The Poisoned Rock: A Sullivan and Broderick Murder Investigation (The Rock Murder Mysteries Book 2)

by Robert Daws

  After the film had been announced to the press, Josh’s mysterious contact had gone quiet. Eighteen months had passed without so much as a whisper. But tonight, on the third day of the movie’s seven-week shoot, the silence ended.

  The letter he had found in his mailbox, bearing a La Línea postmark, had been direct to the point of bluntness.

  you want the truth? come to the square, san roque, 1 am. tonight. alone only. i mean this. wait.

  That was all.

  So Josh had come, and now he waited. Another five minutes passed. Looking up at the tall, silent bell tower of the church, he felt, for the very first time, a little vulnerable. Movement at the far end of the square caught his attention. From the shadows, a man appeared. He was wearing a dark jacket and trousers and moved slowly towards the front of the church, his perambulation aided by the use of a stick. In his other hand, he held a paper file. Josh did not move towards him but waited, watching all the while. The man was in his eighties at least. His slow progress across the square was determined and somehow dignified. Like an actor, Josh thought, making a grand entrance to an audience of just one.

  At last the man arrived at his destination. Wisps of pure white hair hung from his balding head, and wrinkles were etched into the weathered skin of his face. He looked at Josh, but did not speak.

  ‘Buenas noches, señor,’ Josh offered in greeting.

  The old man’s eyes focused – taking Josh in, sizing him up. At last … ‘Buenas noches,’ he replied.

  ‘It’s good to meet you at last,’ Josh said. ‘I want to thank you. For your help.’

  The old man looked around the square. It was not clear to Josh if it was because he needed to make sure that they were alone, or if he had expected someone else to be there. His surveillance complete, the old man turned once more to the young man. For a moment he stared at Josh again, giving no sign of his thoughts.

  Josh continued, in semi-fluent Spanish: ‘What you’ve given me over these last few years has been invaluable, señor. You deserve credit for that. I know your “Queen of Diamonds” existed and, to some extent, the work she did to help the Allied forces and the people of Gibraltar. What I still don’t know is who she was. Can you help me, señor? Can you tell me all you know?’

  The man’s gaze had not left Josh’s face. For a moment, he seemed to hesitate. Whatever he might have to say would not be easily given. At last he nodded, but before he could speak, the doors of the nearby Bar El Varal opened. Three men fell out onto the square, all a little worse for drink. Before the old man could move to the anonymity of the shadows, one of the drunken amigos had spied him.

  ‘Don Martínez!’ the man called over, he and his colleagues stumbling towards them. ‘Don Martínez!’

  The drunks, on seeing Josh standing with the old man, looked concerned. ‘Is all well, Don Martínez? You wish we walk you home, sí?’

  The sound of his name was a clear irritation to the old man.

  ‘All is well with me, my friends. Home to your beds. Your wives will not be pleased at this hour.’

  The men acknowledged this with laughter and snorts, moving off in an unsteady chain and calling out ‘Good night, Don Martínez!’ as they left the square.

  Josh and the old man were alone once more. Noticing indecision in the Spaniard’s dark eyes, Josh pressed on quickly. He had waited too long to let this opportunity slip away.

  ‘Don Martínez?’ he asked. ‘Finally. Your name.’

  A flash of anger crossed the old man’s face. ‘It is,’ he whispered, his voice rasping but strong. ‘But that you must now forget. You do not know me and never will. Tonight, I will give you this.’

  Don Martínez handed Josh the folder he had been carrying.

  ‘This is all you need. Study with care and you will find what you need to know. Keep it safe. Yourself, too. But promise, on your life, that you will never look for me again. You understand?’

  The intensity with which the old man spoke took Josh by surprise. The man was shaking, his eyes burning into his. Whatever secret this man had kept over the years had cost him dearly.

  ‘I promise you,’ Josh told him. ‘Thank you.’

  The old man’s eyes sought confirmation of this promise in Josh’s. Moments passed. At last the old man turned away. With the same steady dignity with which he had arrived, Don Martínez moved across the square and into the dark lanes beyond. He did not once turn back to see Josh heading for his car, the file held in a vice-like grip.

