Page 130 of Better the Devil

‘What fuck you doing? Whatfuck you doing?’

There was a crack. Something hard hit Bosco across the back of the head, and his legs gave way.

‘Oi! You! Police!’ Ben boomed, throwing himself forward, running as fast as he could despite his age, and his legs, and his ridiculous coat fighting him every step of the way.

He wasn’t police, of course. Not now. But these bastards didn’t need to know that.

‘Stop where you are!’

That time, the shout barely reached them. Pain ratcheted across Ben’s chest, like a band tightening around him, squeezing the air from his lungs.

He stumbled. Staggered. They were too far away. There was no way he was going to reach them. Even if he did, what could he do? What good was he?

His hands frantically patted at his pockets, searching for his glasses so he could at least get the details. So he could at least do that much.

By the time he found them, by the time he pulled them on, the van was halfway down the street, the number plate obscured by the red glow of its taillights.

He’d lost them. The two masked men were gone.

And they’d taken Bosco Maximuke with them.

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.’