17 - Death's Door

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘Very well. If you say so. But how long has your investigation into the first death been running?’

  ‘Two months.’

  ‘Were that girl’s parents of any help to you?’

  ‘Yes, and they still are. Questions arise all the time, and often they help to answer them.’

  ‘Okay, okay.’ Boras sighed. ‘Go on, then.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said McGuire. ‘When was the last time either of you saw Zrinka?’

  ‘In February. She came home to see her mother.’

  ‘You were away at the time?’

  ‘No, I wasn’t, but she didn’t come to see me.’

  ‘Are you saying that you and she weren’t close?’

  Boras’s tiny eyes blazed. ‘I am saying that I am an extremely busy man, sir. Often I work from the moment that I rise until the moment that I retire. Zrinka knew that, and she understood. She and I got on well enough; we didn’t talk a lot, that was all.’

  ‘How long had she been in Edinburgh?’

  ‘For almost two years.’

  ‘Where did she live? Did she flat-share? All the records we’ve accessed so far show her as residing with you.’

  ‘She had a small flat off Princes Street,’ said Sanda Boras, slowly. ‘It has a view of the castle. She chose it and I bought it for her.’ Her husband seemed to stiffen in his chair. He stared at her, in evident surprise.

  Steele frowned. ‘We checked the property register yesterday,’ he murmured. ‘We didn’t find anything with your name.’

  ‘We used my family name, Kolar,’ the mother replied. ‘So my husband wouldn’t know. He is a kind man, you understand, but he believes that his children should either follow him into his business or make their own way in the world. Zrinka and her brother both chose to go their own way. I agree with him, you understand, but a little help doesn’t do harm. It’s a nice flat. She worked there.’ She smiled. ‘The place was a mess, always.’

  ‘Did she live there alone?’

  ‘Yes. Recently, that is. There was a man not long after she moved to Edinburgh, who stayed with her for a few months, but he moved on.’

  ‘Did they argue?’ McGuire asked.

  ‘Not that she told me. She said that it had run its course and that he had left. If she’d been upset about it, I’d have known.’

  ‘Did she say whether he was upset, the man?’

  ‘She told me they were agreed, that they apart as friends.’

  ‘Parted,’ Boras grunted.

  ‘Pardon, dear?’

  ‘You said “apart”. That is wrong. “Parted” is what you should have said.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She looked back towards the chief superintendent. ‘I’ve lived here for a long time, but my English, it is not yet perfect.’

  ‘Nobody’s is, Mrs Boras; especially not mine. My Italian’s probably better.’

  ‘Italian?’

  ‘I got that from my mother and my grandparents. My dad was Irish, a lovely man, but one of few words . . . long ones at any rate.’

  ‘My husband’s grandmother was Italian too. That is something you have in common.’

  The big detective glanced at Boras: he looked impatient and irascible. ‘The only thing, I reckon,’ he said gently. ‘Can you tell me anything about Zrinka’s boyfriend, this man?’

  ‘I never met him. I never came to visit her in Edinburgh after we bought the flat. I spoke to him only once, when I called Zrinka’s mobile and he answered.’

  ‘How did he sound? Did he have an accent?’

  Mrs Boras ran her right hand over her hair. Her reddened eyes creased slightly as she frowned, trying to summon up a memory. ‘He spoke well, as if he was educated: like many of the people we know in London.’

  ‘What was his name?’

  ‘Dominic. Dominic Padstow. That’s all I can tell you about him.’

  ‘Not him, then,’ Steele murmured.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Keith Barker interrupted.

  ‘We believe we’ve identified Zrinka’s companion in the tent,’ the inspector replied. ‘We found his belongings last night in the bushes, well away from where the body was hidden. They included a photographic driver’s licence in the name of Harry Paul, of Aberfeldy.’

  ‘That should be conclusive, shouldn’t it?’

  ‘No.’ Steele stared at Boras’s assistant, warning him not to take the matter further. ‘It still has to be formalised.’

  ‘Does that name mean anything to either you?’ asked McGuire, moving on quickly.

