“Which leaves us investigating a murder that both your British spooks and the Spanish spooks are investigating,” said Broxson. “Jeez, those are mighty big toes to be treading on.”
“We have a legitimate case number to write on our time sheets.” Collins spoke assertively. “Until I am told I am off the case, I will carry on investigating Alice Evans’ murder. The fact that we now have a government minister in the mixer matters not a jot to me.”
“I’m with the guv on this one.” Cusack spoke for the first time since the session began.
“Me too,” added Harrington.
“Aagh, don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t suggesting we bottle it.” Broxson grinned. “In fact, I quite like treading on big toes.”
“Good, it seems no-one would prefer to spend the next few days going through the files on the Tower Bridge body in the river case for the umpteenth time.”
“No way,” laughed Muirhead.
“Right. Get yourselves off to the canteen for an hour while I plan our attack. Phone anyone you need to, I sense some late night interviews coming on.”
As Collins drew up his plan of action, which centred upon interviewing Aisha after he had interviewed Hasem, Aisha was close to the front of the queue for immigration checks at Abu Dhabi airport. She had stood patiently in line for almost twenty minutes.
The immigration officer behind a glass screen finally called her forward. He was wearing an immaculately ironed and starched dishdash. A black ring sat on top of his white headscarf.
Breathing shallowly, she waited while he methodically tapped at his keyboard and studied the computer screen in front of him.
“Are you here on business?” he asked.
“No, pleasure. Sorry, I mean leisure.” She smiled to cover up her nervousness.
It was a smile that was not reciprocated. “Where are you staying in the Emirates?”
“Here in Abu Dhabi, at the Sheraton.” Aisha regained her composure. “Four nights here and then I am going down to Al Ain.”
“Do you have friends or family in Al Ain?”
“No. I am staying at the Rotana. I have always wanted to see Jebel Hafeet.”
The stamp slammed down on her passport. He shut it with one hand and held it out. “Welcome.”
“Thank you.”
This time Collins did not go to Hasem, Hasem was delivered to interview room number two. The interview was delayed while they waited for Hasem’s solicitor to arrive.
With the formalities over, Collins asked his opening question. “First class honours in economics. Not from an English university though was it?”
Hasem’s confident look evaporated. “No Egypt, Cairo. Cairo has a good reputation in many fields.”
“I don’t doubt it. Tell me how your final exams went.”
“Badly.”
“How badly?”
“You know the answer to that, otherwise you would not be asking. Aren’t you a little senior to be investigating such things?”
“Explain it for me would you?”
“I went to Cairo after Sixth Form here because I thought I wanted to get back to my roots. I won a modest scholarship from the United Bank of Cairo.”
Collins interrupted him. “But you’re not Egyptian are you?”
“I am English. My father was Jordanian, as was my mother. Again, you will know this already.”
“Let’s head back to Cairo then.”
“My first two years went extremely well. I then got in with the wrong crowd. I had always done a little bit of wheeling and dealing, just so I could afford to travel round the Middle-East during the vacations, but it got a bit out of hand. The business side of things took over, it took up too much of my time.”
“Tell me about the business side of things.”
“Why do I need to? You already know.”
“I don’t.”
Hasem smiled nervously. “You don’t?”
“No.”
“Can we turn the tape off?” He looked at the recording machine.
“No.”
Hasem turned to his solicitor, but did not speak.
After a long pause his solicitor put his mouth to Hasem’s ear and whispered just loud enough for Collins to hear. “Does it involve a serious offence? Drugs, trafficking, anything serious?”
Hasem shook his head.
“In serious cases we often turn a blind eye to minor offences committed by people who help us get to the truth,” encouraged Collins.
The solicitor nodded.
“Well. I met some Indian guys who imported machinemade rugs. They were actually rejects, but they looked like Egyptian rugs. We sold them to tourists as Egyptian handmade.”
“I take it that that was your idea.”
“It was. I kept control of the money flow. Besides, my English was better than theirs, I could sell three times what any of them could.”
“Well, that wasn’t too difficult, was it? I doubt the Egyptian authorities will be applying for your extradition for that.”
Hasem breathed more easily.
“Bogus degrees?”
“As I say, I failed my finals because I spent too much time in my final year on the business side of things.”
“You failed your final exams?”
“Yes.”
“But somehow you still managed to get on a Masters program?”
“Which I completed comfortably.”
“How did you get onto it though?”
“My friends from India sorted it for me. Not straight away. I received the fake certificate about six months later. Unfortunately it was the following year by then and they put the wrong date on it. I didn’t actually use it immediately. I bought a great big old Mercedes and travelled round the Middle-East on tourist visas. I took my books with me, hoping the university would let me resit my final exams the following year.”
“But they didn’t.”
“No.” He looked quite sorry for himself.
“I think we have established you are not the most honest man on the planet.”
“DCI Collins, that was uncalled for.” The solicitor spoke firmly. “You and I both deal with far more serious things on a day to day basis.”
