Chapter 37
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
This could be it. This could be the smoking gun.
At the very least, it was enough to bring Eleanor Belov in for questioning, and to keep her lawyers from immediately waltzing her back out through the front door.
Eleanor’s car, three miles from the scene of her husband’s murder on the very night it happened, right there in the ANPR database.
‘Must’ve popped up some time today,’ Dave said. ‘It can take a few days to show up, especially if it came from an in-car camera rather than a fixed one.’
‘And this one did?’ Logan asked.
Dave pointed to the registration number in the top corner of the report.
‘Get me a copy of this, will you?’ Logan instructed. ‘Let’s get her in, get her fingerprinted, see if we can tie her to the bag and the forty grand.’
‘No bother. Want me to go round and get her?’
Logan shook his head. ‘Send Uniform. A bunch of them. Make a scene, and make it noisy. I want her to know her money doesn’t buy her any special treatment here.’
‘On it,’ Dave said, reaching for his phone.
He had just started to dial when Logan’s mobile rang over on his desk. A seam of something hot and acidic burned in his stomach. Shona? Olivia?
It settled again when he saw Ben’s name on the screen. He glanced over at the desk the former DI had been sitting at, half-expecting to find some forgotten item he’d left behind. A packet of Tunnock’s Teacakes, maybe, or a big bag of Jelly Babies.
‘Benjamin. You just can’t tear yourself away, can you?’ Logan began, but most of the sentence was drowned out by Ben’s breathless babbling.
‘Jack. Bosco. Bosco. The bastards, they…’
He wheezed into silence. All Logan could hear was the rustling of movement, and the thudding of unsteady footsteps.
‘Ben, calm down. What’s the matter? What’s happened?’ Logan asked.
Dave turned in his chair to look at him, before a response from the other end of the line made him focus on his own call.
The only reply from Ben was a whispered, desperate, ‘Oh, Jesus.’
Logan didn’t even bother grabbing for his coat. Ben couldn’t have got far. He stormed towards the door, already mentally mapping out the route to the café, where the former DI had been heading.
‘Ben, hold on. I’m coming. Just stay where you are,’ Logan said, raising his voice to be heard over the sound of the older man’s puffing and panting. ‘Just stay where—’
He opened the door just in time for Ben to come staggering in, his phone still pressed to his ear. His face was an angry, almost-purple shade of red, with a sheen of sweat that made him glisten in the fluorescent glow of the overhead lights.
His chest was heaving, his hands were shaking, and his knees almost gave out on him as he stumbled into the room.
Jack caught him by the shoulders, holding him there, steadying him.
‘Ben? You’re OK. What’s the matter? What happened?’
The words rasped through the tightening tunnel of Ben’s throat.
‘Bosco. They… they took Bosco.’
‘What do you mean? Who took Bosco? Where?’
Ben explained. Told him about the van, and the two masked men, and how they’d rained blow after blow on the Russian, before bundling him in through the vehicle’s back doors.
Shame-faced, he offered up his complete lack of information before Jack had a chance to ask him for it. He had no idea of the van’s registration. No clue of the make or model. Nothing useful that would help identify who the men were, or where they were taking him.
Well, no. That wasn’t quite true.
‘They did turn right. Out of the estate. At the bottom,’ he said through the heaving breaths his lungs were demanding from him. ‘Ran back here. Couldn’t find… phone in my bloody pockets until—Jesus.’
‘Take a seat,’ Logan said, grabbing the closest chair and rolling it into position.
Ben acknowledged it with a grateful smile as he flopped down into it. The Paddington Bear duffel was so bulky and unbending that it forced him to sort of lie back with his feet sticking straight out in front of him.
‘Stupid coat,’ he whispered, but he was too knackered to even try to take it off.
‘Stay there. Breathe. Don’t die, or I’ll never hear the bloody end of it,’ Logan told him.
He caught Dave’s eye, pointed to Ben to say he was leaving him in the DC’s hands, then went hurrying out into the corridor, already shouting for anyone in earshot to drop what they were doing right fucking now.
Ben half-sat, half-lay on the chair, wedged in tight between the armrests by the sheer scale of the coat. His breathing was still fast and unsteady, but he no longer felt like his chest was about to explode.
Aye, his legs were burning, his heart was racing, and he had a headache that felt like being stabbed through the eye socket with a knitting needle, but he’d live. All being well, he’d live.
He blew upwards over his face, trying to cool it, then mustered a smile when Dave finished his call and hung up the phone.
‘You alright?’ Dave asked him. ‘Want me to get you a drink?’
‘Aye. A stiff Laphroaig, if there’s one going.’
Dave patted at his pockets, then made a show of coming away empty-handed. ‘Sorry, fresh out. Can do you a tea or a coffee, though.’
‘I’m fine, son,’ Ben said. And he was. Or, he was headed that way. Physically, at least. ‘Don’t you worry about this daft old bugger. Don’t let me slow you down.’
‘It’s no bother,’ Dave told him, but Ben ignored the suggestion and tipped his head towards the phone.
‘You getting somewhere?’
‘Um. Aye. Maybe,’ Dave said. ‘Eleanor—the wife—her car was spotted near the scene of Victor’s murder.’
Ben attempted to sit forward in the chair, but the bulk of the coat made it impossible for him to bend that way, so he just sort of wriggled about a bit instead.
‘That could be big,’ he said. ‘You bringing her in?’
‘That’s the plan,’ Dave said. ‘Uniform’s heading round now.’
‘Good stuff.’
Ben let his head fall back and closed his eyes. He’d forgotten how nice it was to be able to breathe, and now that he was regaining the ability, he could feel something almost euphoric coming over him.
