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CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

‘Y ou cannae sit there with a long face.’ Joshua sat back in his chair, arms crossed.

Beside him, Cheryl nodded. ‘You got what you wanted.’

Robert sighed. He had got what he’d wanted. Hell, he’d watched Nina be led away in handcuffs, heard Dickheadson recite her rights. It should’ve tasted of victory, but like that French press scattered across the kitchen floor, his heart was still broken.

Dickheadson had summoned him to the office to ask him about his involvement with Nina. Cheryl had found him a lawyer who’d argued that Robert was a grieving widower Nina had conned into believing her lies. The lawyer had been forceful, and Robert had ended up getting a further suspension that could end in him being fired. It was no more than he deserved. He’d helped a murderer, one who’d confessed her crime to him. And instead of turning her in, he’d slept with her.

What kind of a sick eejit slept with their wife’s killer?

That one thought burned his gut, like it should have last night when he’d caressed and kissed the length of her.

He lifted the tall glass of Guinness and drained it.

‘Now that’s what I’m talking about.’ Joshua grinned. ‘What did Dickheadson say?’

Robert didn’t want to rehash that interview. The entire time the lawyer had been blaming Nina, Robert had felt himself shrivel. He hadn’t protected Anne. And now he was hammering the nail further into Nina’s coffin. For murder.

Cheryl’s hand landed on his. ‘Robert, are you okay?’

‘I’m good.’

Cheryl shared a look with Joshua then said, ‘You know when you’ve been studying hard for an exam and then it’s exam day and you’ve completed it. The entire build-up to it is so stressful, you end up feeling tired afterwards. Like there’s nothing else left to do. You’ve been wanting to find the truth behind Anne’s death for so long. And now you have. It’s bound to feel strange.’

Robert snatched his hand away from Cheryl’s then studied his fingers. He could still feel Nina’s hand gripping his, that steady hold so tangible… and alluring. Cheryl was right. He should feel relief not bereft.

Was it because Dickheadson had been the one to take Nina away?

‘Robert.’ Joshua leaned in. ‘Did you hear anything Cheryl said?’

‘I’m fine,’ he retorted. But they all knew the reply was a knee-jerk reaction.

Joshua shook his head. ‘You’re grieving.’

For fuck’s sake! Robert shut his eyes, wanting so hard to bottle it up or to combust trying. But they were sitting in the Counting House, shouting to be heard. The same pub he’d spent hours chatting and drinking with Nina. The same place Shah had come after her.

His fist smacked against the wooden table, rattling their cluster of empty glasses. The clang was so loud, it caused the conversation around them to cut out. ‘I am not grieving. I do not feel sad, remorseful or fucking bereft. I… I… For fuck’s sake!’ He jumped off the stool and flipped his friends the bird. ‘See yous later.’

Robert strode through the crowd, elbowing a few people aside. For once in his life, he didn’t care what these eejits thought of him. If they were in his path, they had to move.

He knocked a few old men aside, ignored the abuse hurled at him then finally found the exit. He shoved past a few barely legal teens and ran down the stairs and out into George Square.

The air wasn’t as artic as it had been the last time he’d run through those doors looking for Nina, but it was earlier in the day, the final vestiges of golden light still touching the sky, a last sliver of warmth. The sort Nina’s skin exuded, even in the coldness of the night.

Robert massaged his forehead, trying to soothe out his thoughts, to figure out what was happening inside him.

Logic and emotion. When they held a civil war, all you could do was dance to their whims.

His legs carried him across the square, but he didn’t know if he was heading for Nina’s apartment once more or the dilapidated building.

He’d wanted justice for Anne. But justice at the cost of the woman who’d come to mean something to him – he couldn’t say what his feelings for Nina were, but he had to… had to…

‘Robert, stop!’ Joshua’s hand landed on Robert’s shoulder and pulled him to a stop. ‘Where the fuck are you going?’

‘Leave me the fuck alone,’ Robert roared.

‘We won’t.’ Cheryl stumbled to a stop beside them, her breaths puffing out. ‘Do you know how tough it is to run in heels?’

‘A reason why you shouldn’t follow me.’ Robert shrugged Joshua’s hand away. ‘Go back – get drunk.’

