Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
By the time Logan and the others had got themselves organised for a Big Board catch-up, they’d been joined in the Incident Room by Sergeant Gavin Fleck.
Gavin had been polite, and thanked Logan for the opportunity to be so directly involved in the case, but there had been just a suggestion of reluctance to it, and Logan had got the impression that the sergeant would rather still have been out there searching for Joe Robertson.
‘You’ll do more good in here,’ Jack had told him, and though Fleck had looked skeptical, he hadn’t argued.
Ben Forde remained through in the obs room, presumably still making his way through his big bag of popcorn as he watched DCI Reeve continue to question Bosco Maximuke. If there were any big reveals from that, Ben had promised to come through and share them.
Logan wasn’t expecting anything major, though. The Russian was good at keeping secrets. If he shared anything, it would only be because it was to his advantage.
Besides, right now, Bosco wasn’t the Maximuke that worried him.
The team, newly expanded to include Sergeant Fleck, raced through a quick status check.
Joe Robertson was still missing.
Same with the Belov brothers, although at least their car had been found abandoned just off the motorway near Carlisle.
Nobody in Aviemore had any idea about Victor Belov’s love life.
Neither the shards of glass nor the footprints at the first murder scene had been identified.
There was still no sign of either murder weapon.
The unknown fingerprint on the designer handbag remained unidentified.
‘In short,’ Logan concluded. ‘We’re pretty much fucked.’
‘I wouldn’t say that,’ Dave Davidson replied. He gestured to the board. ‘I’d say we’re completely fucked.’
Logan scratched at his stubble and nodded. ‘No, you’re right. That does feel more accurate.’
‘What about the money, boss? In the bag? How much was there?’
‘Forty grand,’ Hamza said, answering on the DCI’s behalf.
‘Bloody hell,’ Tyler remarked. ‘Do we know where it came from?’
‘Oh, eh, aye!’ Sergeant Fleck half-raised a hand. ‘It was… Joe Robertson found it in the back of the victim’s car.’
‘Right. Aye. No.’ Tyler smiled at him. It was a kindly thing. Pitying, almost. Logan would’ve slit his own throat there and then if he’d found himself on the receiving end of a look like that from Tyler. ‘I meant… before that.’
Fleck lowered his hand, his cheeks already starting to sting red around the edges.
‘Sorry, aye. Course. Wasn’t thinking.’
‘Got to be the wife’s, surely?’ Sinead suggested. ‘Eleanor Belov. I mean, she is minted.’
‘That’s a point.’ Logan turned to Dave. ‘Any joy with all the Bitcoin stuff?’
Dave winced, like he’d been braced for this question. ‘Not really. Haven’t been able to track down any of her wallets yet. Though, I did find out she didn’t buy that house in cash.’
‘She used crypto?’ Hamza asked in surprise.
‘She used a mortgage,’ Dave corrected.
‘Why would she need a mortgage if she’s got a hundred million quid?’ Tyler asked.
Looks were exchanged, but no answers were voiced. Knowledge of high finance generally wasn’t necessary on a Police Scotland wage.
‘Wait, wait!’ Hamza clicked his fingers and pointed to Sergeant Fleck. ‘At the thing. The presentation. When you were listing off the volunteers, you mentioned a bank manager.’
The sergeant nodded slowly. ‘Archie Howden. He’s with the Caledonian.’
‘What’s the Caledonian?’ Dave asked. ‘Is that not a pub?’
‘I think it’s one of them private banks. Headquarters in Edinburgh,’ Fleck explained. He looked slightly embarrassed by all the sudden attention. ‘He told me all about it, but I wasn’t really listening. I generally just use him as the butt of the joke at these group meetings.’
Panic flashed across his face, like he had just talked himself into trouble.
‘He’s fine with it, I should stress. He’s a good laugh. You know, for a bank manager. Which, I appreciate isn’t really a high bar.’
‘Could he advise?’ Hamza asked. ‘Not on Eleanor Belov’s particular circumstances, obviously, but in general?’
‘Like, why someone with a hundred million quid would have a mortgage?’ Tyler reiterated.
Fleck gave a little shrug that wasn’t about to commit to anything. ‘I mean… I can ask. I can run it by him.’
‘Or we could just ask her directly,’ Sinead suggested. She looked around at the others, before settling on Logan. ‘I mean, I know you spoke to her at her house, but a lot’s changed since then. If that’s her bag… If that’s her money…’
Logan groaned. She was right, of course. Pulling Eleanor Belov in for interview not only made sense, but was long overdue.
