18 - Aftershock

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘Have you told Mr Colledge about this?’

  ‘Not yet. The bank only just called me back.’

  ‘Okay. You can ring him when you have a minute.’

  ‘Will do.’ The DS frowned. ‘You know, it really would help if we had an address.’

  ‘We do,’ said Haddock, who had returned to his desk beside the wall, and was leaning over a lap-top computer. ‘After a fashion. Sugar’s mum told me that she booked the place on the Internet, through a letting agency called “franceabroad.com”. I’m just looking it up now.’ He waited. ‘Yes, here it is; and there’s a phone number.’

  ‘Get on it,’ Stallings ordered. ‘While you’re doing that I’m going to call Mr McIlhenney. I’m not waiting for young Dave to pick up your text, Jack. For all we know his battery’s dead and he’s left his charger at home. It’s time we asked the local gendarmes for help.’

  She picked up her phone and dialled the superintendent’s number. It was engaged.

  Eighteen

  ‘The boy’s father’s an MP,’ McGuire exclaimed. ‘Is that going to be a problem?’

  ‘Not so far, from what Becky told me,’ McIlhenney replied. ‘She says that the man’s concerned, fair enough, but that he gave her all the help he could. Longer term, that’ll depend on how things go with the boy. If he has someone who can vouch for where he was at the time of the murder, there’s no problem. If not, it might become a bit trickier; if we have to treat the kid as a suspect. I trust Becky to handle the dad, though. She’s lived and worked in his environment for years.’

  ‘Sure, but this is a homicide investigation.’

  ‘She’s had plenty experience of those too. Remember, she was a DS in the East End of London before she moved to Charing Cross. What’s making you so twitchy anyway?’

  ‘This situation; the idea of some nutter copying Ballester.’

  ‘We don’t know that it is. We’ve only just IDed the victim; we hardly know anything about her. She could have had people in her private life queuing up to bump her off. We still have to find that out.’

  ‘Maybe so, but my money’s on this being down to that nutter I’m worrying about. Come on, you’ve seen the crime-scene photos, and you’ve seen the PM report. You had the same pathologist who did the autopsies on Zrinka and Amy Noone handle this one. What did he say? That in his opinion the methods of execution were identical. Are you telling me that you don’t believe, in your heart of hearts, that we’ve got a copycat?’

  McIlhenney shook his head. ‘No. I admit it, I agree with you. But I’m hoping we’re both wrong, because chances are a head-banger won’t stop at one. Ballester wasn’t really a serial killer, but this one might well be. We could be out on a limb here.’ He looked his colleague in the eye. ‘Should we seek the advice of our absent friend and mentor?’

  ‘I rather think we should,’ said McGuire. ‘I’ve already called him once today, about something else, but I don’t think we should put this off. Tell you what, let’s try an Internet link; I know he’s on line in his Spanish house. I’ll call him and ask him to switch on.’

  ‘Okay; you do that and I’ll e-mail him some of the crime-scene pics, so that he can see what we’re talking about.’

  As the head of CID left his room, McIlhenney turned to his computer terminal and opened the folder he had set up for the Dean murder inquiry, then switched on his e-mail link and clicked the ‘write message’ command.

  He was about to begin when the phone rang. He snatched it up. ‘McIlhenney,’ he said evenly, conquering his impatience.

  ‘Superintendent,’ a woman’s voice replied. ‘Joanna Lock.’

  ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said coolly. ‘I have a message for you, from the Crown Agent, Joe Dowley. I went to see him after our discussion and I told him what you wanted me to do. He went ballistic. I am to tell you, on his instructions, that there is no way that anybody in the Crown Office leaked the contents of that report, and that if you ever again make the slightest implication that there might be, he will have your guts for garters. He says that the buck stops with you and if you have a problem with that he’ll go to Sir James Proud, your chief constable.’

  Neil McIlhenney could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times that he had lost his temper in his adult life. At that moment he knew that he would have to bring the other hand into play.

