Текст книги "In Place of Death"

Автор книги: Craig Robertson

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

Chapter 27

The image on Winter’s laptop was of the Glasgow Tower. An OtherWorld poster had climbed it a few months earlier and his photographs were there for all to see. It brought everything flooding back. The fall, the pain, the guilt, the blame.

His leg had indeed been broken and so had three ribs. They healed in time but his friendship with Euan Hepburn never did.

Blaming Euan for the fall was easier than taking responsibility for his own recklessness in climbing the tower that night. No one had actually made him do it, that was the truth, but it wasn’t the truth as he saw it at the time.

He’d been mad at him. Furious. Winter had been in no doubt that he was going to die and the fall had scared the shit out of him. No way he’d have gone up there but for the goading. No way he’d have climbed in the pouring rain but for Euan. He’d convinced himself it was all his fault. Every bit of pain when he eventually tried to walk, every bit of discomfort when he breathed, that was all because of Euan.

What really got him though was the realization of what almost happened. He could live with the broken leg and the ribs, the severe bruising to his wrist and face, the bang to his knee. But when it was quiet and no one was around, the thought of how close he’d been to dying sneaked into his head and scared him again.

Euan had been distraught but that had just made Winter angrier. He shut him out, refusing to see him in hospital, not taking his calls. He sent one text to say that he wouldn’t be urbexing again because he, Euan, had killed his interest. Euan had been eaten up with guilt and wanted Winter to take that away from him but he wouldn’t let him off lightly. In fact, he didn’t let him off at all.

Maybe he would have done eventually and maybe he wouldn’t but he never got the chance. Euan moved to London to get away from it all. It just made Winter angrier at him, feeling Euan had taken away his right to forgive him or be mad at him. He made up his mind not to get in touch and the pair never spoke again.

It took him a long time, maybe even years, to realize that he’d been angry at himself rather than Euan. That he’d been the one at fault and he should have been strong enough to just say no, not tonight. He was angry at his own fear and his own failings. By the time he recognized that, it was too late.

Sitting now at his laptop, the OtherWorld page open in front of him, he knew that the nasty truth wasn’t that he stopped urbexing because he and Euan had fallen out. He fell out with Euan so that he wouldn’t have to urbex again. He’d lost his nerve. Certainly for heights but probably also for any of it. He’d been more scared than he could admit. The thought of being up somewhere like the tower again made his stomach turn. That was natural enough but to bin a friendship because of it and let Euan take the hit was something he’d always be ashamed of.

He’d thought that falling out with Euan was the price he’d paid for stopping exploring. It wasn’t. The price was his friend’s life. If he’d been with him, the chances were that his death in the Molendinar would never have happened.

All these years it had been locked away and now he had no choice but to open it. He owed it to Euan Hepburn.

He closed his eyes for a moment, exhaled hard, looked at the website in front of him and typed.

Hi PencilPusher. It’s been a long time. I’ve been out of the scene but back and raring to go. Where’s good these days? My name’s Tony, by the way.

Chapter 28

Thursday afternoon

Laidlaw’s was a shabby-fronted pub on a battered side street in the Calton in the city’s East End. Its lack of a makeover or even a fresh lick of paint in the previous twenty years was by choice rather than shortage of funds. The faded blue décor, the rust and the scruffy sign were designed to be as much deterrent to new customers as they were comfort to the existing ones. It didn’t say welcome, it shouted leave us alone.

It worked.

When Narey pushed her way through the front door, heads whirled in the way they can only when the entire clientele smells a stranger. It wasn’t just that she was a woman, which would have been different enough, it was that she wasn’t one of them. She wasn’t there to soak the afternoon away and she wasn’t one of Bobby Mullen’s people. She might have passed for a lawyer but big Bobby’s smart-suited team were known faces in Laidlaw’s. No, she was police and everyone knew it with one look. It didn’t bother her in the slightest. It was exactly what she expected and wanted.

The bar had a smell all of its own. It was sweat and bleach and the ghosts of a million cigarettes, abandoned hope and beer-stained bravado. The stink was ingrained in the wooden floor and the patched seating. It swam in the air like flies over a corpse.

The faces that turned to her were either gaunt or bloated, patchworks of ash and red, all with eyes narrowed in defiant curiosity. Some looked her up and down, some looked the other way so she couldn’t see their faces. She wasn’t interested in them though, not today. She drifted past them towards the thickset man who was standing, arms folded, behind the bar.

