“Is he alright?” Logan asked.
“He’s moaning about the handcuffs and he’s not a big fan of the testicle trauma, but—”
“The dog, I meant,” Logan said. “Is he alright? He’s not… He’s not hurt or anything, is he?”
“Doesn’t seem to be, no,” Ben said, and it was impossible not to hear the note of amusement in his voice. “Why, you’re not actually concerned about him, are you, Jack? You’re not saying you actually like him, are you? Surely that can’t be what I’m hearing, can it?”
“I’m just thinking of the vet’s bill, that’s all,” Logan said.
“Sure you are,” Ben said. “Got a couple of bits of news to share with you, too.”
“Aye, same here,” Logan told him, eyeing the passport. “You go first.”
“That link you gave us to the van on Craigslist? Hamza got stuck in and managed to get the listing back. Somehow. Don’t ask me. Anyway, he found a photo. The van’s a bit of a shitheap of a thing. Listed for five hundred quid. Lot of rust. Wheel arches are nearly eaten through. I’d be surprised if it was road legal, although the ad says it is.”
“Sounds like the van that supposedly picked Bernie up from Westerly Wellness,” Logan said. “Did the ad show the plate?”
“No, that’s blurred out. But we got the seller details. He’s local, so we’re going to pay him a visit in the morning. See what we can find out.”
“Keep me posted,” Logan said.
“Also, hang on, Sinead wants to tell you something she found. Something about a date. One sec…”
The line went muffled again. They heard the creak of a door, and a distant-sounding muttering that sounded like Ben. It was followed by an even more distant-sounding muttering that didn’t, then the phone was handed over, the door was closed, and Sinead’s voice came more clearly.
“Hiya, sir. Just a quick one, really. I was looking through Bernie’s newsletters, and something jumped out at me. A date. Most of the issues were published at random times, but there was always one published on the same date every year.”
Logan looked over to the open briefcase, and the dials of the twin locks. “Twenty-fourth of October, by any chance?”
There was a moment of silence from the other end. The sound of thunder being stolen.
“Eh, yeah. That’s it. How did you know that, sir?”
“Lucky guess,” Logan told her. “I’ll explain later. I’m going to send a photo of a passport to the shared inbox.”
“What? Bernie’s?”
“The name on it is Alan Rigg,” Logan explained. “But might still be him. I want you to run it by those two Uniforms down there. Or, better still, show it to the politician and see if he recognises Bernie from the photo. Might as well get some use out of the bastard.”
“Send it over and I’ll ask him,” Sinead said.
“We’ve also got photos of him at it with the nanny. Well, I assume it’s the nanny, anyway. I’ll send those over, too, and you can use them to beat him with.”
“Will do.”
“And… you’re OK?” Logan asked. “He didn’t… He wasn’t…”
“I took care of it, sir,” Sinead replied. “It was touch and go for a bit, but I should never have let it get that far. My fault.”
“Bollocks it’s your fault,” Shona chimed in.
“Aye, what she said,” Logan agreed.
“Thanks. Either way, I’m fine,” Sinead said, then she neatly steered the conversation away from that particular topic. “Where did you get this stuff, sir? The passport and the photos, I mean?”
“Passport, photos, and a handwritten note from Bernie himself, no less,” Logan said. “It was in the briefcase we got from the loan shark. The one he’d nicked from Bernie’s caravan.”
“And you don’t think he’s a suspect, sir? Bernie did owe him money.”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Not really feeling it, though,” Logan said. “Mind you, they’ve had their run-ins before. Bernie failed to pay back a previous loan on time, and earned himself a broken wrist in the process.”
“Definitely sounds suss, sir,” Sinead said.
“Wait, wait. What?” Shona interrupted. “Who told you he broke his wrist?”
“Dinky,” Logan said.
Shona shook her head. “I have no idea who or what that is.”