‘Inspector,’ Michael Colledge intervened. She held up a hand to silence him, and continued.
‘That was when you made your move. You took the path that leads to the back of Weekes’s place. He had gone inside; the back door was open, and you waited, until the shouting inside had subsided and until you heard the front door slam. Then you went inside. When Weekes came into his kitchen, you were there, with a big diver’s knife that you had bought for the purpose. You stabbed him with it. He didn’t have a chance to defend himself, for you were all over him with the blade, stabbing any part he didn’t shield, and slashing at him. He staggered away from you, into the hall, and eventually went down, on to the carpet, where you cut,’ she made a sudden, violent movement, ‘half-way through his neck, causing the blood to gush like you’d struck oil. You stuck the knife in his eye for good measure, and that was that. You’d taken revenge for Sugar.’
‘Inspector,’ the politician repeated. His face was chalk white. ‘You can’t be suggesting my son did that. I’ll have your job, woman.’
Stallings picked up a bound folder from the table and tossed it to him. ‘That’s what he did,’ she told him. ‘Those are photographs from the crime scene and from the post-mortem. The autopsy report’s there too. Take a look.’
‘Brutal, I’m sure,’ said Colledge, ignoring it, ‘but not proof. Evidence, please, Inspector, Sergeant.’
‘We really don’t want to fuck up your son’s life,’ McGurk told him, sadly and sincerely. ‘I wish we didn’t have any. The trouble is, we do.’ He stood, and stepped over to a video-player and monitor, set up in a corner of the room. He pressed a button and a series of jerky images appeared on screen, people, some descending from a bus, some waiting, some stepping on board. A second bus appeared: more passengers stepped off. McGurk pressed a remote and froze the image of a tall young man. He wore a baseball cap, with the letters FDNY, cut-off jeans and a pale blue T-shirt, and carried a rucksack over his shoulder. ‘You, Davis,’ he said.
‘That could be anybody,’ the Shadow Defence Secretary exclaimed.
‘But it’s him.’ He ran the tape again, until he froze it at a second image. The same young man, same baseball cap, but wearing a black T-shirt and denim shorts. ‘And so’s that,’ he said, then reached down, took a clear plastic bag from under the table, and held it up: it contained two items of bloody clothing. ‘The first of those shirts was found yesterday, in a bin in George Street. The denims turned up this morning, in a skip behind a building in York Place. That’s Weekes’s blood, and in both garments we found some DNA traces that weren’t his. I’ll need a sample from you, Davis, but we both know what they’ll confirm, don’t we?’
The boy, for that was what he had become, stared stonily ahead.
‘You’re left-handed, aren’t you?’ McGurk asked him.
‘Yes,’ his father replied for him.
McGurk turned over a print that had been lying face down on the table. It showed the painting that Davis had created in Collioure, the one in which he held a gun . . . in his left hand. ‘He caught the inter-city bus out of town on Saturday night,’ he said to the MP. ‘We have a witness who places him at the bus station, then there’s the driver. Ferry across the Channel, train back to Collioure and it all looks as if he’s been in Amsterdam getting his end away, just like the story he made up.’ He resumed his seat. ‘I’m sorry, kid.’ He sighed. ‘I really am.’
‘I’m not,’ the younger Colledge replied harshly. ‘Weekes is dead, and that’s all that matters to me.’
‘But, son,’ said Stallings, ‘there’s no evidence that he killed Sugar. In fact, we don’t believe he did.’
‘That doesn’t matter either!’ he retorted. ‘Even if he didn’t, if someone else did, don’t you think he thought about it? He was an animal, an evil bastard, Sugar told me. He deserved to die, and I’m glad I killed him.’
Ninety-one
The bar was empty of customers, and the bartender was absent. The two Scots found a table, out of the direct sight of the check-in desk, but from which they could watch it, reflected in a mirror.
The man was smiling, relaxed, as he signed in, and took his key card from the receptionist. He glanced to his left, in the direction of the elevators, then turned, with his companion, and walked towards them.