  Boras shook his head, but his wife nodded hers. ‘Zrinka mentioned him last time we spoke. She described him as her boyfriend of the moment, and that there was a good chance he could turn into more than that. She said he was nice, and seemed safe. Safe,’ she whispered. ‘That’s ironic, isn’t it?’

  ‘When was that, Mrs Boras? The last time you spoke?’

  ‘Sunday evening: I called her to ask what she was doing this week.’

  It occurred to the head of CID that the mother was becoming stronger the longer the interview lasted, and less reliant on her medication, while, somehow, her husband, when facing personal issues, might be the weaker of the two. ‘Can you remember what she said?’

  ‘Yes, I remember very well. She told me that she has an appointment,’ her husband twitched at her linguistic slip, but said nothing, ‘in North Berwick the next evening, with a gallery-owner who was interested in putting some of her work on show. She was going to take ten pictures down there, and she hoped he would take them all. She was pleased because his commission on his sales was less than the Edinburgh galleries. Zrinka was annoyed by the amount some of them wanted to charge her.’

  ‘She sold her work from a stall, I understand,’ said Steele.

  ‘That’s right. She told me that suppose she sell only one picture a week, the rent of the stall was less than the commission she would have paid to a gallery. If she sell two ...’

  Davor Boras seemed to rally. ‘She was my daughter, sir,’ he barked. ‘She knew that the fewer people between her and the buyer, the more she would make.’

  ‘Was she happy?’ McGuire asked the mother.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You never sensed anything troubling her, especially recently?’

  ‘No. My daughter was always happy; she loved Edinburgh, she loved her work.’

  ‘What was her ambition?’

  ‘She wanted to be famous in her own right. She loved to paint people caught off-guard in unusual situations. She had her own hero; she wanted to be another Jack Vettriano, with her work on posters all around the world. She signed everything “Zrinka”, with a great flourish, but never with her full name.’

  ‘Your family owns galleries. Isn’t that right?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Boras, ‘but the collections there are very serious. They are not places to indulge one’s daughter. Zrinka understood that she could not be hung there until she had come to justify it.’

  ‘But you have a passion for art, too?’

  ‘Passion? No it’s strictly business: art is a good investment. If one buys, and then puts the work on public display while it appreciates, that makes sense. My galleries do not offer free admission, and they do not run at a loss.’

  ‘I think I understand that,’ McGuire conceded. ‘But, if you’ll forgive me, I think you have a greater interest than you’re letting on. No matter, though. We know from her bank records that Zrinka was doing fairly well. Did she have any well-known customers?’

  Sanda Boras smiled for the first time since they had come into the room; for the first time, Steele guessed, since the chief super from the Met had driven up to her door. ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘She sold a picture to a footballer once; she was very pleased about that, although none of his team-mates followed his example, as far as I know. The most excited I remember her was a few months ago, early this year. She said that a man and his family had come to the stall, and that one of them, a woman, the man’s daughter, although the rest of them were childr
en, had bought a picture for him, an expensive picture. She told me that she recognised him from his picture in the papers, and that he was a very important man in Edinburgh.’

  ‘Can you remember his name?’

  ‘No. I don’t think she say his name. I had to go before she could.’

  McGuire turned back to Boras. ‘Your son, sir: does he know of his sister’s death?’

  ’Not from me,’ he replied. ‘Dražen and I do not speak very often, either. I have not seen him in almost a year. Nor has his mother, I believe . . .’ he paused ‘. . . although maybe I am wrong about that.’

  ‘No,’ said his wife, quietly, subdued once more.

  ‘You didn’t give him a little help?’ the head of CID asked her.

  ‘He wouldn’t ask, or accept it.’

  ‘My son has done well enough for himself,’ Boras exclaimed curtly.

  ‘Doing what, sir?’

  ‘Trying to prove that he is a better man than his father. Three years ago, once I had seen him through LSE and Harvard Business School, he turned his back on Continental IT, which he would have been running before he was thirty, and set up on his own, in direct competition to me, only his company runs entirely through a website. I wouldn’t have minded, but there was no original thinking in it at all. Everything he did, he copied from me. The last time we spoke I told him as much. He replied that I couldn’t expect to have all the market, and I should be happy with what he had left me. Hah! A website!’

