Page 10 of We Chase Shadows

Vern holds up his hand. ‘Not quite. Not quite. You see, I only sell things that have no scientific proof they work anyway. Whatever active ingredients the legitimate supplement companies put into their pills, there’s no evidence at all that my fake pills are any worse than their real ones. Both pills will have zero effect, but mine are cheaper.’

‘It still feels a bit illegal, Vern,’ says Steve. ‘I don’t want to argue with a Sabbath fan, but –’

‘Oh, it’s a bit illegal,’ agrees Vern. ‘No arguments there. It’s a bit illegal for sure. Can we get to the murder, please? I’m quite busy.’

‘Do you solve murders, Vern?’ Rosie asks.

‘No,’ says Vern.

‘Well, we do,’ says Rosie. ‘So let us do our job.’

‘What were you in before?’ Amy asks.

‘Fake perfume and steroids,’ says Vern. ‘Whole different ball game.’

‘And there’s money to be made?’ says Steve. ‘Even though the products don’t work?’

‘A lot of the time they do work,’ says Vern. ‘A bit of positive thinking does wonders for the health. So I provide a service really. I sleep well at night. Just without help from my “Goodnight Sweetdreams” pills, which are a bestseller.’

‘And yet,’ says Rosie, because Vern is right, they do need to get to the crux of this thing, ‘someone has just murdered one of your bodyguards and dumped him on your doorstep.’

Vern raises his palms as if to say, I know, right? ‘By the way, I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to dig up the corpse or not? Absolutely no bother if you do. I don’t know how you work, but Korbin can have it done in a jiffy.’

Rosie gives a shake of the head and a wrinkle of the nose, telling Vern this won’t be necessary for the moment.

‘I’ll want a look at some point,’ says Amy. ‘Entry-wound angle and so on.’

Rosie must remember that Amy is not one-dimensional. She likes numbering and underlining things, sure, but she also likes looking at corpses.

‘I think the question we’re asking,’ says Steve, ‘is do you know who might have done it? Is there someone else, a rival perhaps, who might have reason to frighten you?’

Vern reaches into his pocket and pulls out a piece of paper. ‘And there we get to it, Steve, there we get to it. A note from a fellow businessman named Jakob Eriksson, claiming responsibility.’

Vern hands the note to Rosie, who reads.

‘This is a waning –’

‘English not his first language, then,’ says Steve.

‘I will be back and you will be next,’ finishes Rosie.

‘So you want us to find this Jakob Eriksson?’ Amy asks. ‘Your business rival?’

‘No,’ says Vern. ‘This note is nonsense.’

‘Nonsense how?’ asks Steve. ‘Apart from the spelling?’

‘I’ll tell you now, for a fact,’ says Vern. ‘Jakob Eriksson didn’t do this.’

Amy takes a look at the note. ‘He seems to suggest that he did.’

‘We’re friends,’ says Vern. ‘We’re not rivals. And we have an agreement.’

‘What sort of agreement?’ asks Rosie.

‘Jakob Eriksson is very much on the more illegal side of the business,’ says Vern. ‘We have always coexisted happily. He kills people. A lot of people. But he would neither threaten to kill me, nor try to kill me.’

‘He kills people?’ asks Amy.