As Easy as Murder

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘I wouldn’t know. I’d never met the man before today, and Uche hardly ever talks about him.’

  ‘What happened to his wife, Uche’s mother?’

  ‘Again, I don’t know. The only time I ever asked him about her, he said, “She’s not around any more.” I didn’t press further.’

  ‘Poor boy,’ I said. ‘Here, now that you’re a full tour member and don’t need those sponsor invitations, maybe Brush could pass them on to him.’

  ‘That’s not quite how it works. I had a track record as an amateur, Uche doesn’t. The fact is, Auntie P, he’s got no chance of making the Tour. He’s a decent golfer, but that’s all. He didn’t get to Arizona on a scholarship; he paid his own way, or his father did. He said he was a track athlete, a sprinter, when we were freshmen, but he had a knee injury that stopped him competing, so he’d switched to golf. But he didn’t get near the college team. I’m helping him as much as I can, and Lena’s given him all the swing advice she has, but it isn’t working. He’ll never make it, and he knows it. He hasn’t even entered the first stage of Q school.’

  ‘So he’s just a spoiled rich kid, eh. Did he graduate?’

  ‘He did enough, that was all. He missed enough classes to get any other guy cut, but he always seemed to get away with it, and he squeezed through in the end. Mostly he studied the football cheerleaders, or any skanky tart that looked in his direction; that’s his specialist subject, not business administration.’

  ‘So what’s he going to do with his life? Caddie for you permanently?’

  ‘Brush isn’t too keen on that idea. Neither is Clive Tate; he collared me this afternoon and told me that I need to replace him with someone who actually knows the courses I’ll be playing on from now on. I won’t rush into anything, though. In fact I’m hoping that his dad and he are having a heart-to-heart about career options over dinner tonight. Kalu has all sorts of businesses: oil, manufacturing, import-export. He’s bound to want Uche to get involved at some point.’

  The arrival of the waiter to take our orders slipped a natural break into our conversation. When he’d gone, I changed the subject. ‘Going back to what you said before, there’s one thing I must put you right about. It’s impossible to hide from the unexpected. Even here my arse has been well bitten, I can tell you. Huh,’ I snorted. ‘Never more so than today, as you were having your finest hour.’

  ‘How?’ He paused. ‘Ah, Shirley’s man doing a runner.’

  ‘That’s the least of it. Remember last Wednesday, when I was called away from Pals by my policeman friend Alex?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He nodded. ‘He came and showed Tom a drawing later; it was the man who tried to pick Patterson’s pocket. Nasty. Have they identified him? Is that’s what’s bitten you?’

  ‘No, but fast forward to the scene you walked in on the next day: me dealing with Christine McGuigan, that sneaky woman I caught trying to take pictures of Tom. She was found dead this morning. Alex asked me to look at her as well.’

  ‘Bloody hell! Why did he do that?’

  ‘Because she was killed in much the same way as him, her face blown away with a shotgun.’

  He stared at me. ‘My God,’ he exclaimed. ‘What do the police think?’

  ‘The assumption is that they were killed by the same person, but that’s as far as it goes.’

  ‘What? Even with . . . Auntie P, there’s an obvious connection.’

  ‘Sure, me! Happily I was able to alibi myself for the times of both killings.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant,’ he countered. ‘Think back, did you actually catch the woman taking pictures of Tom?’

  I did as he asked. ‘No,’ I admitted. ‘Not exactly. But she didn’t deny it, and anyway, what else could she have been doing? What are you getting at, Jonny?’

  ‘Who else had just arrived at your house?’ he asked. ‘You went out there to give Tom and me the hurry-up because we were late.’

  ‘Patterson and Shirley.’

  ‘Correct. The first victim, the guy, he tried to steal Patterson’s wallet but he failed. What if this McGuigan woman wasn’t interested in Tom at all? Isn’t it just as likely that Patterson was her target?’

  ‘Then why did she target me with her video camera at the course?’

  He frowned. ‘Good question.’ As he thought about it our starters arrived. I was adding croutons to my vichyssoise when he came up with an answer. ‘You’d been speaking to them earlier, hadn’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’ I had a vivid recollection. ‘And I said to them they should be at my place at seven thirty.’

