Lethal Profit by Alex Blackmore Read Free Book Online

lips.
    â€˜But there must be.’
    â€˜Nothing.’
    â€˜Don’t you need to check a database or something?’
    â€˜I am sure.’
    Eva felt herself getting riled. The man was not even looking at her as he spoke; he appeared to think he was addressing the coat hook on the back of his door.
    â€˜Look, I just want to see the documents, that’s all. I’m not here to make trouble.’
    Suddenly the man’s eyes moved so that they were fixed firmly on hers. ‘For what are you asking these questions? This matter has been closed.’
    â€˜There are still unanswered questions.’
    â€˜There are not.’
    â€˜There are.’
    â€˜What – exactement ?’
    â€˜My brother was not a drug addict.’
    The man snorted and folded his arms across his rotund gut with a disdainful expression on his face.
    â€˜I worked on your brother’s case, Mademoiselle Scott, and I can assure you your brother had quite a history with drug use.’
    â€˜Yes, but that’s just it – he had a history with it, it was history .’ Jackson had spent a year before he arrived in France in a well-known rehab centre in Hampshire. He had been reluctant to tell her why but eventually had admitted addiction to an assortment of mind-numbing substances, from Class As to painkillers.
    â€˜My brother was clean for two years before he died.’
    â€˜How do you know that? I was aware of his family circumstances and you were rarely in Paris with him.’
    â€˜He told me. I believed him. Besides, he didn’t behave in a way that would have led any of us to believe he was still having issues.’
    â€˜He was an addict and that caused him to kill himself.’
    â€˜He was not .’
    â€˜Calm down, Mademoiselle Scott.’
    His tone was utterly emotionless and completely cold. Eva realised the volume of her voice had been rising. She decided to try another approach.
    â€˜Inspector…?’
    â€˜Gascon. Inspecteur Gascon.’ He leaned back in his chair and rested a pair of badly groomed hands on the top of his fat stomach, his small black eyes looking at her challengingly, almost as if he were enjoying her discomfort.
    â€˜Inspecteur Gascon. I’ve come a very long way to see you. Jackson was the only brother I had, my only sibling. I can see that now the file is closed it would not be particularly… convenient… to open it again but I would be incredibly grateful if you would allow me to deal with some of my unanswered questions. So that I can let Jackson rest in peace.’
    She looked steadily at Gascon.
    The fat man sighed, stretched, leaned forward and rested his arms on his desk, unaware that his left elbow was now heavily greased with pale yellow butter. He took a slow draught from a large tumbler of water on his desk and then carefully replaced it on a coaster. Eva wanted to throw it in his face.
    â€˜Mademoiselle Scott.’ His beady black eyes rested on her, almost pinpricks beneath the fat folds of his eyelids and the dark, saggy skin pulling down his lower lid. ‘I don’t know if it is because you are just a stubborn Englishwoman or just because you do not understand. There is no reason to start hunting around for these documents, or to re-open this issue and I will… not… do… so.’
    He sat back in his chair, looking haughtily content.

    Eva felt utterly depressed as she slowly made her way back to her hotel after the encounter with the policeman. Another avenue firmly closed off. And still she really had nothing to go on but instinct. It was dark now and she could feel how exhausted she was. She forced herself to take steady, firm paces, properly supporting Jackson’s bag so that she didn’t damage her back, but she felt like hurling it on the floor and collapsing on top of it.

    She looked up and realised she was almost back at the hotel. She needed to get some supplies as she didn’t feel like