‘But even he fell to the might of a graduate of the Edinburgh school,’ said McIlhenney, grinning.
‘He hasn’t fallen yet,’ Martin countered tersely. ‘I won’t be happy until the jury comes in and says, “Guilty,” and the judge gives him a minimum of thirty years. . as she will when she reads the autopsy report. Even then, we’ll have to hide the witnesses, maybe abroad.’
‘What about the kid?’ asked McGuire.
‘James Dickson? He’s in limbo. Like I said, he was wide, but he got revenge for his dad by grassing Grandpa. If he’d just killed him. . You know the code, that would have been understood, admired even, but instead he shopped him. He’s got no friends anywhere. The wild side will shun him, and we don’t like him much either. He’ll go as far away as his mum. After that, it’s up to him.’
‘That’s too bad for him, Andy, but I didn’t mean him. I was talking about Grandpa’s grandchild.’
‘Granddaughter. Cameron McCullough; christened so, believe it or not, after Grandpa. That’s his real name.’
‘That’s okay these days. There’s Cameron Diaz: she’s a girl.’
‘This one’s twenty-one now.’
‘I’d worked that out. How does she feel about Grandpa killing her dad?’
‘She’s twenty-one, and she drives a Mercedes SLK. I’d say she’s come to terms with it.’
McIlhenney shook his head. ‘Lovely family. But at least they’re simple and uncomplicated. You know what they are; you know what you’re dealing with.’
‘That sounds a bit ominous.’
‘It is. Just before you came along, we had a video conference through the computer with the big man, out in Spain. He wasn’t alone; he had a local detective with him, a woman, high-ranking.’
Martin grunted. ‘And there you were, telling me that this was only a social gathering.’
‘See, you top brass,’ said McGuire, ‘you’re too smart for the likes of us. The fact is, we lied. . not that we wouldn’t be asking you for a beer anyway, while you’re here. The boss told us to bring you in on it.’
‘So what was this video conference about?’
‘This,’ McIlhenney replied, handing him two sheets of photo-quality paper. ‘Those were taken with a Polaroid and scanned into Bob’s system, but they’re clear enough. It happened in L’Escala this morning: he found her.’
Martin studied them one by one. The first showed a naked woman, lying serenely in the sun. She looked for all the world as if she was asleep, but he guessed that she would never waken again. The second was a close-up shot of the back of her head; it was darker, but as he peered at it he saw, in the parting of her hair, a small wound. ‘What the hell does this mean?’ he whispered.
‘It means that our copycat theory is right back in place, but that he’s moved abroad. The dead woman, Nadine Sebastian, was an artist.’
‘And what about Weekes, the cop that your team has banged up, ready for court tomorrow? Last I heard you were ready to charge him with murder.’
‘Not quite,’ said McGuire. ‘We were leaving that up to Gregor Broughton. In fact, we still are.’
‘Have you told the defence about this?’
‘Not yet. That can keep.’
‘You’ll have to disclose at some point.’
‘Maybe, but not now. The bastard can sweat it out for a while longer. We’ve got him on other charges.’
‘But you’ve got no direct evidence of murder?’
‘We’ve got him at the scene, and we’ve got him concealing the crime for ten whole days while the poor girl decomposed. And we’ve got him nicking a trophy from the body. A smoking gun in his hand? No, we don’t have that.’
‘He’s saying he found her?’
‘Maybe he did at that.’
‘Still,’ Martin muttered, ‘you’re right. Fuck him. Let him spend a sleepless night on a hard bed in the Torphichen Place cells. He deserves it. Who’s his agent?’
‘Frankie Birtles.’
‘Miss Bristles, is it? We don’t owe her any favours either.’
‘I don’t think she’s bothered,’ said McIlhenney. ‘According to Becky Stallings, by the time Weekes had finished dictating his statement, she was looking at him like he was something nasty she’d just found in her boyfriend’s underpants.’
Martin held up the images, gazing at them. ‘So where do you go with this?’ he asked.
‘We’re sending all the forensics on the Dean case to the Spanish for comparison.’›
‘How much do you have?’
‘Not a hell of a lot. We’ve got the bullet and various foreign DNA samples from the victim’s clothing. Most of them are animal, but five of them are human. One sample turned out to be from Lord Archibald.’
‘The ex-Lord Advocate? Used to be Archie Nelson?’
‘He found the body,’ McIlhenney told him. ‘I’m sorry about that. I’d have liked him on the bench when Weekes goes to the High Court.’
‘I can guess why. What about the other samples?’
‘One was from her dad, one from her mum. The other two, we haven’t identified.’
‘Weekes?’
‘Hers was on his jacket. They reckon he must have pulled some hairs out when he took the necklace she was wearing.’
‘So, where are you now?’ Martin asked.
‘Like I said, the copycat notion is back in play, but with a twist. Davis Colledge, the boyfriend, has gone walkabout in the South of France, not too hellish far from L’Escala where that girl was killed.’
‘Indeed?’ he mused. ‘I’m down here investigating a potential leak of information from the Ballester investigation to a second murderer, who’s imitating his style of killing.’ He smiled. ‘But if that has happened, how would such a leak get to the kid, if he’s a suspect?’
‘Andy,’ said McGuire, ‘he’s our only viable suspect. He was close to the dead girl, and he’s geographically placed to have killed the Spanish victim, another artist, as Neil said. Plus he’s one himself, a painter.’
‘How would he know about the newest one, Sebastian?’
‘I knew you’d ask me that, so before you came along I Googled her name on my computer and up she popped. She’s got a website, in Spanish, Catalan, French and English. She was thirty-two years old, with a studio in a town called Bellcaire, and a gallery to display her works, mainly painting, but some sculpture, all of it with a Christian theme. It says that her philosophy is “to create a universe of simplicity and impressive impact”, and the stuff it displays is fucking good. . to my reasonably educated eye at least: my mum’s a bit of a painter, remember. She’s exhibited in Barcelona, Paris, Leipzig, New York, and. . wait for it. . last year, at the Edinburgh International Festival.’
‘Okay, that’s two ways he could have known about her.’ Martin paused. ‘As for knowing about the Ballester killings, the question I asked a minute ago was a wee bit rhetorical. For your ears only, I’ve found the leak. . or, rather, a leak, for there could still be more than one. That unpleasant wee man Joe Dowley couldn’t resist bragging about the investigation to his pals at the Rotary. The branch secretary’s getting me a list of attendees on the night in question.’
‘You’ll pass it to us when you get it?’ McIlhenney asked. ‘Do that and I’ll put the team on to finding a lead from there to young Colledge.’
‘I can’t, Neil. It could put the finger on Dowley publicly, and I’m not ready for that. Mackenzie will check every name on the list. If he can make a connection, he’ll pass it on. Fair enough?’
The big superintendent shrugged. ‘You’re the ranking officer here, not me. But I can live with that.’
‘Thanks. You said the boy’s AWOL. What’s being done to find him?’
‘What was a fairly casual look-around’s being turned into a full-scale alert. His picture’s being circulated everywhere by the police in Spain and by the gendarmes in France.’
‘National publicity?’
‘Not yet: airports and railway stations.’
‘The boy’s only eighteen,’ Martin pointed out.
‘He’s got a complicated background, and he’s firearms trained, thanks to the school cadet force.’
‘Is he indeed? I can see why you’ve stepped up your interest. Mind you,’ he raised an eyebrow, ‘there’s something you’re overlooking. Davis Colledge isn’t the only person who was in the area where each of these murders were committed. There’s one other.’