  ‘Then that ties it. She had no reason to approach them in her journalist guise, had she?’

  ‘But she did,’ I exclaimed as I remembered what Shirley had said. ‘Only Patterson didn’t want to be on camera, so he avoided her. Then Shirl got rid of her by turning her loose on me.’

  Jonny nodded, his thinking confirmed. ‘And that gave her an excuse to find out who you were, and in the process to lead you up the garden path by winding you up about Tom. To get to Patterson through you. Doesn’t that fit?’

  I was on his wavelength. ‘She was probably trying to find out where I lived, when Alex intervened and told her to bugger off.’

  ‘Right, so she went to Plan B and followed you home, so she could be waiting there when Patterson and Shirley arrived.’

  ‘She was photographing someone, that’s for sure. If only . . .’ And then I surprised him by laughing. ‘But I do! I do know who it was. After I decked her I took the memory card from her camera. I’ve still got it. When I got home, I stuck it in my purse, then forgot all about it.’ My bag was at my feet, and my purse was in it. I dug it out and found the tiny card. ‘There you are,’ I said, soundly pleased with myself.

  Jonny held out a hand. ‘Let me see it.’ I gave it to him. He took a small camera from a pocket in his jerkin, removed an identical device from its slot, and replaced it with mine. He pressed a couple of buttons, then grinned. ‘Look,’ he said. He turned the camera so that I could see its tiny LCD screen and ran through its contents.

  The first seven photographs were all of Patterson, but he was hidden by Shirl in four of them. Those in which he was recognisable had him in profile, none of them full face. Those had all been taken as he and Shirley approached my house, but as Jonny scrolled back I saw that she’d taken a couple at the golf course as well. They’d been shot from a distance, probably with a different lens, and he was in them all as well, in the stand at the practice ground. Patterson’s mother wouldn’t have known him in those . . . but given the life he’d led maybe she wouldn’t have recognised him anywhere any more.

  ‘There’s your link, Auntie P,’ Jonny declared. ‘The pickpocket was sent to steal Patterson’s wallet. He failed, and he’s dead. Christine McGuigan was sent to photograph him. She failed and now she’s dead too. “Sorry, I tried my best” doesn’t cut any ice with whoever sent them. What I don’t understand is why they wanted to identify him. What’s that all about?’

  ‘A blast from the past,’ I murmured.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Mr Cowling wasn’t your run-of-the-mill public servant,’ I told him. ‘As I understand it he was the sort who might have made a few enemies in his career. He’s been rumbled by someone, that’s for sure. That’s why he got off his mark; no cover story for Shirl, no tearful farewell. He just waited until she turned her back on him, literally, and he ran for it.’

  ‘Bloody hell!’

  ‘Indeed. I had him down as a man who’d lost his bottle. I was planning to find him and give him a piece of my mind for messing up my pal’s life. But this connection that you’ve made, that changes everything.’ It occurred to me at that point that I should call Mark, to tell him not to bother tracing Major Fleur, but I decided that could wait till morning. He wouldn’t do anything until then anyway, and my vichyssoise was getting warm.

  Thirteen

  Alex called me early next morning, just as Tom was leaving for school and Jonny was headi
ng down to the beach with a mat, a towel and a book, a story called The Loner that I’d just read and thought he might enjoy. He couldn’t begin his schedule-planning with Brush until America woke up, but the European Tour press officer had warned him that he might have quite a busy day dealing with media, and so he decided that he’d better grab some relaxation time while he could. We’d spent the rest of our dinner date walking through old memories, some of them mutual, others confessions of a sort. The most surprising to me was Jonny’s revelation that he’d got a girl pregnant in his second year at college, a psychology major who hadn’t been as clever as she’d thought. She’d insisted on a termination, and he hadn’t argued. He’d felt guilty ever since; another reason for his self-imposed emotional isolation.

  ‘Don’t,’ I told him. ‘Her choice, not yours. That’s a moral maze and you were too young to get lost in it.’

  ‘When you found you were pregnant with Tom,’ he ventured, ‘after you and Uncle Oz had split up, did you ever consider having an abortion?’

