‘Two months.’
‘Were that girl’s parents of any help to you?’
‘Yes, and they still are. Questions arise all the time, and often they help to answer them.’
‘Okay, okay.’ Boras sighed. ‘Go on, then.’
‘Thanks,’ said McGuire. ‘When was the last time either of you saw Zrinka?’
‘In February. She came home to see her mother.’
‘You were away at the time?’
‘No, I wasn’t, but she didn’t come to see me.’
‘Are you saying that you and she weren’t close?’
Boras’s tiny eyes blazed. ‘I am saying that I am an extremely busy man, sir. Often I work from the moment that I rise until the moment that I retire. Zrinka knew that, and she understood. She and I got on well enough; we didn’t talk a lot, that was all.’
‘How long had she been in Edinburgh?’
‘For almost two years.’
‘Where did she live? Did she flat-share? All the records we’ve accessed so far show her as residing with you.’
‘She had a small flat off Princes Street,’ said Sanda Boras, slowly. ‘It has a view of the castle. She chose it and I bought it for her.’ Her husband seemed to stiffen in his chair. He stared at her, in evident surprise.
Steele frowned. ‘We checked the property register yesterday,’ he murmured. ‘We didn’t find anything with your name.’
‘We used my family name, Kolar,’ the mother replied. ‘So my husband wouldn’t know. He is a kind man, you understand, but he believes that his children should either follow him into his business or make their own way in the world. Zrinka and her brother both chose to go their own way. I agree with him, you understand, but a little help doesn’t do harm. It’s a nice flat. She worked there.’ She smiled. ‘The place was a mess, always.’
‘Did she live there alone?’
‘Yes. Recently, that is. There was a man not long after she moved to Edinburgh, who stayed with her for a few months, but he moved on.’
‘Did they argue?’ McGuire asked.
‘Not that she told me. She said that it had run its course and that he had left. If she’d been upset about it, I’d have known.’
‘Did she say whether he was upset, the man?’
‘She told me they were agreed, that they apart as friends.’
‘Parted,’ Boras grunted.
‘Pardon, dear?’
‘You said “apart”. That is wrong. “Parted” is what you should have said.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She looked back towards the chief superintendent. ‘I’ve lived here for a long time, but my English, it is not yet perfect.’
‘Nobody’s is, Mrs Boras; especially not mine. My Italian’s probably better.’
‘Italian?’
‘I got that from my mother and my grandparents. My dad was Irish, a lovely man, but one of few words. . long ones at any rate.’
‘My husband’s grandmother was Italian too. That is something you have in common.’
The big detective glanced at Boras: he looked impatient and irascible. ‘The only thing, I reckon,’ he said gently. ‘Can you tell me anything about Zrinka’s boyfriend, this man?’
‘I never met him. I never came to visit her in Edinburgh after we bought the flat. I spoke to him only once, when I called Zrinka’s mobile and he answered.’
‘How did he sound? Did he have an accent?’
Mrs Boras ran her right hand over her hair. Her reddened eyes creased slightly as she frowned, trying to summon up a memory. ‘He spoke well, as if he was educated: like many of the people we know in London.’
‘What was his name?’
‘Dominic. Dominic Padstow. That’s all I can tell you about him.’
‘Not him, then,’ Steele murmured.
‘What do you mean?’ Keith Barker interrupted.
‘We believe we’ve identified Zrinka’s companion in the tent,’ the inspector replied. ‘We found his belongings last night in the bushes, well away from where the body was hidden. They included a photographic driver’s licence in the name of Harry Paul, of Aberfeldy.’
‘That should be conclusive, shouldn’t it?’
‘No.’ Steele stared at Boras’s assistant, warning him not to take the matter further. ‘It still has to be formalised.’
‘Does that name mean anything to either you?’ asked McGuire, moving on quickly.
Boras shook his head, but his wife nodded hers. ‘Zrinka mentioned him last time we spoke. She described him as her boyfriend of the moment, and that there was a good chance he could turn into more than that. She said he was nice, and seemed safe. Safe,’ she whispered. ‘That’s ironic, isn’t it?’
‘When was that, Mrs Boras? The last time you spoke?’
‘Sunday evening: I called her to ask what she was doing this week.’
It occurred to the head of CID that the mother was becoming stronger the longer the interview lasted, and less reliant on her medication, while, somehow, her husband, when facing personal issues, might be the weaker of the two. ‘Can you remember what she said?’
‘Yes, I remember very well. She told me that she has an appointment,’ her husband twitched at her linguistic slip, but said nothing, ‘in North Berwick the next evening, with a gallery-owner who was interested in putting some of her work on show. She was going to take ten pictures down there, and she hoped he would take them all. She was pleased because his commission on his sales was less than the Edinburgh galleries. Zrinka was annoyed by the amount some of them wanted to charge her.’
‘She sold her work from a stall, I understand,’ said Steele.
‘That’s right. She told me that suppose she sell only one picture a week, the rent of the stall was less than the commission she would have paid to a gallery. If she sell two …’
Davor Boras seemed to rally. ‘She was my daughter, sir,’ he barked. ‘She knew that the fewer people between her and the buyer, the more she would make.’
‘Was she happy?’ McGuire asked the mother.
‘Yes.’
‘You never sensed anything troubling her, especially recently?’
‘No. My daughter was always happy; she loved Edinburgh, she loved her work.’
‘What was her ambition?’
‘She wanted to be famous in her own right. She loved to paint people caught off-guard in unusual situations. She had her own hero; she wanted to be another Jack Vettriano, with her work on posters all around the world. She signed everything “Zrinka”, with a great flourish, but never with her full name.’
‘Your family owns galleries. Isn’t that right?’
‘Yes,’ said Boras, ‘but the collections there are very serious. They are not places to indulge one’s daughter. Zrinka understood that she could not be hung there until she had come to justify it.’
‘But you have a passion for art, too?’
‘Passion? No it’s strictly business: art is a good investment. If one buys, and then puts the work on public display while it appreciates, that makes sense. My galleries do not offer free admission, and they do not run at a loss.’
‘I think I understand that,’ McGuire conceded. ‘But, if you’ll forgive me, I think you have a greater interest than you’re letting on. No matter, though. We know from her bank records that Zrinka was doing fairly well. Did she have any well-known customers?’
Sanda Boras smiled for the first time since they had come into the room; for the first time, Steele guessed, since the chief super from the Met had driven up to her door. ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘She sold a picture to a footballer once; she was very pleased about that, although none of his team-mates followed his example, as far as I know. The most excited I remember her was a few months ago, early this year. She said that a man and his family had come to the stall, and that one of them, a woman, the man’s daughter, although the rest of them were children, had bought a picture for him, an expensive picture. She told me that she recognised him from his picture in the papers, and that he was a very important man in Edinburgh.’
‘Can you remember his name?’
‘No. I don’t think she say his name. I had to go before she could.’
McGuire turned back to Boras. ‘Your son, sir: does he know of his sister’s death?’