Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
This changed things. This meant something.
Based on the post-mortem, Victor Belov had recently had sexual intercourse with another man, possibly just hours before his murder. Maybe even less.
But who? And where? And how did that tie in with everything else?
Logan didn’t know the answers to any of that yet, but there was an electricity in the air now. The Incident Room felt like it was coming alive for the first time that day.
This meant something. This changed things. He was sure of it.
‘We got into his phone yet?’ Logan asked, pacing back and forth in front of the Big Board.
‘Nothing yet, no,’ Hamza replied.
Logan clapped his hands together. The sound was like a shockwave that raced around the room. ‘Then tell them to get their finger out. I want location data, texts, emails, WhatsApps, fucking… Wordle scores. Anything that’s on there, I want to see it.’
‘I’ll chase up the tech team,’ Hamza said, reaching for the phone.
‘What about the network? They given us call data yet?’
‘Technically, yes, boss,’ Tyler said. He clicked his mouse, then turned his monitor to show a largely blank spreadsheet. ‘Says he made eight calls in the last six months, all to home. I’m thinking he had a second number that we don’t know about.’
‘Virtual SIM, maybe,’ Dave suggested. ‘If we could get into his phone, we’d find it.’
Logan about-turned and started to pace quickly in the opposite direction, stabbing a finger at Hamza’s phone as he passed the DI’s desk.
‘Tell the tech squad that if they don’t have something for me by close of play, I’ll be down there first thing in the morning to shove their heads up their arses. Use those words. Use those exact words.’
Hamza nodded as he dialled. ‘I’ll, eh, I’ll be sure to pass that on.’
‘Exact words, Hamza!’ Logan reiterated.
He checked his watch and winced at what he saw.
The day was getting on. It was already almost six, and the sky beyond the window was darkening.
The search for Joe Robertson was going to become even more challenging over the next few hours, and childcare responsibilities meant he was going to lose Sinead, Tyler, or possibly both of them before the evening stretched on much further.
He stopped pacing just long enough to shoot a look at the door. That was a point. Sinead and Tyler. There was still nothing about their interviews.
A concern nipped away at the back of Logan’s mind. Another one to add to the list.
What if Tyler had gone too far? What if, in throwing the interview, he’d stuck a stick through the spokes of his career? What if that shower of uppity arseholes were sitting drinking tea and eating biscuits while debating DC Neish’s fitness for duty? Or his sanity in general, maybe.
Logan dismissed the thought with a shake of his head. As worries went, it was low on the list. He’d vouch for the detective constable, smooth it all over, explain the thinking behind his interview actions, if it came to it. Nobody was breaking up this team. Not while he was in charge.
‘Nothing on ANPR for Joe Robertson’s car,’ Dave announced. ‘Hasn’t been a ping on it in months.’
‘Right. OK,’ Logan said. He turned and started marching in the opposite direction again.
‘Doesn’t really tell us anything, anyway.
Not like there are many cameras across the area.
He’d have to have passed a police car with its camera running, so chances were always going to be slim. Doesn’t exclude him from anything.’
It was still thin, though, Logan knew. What even was the theory he was digging into?
That Joe Robertson, an elderly man in a neighbourhood watch group, had driven to the home of a drug dealer in Forres, blown his head off, then returned home to Aviemore and happened upon a second closely related drug dealer parked in a lay-by near his home, before slitting his throat and calling it in?
Laying it out like that, the theory wasn’t just thin, it was nonsense. Unless they could establish an existing relationship between all three men, then it was all too coincidental.
Besides, Joe had been on the brink of a nervous breakdown while being questioned over a handbag full of cash. No matter how much Logan tried to imagine that man committing a double homicide of two potentially dangerous criminals, he just couldn’t make it work.
But he was out there roaming around somewhere, potentially armed, so that was something. Wasn’t it?
The words jumped out at him from the Big Board again as he passed it.
Young woman seen walking.
Hostile.
Aggressive.
Fearless.
‘It could have been anyone,’ he muttered.
‘Sir?’ Sinead asked.
Logan shook his head. ‘Nothing. Doesn’t matter.’
A phone rang. Tyler reached for it. Logan was already pointing, already hoping.
‘Tell me that’s something. Tell me you’ve got something.’
Tyler took the call. Listened, nodding along, then hung up.
‘It, eh, it was for you, boss,’ Tyler said. ‘Message from downstairs. There’s, um, there’s someone at reception for you.’
‘For me? Who?’
Tyler shot a look around the room, as if checking for an escape route, should he need one.
‘It’s, eh, it’s Olivia, boss,’ he said. ‘And, by the sounds of things, she’s pretty worked up.’
She flew at him almost the moment he stepped out of the lift, like she was going to vault the security gate that drew a line between the general public and the police business going on upstairs.
Shona was with her, trying to calm her down, trying to hold her back, but Olivia shrugged her way free of the pathologist’s grip, finger raising, pointing, stabbing in Jack’s face.
‘If you’ve got something to say to me, just say it,’ the girl hissed. She was still in her school uniform, but her expression made her look older than her years. It twisted her features and formed deep, angry lines.
‘Olivia, just calm down,’ Shona pleaded.