  What’s it called? DraženBoras dot com?’

  ‘My son doesn’t use his family name any more. He anglicised it when he went to Harvard. Now he calls himself David Barnes. His company is called Fishheads dot Com. A nonsensical title.’

  ‘I’ve heard of it,’ McGuire admitted. ‘Nonsense maybe, but it’s not a name you’d forget. It supplies our family business with bulk stationery and consumables. Paula, my partner, swears by it.’

  ‘Mr Boras is more inclined to swear at it,’ said Barker. The beginnings of a smile at his small joke appeared on his face, but vanished under his employer’s glare.

  ‘It’s doing well, then?’ Boras said nothing. ‘I’ll take that as yes,’ the head of CID continued. ‘Don’t you think you should contact your son, though? This is going to go public very shortly.’

  ‘I told you. We have no contact with him. My son betrayed me; he is a stranger to me and to his mother, God damn him.’

  ‘I’ve tried to reach him.’ Camilla Britto’s voice came across the room, from a chair beside the window. ‘I have a home number for him. He called me one day, and gave it to me, for use only in case of extreme family crisis. I called it this morning, while Sanda was asleep, but it was on answer mode. I left a voice message, telling him where we are, and asking him to call his parents urgently.’

  Boras twisted powerfully in his chair. ‘Did you not hear what I just said? You interfere in my family affairs, woman? As soon as we get back to London, you’re fired.’

  ‘No, she’s not, Davor,’ his wife told him calmly. ‘Camilla works for me, not you. If there’s any firing to be done I’ll do it, and I wouldn’t start with her. She’s handled this exactly the right way, as you’ll see when your anger lets you think logically again.’

  Twenty-nine

  Maggie Rose looked around her dingy office. When she had moved in there, into a senior command position, she had not given a second’s thought to the end of her police career. If by some chance she had imagined that day, she would never have foreseen that it would have come there, or then.

  She smiled at the prospect, simultaneously amused and amazed that she had reached her decision.

  Overnight, she had managed to put her meeting with Aldred Fine into perspective. She had done some Internet research and had seen that there were many potential explanations for her ovarian shadow. The one that she favoured was that it was a simple mistake, a misleading shading caused by the technology that had spotted it. She was confident that everything would soon be clarified and the worry removed, without Stevie ever having to learn of it. She was pleased, oddly, that her decision to leave the force had not been influenced in any way by what might be or, much more likely, might not be wrong with her.

  There was a soft knock on the door. She looked up and called, ‘Enter.’ It opened and a young man stepped into the room, with a hesitancy that was unusual for him.

  ‘Yes, Sauce,’ Chief Superintendent Margaret Rose said cheerfully, on her last day in command. ‘What can I do for you?’

  Police Constable Harold Haddock stood stiffly before her. He had changed since the day she had appointed him as her unofficial leg-man, when first she had taken temporary command of the division. The gawky lad she had seen then had grown an inch or so and had filled out. From seeming to be composed almost entirely of elbows, he had become broad-shouldered and thick-chested, someone not to be messed with in a bundle, as he had proved on street patrol on more than one occasion. Maggie was not known to play favourites, but if she had been so inclined, young Sauce Haddock would have been one of them.

  ‘Nothing, ma’am,’ he replied. ‘I’m sorry if I’m being presumptuous, but I’m going to do it anyway. I know we’re having a goin’-away do for you tomorrow afternoon, and I’m coming in for it, but I’m off from lunchtime today. While I’ve the chance I’d like to thank you, just myself, for doing so much for me.’

  She swallowed, completely taken aback and uncharacteristically touched. She looked at him, masking her feelings with a straight face. ‘I haven’t done anything for you, Constable. Everything you’ve achieved so far you’ve done on your own merits.’

