Page 40 of We Chase Shadows

They all stare into the deep freezer. Korbin’s body lies face up, the knife, frosty now, still sticking out of his chest.

Playing by the rules is a terrible bore, but so is ending up in an Italian prison for perverting the course of justice. What choice do they have?

‘I keep trying to pull his eyelids closed,’ says Vern. ‘But they pop back open.’

‘I’ve done everything I can,’ says Amy. ‘Got everything I need. Fingerprints, photos. Questioned everyone.’

‘You’ve done good,’ says Steve.

Amy has given them both a file, and Rosie has actually read it this time. The only people at the villa at the time of Korbin’s death were Vern, locked in, Lee, watching a film, and Amy. Lee had been on a patrol earlier in the evening and could have had the opportunity to kill him, Vern could have disabled the alarms on his villa, with some difficulty, and plunged a knife into his own bodyguard, or Amy herself might have lost her mind. Rosie feels like one day Amy could absolutely lose her cool and go on some sort of rampage. She doubts she would start murdering bodyguards, but who knows with that generation?

The only prints on the knife were Korbin’s, which told them the square root of precisely nothing, because any decent murderer would be wearing gloves.

What would Vern’s motive be? That’s something they can chat about on the plane home. And Lee, the only surviving bodyguard? Two bodyguards dead, does that mean a promotion? Amy has got to know Lee a little, and Rosie is sure she will have an opinion. Possibly even a crush? One can hope. That husband of hers, Adam, is always away. Rosie doesn’t like that for Amy.

Or has someone come into the compound from the outside? Has Jakob Eriksson struck again? Killing his own man? Tying up a loose end? The cameras show a figure running across the lawn towards Korbin’s cottage at around 9.30. Bleached blond hair, that’s about all that can be seen. It’s all in Amy’s report. Rosie sees that Amy now has her arm around her father-in-law.

‘How was Tony?’ Amy asks.

‘Shaken up,’ says Steve.

‘Who’s Tony?’ Vern asks.

‘My best mate,’ says Steve. ‘Jakob Eriksson sent one of his lads over to give him a hiding, try to warn us off. Someone with bleached blond hair by the way.’

Same as the figure on the security footage? You’d have to assume so, even though an awful lot of people dye their hair. Rosie has been everything in her time. She is currently Chocolate Strawberry.

‘God, I’m sorry, Steve,’ says Vern. ‘I warned you not to go after Eriksson. The last thing I want is innocent people dragged into this thing.’

‘I think I was more upset than Tony,’ says Steve, waving Vern’s apologies away. ‘He can be very “easy come, easy go” when he wants to be.’

‘Perhaps we should just leave the whole thing well alone?’ says Vern. ‘I mean, I’m telling you, it’s not Jakob, but even if it’s someone pretending to be Jakob, it’s the same result. Too dangerous. I might move for a bit. It feels like this place could be … slightly compromised.’

‘I think that sixty-six per cent of your bodyguards ending up dead in the freezer counts as slightly compromised, yes,’ agrees Rosie. ‘What if we fly you to England? You can stay at mine.’

‘She’s got two moats,’ says Steve.

‘That’s a good amount of moats,’ nods Vern. ‘But for tax purposes I can’t go to England. The second I set foot in Heathrow it costs me a couple of million.’

‘And that’s just Duty Free,’ says Steve. He and Vern laugh a great deal at this. Rosie and Amy wait them out. Rosie double-checks that they’ve finished.

‘This is what I suggest,’ Rosie says. ‘Vern, we fly you to England, on the jet, put you up at mine for a week or so.’

‘There are other places I can go,’ says Vern. ‘Switzerland. Honestly, I feel like this is too much for you.’

‘Nonsense,’ says Rosie. ‘We’ll have a blast. You’ll be protected, and it’ll buy us a bit of time, and perhaps it might lure whoever’s killing all of your bodyguards.’

‘And into an environment we have more control over,’ says Amy. ‘More secure.’

‘It’s still a no,’ says Vern. ‘I have a yacht I could use. That would be even more secure.’

‘A yacht makes you a sitting target,’ says Amy. ‘I have blown up a lot of yachts in my time.’

‘There’s a nice shop in Rosie’s village,’ says Steve. ‘But if there’s a woman called Maureen behind the till, she overcharges, and she knows I know.’

‘You can bring the bodyguard you still have left,’ says Rosie.

‘It’s a lovely offer,’ says Vern. ‘But it’s still a no. And right now I’m more worried about the idea of the police coming here. The whole point of hiring you was I wouldn’t have to deal with them. I don’t know if you want me to stop paying you?’