17 - Death's Door

by Quintin Jardine

  Dennis drew a long, deep breath. ‘I’d tell them to piss off,’ she admitted.

  ‘Then will you tell them that for me, please? If I can prove that Dražen Boras killed Stevie Steele, I’m going to have him.’ His smile vanished. ‘However, if you want to give them some comfort, you can tell them that I’ll have a real problem doing that.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because right now I’ve got two detective constables giving him an alibi.’

  Seventy-two

  Maggie settled into her chair and breathed a sigh of relief. For much of the day, Stevie’s father had been declaring that he and his mother would stay for another night, to look after her, as he had put it. ‘Stevie would have wanted us to,’ he had said more than once, until finally she had taken him aside and had told him that a house could only hold so much grief, and that in fact Stevie would have told them to go back to Dunfermline and allow her some space.

  Margot Wilding had phoned her at eight thirty, expecting to be told that the start of her new job would be postponed, but she had asked her to come as agreed. Her bright presence had brought some light into the morning, but Maggie knew that it would be only a brief respite before the things that had to be done.

  Mr Steele . . . she rarely called him anything else . . . had come with her to the undertaker’s in the patrol car that had called for her at noon. She had felt a sense of intrusion then too, but she could not have forbidden him.

  Bob Skinner had been right: Stevie’s body had been unmarked, when she had seen him lying there in his coffin.

  But he hadn’t looked like Stevie either, only a pale likeness of someone very young, a waxen model, in his cremation garb. Of course she had broken down, and at that time she had been grateful for her father-in-law’s strong support, glad that she had let him come.

  Once that desperate part was over she had to put some purpose into her day, by discussing funeral arrangements with the undertaker, settling for Friday, at Mortonhall Crematorium, the easiest for Stevie’s family and friends to access from Fife. There had been a reception to arrange at the Braid Hills Hotel, and she had done that too, ready and willing to use police transport to get there and finally to return home.

  Her father-in-law, a good man, no doubting that, had made an evening meal, since his wife was still incapable of anything. They had eaten together, and then the Steeles had left, still a little reluctantly. ‘Are you sure now?’ Stevie’s dad had said, even as she was closing the door on him.

  As the day had worn on it had begun to worry her that she did not feel exhausted. But as she sank down into the soft upholstery, and the last of the adrenalin had worked itself out of her system, tiredness caught up with her. She put a hand on her bump and whispered, ‘Just you and me now, kid,’ as her eyes grew heavier.

  She had dozed off when the phone rang. She blinked herself awake and picked up the cordless handset from her lap, then pressed the receive symbol. ‘Hello,’ she said drowsily.

  ‘Margaret, is that you?’ The voice was strained, urgent.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Margaret, it’s Bet. I don’t know how to ask this . . .’

  She was wide awake now. ‘It’s true,’ she said. ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘From the BBC website; it’s one of the things I check first thing in the morning, before I start my day. Normally I look at the world version, but today I clicked on the UK edition as well, and I saw a news item about a policeman being killed. When I saw the name . . . Oh, Sis, it’s terrible. Why you?’

  ‘Why anyone?’ She felt the tears threaten again and bit her lip. Yet in the same moment she felt an enormous wave of something that she could describe as relief, at this reminder that she was not alone in the world, that she still had blood out there. ‘It’s the fickle fucking finger of fate.’

  ‘Well, it should have pointed somewhere else.’

  Maggie made a decision. ‘Bet,’ she said, ‘I hardly know you as an adult. Are you a strong person?’

  ‘I reckon,’ her sister replied.

  ‘Then let me tell you everything.’

  Seventy-three

  As soon as McGuire stepped through the door of the old pub, he saw two familiar faces, sitting at a tiny table near the bar, the only people in that small area. They recognised him at once, but that was no compliment for their special skills included instant recognition of almost everyone they had ever seen. Their names were Queenstown and Strivens, and they were fellow police officers, but he had no idea of their rank because that was irrelevant on the Prime Minister’s close-protection squad.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said the fair-haired Queenstown, the taller and slimmer of the two, ‘are the Scots invading?’

