Martin waited as she handed the phone over. ‘You a fucking magnet?’ he said, as Skinner came on the line.
‘Hush now, boy. That’s exactly how I feel. It’s as if somebody’s taking the piss, Andy, right on my own doorstep. And when I told them what’s been happening in Scotland! The fucking thing’s following me around, man. Eventually I had to stop being diplomatic, and pull rank, hard, with the investigating officer, Intendant Cortes. I’m glad I’m Comisario Skinner, and not a civilian, or she’d still be putting the fucking thumbscrews on me.’
‘Have they made any headway so far?’
‘No danger. They’re going to have to put out an appeal for witnesses, but even that’s not going to be easy. It’s not just a matter of putting something in the press and on telly. I’ll guarantee you that, right now, at least half the people in this town don’t speak Spanish, far less read it. They’ll have to put up posters in English, French and German, maybe even Russian.’
‘What about the woman’s background? Is there anybody there?’
‘Hah!’ Skinner grunted. ‘Know what her day job was before she became a full-time painter? The lad who identified her was friendly with her; he told us. She was a nun. She studied art in the convent; when it became clear that she had a real talent, she decided that the way she could use it best was by devoting it to God. That meant leaving her convent, to be free to travel, but she gives most of the money she makes from her work to her order. So nobody’s looking for a jilted boyfriend.’
‘Who are they looking for?’
‘After what I told them they’re looking for Davis Colledge, as a first step. I called his father, and told him what had happened. He still hasn’t heard from the boy, or so he said.’
‘Do you fancy him for it?’ asked Martin.
‘He’s a possible for Sugar Dean, and Collioure’s a short hop from here, so he can’t be ignored. But then there’s the copycat thing. Sugar’s body was moved, but this one looks like a carbon copy of the Ballester jobs. How would Davis know how they were done? How would anybody know?’
‘I may have a lead on that.’ He told his friend about his interrogation of Dowley.
‘It was him?’ Skinner exclaimed. ‘All that fuss was to cover his own indiscretion?’
‘That’s not what he says, but it’s a fair conclusion.’
‘Are you going to copy your report to the Lord Advocate? We might be able to get rid of the bastard.’
‘No,’ said Martin, firmly. ‘I report to Jimmy, that’s all.’
‘In that case I may do something about it. . once I’ve cleaned up my own mess.’
‘You’re finished in Spain, though, aren’t you?’
‘Cortes has promised to brief me regularly on her investigation but, yes, I hope we are. We’re due to fly home on Saturday. Unless the Colledge lad shows up, of course.’ He sighed. ‘But there’s something I’ve got to do in Scotland, pal.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I have to give a formal statement to Neil. I remembered something this morning, when I was down town getting the bread and the Daily Telegraph. Guess where I was on the morning of Sugar Dean’s murder? Murrayfield fucking Golf Club, that’s where, as a guest at a Criminal Justice golf outing, organised by the Law Society. The courts weren’t sitting that day, so they invited people from all sides of the system; lawyers, judges, cops, the lot.
‘But know what, Andy?’ Skinner sighed wearily. ‘Maybe these murders aren’t following me around. Maybe I’m following them.’
Fifty-three
Mario McGuire looked at what had been a bottle of Budweiser. ‘If I have another one of these,’ he said, ‘I’m going to have to get a taxi home.’
‘Go ahead,’ McIlhenney told him. ‘I’ll give you a lift.’
The head of CID tugged his fridge door open and took out a replacement. ‘You want another Irn Bru?’
‘Hell, no. If I have another of those I’ll start to rust.’ The detective smiled. ‘Who’d have thought it a few years back? I never turned down a pint. Now here I am even saying no to the fizzy stuff.’
‘And looking a hell of a lot better for it,’ McGuire pointed out.
‘Maybe. Feeling better, that’s for sure.’
‘How’s my godson?’
‘Louis is absolutely ace, top notch; three months old and growing as fast as a briar rose.’
‘And his mum?’
‘She’s magic too. I don’t think anyone could look any happier than she does.’
‘What about her career? When’s she planning to revive it?’
‘I don’t think she is, not the way it was. When we got married, the idea was that she’d take a few years off to try for a family. Well, we’ve managed that, and she says she’s still not feeling any itches. Someone rang her last week and asked if she’d be interested in joining the board of the Scottish National Theatre. She’s thinking about that, and she’s also mentioned the possibility of directing, on the stage again, in Scotland, but that’s it. She says she doesn’t want to be Judi Dench, graduating into playing Queen Victoria in her dotage.’
‘Jesus, she’s nowhere near that.’
‘She’s over forty, the point at which most of the lead roles start to dry up for a woman. I think I’d like to see her direct. I have a feeling she’d be brilliant at it. Even watching a play on telly with her is an experience, the way she analyses the whole thing afterwards. . sometimes before it’s finished, if she doesn’t fancy it.’
‘Tell me about it.’ McGuire chuckled. ‘Paula talks her way through most of the stuff we watch.’
‘And you love it.’
‘I sure do. Living together’s something we should have done a long time ago.’
‘Come on, now, you can’t write off your marriage to Maggie just like that.’
‘I can, you know. At the end of the day neither of us got anything out of it. The sex wasn’t much good either.’
‘That’s too much information, mate.’
‘It’s true, though. You and I both know why that was: that bastard of a father of hers and everything. I wasn’t the right man to help her over it, and that’s all there is to it. I’m really happy she found Stevie, even if it wasn’t for long.’
‘Yeah.’ McIlhenney sighed. ‘Poor lad. He died by mistake, but the effect’s the same. The bloody affair won’t go away either.’
‘What?’
‘Dead artists. Copycats. I’ve got a bad feeling about this latest one, out in Spain.’
‘Why? If the big man hadn’t tripped over the corpse, we’d never have heard about it. The woman was robbed, remember; it was probably a mugging gone wrong. Have you any idea what the crime rate’s like in Spain? They have all those fucking police forces and none of them knows what the others are up to.’
‘A bit like us, eh?’
‘Not at all. We don’t overlap jurisdiction.’
‘Side issue. Like I said, I’m not happy; you can’t brush off the consistencies between the Spanish killing and ours.’
‘Neil, we’re getting excited about young Colledge, but is Weekes in the clear for the Sugar Dean job? No. Becky’s meeting Gregor in the morning. He may well decide to do him for that, and he may well get a result. That man Broughton could get Mary fucking Poppins convicted for flying without a pilot’s licence.’
‘And Frankie Bristles could get her off on appeal. No, I have a bad feeling, and it doesn’t involve either Colledge or Weekes.’ He glanced at the wall clock: it showed almost seven. ‘Now drink up; it’s time I took you home.’
Fifty-four
‘This place is your retreat, isn’t it?’ said Aileen. Her elbows were on the table, wrists pressed together, her hands enclosing a large, elegant goblet. He watched the red wine swirl slowly with her gentle movement.
‘Yes,’ he admitted, ‘that’s a perfect description. I’ve been coming to La Clota for twenty years, since my Alex was a kid. The Pallares family know me, they treat me like one of them, and they look after me in all sorts of ways.’
‘They look after you?’