Eighty-seven
‘This couldn’t have happened at a worse time,’ said Skinner.
‘Would there have been a good time?’ asked Andy Martin.
‘Of course not. Sorry, Andy, that was a thoroughly selfish thing to say. You’ve got to stay in Dundee, no question. My apologies to Graham Morton for depriving him of your presence when it was obviously needed.’
‘I can’t see that my presence would have prevented what’s happened, but I’ll know better when I’ve had a look at the situation. It could be that my chief will be asking yours to return the favour, by sending us somebody to do an outside investigation job.’
‘I’d come myself, if he asked, but it might not be the time. Have you heard what happened last night?’
‘The anonymous call? Yes, Neil rang to let me know. Maggie seems to have nipped it in the bud, though.’
‘So far, but I wish to Christ I had access to the Scotsman’s telephone records, to see if the call could be traced to its source.’
‘Fat chance of that. There are still some working phone boxes.’
‘Yes, I suppose. It didn’t exactly make my night, though.’
‘Think positive, man.’
‘Help me.’
‘The call is proof that someone’s setting you up, to embarrass you at the very least. There’s half a dozen people within your set-up who could know of the link between you and these murders, and I guarantee you it’s none of them.’
‘Dowley?’
‘Dowley is an insecure, arrogant son-of-a-bitch with an apparent down on the police, but he isn’t professionally suicidal. No, I reckon the guy who made that call has the blood of at least five people on his hands. I can’t see how he could have done the sixth, but let’s leave that aside. I wasn’t sitting on my hands yesterday. I had a consultant look at the full autopsy report on Ballester, and I asked Prof. Hutchinson for an opinion as well. They both agreed that the condition from which the man suffered would have meant he couldn’t have hit a bull on the arse with a banjo, far less hit a moving target with a hand-gun. Old Joe told me that if he’d done the PM, he’d have told you that straight away.’
‘Magic,’ said Skinner. ‘Have we got egg on our faces, or what?’
‘Less than you think. You found the gun, the trophies, a shed-load of evidence that pointed straight at Ballester. I’d have written it up exactly as you did. What I’m seeing is that Dražen Boras planted it all, that he’s your killer, and that he’s still out there. You exposed Ballester’s death as murder, not suicide. You came within an arse-hair of catching Dražen in London. Now he’s on the run, with a big down on you. My money’s on him as last night’s mystery caller.’
Although it was afternoon in Monaco, and although it was a cloudless day, a light came on in Skinner’s brain, so bright that it almost blinded him. ‘Fuck!’ he whispered. ‘That’s a very sound theory, Andy,’ he said, ‘but you forgot a couple of things.’
‘What?’
‘I’ll tell you after I’ve spoken to a bloke called Ignacio Riesgo.’
‘Who the hell’s he?’
‘Tell you later. I’ve got to go now. Things are happening.’
‘Bob, where the hell are you?’
‘Right at this moment I’m in a café outside the Monte Carlo casino. Can’t you hear the seagulls?’ He snapped the phone shut and concentrated his attention on what was happening across the concourse on the driveway in front of the Hôtel de Paris.
Two people had emerged from a white stretch limo: a blonde woman, elegant, slim, middle-aged, and a stocky, balding man, with powerful shoulders and a hook nose. ‘Hello again, Davor and Sanda,’ Mario McGuire muttered. As two porters descended on the boot of the vehicle, a third person, another man, emerged from the front passenger seat, wearing a pilot’s uniform and carrying a briefcase. He trotted around the car and fell into step behind the couple as they walked into the hotel.
McGuire started to rise from his chair, but Skinner stopped him with a hand on his forearm. ‘Let them check in,’ he said. ‘Our contact inside will tell us when they’ve gone upstairs.’ His mood seemed to have changed completely. ‘I know what’ll happen next.’ He sighed.
They waited at their table for ten minutes, until the DCC’s phone emitted its ‘text received’ signal. He flipped it open and read. ‘It’s clear,’ he announced, standing and striding off without a glance at his companion.
A woman was waiting for them in the doorway; she wore the Hôtel de Paris livery, but they knew she was no receptionist. Inspecteur Rosalie Gramercy was their Monégasque police liaison, assigned to them that morning by her commanding officer.
‘They have registered,’ she said. ‘I handled the paperwork and saw all the passports. Monsieur and Madame Boras, and their pilot, Captain Ross Wallace. He is occupying the single suite.’
‘That’s it,’ Skinner exclaimed, ‘the piece of the jigsaw that didn’t fit. The rooms were booked by Continental IT: the reservation is subject to scrutiny by the company’s auditors, and Dražen has bugger-all to do with it. They’re probably down here for a couple of days at the tables.’
‘No.’ The Scots looked at their escort as she spoke. ‘There is a reception tomorrow evening in the Hôtel Hermitage, given by the presidency of the republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. They are the principal guests.’
‘How do you know this?’
The inspecteur smiled. ‘Madame Boras told me. I asked her why they were visiting. She is a pleasant lady.’
‘And tougher than she looks,’ McGuire murmured. ‘She wouldn’t let Davor go off to be fêted all on his own.’
‘No,’ said Skinner, ‘and she wouldn’t write off her son for the rest of their lives either. Rosalie, could your department get a sight of the guest list for that reception?’
‘We are responsible for security,’ she replied, ‘so we may have it already. I can check.’
‘Then please do so. You know the name of the man we’re after.’
‘Riesgo, oui. I have checked with Reservations here and there is no separate booking in that name.’
‘Except,’ McGuire interrupted, ‘if Davor and Sanda’s accommodation was booked by their firm, then his might be corporate as well. His company’s called Fishheads dot com.’
She pulled a face at the strange name. ‘That will be easily remembered. I will check here and in every other hotel in the principality.’
‘Thanks,’ said Skinner. ‘Get in touch when you have information for us, either by mobile or at the Columbus. We can’t hang about here, in case Davor, or his wife, comes back down and spots us.’
Eighty-eight
The first thing about Davis Colledge that struck Becky Stallings was his height. It was not that he was a giant: at a little over six feet tall he was probably of average size for a well-nourished teenager. No, the oddity was that he was almost a foot taller than his father. The Shadow Defence Secretary was no more than five feet four inches tall; glancing down surreptitiously, the inspector noticed that the heels of his black patent shoes were almost as high as hers. After setting eyes on the towering McGurk outside the airport, the Member of Parliament seemed to go out of his way not to stand close to him.
‘Was your flight okay?’
‘Fine, thank you, Inspector,’ Michael Colledge replied. ‘The national airline still has a lot going for it. I did once fly on one of these budget jobs, on a parliamentary delegation. Not an experience I care to repeat.’
‘But I imagine that Davis had to use one yesterday, to get back from France.’
‘Needs must. These operations are okay for students, I suppose. My attitude is that if someone refuses to give me a seat number, I refuse to get on his damn aircraft.’ He paused. ‘But that’s of no consequence: we’re here to talk about your investigation into Sugar’s murder. In the light of the death of this man Weekes, is it now closed?’