Page 28 of Better the Devil

‘He got out of the car,’ Hamza reasoned. ‘Or started to, anyway.’

That was a possibility, Logan agreed. The dead man hadn’t been wearing his seatbelt.

‘So, someone’s talking to him at the side of the car, and… Actually, that’s a point,’ Logan said. ‘Side window was up. So, if there was someone there, they’d be shouting, not talking. Any of the neighbours report hearing anything?’

‘Nothing, sir,’ Sinead said. ‘Door-to-door was mostly a waste of time. The houses are well back from the road, though, so not really a surprise.’

Logan nodded slowly, sucked in his bottom lip, then turned to Hamza. ‘You put out a shout for any drivers passing at the time? It’s a quiet stretch, but it’s not empty.’

Hamza fumbled his way through a largely indecipherable mess of words.

‘We’ll get on that, Jack,’ Ben said on the DI’s behalf. ‘Soon as we’re done here.’

‘Aye. Clock’s ticking on that,’ Logan said, then he waved vaguely in the direction of Tyler and Sinead to keep things moving along.

Between them, they covered the estimated time of death—between four and five forty-five in the evening, based on when the body had been discovered. Shona might be able to narrow that further, but it was a good enough starting point.

It hadn’t yet been dark at that point. The road would’ve seen steady traffic. If it was a gangland hit, it was a bold one.

Dave recapped the important parts of his interview with Joe Robertson. This didn’t take him long as the old man had, in Dave’s own words, ‘spilled a load of shite.’

The actual meat of what Joe had said about the timing and how he’d found the body seemed legitimate enough, though. He was a solid witness, just difficult to keep on topic.

It was then that Logan dropped his second bombshell of the briefing: Victor Belov’s dog. Or, more accurately, the complete lack thereof.

Palmer’s team had started running tests on the blanket from the back of the car, and were already confident in Logan’s initial assumption that the hair matted through it was canine in origin. A Golden Retriever was the best guess right now, but whatever the exact breed, where it had come from was the big question.

Eleanor Belov hadn’t just seemed surprised by the dog question, she’d appeared horrified by it. From what little Logan had seen of the house, it was not a place where animals would be welcome. Any dog that jumped up on that couch was likely to be taking its life in its own paws.

‘We also don’t yet know where Victor was going, just that his wife was expecting him home at some point around the time I arrived. Or maybe earlier,’ Logan said. ‘I want to talk tothe widow and the brothers separately. There’s some weird vibe going on between them all that I can’t quite put my finger on.’

‘Should I have them brought in, Jack?’ Ben asked. He shot a sideways look at the man beside him. ‘We, I mean. Hamza? Should he get them brought in?’

‘I could do that, sir, no problem,’ DI Khaled agreed, just a little too keenly.

Logan shook his head. ‘No. Let’s not go there yet. There’s something going on, I’m sure of it, but I don’t want to put them on the back foot too soon. Tyler, you can come with me to the house this morning. See if we can talk to the wife there on her own. Sinead, Dave, get me everything you can on the brothers. Talk to CID, see about this Aberdeen thing they were working on.’

‘No bother,’ Dave confirmed.

‘And any known associates, while you’re at it. Dig them up. Get me names, histories, criminal charges. I want to know who they were expecting at that house last night, and why they didn’t show face.’

Sinead scribbled a note in her pad. ‘Will do, sir.’

‘There’s one other thing of interest from Scene of Crime, boss,’ Tyler said. He seemed to forget about what was written on his printout. Instead, he used it as a pointer to indicate a photo on the Big Board. ‘Found under the passenger seat. Seemed to have slipped down under there from the back seats.’

Logan stepped in closer to the board, tilting his head left and right as he tried to decipher the slightly grainy, blown-up image of what looked like a tiny strip of plastic packaging. It was silvery blue, torn into a long, narrow triangle that was slightly serrated at the top edge.

‘What am I looking at?’ he asked.

‘Come on, boss, it’s not been that long, has it?’ Tyler grinned at him. ‘Condom wrapper. Well, part of one, anyway. Looks like he’s been having it away in the back of the car.’

‘God, I hope he’s no’ been shagging a dug,’ Ben remarked.

He crossed his arms, as if to shield himself from the looks of disgust that were fired in his direction by the other detectives.

‘Here, don’t go shooting the messenger, I’m only saying. You know what people are like. They’re dirty bastards, the lot of them,’ he said. He shifted in his chair, like there was something uncomfortable going on in the downstairs department. ‘Lest we forget that lad sticking the ginger up his arse.’

Ben looked away to the window, to some distant horizon that turned his eyes glassy and made his head shake slowly from side to side.