‘Henry Livingstone,’ whispers Mandy.
‘Wanted for murder,’ says Yev.
‘Not even trying to hide. Bold as brass.’
‘Visiting a judge.’
They watch as he unlocks the door, not bothering to knock or ring the bell. He has keys, enters with confidence, with impunity. As if he doesn’t know that anything is wrong, that Justice Clarence O’Toole is already two hours dead, shot by a man wearing a ski mask. Mandy finds the video chilling to watch, knowing what she knows, knowing what Livingstone must discover for himself. They watch as he disarms the alarm, saunters down the hallway as if he’s done this many times before, apparently calling out as he comes. They watch him enter the bedroom, switch on the light, stand there frozen as he takes in the scene.
‘He didn’t know,’ says Yev.
‘Doesn’t look like it.’
‘Seen enough?’
‘No. Let’s see what he does next.’
What he does next is this: he takes the handkerchief from the top pocket of his suit, the dapper turned functional, and wipes the light switch, turning it back off. He closes the door and wipes the handle. He walks straight to the library, switches on the light with his kerchief-covered hand. He walks towards the cupboard with the recording gear, sees the disembowelled recording machine. He nods to himself. He takes out his phone, checks something on it.
‘Shit,’ says Yev. ‘He’s got access to the website.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘No, but why else would he be checking his phone at four o’clock in the morning?’
But Livingstone doesn’t look at his phone for long. Instead, he turns and removes a painting from the wall.
‘Jesus,’ says Yev. ‘A wall safe.’
‘The killer missed it.’
They watch as Livingstone calmly works at the combination, checking his phone constantly, hand still cloaked in the kerchief to avoid leaving prints. It takes a few minutes, but he gets the safe open, reaches in, withdraws something, puts it in his pocket. ‘Go back,’ says Mandy. ‘Can you see what it is?’
Yev tries, but spooling the video is clunky, and the resolution is no better the next time around. ‘I’ll need to download it. High-res. We may be able to see more then.’
‘How long?’
‘Not sure. An hour maybe.’
‘Right. We need to do it anyway. The killer gutted the recorder in the house. If the only copy is on the site, then it’s vulnerable.’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Okay. You stay here and get downloading. Can I take the first video to the police?’
‘Sounds like a plan.’
‘And can you contact Martin?’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
By the time Mandy arrives at the police station with the video of Clarence O’Toole’s murder, Winifred Barbicombe is already there. Mandy sighs with relief. Life is always a little easier with the support of her fierce solicitor. As they enter the foyer, Winifred rings Morris Montifore on his personal number.
‘He’s on his way,’ she says.
As it happens, it’s not Montifore who collects them, it’s his minion, Ivan Lucic, silent and surly. ‘This better be good,’ is all he has to say. He leads them to the same glassed-in office where Mandy has found herself twice in the previous two days.
Montifore bustles in. ‘Talk. You have two minutes.’
‘Justice Clarence O’Toole has been murdered. Shot to death in his bed.’
‘We know,’ says Montifore. ‘Nurse called it in when she arrived at work. We were just leaving. But how do you know?’
‘We saw it happen. And we know who killed him.’
Montifore stares, blinks. ‘Sit,’ he says. ‘Explain.’ Lucic pulls out a pad and a pen.
So Mandy explains how Yev downloaded the CCTV footage from the security website.
Montifore hears her out, before he starts his questions. ‘Your pal, the computer genius—how did he get access to the site? Did he hack it?’
‘No. O’Toole gave the login and password to Martin. In case something happened to him.’
‘That’s convenient,’ says Lucic.
‘Watch your tongue, officer,’ snaps Winifred. ‘My client didn’t have to come here. She could have given the video directly to Martin Scarsden without consulting you. The first you would have known about this evidence would be when you read about it in the Herald.’
Lucic looks like he could bite the lawyer’s head off, but Montifore is all conciliation. ‘Calm down, everyone, calm down. I wasn’t casting aspersions.’ He talks directly to Mandy. ‘Your lawyer will understand. We need to ensure any evidence, including this video, has been legally obtained. If it’s stolen, we need to ensure it won’t be ruled inadmissible.’
‘It was legally obtained,’ asserts Winifred. ‘O’Toole gave Martin access to the security site precisely because he feared something like this might happen.’
‘Very good,’ says Montifore. ‘Let’s see it then.’
Mandy hands over a small hard drive. ‘There are multiple camera angles. Yev has cut the most relevant ones together. But we can give you the lot.’
‘Of course you can,’ says Montifore. ‘Speaking of which, where is Yevgeny? And why are you the one bringing this to me? Where the hell is Martin Scarsden?’
chapter forty-one
All eyes turn. Henry Livingstone has moved out of the shadowy hallway and into the room proper, his enormous handgun like a magnet, pulling in their attention. Sweetwater drops the knife, and Livingstone gives him a mighty shove in the back, sending him sprawling onto his knees in front of the bay window, between where Titus Torbett and Martin sit tied to their chairs and where Sir Talbot Torbett sits bleeding into his. And from his position, cable-tied to a chair, Martin watches the play unfold around him, not as a member of the audience, but as an actor on the stage, one who has neglected to read the script, one rooted to the spot, one who doesn’t know exactly what is coming next but dreads it all the same. First, he sees the pistol—even as Sweetwater is falling, slipping his designer Glock from its holster. Now he sees the mafia man rise on his knees and begin to turn, bringing the barrel to bear on Livingstone, but before he can align it, Livingstone’s own weapon explodes with a roaring violence. Martin can see
