‘Your sister,’ Mann said. ‘Where does she live now?’
‘Where she always has, since the kids came along; they’re in a house that Leo bought for her in Barassie, near Troon. It’s right on the beach.’
‘Not far from here, then.’
‘Not far at all.’
‘How has their relationship been since the court case started? Acrimonious, I imagine.’
The DCI scratched her chin as she considered the question. When her assessment was complete, she replied.
‘It was as civilised as they could keep it, that’s the word I would use. They agreed to keep it that way for the kids’ sake. But it was difficult too. Faye’s lawyer took an aggressive line; he told her that she had to start calling herself Mrs Speight, so she did. She changed the kids’ names at school too, from Bulloch to Speight, and the name on her bank account and her credit cards. If she hadn’t done that, Leo might have offered her a financial settlement, but her lawyer told her he could get her half his wealth. That was a mistake. Leo was a lovely guy, with charisma coming out of his pores, but he was not a man you threatened. He was also nobody’s fool; he made millions out of boxing and the promoters made millions out of him, but nobody ever ripped him off. You often hear of cases where big-time fighters wind up penniless and punch-drunk, but that was never going to happen to him. He was clever and he controlled his own affairs. When he retired, he was very wealthy, and healthy with it. You saw him; there was barely a mark on him after all those boxing wars.’
‘Were you and Leo close?’
‘Why should we have been, Sergeant?’ she retorted. ‘He was at odds with my sister, after all.’
‘Have you contacted Faye since the body was found?’ Mann asked.
‘No. I’ve tried to be as professional as possible.’ She flinched. ‘Even when I saw him lying there, in that chair.’
‘Then it’s time you stopped, Sandra,’ the DI told her. ‘Your sister needs to know, and much better she hears it from you than from the telly or from a red-top reporter. Go and find her, tell her, and look after her.’ She paused for a second. ‘But please do not give her any details of the crime scene or anticipate any questions that Dan and I will be asking when we interview her.’
‘You didn’t need to tell me that, Lottie,’ Bulloch protested.
Mann gazed down at her. ‘Oh, but I did, boss. We both know I’ve got a big arse, and it takes a lot of covering. Give us her address and her contact details and tell her we’ll want to talk to her, if not tonight, then tomorrow morning for sure.’
‘What about formal identification? Will you want her for that? Leo’s father’s dead and his mother’s in a care home with Alzheimer’s. She’s been there for years; she has no idea who Leo is.’
‘That won’t be necessary. I would say you were close enough for me to accept your identification, if Kirk Dougan, the procurator fiscal, agrees.’
‘Okay.’ The DCI took a notebook from her pocket, scribbled in it, tore out the page and handed it over. ‘There: Faye’s details.’
‘Thanks.’ The big detective’s expression softened. ‘By the way, Sandra,’ she murmured, ‘I’m sorry for your loss. I will tell you anything I can, as long as it goes no further.’
Bulloch nodded, then turned and left, breaking into a run as she headed for her car.
‘Did you believe her?’ Provan asked. ‘That she and Leo weren’t close?’
‘Unless we find out otherwise, I think we have to. Why? Do you have doubts?’
‘I’ve no reason to, not yet. But I do have an open mind on the question.’ He walked back into the kitchen, beckoning Mann to follow, leading her to its huge fridge freezer. At least twenty photographs were fixed to its doors by magnets. Some were places, some were people, but his eye settled on one, a black child with frizzy hair in the arms of a smiling woman. The Eiffel Tower rose behind them, but not the original.
‘The Paris Casino, in Las Vegas,’ Provan said. He slid the photograph out from behind its magnet and looked at the back. ‘It says, “Love you Daddy, Raeleen”. Sandra said the kid will be three years old, and she was at least two when this was taken. So it cannae have been there for any more than a year. Does that not make you wonder?’
‘Wonder what?’
‘How . . .’ He stopped and shook his head. ‘Naw, forget it. Nothin’, just an attack of jet lag, that’s all.’