  ‘He said what?’ he exploded. ‘You tell Mr Dowley from me that I didn’t ask for his opinion, nor do I give a fuck about it. I’m engaged in a murder investigation and I require the assistance of his office. And tell him this too, Joanna, word for word. If he ever threatens me again I will head straight up to Chambers Street and rip his nuts off!’

  ‘He’s not going to like that.’

  ‘Too fucking true he’s not!’ He slammed the phone back into its cradle.

  Nineteen

  Becky Stallings picked up the phone and tried again, for the third time in ten minutes. Third time lucky.

  ‘Yes!’ Neil McIlhenney snapped. In his unofficial introduction to the Edinburgh force and its senior figures, her boyfriend, Detective Sergeant Ray Wilding, had described the city’s CID controller as ‘the soothing influence on Mario McGuire and Bob Skinner’. Both the head of CID and the deputy chief constable were famously volatile, he had told her, seriously hard men, never to be taken lightly. On the other hand McIlhenney, while no soft touch, was invariably calm and heavily relied on by his two senior officers, both of whom were close friends as well as colleagues. ‘McGuire and McIlhenney are blood brothers,’ Ray had said. ‘When they were younger, they used to call them the Glimmer Twins; you know, as in Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Some still do.’

  And so, when the detective superintendent bit her head off, it came as a complete surprise.

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ she replied. ‘Bad time?’

  It was as if she had pressed a reset button; immediately, normal service was restored. ‘No, excuse me, Inspector; I was expecting a call from my bank manager. How are things? Have you found the MP’s son yet?’

  ‘We know where he was last Saturday and, thanks to young Sauce, we’ve got an address for him in France.’

  ‘What does your instinct tell you about this lad? Is he our killer, and is he sitting out there pretending to wait for her?’

  ‘He has to be a suspect, sir. He’s her boyfriend, and one of the last people to see her alive.’

  ‘So was his father,’ McIlhenney pointed out. ‘You told me they all had dinner together the night before Sugar was murdered. Why would the boy kill her? They were just about to go off to France for some serious art and probably some serious horizontal jogging.’

  ‘If you want a reason, maybe he took cold feet.’

  ‘I doubt that; teenage boy, older woman? Now, can we go back to my question? What does your instinct say?’

  ‘That he didn’t do it,’ Stallings replied instantly.

  ‘Then we’re agreed. He has to be interviewed, for sure, as a priority, but we won’t expect that to close the case.’

  ‘No. He’s not the only person on the suspect list either. Have you ever heard of a PC named Weekes, Theo Weekes?’

  The line went quiet. ‘The name’s familiar,’ said McIlhenney, eventually. ‘One of ours?’

  ‘So I’m told by Sugar’s father. He and Sugar were engaged, but he dumped her a couple of years ago. John Dean was pleased: he didn’t like him.’

  ‘Would he take to any of his daughter’s men? Fathers can be possessive.’

  ‘Do you speak from experience?’

  The superintendent laughed. ‘Ask me in two or three years.’

  ‘John Dean isn’t. He likes Davis Colledge, for all that he’s nearly eight years younger than Sugar.’

  ‘How would Dean be as a judge of character?’

  ‘I hope he’d be good; he’s a head teacher.’

  ‘Let’s take a look at PC Weekes, in that case, formally.’

  ‘How hard do you want me
to look at him?’ she asked.

  ‘As hard as you have to. But don’t do anything about him just yet. Let’s set him a test. I’m about to give a press briefing at which I’ll announce that we’ve identified the victim as Sugar Dean. There’s no last lingering doubt about that, is there?’

  ‘No. Jack’s just had a call from the mortuary: her dental records are a match, to back up the scar and the broken arm.’

  ‘Right. I’ll release her name, and confirm that this is a murder investigation, as the media are saying already. I’ll ask for people who knew Sugar to come forward with information. In these circumstances I’d expect a serving officer to come forward without being asked. If we haven’t heard from Weekes by midday tomorrow, we’ll pull him in.’

  ‘Where? Torphichen Place?’

  ‘No. We’ll rattle his cage harder than that. I’ll see him in my office, two o’clock. If DCS McGuire’s free, I might even ask him to sit in. Mario’s bad-cop act is something to see.’