‘Help you?’

The man’s question wasn’t exactly coated in warmth.

‘I’m looking for Bobby Mullen.’

‘Why? Is he lost?’

‘You tell me. Is he in?’

The man wore a few day’s growth on his face and it rose and fell as he shrugged broad shoulders. ‘Dunno. Who’s asking?’

She sighed heavily as if there really wasn’t any need for him to make her take her card out. She went through the motions of pulling it from her pocket and holding it up in front of her. ‘Is he in?’

The man stared back at her to make some point to himself or the crowd before shrugging again. ‘I can go see. What’s it about?’

‘Just tell Mr Mullen that I’d like a word with him. Now.’

The barman made a show of standing obstinately, playing to the audience behind her. She let him have his moment, knowing he’d have to go and talk to his boss. In the end he theatrically shook his head and walked out from behind the bar. A few steps took him to a thickly frosted door leading to a wood-panelled snug in the corner of the pub, the way barred by a shaven-headed hulk in a black-leather jacket. The man stepped aside to let the barman pass and the door quickly closed behind him.

Narey was left standing alone at the bar and turned her back on it. The natives were silently working away at their beer and whisky, nothing more than mouthed whispers passing between them. One chair scraped and a skinny guy in his thirties pushed himself to his feet and strode towards her.

He stood within a couple of feet despite having the rest of the bar to choose from, reeking of beer and stupidity. He leered with a lopsided grin and pushed a hand through a mane of slicked-back dark hair as if convinced it made him look good. She wasn’t sure this guy was the full shilling but he was trouble.

‘Back off,’ she told him, quietly enough that only he could hear. The guy grinned wider and didn’t budge. If he moved an inch closer, she decided, his arm was going to be twisted behind his back and his face put flat to the top of the bar. How his pals would react would be anyone’s guess.

He didn’t move closer, not quite. Instead he did a soft-shoe shuffle from foot to foot, his eyes dancing along with his feet. She could almost see the buzz that was going on in his head and knew she’d have to decide whether to fish through his pockets for dope or pills when she had him held down. The whole pub was waiting on her to make a move. It had to be the right one.

The man continued to shift from side to side, then edged forward and back, then forward again. Right, she was going to have him.

From the corner of the bar, she heard a door open and close, then a voice called out.

‘Elvis. Sit on your arse!’

The barman was standing outside the snug, his eyes on Narey and the shuffling punter. The man turned his head to see who’d shouted at him and, seeing him, quickly scrambled back towards his seat.

The barman gestured her forward with a wave of his head. Without a look to the gallery, she walked towards the snug. The barman opened the door as she got there, ushered her in without a word then quietly closed it again behind her.

Four men were inside, three of them with their backs to her. Holding court at the end of the narrow little room and watching her approach was Bobby Mullen. Even if she hadn’t seen a photograph of him before setting out, she’d have known without any doubt that this was the boss.

He was a big man, broad and heavy, with a plain face and receding red hair and matching beard. He looked like he was born to chop logs or wrestle cattle. His size wouldn’t have been enough to run the operation, not without the brain for it and the backing of his old man and his brother, but it didn’t hurt either. It gave him presence and brooked no kind of argument.

He was weighing her up now, not in any kind of sexual or predatory sense, but clearly wondering what it took for her to come into his lair like this by herself. She thought she saw either grudging admiration or an assessment of madness in his eyes. At least one of those things was probably justified.

‘Give her a seat. In fact, all three of you move.’

The men got out of their chairs without hesitation and moved back towards the far end of the snug where they stood, filling the space in front of the door. They’d given her room to sit and talk with Mullen but they’d also made sure she couldn’t leave.

She thought one of the three, a short, slight man with quick brown eyes, was probably his accountant and right-hand man, John Syme. Word was he was the brains behind the brains and brawn. The other two weren’t familiar but she doubted they were in the snug to sell Bibles.

‘So you’re what? A Detective Inspector? Andy wasn’t sure he’d read your title right.’

‘He did. Detective Inspector Rachel Narey. Major Investigation Team.’

‘Uh huh. Am I supposed to be impressed by that? Major investigation. Into what? I can’t see how it can be anything to do with me.’

‘Perhaps it’s not, Mr Mullen, but I’d like to talk to you to find that out for myself. I’m here about the murder of a woman whose body was found in the city centre two days ago.’