  ‘Not for one micro-second,’ I replied. ‘Oh, I made a very bad choice in keeping him secret, but I was always going to have him. You see, the difference between your girl and me . . . I loved his dad.’ I looked him in the eye. ‘That’s why you’re screwed up about women, Jonny, isn’t it? It’s got fuck all to do with concentrating on your career.’

  ‘True. There are whispers already that I’m gay. Even on the amateur circuit, if you don’t have a girl in tow you’re looked on as odd. Among the pros . . . look no further than at the Ryder Cup. A guy gets divorced and there’s paper talk that the other players’ wives will freeze him out. They shouldn’t even be there! It’s a golf match, for fuck’s sake!’

  His outrage made me laugh. ‘If you make the team next year,’ I suggested, ‘and you don’t have a girlfriend, you may find that your mother doesn’t share that view.’

  I was still smiling as I picked up the phone next morning. ‘Can I come up for coffee?’ my friend asked.

  ‘And croissants, if you play your cards right. I’ve fed my guys, but I haven’t had my own yet. But shouldn’t you be heading in the other direction, for your office?’

  ‘You’re forgetting,’ he chuckled, ‘I’m acting boss. I decide where I go. Anyway, this is business of a sort.’

  ‘You’re not wrong,’ I agreed. ‘I have something to tell you as well.’

  By the time he arrived, just over half an hour later, I was showered and dressed, out of the house dress that I normally throw on when I get out of bed, and into denim cut-offs and a baggy T-shirt with a Gaudi motif, that I’d bought in Barcelona. By that time also, I’d phoned Shirley.

  Her voice sounded bleary, and I guessed her eyes matched. ‘Sleepless night?’ I asked her.

  ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘I take it he hasn’t been in touch.’

  ‘No, not a cheep; not a phone call, not a text, nothing. He’s a son of a bitch; that’s the long and short of it.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ I said. ‘Maybe there was a good reason for him going, one that he couldn’t tell you about.’

  ‘Huh,’ she snorted. ‘That doesn’t wash with me. My idea of a partnership is that you don’t keep secrets from each other.’

  She was quoting me back at myself. I’d said the same to her, word for word, not long after I’d moved back to St Martí and we’d renewed our friendship. ‘Yes,’ I conceded, ‘but remember this. We know that the man worked in a culture of secrecy. It’s his way; the sort of lifetime habit that can be hard to break.’

  ‘Are you trying to tell me you know something?’

  ‘No,’ I replied, truthfully. ‘I’m not trying to tell you anything. I’m asking how you are, that’s all.’ I heard the gate creak. ‘Look, I’ll come up and see you later. Bye for now.’

  Alex reached the door just as I opened it. I let him in and told him he should go to the first-floor terrace, unless he didn’t want to be seen with me that early in the morning.

  ‘People will talk, you mean?’ he laughed. ‘Let them, I’ll be in good company. People talk about you all the time, Primavera. For example, did you enjoy dinner last night? Are you sure the boy’s your nephew?’

  ‘How the hell did you know that?’ I demanded. ‘Have you got a spy in the village?’

  ‘Only you, my dear, I assure you. No, I called the office before I came here, and the sullen Magda was very quick to tell me about you. She and her boyfriend had dinner at Can Coll last night. She saw you walk past and go into Can Roura with, as she described him, your young lover. She added that a little later, when they were leaving, she looked in, through the open door and saw you kissing him.’

  I felt myself flush up. ‘Yes, platonically. Alex . . .’

  ‘Hey,’ he said, in his soothing voice, ‘I believe you. But even if your tongue was down his throat like she said, it’s your business, not mine. Most certainly it’s not Magda’s. She is not going to enjoy the job I’m going to give her when I get to Girona. I’m only telling you because I don’t want you to hear the story first from anyone else. For all I know, she’s phoned a newspaper by now. For her sake, I hope not; I’ll end the career of anyone I catch spreading gossip from my office. Now,’ he said, briskly, ‘come on, girl, what about these croissants?’

