Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
The designer handbag was hers. The money, too. She spoke freely about them, in that way she had that suggested she either had nothing to hide, or was completely confident in her ability to do so.
‘Blackmail?’ Logan said, repeating the key part of what she’d just told him. ‘Someone was blackmailing him?’
‘So he said,’ Eleanor confirmed.
‘Someone was blackmailing Victor?’
‘Is there an echo in here, Detective Chief Inspector?’ Fairweather asked. From the corner, The Boy gave a snort of laughter, like this was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.
Logan shifted his gaze to the younger solicitor, and the smile withered and died on his face.
‘I’m just clarifying,’ Jack told Fairweather. ‘I want to be absolutely clear on what your client is telling me. You OK with that?’
He stared at the older man, but if Fairweather was intimidated, he did a damn good job of not letting it show.
‘He told me that some guy phoned him up,’ Eleanor continued. ‘Said he knew about Victor and Kendrick, and that he was going to tell everyone. Tell me, tell Victor’s brothers.’
Logan frowned, considering this new wrinkle. ‘It wasn’t about the drugs?’
‘No. It was about Kendrick. Their relationship. I mean, I knew already. I didn’t care, like I said. But if Sergei and Mikhail found out—Sergei especially—there was no saying what they’d do.’
‘He told you about this? Victor? About the blackmail?’
Eleanor nodded.
‘For the tape,’ Logan prompted.
‘Yes. He told me. Since I already knew what was going on with him and Kendrick, he had no reason to hide it.’ She scratched at the end of her nose. It might have been natural, but could have been an instinctive attempt to hide something. ‘Besides, he needed one of my bags.’
Logan’s eyes narrowed, focusing in on this new information. ‘Sorry?’
‘The guy who phoned him. He said he had to put the money in one of my handbags.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. He didn’t say. Maybe it was a present for his wife, or maybe he was going to list it on eBay. He just said it had to be forty grand, in one of my handbags, dropped in a bin in Aviemore.’ She shrugged. ‘Clearly, he didn’t make it.’
Logan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. His temper kicked in before he had a chance to contain it.
‘And why the hell did you not think to mention that?’
‘That’s enough!’ Fairweather said, raising his voice to match the detective’s. ‘Might I remind you—’
‘Because I don’t trust you!’ Eleanor shot back, finally losing her cool. ‘How could I, after everything with Jason? All that bloody… harassment. Months of it! How could I know you wouldn’t just casually mention it in front of Victor’s brothers? Tell them what he’d been doing. Who he really was?’
‘He was already dead,’ Logan pointed out. ‘Wasn’t a lot they could do to him.’
‘Not him, maybe. But me. The baby. My kids!’
‘Oh, come on. You didn’t seem scared of them. Back at the house,’ Logan countered. ‘You talked to them like they were the help.’
‘Because if I didn’t, if I showed them how afraid I am of them, then that would’ve been it,’ Eleanor cried. Her voice cracked, real emotion finally breaking the surface. ‘If they knew how terrified I am, if they saw that weakness, I would’ve been done!’
Fairweather picked up his pen and placed it in his top pocket. A glance from the older man made The Boy spring into life. He hurriedly flipped his notebook closed as Fairweather’s chair legs scraped backwards across the floor.
‘Right, that’s us. We’re finished here,’ he announced. ‘Mrs Belov…’
He stood up, indicating that she should do the same. Logan let her push her chair back before dropping the bombshell.
‘Not yet.’
One of Fairweather’s eyebrows twitched. Just briefly. Just for a fraction of a second. For a face like his, though, which seemed carved from stone, it was seismic.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘I’m not finished,’ Logan told him.
‘My client is here voluntarily, so she is free to leave at any point, as you very well know.’
‘I said I’m not finished,’ Logan reiterated. He met the solicitor’s gaze. ‘Sit. Down.’
The lawyer stood his ground, not sitting, but not moving to leave, either. Behind him, The Boy was frozen to the spot, only his eyes shifting as they flitted between his boss and the detective.
‘It’s fine, Douglas,’ Eleanor said. She sighed when she turned to Logan, like she’d been humouring the village idiot and was now tiring of his nonsense.
The thing in his gut stirred again, twisting itself into knots this time, battling to be free, to be unleashed. Logan stopped resisting. He opened his mouth, about to go for the kill.
His phone went off in his pocket. He felt the vibration through his chest. Across the table, Eleanor and Fairweather both looked in the direction of the sound.
‘Sorry,’ Logan muttered, taking the phone from his pocket.
Shona’s name and photograph filled the screen. Her mobile number, not work.
Personal, not business.
Shit, shit, shit. Not now. Not now!
‘Do you need to take that?’ Fairweather asked.
Logan studied her name. Stared into her smiling eyes. The phone pulsed like a heartbeat. Some living thing nestled in the palm of his hand.
Not now.
Why now?
‘No. It’s fine.’
He tapped the red button. The heartbeat died in his hand. He muted the device, then returned it to his pocket.
Think about it later. Worry about it later. Deal with it later.
He took a half-second to compose himself before pulling the trigger on the kill shot he’d been lining up for the past half an hour.
‘Remind me, where did you say you were between four and six-thirty on Wednesday evening, Eleanor?’
The question did nothing to help her growing impatience.
‘I told you. I was at home. All night.’
‘Really? That’s funny.’
Logan opened the folder he brought in with him, lifted a sheet of paper, and passed it across the desk to the still-standing solicitor without so much as glancing his way.
‘Because I’ve got a report from a camera here that says otherwise.’