Page 119 of Better the Devil

He could feel something squirming in the dark at the back of his mind. An idea not yet fully formed. It changed shape and started slipping away if he focused on it.

But there was something there.

‘Would… the wife be able to help?’ Sergeant Fleck asked. ‘I mean, I know she’s got all them solicitors and stuff you’re worried about, but if you’re just getting a bit of background…’

‘I still think that’s worth a try,’ Hamza agreed.

‘I don’t know. I get the impression she didn’t like us lot much,’ Logan said. ‘I’m not convinced she’ll volunteer her help. And if we pull her in too soon, without enough to go on, herlawyers’ll tear us a new arsehole so big we’ll all have to shit in the same pan.’

Ben grimaced at the image, then surreptitiously slipped a hand into his shirt pocket and produced, as if by magic, threeMalteserswhich he proceeded to eat, unnoticed.

‘We’ve not gotnothingto tie her to it, boss,’ Tyler ventured. ‘There was that woman Joe Robertson saw.’

‘Could’ve been anyone,’ Sinead pointed out.

‘Aye, but…’

Tyler’s gaze darted across the Big Board, searching for something else to latch onto, but finding nothing.

Logan moved on, putting him out of his misery. ‘Any joy on her cryptocurrency, stuff?’

‘Nah,’ Dave replied. ‘No sign.’

‘I did hear back from Archie Howden. At the bank?’ Sergeant Fleck ventured. ‘Said the mortgage thing is pretty normal. He said…’

The sergeant took a moment to search through his notepad, before tapping a finger against the page.

‘Here we go. He said, “High net worth individuals often use leverage as a more tax-efficient option for large purchases.” So, um, aye.’ Fleck closed his pad and shrugged. ‘He said it’s not necessarily suspicious.’

‘Right.’ Logan felt another door slam closed. ‘Fine.’

‘But…’

The sergeant shifted around in his chair as a weight of expectation fell over him.

‘But what?’ Logan asked.

Fleck fiddled with the corner of his pad, chewing on his lip as he considered his next words carefully.

‘So… Well, see, here’s the thing. Archie’s a good guy. I’ve known him a long time now. And it would be more than his job’sworth to go on record without official clearance when it came to anything about…’ He swallowed, bracing himself. ‘A client.’

‘Eleanor Belov’s got an account at the bank?’ Logan asked. ‘At the Caledonian?’

‘I’m not… I don’t think he’s supposed to reveal that sort of thing,’ Fleck replied. He cleared his throat, and shot the DCI a hopeful look. ‘So, can we maybe just say that Igot the impressionthat was the case? And that I also got the impression—he didn’t expressly say or anything—that maybe the source of her income isn’t quite what she said it was.’

‘What, not crypto?’ Dave asked. ‘What’d she do then, win the lottery?’

‘It’d have to be, like, a quadruple rollover EuroMillions, or something,’ Tyler suggested. ‘Or one of them big American ones. The Texas Super-Duper-Mega-Whatever.’

Fleck groaned. He’d already said too much.

‘I don’t know the details. Just… Archiesuggested, reading between the lines, that maybe her income is going up. Regularly. On a daily basis.’

‘Bitcoin can do that, though, can’t it?’ Sinead asked. ‘Goes up and down a lot.’

‘It’s pretty volatile, aye,’ Dave confirmed.

They all looked at Fleck again, like they were expecting some sort of reaction to that. Perhaps an acknowledgement that this explained everything, and that all his concerns were unfounded.