Berlin (Leo & Allissa International Thrillers Book 3) by Luke Richardson (my reading book txt) 📕

Minty pictured his mum and dad moving morosely from room to room. They’d probably not even spoken to each other in days as they mourned their son. Then the image of his mum’s grief-lined face swam into his thoughts. He could stop this all right now. He could get out of the city, forget the money, and tell his parents the truth. They deserved that. That was worth more than the money. Wasn’t it?

Minty sat up straighter and looked around the room. He could put an end to this right now.

Through the window, the tree-covered slopes which led towards the abandoned listening station shimmered. Am I just being selfish? Is the money really that important?

He could make that much money on his own if he tried. Without all this pain. Without all this suffering.

Minty felt a surge of energy and stood up. They should go now. Forget the Russian. Forget the euros. He should get out of this city, get a safe distance away, and then call his parents.

49

Leo heard movement from the darkness at the rear of the shop. Someone was here. Beyond the fallen racks and scattered clothes, a door led into the shop’s backroom. Leo squinted into the gloom but couldn’t make anything out.

He heard movement again and his anxiety rose.

“Hello?” Leo said. It sounded braver than he felt.

Something scraped across the floor and a figure appeared in the doorway. Leo swallowed. He took a slow and controlled breath, hoping it would calm his welling sense of panic.

The man stepped forwards and Leo began to register his features. He was thin, slight, had close-cropped hair and wore a long green coat.

Leo recognised him. It was unmistakable, even from the grainy, late-night CCTV footage. This was the man Minty had followed from the nightclub.

“I’m… I’m… looking for Minty Rolleston,” Leo said. His throat was suddenly dry. Anxiety squeezed his struggling lungs.

The man stared at Leo but didn’t reply.

“Do... do you speak… speak English?” Leo managed.

“Yes.” He had a Russian accent.

“I’m looking for Minty Rolleston,” Leo said again, more feebly this time.

The man stepped forward. His grey-blue eyes considered Leo without blinking. “He’s gone.”

“Do you know where?” Leo said. “This is his shop, isn’t it?”

“Listen,” the Russian said, taking another step towards Leo. “I don’t know who you are, and I don’t want to find out.”

“I… I just need to know where he’s gone. That’s all,” Leo said, his voice shaky.

Leo saw the smaller man’s knuckles ball into fists. Leo’s chest tightened. He inhaled slowly.

For a fleeting moment, Leo wondered if Minty could actually be in the back room of the shop. But then, why would he be hiding out in his own shop?

“Minty’s not here,” the Russian said, stepping closer and looking up at Leo. Although Leo was bigger, there was something imposing about the guy. Something in the way he looked that told Leo not to mess.

“Now you go too,” the man said.

Stepping backwards, Leo felt the door handle dig into his back. He tried to inhale another breath, but it wouldn’t come.

Feeling the onset of panic, Leo turned, opened the door and fled back outside.

50

Despite only being inside for a couple of minutes, Leo’s pulse raced. He needed to get away from this place and think about what he’d seen. Without a better plan, Leo headed back towards the metro station.

Part of him, the cowardly part, urged him to run, to get away from the balled fists and malevolent expression of the man in the green coat as quickly as possible. But he wasn’t in any danger and forced himself to walk slowly. He wasn’t going to overreact.

By the time he’d reached the end of the street, Leo felt calm. Then the things he knew about Minty’s disappearance began to stream through his mind.

Minty had gone to a club on the night of his supposed death and left just before the man in the green coat. He’d used a clean phone to call his brother. Now the man with the green coat was in his shop.

At the corner of the street, Leo paused and looked back. Everything looked normal from this distance. But Leo knew that behind the darkened glass of number 87, something was wrong.

Leo needed to think. He needed to work out what it all meant. In the crime stories Leo had absorbed during his younger years, there was always a moment where the eccentric detective just figured something out. It just seemed to appear in a flurry of brilliance. An enlightened brainwave, and in that moment, the case that that had baffled Scotland Yard for the preceding two-hundred pages was solved. For Leo, it wasn’t like that. There was no flash, no great white light, no moment of brilliance. He found that he had to drag the truth out of the mud, kicking, screaming and fighting against him all the way.

Losing focus on the street around him, Leo ran their previous cases through his mind. At this point, Leo would normally talk things through with Allissa. Things would be better if Allissa was here, Leo thought. Stubbornly, he fought the idea. He could do this alone. He’d found Allissa in Kathmandu; that was a lot more distant. A lot more dark and dangerous than Berlin.

Leo dug out his phone and saw that Allissa had already called. He hadn’t heard it. His finger hovered over the return call button. Then he saw the man in the green coat step from Minty’s shop. The man locked the door, pulled down the shutter and then started in Leo’s direction. He carried a bag across one shoulder.

Leo leapt out of sight behind a wall and scurried on his hands and knees to a large tree. Leo peered out as the man approached.

Leo thought through his options. Seeing the man in the first place had been a stroke of luck. This was a link — a lead. But, as always, it just led to more unanswered