  I served them up on a tray, on the terrace, five minutes later. He’d finished the first of his before he said anything more. When he did, he began, ‘Jorge’s done some good work for me. He’s established that Christine McGuigan was what she said she was, a freelance journalist and photographer who used the name Christy Mann because it looked better on by-lines.’

  ‘It’ll look good on her tombstone too,’ I said, a little cruelly, I concede.

  ‘She was, as we knew already, twenty-seven years old,’ he continued, ‘born in Cork, Ireland, where her widowed father still lives. The Irish embassy in Madrid came up with her life story pretty quickly. She trained as a photographer on an evening paper in Dublin, then had a spell as a sports reporter with a satellite television station that’s no longer in existence.’ He paused. ‘She moved to Spain just over a year ago; that’s when she decided to become Christy Mann apparently. Since then she’s operated mostly on the Costa del Sol, but in other areas whenever she was given a specific commission. Most of her video work was for websites, but she did contribute photography to newspapers in Britain, Ireland and in Spain; all of it was as Christy. As Christine, she was a member of the National Union of Journalists of the UK and Ireland, but that lapsed. She never resigned formally; just stopped paying her subscription.’

  ‘What brought her to the golf tournament?’ I asked. ‘Did you find any lead in her room to who it was who hired her? She told me she was from an internet station that she called Spotlight Television, but given what became of her I don’t believe that any more.’

  He picked up his second croissant. ‘Primavera, we didn’t find anything. She was in the Novotel, right enough; she checked in on Thursday afternoon; as Christine McGuigan, incidentally, even though there’s no evidence of her having used that name in Spain before. She had a lime-green suitcase, the clerk recalled. There was no sign of it, or anything else, in her room; it had been stripped bare. There was nothing left, not so much as a toothbrush.’

  ‘Bugger,’ I murmured. ‘Her killer really didn’t want her identified, did he?’

  ‘Clearly not,’ Alex agreed, ‘as he’s shown by removing every clue to her identity, including her face, as he did with his first victim. I’m sure he didn’t expect her to be traced to the Novotel, but he covered that base just in case. But this time, we’ve been lucky, thanks to your run-in with her. And to me asking for her passport,’ he added. ‘Jorge’s established that she’s used the name Christy Mann since arriving in Spain. It’s on her tax identification document, on her bank accounts, in the telephone directory, everywhere we’ve looked.’

  ‘Then why did she have her Christine passport on her when you asked her for it?’

  ‘Because it’s the onl
y photo ID she had, and the airline she flew in on insist on that. She had to book her flight under her real name. Incidentally, she did that only on Wednesday, proving that she got a short-notice summons from whoever hired her.’ He grinned. ‘All that subterfuge overcome by a couple of pieces of blind luck. Without them, I doubt that we’d ever have identified the body. But we have, and that gives us an advantage. The murderer thinks he’s free and clear, but he’s not. Hopefully, just knowing who she is will lead us to him.’

  His voice was more confident than his eyes. ‘But you’re no nearer to knowing what links her to the man in the woods, are you?’ I observed. ‘Or to understanding what got them killed.’

  He shook his head, ruefully.

  ‘Then let me make your day,’ I said. From under the breakfast tray I took the large envelope I’d left there, and handed it to him. He opened it and withdrew a series of photographs, prints that I’d made, using my own camera as an interface with my computer, of the images on Christine McGuigan’s memory card.

  He stared at them, one by one. ‘What the hell are these?’ he hissed.

  I told him, and explained how I’d come by them. ‘She had no interest in selling photographs of Tom,’ I said. ‘The connection between your two bodies is what, or rather who, you suspected it was after the first murder. It’s Patterson Cowling, and it seems bloody clear from his reaction that he knows it too. Yes, Alex, his disappearance is your business after all.’

  He looked at the images, in silence, over and over again. He finished his second croissant, and his coffee. I poured him a refill.

  Finally, he turned to me. ‘Primavera, you are a remarkable woman, and I’m proud that you’re my friend. But in the real world, little lady detectives don’t exist. As the last few days have shown you, close up, the real world is a very dangerous place. I thank you for giving this to me. Now I tell you in all seriousness: whatever it is you think you might do from now on, forget it. Every aspect of this, including Mr Cowling’s disappearance, is now a police investigation.’