. He should. He would, just as soon as he figured out what he was going to say to explain why he was there. Why he was checking up on her. Why he was asking about her whereabouts.
Something tightened in Logan’s stomach when he heard a key slipping into the front door lock. Taggart barked excitedly, racing out of the kitchen and into the hall.
There was no time to figure out the answers to all those questions. He was just going to have to wing it.
‘Where have you been?’ he asked, striding out after the dog.
He stopped when he saw Shona hanging her jacket on the peg by the front door.
‘Eh, work. Just nipping in to get a change of clothes. Had a bit of an accident.’
She pointed to a streak of bright red that stained the bottom of her T-shirt and continued down the front of her jeans.
‘Jesus. That blood?’ Logan asked.
‘Chilli sauce,’ Shona said, smirking. ‘If your blood’s that colour, you’ve got a problem. What you home for? Have you not got murderers to be catching?’
‘Maybe if someone’d hurry up with the post-mortem reports…’
Shona stuck out her tongue at him. ‘They’ve both been sent. You’re welcome.’
‘Oh. Right. Hadn’t seen them.’
‘Because you’re swanning about at home instead of at work,’ Shona suggested. She looked him up and down when he didn’t laugh. ‘You OK?’
‘Fine,’ he said, dismissing her concern. ‘Anything new? In the PMs, I mean?’
Shona wrinkled up her nose. ‘Throat slit. Head shot off. Nah, pretty much—Oh! There was one thing.’
Logan’s ears pricked up. ‘Aye?’
‘Victor Belov. He’d recently had sexual intercourse.’
‘The condom,’ Logan said. He frowned. ‘But how can you tell that from the PM? That wouldn’t show up, would it?’
‘It does if you know what you’re looking for,’ she said, and she winked like she was teasing him. ‘It’s all in the report. Enjoy.’
She started to head up the stairs, before Logan called out to her.
‘You heard from Olivia?’
Shona stopped halfway up the stairs. ‘No. Why? She not here?’
Jack shook his head. ‘School finished a while ago, didn’t it?’
The stairs creaked as Shona came down a step. ‘Lunch is at one, yeah. And it’s Friday, so—’
‘Half day,’ Logan finished. He took a breath. He was going to need it to force out the next few words and ask the question.
Asking the question didn’t make it true, of course, but it somehow legitimised all the niggling little thoughts in his head.
‘She’s been doing that a lot lately. Disappearing,’ he said.
‘She’s a teenager. It happens,’ Shona replied.
Logan nodded slowly. ‘What about the night before last, though? Before the parents’ evening?’
Another creak and a thump as Shona descended a step. ‘What about it?’
‘Where was she then?’
‘I don’t know. Out somewhere. You know what she’s like.’
‘Aye.’ Logan had a very good idea of what Olivia Maximuke was like. ‘That’s what worries me.’
Shona smiled, but there was a question contained within it, like she didn’t understand the joke but was laughing along out of politeness.
‘What do you mean?’
Logan massaged his forehead with a finger and thumb, then finally came out with it.
‘She knew. About Bosco. About him getting out. She knew.’
Shona snorted. ‘What? No.’
‘She knew weeks ago. Bosco contacted her from prison.’
‘No. She didn’t.’
‘She told Harris. Made him keep it a secret,’ Logan continued. ‘He told Sinead and Tyler today.’
‘She would’ve said something,’ Shona insisted.
‘She didn’t.’
‘But she would’ve!’ Shona cried. ‘I saw her, Jack. You saw her. She was terrified.’
‘She was threatening to kill him,’ Logan reminded her.
‘Because she was terrified!’
‘She had him here. Upstairs. In her room, like she didn’t want us to know,’ Logan said. ‘Like she was going to hide him.’
‘What, under her bed? Listen to yourself, Jack! You’re saying…’
She fell silent. Fell still. Only her eyes moved, searching the face of the man standing half in shadow at the bottom of the stairs.
‘Wait, what are you saying? Why were you asking where she was on parents’ night?’
Logan didn’t answer that. He didn’t need to.
‘You can’t seriously think she was involved in all this? Olivia? She’s a child.’
‘She’s a young adult,’ Jack corrected. It felt petty, even as he said it.
‘Oh, stop. You know what I mean.’
‘I’m not saying… I don’t know. Bosco can be a persuasive bastard. Maybe he talked her into helping him. Maybe they were, I don’t know, conspiring to—’
‘Conspiring?’ Shona scoffed. ‘Now you’re being ridiculous.’
Logan drew in a breath, then slowly let it out again.
‘The first time I ever spoke to Olivia was at her mother’s house.
She was carrying a kitchen knife.’ He held his index fingers roughly twelve inches apart.
‘About yon size. Made it very clear that she was willing to use it. She must’ve been… what? Ten? Eleven?’
‘You can’t seriously think that means anything?’
‘You remember what happened to the last guy who tried muscling in on her father’s territory?’ Logan pressed. ‘You remember what she did to him? Locking him in that freezer? Leaving him to die?’
‘That was different, and you know it!’ Shona snapped. There was a desperation in her voice that cracked the words wide open. ‘He would’ve killed her. Worse. He was a monster.’
‘And now he’s dead.’
‘Good!’ Shona screeched, racing down a couple more steps until she stood eye to eye with the detective. ‘That bastard… He was going to… He was going to kill me, Jack.’
Pain burned behind her eyes, bringing tears to them. Logan reached out to hold her, but she drew back, twisting out of his reach.
‘Do you know the nightmares she’s had about him? The nightmares I’ve had? She’s a child, Jack.’
‘But she knew,’ Logan stressed. ‘She knew he was coming. That Bosco was getting out. She knew, and she didn’t tell us. She lied. She pretended not to know. Why? Why would she do that?’
Shona made a succession of huffing noises that didn’t amount to any sort of explanation. But then, she had none to offer.
‘She lives with us. She’s part of… this. Our family.’
Logan’s voice was like the crunching of dry leaves. Like the scraping of a blade on a sharpening stone.
‘I know. But she didn’t tell us. She kept it from us. And I need to know why.’
‘Don’t,’ Shona warned, and her tone matched for sharpness. ‘Don’t you dare. You’re not going to accuse her of this. You can’t.’
‘I’m not accusing. I’m asking. I have to,’ Logan said. He sighed. ‘Harris reckons she’s got some new boyfriend.’ He shifted around on the spot, like he wasn’t comfortable with the words coming out of his mouth. ‘Given what you said about Victor Belov. About… what he’d been up to—’
‘Jesus Christ, Jack!’ Shona all-but bellowed at him. ‘Listen to yourself!’
‘Given what you said—’ he began again, but she shut him down once more.
‘Go!’ she cried, pointing to the door behind him. ‘Go to the office. Get out.’
Logan shut his eyes, unable to look at her while he said the next part. ‘There was a girl spotted leaving the scene, she—’
‘Go look at the report, Jack,’ Shona spat.
Logan opened his eyes again. The pathologist was almost to the top of the stairs, facing away from him, not looking back.
‘Go look at the report, and you’ll see how bloody ridiculous you sound.’