Five
‘This is bigger than my house,’ Lottie Mann murmured as they stepped through the door into Leo Speight’s private gymnasium.
‘Mine too,’ Provan agreed, surveying its equipment. ‘It’s got the lot. Free weights, Nautilus machine, leg press . . . you name it, it’s here,’ he said, then proceeded to astonish his colleague by launching a spinning kick with the outside of his moccasin that hit the heavy punch bag at shoulder height.
‘Bloody hell,’ she said. ‘You’ll rupture yourself.’
‘Three months ago, I might have, but not any more. I told ye, I started working out when I was in Australia.’
‘When did you learn that move?’
‘About forty years ago,’ he replied. ‘I did all that stuff when I was a kid. It’s amazin’ what comes back to you.’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know if I can take the new Dan Provan. It can’t last; you’re bound to regress.’
‘No danger,’ he assured her. ‘I’ll have to stay fit, if only to keep up wi’ my grandson.’
‘Grandson?’ Mann exclaimed. ‘Is your Lulu expecting?’
‘No, Vanessa, Jamie’s lassie, she is. They told me last week.’
‘That’s great. You’ll be wanting to go and see them. Let’s find this man Butler and interview him, then I can get you home. We can talk through a plan for the investigation on the way.’
Two doors were situated at the rear of the gym. Provan opened the one on the left to find himself looking at a steam room with changing, shower and toilet facilities beyond. Mann tried the other and stepped into a lounge. It was furnished with a huge U-shaped couch, on which a man sat gazing at a sixty-inch wall-mounted television. He was watching Sky News, which he silenced with a remote as the detectives entered.
‘Mr Butler?’
He nodded, rising to his feet. His eyes were misty and he had the look of a person in physical pain.
‘I’m Detective Inspector Mann; I’m in charge of the investigation into Mr Speight’s death. This is Detective Sergeant Provan,’ she added as her colleague joined her.
‘CID?’ Gino Butler exclaimed; he was frowning and looked confused. ‘I could understand Sandra being here, but why are CID involved?’
‘Because your client’s death is regarded as suspicious. We can’t be sure yet; other possibilities remain open, but an autopsy should tell us one way or another. We don’t wait for that to start an investigation, though.’
‘Jesus!’ the man whispered, slumping back on to the couch. ‘I just thought, well, heart attack, stroke, something like that.’
‘You’re Mr Speight’s manager, we understand,’ Provan said.
‘That’s what they call me,’ Butler replied, ‘and I suppose I am, but only in that I manage the business that he’s already done; Leo took all his own decisions, and delegated nothing that he didn’t have to. I’m his accountant more than anything else. If I manage, it’s to look after the product endorsements, advertising deals, that sort of stuff. Other than to count the money, I don’t get involved with the boxing side: that’s Bryce Stoddart’s job, or it was until Leo retired. Bryce was Leo’s promoter,’ he explained, reading Provan’s unspoken question. ‘He staged the fights, or co-staged the American and European ones, did the deals with TV and so on. My role there was to make sure everything was kosher, that all the pay-per-view money Leo was due found its way to him.’
‘Didn’t it always? Was Leo ever ripped off?’
‘No, Sergeant, not with me looking out for him, but it has happened with other fighters.’
‘How did Mr Stoddart feel about Leo Speight retiring?’ Mann asked.
‘It wasn’t the best thing that ever happened to him,’ the manager conceded, wryly, ‘but he’s a realist. He always knew the day would come. And Leo always said he would go out at the top; nobody was ever in any doubt about that. As soon as the Mario Fonsecco fight was made, he said that it would be his last. They could have taken it to Vegas, for Fonsecco was the great American hope, the up-and-comer, but Leo was the long-time undefeated lineal champ; he had all the belts and he was in control. He said it was going to be in Glasgow, and that was that. He even insisted on taking it to the Hydro. We could have waited until the summer, and had it in Ibrox or Celtic Park, with fifty thousand people there, but the champ said no, he wanted it indoors, in the heart of Glasgow, so it went ahead in January.’