  5

  Detective Sergeant Tamara Sullivan had begun her morning run a full hour earlier than usual. It had taken her some time to get used to the late rising sun of the Mediterranean dawn, and although it was 5.30 am and dark outside, she had got up and run. Outside the air would be fresher than at any other time of the day and the perfect antidote to the air-conditioned climate of her apartment.

  Two days before, she had been on the Wirral celebrating her widowed mother’s birthday. It had been a sad and tawdry affair. No other relatives had bothered to visit and the few friends her mother had managed to keep had not stayed long. A dry sherry and a Twiglet, exchanged for a card, some bath oils and a £20 Boots voucher. In the evening, Sullivan had treated her mum to a meal at a local Greek restaurant, after which they had returned to her mother’s home and gone straight to bed. The next morning, after breakfast, Sullivan had kissed her mum goodbye and headed for the station to board a train to Manchester airport. As she stood on the station platform, Sullivan realised that she would have felt a lot sadder had she not had a return air ticket to Gibraltar in her pocket.

  She loved her new apartment – small but perfect for her needs – in a very pleasant building just fifty metres along from the main police headquarters on New Mole Parade. With a balcony looking out across the ship repair yard in the docks and then onwards to the sea beyond, it provided a welcome haven at the end of her working day. It was an obvious perk of being a Brit on secondment and the subject of constant ribbing from her fellow police officers in the RGP. Not that Sullivan cared. She could give as good as she got.

  Leaving her apartment building, she had headed towards the centre of Gibraltar Town. Most days her morning run took her to Europa Point at the southernmost tip of the Rock. Passing the Mosque of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and the impressive memorial to the wartime prime minister of the Polish Government in Exile, General Władysław Sikorski – killed in a plane crash in Gib in 1943 – Sullivan would pause briefly at the red-and-white striped Trinity Lighthouse. From there, she would look across the narrow strait to the coast of north Africa. It often felt as though she could reach out and touch the Moroccan mountains before her. Over recent weeks, she had found it the perfect spot to clear her mind and prepare for the day’s work ahead.

  This morning, however, she would head north to the Alameda Botanic Gardens. Passing them, she would run on and through the Referendum Gates to the Line Wall Road. This route would eventually bring her to Grand Casemates Square, where she would turn back for home along the pedestrianised, shop-lined Main Street. She had felt like a change and, if truth be told, wanted to check out where the filming had taken place the night before. She had already, two days before, driven out to Eastern Beach to see the barbed wire defences that the film’s designers had produced to recreate the exact look of the location in 1942. Back in London, serving in the Met, she had come across countless locations being used for television and film productions. They had been of only passing interest to her – although a snatched autograph from Matt Damon had been fun to get. But here, six weeks into her enforced secondment to the Royal Gibraltar Police, she found the presence of Hollywood on her patch of the Mediterranean shore a little more glamorous.

  A fifteen-minute hard push brought her to Grand Casemates Square in better than good time. What greeted her was the more unglamorous side of film-making. The stars had vanished into the night. All that remained were the scores of film people needed to return the square to normal in the quickest possible
time. A legion of thick-set men shifting and loading equipment into trucks supervised by a team of location operatives and art department personnel. Intricately designed fake period façades were being pulled down to reveal the normal frontages of the buildings behind – a WHSmith, a betting shop and the Julian Lennon Beatles Memorabilia Exhibition, once more restored to their modern-day selves. Street lamps of 1940s vintage were being carried away, as the tables and chairs belonging to the square’s many cafes were brought out in time for the morning’s opening.

  No glimpse of Julia Novacs, Sullivan thought, feeling a slight pang of embarrassment at having hoped otherwise. She knew she could have joined the crowds watching the proceedings through the night, but as some of her fellow police officers were going to be on duty to organise crowd and traffic control, she had thought it not the coolest thing to do.

  Five minutes later, Sullivan was pounding down Main Street heading for home. A quick shower and a bowl of granola and Detective Sergeant Sullivan would be off to work. By 6.45 she’d be at her desk at police headquarters preparing for what the day ahead had to offer – a missing person, feared dead. She wanted to be on top of the details before her boss arrived. It was the least that Chief Inspector Gus Broderick would expect.

