by Alec Peche
“One of our four followers just arrived," Angela said in a soft voice. “He walked past the bar entrance toward the lobby desk. I’m going to slip out and see if I can get his picture.”
“Well I’ve got your back,” Marie said. “I’ll just stay out of the way and make sure he doesn’t try any funny stuff with you.”
Jill watched them go thinking back to their first cases wherein she was the aggressive one, going the extra mile to collect information for their case. Now Angela or Marie would sometimes take a starring role, and she would marvel at their commitment and courage. Jo didn’t lack courage or smarts, but she sometimes didn’t pay attention and missed those opportunities that Marie and Angela took.
Marie was casually sipping her whiskey, leaning against the doorway, watching Angela work her magic. She checked her camera view then walked up to the man and tapped him on the back. As soon as he turned, she snapped a bunch of pictures, and said, “Oh sorry, I thought you were Andy Murray, the tennis star. So sorry,” and she turned and walked away to the lobby restroom. The man followed her retreat with a puzzled look on his face and then he turned and left the hotel lobby. Marie continued to lean, awaiting Angela’s return from the bathroom. Perhaps it wasn’t safe for them to visit locations alone with four unknown people on their trail. Marie wondered how he’d followed them to the hotel and where his male companion was – maybe they split up to look in different places.
Angela exited the restroom and returned to where Marie was standing and asked, “Is he gone?”
Marie nodded ‘yes’.
“Awesome, I got some good pictures of his face. Let’s find out who he is.”
While Jill was running the picture through her database, Angela, Marie, and Jo were conferring on what they found on Nick.
A few minutes later Jill said the man’s name was Girard LeRoux from France. “Let’s see if he has any connection to Nick.”
“Speaking of Nick, we’ve found that Nick was an only child, his parents are dead, divorced with no children and he owns the security company that we’re aware of.”
Angela was quiet and thinking, then she asked the other three, “Should we ask Henrik to bury him on his estate?” Then she winced and added, “I guess that would put Henrik on the spot.”
“He’d be buried in Germany rather than his home country, but at least he’d be near a friend,” Marie said. “Henrik’s estate is so large that he won’t even notice and at least someone will assume responsibility for his remains. It’s not like we can take him back to Wisconsin; at least I don’t know how he’d fit into our luggage allowance.”
It was gallows humor, and they all laughed at that thought, then Jill added, “How about if Nathan suggests that to Henrik. It will be less pressure than coming from us.”
“Brilliant idea, Jill, we’ll do that,” Angela agreed. “I guess we better focus on Girard LeRoux.”
“Why don’t you all focus on Nick and I’ll see what I can find on Girard,” Jill suggested.
According to what she read, Girard was working as a plumber in Rennes, France. So what was a plumber doing following them around? He was a few years older than Nick, so they could have met, except Nick seemed to have no connection to Rennes let alone France. She thought back to their conversations, but couldn’t remember if he spoke French. Time to look for other commonalities in their background. Did he serve in the military? Was there anything linking him to Operation Gladio? How about his parents, was a father connected to Operation Gladio?
Using the techniques Marie had taught her, she searched a wide variety of social sites looking for more information, but she found next to nothing on the man. So far, she hadn’t determined if he was even married. She gave in and said to the group, “I have a plumber from Rennes, France and not much more.”
“No connection to Nick?” Jo asked.
“No, or to Operation Gladio,” Jill sighed.
“Did you find him on social sites? How about the Plumber’s Union of that town?” Marie suggested.
“Hmmm I’ll try that,” and the room went quiet again.
Ten minutes later Jill sighed and said, “Nothing. Marie do you want to take over this search?”
They changed assignments and silence reigned again.
A little later, they were all ready to give up. They had marginally more information on Nick and Girard, perhaps a little too much whiskey, and a little tiredness from the incident on the train.
Leaning back on her barstool Angela asked, “What’s on our agenda tomorrow?”
“Let’s go to the castle for starters,” Jill replied.
“Haven’t you had your castle fix yet?” Marie asked.
“No, I’ll need at least another ten castles for my love of them to be satisfied.”
“I need my beauty rest so how about planning on meeting at nine?" Jo replied. "Jill I assume you’ll be up early because you always are and Nathan is still on the California time zone, and maybe Henrik will have something for you to sink your teeth into.”
They said their goodnights and headed up the elevator to their rooms. Jill undressed, brushed her teeth and slipped into bed with Nathan. Curling into his warmth, she hoped that Henrik would indeed have new information for them by the morning.
Chapter 15
Nathan was the first one awake the next day, being unable to sleep beyond five. When at home, he tried to avoid waking before eight and was grouchy until ten many mornings. This time he was the one wide awake at an obscene hour. He decided to wake up Jill and see if she was interested in starting the day with a little loving.
An hour and a half later they were walking into a café located in the hotel. Marie was already seated there with her computer and a large cup of coffee.
“Good morning!” Jill said. “How’s your coffee?”