‘Aye, but, with this happening. Bosco. I’m not sure there’ll be anyone around to talk to her.’
Ben lifted a hand and waved it, like he was batting away an insect. ‘S’fine,’ he said, his voice slurring. ‘Won’t be the first time Bosco Maximuke’s been kicked around. He’ll be grand.’
The former DI’s voice became soft. Became slow. He yawned.
‘The important thing to remember, son, is…’
The rest of the sentence fell away into silence.
Swaddled in his oversized coat, and wedged between the arms of the chair, Ben Forde drifted off to sleep.
‘Whatda—?’
Ben jumped awake to find Logan standing over him, jiggling the chair with a foot.
‘I had to shut you up,’ Jack told him. ‘Your snoring was annoying the guys in B&Q along the street.’
Ben pushed himself up from where he’d started to slip further down in the chair.
‘My arse. I don’t snore.’
‘Don’t snore?’ Logan cried. ‘It was like a fucking chainsaw singing Black Sabbath.’
Ben held a hand out for Logan to help him up, but the DCI hesitated.
‘You should just stay sitting where you are.’
‘Shut it, and help me up,’ Ben urged, jiggling his arm around for emphasis.
Logan took the hand and pulled. The chair was clamped onto Ben like a limpet, though, and started to come with him until Logan pinned it beneath a foot and Ben was pulled from its armrest jaws.
‘Bloody coat,’ the ex-DI muttered.
He looked around, then over at the window, like he was expecting it to be a brand new day. The only light outside came from the lampposts and passing car headlights, and the twinkling glow of the city.
‘How long was I asleep for?’
‘About forty minutes,’ Dave told him.
He presented a cup of tea and a plate of stale-looking plain biscuits. Ben made no attempt to hide his disappointment at the paltry haul of Digestives and Rich Teas, but took them anyway.
‘What’s happening, then? Any sign of Bosco?’
Logan shook his head and told him that no, as of yet, they had no idea where Bosco Maximuke had gone, or who had taken him. Extra CCTV staff had been drafted in to run through footage of the cameras all across the city, in an attempt to track the van, or at least get a number plate.
There was no word as of yet, but the search was in capable hands. Just as well, too.
‘Eleanor Belov’s downstairs,’ Logan revealed. ‘She’s agreed to be interviewed, and to give fingerprints. They’re doing the print scans now, then Palmer’s team can pull them off the database and compare with the bag. She’s also agreed to give us the address of her Bitcoin wallet.’
Ben grimaced, and plucked a HobNob from the plate. There was a lone Ginger Nut beside it, but he gave that one a wide berth.
‘I was with you up until the end bit,’ he said. ‘Wallet address. Does that no’ mean you can just take all her money? If so, I’ll keep quiet about it if you give me half.’
Logan shook his head. ‘No, you need…’
The sentence started confidently enough, but petered out quite quickly. Logan looked to Dave, who chimed in with the rest of the explanation.
‘Think of the wallet like a safe. We might know where it is, but we’d still need the keys to get into it.’
‘So… what good does knowing where it is do you?’ Ben asked, dunking the biscuit in his tea.
‘Well…’ Dave shifted in his chair, trying to find an analogy for tracking a digital currency on the blockchain that would make sense to a man who could never remember which way round his telly remote should go.
‘OK, so, it’s a safe, but it’s got a big window in the front.
Or a display that shows you how much is inside at any given time.
But, it also shows you what’s been moving in and out. ’
‘Like a bank statement?’
‘Aye! Sort of. Like that,’ Dave said. ‘That’s a better way of looking at it. She’s giving us a bank statement, so we can see the current balance, and all her recent transactions. But, we can’t actually take money out with that information. Not without her say-so.’
Ben raised his biscuit, tilted his head back, and lowered the soggy half into his mouth. He mushed it around for a moment, then swallowed and nodded.
‘Makes sense,’ he said, and he sounded as surprised by that as anyone.
Logan clapped his hands together and rubbed them. ‘OK. I’ll do the interview. Ben, I’m going to get someone from CCTV to come up and take you down there, so you can help them identify this van.’
He hesitated, having second thoughts.
‘Actually… are you alright, or…?’
‘I’m fine, Jack. I can do it,’ Ben insisted.
Logan knew better than to argue.
‘Good. Right. Dave, when that wallet information gets to you, do your stuff.’
It was pretty vague as orders went, but Logan didn’t know enough about the ins and outs of it all to be any more specific.
‘Will do.’
‘What about Hamza and Sergeant Fleck? Any word?’
Dave reached for a couple of Post-its on his desk. ‘Hamza reckons another half an hour at the scene. Pathology’s there now.’
Logan tried not to think too much about that, and just nodded.
‘Sergeant Fleck’s done at the house. Think it was pretty rough, by the sounds of it. Wife took it hard. He and the constable he was with hung on with her until the liaison turned up. He’s heading back up the road now. Should be here any time.’
‘OK. Good. Ask him to write it all up, and to update the Big Board. Sinead can sort it out properly in the morning.’
Jack took out his phone, checking the time, but also checking to see if he’d received any messages from home.
Nothing.
Dave’s desk phone rang. He answered it, had a brief conversation with the person on the other end, then hung up.
‘She’s here. Eleanor Belov. She’s in interview room three.’
‘How many lawyers?’ Logan asked.
‘Not sure.’
Logan sniffed. ‘Aye, well, no’ too many, I hope.’ He returned his phone to his trouser pocket, then rolled up his sleeves. ‘Because she’s only getting the two seats.’