‘How did the other boxer’s people take that?’
‘They weren’t bothered. They were on twenty per cent of the pay-per-view take, which was monster. They put a return clause in that said if Fonsecco won, the second fight would be in Madison Square Garden, but it was meaningless, because they knew that Leo would retire, win, lose or draw, and also because they realised that Fonsecco would most likely get chinned.’
‘Which he duly did,’ Provan said. ‘Technical knockout, round number seven, sweet as a nut.’
‘Were you there?’
The DS nodded. ‘Leo’s last fight? I wouldn’t have missed it.’
‘Me neither,’ the DI murmured. ‘How did you come to find the body, Mr Butler?’
‘I came looking for him,’ he replied sadly. ‘He and I were supposed to be having lunch, in the Turnberry Hotel, with a publisher. Her name’s Emily Raynor; she’s managing director of Masthead, a London company. She wants to do a book with Leo, a ghosted autobiography. I said I would meet him there but he never showed. He wasn’t answering his phones either, so I asked her to wait and came looking for him. You saw where I found him.’
‘How did you get in? Do you have keys to the house?’
‘Yes, I do, but the door wasn’t locked. He wasn’t big on locking doors; he was Leo Speight, for Christ’s sake. Nobody was going to burgle him.’
‘When you arrived,’ Provan asked, ‘were you aware of anyone else having been here? Was there anything in that room that struck you as unusual?’
‘No, nothing. The place was neat as always; if there had been anything out of place, I’d have noticed it. Leo’s a very tidy bloke. He had a touch of the OCD about him.’
‘Did you call out, or search the house? Did you check to see whether there was anyone else here?’
Butler nodded. ‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘I did yell, and did I bomb up the stairs to Leo’s room. I was half expecting to find a woman there; more than half, to tell you the truth. Leo was one for the ladies, no question. He had four children by three different women. I used to kid him on about being out to break Ray Charles’s record.’
‘Four,’ Mann repeated. ‘We knew about three. Who’s the fourth?’
‘Gordon; Gordon Pollock. Leo had him when he was eighteen, the age the boy is now. He and Trudi, the lad’s mother, were just kids at the time, although even then Leo was a winner, in the amateurs: ABA super-welterweight champion.’
‘Were they together, Leo and Trudi? A couple?’
‘Hell, no; them going out was all a secret. Her dad, Big Shane, made out he was a bit heavy, a minor mobster; he threatened to have Leo kneecapped when he found out that Trudi was up the duff.’
The DS grunted. ‘How did Leo react to that?’
‘With a left hook and a straight right; he laid him as broad as he was long in his own kitchen. Then he put a carving knife to Big Shane’s throat and explained the facts of the situation: that there wasn’t a single man in Paisley who’d take that job on, and that if Shane ever threatened him again, he’d wind up in the river, regardless of whose dad he was.’
‘You seem to know a lot about this, Gino,’ Provan remarked.
‘I was there,’ he replied. ‘I saw Big Shane go down, and I heard Leo mark his card. That was the only time I ever saw him threaten anyone, ever. We were all kids together back then, and Leo was my best mate. The truth is that we all grew up wide, all us kids, but Leo and I left that life behind us after he went to the Olympics, the very same year that Trudi got pregnant. He went to Sydney, won a silver medal . . . that was the only fight he ever lost,’ Butler sighed, ‘on points in the final to a Russian – fucking robbed he was too – and came back to sign a pro contract with old Benny Stoddart, Bryce’s dad.
‘Benny was a good bloke; he moved Leo away from Paisley, down to London, and got him a top trainer. He also enrolled him in the LSE. Even now that’s pretty much unique for a fight promoter, but Benny said that he believed in training his boys for a life after boxing. We weren’t stupid lads, Leo and me,’ Butler added. ‘We’d done our Highers, both of us. By the time Leo was twenty-two, he was British middleweight champion and he had a degree. So had I, only mine was from Strathclyde Uni.’
