Page 141 of Better the Devil

Logan opened the folder he brought in with him, lifted a sheet of paper, and passed it across the desk to the still-standing solicitor without so much as glancing his way.

‘Because I’ve got a report from a camera here that says otherwise.’

CHAPTER FORTY

Ben pointed to the screen,finger waving with excitement.

‘That’s it! That’s the one! That’s the one that took him!’

The CCTV operator zoomed in on the rear of the van captured by one of the cameras on the bypass. As she did, the registration number became pixelated, a jumbled mess of whites and greys that could have said anything.

‘Bugger it,’ Ben muttered. ‘Can you enhance that?’

The CCTV operator turned her head to look at him. ‘Sorry?’

‘Can you, you know, do the thing like in the films, where they make it clearer?’

‘Like inBlade Runner, you mean?’ she asked.

‘Aye. I don’t know, I’ve never seen it, but aye. If you say so.’

She shook her head. ‘No. But…’

The operator turned her attention back to her monitor. She twisted a little dial mounted next to her keyboard, advancing frame by frame, while remaining zoomed in on the number plate.

Still nothing. The registration remained indecipherable until the van had travelled all the way out of frame.

‘Bugger it!’ Ben said again, but louder this time, and with more oomph behind it.

‘Hold on,’ the operator said. She pressed a few buttons, tapped a few keys, and the footage on-screen was replaced by nine separate images, laid out three by three on the monitor.

She turned her dial again. Every image progressed, ticking forwards, quickly at first, then slowing as her hand eased back the dial a few degrees.

‘There,’ she declared.

Before Ben could see what she was referring to, she tapped a key on her number pad, and one of the boxes filled the screen.

There, at the edge of the frame, was the same white van. It was taken from a different angle—the front, this time—and even before she’d zoomed in, she’d started to read off the registration.

Ben peered at the screen as the image was enlarged. The reg was clear. They had it.

‘Gotcha, ya bastards!’ he cheered, then he hurriedly wrote the number plate down, handed the CCTV operator a miniatureTwixhe produced from a coat pocket, and hurried off to share the news.

‘Blackmail?’Hamza sat in the driver’s seat of his car, turned to face Callum Walker sitting beside him. ‘What do you mean?’

‘It wasn’t me. I mean, it was me. On the phone. But it wasn’t my idea. I didn’t know. I didn’t know what would happen!’

‘Slow down, Callum,’ Hamza urged. He took a couple of steadying breaths, leading by example. ‘Just relax. Slow down. And tell me everything.’

It took a few attempts for Callum to get his breathing under control and put a lid on his rising panic attack. He gripped thehandle above the side window with one hand, and braced the other against the dashboard, like he feared the stationary vehicle was about to crash.

But, he breathed. In. Out. Just like Hamza had shown him. Just like he’d been doing his whole life until that moment without any difficulty.

And then, when he was calm enough to continue, he explained.

He explained about how he’d overheard two of the younger HAWKS members making plans to blackmail some local drug dealer. How they’d realised he was listening in. How they’d threatened him, intimidated him, forced him to get involved so that he couldn’t run to the police. So that he’d be implicated, just as much as they were.

They’d told him they were being kind to him, the young man and woman, letting him off lightly. All he had to do was place the call on the burner phone they gave him. He didn’t even have to leave his house.