  Had she not been in such a hurry, Sullivan might have noticed something odd back in Casemates.

  A figure at the side of the square. The tall, somewhat dishevelled man would normally have caught Sullivan’s eye, so out of place did he look. He stood alone, his gaze not directed at anything in particular and his eyes devoid of life. His bearded face creased with lines and darkened by shadows not normally found on a man in his early forties. Among the hectic industry of the organised throng around him, he seemed lost to the world, his mind focused on distant things. Only the constant clenching and unclenching of Lech Jasinski’s fists gave a true sign of the turmoil that raged within him.

  6

  Arriving at New Mole House, the Royal Gibraltar Police headquarters, just a short way from her home, Sullivan looked across to the adjacent dry docks, occupied by two large commercial ships in need of repair. Gazing out above the ships and loading cranes, she enjoyed the view across the Bay of Gibraltar to the Spanish port of Algeciras. It was one of the many things she’d grown to love about Gibraltar – almost anywhere you looked, a rewarding vista greeted the eye. None more so than the views of the gigantic limestone Rock itself, towering hundreds of metres above the town. A mighty sentinel guarding the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea. Its pivotal position between sea and ocean and the two mighty continents of Europe and Africa had been coveted and fought over many times across the centuries. Even today, its loyalty to the British Crown was the cause of a major dispute between the UK and Spain, a situation that often triggered heated diplomatic discussions and frequent border delays. Gibraltarians were in no doubt where their continued loyalties lay. Ninety-nine per cent of them were more than happy for Gibraltar to remain a British Overseas Territory.

  Entering the building, Sullivan strode past the duty officer’s desk and headed for the stairs that would lead her up to her desk in a first-floor office. Before she could ascend, someone called her name. Turning, she was pleased to see the smiling face of Sergeant Aldarino. The tall, avuncular veteran police officer had been the first person to make her welcome after her arrival on the Rock. He had since been a source of considerable guidance to her as she had navigated the new terrain of the Royal Gibraltar Police, and had proved helpful in giving Sullivan the heads-up on her two immediate bosses – Chief Superintendent Harriet Massetti and CI Broderick.

  ‘Early bird as usual,’ the uniformed sergeant teased.

  ‘Someone’s got to work around here,’ Sullivan smiled back.

  ‘Just as well, though,’ Aldarino continued, ‘because on top of all your usual paperwork, the Chief Super wants to see you as soon as she gets in.’

  This information wiped the smile from Sullivan’s face. After an uneasy start, Chief Superintendent Massetti had left Sullivan alone. She had not been best pleased by her new arrival’s three-month secondment and had made no bones about it. She knew it was a barely disguised punishment, imposed by Sullivan’s London superiors after a rulebook-flouting but ultimately successful end to her last operation with the force. Sullivan’s logical, ‘means to an end’ approach to a dangerous hostage situation had won the admiration of her colleagues, but not that of her commanding officer. Sullivan’s secondment to the Royal Gibraltar Police had been conjured up as a face-saving way of allowing things to settle, and an opportunity for her to avoid severe disciplinary action – a procedure that would have completely wrecked the career of such an outstanding police officer. For Sullivan, it had been a humiliating blow. Her hopes of being promoted to become one of the youngest inspectors in the Met’s history had been dashed at a stroke.

  A cloud crossed Sullivan’s face.

  ‘I thought you’d be delighted,’ Aldarino teased again.

  ‘What do you think she wants?’

  ‘I’d have thought it might be about going home,’ the sergeant replied.

  ‘Home?’

  ‘You’re only a visitor here, you know. Just five weeks left of your secondment, by my reckoning. All good things must come to end and all that.’

  Smiling, Aldarino turned and left the room. Sullivan watched him go. Only five weeks, she thought. That’s what it will be. But as she headed towards her office, she had to admit that the thought of leaving the Rock had unsettled her more than she might have expected.

  7

  Gus Broderick was not in a good mood. Once again he had not slept well. As always, he had got off to sleep only to wake in the small hours of the morning. What followed were several more hours of restless anxiety, until sleep once more returned, just in time to render him impervious to his alarm clock’s insistent bleeping. The pleading of his fourteen-year-old daughter Daisy – ‘Get up, Daddy!’ – at last raised him from the abyss.

