Page 131 of Better the Devil

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 doingright 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?’