‘The torture was personal. It wasn’t a professional job. Whoever did it wanted Leonard Hope to die in a huge amount of pain. I’m thinking he’d have to have been involved.’

Verran sighed. ‘I honestly don’t know, Mike, but what you need to take into account is that Hanzha has operated under the radar for fifteen years in the UK without so much as a single arrest, which tells you that he knows what he’s doing. Even if he was involved, you’re not going to prove anything against him. And to be honest, most people will be thinking good riddance to bad rubbish.’

‘I still want to talk to him, and I’m going to want to talk to this guy Keogh who works for him as well. Do you know where Hanzha’s based?’

‘He’s got homes all over the place, but he spends a lot of his time in London, and at a country estate he’s got up in the Cairngorms.’

‘Thanks, Sam. You’ve been a big help.’

‘Yeah well, don’t tell anyone where you got your info from.’

‘Course not. You know me. Listen, while I’m on the phone, fancy a trout fishing trip some time?’

‘Sure, that’d be good,’ said Verran, but he sounded non-committal.

‘I’m serious. How about next weekend, or the one after? I could do with a break.’ Bolt realized, almost with surprise, that he was desperate for some time away from the job and London, and Verran was good company, and single and childless like himself, having been divorced for close to ten years.

‘Ah Mike, I’d love to, but I’ve got myself a girlfriend now and she might not take too kindly to me disappearing off for the weekend, especially as I don’t get a lot of time off either.’

‘How long’s that been going on for, then?’ asked Bolt, hiding his disappointment.

‘Close to a year now. We’re even talking about moving in together, although that’s going to be a bit of a shock after all these years on my own.’

‘I’m glad for you, Sam,’ said Bolt, and he meant it, even though the news gave him an empty feeling in the pit of his stomach. ‘Maybe sometime in the spring then?’

‘Sounds like a plan,’ said Verran, in a way that was clear to both of them that it would never happen.

‘So you reckon Vladimir Hanzha had something to do with it, then?’ said Mo, when Bolt came off the phone.

Bolt nodded. ‘Someone murdered The Disciple,’ he said. ‘And you know what? Whoever did it probably deserves a medal. But that doesn’t detract from the fact that I want to know who it was and why.’

‘Can we at least wait until Monday before we talk to Hanzha? I’ve got plans this weekend.’

‘Sure,’ said Bolt, thinking he was clearly the only person who didn’t. He stretched in his seat, trying to get himself comfortable, and put in a call to DS Dan Grier back in the Disciple incident room.

‘I was just about to call you, sir,’ said Grier when he picked up. ‘We’ve just had the results in for the DNA found at the Rowan/Hanzha murder scene.’ Something in his voice didn’t sound quite right.

‘And does it match Leonard Hope’s DNA?’

There was a pause down the line before Grier replied. ‘That’s the thing, sir. No, it doesn’t. It wasn’t Hope’s DNA at the murder scene, which also means he’s not the man who killed Beatrice Magret in 1998.’

Bolt frowned, trying to process this new information logically. ‘So either the Disciple killings were the work of two men – Leonard Hope and the man who killed Beatrice Magret all those years ago—’

Grier finished the sentence for him. ‘Or Hope didn’t kill George Rowan and Ivana Hanzha at all.’

Thirty-six

IT WAS JUST before 10.30 p.m. and Bolt was sitting in his open-plan loft apartment with his feet on the coffee table and a glass of Rioja in his hand, when his mobile rang again.

It was DS Grier. ‘We’ve got confirmation that Leonard Hope couldn’t have been involved in the Beatrice Magret killing,’ he said. ‘He was serving in the army in Germany when it happened, and he wasn’t on leave.’

‘I guess we expected that.’ Bolt let out a deep breath. ‘Have you managed to track Vladimir Hanzha’s whereabouts?’

‘Yes. He’s at his Scottish estate. He flew up there yesterday.’

‘I need to organize a plane ticket up there. I want to speak to him, and I want to speak to Amanda Rowan as well.’

‘Already done, sir. You and Mo Khan are on the twelve thirty p.m. flight out of Heathrow, getting to Aberdeen at one fifteen. I’ve organized a press conference for nine tomorrow morning to announce the news about Leonard Hope’s death, so that should give you plenty of time. That’s what you wanted, right?’

‘Absolutely,’ said Bolt. ‘Thanks a lot for that.’ He made a mental note to keep an eye on Grier with a view to recommending him for promotion. The guy was still young but, unlike too many detectives of his age, he got things done with maximum efficiency and minimum fuss.

‘So, what do you think, sir?’ asked Grier. ‘Are we back at the two killers theory?’

‘Well, there are definitely two killers. The question is whether or not they were working together.’ He’d spent the whole of the remainder of the drive back home discussing this with Mo Khan, who’d changed his mind about his weekend plans now that the case seemed to have been blown wide open. Mo was also now convinced that The Disciple was actually working with someone else because, as he’d pointed out, it was simply too coincidental for there to be a murderer at the Rowan household not connected to Leonard Hope, who also knew The Disciple’s complete modus operandi. Bolt could see his point, but he still wasn’t entirely convinced, which is what he told Grier.

‘If there were two killers in the house on the night that George Rowan and Ivana Hanzha were murdered, then I still don’t understand how they didn’t manage to kill Amanda Rowan, or how she didn’t at least see both of them. From what I can remember of our interview with her, she said she went upstairs, discovered the freshly murdered bodies of her husband and his mistress in the end bedroom, and was then confronted by the killer, who appeared from the bedroom at the other end of the landing. I was in that house afterwards. I saw the layout. If there were two killers, they could easily have trapped Amanda – it wouldn’t have taken any planning at all. But they didn’t, and that’s what I can’t work out.’

‘But what’s the alternative?’ asked Grier. ‘That the man who attacked Amanda Rowan was a completely different killer, who somehow knew The Disciple’s MO?’

‘I don’t know what the alternative is, Dan,’ said Bolt, who’d already been down this road with Mo. ‘I’m just telling you I’m yet to be convinced. That’s one of the reasons I want to talk to Amanda Rowan again. I want her to go back through her movements that night, just in case we’ve missed something.’

‘Do you want me to let her know you’re coming, or are you going to do that?’

Bolt yawned, weariness beginning to overtake him. ‘I’ll sort it out, don’t worry. Thanks again for your help on this. I appreciate it.’

Ending the call, he finished his wine and got to his feet. Sky News was on the TV in the background, the sound turned down low. There was no word yet on the discovery of Leonard Hope’s body, but that would come soon enough. He debated having another glass of the Rioja. It was good stuff, bought on the recommendation of the woman who ran the wine shop just down the road, and red wine always had a way of relaxing him, however hyped-up he was feeling. In the end, though, he decided against it. He had an early start tomorrow and a long day, and he wanted a clear head. Although there was no real urgency to the trip now that Leonard Hope’s body had been found, Bolt was keen to talk to Vladimir Hanzha, and get an idea of the man, even if he wasn’t going to admit anything. He was very keen to speak to Amanda as well because, the more he thought about it, the more he felt there was something wrong with the Rowan/Hanzha murders.