Marie, the coffee aficionado of the group, replied, “I read that in Scotland coffee is served in a bigger cup,” and she held a larger coffee mug than they had seen in the UK, “and it’s higher caffeine which suits me just fine. It’s good.”
“Have you had breakfast?” Nathan asked.
“No I figured you two would make your way down here first and I’d dine with you. Angela is still asleep, and we won’t see Jo for a while.”
A waitress came over to take their order, and they settled in with their own cups of coffee.
Jill looked through her emails, but there was nothing there yet from Henrik, and she said to Marie, “Too bad there’s nothing here from Henrik. I guess I’m expecting too much from his super computer power.”
“Actually, I received an email this morning from him, and I’ve been working on the information,” Marie replied.
“Cool, anything of note so far?” Jill asked.
“Outside of his expected movement around Amsterdam and other cities where he controls hotel security, the other city he visited was Le Havre, France.”
“Do you have a location specifically or a hotel he stayed at or did he even stay overnight?”
“Yes, no, and no,” Marie replied with a smile. “I have a street filled with apartment buildings that he entered and exited with about a four-hour stay twice. He appeared to have not stayed in the city except for that meeting.”
“Could he be providing security for such an apartment building?” Jill asked.
“Good question, I’ll have to contact someone in his company and ask.” Looking at her watch, she decided it was safe to call the company.
“Since it’s been a few days since his death, I assume they know. They may not give us the information but I’m sure they know who we are after all of the dealings we’ve had with Nick and I think he had some of his staff guarding us in Amsterdam or Brussels,” Jill mused.
A few minutes later they had their answer. They had no contracts for security in France and didn’t manage any apartment buildings.
“So what do we do with that information?” Nathan asked.
Jill liked his use of the word ‘we’. “We may not be able t
o do anything with that information. If this is a street with multiple apartment buildings, there could easily be one hundred addresses for us to check. Since we don’t know the names of any other Operation Gladio members, I’m not sure that we could identify where he visited.”
“Even if you do know there’s an apartment owned by one of its members, what does that tell you?”
Jill shrugged at Marie’s question and replied, “Maybe it will be useful information later. I wonder if Henrik could use the symbol of the group and look for it on a person or something on that street. Nick’s tattoo was barely visible, but maybe some of the other members don’t have it tucked away like he did. It’s worth a try.”
Marie had been typing while Jill discussed the address issue. She liked the last idea and soon sent off an email to Henrik. It was great they had a responsive partner in this investigation like Henrik and his enormous capacity computer power.
Looking at the time, they realized that Angela and Jo would be joining them in about thirty minutes, so they ordered breakfast and planned the day ahead.
"Let’s go to the castle first then explore the area around it. We’ll grab lunch there, and perhaps Jo will have one of her walking tours of the area that are always fun to do. Henrik hasn’t sent me an address yet, so I’m not sure how much time we’ll need to travel to the restaurant, but I for one will want to change clothes since he’s a more upscale kind of guy,” Jill suggested.
After an impressive Scottish breakfast of porridge, bacon, and toast, they were joined by Jo and Angela and set out to walk to Edinburgh Castle. Besides the castle, there were gardens and the Portrait Gallery to view. It was the most visited site in Scotland and some parts of it dated back to 1200. Standing on top of one of the many walls of the castle looking out at the firth and farther on, the North Sea, the view was amazing.
Just a speck on the firth, almost where it met the North Sea was Inchkeith Island. Jill pointed to the island and said its name then added, “It’s an interesting island from a medical viewpoint, during the last three or four hundred years people were sent there who were thought to be infectious. It seems that the Scots understood isolation techniques before the rest of the world. Then in WWII, it had a key military role for the UK watching out for submarines, and using spies to plan a fake attack on Norway. It’s interesting to look at old war strategies that worked based on the lack of technology. Today we have satellites, and we would have easily seen the lack of troop build-up required to attack another country, but they didn’t have that in the 1940s.”
They were enjoying the views when Jill all of a sudden caught a movement out of the side of her eye. Someone was rushing at her, and so she ducked low instinctively. She had a range of thoughts shooting through her head. Maybe she hadn’t seen the man. Maybe she looked like an idiot ducking imaginary creatures. Maybe her paranoid brain was making things up; she’d finally lost it. She felt something graze her shoulder which brought her back to reality and caused her to focus on the blur of motion.
A moment later she heard a yell as a man went sailing over the castle wall. They didn’t hear a thunk below, but they could hear screams both male and female and crying coming from the castle grounds.
Chapter 16
They stood there shell-shocked over what had just happened.
“Oh my god, what was that?” Marie asked. “Or maybe I should say, who was that?”
“I caught motion out of the side of my eye; I saw a blur of motion toward me and instead of moving out of the way I ducked. I guess he, at least I think it was a he, had too much momentum and flew up and over me. I guess we better call the police. At least there were a lot of witnesses here to verify that we didn’t throw him off,” Jill said looking around at the gathering crowd wearing various degrees of shock on their faces.