‘After meeting with the officer from the procurator fiscal’s office that’s what I wanted to do,’ Cheryl muttered. ‘But I can’t leave you alone like this. You should be happy, Robert.’

It grated on his nerves. Not because he’d been so wrong but— ‘She can’t have done it. I refuse to believe that my instincts as a cop are so faulty that I’d sleep with my wife’s killer.’

‘She’s a good manipulator,’ Cheryl said. ‘She tricked us all. But evidence doesn’t lie.’

Robert clenched his hands into fists. He’d seen the evidence. But evidence could misdirect. It could be planted. Or hell, it could be misread.

Robert had spent days with Nina. And if there was one thing he did well, it was deal with people. He understood people, just like he understood Nina couldn’t have committed such a double homicide. ‘She didn’t manipulate me. And if she did, why was Shah after her? Why were we attacked when we went back to the crime scene?’

He turned, now striding down the street with purpose, Joshua and Cheryl scampering behind him. Somewhere amidst the frantic squash in his head, mercy poked its head through and he slowed his pace. How women walked in heels he didn’t know, and he certainly didn’t want to nurse Cheryl back to health if she sprained her ankle. The woman was insufferable when she was the one being cared for.

Slowing down also meant Cheryl could yap. And she loved talking.

‘Cons are meant to be believable. Look, Robert, I know you care about her, and her story is convincing. But think – she didn’t actually get hurt during those attacks, did she? Maybe Shah was working for her. And?—’

Robert tuned her out, his mind laser focused. He’d set out to find Anne’s killer. Hell, he’d blamed it on Nina. And Nina was at the crime scene, the only other DNA they’d found besides Anne’s.

Why the hell hadn’t they picked up Jonas’s DNA or any fragments of his body? A fire didn’t help obviously, but that fire hadn’t burned long enough or hot enough to erase evidence of a body.

Besides… ‘Why would Nina need fame?’

Cheryl stopped her nattering. ‘Every reporter wants to advance their careers.’

‘By what, murdering a bunch of people and investigating whodunnit?’ Robert shook his head. ‘Why would she kill her own camera guy?’

‘To show how much danger she was in.’ Joshua shrugged. ‘And she survived despite all the odds. It’s catchy.’

He remembered the reason they’d got along so well at the pub the day they’d met. They’d been toasting the things they’d lost… and she’d been toasting the end of her career – the thing she’d said meant everything to her; the thing she’d left her family for; the thing she’d believed she’d never lose. Unlike people.

If there was one thing these murders hadn’t given her it was a chance of fame – or a step up the career ladder. And Nina was smart. No way would she have survived on her own in a foreign country otherwise. There’s no way she’d have expected to get away with something like that.

‘Dickheadson has the wrong person. I set out to find the truth, and that’s what I intend to do.’

‘You’re looking for trouble.’ Cheryl gripped his arm. ‘There’s only so much I can do to help you.’

‘I don’t need your protection.’ Protection meant boundaries and rules. And he was done playing by other people’s rules, finding space for himself in the boxes they slotted him into. Nina had accused him of not choosing to live the life he wanted. Well, he’d show her. And he’d show Dickheadson.

‘I will find the truth. I’m sick of dancing to everyone else’s tunes. Screw evidence. We humans don’t work on logic or facts. We strive on emotions. If what you’re saying has a shred of truth to it, this was a crime of passion, of someone wanting something desperately. The answer doesn’t lie in facts. It lies in human emotions.’

Robert turned away, uncaring of the scene he was causing or the heads he was turning. ‘I don’t expect you to understand or to help me. But you won’t change my mind.’

‘I understand.’ Cheryl clutched at her crossbody purse. ‘I understand exactly what you’re feeling. You might think you’re doing the right thing. You might even think she’s not to be blamed. But at the end of the day, she’s broken the law. Don’t let your career be another of Nina Banerjee’s victims.’

Nina hadn’t done anything illegal except for trying to keep herself alive.

But Cheryl wasn’t done. She tugged at his arm. ‘You’re not a detective, Robert. This is not some fictional?—’

‘You’re right. And as I’m not part of the CID elite, I don’t play by your rules.’ Robert huffed, his heart cracking just a little. But he was done. For once, he knew his mind, and he wasn’t going to bend to someone else’s whims. ‘Goodbye,’ turning his back on them, he stalked away.

And this time his friends didn’t chase him.