‘Well?’ Skinner asked, as he passed out of sight. ‘Was that him?’
‘If it is, he’s changed, or he’s been changed, a lot,’ said McGuire. ‘There’s the beard, for a start, and the glasses; his nose is different too, narrower, and his ears. You have to remember that I met the guy very briefly, and that he was sitting down all the way through our conversation. But the ears are the biggest change: Davor’s ears stick out, if you’ve noticed. They’re not quite in the Dumbo class, but pretty prominent. When I saw him, Dražen’s were the same. Now they’ve been pinned back, literally.’
Skinner’s mobile sounded. He fished it out of his pocket. ‘Yes, Rosalie,’ he answered. ‘Yes, thanks. We’ve just found that out for ourselves. Can you get down here? . . . Good . . . Yes, bring back-up, but be very discreet.’
As he repocketed the phone, he saw that his companion had left him and walked round to Reception, where he was in conversation with the clerk. ‘Yes,’ the DCC heard her say as he approached. ‘That is the name: Ignacio Riesgo. He’s in room five two four.’
‘Who’s the woman?’
‘Her name is Chandler Lockett.’
McGuire laughed. ‘He and Richards must really be buddies. Ifan’s lent him his girlfriend for the occasion.’
‘What do you think?’ Skinner asked. ‘The inspecteur’s on her way; do we wait?’
‘She’s got a gun, we don’t.’
‘Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.’ He turned to the duty manager behind the desk. ‘Has his case been taken up yet?’
‘No.’
‘Then hold it for a minute and get me a porter’s jacket.’
The man looked at him doubtfully. ‘I don’t know about that, sir.’
‘It’s either that or armed police go up to get him. Will the boss fancy that?’
The manager reached a decision. ‘Maybe I can find a jacket to fit you,’ he said, then stepped through a door to his right. He came back within a few seconds, holding a brown tunic. ‘This is the biggest I have.’
‘That’ll do.’ Skinner took it from him and slipped it on; it was a tight fit, but he managed to fasten the buttons. ‘Gimme the cases,’ he ordered. The manager pointed at a trolley beside him, laden with two suitcases and a vanity bag. He nodded and pushed it towards the lift.
‘Fifth floor?’ McGuire asked.
‘Yup.’
He pressed the button. ‘I don’t know about you,’ he said. ‘I’ve spent most of my career listening to you complain whenever you have to be in uniform, and now look at you. Nice gear, but it’s not your colour.’
The lift came to a halt and the doors opened. The floor layout was the same as theirs, one below: Skinner pushed the trolley along a corridor to the right of the small lobby area. The door was the fourth along. He stopped outside it, allowing McGuire to pass beyond him, then rapped on it twice, not too hard, not wanting to sound like a cop.
‘Who is it?’ a male voice called.
‘Baggage.’
The door opened and he found himself face to face with a man he had never met. ‘Come in,’ said Ignacio Riesgo.
As Skinner pushed the trolley through the narrow opening that led into the suite, he passed the bathroom door. It was ajar and he caught a glimpse of the woman inside, in her underwear.
‘Just dump them on the bed for now,’ he was ordered.
‘Si,’ he said, and unloaded the vanity case, then the suitcase below it. The man was watching him. ‘Como es tu culo?’ Skinner asked.
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Yes, that’s fine,’ he replied.
The DCC grinned, and nodded at a point behind him. He turned to see the bulk of Mario McGuire facing him.
The head of CID did not possess the hand speed of a Floyd Patterson, but when he threw a punch, there was something inevitable about it, a certainty that it would land. The blow hit its target flush on the chin. It lifted him off his feet and flung him backwards. He would have hit the floor, had not Skinner caught him, twisted him round and flung him face down on the bed for McGuire to seize his wrists and secure them with plastic cuffs.
‘What the . . .’ A small female scream came from behind them, as Chandler Lockett stepped out of the en-suite, naked.
‘I’d get back in there if I were you,’ Skinner told her. ‘We’re the police, and your man’s in the process of being nicked for murder.’ He looked down at the captive. ‘Isn’t that right, Dražen?’
