‘It isn’t closed until the procurator fiscal says it is, sir. That’s the way it works up here. One of the things that’s been holding us back has been our inability to interview Davis.’
‘I understand, but reading between the lines, I’ll guess you’re getting close to a solution.’
‘Literally, a solution, Mr Colledge; you have to remember that now we have two murder inquiries in progress.’ Stallings turned to his son, as she opened the rear door of her car for them to enter. ‘Yesterday must have been a horrible day for you, Davis.’
‘Frightful,’ said the younger Colledge. He seemed subdued; his eyes were those of someone in his mid-twenties rather than a school leaver, with dark shadows underneath. There was a maturity about him, an indefinable confidence beyond his years, and undeniable attractiveness in his blond good looks. Since the start of the inquiry she had been privately sceptical about the idea of Sugar and him as a couple, but now that she had seen him Stallings could understand her being drawn to him. I could fancy some of him myself, she thought.
Still, his other features attested to his youth. He had gone for a few days without a shave, she guessed, but the growth on his jawline was soft and downy. Although he had a substantial frame, his body was lean and bony, with some filling out yet to be done. There was his clothing too. In contrast to his father’s lightweight summer suit, shirt and silk tie, he was clad in an Aerosmith T-shirt and faded denims, with a lightweight rucksack, part of the uniform of modern youth, slung over his right shoulder.
‘It must have been a terrible shock, to learn of Sugar’s death like that.’
‘It was,’ he murmured.
‘Yes,’ McGurk agreed, as he folded himself into the front passenger seat. ‘You must have gone through the gamut, right enough. Shock, then grief, and a bit of guilt too. Am I right, Davis?’
‘Guilt?’ the boy replied. ‘Yes, you’re right. I thought she’d dumped me. I went off to Amsterdam to get my hole, to spite her, and all that time she was lying dead. I’ll always feel guilty. I should have known she’d never let me down.’
‘Language, Dave,’ his father interjected. ‘A lady is present.’
For a moment the boy looked puzzled, as he ran through what he had said, until he recalled his slang. ‘Oh, yes, sorry, Inspector.’
‘That’s all right,’ she said, from behind the wheel. ‘It’s well seen you’ve been educated in Scotland. I don’t think I’d ever heard that phrase until I came up here. Tell me,’ she continued, ‘did you ever discuss your relationship with Sugar with any of your classmates?’
‘It wasn’t a secret.’
‘So some of them would have known you were going away together?’
‘Yes.’
‘So might you have felt a little bit humiliated when she didn’t appear?’
‘Humiliated? No, I’ll never see most of those guys again, my school friends. I’m going to art school, and most of them are going to uni. But wait a minute, if you’re suggesting I’d been bumming about the two of us, no way. I don’t brag about scoring.’
‘Sorry. I wasn’t suggesting you did. You were angry, though. We’ve seen the picture you left in Collioure,’ she explained. ‘You certainly look angry in that.’
‘Yes, I was,’ he admitted. ‘And I’m guilty about that as well.’
‘When did you finish it?’ McGurk asked.
‘Just before I left. I suppose I thought that if she did turn up, ten days late, it would be the first thing she’d see and serve her right.’ His face twisted, as if in self-loathing.
His father leaned forward. ‘It occurs to me, Inspector,’ he began, ‘that this journey into the city is probably unnecessary. I’m sure that your conversation with my son could take place in the airport’s VIP lounge, or in that hotel we’ve just passed.’
Stallings looked in the rear-view mirror, angling her head slightly to catch his eye. ‘You know, sir,’ she said, ‘you’re absolutely right. That should have occurred to me. But we’re on the road now, so we might as well carry on.’
Eighty-nine
The afternoon was at its hottest, but it can be virtually impossible to hail a taxi on the street in Monaco, and so by the time they reached the foot of the Avenue d’Ostende, Skinner and McGuire were both happy to see the shade offered by one of the bars along the quai Albert I. They ordered two mugs of Heineken and collapsed into chairs, looking out into the harbour, which was dominated by the bulk of the Lady Moura, a private yacht large enough to have a helicopter parked on a pad at the stern.
‘You know,’ said McGuire, wearily, ‘this guy could come and go without us having a bloody clue. Look at that thing there. Do you reckon that everyone who flies in there clears Customs?’
‘No,’ the DCC agreed, ‘and there’s no way we’ll get a search warrant for it either.’
His colleague pointed to the sky. ‘Do you reckon those are gulls up there, or could they be wild geese?’
‘That’s a possibility,’ Skinner admitted. ‘If it turns out that way, I’ll pay for this trip as penance for dragging you away from important business in Edinburgh.’
‘This is important.’
‘So’s the reopening of the Ballester investigation. Andy’s got proof that he didn’t kill any of those four people.’
‘Fuck!’ McGuire whispered. ‘You have to be kidding, boss. Tell me you’re kidding.’
‘How I would love to, but I can’t.’
‘But all the evidence was there, at the scene of his death. He must have had an accomplice.’
‘Mario, you’ve been over those inquiry files, over and over. In your wildest, can you see any of them as a two-man job?’
No,’ he admitted. ‘That’s not a runner: which means that Drazen planted all that stuff.’
‘Aye, that’s how it looks.’ The big DCC drained his glass in a single swallow. ‘But that’s all in Scotland and we’re here. Decision time. Another here, or do we go back to the hotel?’
‘To be honest, boss, I feel the need of efficient air-conditioning.’
By a small miracle, the first car they saw as they stepped on to the nearby boulevard was a taxi, with its light on. McGuire gave the driver no choice about picking them up by stepping into the roadway and stopping it. Less than five minutes later, it pulled up outside the Hôtel Columbus.
Heavy-legged, the two Scots climbed the steps to the lobby. Skinner was leading the way into the bar, to the right of the reception desk, when McGuire grabbed him by the arm, stopping him in mid-stride. He turned, to see his colleague wide-eyed.
A man stood a few feet away; his back was to them, as was that of the woman by his side. He was six feet tall, with wide shoulders and a narrow waist. He wore a white T-shirt, decorated with a logo, a quotation from something or other, and below it, in large letters, the word ‘Margaritaville’.
They stared at him for a second or two, no more, before Skinner pulled his head of CID after him, inelegantly, into the bar, out of sight.
Ninety
‘You were right, Mr Colledge,’ Stallings conceded. ‘We should have used the airport facilities. I’m afraid this isn’t the nicest interview room in Edinburgh.’ She sniffed the air. ‘I’ll swear I can still smell Theo Weekes in here.’
‘You had him in here?’ Davis asked. ‘In this room?’
‘Yes indeed,’ said McGurk. ‘We gave him quite a grilling, didn’t we, Inspector?’
‘Not quite the thumb-screws but, yes, he had a very detailed interrogation.’
‘And yet you didn’t charge him with murder,’ Michael Colledge remarked.
‘Again, sir,’ Stallings explained, ‘we don’t lay the charges, the fiscal does.’
‘I am aware of the differences between Scottish and English criminal procedures.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Of course you are, you being a barrister. But the same rule applies on both sides of the border, the basic one about being innocent in the absence of proof of guilt. Weekes was charged with what we know he did, but we were a step or two short of doing him for killing Sugar.’