A security person rushed over to them and asked everyone to stay where they were. Angela turned around and began taking panoramic photos of the crowd in case it was relevant later.
Jo said in a low voice, “I hope he didn’t land on anyone below.”
Nathan replied as the tallest of the group, “There was nothing below but wall and dirt, so unless someone was doing repairs, there wouldn’t be anyone below.” He’d been hugging Jill tight since the event. He had been studying the island that Jill was talking about when the blur of motion happened. He was so thankful that she had been paying attention. There would be no more tours of castle walls until the murderer was found he vowed. First Nick and now almost Jill. He just shuddered at the thought.
The security guard was keeping an eye on the crowd trying to hold everyone in place until the police arrived. Perhaps two minutes later he heard sirens approaching probably police, and an ambulance and in less than a minute two officers were walking across the grounds towards them. They briefly stopped, addressed the still stunned crowd, and said, “We are Police Scotland. Please stay where you are so that we may take your statements. This kind gentleman here is going to ask each of you for identification and contact information.”
Handing a pad to the guard, they continued toward Jill and her group who were presently searching for their passports.
Holding out their badges for inspection the woman said, “I’m Sergeant Emily Robertson, and this is Constable Lewis Stewart. We’ll also be joined eventually by the Major Investigative Team unit whenever they arrive. May I see some identification, please?”
The five of them stood holding out their passports. The Sergeant read all of them at a glance, while her Constable took down more detailed information.
“So you all are from the United States. Are you here on holiday?”
“Yes,” Marie replied.
Looking at Jill, she asked, “Can you tell me what happened today? I understand a man went over the wall.”
“Yes we were touring the castle and looking over that wall,” Jill said pointing to where she’d been standing. “I was describing the history of Inchkeith Island when I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye as I turned to my right to talk to my friends. The man, at least I think it was a man, was moving fast at me, so I ducked, and that seemed to throw his momentum over the wall. I heard a wee bit of screaming after that although I’m not sure where it came from. My friend Angela, photographed the scene soon afterward so that you would have a record of who was around at the time.”
The Sergeant squinted as if in pain, bracing for the explanation coming at her and asked, “Why would you think to do that?”
“To help the Police in their investigation,” Angela answered.
“Are you law enforcement in the United States?” the Sergeant asked suspiciously.
“No,” Jill answered. “I’m a forensic pathologist and a private investigator. These are my friends and part-time assistants when I get called in to consult on the cause of death.”
“What do you think is the cause of death in this case?”
“I don’t know where the man fell and I don’t have any confirmation that he’s dead. Is he?” Jill asked.
“We have a team searching below the wall, and they should confirm,” and her explanation was cut off when her cell phone rang. She stepped away a moment to talk on the phone returning to the group. “Yes, I can confirm the man is dead.”
“Then I would guess he died from massive brain trauma, or from a fracture of the cerebral spine,” Jill said. “Sergeant, there may be an explanation for this man’s behavior, and it may be connected to a death in Cardiff, Wales.”
Jill could see two emotions warring with the Sergeant. Suspicion as to whether Jill was a nut case and dread that this was going to be a significant and exciting investigation that she would lose to the special team she mentioned. Looking over the Sergeant’s shoulder, she could see another gentleman walking towards her in a plainclothes suit. He had red hair and the look of perpetually wind-blown cheeks. He was Nathan’s height, fit, and Jill had to damp down a smile that came with imagining him in a kilt. Yes, this was likely the detective inspector.
&n
bsp; Sure enough, Jill was right, “Hello, I’m Detective Inspector Jack Campbell. I’ll just listen in on Sergeant Robertson’s questions.”
After the disruption, it took the Sergeant a moment to remember the bombshell of Jill’s statement and so she asked, “What do you mean tied to a murder in Cardiff?” There, that shocked the DI who had been oh so casual about joining the conversation. She saw him shift his weight out of the corner of her eye and pay attention to this woman that even she hadn’t figured out yet.
As they talked, Jill had been searching her purse for the business cards of DIs Jones and Davies of Cardiff. She handed the cards to the two and waited for their reaction. She could tell that before she produced the cards, the conversation had gone poorly. The card captured the attention of these two Scottish police personnel, and she waited for the next question.
“Just a moment please,” muttered DI Campbell, and he pulled the Sergeant away for a private conversation.
Jill turned her back on the two and said to her friends, “I’m sorry, but I think this is going to mess up our schedule today. I feel like I’ve jinxed our vacations now with murder always on the itinerary.”
“Jill, we’re just glad you’re safe and remember we always have unique stories to tell about our vacations because of these adventures,” Jo said. “Besides, culturally we’re getting to know the Scots better.”
Jill had to raise her eyebrows at that, “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at that statement.”
DI Campbell and the Sergeant returned to their group and tried to enter the circle of friends, but they were doing a group hug ignoring the inspector for the moment.
“Ladies, I have more questions for you,” came the stern but musical voice to Jill’s ears.
They ended the hug quickly, and Jill said to the inspector, “Just a moment, please,” mirroring his own words moments ago.