Page 130 of We Chase Shadows

Steve nods. ‘Remind me to tell you that story though. Felicity showed me the picture of the guy who attacked Tony, and I was sure I’d seen him in one of the airport photos. With our friend Connor Brooks.’

Amy digs her gun further into Brooks’s temple.

‘But I kept looking through them all, and he wasn’t there. I mean, it wasn’t super-important, we knew he worked for Brooks, but for my professional pride, you know. I knew I’d seen him. I was taking another look just before I rang you.’

‘This is when Trouble solved a murder?’ asks Amy.

‘He’s a very intuitive cat,’ says Steve. ‘Trouble was sitting on all my airport photos, the ones Ernesto had given us, all printed out. And I didn’t like to move him, even to solve a murder. He’s a cat, you know?’

Steve is surprised to see Connor Brooks give a little nod at that. The first glimpse of any humanity he’d seen in the man’s face.

‘So, I opened the photo Carlos sent us,’ says Steve. ‘In my email.’

‘Carlos?’ says Ernesto.

‘Carlos,’ says Steve. ‘A friend of ours from Border Protection in the States. We sent him to Palm Springs, and he sent us an airport security photo too.’

‘Oh,’ says Ernesto.

‘Yes, oh,’ agrees Steve. ‘The photo was identical to Ernesto’s, except for one key detail. The photo Carlos sent us shows a blond man, standing five or six places behind Brooks in the queue. On Ernesto’s photo there is a column in that exact place.’

‘Ernesto doctored the photo?’ says Amy.

‘Ernesto recognized him too,’ says Steve. ‘Was he on your system somewhere, Ernesto?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Steve,’ says Ernesto. ‘It must have been a software glitch.’

‘So Ernesto recognizes Brooks’s hitman,’ says Amy. ‘And then what?’

‘That’s what we need Ernesto to tell us,’ says Steve. ‘I know that Ernesto recognized the hitman and hid his photograph from us. I know that same hitman was killed shortly afterwards, and I know that someone in Rosie’s house murdered Vern Blackwood. I suspect that a single bullet with a silencer as Ernesto was closing the cellar door would have done the trick.’

‘They’re called suppressors,’ says Amy. ‘But that would work.’

‘Oh, come on, Steve,’ says Ernesto. ‘First you shoot me, now you insult me. A proud Spaniard can only take so much.’

‘Now Ernesto might have had good reason to shoot the hitman in the ditch,’ says Steve.

‘Exactly,’ says Ernesto. ‘Not that I did it, but exactly.’

‘But when we got here, and I saw him aiming a gun at an unarmed man, however terrifying that unarmed man might be,’ says Steve, ‘I had to stop him.’

‘I wasn’t going to shoot him, Steve,’ says Ernesto. ‘Jesus, you’ve got the whole thing wrong.’

Steve’s gun drops just a touch. What if he has got this wrong? What if he’s missed something obvious here? A simpler explanation?

‘I don’t know who killed Vern Blackwood,’ says Ernesto. ‘Lee? And maybe this man killed the hitman?’

‘I want to believe you,’ says Steve.

‘Then do,’ says Ernesto. ‘I did things the wrong way, Steve, I kept things to myself. I didn’t trust the right things would get done the right way. It was important for me to catch this man myself. For my career. I should have trusted you.’

Steve turns to the man who can only be Connor Brooks. ‘You really have nothing to say?’

The man looks at the three of them in turn, and then says, in a perfect English accent, ‘I’m supposed … Mr Blackwood always told me I mustn’t speak.’

‘Connor Brooks, I presume?’ says Steve.

The man looks confused. ‘Connor …?’