‘What about the genius chemist?’
Mark smiled. ‘Ah, he got out from under. The Bulgarian factory was raided, and the production of the stuff was shut down, but he was long gone. There had been a tip, a leak from the Interpol office in Sofia. The only people they found were production staff who thought they were making multivitamin pills and phials, not ecstasy and HGH. In fact the chemist was never there. The production process was set up on the basis of written instructions to the local staff. Nobody ever saw him; they still don’t know who he is.’
‘And Palmer?’
‘When he saw that he was in deep trouble, he started to bargain. He claimed not to know anything about the distribution network, but he was able to tell Interpol that the business had gone transatlantic by that time and that the growth product was being sold in volume into the USA, across several sports, from college level up. You can imagine how excited that made the American Drug Enforcement Agency.’
I nodded; having lived there for a while, I surely could.
‘They weighed into the investigation, heavily. However, Palmer was able to persuade them that he was just the producer. . he wasn’t doing anything against Bulgarian law, but small details like that don’t deter the DEA. . and that the big prize was his partner, whose interests, he said, stretched into Central and South America, and included major money laundering for drug cartels, plus other stuff. Palmer said that this man had a network of distributors and informants across the western world. He said that he himself hadn’t been worried about being nailed in Bulgaria because several government officials, police officers, and a key Interpol agent had been on the guy’s payroll. This was borne out, of course, by the leak before the raid.’
He took a sip of water, before continuing. ‘Palmer was lawyered up by this time. His brief proposed a deal; he said that Palmer would name the partner and testify against him, in return for immunity from prosecution. . the ecstasy and sodium oxybate, the date rape drug also known as GHB, were his Achilles heel, as it turned out. . protection and a new identity when it was all over. There was a conference in Lyon, at Interpol headquarters, and not least because of American insistence, that deal was done, and signed off, all legal and unbreakable.’
I sensed that Mark was tiring; he’d had a hell of a journey. ‘Do you want to take a break?’ I asked him.
‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘I must finish this. After that, Palmer was installed in a safe house in East Anglia, and given two handlers, one American, a DEA agent called Beau Lucas, and one Brit, a senior secondee to Interpol from the Met, called Graham Metcalfe. The whole thing was kept desperately secret, for there was one thing still to do. For any prosecution to succeed, the investigators needed a second witness, and Palmer would not reveal his partner’s name until that person was secured.’
‘Did he have somebody in mind?’
‘Oh yes. He told his interrogators, after his arrest, while he negotiated his deal, that there was one person and one person alone who could help bring his partner down, but that the only way to reach him was for Palmer to make contact and set up a meeting. That he would do after the deal was signed; nothing before, not a word.’
‘And they bought that?’
‘Of course they did,’ he laughed. ‘The Americans were bricking it. The HGH chemist was still out there. There was nothing to stop Palmer’s buddy setting him up in business somewhere else, and putting the integrity of global sport at risk.’
‘The Stars and Stripes rule, okay,’ I murmured. Ever the cynic. ‘What happened next?’
‘From the safe house, Palmer made the contact; in confidence. His handlers weren’t involved in it.’
‘How did he manage that?’
‘Through Facebook, would you believe. They used fake identities to communicate. When it was sorted he told Lucas and Metcalfe that a meeting had been arranged. The three of them would fly to Malaga and go to a hotel called the Silken Puerta; the witness would be waiting in room 106, which they would have booked in Palmer’s name.’
‘And was he?’
‘We’ll probably never know, not for sure. The handlers wouldn’t go along with all of Palmer’s arrangement. They explained to him there’s a reason for calling a place a safe house. They insisted that only one person would go to bring the witness in, because that’s all it would need, and it wouldn’t be Palmer. In fact, Graham Metcalfe assumed it would be him, but Lucas pulled agency rank and went.’ He drew a deep breath and I sensed tension in him. ‘It was kept so tight that they didn’t tell anyone outside the loop, not the Spanish bureau of Interpol, not the Guardia Civil, not the local cops, nobody. If they had. .’
‘What?’
‘Beau Lucas might still be alive. They might have cracked the whole operation. But they didn’t. They kept it undercover. Lucas was supposed to call Metcalfe at a certain time, to confirm that contact had been made and they were heading home. He didn’t, but that didn’t set the alarm bells ringing, not right away. In fact nothing did, until a chambermaid let herself into the room, and found what was left of the guy. He’d been shot, close range, with a sawn-off. The room was covered in feathers; turn up the sound on a telly,’ he said, ‘and a pillow makes a pretty effective silencer.’
‘Let me guess,’ I ventured. ‘His face was blown off.’
Mark stared at me. ‘How the hell did you know that?’
‘Lucky guess. You finish yours, then I’ll tell you mine.’
‘It was as you said. There was nothing left to identify the body, nothing at all; his wallet, watch, clothes, face, were all gone. So they assumed that he was Mr Palmer, the man who’d booked the room. They’d have gone on thinking that if Graham Metcalfe hadn’t called the Guardia after the third missed checkin call, to ask if anything had occurred at the Silken Puerta.’
‘What about the witness? Was he killed too?’
‘Almost certainly, but Lucas was the only body found in that room. Dead American, though, so you can imagine the fall-out from that. The DEA shoved Interpol and everyone else aside. They closed the hotel and put their own CSI team in there, everyone but Gil fucking Grissom, but maybe him too. They analysed everything; practically tested the feathers for fingerprints. After three days, they established that there were two different blood types in the room.’
‘The previous guest cut himself shaving?’ I suggested, wryly.
‘If he did, it was deep enough for it to spray on the wall. They searched the entire hotel after that, inch by inch, item by item, until they found a laundry trolley with blood smears inside, matching the others in the room. So the witness was killed there, it seems, but the body was taken away. Next question. Why take the risk?’
That was a no-brainer even for me. ‘Whoever did or ordered the killing couldn’t afford to leave it behind; that would have been a bigger risk. Defacing. . literally. . Lucas was a delaying tactic, or maybe no more than the killer’s trademark. Eventually, he’d have been identified, even if Metcalfe hadn’t blown the whistle straight away. But no way could the other body have been left, because it would have led investigators straight to the target: identification couldn’t have been ruled out.’ I paused as I saw the flaw in my thesis. ‘But no, Palmer knew, knows, who the witness was.’
‘That’s right. And Palmer wasn’t, isn’t, saying anything. He refused to accept the certainty of his contact’s death. He saw Lucas’s killing as a warning to him to stay silent. He may well be right too.’
‘And Interpol? How do they see it? They can’t be happy about Palmer’s silence.’
‘It doesn’t matter, Primavera. Without that second witness, Palmer’s testimony would be worthless. Sure, they’re desperate to know who his partner is, but the deal he was given was legally drawn up and witnessed, and it wasn’t contingent on him naming him, something he’s consistently refused to do without the guarantee of him being taken out of play, permanently.’