Page 72 of Better the Devil

‘You are.’

Shona’s smile both widened and became even less real.

‘No doubt, but I don’t want to take any chances.’

‘What chances? He’s my dad. He’s not going to break in and kill me.’

‘And yet, you threatened to cut his heart out,’ Shona reminded her.

Olivia tutted and rolled her eyes. ‘I wasn’t actually going to do it.’

‘Well, no. Obviously. You’d need more than a kitchen knife to fully crack open the breastplate for a start.’ Shona shook her head quickly. ‘Not that that would be the reason for not doing it. That’s not what…’

She rubbed at her forehead, fending off the early nigglings of a migraine.

‘I just feel better with you here, OK?’

Olivia sighed. ‘Fine. But Taggart’s still at home. What if my dad breaks in and kills him instead?’

It was clear by the way she said it that she was teasing. The girl had a dark sense of humour, and though Shona shared it to an extent, some things just went too far.

‘Well, thenI’dcut his heart out,’ she said. There was asnapas she pulled on a blue vinyl glove. ‘And I’ve got all the tools I’d need to do it.’

Joe Robertson was in ruins.

He sat at the interview room table, shoulders stooped, eyes red-ringed and bloodshot. Any stiff upper lip he might previously have possessed had now wilted away to nothing.

His hands were clasped together between his knees, and he rocked back and forth while Logan and Sergeant Fleck took their seats across from him.

‘You’re OK, Joe,’ Fleck said, offering the old man a comforting smile.

Logan pulled his chair in as close to the table as it would go. ‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Sergeant. Just how OK Mr Robertson is very much depends on what he has to say for himself.’

‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, it was stupid of me.’ Joe’s voice was just a few decibels above a whisper. ‘I’m an idiot. I’m an old bloody idiot.’

‘You’ll get no argument from me on that,’ Logan told him. ‘What the hell were you thinking?’

‘I… I wasn’t. Thinking, I mean. I was in shock. I saw the… I saw the blood.’ Joe gulped after that last word, like he was swallowing back nausea. ‘It was everywhere. There was so much of it.’

‘Right. And so, because of all that blood, you thought, “I know, I’ll nick this big bag of money”?’ Logan pressed.

‘What? No. It wasn’t… It wasn’t like that.’

‘Then how was it, Mr Robertson? Join those dots for me, because I’m struggling to find a reason not to charge you with theft and interfering with a crime scene.’ Logan leaned forward for emphasis. ‘That’s attempting to pervert the course of justice. On a murder investigation, too. You know what the punishment for that is?’

Joe shook his head. His lips moved, but no sound came out.

‘Nor me,’ Logan replied. ‘Because there’s no maximum sentence. Two years? Ten years? Judge’s discretion. You fancy ten years behind bars, Mr Robertson?’

Another frantic shake of the old man’s head revealed that he most certainly did not.

‘No. I’m sure it’s not exactly high on your bucket list.’

Logan clasped his hands together and arranged his expression into something marginally less intimidating.

But only marginally.

‘Now, the good news is, that it may not come to that. You may yet walk out of here with a flea in your ear from me, and a fresh appreciation for just how lucky you are. That’s within the realms of possibility, Mr Robertson. But, in order for that to happen, I am going to have to believe every single word that comes out of your mouth from here on in. Every. Single. Word.’