Lethal Profit by Alex Blackmore Page B

position across the street. Eva recognised the outside of Jackson’s office building. Valerie was standing several metres down the street from the entrance to Jackson’s office, pulled back into a doorway. She was on the phone but her attention was elsewhere. Eva looked at the focus of her gaze and recognised Shaun the bike courier standing next to Jackson smoking a cigarette.
    Eva tried to make sense of the picture. It was obviously taken moments before Jackson disappeared, but it changed nothing.
    â€˜Who took this?’
    â€˜I did.’
    â€˜So you saw what really happened to Jackson?’
    Leon shook his head. ‘I left almost as soon as I took the photo.’
    â€˜I must be missing something. I don’t understand what you think this means, or how it’s relevant to what just happened.’
    Leon shook his head, frustrated, and stubbed his cigarette out in a Moroccan ashtray.
    â€˜That guy in the photo – the bike courier,’ he said, moving over to where Eva sat and jabbing his finger in the direction of the photo.
    â€˜What about him?’
    â€˜He’s dead.’
    Eva put the photo back in the file. ‘I know.’
    â€˜I didn’t take this photo because of him. I took it because of Valerie.’
    â€˜Jackson’s girlfriend?’
    Leon nodded.
    â€˜Why?’
    Leon began to pace the floor. He lit another cigarette and scratched distractedly at his hair.
    Suddenly he was still. ‘She’s involved.’
    â€˜Involved in what?’
    â€˜In what happened to Jackson. She has something to do with it.’
    â€˜How do you know that?’
    â€˜I just do!’
    Leon seemed anxious, almost manic. This is really not a good situation, Eva thought to herself once again.
    â€˜What did you find at Shaun’s flat?’
    Eva almost answered and then stopped short. ‘The only way you could know that I went to his flat is if you followed me.’
    â€˜I followed you.’
    Eva stood up. ‘Okay, I think I’d like to leave now.’
    â€˜You can’t!’ said Leon, jittery and overexcited. ‘Didn’t you see what just happened outside?’
    Eva recalled the bag over her head, the prone man lying shot on the floor. He had certainly not been a rescuer. She sat down again, focusing hard on keeping her heartbeat below danger level.
    â€˜OK, Leon, explain to me what happened outside and I will tell you what I found in Shaun’s flat.’
    Leon nodded. Clearly he liked the idea of a bargain.
    â€˜He was one of them .’
    Eva sighed. ‘You’re going to have to be more specific than that.’
    â€˜The Africans.’
    â€˜The Africans,’ Eva repeated.
    â€˜They appeared on the scene six months ago. They killed Jackson, I know they did.’
    Was this man completely crazy? He certainly looked pretty crazy. And yet he seemed to be the only person who thought Jackson had been killed like she did. What that said about her, she didn’t know.
    â€˜You don’t believe Jackson committed suicide?’
    â€˜Ha!’ Leon laughed. ‘I knew your brother for four years. He was happy, he was clean. Besides the police claimed it was heroin he was taking. Jackson didn’t do heroin.’
    â€˜He didn’t.’ Eva’s voice was expressionless.
    â€˜No. Coke, pills, weed, acid yes. Heroin, no. He hated needles.’
    God, thought Eva to herself, he’s right. She remembered what Jackson’s boss had told her – that he had even risked a work trip to the Sudan without his shots because he was so afraid of needles.
    â€˜You can smoke heroin, can’t you?’
    Leon looked at her and laughed. ‘Of course. But didn’t you see the police “report”? Needle marks in his arms they said. Impossible!’
    Eva nodded slowly. She remembered reading that in the one page summary they had been sent. In fact, that part of the report had made her particularly