Page 40 of The Writer
“Poisoned. But it was made to look like natural causes. The police are going with the latter explanation.”
“What do you mean?”
“The house was ransacked, but from what the family can tell, nothing is missing apart from her laptop. It’s not like she did that before poisoning herself, so it’s a healthy guess they don’t know who killed her or who took her research.”
“And how do you know she was poisoned?”
He picks up a sugar packet from the table, empties it into his mouth quite randomly. “As an investigative journalist, I’m assuming you know all about keeping your contacts closed. Don’t ask me stupid fucking questions again. I’m not giving up a source for anyone.”
My hackles go up, head rearing back at his tone. “Listen, you work for us. If I want a question bloody answered, you should damn well—”
He stands up and turns around, apparently leaving. I’m up and moving out with him before he gets a chance, coffee in my grip and the messenger bag slung over my shoulder.
“Locke, don’t walk away from me.” He stops so fast I crash into his back on the way out of the door, coffee sluicing over my hand and his back. He looks over his shoulder at me and scowls more effectively than he did when I first saw him. It’s enough for me to back up a few steps again, perhaps hoping a saviour of my own might turn up soon if this is the sort of guy I’m going to have to deal with.
“Look, I’m sorry for being pushy, but I need to know the facts, or I’ve got nothing, and I can’t find out what the hell that author wanted with my family,” I say, moving to a bench. “What else have you got for me?”
He looks around the area, as if stalking it or checking for problems that might come our way. It makes me smile a little, wondering what trouble he thinks is going to come at lunchtime on a Sunday in Stratford.It’s not Kabul, for Christ’s sake. Although, it does make me watch him for a few moments and consider the fact that he might be ex-army, or police, or something in the way of military.
Eventually, he comes back to sit with me on the bench, still acting like something’s about to go down. “I looked into the payments sent to her bank account,” he says, looking around. “None of it came from a Broderick source. The money seems to have come from an undisclosed offshore account. It isn’t your brother’s, father’s, mother’s, or yours.” My surprised face is in place, and not just because he’s looking into us. How the hell does he have access to our offshore accounts? “And Persephone doesn’t have an account other than the usual. I can’t trace it back to anyone in the company either. At the moment, that’s all I’ve got. I can’t rule out your other sister, though. She seems good at covering her transactions, but there’s a payment that I’ve flagged. It’s only a matter of time.” Well, at least one of us is useful enough not to be looked into quite so thoroughly.
“Why are you looking into us?”
“You’ve all got motive.”
“For what?”
“For killing someone looking into your history if you didn’t want something found.”
My brows shoot up. I hadn’t even thought about one of us being the problem. Still, that’s ridiculous. None of us would even think about looking into our family’s past. Why would we? “But it’s not any of us.”
“Says who? I’m being employed to track and trace a problem, you’re all the first point of call, and I can’t clear you all, yet.” Sensible, I suppose, but that isn’t helping me work anything out. “I’m reviewing the police database twice daily for more intel, but unless you’ve got anything more to help me out with, I’m hitting a brick wall.”
I sigh and look out into the streets, not sure how much I can tell him or even if I should. Still, two heads are better than one, and maybe sharing what I’ve got might help us speed through this mystery quicker.
I dig into my messenger bag, pulling out all the documents. They get handed over, and he leafs through them one by one.
“Where did you get these from?” he asks.
“In the post. They were waiting for me when I got back from Afghanistan. They’re from said dead author. Must have been sent before she died.” No noise comes from him, he just scans and starts laying them out on the bench beside him, filtering them into corresponding piles that are nothing like my piles were.
“Can I take these?” he asks, still looking through a document.
“Yes, they’re copies, but I can send you the rest of the information I have if you give me an email,” I reply. He nods and looks through some birth certificates, holding up a marriage certificate at the same time. “What?” I ask.
“Don’t know yet,” he says, putting them down on a pile.
“I don’t understand how they relate to each other. Whilst the information is sound, or seemingly so, it doesn’t point to anything underhanded or intriguing enough to warrant her death.” Another nod comes from him, and he looks out into the surrounding area. “I’m going to try looking through the old records on the main national register for births and marriages, make sure everything tallies up like it should, but having our name linked to her death means we have got to find out what the fuck is going on.”
“Are you meeting someone here?” he says.
“What?”
“A man. Are you meeting him?” His chin nods upwards and over to the left, making me look in the same direction. “He isn’t usual round here.”
No, he isn’t.
A breath sucks into me, and I stare at Blake as he walks through the crowds towards us. Tall, broad. Killer eyes doing their own version of scoping out this area we’re in. Shoulders wide enough that he’s parting the way without even trying. I chuckle lightly, wondering what these two could get up to with a couple of guns in their hands and an attack force behind them.