  ‘We control this place already, man,’ the big Scot replied, ‘you know that. From the top down, starting with the guy you work for.’

  ‘Yours is in the back bar,’ Strivens told him. ‘He came in ten minutes ago, bought us a pint and then went off in search of food. Good luck to him: it’s just gone nine so the pies will be pretty solid by now. It must be heavy stuff.’

  ‘The pies?’

  ‘Nah!’ Strivens laughed. ‘Whatever brings you two down here together.’

  ‘Rollover from an investigation, that’s all. The gaffer had to go off and see a mate; he called me and told me to meet him in the Red Lion, Whitehall.’ He glanced around. ‘I’ve never been here before. You won’t find too many places like this left in Edinburgh.’

  ‘None at all. We’re half-way between Downing Street and the Palace of Westminster. Everyone in here’s a face of some sort or another; the place is an unofficial safehouse for coppers and politicians.’

  ‘Sorry about young Stevie,’ said Queenstown, quietly. ‘What the hell made the guy rig the place after he croaked himself?’

  ‘Nutter,’ McGuire growled. ‘Blaze of glory, they reckon. It didn’t happen on our patch, so it’s Northumbria’s job to figure it all out.’

  ‘God help them, then, with Mr Skinner looking over their shoulders.’

  ‘Through there, you said?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Thanks. Maybe see you next time your man’s up north.’ He pushed his way through a swing door and found himself in a much bigger area, long and narrow, with a wooden-topped bar taking up most of its space, and with its own entrance. His way was blocked by four people, two of whom were high-profile television journalists. Their companions’ faces were familiar also; he knew that they were junior government ministers, but failed to put a name to either. They fell silent and stood aside quickly at his ‘Excuse me, please.’ He guessed that dark, muscular strangers always had that effect on conversations in the Red Lion.

  Skinner was sitting at the far end of the room. There was a plate in front of him, clean but for a smear of tomato sauce, and an almost empty glass. McGuire pointed. Skinner nodded. ‘Adnams,’ he said.

  ‘Two of them, please,’ he told the barman.

  When they were filled, settled, topped up and paid for, he carried both pints across to the DCC’s table and joined him. ‘Pies okay?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, but not as good as that fucking restaurant I left you in. I was expecting to be taken to Lockett’s, but my friend had a date.’

  ‘Your friend?’

  ‘Amanda, Thames House, top floor.’

  McGuire whistled. ‘Your message really got through. Who was looking in on us?’ He paused. ‘Can we talk here?’

  ‘Yes, it’s clean. I checked it with my wee box.’

  He glanced at the journalists and their friends. ‘So it really is a safehouse,’ he murmured.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing; just something the guys next door said.’

  ‘Cerberus?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘The three-headed dog that guards the entrance to Hades ... or, rather, the exit, for who would want to get in? It’s what I call Queenstown and Strivens, because they’re such a unit. Okay, I know, they’re one head short, but it fits.’

 
‘Hell, boss! What sort of a mood are you in?’

  ‘The sort that comes over me when I’m trying to figure out how somebody could have been in two places at once. To answer your question, when we were with Boras, we were talking to people he’s been involved with for over fifteen years. On Saturday, he was acting on his own, but he’s still under their umbrella.’ Succinctly, keeping his voice low, he summarised Amanda Dennis’s message.

  ‘We’re being warned off by them? Does that mean we have to start checking under our cars every morning?’

  ‘No. It’s a bluff. But it might as well have been a warning. If Dražen didn’t kill Stevie, although I’m damn near certain he did, then we will never know who did.’

  ‘Boss, I met the man myself. He walked into our office in Queen Charlotte Street at around two fifteen, and the boys took him round to the Waterfront, where I saw him. You’ve read Montell’s report of their discussion in the investigation file. He got back from Los Angeles that morning, found out what had happened to his sister, went to see his folks, and caught a BA flight up to Edinburgh. He checked into the George, then took a taxi down to Leith. The pathologist has Ballester dying at half past twelve, in Wooler. He couldn’t have done it.’