He suspected it wasn’t going to be as easy as it sounded, though.
‘She said she’s got a team of lawyers. If she has the sort of money she’s claiming to, then you can bet they’ll be a pain in the arse. I want to make sure we’ve got something on her before we bring her in. Something concrete.’
‘What about the lassie Joe Robertson saw?’ Hamza said. ‘Could that have been her?’
Logan hesitated, feeling Tyler and Sinead’s gazes on him.
Hamza was referring to the young woman seen walking near the murder scene.
The young woman with the attitude problem, who had not yet been identified.
Maybe it could’ve been Eleanor. Maybe it was.
Or maybe it was someone closer to home.
‘It’s not enough. That could have been anyone,’ Jack said. ‘We need something more solid.’
‘Um…’
Sergeant Fleck half-raised a hand again.
‘What if you just asked her to voluntarily give some fingerprints?’
He blushed once more when all eyes turned his way.
‘I mean, the bag. The fingerprint you say you can’t ID. You could just tell her you need to rule her out. See if she’ll agree to that. You could talk to her then.’
Logan’s eyes narrowed as he played the scenario out in his head.
‘Could work, boss,’ Tyler said. ‘Just, you know, say it’s a formality.’
Hamza agreed. ‘Then, if you thought she knew more than she was letting on, we could make it official. Let her bring her lawyers in then.’
It was… something, Logan thought. They should check for sure if the bag was hers, if the print was hers. That was worth doing, anyway.
But Eleanor Belov as the killer? Did that fit? He couldn’t hold the shape of it in his head.
A vengeful wife killing a cheating husband was one thing, but killing a cheating husband’s business rival, or associate, or whatever they were to each other? That was harder to grasp.
But then, her first husband, Jason, had been at least partly driven to his death by a drug addiction. Could that be it? Could she be on some well-meaning anti-drugs crusade that had got out of hand?
It was a strange choice for her new man, if so, given the CID case being built against him.
Plus, she’d seemed surprised to hear of Victor’s death.
Not especially sad, or anything, but shocked.
If she’d known about it beforehand, she’d clearly been spending some of her millions on acting lessons.
The fact she hadn’t bothered to hide her indifference about the murder meant she was either playing an absolute blinder, or telling the truth.
And, though he wished it weren’t the case, Logan was leaning towards the latter.
Which left… what?
Based on what they knew from the information they’d gathered, there were two strong contenders for a possible motive.
Either Bosco Maximuke was reclaiming his territory.
Or someone was trying to make it look like he was.
Sinead and Tyler were staring at him again, he was sure of it. He didn’t have to look at them to know.
He faced the board, turning his back on them.
‘What about Joe Robertson?’ he said, and the note of desperation in his voice made him wince.
Sergeant Fleck glanced down at the radio on his shoulder, as if to check it was on. ‘No word yet.’
‘I meant as a potential suspect,’ Logan said. ‘He found the first body. He stole from the scene. He has a shotgun, for God’s sake.’
‘Aye, about that,’ Dave Davidson piped up. ‘The ballistics report came in. Shotgun used to kill Kendrick Crichton was a sawn-off. Joe Robertson’s is a full-barrel.’
Logan cursed below his breath.
Shit.
‘Unless he’s sawed it off himself?’ Sinead suggested. ‘His wife said it’d been a while since she’d seen it. He could’ve cut it down.’
‘Good point. Yes!’ Logan said, seizing on the possibility. ‘So, we find him, and we find out. Did we check with the wife again? The neighbourhood watch lot?’
‘Aye, boss.’
‘And?’
‘Nothing useful.’
‘Members of HAWKS have volunteered to join the search,’ Fleck informed them. ‘I’ve told them to wait for now. Don’t want them getting in the way. We’re hoping he might turn his vest on at some point. Maureen says he was wearing it when he left.’
‘Turn his vest on?’ Tyler asked. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Wait. Yesterday. At the thing.’ Hamza frowned, recalling the sergeant’s speech. ‘You said “state-of-the-art hi-vis vests.”’
‘They’ve got trackers in them. GPS,’ the sergeant explained. ‘So the members can coordinate themselves. Keep track of who’s where.’
‘They’re a neighbourhood watch group, no’ the bloody SAS,’ Logan pointed out.