She saw something shift in his eyes, just a momentary hardening, but it was enough to quicken her pulse. How many people had seen that and then suffered as a result? The look passed though and he lifted his eyes above her head, looking at his men and laughing out loud.

‘A murder? Fucksake. Where do they get them these days?’ His eyes switched back to her, cold and hard. ‘Detective Inspector . . .’ He drawled the words out like she was five. ‘Just what the fuck do you think you’re doing coming in here? On your own? Doesn’t strike me as being that much of a good fucking idea in any sense.’

She had to admit he had a point.

‘Mr Mullen, your company provides protection for Saturn Property, is that correct? Specifically, you protect the redevelopment they’re doing on the old Odeon site.’

His eyes didn’t leave her but he said nothing. The look flitted across his gaze again though, stronger this time. She pushed on.

‘You will know that the body of a woman named Jennifer Cairns was found on site. I’m here to ask you some questions about that.’

Still nothing from him except that malevolent stare. Maybe she had to push it further.

‘It doesn’t look like you protected the premises very well.’

She heard a muttered ‘Fucksake’ from behind her along with an angry rush of breath. Mullen looked beyond her to the three men and gave a quick shake of his head. Narey felt she’d just been spared from something but didn’t feel much in the way of gratitude.

‘So tell me, DI Narey, why I shouldn’t have a lawyer present and you shouldn’t have another copper with you. You can’t take witness statements on your own. Why are you here playing Miss Marple all on your lonesome and doing your best to piss me off?’

Before she could answer, she heard the door to the snug open. She turned her head and saw a wiry guy in his twenties sliding in through it, his eyes going straight to Bobby Mullen. He seemed anxious for permission to go further in or just to keep breathing. Mullen beckoned him with a sharp nod of his head and the rabbit strode forward to pass a folded piece of paper to the big man.

There was something lacking in coordination, something not quite natural, about the way the underling handed the note over that made Narey look at his other hand. She saw that the fingers were crooked, hanging open in a misshapen grip.

She’d heard stories about Bobby Mullen’s favoured method of showing his displeasure. The people who seriously aggravated him had a habit of disappearing or getting caught in freak fires. But those who showed disrespect or disloyalty, they got a personal lesson. His signature reprimand was to get people to place their fingers into the jamb of the nearest door. They would be given the choice of doing that or having their knees smashed so that they’d never walk again.

Given the choice of that or taking their chances that Bobby might just be testing them or possibly feeling forgiving, most did as they were asked. Bobby rarely felt forgiving. He’d grip the door in his shovel-like hands and force it fully open, trapping and crushing the fingers of whoever had made him unhappy. It was much better than kneecapping them. Instead, they’d quite literally be walking adverts for the dangers of pissing off big Bobby Mullen.

The mobile billboard in front of her stood looking at the nearest wall while Mullen read the note and crumpled it into his hip pocket. He reached out a hand and pulled the guy close enough for him to whisper in his ear. The message, whatever it was, was understood and the hired help nodded furiously. ‘Sure, Mr Mullen. No problem.’

The big man turned in time to catch Narey’s glance at his minion’s ruined hand. Knowing that she’d made the connection, he smirked, satisfied that the advertising had paid off. He kept smiling quietly as the man left the snug.

‘So, you were about to tell me why you’re in my pub, annoying me.’

‘What’s your relationship with Saturn Property?’

‘Business.’

‘Legitimate business?’

‘Is there any other kind?’

One of the men laughed behind her. She didn’t like that at all.

‘Well, I’ve heard there are other kinds. Like protection rackets.’

It was clearly Mullen’s turn not to like what he heard. His mouth curled up at the side and his face darkened. ‘You’re in the wrong place to be throwing around accusations you can’t back up. I’d recommend you be careful about what you say.’

‘Is that a threat?’

He laughed. ‘Take it any way you want, sweetheart.’

‘Did you know Jennifer Cairns?’

‘No.’

‘Ever heard of her?’

‘No. You’re pushing your luck, missus. Get to the point. I’m a busy man and I’m no exactly famous for my patience.’

‘How can a woman be killed in a property you’re protecting? How did she get in? How did the person that killed her get in?’

He shrugged like he didn’t care. ‘My company protects the site. We don’t patrol the perimeter like it’s a high security prison. If someone’s determined to get in somewhere then they will. Somebody got killed. Tough shit. Nothing to do with me.’