  He was up now and running late. A freezing cold shower and a shaving nick that refused to stop bleeding had not helped him to achieve a sense of ease with the world. A brief glimpse in the bathroom’s full-length mirror gave the forty-eight-year-old no shock at all. He was looking older and beginning to lose his thick brown hair. His late mother’s Gibraltarian DNA was now clearly visible in his face. But there the similarity ended. Below the neck he was starting to resemble his father’s more haphazard Celtic form, with a stomach that could no longer be confined within the bounds of physical acceptability and a tan that was just a distant memory. So what was new? It was time to cover up this walking corpse.

  Moments later, he was dressed. Attempting to knot his tie – Why can’t I ever get the length right? – he looked out of the bedroom window. The sun was shining. At least in summer you can rely on that, he thought. Glancing down to check his old Mercedes in the townhouse’s narrow driveway below, he could see that no harm had befallen it overnight. As a police officer, he had found himself victim to occasional acts of vandalism, usually directed at his car under cover of darkness.

  Checking his watch, he headed out of the bedroom and down the stairs. Daisy was waiting for him in the kitchen.

  ‘Porridge, Daddy,’ she offered, placing a steaming bowl on the table for him. Although not in the least hungry, Broderick would eat it. His daughter had made it especially for him.

  ‘Thanks, Princess,’ he said and was immediately lifted by her radiant smile.

  It was 7.45 now and Daisy would have been up for at least an hour and a half. Broderick would drop her at school this morning before heading in to work. It was a school Daisy loved, providing her with the perfect environment to learn and prosper. Born with Down’s syndrome, her needs were always paramount in Broderick’s mind. The school had proved a blessing and Daisy had thrived there.

  ‘Penny’s still in bed,’ Daisy informed her father with a mock frown.

  ‘No surprises there. When you’re eighteen, we’ll not be able to get you out of bed either
, Princess.’

  ‘No, never, never, never!’ Daisy replied, shaking her head vigorously. ‘Always first one out of bed. I’m the champion!’ She raised her arms in the air and circled the kitchen table in a lap of triumph.

  Broderick laughed out loud. As always, his youngest daughter could lift his spirits in the blink of an eye. It was nearly thirteen years since her mother had left Broderick and the girls, disappearing off the face of the earth, her depression and self-loathing finally taking her from their lives for good. Even with his police connections, Broderick had not been able to find her. Not a day went by without him wishing her back in their lives. For her to see her daughters happy and well. To know that they were loved.

  It had been Broderick’s elder sister who had come to the family’s rescue. Unlike her brother – who had left Gib at the age of nineteen to join the London Met and live in the UK – she had stayed in Gibraltar. A happy but childless marriage had sadly ended in widowhood. Offering Gus and her nieces her home and love was, without question, the natural thing to do. And so brother and his daughters had come to stay on the Rock. Twelve years had now passed since Broderick had taken up a new job with the RGP, and his sister’s three-storey townhouse had become a haven from the pain and despair of the past.

  ‘Aunty Cath outside,’ Daisy told her father as she looked out of the kitchen window to the small courtyard beyond. ‘With Sister Clara.’

  Broderick leaned forward to see his elder sister taking coffee with her friend and colleague. Sister Clara was Cath’s boss, the president of the charity his sister worked for. The Rock of Ages Charitable Foundation had been set up decades before by Sister Clara’s mother, but their friendship had made the ‘boss’ designation unacceptable. They were friends who worked and socialised happily together. Once a week, Sister Clara would come for breakfast, bringing her wonderful home-baked croissants and sweet marmalade. She loved Daisy and Penny and often brought them each a little gift, too. Despite having left her religious order some forty years before, she was still known as ‘Sister Clara’, which seemed to sit just fine with her. Privately, Broderick had long suspected her of trying to convert his sister to the Catholic faith, and Cath had once confirmed that she had flirted with the idea. Religious or not, as far as Broderick was concerned his sister was a saint already, her place in heaven most certainly guaranteed. If, of course, such a place as heaven actually existed. Broderick had his own ideas on that subject, but tried to show respect by not voicing them too often.