‘My name is Ignacio Riesgo,’ he hissed.
‘Panamanian?’
‘Yes.’
‘In that case you need to brush up on your native language. I just asked you how your arsehole was, and you didn’t bat an eyelid.’
Ninety-two
‘I meant it, you know, what I said to Colledge. Usually I get a real buzz from a clear-up, but not this time.’
‘I know what you mean, Jack,’ Stallings told her sergeant, ‘but we don’t get to pick and chose our perps. Sometimes we have to lock up people we’d rather not.’
‘His father seemed to think he’s got a chance of an acquittal.’
‘That’s not what his eyes were saying. He knows how it’ll go. Tell me, why did you recommend that he engage Frankie Birtles to defend his son?’
‘Two reasons,’ said McGurk. ‘She’s pretty damn good, and also, when it comes to consider a tariff on the life sentence, the judge will read something into the fact that although Weekes was her client, she was prepared to speak for the lad who killed him.’
‘They won’t plead it down to manslaughter?’
The big sergeant grinned. ‘In Scotland that’s culpable homicide, boss: and not even in England would this be a plea bargain. The boy has to be charged with murder. It was all premeditated. He tried to make it look as if he’d never been within five hundred miles of the crime scene. On top of that he stabbed him twenty-seven friggin’ times. Best he can hope for is no minimum sentence. That’ll leave it up to the Parole Board; if they’re sympathetic, he might just be out while he’s still in his twenties.’
‘He wasn’t wrong, you know. Weekes was a truly evil bastard. God, maybe he did kill Sugar after all.’
‘Maybe he did. Probably he didn’t. Possibly we’ll never know one way or another.’
‘Are you going to see Lisanne tonight, to tell her what’s happened?’
‘I’m going to see her anyway. Theo’s well in her past now, and this investigation is in ours too, more or less. She and I can look forward now, and see what’s there for us, see if what you suggested to young Davis turns out to be true.’
Ninety-three
The honorary consul was more flustered than any human being Skinner had ever seen. ‘Are you sure?’ he demanded frantically. ‘Are you sure? Because if you’re wrong, if you’ve had an innocent foreign national arrested, you’ll have caused an international incident.’
The DCC laughed. ‘That’s pitching it a bit high, chum. But don’t you worry, we’re not wrong. Miss Lockett knows exactly who Señor Riesgo really is, and she’s telling it all to Inspecteur Gramercy, even as we speak. We don’t even have to wait for the DNA match. Dražen’s done and he knows it. You can tell Our Man in Marseille to get the wheels turning. I want my Northumbrian colleagues to be able to take this guy out of here tomorrow.’
‘But, assuming I accept what you’re saying, what about his father? He’ll make a God Almighty fuss.’
‘He won’t say a fucking word. If he does, he and his wife are admitting that they knew who the new director of their son’s company really was, and that, even for parents, puts them in big bother. Even if the courts didn’t do anything to them, the City would ostracise them. So on you go, Mr Major, do your job and get the wheels turning. Tomorrow, remember; he goes back tomorrow.’
As Her Majesty’s representative left, Rosalie Gramercy came into the room in police headquarters. ‘Chandler is co-operating,’ she told them. ‘She told me that she was Dražen’s girl all along, and that being seen with his friend was just a front. Do you want me to charge her?’
‘Hell, no!’ Skinner laughed. ‘She’s told you what we wanted to hear. You can give her free chips in the casino, as far as I’m concerned. We would like to see him, though. We’ve got something we’d like to put to him in private.’
‘No problem. I’ll take you to him.’
Dražen Boras was being held in a secure room on the top floor of the building. The Scots had seen many hotel suites that were less well appointed, but they knew that he would be on round-the-clock watch, and saw that the basic principle of removing anything that might be used for self-harm was being observed.
As they looked at him, they were surprised by his serenity. He still wore his gaudy shirt, but within it, his demeanour seemed to have changed. ‘How did you find me?’ he asked.
‘Dedicated research,’ Skinner told him. ‘You don’t speak Spanish, so where did your name come from?’