‘You’d better hope it isn’t. Hope that it’s nothing to do with you or anyone that works for you. Because if it is then I’ll find it.’

‘You’ve got balls, Detective Inspector Narey. I’ll give you that. But maybe you should take them back to Stewart Street before you lose them.’

The remark about the station made her hesitate, wondering about the note that was passed to Mullen and which was now crumpled in his pocket. She wouldn’t give the bastard the satisfaction of asking but he had got inside her head. What else was written on that note? ‘Do you have CCTV covering the site?’ ‘No. Now get out of my face. I’ve had enough.’ The more he wanted her to go, the more she wanted to rattle his cage. ‘I’d like a list of all your employees who have worked on the Odeon site.’ ‘Then get a warrant. Or get to fuck.’ ‘Do you know Mark Singleton at Saturn?’ ‘Course I do. We do business together.’ ‘Singleton builds houses. Jennifer Cairns’ husband is an architect. Do you know him?’

‘The woman’s husband?’ Mullen seemed to give it some thought. ‘I wouldn’t think so. We look after the properties. We don’t get asked to design them.’ ‘Wouldn’t think so or no?’ ‘Okay, no.’

‘Is Singleton involved in any of your other business ventures?’

‘I wouldn’t think so. Small world though. Who knows?’

You do, Narey thought. You do. But she tried something else, a little gamble. ‘Maybe Mr Syme here knows. He’s your accountant – he’s bound to know something like that.’

She didn’t turn her head to look at the man behind her; instead she just stared at Mullen looking for a reaction. She got one. He leaned forward and banged a large fist on the table.

‘Hey! You’re here to talk to me. Don’t go talking to anyone else. You ask me. You don’t even look at anyone else.’

‘So.’ She kept her own voice level. ‘Is Mark Singleton involved in any of your other business ventures?’

He stood, towering over her, his cheeks flushed. ‘Just get the fuck out of here. Walk out now or regret it.’

One last and risky card. ‘What happened to Christopher Hart?’

There was a marked silence from the men behind her, as if they’d all held their breath at once. Mullen’s face was like a winter storm about to break. After a few moments, it burst, uncontrollably and surprisingly, into a harsh laugh.

‘Jesus, I don’t believe you. I really don’t. You’ve some front, lady. Crispy? You’re seriously asking me about Crispy?’

He stared but she didn’t answer. He was making his own mind up.

‘Okay, I’ll tell you this and then you go. Crispy wasn’t down to me. And I’m actually fucking offended you even asked. The people responsible, let’s call them competitors, were dealt with.’

‘And who was responsible?’

‘Out. Now.’

Narey knew it was all she was getting and far more than Mullen had intended to give. For that, she was grateful. She returned his stare for as long as she dared, which really wasn’t long at all, then pushed her chair back and stood up. ‘Nice chatting to you, Bobby. We’ll talk again.’

‘Aye? Well bring a warrant next time.’

‘Sure. And you bring a lawyer.’

She walked to the door of the snug in silence, the men parting in front of her and Mullen’s accountant holding open the door like a perfect gentleman. The silence continued until she had walked through the bar and onto the street. Then, all she could hear was the rush of her own breath.

She walked on auto-pilot, not caring in which direction she moved but in a hurry to get to the first corner so she could turn out of sight of the pub and let her back settle against a wall. Propped up by brick and adrenalin, she suddenly felt the need to talk to Winter, needed the reassurance of hearing his voice.

The phone rang half a dozen times before he answered. She’d been just about to give up when he spoke.

‘Hey. How are you?’

‘Um, good question. A bit frazzled, I guess. I could do with a hug.’

She knew it wasn’t like her and wasn’t surprised to hear him go quiet. That kind of thing, rare as it was, usually threw him.

‘You okay?’ he said at last. ‘Is it the case?’

‘Yes and yes. I just let something get to me when I shouldn’t. I’m fine. Are you busy?’

A pause. ‘Yeah, a bit. Got something I have to do. Can I catch you later? I’ll be good for that hug but I can’t just now. You sure you’re okay?’

She heard something beyond the words but couldn’t put her finger on what.

‘I’m fine. Are you working?’

Another pause. ‘It’s a case. Nothing exciting.’

‘Okay. I look forward to that hug. You coming to mine tonight?’