  ‘If that’s so, ma’am,’ he insisted, ‘it’s because of your encouragement. I just want to wish you luck, and I look forward to seeing you back here when you’re ready.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you, Sauce, and I don’t think it’s presumptuous at all.’ She smiled. ‘What I just said about not doing anything for you: that’s not quite true.’

  ‘I ken, ma’am.’

  ‘No, you don’t get me. I was going to tell you this later, but I might as well spill it now. You know that our CID’s been flying one short since my husband stole DC Montell? By the way, he swears he didn’t but he’s getting the blame. Well, I’ve had a word with my ex-husband and with Detective Superintendent Chambers, and they’re both agreed. You are the replacement.’

  The young constable’s face widened. ‘Are you serious, ma’am?’ he exclaimed. ‘I reckoned I wouldn’t have a chance of CID for at least another couple of years.’

  ‘Normally you wouldn’t, but this force has a recent history of picking out people with potential and giving them a chance to fulfil it. Initially you’ll be working with Detective Sergeant Regan; report to him on Monday morning. Make sure you learn as much as you can from him: he’s a pretty good teacher.’

  ‘I will do, ma’am. I can’t thank you enough.’

  ‘You’ll have thanked me when you’re sitting behind this desk or one like it.’ Her phone rang. ‘On you go now,’ she said, as she picked it up. ‘Rose,’ she exclaimed, as the door closed behind him.

  ‘Maggie,’ a woman’s voice replied, ‘it’s Sylvia Thorpe here. I’ve got some information for you. I’m putting it in the post as we agreed, but I thought I should give you a run-down.’

  There was something in her tone that punctured Maggie’s good humour. ‘Go ahead then.’

  ‘I’ve found both the registrations you were after. Your grandmother’s cause of death is given as uterine cancer, that’s all. Your aunt Euphemia’s is more specific: she died of pneumonia.’

  Maggie whistled. ‘Terrible thing to say but that’s a relief.’

  ‘Maybe yes, maybe not: the underlying cause was ovarian and stomach cancer.’

  The butterfly that she had fluttered the day before seemed to have evolved overnight into a rending carrion bird.

  ‘I’m sorry, Maggie,’ said Thorpe. ‘But if I read the reason for your request correctly, you should share this inform
ation with your consultant.’

  ‘I plan to do that.’

  ‘And with your husband.’

  ‘That I will not do, until it’s absolutely necessary, or unavoidable.’ She drew a breath. ‘Sylvia, you wouldn’t do anything silly, would you?’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t, I promise. But, please, think about talking to Stevie.’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ Maggie replied. ‘Be sure I’ll think about it. But that’s not my priority: our child is. She’s more important than anyone else.’

  Thirty

  ‘Is this going to be the norm?’ Alan Royston whispered.

  ‘Ours not to reason, mate,’ Mario McGuire replied.

  They were standing in the office of Chief Constable Sir James Proud, by a side door and far enough away not to be overheard as the head of the force extended welcoming hospitality to Davor Boras and Keith Barker. ‘I do not like these affairs,’ the media manager continued. ‘Why did you agree to it? Having parents at our press conferences, getting emotional and so on; I always feel uncomfortable.’

  ‘You’re a control freak, Alan, that’s your problem.’

  ‘Too fucking right I am, especially when we’re briefing on a very difficult homicide, with nothing positive to say.’

  ‘Hey, come on. Stevie and I got new lines of enquiry from our interview with the parents, and I’m going to tell the media as much.’

  ‘Why did the mother not come? Is she flaky, or half comatose with Valium?’

  ‘No, she’s together, but she’s a background player in this family. He’s the main man, or has to be seen to be at any rate.’

  ‘Okay, but what’s that smarmy bastard Barker doing sticking his nose in? This is the first time I’ve ever had to clear a press release with someone outside the official circle.’

  ‘The ACC says that’s the way they wanted it, and that he saw no good reason to interfere. Did you moan to him about it?’

  ‘No,’ Royston confessed.

  ‘Would you have moaned to big Bob if he was here, and had given it the okay?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So why the fuck are you moaning to me?’