‘What about Trudi? What happened with her?’ Mann asked him.
‘She had Gordon, but she stayed in Paisley. Big Shane and her mother insisted that he was brought up as Gordon Pollock. Trudi’s still around; she works for me, in fact.’
‘It wasn’t her you expected to find in Leo’s bed, was it?’
‘Hell, no!’ He laughed softly. ‘Trudi’s filled out a bit since then, to put it delicately. She’s not Leo’s type any longer.’
‘Did you think you might find Faye there?’
‘Definitely not. They’re okay, they’re as cordial with each other as they can be given the circumstances, and very good with their kids, but that’s as far as it goes.’
‘When was the last time you saw Mr Speight alive?’ Mann asked.
‘At the party last night.’
‘Party?’ she repeated.
‘Leo’s official retirement party; we held it back until all the money was in from the Fonsecco fight.’
‘What was the venue?’
‘A place called the Blacksmith; it’s a bijou hotel in Newton Mearns, with a function suite attached. It’s owned by one of Leo’s companies. We used it because it was handy for everybody: the Glasgow crowd, the folk who flew in or came from a distance . . . celebrity friends of his like Joey Morocco, the actor, Aileen de Marco, the politician, Cameron McCullough, the businessman, and his wife . . . and of course Leo himself.’
‘When did it begin?’
‘Half six. We had champagne, then dinner and speeches. It was a bit like a wedding reception without a bride and groom. Bryce Stoddart said a few words, and wee Billy Swords, the TV guy, he was the MC for the night. He did the commentary on all Leo’s biggest fights. After that Leo spoke; he thanked everybody who helped and supported him through his career, he swore on a stack of bibles that he really was done and there would be no comeback, and he finished by making an announcement. He said that he was thinking about launching his own boxing and MMA channel.’
Mann frowned. ‘MMA?’
‘Mixed martial arts; his plan was for a rival to the UFC promotion, but doing major boxing fights as well. It wasn’t going to be on a satellite TV outlet; instead it was going to be streamed to subscribers, like Netflix, through a host platform. He was hoping that Bryce would agree to join him, and that Billy Swords would front it up. Maybe Bryce will take over the project, but I think probably not. I reckon the idea’s as dead as Leo.’
‘How would that have gone down with the existing promoters?’ she asked.
‘Like a lead balloon. It would have made a few people very annoyed, to put it mildly.’
‘Sufficiently annoyed to . . .’
Butler finished her question. ‘To take Leo out of the picture? I wouldn’t have
thought so. The Mafia doesn’t run boxing any more.’
‘He was at the party,’ Dan Provan said, ‘but he was found here. What time did he leave?’
‘Around about midnight, give or take. There was music after the speeches; Joey Morocco did a couple of songs, then there was a disco. The thing went on till about two in the morning, but Leo wanted to be sharp for the lunch with Emily Raynor today, so he split early.’
‘Was Faye Bulloch there?’ the DS asked.
Butler nodded. ‘So were the kids, until after dinner and the speeches. Gordon and Trudi were there too, of course. And Rae Letts, his Las Vegas girl, and their wee one, Raeleen. He insisted that they come.’
‘Did he do that to wind up Faye?’
‘No, he said that everybody that was important to him had to be there.’
‘How about the publisher? Was she invited?’
‘No,’ the manager replied. ‘There was no reason for her to be, was there? Leo had never met her before yesterday afternoon.’
‘Where did they meet yesterday?’
‘Here, at two o’clock, to let her outline the proposition to us. They were together for about an hour, in the conservatory.’
‘Did you sit in?’ Mann asked.
‘No, I left them to get on with it; I knew what the headline terms were. After she arrived, I went up to the Blacksmith to check that everything was okay for the party.’
A Brush With Death Page 4