‘Yes, but it will be late. I’m catching up with some pals I haven’t seen for a while.’

‘Okay, but make sure you catch up with me too. I have needs.’

She ended the call, breathed out hard and began to walk, leaving Laidlaw’s and her doubts behind.

Chapter 29

Winter slipped the phone back in his pocket with a heavy conscience and stared up at the tenement flat opposite him. At least he hadn’t lied, not quite.

Cordiner Street in Mount Florida was just a corner kick from the national football stadium, Hampden Park. It was a mix of sandstone tenements and neat newer bungalows. Number 13 was a tenement, two doors along from a nail bar.

It had never seemed right to Winter that Euan Hepburn would be homeless yet that was what he’d been presented with. Homeless and living in a hostel with drunks and addicts. Instead he’d been living here on the South Side for at least six months. It had been easy to track an address; no need to have asked Rachel and much less troublesome not to. But it was easy enough for him to have done it while Euan was alive.

There were eight surnames listed on the ground floor of the tenement and Hepburn was on the top floor of four. Winter pressed the intercom against the name just in case the sister had been contacted and had come to sort through his belongings. There was no answer. The name for the flat opposite was Nicol. That would do.

He pressed a couple of the other intercoms and, after a few moments, a man’s voice answered from the second floor. ‘Hello?’

‘I’ve got a parcel for Nicol. Could you let me in?’

There was a hesitation then a sigh. It wasn’t his problem. Why not?

The door buzzed and Winter pushed against it. He climbed the stairs quickly but quietly, turning his face away from 13e and hoping the neighbour wasn’t paying him any attention.

If Euan had been found dead in his flat then the place would have been secured by the police and there would have been next to no chance of Winter getting inside the building, never mind the flat. That wasn’t the case though and he was betting – hoping – that there had been no reason for them to think that someone would try to break in.

Of course the cops would have been through everything in the hope of finding out who had killed him but Winter had a better idea than they did of what to look for. Even if he didn’t have much idea of where to look for it.

They would have taken his PC or laptop away and would be going through his hard drive if they hadn’t already. He’d no idea what they’d find on there but he was aware that he was hoping it wouldn’t be much. For all that he wanted Euan’s killer to be caught, he wanted to do this.

Once he was on the top landing, he took out both a thin piece of plastic and the knowledge that his Uncle Danny had given him. In less than a minute, he was inside.

He closed the door behind him and stood in the near darkness for fully five minutes, waiting to hear if he’d drawn attention on the way in. Not that he could have done much in terms of getting away if he had. He’d locked himself in and if the cops came then the options were capture or a drop from the fourth-floor window.

Standing there in silence, his eyes adjusting to the dim light, he could feel Euan all around him. Nothing supernatural, not even a presence as such, just him. His things. His life. It felt intrusive because it was. He couldn’t help but see his former friend coming through that front door after an explore, making his way along the hallway to the rooms going off it. It made him more than uncomfortable.

Finally, he moved along the hall himself, picking the door at the far end and finding it to be the living room. Euan was everywhere. There was a framed Nirvana poster on one wall. Two shelves full of DVDs that were so him: early Steve Martin movies, The Shawshank Redemption, The Usual Suspects, a box set of The Thick of It and what looked like the entire collection of Bilko. Other than that there was just clutter, mainly clothes strewn about and a large pile of photographic magazines. This was Euan’s flat, no doubt about it.

A desk was pushed against one wall with a comfortable chair in front of it. Behind, there was a tangle of leads that made it clear that it was used as a computer desk. The printer was there but the computer, probably a laptop, was missing as expected.

He sat in the chair and reached out over the desk, imagining Euan doing the same. He ghost-typed, trying to get a feel for where Euan would have looked in the room, for where he would have put things. It was a mistake. All it did was let him feel the absence of his ex-friend, hear him talking and laughing. All it did was ramp up the guilt that he was already suffering.

He shook it off, trying to concentrate on what he’d come for. Information in whatever form he could get it but, above all, the one thing he knew would be able to help him. Euan’s camera.

There hadn’t been one in Euan’s backpack in the Molendinar but there was no doubt he’d have taken one with him. No chance he’d have made an explore like that without a lens. It stood to reason that whoever killed him took that camera, probably for his own protection. Maybe in case he showed up on it.

