Page 129 of Better the Devil

‘Oh, got a wee deep dive running on HOLMES for Eleanor Belov at the minute. Nothing coming up so far beyond the dead first husband stuff, and a couple of parking tickets. It’ll ping if there’s anything else.’

‘Good work,’ Logan told him.

Ben finished buttoning up his oversized coat. It gave him the shoulders of an American Football player, and came down to somewhere below his knees.

He held his arms out, presenting himself for appraisal.

‘How do I look?’

‘Like a five-year-old wearing his old man’s clothes,’ Logan replied.

‘Or two dwarves standing one on top of the other,’ Dave suggested.

‘Or—’

‘Alright, alright,’ Ben said, silencing them both with a good-natured scowl. ‘So, tomorrow… I’ll, eh… Do you need me to…?’

‘We’ll see you in the morning,’ Logan said.

Ben gave him a wink and a nod. ‘I’ll bring the breakfast rolls.’

There was apingfrom Tyler’s computer. Loud. Sharp. Very much drawing attention to itself.

Dave was already wheeling his way over to it by the time Logan figured out what it was.

Ben squinted at the monitor, but it was too far away for him to read what it said. Besides, it was late. If he got himself caught up in something else, he’d be there all bloody night.

‘And that,’ he said, as Dave and Logan closed in on Tyler’s desk from opposite sides. ‘Is my cue to leave.’

‘Goodnight, now!’Ben called to the man on the front desk, who smiled and waved back at him.

You wouldn’t have got that sort of response back in Moira’s day, when she was the guardian of the Fort William station. She wouldn’t have stood for a cheerful farewell from a departing visitor. She’d have spat at you for less.

She’d be cleaning up in the café by now. Olivia was meant to be pulling a shift, which was the only reason Moira had agreed to let Ben stay on for another day at the station.

Obviously, given recent events, Olivia wouldn’t have been at work, which meant Moira would’ve been on her own all day, running the place single-handedly.

It was a good thing no bugger ever came in.

The rain had stopped again, but the air still had that icy dampness to it that got in about your joints and ached all the way down to the bone.

Fortunately, his oversized coat meant he was sweating buckets, and the evening air, when it hit him, came as a blessed relief.

His car was still parked at the café. That was fine. It was a short stroll across the industrial estate around the back of the station. Two or three minutes, tops, even at his ambling pace.

It was a pity there wasn’t a flower shop, or even a petrol station on the way, so he could try to appease Moira with a bunch of tulips.

Not that she liked tulips. Or flowers. Or being appeased. She enjoyed being angry. Annoyance wasn’t just her default state, it was her preferred one.

So, really, if you thought about it, he’d done her a favour by abandoning her all day. She should probably thank him for it.

Aye. That was a nice thought, if nothing else.

Ben had just reached the back gate of the station when he heard the screeching of tyres, and a shout of surprise. He recognised the voice right away. That Russian accent was undeniable.

Years of conditioning kicked in, and he ran in the direction of the sound, reaching a turn in the road just as the back doors of a white transit van were thrown open.

Two men, both heavily built, both masked up, rained punches on a third man as they bundled him towards the back of the vehicle. Bosco. Ben couldn’t see him clearly, not without his glasses, but the shouting gave him away.