Boras glared at the DCC as he finished, and their eyes seemed to lock in unblinking conflict. ‘My guys knew, you say. I knew?’
‘Your former employee,’ said Skinner, ‘Mr Barker, has been talking, in the wake of his arrest for bribing a civil servant, using money which he says came from you. He says that three years ago you commissioned a firm called Aeron to make enquiries about a journalist who had been making unwelcome enquiries into your company. They identified him as Daniel Ballester, in a report that Barker claims to have seen in your possession. He alleges that you instructed Aeron to discourage Ballester from making further trouble. However, shortly afterwards he was professionally disgraced, after being tricked into doing a silly story about Princess Diana’s death.
‘When Dominic Padstow’s name was mentioned that was news to you, Barker says, and you instructed him to trace him through the Passport Office.’ Skinner’s eyes narrowed a fraction. ‘My guess is that you didn’t suspect at that stage that Padstow was Ballester; I reckon you simply wanted to get to him first. But when our clever detective constable came up with his portrait, you certainly knew who he was even before we identified him, because you set Aeron on to finding him. They were good; we’d have found him eventually, but they did it first and again you were one step ahead. This we know from Aeron, rather than Barker.’ He paused. ‘At this stage,’ he asked, ‘would you care to comment on anything I’ve said so far?’
Boras continued to look back at him, his little dark eyes impassive. He sipped his Sancerre. ‘No,’ he replied. ‘Please carry on, unless your story is over.’
‘Oh, it isn’t,’ Skinner exclaimed, ‘because we found Aeron ourselves at that point. DI Steele and DI Stallings went to their office on Saturday afternoon. After some persuasion, they were put in touch by telephone with the company’s chief executive, Mr Michael Spicer. He had just arrived at Hathaway House, with his associate Mr Ivor Brown, having gone there, on your instructions, to locate and apprehend Daniel Ballester.
‘At least, that’s what they said your orders were, but even if they were a little more extreme it wouldn’t have mattered, because when they got there, the man was dead. And if Stevie Steele had phoned them ten minutes later, they’d have been dead too. They’d have gone into that house and they’d have walked into the grenade trap.’
‘Indeed?’ The voice was as cold as the ice in the bucket.
‘Oh, yes. You had Ballester killed, Mr Boras. You had him executed. I don’t suggest for a moment that you did it yourself: I’m sure that any investigation would show very quickly that you were at home with your wife all day on Saturday, continuing to make arrangements for your daughter’s funeral.
‘No, you had him killed,’ the DCC repeated, ‘and Spicer and Brown were meant to die too. They were your only contacts with Aeron; they were the only people who could prove that you had prior knowledge of Daniel Ballester, and that you identified him as your daughter’s killer before the police did.’
‘And what about Barker?’ Boras asked. ‘If your fanciful theory is correct, why is he still alive?’
‘Hey,’ Skinner retorted, ‘it’s never a good idea to offer a defence before you’ve been accused, and as we keep on saying, this is an informal visit. But since you ask, Barker’s nothing. He has no evidence that you ever knew Ballester. The Met have got him by the balls for bribing a public official and he’s singing like George Michael to try to get out of it. They’ve also got him for tax evasion, thanks to a slush fund, under the rather frivolous name of Jack Frost, set up with money that will never in a million years be traceable back to you.
‘So you’re not worried about him at all. Mind you, that may not prevent him having a fatal accident in the near future: time will tell.’
He leaned back in his chair. ‘You’re not worried about Spicer and Brown either. My colleagues in Northumbria had no grounds to hold them on Saturday, so they sent them on their way. In hindsight, that’s a pity, for. . and this will surprise DI Stallings, who doesn’t know about it. . when I pulled a couple of strings this morning and had Special Branch officers sent to their place to hold them for questioning, they discovered that they were gone. Not just the two of them either, the whole Aeron operation, vanished as if it had never existed.’
He tilted his glass in a gesture that could only have been a salute. ‘My congratulations, Mr Boras: you’ve done what you told a whole roomful of people last Thursday that you would do. You’ve had your revenge on your daughter’s murderer. And nobody will ever lay a finger on you for it.’
Finally, Boras broke eye contact with Skinner, as he bowed his head to him, briefly. ‘Remarkable, quite remarkable,’ he exclaimed. ‘Your picture is as clear as any my Zrinka ever painted, and just as imaginative. And, of course, you could not resist coming here to set it out for me. I am flattered, sir.’
Skinner let out a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a growl. ‘You know, that’s the first silly thing you’ve said. I’m not flattering you, man. I’m not even addressing you. All along I’ve been talking to whoever is monitoring this meeting, to whoever is looking and listening in.
‘I’m not sure who it is, but it’s not the Sun, that’s for sure. You have your office swept every day; that’s secure, so why bring us in here, unless you actively want somebody to hear what’s being said.’ He took the small box from his pocket and held it up as he twisted half-way round in his seat to gaze at the back wall, at a point above the drinks table.
When he turned back to face Boras he saw a teeth-baring grimace on the man’s face. Instantly, it vanished, but the look that replaced it was thunderous.
‘You may think,’ Skinner told him, ‘that what I’ve just done was a bit risky. But it wasn’t. It doesn’t matter who’s watching us, I’m too high-profile to vanish off the face of the earth, and so is Mario. On top of that,’ he added, with a smile, ‘we’re both extremely dangerous. I came into this building with a purpose, and I still have it. So what I’m saying to the boys and girls in our audience is this.
‘I know that your man Boras is fireproof, but I want the man who killed Stevie, and I’m going to have him. The best thing you can all do is give him to me. The second best is stay out of my way while I find him.’ He pushed himself violently to his feet. ‘Come on, you two. We’re finished here.’ He drained his glass and looked down at the blue-suited figure, into his furious eyes. ‘Not bad,’ he said, ‘but I’ve tasted better.’
Sixty-nine
It should have been the best day of Sammy Pye’s career. He had been sure that he would move up, one day, from being Mario McGuire’s sidekick, having followed him, as a sergeant, through two divisional commands and finally into the head of CID’s office.
For some time it had been a matter of when, not if, he would make detective inspector and occasionally he had let himself wonder where that might be. He had been a little hurt when McGuire had told him that he was moving Jack McGurk temporarily to Torphichen Place, with George Regan as acting DI, and it must have shown, for his boss had been moved to tell him in confidence that he was simply waiting for the Bandit Mackenzie situation to resolve itself, before sending him down to Leith.
The promised move had come about, but not in a way that anyone could have foreseen. Pye had felt uncomfortable from the moment he had settled in behind Stevie Steele’s old desk, as if there were two of them in the chair. The other three guys had done their best to make him feel welcome, but still the atmosphere had been awkward.
Finally, after Skinner and McGuire had visited and departed, Wilding had pulled his chair over towards him. ‘Listen, Sammy,’ he had said, ‘this is going to be a tough day for all of us, but it would be better for you if you moved into the DCI’s room. Stevie never did, because he didn’t want it to seem that he was jumping into Mackenzie’s shoes. But you never worked with the guy, so there’s no reason for you not to.’