Read Online Lethal Profit by Alex Blackmore - Free Book Online

sad. Heroin seemed such a sad drug to get addicted to, a drug people craved so much they would inject it into anywhere they could.
    â€˜Why include that in the report you saw?’ Leon continued. ‘They fucked up there!’
    â€˜Can I have one of your cigarettes?’
    Leon thumbed open his pack of blue Gauloises and Eva took a white tab. She rolled it momentarily between two fingers and then took Leon’s proffered lighter and lit the cigarette.
    â€˜How did you meet my brother?’ she said as she exhaled.
    Leon’s eyes sparkled. ‘Rehab.’
    â€˜What were you there for?’
    â€˜The same as him. I have trouble with drink though, too. The only alcohol I can’t drink more than three glasses of is cognac.’ He gestured at her empty glass. ‘Anything else and I get through a bottle in an hour.’
    It was hard to know what to say to that.
    â€˜Did you know him in Paris?’
    â€˜Yes. We left the UK together after rehab. He came to my parents’ farm and spent a year with me getting back on track. Then we moved to Paris together.’
    â€˜Did you live together?’
    â€˜No. That wouldn’t have been a good idea. I need my space. There’s little enough space in the city as it is.’
    â€˜Look,’ Leon suddenly got up. He walked quickly over to a bookcase and returned with a handset in his left hand. ‘I got your phone.’
    He handed it over to Eva who looked at it in amazement.
    â€˜But those kids…’
    â€˜Estate scum.’
    She took the phone.
    â€˜What exactly is it you do?’
    â€˜If I told you that I’d have to kill you.’ He smiled at her but Eva had the chilling feeling that he was serious. She pressed the On button on her phone, entered her pass code and began going through the phone. Among spam emails, a large number of text messages from worried friends and several missed calls from her father she found a text from Valerie. After hesitating for a second, she showed it to Leon.
    â€˜She wants to meet me on the 20 th . That’s tomorrow.’
    â€˜You have to go.’
    That wasn’t the response she had expected. ‘After everything you said?’
    â€˜She’s the key to this, trust me.’
    â€˜Right.’
    â€˜Suggest that you meet at the Tuileries Gardens at 1pm. I’ll be there too.’
    â€˜Right.’ Eva replied to the text. She felt uneasy about the idea of being shadowed by Leon.
    He picked up on it immediately. ‘It’s better than the alternative.’
    â€˜Which is?’
    â€˜More like him,’ he said and indicated towards the ground outside where they both knew the body lay. After several seconds of silence, Eva got up. ‘Don’t you think we should search him? Try and find out who he is – was?’
    Leon produced a small black wallet from his back pocket and tossed it to her. Inside she found a book of carnet travel tickets and forty Euros in cash.
    â€˜Clean. Just like all the others,’ said Leon.
    â€˜The others?’
    â€˜Like I said, he’s not the only one.’
    â€˜But who are they?’
    â€˜I’m not sure.’
    â€˜Are they something to do with his work?’
    â€˜ I don’t know. ’
    â€˜Right.’

    An hour later and Eva was sitting in her hotel room. Leon had driven her back in a small, rickety Citroen and had seemed surprisingly willing to let her leave once he had returned her phone.
    Eva felt nervy. But she reasoned with herself that whoever it was that had been outside Leon’s tower block, they had not been there for her. She half-believed that.

    She closed and locked her hotel door and then, after some hesitation, dragged the night stand over and pushed it up against the door frame. It took some effort as the table had a heavy metal base. But at least it would be more use than a chair for keeping intruders out. After a stiff drink from the bottle of Calvados she had