‘Yes, that’s true. Off on the Picasso trail, as she put it, with her young friend.’
‘Davis Colledge?’
‘That’s him.’
‘Friend? Or boyfriend?’
‘Moving towards the latter status, I’d say. My daughter is well aware of the duties and responsibilities of a teacher towards pupils. . all pupils, that is, not only her own. But Davis is off to art school now, and a studio apartment, as she told me they’d booked, doesn’t really allow for young people being just good friends.’
‘Art school? That’s where he’s going?’
‘Yes. He has a place at Edinburgh. He’s a very committed young man, and very talented, Sugar says.’
‘Is there anyone else in Sugar’s life? Another man?’
‘That’s how you’re thinking, is it? A lover cast aside?’
‘That’s one of the first directions we take in an investigation like this,’ Stallings admitted.
Dean frowned. ‘I doubt if it will get you far. Her last serious involvement was two years ago, with a bloke called Theo Weekes. The fact is, they were engaged, but he broke it off.’
‘Do you know why?’ asked Stallings.
‘He went off with someone else, Sugar told me. She didn’t volunteer any more, but I could tell that she was hurt very badly. Now that I think about it, it’s only since she’s been friendly with Davis that she’s been back to her old self.’
‘Did she ever see Mr Weekes after the engagement ended?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘Have you any idea where we could find him?’
‘Probably by checking with your personnel department. He’s a police constable; or, at least, he was then. . or at least that’s what he said he was. Us dads, we tend to accept our daughters’ involvements regardless of personal feelings: if we have reservations we keep them to ourselves. I never took to Weekes, and I was secretly pleased when it ended. The man was such a shit that I wouldn’t put it past him to have made the police thing up.’
‘Where was he stationed? Or, rather, where did he tell you he was stationed?’
‘Livingston.’
‘Thanks.’
‘About boyfriends,’ Dean mused. ‘If you look at old flames routinely, what about new ones?’
The inspector frowned. ‘We will be interviewing Davis,’ she replied, ‘as soon as we can find him. He was last seen heading for France to meet Sugar. Why do you ask? Did you have doubts about him?’
The teacher shook his head. ‘No. He’s a very impressive young man. But when something like this happens. . I’m just discovering that you see the devil in everyone.’
‘I know. In my career, I’ve met too many people in your situation.’
‘Then, if I can be brutal,’ the bereaved father asked, ‘in how many of those cases did the boyfriend do it?’
Stallings sighed. ‘Mr Dean, I’m new to this force, so I’m still moving cautiously. It could be more than my job’s worth to give you a straight answer to that question.’
‘Then forget I asked.’ He drew his shoulders back. ‘These DNA samples; how do we give them?’
‘I’ll send forensic officers round as soon as possible; they’ll do it. A saliva swab from each of you is all they’ll need.’
‘Okay.’ As Dean led her back towards his wife, the inspector saw that Haddock was seated on the couch, speaking to her quietly. For the first time she understood why he had been fast-tracked into CID.
As they stepped out into the crescent, she thanked him.
‘What for, ma’am?’
‘Comforting the mother. Not many people can do that. Most of us just stand stiff and stare ahead.’
‘It’s how I was brought up,’ he replied.
‘What did you talk about?’
‘Sugar. You know how she got the name? Mrs Dean’s favourite film is Some Like It Hot. Poor woman was almost embarrassed to tell me that she called her daughter after Marilyn Monroe’s character.’
Sixteen
Maggie Steele, as she always thought of herself now, smiled at her daughter, asleep in the carry-cot that was part of something called by its manufacturer a ‘baby travel system’. They were alone, Bet having gone to a late-afternoon movie.
‘It’s an easy life being two months old, isn’t it?’ she whispered. Stephanie made a small noise, but dozed on, as her mother walked over to the desk that she and her father had once shared.
A brown envelope lay there: it had been delivered half an hour earlier by a uniformed constable from police headquarters at Fettes. She took a deep breath, then opened it and removed its contents.
The document was slimmer than she had expected, but as she looked at the list of sections she realised that it dealt only with events directly related to Stevie’s death, and did not include the detailed investigation into the Ballester murders. Also, if the original had contained crime-scene photographs showing her husband’s body, as she guessed it would have, they had been omitted from the copy.
‘You might have given me one of Boras, Mario,’ she murmured. ‘You might have let me see his face. Or did you think that might upset me?’
She opened the report and began to read, slowly and carefully, taking note of every detail, even those that were seemingly insignificant. Twenty minutes later she finished. ‘There’s nothing there that I didn’t know already,’ she said, to no-one other than her sleeping daughter.
Dražen Boras, tycoon son of a tycoon father, had been very clever. He had set up two unwitting detective constables to provide his alibi. It would have stood, too, but for the tenacity of Bob Skinner and Mario McGuire, and the investigative skill, bordering on genius, of Detective Inspector Arthur Dorward, the force’s senior scene-of-crime officer. Thanks to them, the case against Boras had been made.
But to no avaiclass="underline" the killer had evaded capture. He had fled the country in a private plane, just as the net was being readied to close around him. ‘Or, rather,’ Maggie whispered, ‘they assumed that he fled the country.’
She picked up the phone and called McGuire’s private number at Fettes. ‘Mario,’ she said urgently, as he answered, ‘thanks for the report. I’ve just finished reading it. Tell me something: how did the Met establish that he had left the country?’
‘His father’s company jet was missing from its hangar. Davor Boras said that he had no idea where it had gone, and nobody could prove different.’
‘What about the flight plan?’
‘There was none, but the plane had the range to cross the Atlantic.’
‘So that’s where the Met assumed he was headed?’
‘Yes, but they had other reasons to believe that.’
‘Did anyone search for him in England? Were commercial flights and ferry crossings monitored? Was the Channel Tunnel checked?’
‘No. They were dead sure he’s gone to the US.’
‘And what if they were wrong? What if he didn’t head for America? What if the plane was simply moved somewhere else?’
McGuire sighed. ‘Then he could have gone anywhere.’
‘He could still be in Britain.’
‘Risky.’
‘He’s used an assumed name in the past, to distance himself from his father. Okay, he can’t call himself David Barnes any more, but what if he had a third identity, ready and waiting?’
‘It would be typical behaviour for him, but, Mags, don’t count on him being in Britain.’
‘I’m not, but at least I’ve got somewhere to go from here.’
Seventeen
‘Any joy, Jack?’ asked Stallings, as she stepped back into the mobile police station, which was still parked outside the golf club. ‘Have you managed to contact Davis Colledge?’
‘No, boss,’ McGurk replied. ‘I’ve tried the mobile number you gave me, but the network says it’s switched off. There’s no voicemail available either. The best I’ve been able to do with it is send him a text, asking him to contact us about Sugar Dean.’
‘That could alarm him.’
‘Frankly, I don’t care. We need to talk to him; if I have to give him a shake to make him call us, so be it.’