She met Jack’s eye, but only for a moment, like she couldn’t hold it for long. Like she wouldn’t.
‘What’s going on?’ Logan asked, keeping his voice low so as not to attract any further attention.
He needn’t have bothered. From the staff behind the front desk, to the Uniforms crossing the foyer, and even the civilians sitting on the hard plastic chairs waiting to be seen—everyone was paying attention.
‘What’s going on?’ Olivia asked. Her voice climbed an octave. ‘What’s going on? You think I’m shagging some dead guy, or something.’
‘Jesus Christ. Keep your voice down,’ Jack warned. He shot a questioning look to Shona, who looked mortified by the whole situation. ‘You told her?’
‘I just… I was just—’
‘Yes, she told me!’ Olivia side-stepped to block the pathologist from view. This was between her and Logan. Nobody else. ‘She told me what you were getting at.’
The girl held her arms out at her side, weight shifting from foot to foot like she was initiating a fight in the school playground.
‘So, you want to question me? You want to interrogate me, Jack?’ His name was an insult, spat in his face. ‘Go for it. Come on. Let’s do it.’
Shona appeared in Logan’s line of sight again. She looked worried. Embarrassed. But there was something in her eyes. In the way she stared at him. A warning.
‘I can take her home,’ Shona said, offering a way out. Offering an olive branch, maybe.
Like things didn’t have to go this way. Like he didn’t have to do this.
But she was wrong. He did.
Like it or not, he did.
‘Right, we’ll go for a walk, and—’
‘No.’ Olivia shook her head. ‘Upstairs. In one of your wee interview rooms.’ She thrust her hands towards him, wrists together. ‘You want to handcuff me, or can you trust me enough not to run away?’
Logan could feel all those eyes watching on.
‘Let’s just go home,’ Shona pleaded. ‘We can talk about this later.’
Olivia just stood there. Staring. Waiting.
Hostile. Aggressive. Fearless.
He heard Shona let out a little gasp, as she realised what was about to happen.
Logan didn’t look at her. He didn’t dare. He just held Olivia’s gaze, even though it burned and burrowed its way into him.
‘Do you want a solicitor present?’ he asked.
‘Jack, don’t do this,’ Shona begged.
‘No,’ Olivia said.
‘Do you wish to have an appropriate adult present? That can be Shona, or—’
‘No.’
The answer registered on Shona’s face like a slap.
‘Olivia, let’s just calm down and—’
‘Can we just hurry up and do this?’ the girl demanded. ‘I want to get it over with.’
Logan tried not to notice the pain on Shona’s face. Tried not to instinctively reach for her, hold her, tell her it was all going to be OK.
Instead, he just nodded. ‘Right, then.’
He tapped his pass on the security gate. It slid open, and Olivia marched past him towards the lift.
When Shona moved to follow, Logan blocked her way.
‘I’m sorry,’ he told her.
‘Jack, get out of the way. I’m going in with her.’
Logan looked back over his shoulder, to where Olivia was already stabbing at the button to summon the lift. He shut his eyes for a moment, and breathed out.
When he turned back to Shona, the shake in his voice was almost under control.
‘No,’ he said.
The gate slid closed between them.
‘I’m afraid you can’t.’
‘Well, Mr Maximuke, I’d like to thank you for your time today,’ DCI Reeve declared, holding the door to the interview room open so that Bosco could step out into the corridor. ‘Getting to know you a little has been… well, it has really been something.’
Bosco ducked beneath the taller man’s arm and made a sound that was somewhere in the region of a laugh, just not particularly close to it.
‘It was my pleasure. You are good man, I think. When I pray to Jesus tonight, I will thank Him for you.’
Reeve’s smile, which was already the focal point of his face, grew wider. ‘I appreciate that. You be sure to tell the big guy I said hello.’
He started to lead the Russian along the corridor.
‘And if, while talking to Him, you remember anything that might be constructive or useful, and not just a lot of, you know, waffle and bullshit’—Reeve’s smile remained utterly sincere—‘you be sure to give us a call.’
‘Of course, of course,’ Bosco agreed. ‘I am just sorry that I could not have been of more—’
He stopped dead in his tracks when the door at the far end of the corridor opened, and his daughter came storming through.
She saw him and slowed. For a moment, her eyes widened. Some look of horror wrote itself across the lines of her face.
And then, the mask of anger was pulled back down, and she swung a left into a room on a mumbled instruction from the detective looming behind her.
Logan and Bosco watched each other from along the corridor. Stared. Said nothing.
Finally, Jack turned and followed Olivia into the room, and the door clicked closed behind them.
‘Sorry about that,’ Reeve began. ‘Now, if you’d just like to—’
‘Wait!’
Bosco pressed a hand against the corridor wall, like he was bracing himself there. Like he would not be moved.
‘Just… wait,’ he said.
He stood there in silence, peering into the empty space where his daughter had been, like the atoms in the air were tea leaves he could somehow read.
Bosco swallowed. Straightened. His hand slipped from the wall, and he turned to face DCI Reeve.
‘I would like to go back into room,’ he said. His eyes darted to the door they’d just walked through. ‘I have information I think you will want to hear.’