“Aye, we do. I happen to be dealing with the murder of a woman in Spain at the moment.”
“I fail to see the connection.”
“Hasem. I was looking through my notes the other day. Do you remember me asking you if you knew a woman at the Foreign Office called Aisha Al Nuaimi?”
“Vaguely.” He shuffled on his seat.
“I told Aisha about Spain, uttered Alice Evans with her final breath.”
Hasem said nothing.
“Do you also remember the hotel room you stayed in when you were in Spain with Alice?”
He nodded.
“Well, Aisha stayed in exactly the same room, days before this Spanish lady was murdered. There was no doubt about this one, it was definitely murder.”
“As I told you before, this has nothing to do with me.”
“In the same way Aisha had nothing to do with you?”
“I am not following you.”
“Joanne Masters. Jeff Tapper, and his lovely wife Mel.”
A glum look shot across Hasem’s face.
“Aisha Al Nuaimi, a train ride down to Brighton.”
“She was blackmailing me,” spurted out Hasem.
“About what? To do what?”
“About my qualifications. That was when we first met. Back then she was in a different section at the Foreign Office to where she is now. Before I could serve on government committees I had to have my certificates validated by the Foreign Office. Well the problem was, I had already started serving on them, otherwise I would not have gone down that road. If I had backed out when they requested all my certificates, it would have raised serious questions. I would have lost my job at the LSE as well. What was I meant to do? I had HR send them over, and then I just prayed it was all a bit of a sham. I hoped they would only valid
ate my two higherlevel qualifications and not go through all the hassle of validating a certificate from Cairo. I suspected the worse when I got a phone call asking me to go over to the Foreign Office to personally collect my certificates.”
“And you got a get out of jail free card?”
“Yes, only there was a fee to pay.”
“Tell me, what was that, five years ago? What was the fee you paid back then?”
“No, it was not like that. Aisha just laughed and said it would be our little secret. The cunning sod even invited me out for lunch. Well, one thing led to another, and…”
“Finish the sentence.”
“We had sex. After that she kept me close for five years.”
“Kept you close?”
“Nothing was said outright, but she dropped hints. For example, Aisha once asked me what would happen if I committed a minor criminal offence. Would I lose my job? I got the impression that if I did not have sex with her when she wanted it, she would expose me.”
You have a high opinion of yourself, thought Collins. “And she blackmailed you into going to Spain with Alice Evans?”
“No. Far from it, Aisha was annoyed that I took Alice.”
“Annoyed? We will come back to that. Sticking with your trip to Spain, tell me. What was the deal?”
“That I spent a week at the hotel and checked that Douglas Phillips did actually spend time fornicating at the villa. That is how she worded it.”
“That is it?”
“Yes.”
“Did you not ask her what her interest in Douglas Phillips was?”
“Of course I did, but she would not say.”
“She would not tell you why, but you do it for her anyway? I am finding this very hard to believe.”
“Aisha said it was in relation to a personal matter. I wondered if she was having an affair with him and wanted to know if the triangle was in fact a square.”
“And she needed you to go to Spain? To see if this man who is considerably older than her was cheating on her. Do you think Aisha is the type of woman to worry about a wrinkly cheating on her?”
“No, possibly not.” He dropped his head.
“This is nonsense. First you deny knowing a woman you now admit to having sex with whenever she wanted it. Now you are spinning more yarn than a worker at a cotton mill.”
“All I can tell you is that Aisha asked me to do it for her, and I did.”
“Let me ask you another question. Why didn’t she do her own reconnaissance?”
“She harped on about not having enough leave.”
“Aisha did not have enough spare holiday, so you travel a thousand miles to spy on a man and a woman. A few months later, the woman you spied upon is murdered. Have you any idea how this is looking?”
Collins leant back in his chair and watched Hasem stew in his own juices.
Hasem did not speak. His eyes flicked around the room. His hands kept switching between his lap and the table, never settling on each for more than four seconds.
Finally, he took a deep breath and spoke. “ To be honest, I think her real plan worked.”
“Her real plan?”
“This is a big assumption, but if we assume it was Aisha who killed Ortega, she would not want to have been seen there twice.”
“You knew the woman’s name.”
“I may not have a legitimate degree, but I am an intelligent man. I did my research while I was there. I also did enough research when I got back to know the man who liked to float naked on the pool with his prick pointing at the sky had something of a reputation.”
“And what sort of reputation is that?”
“He has a reputation for bed hopping.”
“Had you ever met him?”
“No.”
“Why was the room booked in the name of Alice Evans?”
“I did that. I didn’t know what Aisha was planning but I knew it was probably more dishonest than my Egyptian rug racket. I assumed she was planning on blackmailing him; once a blackmailer, always a blackmailer. That is why I took steps to distance myself from it. Along with the fact…” He stopped talking.
“Along with the fact…?”
“I liked the idea of a week away with Alice. At the time I thought she was good in bed. It went pear-shaped. I did not for one moment think Aisha would take it so badly when she found out. I knew she would find out, but I did not expect her to react the way she did.”