Just the thought of it annoyed him. Groups like HAWKS had existed for decades. Centuries, probably. Up until now, they’d somehow managed to struggle by without a satellite tracking system watching their every move.
The world was becoming needlessly complicated. Although, had Joe Robertson’s tracker been switched on, this could all have been over with hours ago, so maybe there was something to the idea.
‘Don’t suppose there’s any chance you can turn it on remotely?’ Logan asked.
‘No. Not as far as I know,’ Fleck replied.
‘Doubt it,’ Hamza agreed. ‘Be all kinds of privacy issues, not to mention the practicality of it.’
‘Yeah, as far as I’m aware, they need to activate it themselves. And I’m not even sure Joe will know how.’
Logan didn’t bother to hide his disappointment. ‘Then we’d better hurry up and find him the old-fashioned way.’
‘I honestly don’t believe he’ll hurt anyone,’ Fleck said, jumping to the old man’s defence. ‘I mean, himself, maybe. That’s my worry. But I don’t think he’s a danger to others.’
‘Well, let’s hope you’re right,’ Logan told him. ‘Let’s run an ANPR check on his car, though, just out of interest.’
‘He doesn’t have his car,’ Dave pointed out.
‘No, but if he travelled to Forres to kill Kendrick Crichton on Wednesday afternoon, then he sure as hell didn’t walk it.’
‘I’ve got access to the ANPR database, if you want me to run the search?’ Fleck asked. ‘Make myself useful.’
He broke the uneasy silence before it had a chance to take hold.
‘Although, actually, no. Given that I know Joe, maybe better if someone else…?’ He looked around the room, like he was searching for a volunteer.
He found one in DC Davidson.
‘On it,’ Dave declared, wheeling himself back to his desk.
Logan turned and studied the Big Board, his fingertips rasping across the stubble on his chin. Joe Robertson was a lead. The slimmest one, maybe, but better than nothing. They might get a hit on his car reg near Kendrick Crichton’s house.
They might find he’d taken a hacksaw to his shotgun.
They might turn up something.
But items on the Big Board kept jumping out at him, paragraphs popping off the Post-its and the pinned pages.
Young woman seen walking. Hostile. Aggressive. Fearless.
Bosco Maximuke framed? Why?
To deflect blame? To have him sent back to prison?
Condom wrapper.
Affair? Other woman?
‘Hold on,’ Logan said, spinning around again. ‘Condom wrapper. Other woman. Where’s the PM report for Victor Belov?’
Tyler rolled in his chair over to his desk, fingers already reaching for the keyboard. He had barely even started to type when Sinead produced a printed version from a pile of paperwork on her desk.
‘Came in while you were out earlier, sir,’ she said, passing Logan the report. ‘Haven’t had a chance to fully go through it yet.’
Logan was barely listening. He flipped through the pages, scanning the text, searching for anything in there about sexual activity. Shona had said he’d been sexually active just before his death.
Aside from the torn-off strip of the condom wrapper, which could have been lying there in the car for weeks, he didn’t understand how she could know that…
He stopped when he found the paragraph he had been looking for.
‘Oh,’ Logan said. ‘Oh, shite.’
‘Sir?’ Sinead asked.
‘Jesus Christ!’ Jack exclaimed. He prodded at the page, his mind whirring with all the possibilities and ramifications of what he’d just read. ‘Shona, she said he’d been shagging. Victor Belov. She said he’d recently been sexually active.’
Tyler’s fingers flew across the keyboard. His lips moved as he skim-read what appeared on his screen.
‘How could she tell that?’ Dave wondered. ‘Did he still have a stiffy?’
‘Oh, bloody hell, boss!’ Tyler cried. ‘I see it.’
‘I don’t understand. Surely you can’t actually tell a man’s been up to that sort of thing, can you?’ Sinead asked. ‘I mean, I suppose there could be… stains, or whatever, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s been sexually active.’
‘Could’ve been wanking,’ Dave added, in case anyone hadn’t come to that conclusion themselves.
‘There were… injuries,’ Logan said. ‘Beyond the ones we knew about on the forehead and the throat, I mean.’
‘Injuries?’ Hamza frowned. ‘Defensive ones?’
‘Not exactly,’ Tyler said, reading from his screen.
‘Turns out, sometimes you can tell when a man’s been up to that sort of thing,’ Logan said. He held up the report, fingers hooked over the top of it, and pointed to the relevant section of the page. ‘Assuming he’s been the one on the receiving end.’