‘One of my DEA handlers in the States came up with it.’
The DCC was rarely surprised, but his eyebrows rose. ‘DEA? Where do they come into it? I was told that you and your father had CIA connections.’
‘We do, but recently I have been helping in other ways. There’s a drug route through the Balkans. My business has made me well placed to track it, and that’s what I’ve been doing.’
‘Don’t trust your friends,’ Skinner told him. ‘Especially when they’re spooks. The name, Dražen.’ He explained what it meant. ‘Somebody was having a laugh.’
‘If I ever see him again,’ Boras murmured, ‘that laugh will be cut short, along with his throat.’
‘You never will, chum. Even as we speak, every record of you is being wiped from their files. Your old man will find he’s no longer useful either. He should watch his back from now on: a man like him has more enemies than brain cells. He may find himself on the list for a polonium sandwich.’
‘My father will be all right, sir.’
’But not you, Dražen,’ said McGuire. ‘You’re going down for life for what you did.’
‘I’m admitting nothing, friend.’
‘I didn’t expect you to,’ Skinner told him. ‘But you know what we have on you and you know where it will lead. However, that’s all for discussion back in Britain. We’re on foreign soil here; none of this conversation is on the record. That I promise you.’
Boras looked him in the eye for several seconds. ‘I think I believe you,’ he said. ‘In that case, I am truly sorry for what happened to your officer. You know what was meant to happen and that was not it.’
‘I know. Your dad’s two operatives were meant to be caught in that trap. You couldn’t be sure you’d bought their silence for ever, could you? Listen up, Dražen,’ he continued, ‘I know that you’ll admit to nothing on the record. To do so would incriminate your father, and for all that you’ve been supposed business rivals, you won’t do that. So here, and nowhere else, I want to ask you one question. Why did you kill Daniel Ballester?’
Boras’s eyes widened; he stared at Skinner in astonishment. ‘Because he murdered my kid sister,’ he exclaimed. ‘You know that.’
‘He was a nasty muck-raking journalist out to make trouble for your dad and you,’ said McGuire. ‘That could have been your motive.’
‘He was a pipsqueak. We’d already taken care of him professionally. In revenge he killed my sister and her friends, including poor little Amy Noone. I liked little Amy. I tell you . . . off the record . . . I’ve never killed anyone, apart from him. I didn’t imagine I’d enjoy it, but I did. It was good to watch him strangle and shit himself as he died.’
‘So that was your only motive?’ Skinner repeated.
‘Absolutely.’
‘In that case, I’m even more sorry for you. Ballester didn’t shoot Zrinka, or anyone else. You killed the wrong man. And you know what? You’re the second guy today who’s discovered he’s made that mistake.’
Ninety-four
The artist known as Caitlin Summers looked out of the window of her new home. Never in her wildest moments had she ever dreamed of waking up in a Stevenson lighthouse, but that was what she had done less than an hour before.
At first, when they had told her of the accommodation that had been rented for her, she had feared that she would have to maintain the light, and had been relieved to learn that it was no longer operational.
She sipped from her mug as she surveyed the seascape, looking north along the coastline towards Dunbar, the nearest town. The view to the south was less attractive: Torness nuclear power station was never likely to be short-listed for a Design Council award. Still, she had seen uglier structures, and uglier people, in her time.
Her sudden fame had taken her by surprise: she still marvelled at the skill of her managers in securing the First Minister to open her exhibition, with the attendant publicity it had brought. But that was their job, she supposed; just as she had hers.
She checked her watch: it was time for her morning appointment. She finished her coffee, rinsed out the mug and slipped on her waxed cotton jacket. ‘Well, Caitlin,’ she said aloud, ‘let’s see what wildlife we can spot this morning.’
A soft wind was blowing off the sea as she stepped outside; the tide was on its way in. She picked up her pace quickly as she headed north, hoping that she would reach the fossilised remains of the prehistoric forest that she had been told about before the water covered it. The team from the BBC news programme Reporting Scotland had suggested it as the ideal location for their interview.
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