Free Evil in Return by Elena Forbes

. . .’
    Not waiting for her to finish, he scraped back his chair and got to his feet. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve got to go.’ He handed Ryan a business card. ‘Sergeant Donovan will need to speak to Logan’s publicist and we’ll also need his agent’s details. If you think of anything else, please give us a call.’

7
    ‘Please answer the question, Miss Paget,’ Tartaglia said irritably.
    Anna Paget fixed him with a look that was diamond hard. ‘Why won’t you tell me what happened to Joe?’
    As she spoke, he saw the flash of a tongue stud. She had what his grandmother would have described as a gin-soaked voice, surprisingly low, and ragged at the edges, with a vague London twang. Not unpleasant to listen to, he thought, in another context. ‘I’ve explained why,’ he said.
    ‘Surely you can at least tell me how he died. The papers said he was shot. Was it an accident?’
    ‘Answer the question, Miss Paget. What happened that night?’
    They were seated in the rear alcove of Kazbar, a Moroccan café bar just off the Earl’s Court Road, Tartaglia and Minderedes perched opposite Anna on a pair of uncomfortably low velvet stools. Her laptop lay open on the coffee table, along with some papers and a half-drunk diet coke. She had a deadline to meet and was trying to finish off a piece. To save time, she had asked that they meet at the bar and, even though it seemed an odd choice, Tartaglia – wanting to put her at her ease – had agreed. The bar was no more than a five-minute walk from where Logan’s body had been found. As a rule, he didn’t believe in coincidences, but he didn’t know what to make of it. At least there was little chance of their being overheard, the only other clientele being an elderly man engrossed in a copy of The Spectator , and a trio of women drinking coffee, their conversation deadened by the background thud of Led Zeppelin. An old-fashioned fan, better suited to some far-flung colonial outpost, circled lazily above his head, barely stirring the air. Even though he hadn’t been there long and had removed his jacket, his shirt was clinging to his back. What with the music and the heat, he was finding it difficult to think straight, let alone follow what Anna was saying. He hoped the interview wouldn’t take long.
    She held his gaze as though she hoped he would weaken. Then she gave a petulant shrug and retreated back into the depths of the ancient brown leather sofa, crossing her slim, bare legs and folding her arms defensively. ‘I waited here – exactly where I’m sitting now – for three quarters of an hour. But he didn’t show. Simple as that.’
    After Maggie Thomas’s description he had been half expecting to meet Anne Hathaway, although he seemed to remember Anne Hathaway had brown eyes. The reality was less conventional, but more arresting. Anna was wearing frayed denim shorts that barely covered her bottom and a skin-tight black vest that left nothing to the imagination. He took in the mess of long dark hair, the broad, upturned nose and wide apart, heavy-lidded blue-grey eyes. Sitting there, lolling back amongst the cushions, playing irritably with a loose thread from her T-shirt, she could almost pass for a teenager. Until he looked into her eyes. What he glimpsed, a hardness and an unexpected hostility, took him aback. He wondered what lay behind it, and whether Maggie Thomas had been right about Anna’s relationship with Logan, that Logan had fallen for her.
    ‘So you left?’
    ‘I was pretty pissed off, but what else could I do? I thought he’d stood me up.’
    ‘Where did you go?’
    ‘Home. My flat’s around the corner.’
    ‘Can anyone corroborate that?’
    ‘No. I live on my own.’
    ‘What time were you supposed to meet Mr Logan here?’
    ‘Seven-thirty.’
    ‘You’re sure?’
    ‘Of course I’m sure. Why?’
    ‘We need to establish a timeline.’
    The last person to see Logan alive had been Maggie Thomas, when she met him coming along the