  Stallings heard a soft chuckle. ‘You’ve got me hoping that Weekes doesn’t volunteer information, sir,’ she said.

  ‘If Dean’s right about him, he probably won’t. Between now and then, I want you to contact as many of Sugar’s colleagues and friends as you can. Mention Weekes’s name to them and see what comes up.’

  ‘What about Dave Colledge? Should we ask about him?’

  ‘Of course. Okay, our gut says it’s not him, but I’ve been wrong before, and I’ll bet you have too.’

  ‘Maybe, but I’m a woman, so I’m not going to admit it.’

  ‘God, you sounded just like my late wife there. And her successor, for that matter.’

  ‘Thank you; I’ll take that as a compliment.’

  ‘You should, Becky. Now, how do we get hold of the boy Davis?’

  ‘I was going to ask you for permission to have the French police locate him and hold him for questioning.’

  ‘That could be dangerous; they might bang him up in some dirty local police cell for a couple of days. I doubt if Daddy would fancy that much. No, we need somebody on the ground there when the contact is made. Remind me, where is Collioure, exactly?’

  ‘It’s on the French Mediterranean coast. According to the map, it’s practically on the Spanish border.’

  ‘In that case,’ said McIlhenney, ‘leave finding the boy to me. Mr McGuire and I are having a meeting soon that might provide a solution to the problem.’

  Twenty

  Maggie gazed at the computer screen as the web page unfolded. ‘Weird name for a company,’ she murmured to the still-dozing Stephanie. ‘Fishheads dot com. But you know what? Your dad worked out where it came from.

  ‘That’s right, Steph,’ she continued. ‘Your father had a photographic memory for apocrypha of all sorts. There was hardly a useless fact that wasn’t filed away in his brain. I remember he told me what Dražen Boras’s company was called, just after the name had come up in the investigation. I said to him what I’ve just said to you, and he looked at me, shrugged his shoulders and said, “Barnes and Barnes.” I said, “What?” and he told me that there was an iconic . . . his word . . . American rock band in the seventies whose only hit was a song called “Fishheads”. And since Dražen had changed his name to David Barnes, to get out from under his father’s shadow, there was the connection. Imagine, wee one, your dad knowing that sort of stuff off the top of his head.’

  Which was where the grenade fragment that killed him went in. The thought thrust itself at her, bringing with it the images that still haunted her on her many sleepless nights. She focused her gaze on the screen until they vanished and all she could see was the bizarre Fishheads logo.

  The company sold office supplies, exclusively over the Internet, to business and domestic customers. Its major selling point, emphasised on the page, was its cost structure, with cheap or even free delivery for relatively small quantities, clearly aimed at home businesses and at other self-managed enterprises.

  Ignoring the display of headlined products, which included paper, furniture and even a water-cooler, she looked at the site contents, listed at the bottom of the screen. Using the mouse, she moved the cursor to ‘About Us’ and double-clicked. Within seconds a new page appeared, with a second set of choices: ‘Our People’, ‘Our Depots’, and ‘Our Terms and Conditions’. She selected the first, and watched as a list of names and designations appeared.

  The absence of a name registered, just as another caught her eye. There was no David Barnes, or Drazen Boras, anywhere to be seen. She guessed that when the company had been set up he had been listed as its chairman or chief executive, or possibly as both. But now he was gone, into the dark world she was setting out to probe.

  In his place, she saw the name Sanda Boras. ‘So his mum stepped in,’ Maggie whispered. ‘A stooge, I suppose. But where do her orders come from?’

  She picked up her mobile and scrolled the stored numbers, until she found ‘Goode, M.’. She hit the green button and waited.

  ‘Scotsman business desk,’ a tired voice answered.

  ‘You sound like you can’t wait for the school bell to ring,’ she said. ‘Maurice, it’s Maggie Steele here . . . Maggie Rose, as was. Remember me from when you did the crime beat?’