But if Winter knew Euan owned more than one and would have used a different camera depending on the shoot and his mood. So where was it? Had the cops taken it? Cordiner Street was a decent address but Euan was the cautious type, borderline paranoid even. Not with his own safety, far from it, but with his cameras, definitely. He’d have made sure they were secure, just in case. After all, anyone could break in.

There were no drawers in the desk but then that would have been too easy. Look. See what he would have seen. Think like him. Jesus, this was difficult. He could feel Euan all around him and it wasn’t helping him think straight.

He went through the cupboard that formed the bottom of an inset near the window with more hope than expectation. As expected, there were no cameras to be seen. He looked behind and below the worn leather sofa and found nothing. He moved the clothes on the floor and the magazines, he went back to the sofa and lifted the cushions, looked behind the curtains. Nothing.

There were no cameras under the only bed in the only bedroom, nor in the wardrobe or chest of drawers, nothing in the bathroom. The walk-in cupboard in the hall held a couple of bags and a suitcase plus more magazines. No cameras. Euan clearly hadn’t lived here for long and hadn’t had the time to accumulate much in the way of belongings. What there was had been easy to look through.

He went back to the living room, stung by the very definite sense that he’d missed something. He sat at the desk again and looked, channelling his friend as best he could. The magazines, the DVDs, the lack of much actual stuff. It was all so him.

The desk and the rest of the furniture looked old, maybe second-hand. The wooden mantelpiece over the fire looked original, maybe stripped back and re-varnished by someone who had the sense to see what it was. The fire had Victorian insets and a grate but there was no way it would be working: city by-laws prevented it. It was for show only.

A bell rang somewhere in his past, memories of a conversation in the darkness of a near-ruin on the edge of the Gorbals. He and Euan had crept inside the old Linen Bank building in the wee small hours. It was a dense maze of rubble and dust, cobwebbed spookiness and creaking floorboards. They explored every nook and cranny they could and Winter remembered Hepburn thrusting his hand up each room’s chimney. He’d asked what the hell his pal was doing and was told that if he’d been working in the building then that’s where he’d have hidden cash or bonds or whatever before they finally closed it down. Winter had laughed at him but now he wasn’t so sure.

He jumped off his chair and made for the fireplace at the far wall. Crouching in front of it, he placed one hand on the mantle and reached up the chimney with the other. Nothing. He groped right and left and then . . . there. There. His hand brushed against something solid that wasn’t brick. He leaned further in so he could twist his arm round, grabbed and pulled it out.

The camera was safe inside a bubble-wrap bag. Typical over-the-top caution from Euan. If only he’d taken half as much care of himself.

It was a Nikon D750 with a 24-120 millimetre telephoto zoom lens. Nearly two and a half thousand pounds worth of kit stuffed up a chimney. Only Euan.

With adrenalin coursing through him, he took the camera back to the desk, sat down, punched the on button and began flicking through the photographs on the memory card. The most recent was dated 14 September, less than a week before the date Euan was thought to have died.

It was a series of shots from Gartnavel Royal Hospital on Great Western Road, the old asylum that was known as the black building. Winter was sure he would have recognized the place inside anyway but an external shot, an opening scene-setter, gave that game away. Inside there were blistered walls in faded shades of pink and yellow, laden with graffiti. Steel piping lay across the floor, and an old fire hose, uncoiled. In the next, a table and chairs sat isolated in an empty room surrounded only by fallen plaster. In another, an old bath and sink stood lonely in a room that had otherwise been gutted. There was shot after shot of decay and neglect.

In one of them, a pale blue room with wooden-panelled walls and a dirty tiled floor, the light from above had reflected the photographer on the glass doors on the far wall. Except he wasn’t alone. Another figure stood by his side, a blurred silhouette standing with his or her arms on their hips. The camera flash had obliterated both heads but Winter had no doubt the photographer was Euan. Who the hell was he with?

Winter enlarged the reflected areas of the image as best he could but there was nothing more to be gained. The other person, surely a man from what he could see, wore a dark hooded sweatshirt and jeans but even a guess at build or height was distorted by the glass and the glare.

He scrolled quickly back through the images, over weeks, desperate to see what Euan had been working on and where he had been in the time leading up to his murder. He saw no other shadows, no other strangers. In a few seconds, he was back seven weeks to a series of dark and stark images. The Rosewood Hotel. He’d never doubted Rachel had been right about that but there was all the proof that was needed. Depressing, disturbing proof.