‘You’re wasting your time too.’ Barker looked back at the inspector. ‘Look, can we please wrap this up? Mr Hamilton has secured an agreement that I be bailed after this interview and I really would like to catch some of the play at Lord’s.’
‘Yes,’ said Steele, pleasantly. ‘I can imagine; it’s a nice day for it. I have to get back to my wife too, Becky and Ray are going for lunch and I’m sure that Rhonda has to fit in Sainsbury’s before she reports back to her bosses that you haven’t said anything that would land any of them in trouble.’
He started to rise, then seemed to change his mind. ‘But, Keith,’ he murmured, ‘while you’re in the Tavern stand watching Middlesex whack it around, there’s something you might want to think about. That funny Jack Frost bank account of yours, the one the Met uncovered when they searched your place. .’
‘Winnings on the horses, old boy.’
Steele looked at Stallings and laughed out loud. ‘Of course. And I’m sure you’ve still got the betting slips. You’d better have them.’ He paused, for long enough to allow the first crack to appear in Barker’s mask of control. ‘You’ve moved a total of ninety thousand pounds through your personal account into old Jack Frost over the last three years. I’m a betting man too, Keith, and I’ll wager that you haven’t paid a penny in tax on any of it.
‘So, while you’re slurping your Greene King, or whatever it is you drink out in St John’s Wood, think of the line that the Inland Revenue takes with people who evade thirty-six grand’s worth of tax, and the national insurance as well. I’m afraid that, unless you can account for all that cash, the tax man will nail you, and there will be nothing that Boras’s friends in dark places will be able to do about it. There’ll be personal humiliation and jail time, there’ll be a huge fine, and there will be the back tax due, all liable to interest at a rate that will make you cry.
‘But how will the taxman find out about it, you ask me? How? Because we will fucking tell him, that’s how. Becky and I will dump your bank statements right down his insatiable, rapacious maw.’ He grinned and rose quickly to his feet. ‘Enjoy the cricket, pal. I hope you haven’t bought any Test-match tickets for the next few years, though. I don’t imagine they have satellite television in the nick either. Personally, I think it’s a disgrace that cricket was taken off the terrestrial channels.’ Steele reached across and switched off the recorder. ‘Interview terminated,’ he said.
He was less than halfway to the door when Barker called after him: ‘You’ve made your point, Mr Steele. Please come back.’
The smile had gone from the inspector’s face by the time he turned around. ‘Will it be worth my while?’ he asked.
‘I’ll answer your questions, if that’s what you mean.’ He looked along the table. ‘But I would feel more comfortable if it was just you and me.’
Steele shook his head. ‘I can’t do that, Keith, I’m afraid; this has to be formal. But I can ask Ms Weiss to leave if that would make you feel better.’
‘It would.’
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ the Home Office woman protested.
‘You’re going out of this room, now,’ said Becky Stallings, firmly. ‘Your presence here is no longer in the best interests of the Scottish investigation.’
‘I’ll call my section head.’
‘You can call the Home Secretary, as far as I’m concerned, but from outside this building.’ She looked at Wilding. ‘Ray, would you do me a favour and take Ms Weiss downstairs to the front office? Tell the staff there to make sure that she leaves.’
‘My pleasure, Becky.’ He beckoned to the woman. ‘Come on, Miss, do as she says.’
‘I want my memo stick,’ she snapped. Steele took the device from his pocket and handed it to his sergeant. He and Stallings watched as the pair left the room.
‘I’d like to reach an understanding,’ Lancelot Hamilton announced, ‘that the interview that is about to take place will deal purely with the matters under investigation in Edinburgh.’
‘That doesn’t work either,’ Steele told him. ‘We’ve got your client, sir; he knows it and you do too. If we throw him to the Revenue it’ll all get very sticky for him. My only interest is in the murders, and the recording of this discussion will be going back north with me. If anything comes up that crosses over into the other matter, it’s for Inspector Stallings to handle that as she thinks fit.’
‘That’s all right, Lance,’ Barker told the solicitor. ‘Let’s proceed.’
‘If you’re ready,’ said Steele. He switched on the recorder once more and repeated the location and list of participants. ‘Interview resuming with DI Steele questioning Mr Barker. Sir, did you cause enquiries to be made of the passport service, seeking information about a man named Dominic Padstow?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘On whose instructions?’
‘Those of my employer, Mr Davor Boras.’
‘How were those instructions conveyed?’
‘In a conversation in Mr Boras’s suite in the Caledonian Hotel, Edinburgh.’
‘Was anyone else present?’
‘No. Mrs Boras and Miss Britto, her secretary, had gone to the funeral director’s office to make arrangements for Zrinka.’
‘Arrangements?’
‘To choose a coffin and make sure that she was properly. .’
‘I understand.’
‘When did you receive your instructions from Mr Boras?’
‘On Thursday afternoon, at approximately four p.m. That was not long before Mrs Boras and Miss Britto returned, and shortly before we left for the airport to return to London.’
‘You’re sure about that timing?’ asked Steele, as Wilding re-entered the room and took his seat at the table
‘Certain.’
‘Are you aware that Mr Padstow’s name and image were not released to the press until late on Thursday evening?’
‘I am now.’
‘You were also present at a discussion in the same place that morning, when Detective Chief Superintendent Mario McGuire and I interviewed Mr and Mrs Boras.’
‘Yes, I was.’
‘Do you recall Mr Padstow’s name being mentioned at that time?’
‘Yes, I do, by Mrs Boras. She said that was the name of a man who had lived with Zrinka for a while, in Edinburgh.’
‘Had you ever heard the name before?’
‘No.’
‘To the best of your knowledge, had Mr Boras?’
‘No, I don’t believe he had. When we returned to the hotel, after the press briefing with Mr McGuire, he asked me if I had any idea about this man before, and if I knew anything about him. I told him that I hadn’t, and that I didn’t. He looked puzzled, concerned.’
‘When he gave you your orders, did Mr Boras tell you why he wanted to trace Mr Padstow?’
‘No, all he told me was that I should trace him as quickly as possible and obtain a photograph of him.’
‘Did he tell you how to go about this?’
‘Yes he did. He told me to contact Patrick Dailey, in the Home Office, and ask him to use his influence to obtain the necessary information and photograph from the passport agency.’
‘For the record,’ said Steele, ‘Mr Dailey tried to comply with this request, but was apprehended. Those circumstances are under investigation elsewhere and are not directly relevant to our enquiries. So, Mr Barker, you obeyed your boss’s instructions, without asking questions.’
‘You don’t question Davor Boras. You may advise him professionally, but ultimately, if you work for him, you do what he tells you, and that’s an end of it.’
‘Did you ask yourself any questions? Did you wonder why he might want to trace this man?’
‘I did.’
‘What was your conclusion?’
‘The obvious one: that Mr Boras wanted to find out for himself whether Padstow knew anything about Zrinka’s death.’
‘With respect, Keith, that isn’t obvious to me. My first assumption would have been that he intended to use his contacts to help the police investigation.’
‘Then you didn’t know Boras. He is not a sharing type. Why do you think his son left him to set up his own business, in competition with his father, and why are they now bitterly estranged? I’ll tell you, because that much I do know. Davor simply assumed that his son would join him in Continental IT, and for a while that might have happened. Only Dražen asked his father to draw him a career path, putting a rough date on when he would retire and hand over control of the business. Davor told him that would never happen until God made it so. In other words, as long as he was alive, Dražen would always be subordinate to him.’