  ‘Maggie, of course.’ The journalist switched back to working mode. ‘How are you? Sorry about Stevie. That was just wicked. I heard you’ve got a daughter now. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes, and if I sound quiet, that’s why. She’s not far from me, and she’s asleep.’ As she spoke, she realised that he had not asked about her illness. She took that to mean that word had not leaked out into the wider world: Maurice Goode knew most of what was going on in town.

  ‘So how can I help you, Chief Superintendent?’ he asked. ‘How are you going to brighten up this drab world they promoted me into?’

  ‘I want to talk to a retail analyst, one of the best. It’s a personal thing,’ she added, choosing her words carefully.

  ‘Which retail sector?’

  ‘Office supplies.’

  ‘Office supplies; let me think.’ She let him. ‘You probably want Jacqui Harkness,’ he said eventually. ‘She’s Glasgow-based, works for a stockbroker firm called Levene and Company; it’s a small outfit, but don’t let that put you off. Jacqui’s as good as there is; you can tell her I said so, too.’ He recited her telephone number from memory.

  ‘Thanks. I’ll be on maternity leave for a while yet, but when I’m back at work, I’ll owe you one.’

  ‘I’ll remember that. Look after yourself, and the youngster.’

  She hung up and dialled Levene and Company, hoping that the firm did not close at the same time as the London Stock Exchange, four p.m., relieved when her call was answered swiftly. She asked for Jacqui Harkness. ‘Who’s calling?’ the telephonist asked.

  ‘My name’s Margaret Steele, Mrs. Tell her I’m a friend of Maurice Goode and that he says she’s the best in the business.’

  ‘They all say that.’ The girl laughed. ‘Hold on.’

  She waited, for almost a minute.

  ‘Sorry I took so long.’ The woman who came on the line had a strong Glasgow accent, and sounded middle-aged. ‘So you’re a pal of Mo B. Goode, are you? How do you know him, smarmy bastard that he is?’

  ‘From his days as a crime reporter; I’m a police officer.’

  ‘Polis?’ exclaimed Jacqui Harkness. ‘Fraud Squad?’

  ‘No. I’m a chief super, in uniform mostly, but just now I’m on secondment to Special Branch.’

  ‘The secret police? Magic. I’ve never had a call from you lot before. What are you after? Where Al Qaeda have their money stashed? I can’t tell you for sure, but I’ve got some ideas. For example, if I were you I’d be looking at businesses with a strong Jewish base and blue-chip American corporations for two reasons: one, they usually do bloody well, and two, it’s the last place you’d expect Islamic terrorists to hide money.’

  ‘I’ll pass that on,’ Maggie told her, ‘but that�
��s not why I’m calling. I want to ask you about a company called Fishheads.’

  ‘Ah!’ the analyst exclaimed. ‘You want to talk about Star Wars: young Dražen Boras’s strike against his dad’s evil empire.’

  ‘That’s right; or David Barnes as he became when he set the company up.’

  ’Yes, but it didn’t fool anybody. Dražen’s got a bloody big ego; he wanted everybody to know who he was, so his advisers leaked his real identity early on. It did no harm when it came to raising finance either. The family-at-war thing helped too. It all gave him an instant profile in the marketplace, where another new-start business would have had a growth period that would have lasted for years, and might have ended in failure.’ Harkness paused. ‘So, Mrs Steele, are you trying to solve the great mystery?’

  ‘Which one’s that?’

  ’Where’s Dražen gone?’

  ‘Yes, I am. What’s your view?’

  ‘I don’t have one; I don’t deal in guesses, hen. The market doesn’t have much of a clue either. It’s all gossip, but the most popular theory is that he’s got some terminal disease, and that he’s away to die somewhere. There is a much darker notion too, that his old man’s had him encased in concrete and dumped at sea.’

  ‘Do you mean there are people in the business community who’d believe that of Davor Boras, that he’d kill his own son?’

  ‘There are indeed. Their theory goes that Davor couldn’t stand his aughter being dead and Dražen being alive so he corrected the situation. He had some people down in London used to work for him; a so-called security firm. They disappeared off the face of the earth at the same time as Dražen did.’

  ‘And which of these theories do you favour, Jacqui?’