  Skinner frowned. ‘There’s flexibility in the time of death. Suppose he killed the guy an hour earlier? He could have got to Edinburgh from Wooler by road in that time.’

  McGuire shook his head. ‘But not from London to Wooler by road, no way.’

  ‘Fly to Newcastle, hire a car?’

  ‘No time and eminently traceable.’

  ‘Fuck it!’ Skinner snapped. ‘Private plane? Davor has one.’

  ‘It’s a jet. Brian Mackie’s a plane anorak; he met it at Turnhouse. He told me the thing could cross the Atlantic. You won’t land that in the fucking Cheviots and take off again.’

  ‘No.’ The DCC looked down at his glass, and realised that his second pint was almost gone. ‘Mario, I need to shut my brain down for a while. I’m in danger of becoming obsessive. I’ve promised Maggie that I’ll find Stevie’s killer; if I can’t . . .’

  ‘Then you can’t, big man, and that’ll be an end of it. Nobody will ever blame you for not trying.’

  Skinner rose to his feet. ‘I will, son,’ he said. ‘Two more, please,’ he called to the barman.

  Seventy-four

  ‘Thanks, Griff.’ Sammy Pye took the report from Montell. The new DI had arrived in the office at five minutes past eight to find the South African already there.

  ‘I finished that last night,’ the detective constable told him. ‘I’ve been through every file and every folder on that disk. I can tell you just about everything there is to know about the personal and business life of Daniel Ballester, and I’m glad the bastard’s dead.’

  ‘Me too. I’ll read through it.’ As the door of his office closed once more he began to read. Montell’s paper was well structured: it began with a printout of Ballester’s diary entries over a three-year period. There was no detail, only times and venues of appointments, with individuals identified by initials. His involvement with Zrinka Boras was identifiable on that basis, as was his liaison with Stacey Gavin. On the day of her death, there was a single entry: ‘SQ’. Then on the day before Zrinka’s murder, another, ‘NB’.

  ‘South Queensferry, North Berwick,’ Pye murmured. He moved on to the descriptions of each of the folders on the disk, beginning with ‘My Pictures’. Montell’s summary revealed that there were few. There were some from Ballester’s youth and childhood, but the main concentration was in the folders marked ‘Zrinka’ and ‘Stacey’. They included intimate shots of both women, and in Stacey’s folder was a nude shot of Ballester himself, taken by Stacey while he posed for her portrait, for the next image was one of the young artist, partly hidden by a canvas on an easel, brush in hand.

  From ‘My Pictures’, Pye moved on to a group under a one-word heading, ‘Business’. He read through printouts of each one; each contained detail of a story on which the journalist had been involved, with notes, interview summaries and frank opinions, which, to Pye, revealed much more about the author than about his subjects. As he progressed, he understood why Montell had found the man repellent: the notes showed the man inside, and not, he was sure, the Ballester that Zrinka and Stacey had thought, at first, that they knew. As he read, he was certain that Zrinka must have come upon these files, and that they had brought their relationship to an end.

  And yet: Pye checked the list once, then again. He reached across his desk and found a pad on which was scrawled the number of the Royal Horseguards Hotel. He picked up his phone and dialled. The receptionist answered on the second ring.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘I’m trying to contact one of your overnight guests, Mr McGuire.’

  There was a pause, and then, ‘He hasn’t checked out yet. I’ll try his room.’

  He waited, until a familiar voice answered, a shade gruffly.

  ‘Morning, boss, it’s Sammy. How are you?’

  ‘Never go on the piss with Bob Skinner. What’s up, Sam?’

  ‘Maybe nothing, but I thought you should know. Montell’s done a full analysis of Ballester’s computer. Most of his sad life’s there, all his seedy stories, even the Diana nonsense, but there’s one thing that isn’t. There is nothing relating to Davor Boras or his company. Yet he spent a whole chunk of his life digging into it. Does it strike you as passing strange that there’s nothing about it?’

  McGuire was fully awake in an instant. ‘It sure does. And I’m afraid it’s going to give the bloke along the corridor a whole new lease of life.’

