Page 75 of Better the Devil

‘Good thinking,’ Logan said.

‘I was going to suggest the same thing, boss,’ Tyler hurriedly chipped in.

‘Aye, well, too slow, son,’ Logan said. ‘Sinead, do that. Let’s see what we get. Joe Robertson reckoned she sounded Scottish. Local.’

‘The deid fella’s wife, you think?’ Ben asked.

‘Don’t know.’ Logan considered Eleanor Belov’s photo on the Big Board. ‘But let’s get digging. Dave, how’s it going on that Bitcoin stuff?’

‘Still early days,’ Dave admitted. ‘It’s not easy, but I’m pretty sure I’ll get something.’

‘Right. Fine. Tyler. Round up a full history of her. She said her first husband killed himself. I want the details on that. And what’s the situation with the house ownership? Who’s on the deed? The cars, too. Was that all in her name? Victor’s?’

‘On it, boss,’ Tyler said, wheeling himself back in closer to his computer.

‘Any sign of the post-mortem report from Shona yet?’

There was a click as Sinead refreshed the shared inbox. ‘Nothing yet, sir.’

‘So nothing on Kendrick Crichton, I suppose, either? Time of death, even?’

‘No,’ Sinead said. ‘Want me to phone her?’

Logan shook his head. ‘If she knew it, we’d have it.’

He looked over the board, eventually locking eyes with the mugshot of Bosco Maximuke. He stood staring at him for awhile, then walked to the board, removed the photograph, and turned it to face the other way before pinning it back in place.

‘What’s the matter, Jack?’ Ben asked. ‘Sick of looking at the bastard?’

‘Aye, something like that,’ Logan confirmed. ‘And if Mitchell comes in and sees him there as a suspect, she’ll have our arses hauled off this case in a heartbeat.’

Sinead had already added the designer bag filled with cash to the Big Board. A fresh stack of pages piled up on the printer suggested that Tyler had updated his “wee handout” version, too.

Say what you liked about the lad, he was trying. He was alwaystrying, of course, just in a different way now.

Logan checked his watch. It was already well after five. Both DCs had interviews in the morning, and kids to be getting home to.

But there were two dead men. And this was the job.

‘Any thoughts on the condom wrapper?’ asked Hamza, appearing at Logan’s side.

Logan hadn’t. Yet. ‘Hoping when we get phone records through, we might find something.’

‘It’ll have to be network, which could take a few days,’ Hamza told him. ‘Tech team’s struggling to get into the phone itself. He’s got it locked down tight. Needs biometric data and a password, apparently.’

Logan tutted. ‘I mind the days you could just sneak the phone into the post-mortem and stick their thumb on the screen.’

‘Aye. Only get us halfway this time.’

‘How long for the network to give us a list of calls and messages?’

‘How long’s a piece of string?’ Hamza asked. He side-eyed the DCI. ‘I, eh, I hope you don’t mind, but I kicked it up the chainto Detective Superintendent Mitchell when you were in talking to Joe Robertson.’

‘Don’t mind at all.’

‘I just thought, you know, if we maybe escalated, then?—’

‘Hamza.’ Logan met his eye. ‘You did good.’