“Before I pick up on that, I need a little clarification. It was you who booked the hotel?”
“Yes. I booked it in her name, but I booked it. And to get it out in the open I will tell you that although I booked my flight, I did not book Alice’s flight for her. What I did was book mine. Once I had done that, I telephoned Alice to get her to book her own flight. I told her that I tried booking it but the website wanted me to type in her passport number. She asked why I didn’t just phone and ask for it, but she did not make a song and dance about it.”
“The hire car?”
“I told Alice I did not like driving on the wrong side of the road. That appealed to her female ego and she happily booked the car.”
“My, you did go to great lengths to cover your trail.”
Hasem’s mouth moved, but no words came out of it.
“And you almost got away with it. Is that what you were going to say.”
He dropped his head and stared at the table.
“Let’s cut to the chase Hasem. Why would Aisha want to murder Ortega?”
“I have absolutely no idea. I thought it was about blackmailing Phillips.”
“Okay, back to how Aisha reacted to the news that Alice went to Spain with you. How did she react?”
“I thought they were friends. That is how I met Alice. The first time was on the trip to Brighton that you seem to know all about. We met again at a party, that was the first time we…”
“How did she react?”
“She knew I was in Alice’s bed that night. I don’t know how, but she knew. Maybe she followed one of us, maybe Alice phoned her. I honestly do not know. I was still in bed when she arrived at the apartment.”
“What time was that?”
“Half-nine, something like that.”
That means he lied in his earlier statement, thought Collins. “Carry on.”
“I heard them arguing. At first Aisha seemed annoyed with Alice. She was asking her why she slept with a pig like me. That was the word she used. I went out and showed my face. Aisha didn’t stop ranting; she kept asking Alice how she could cheat on her with a pig like me, over and over again. It was as if she hadn’t even noticed I was in the same room.”
“After a while she calmed down and we seemed to be talking it through. That was when Aisha talked about Spain. The problem was that Alice never really said she would not tell anyone about what happened in Spain. All she had to do was to say it was a secret between the three of us.”
“Are we referring to the fact that you spied on Phillips and Ortega?”
“That is right. Alice went back out onto the balcony for a cigarette. She never liked smoking inside her own apartment; she didn’t like the way it made it smell. Always trying to give up, but never managing it. Aisha directed her venom my way, repeatedly saying things like ‘What the fuck are we going to do now?’ I didn’t have the answer, but it seems she did.”
“I’m waiting.”
“Suddenly she just stormed out onto the balcony, grabbed Alice round the calves, and flipped her over. It all happened in less than five seconds. I gathered my bits and we fled. Aisha drove me to work.”
“No long bus journey then?”
“No.”
“You do realise that if you had told me all this months ago, Ortega would still be alive?”
“I do.”
“I suggest you have a chat with your solicitor, I have something I need to do. Interview terminated twenty-one fourteen, DCI Collins and DS Cusack leaving the room.”
Harrington was sittin
g on a chair outside in the corridor. He stood up as soon as he saw Collins. “She’s not at home sir, and we don’t know where she is.”
“But you left a surveillance team there, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“She’ll be screwing someone somewhere, but she’ll go home eventually. Put an all ports out just in case. After that get Hasem locked up in a cell for the night.”
“What charge sir?”
“Helping with enquiries will do for now, but only if he objects to voluntary confinement. I doubt if he will object though; he knows he’s in the shit. Whatever happens, don’t let him get into a position where he can contact Nuaimi.”
“All ports, bang Hasem up. I’ll get on with it shall I?”
“Yes.”
At Abu Dhabi airport, Aisha headed to the short stay car park, a travel blog she had read suggested there were always local taxi drivers hawking around down there, looking for a big fare.
It did not take long for the approach. “Taxi?”
“How much to Dubai?”
“Five hundred.”
“No, no way.”
“Good car. Clean car.”
“Three hundred.”
“Okay madam.” He reached for her larger bag. “Four hundred.”
“No.” Aisha grabbed hold of the handle of her case. The driver let go of it. “Three hundred.”
“Three-fifty.”
“Okay, but no tip.”
The driver shrugged and once again took hold of the bag.
Aisha followed on behind as they headed for his white Corolla with gold painted wings close to the far end of a curving row of parked cars. Beads of sweat started to form on her arms; her clothes suddenly felt clammy in the warm humid air.
“She’s where?” stormed Collins.
“Abu Dhabi,” replied Harrington.
Heather Muirhead shouted over from her desk. “Did you say Dubai?”
“No, Abu Dhabi,” replied Harrington.
“Oh, that’s okay then.”
“What’s okay?” shouted Collins.
“It’s just that Douglas Phillips is in Dubai at the moment. I’ve always got those two places mixed up. I have the same problem with Budapest and Bucharest. Which one is in Hungary and which one is in Romania, I never know. The other two are…”
The Spanish Hotel Page 20