  Seventy-five

  ‘He’s sure about that?’ Skinner exclaimed. ‘There are no entries on Boras?’

  ‘Montell’s thorough,’ McGuire told him. ‘Sammy wouldn’t have called me if he’d been in any doubt.’

  ‘And here was me ready to give up. I’ve lain awake half the night thinking that I’m an impressionable fool, down here because of a flight of Arthur Dorward’s fancy. You know the techs. They always want to show they’re the cleverest kids in school. But now . . .’

  ‘Arthur only deals in fact. He told you what was and wasn’t there and you drew conclusions, which I support.’

  ‘So what are your conclusions from the fact that while Ballester’s entire career as a journalist can be traced through his computer, there’s nothing at all on the one that ties him to Boras?’

  ‘They were wiped by whoever killed him. And that brings me back to Dražen, the only person we know of that his secretive father might trust with the task.’

  ‘Yet he was flying at the time Ballester was killed,’ Skinner pointed out.

  ‘That’s if he was the man who got on the plane,’ said McGuire. ‘I’ve been doing some after-midnight thinking as well. What if a substitute caught the flight to Edinburgh?’

  ’That still leaves Dražen with the seemingly impossible task of getting to Wooler in time to kill Ballester, then get up to Edinburgh.’

  ‘He’s a rich man too.’

  ‘Another plane? Mario, get Sammy on line, please.’ He waited as McGuire called Pye on his mobile, then took it as it was handed over.

  ‘This is the DCC,’ he said. ‘I want your team to get on to the Civil Aviation Authority and check their records for all aircraft owned personally by Davor Boras, his son Dražen, also known as David Barnes, and by any companies they might control. I know of one, a jet belonging to Daddy, so disregard that. If you get any other results, find out where those planes are based, and when their last recorded movements were.

  ’Also, I want to know if Dražen, or David Barnes for that matter, has a pilot’s licence. Finally, I want you to check flight arrivals from JFK at Heathrow on Saturday morning, looking for Dražen, under either of his names, and departures from there to Edinburgh at midday.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Do I call you back on this number?’

  ‘No, you won’t be able to. DCS McGuire or I will call you, when we can.’


  ‘I’d better get on with it, then, boss.’ The line went dead.

  ‘That’s under way,’ said Skinner, reaching for his jacket. ‘Let’s book ourselves in here for another night, just in case.’

  ‘We’re not going straight home?’

  ‘Hell, no. We’re going back to where I was last night.

  You’ve done your Special Branch stint, now it’s time you saw where the real game’s played. Let me stretch that memory of yours. When you saw Dražen on Saturday, can you remember how he was dressed?’

  ‘Yes, I can. No way could I have forgotten it.’

  Seventy-six

  ‘I am not comfortable with this, Bob,’ said Amanda Dennis. ‘You giving two fingers to the people in Langley is one thing, but my being seen to help you do it, that’s quite another.’

  ‘Mandy,’ Skinner cajoled, ‘we both know that you’re as annoyed with them as I am. Besides, eventually I’ll get what I’m looking for; all I’m asking you to do is save me some time.’

  ‘You are a persuasive old sod,’ she exclaimed. ‘On second thoughts delete the “old”: you’re younger than me. Come on.’

  She led Skinner and McGuire, the latter unusually silent, out of her office and across to the lift. They took it down to the third floor and stepped into a corridor with a door at the end. She entered a code into a keypad on the wall then swung it open. ‘This is our counter-terrorist section,’ she said, for McGuire’s benefit. ‘Not nearly as flashy as you see on the telly, but the job is much the same.’

  Heads turned as they crossed the floor; Skinner recognised one or two faces from previous visits. They stopped at a desk the size of a dining table where a man was working at a computer terminal. He was in shirtsleeves, wore glasses and was totally bald; whether by nature or design, neither visitor could tell. ‘Adrian,’ she murmured, ‘these are two friends of ours from the north, Bob and Mario. They’re working on something very sensitive and need your help; give them what they need, please. Gentlemen, come back up when you’re done.’