Page 70 of Better the Devil

‘Was that English?’ Ben asked. ‘Because most of it was gibberish to me.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Dave told them. ‘If we can find out her wallet address, I could have a wee nosey about on the blockchain and see what’s what.’

‘Well, like Ben, I don’t have a clue what any of that means, but it sounds good,’ Logan said.

‘You said she’s bought a house with it?’ Dave asked. ‘That’s a good starting point. She’d have to cash out via an exchange. I’ll get to noseying.’

‘Good. Do that. The rest of you?—’

A knock at the door interrupted him before he could finish dishing out the orders. Nobody moved, other than to look in Tyler’s direction.

‘Oh, right, I’ll get it, will I?’ he said, finally taking the hint.

‘If it’s for me, tell them I’m no’ in,’ Dave said.

Tyler bounced up onto his feet, pointed to them all as he backed towards the door.

‘Don’t get too used to this errand boy stuff. This’ll all be stopping when I make DS.’

‘Ifyou make DS,’ Sinead countered.

‘You keep telling yourself that, babe,’ Tyler said, winking back at her.

Tyler turned to the door, opened it just enough so that he could slip his head through without anyone in the corridor seeing inside, and spoke in a low voice to whoever it was who was out there.

‘One sec,’ he finally said, turning back to the room. ‘Ham. I mean, boss. It’s for you. A Sergeant Fleck? Says it’s urgent. It’s about Victor Belov.’

‘Bring him in,’ Logan said.

Tyler shook his head. ‘He’s got some old boy with him, boss. Civilian. Says he’s got info.’

Hamza only just beat Logan to his feet. He let the DCI lead the way, and Tyler held the door for them as they stepped out into the corridor.

Sergeant Fleck from the morning’s presentation stood beside an old man Hamza also recognised from the meeting.

Joe Robertson. The man who’d made an arse of eating that egg sandwich.

The man who had found Victor Belov’s body.

‘Uh, hi, Detective Inspector,’ Fleck said. He looked up at Logan and gave him a nod of acknowledgment, or maybe recognition. ‘Sir.’

‘Everything alright, Sergeant?’ Hamza asked.

‘Eh, aye. Well, no. Unfortunately not,’ Fleck said. He was clutching his hat to his stomach, fingers fiddling with the trim. ‘Joe here, after you’d left, while we were packing up, he… Well, he told me something.’

‘Joe?’ Logan pointed to the old man, who stood with his head lowered, making no attempt to meet anyone’s eye. ‘Is this…?’

‘Joe Robertson. He found the body last night,’ Fleck said.

The sergeant sighed, and took a moment to shoot the old man a reproachful look.

‘And, well… It turns out that’s not all he found.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The bag was a Louis Vuitton,made of brownish-grey fabric patterned with circles, diamonds, and “LV” logos, with a thin pair of brown leather handles at the top.

According to the quick Google search Sinead had done, it was worth a couple of grand.