AS HE went into the office the following morning, Sholto said to him, “I hope she was worth it.”
“Eh?”
“Whoever left you looking as knackered as you do. If it wasn’t some buxom beauty then you had a waste of a night.”
Darian decided not to ask who the hell used the word buxom anymore and just said, “Good one.”
“All my jokes are good ones, you just don’t listen close enough to realize. I’ll assume it was Maeve Campbell and I’ll delay my lecture on the subject of that woman if you tell me you’ve made progress with the Murdoch case.”
“The warehouses? Not unless you consider ongoing confirmation of their legality progress. There’s nothing to see there, Sholto, and I’m not going to make stuff up.”
“I don’t expect you to make stuff up; I just don’t accept that any shipping company that’s ever worked out of this city hasn’t been up to something. I’ve seen that industry and its ways before; I know they’re all playing tricks to bring down their costs, thinking they can pull the wool over the eyes of the goofy landlubbers. You get down there and poke about some more, maybe see if you can get a low-paid and loose-lipped member of staff talking. Be proactive.”
Darian did as he was told, heading back to the warehouses at the marina. He didn’t try to make contact with a member of staff, just drank coffee and watched the old brick buildings to pass the time. In the late afternoon he went back to the office and wrote another report that turned doing nothing into three hundred words before he took the Skoda round to Sgàil Drive.
Maeve opened the door and quickly said, “I’m glad you’re here, I’ve…”
She stopped when she saw the look on his face. She held the door open and they went through to the living area. They sat opposite each other and Maeve looked hard at him, waiting for Darian to explain the angry and miserable expression.
He said, “I had a long night last night. I thought I was making progress, found someone that was connected to Moses and might have had knowledge about his killing, but it all fell apart in my hands. Corey showed up, took me for a drive, made a bundle of threats that he dressed up as valuable life lessons.”
Maeve was silent for a few seconds. “You found someone who might know what happened to Moses?”
“I thought I did. An accountant that was involved in handling a lot of dirty money and might have been a link in the chain tied round Moses’s money. I found her through Gallowglass, he was hassling this woman. I thought the connection might just have been to Corey, a chance to take a swing at the corrupt bastard, but it grew legs. Then it ran off a cliff. The accountant, she was working with Corey all along, I think. Made me look stupid, and I suppose that was the point. Gave Corey the chance to laugh in my face and warn me about sticking my nose into his business, lean on her at the same time. She said Corey’s trying to force her to hand over all the dirty money she has, he said that was bullshit, but I don’t know. He did say that he agrees Cummins didn’t kill Moses, and that he’s going to keep working the case to try to find the person he should have found long ago. That should be good news, I suppose, if I believed a word of it or trusted him to conduct an honest investigation. At this stage he’s just looking for ways to shut down everyone else’s questions and escape with the cash.”
“You must have rattled him into action.”
“Nah, if he is going to keep looking for the killer it’s not because of anything I did.”
“No, I mean, you’re not the only one that had an unwelcome warning. I was going to tell you when you came in; I had a visit early this morning. It was before eight o’clock, I stumbled out of bed and answered the door and there was DC MacDuff, looking a whole flock of sheepish.”
Darian remembered when he had turned up unexpectedly and Maeve had opened the door, wearing nothing but a T-shirt. He could understand the sheepishness. “What did he want?”
“He said he knew I had been asking questions about the police investigation and that it was hampering their ongoing efforts. Tried to make it sound like official police speak rather than a weak thug’s threat. I told him I thought there were no ongoing efforts, that’s why I was still asking questions. He didn’t know how to answer that. I could tell he’d been sent here to speak someone else’s words that his tongue isn’t forked enough to handle and once he had to think for himself he was stumped. He said I should stop what I was doing because I was putting both myself and the investigation in danger, which I think was supposed to be his hardman act, but he sounded like he didn’t believe it himself. Then he asked me to tell him everything I had found out about Moses’ killing so far.”
“Did you?”
“Of course not. I told him the reason I was asking questions myself was because I couldn’t trust him with the answers in the first place. Then I told him to leave and he did, faster than a confident man should. He was just following orders, although you can still prosecute a man for that. He didn’t scare me, but the phone call I got not long after he left was more effective. A man, local accent, telling me it was time to stop asking questions and hanging out with people that were going to get me into trouble. By which I think he meant you, incidentally.”
“How long after MacDuff left?”
“Just long enough for him to tell this person I hadn’t been as cooperative as they would have liked so needed to be leaned on by someone with a little more grunt.”
“It must have been Gallowglass, must have been.”
“I’ve never heard him before, I don’t know. He sounded like he was a lot more comfortable playing the part of grand thug than MacDuff.”
Darian looked at her and sighed. He was complicit in dragging this woman into something dangerous, even if her tendency was to walk toward the threat.
He said, “I’m worried about how aggressive they’re getting. I think they know who killed Moses and I think they’re involved in protecting that person. Corey is dangerous. If he’s going to run with the money then he’s desperate, and that makes him more dangerous than usual.”
She got up and walked across to sit next to him. “Well, I knew that from the first conversation I had with the bastard. He carries his nastiness in the open with him. I’m not scared of him, but I’m scared you might stop helping me with this.”
“I won’t.”
They were face to face, an inch apart. They kissed, Maeve put her hand up to his face, and they pulled apart. She hugged him tightly again and said, “I know I can trust you. Will you stay here tonight?”
They kissed again and Maeve led him through to the bedroom.