Page 62 of Better the Devil

He waggled his middle finger as he tried to think of another point, then locked it into place with a grin of triumph.

‘Oh, and we got here first.’

He turned and set off towards the road again, with Hamza and Ben trailing in his wake.

‘But we believe it’s connected to a case of ours,’ Hamza reasoned. ‘Another murder from last night.’

‘I recall you made that point back there in the house, and I’ll say now what I said then, DI Khaled. My team will do its utmost to work with you guys and share everything we find. And, I hope that courtesy can extend in both directions.’

He stopped so suddenly that Hamza almost walked straight into the back of him.

‘In fact, this could be the beginning of a beautiful thing,’ he said, his smile widening as he gazed ahead at some unseen horizon. ‘Our team and yours, working together, one big family. Wouldn’t that be something?’

‘It’d be something alright,’ Ben chipped in, though he stopped short of speculating exactly what that thing might be.

It didn’t matter, anyway, because Reeve was already charging on again. He practically skipped down the step at the bottom of the path and landed with athackin hostile territory.

‘Here, mate. You meant to be here?’ demanded Tyler, eyeing up the man in the checked shirt and jeans. ‘How’d you get through the cordon?’

Reeve beamed at them. ‘Huh? Oh, I didn’t. They built it around me,’ he said. ‘And yes. I’m supposed to be here.’ He looked from Tyler to Sinead, then down to Dave. ‘You three, I’m less sure about.’

‘They’re with me,’ Hamza said, stepping out of the garden. ‘DC Neish, DC Bell, DC Davidson. This is DCI Reeve.’

‘Nathan. Nate, actually,’ Reeve said. He grasped Sinead’s hand and shook it. ‘We’re all friends here, right?’

‘Um,’ Sinead said, blinking in the brilliance of his smile.

‘DCI Reeve is from Aberdeen. MIT North East,’ Hamza said.

‘Right.’ Tyler side-eyed his wife, then held a hand out to Reeve, if only so he’d stop shaking Sinead’s. ‘Sorry for all that a minute ago, then. Thought you were somewhere you shouldn’t be.’

He practically yelped when Reeve gripped his hand and shook it. The DCI wasn’t squeezing or deliberately trying to crush Tyler’s fingers, but there was a very clear sense that he could do so with very little effort. In fact, had he wanted to, Tyler reckoned the DCI could have swung him up and over his head,then smashed him back and forth on the ground until there was nothing left of him but a lumpy paste on the tarmac.

Fortunately, and to Tyler’s immense relief, he didn’t.

‘Pleasure to meet you guys,’ Reeve said, relinquishing his grip on Tyler and shaking Dave’s hand next. ‘I hear a lot of good things about your team over there in Inverness. You are quite the outfit.’

‘Eh, cheers,’ Tyler said.

‘In fact, one second,’ Reeve said, holding up a finger. ‘Let me introduce you to my guys. I think you’re all going to get along great!’

He turned and hurried off, gesturing to the woman at the cordon tape.

‘He’s… interesting,’ Sinead said.

‘Did you just brush your hair behind your ear there?’ Tyler asked her.

Sinead looked to her right to find her hand still hovering there. She dropped it quickly to her side.

‘No.’

‘Aye, you did!’

‘That’s nothing, mate,’ Dave said. ‘When he said we were a good outfit, you blushed.’

‘I didn’t blush!’

‘You did blush a bit,’ Hamza confirmed.