‘But what have they been covering up?’
‘Work it out for yourself. It’s too hot for any phone line, especially a mobile that can be easily monitored. The thing that’s getting to me is that they’ve been too damn good at it. If I’m right, I know what the big secret is, but I can’t even come close to proving it, and the bugger is that I don’t believe I ever will. Our investigation into Toni Field’s murder is dead in the water, as dead as she is.’
‘Are you sure?’ Payne asked.
‘I don’t believe in miracles, brother.’
‘What do you want me to do, then?’
‘You might as well come home. Get yourself on to an evening flight. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
As the DCI ended the call, he realised that McIlhenney was gazing at him. ‘How did he take it?’ he asked.
‘He reckons that’s it. We’re stuffed. He’s going to close the inquiry. He sounded pretty pissed off. I know he hates to lose.’
The chief superintendent shook his heard. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You don’t know. He refuses to lose. You wait and see. He’s not finished yet.’
‘He says he doesn’t believe in miracles.’
‘Then he’s lying. When he’s around they happen all the time.’
Forty-Seven
‘Bastards!’ Skinner exclaimed. The room was empty but there was real vehemence in his voice. ‘It’s like someone’s farted in a busy pub. You’re pretty sure who it was but you’ve got no chance of proving it and the more time passes, the more the evidence dissipates.’
Frustrated, he reached for his in-tray and began to examine the pile of correspondence, submissions and reports that his support team had deemed worthy of his attention. He had planned that it would go to Lowell for further filtering but his absence had landed it all on his desk.
‘Commonwealth Games, policing priorities,’ he read, from the top sheet on the pile. ‘One, counter-terrorism,’ he murmured. ‘Two, counter-terrorism, three counter-terrorism, four, stop the Neds from mugging the punters.’ He laid the paper to one side for consideration later, probably at Sarah’s, and picked up the next item, a letter.
It was addressed to Chief Constable Antonia Field, from the Australian Federal Police Association, inviting her to address its annual conference, to be held in Sydney, the following December.
He scribbled a note, ‘Call the sender, tell them about Toni’s death. If he asks me to do it, decline with regret on the ground that I have no idea where I’ll be in December,’ clipped it to the letter and dropped it into his out-tray.
He worked on for ten minutes, finding it more and more difficult to maintain his concentration. He felt his eyes grow heavy and realised for the first time that he had missed lunch. A week before he would have poured himself a mug of high-octane coffee, but Sarah had made him promise to give up, and he had promised himself that he would never cheat on her again, in any way. Instead, he took a king-size Mars Bar from his desk drawer and consumed it in four bites.
As he waited for the energy boost to hit his system, he picked up his direct telephone, found a number and dialled it.
He hoped that it would be Marina who answered rather than Sofia; and so it was.
‘Bob Skinner,’ he announced.
‘Good afternoon. This is a pleasant surprise. . do you have something to tell us about Antonia’s death?’
‘No, sorry. In fact I have something to ask you. When were you going to get round to telling me about Toni’s child?’
He counted the silence; one second, two seconds, three. .
‘Ah, so you know about that.’
‘Of course. You must have realised that the post-mortem was bound to reveal it.’
‘Yes, I suppose I did. Maman and I hoped you wouldn’t regard it as relevant. It isn’t really, is it?’
‘Probably not,’ he agreed, ‘but when we set out to create a picture of someone’s life, it has to be complete. We can’t leave things out, arbitrarily, for personal, or even for diplomatic, reasons.’
‘No, I accept that now. We should have volunteered it.’
‘What happened to the child?’
‘She’s here, with us. When you visited us the other day, she was upstairs, playing in the nursery that Antonia made for her there. She was born in Mauritius, two years ago. Her name is Lucille; she’s such a pretty little thing. Normally she lives in London, with Maman, in a house that Antonia’s father bought for them. He is widowed now, and when he heard of the child he was overwhelmed. He had never recognised my sister as his daughter, not formally, not until then.’
‘Does he know she’s dead?’
‘Oh yes. Maman called him, straight away. She said he was very upset. So he should have been. I don’t care for the man, even though I’ve never met him.’
‘Who’s Lucille’s father?’ Skinner asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Marina confessed. ‘Antonia never told me, and she never told Maman. But she registered the birth herself, in Mauritius. You should be able to find out there.’
‘That’s right,’ he agreed, ‘we should.’ We should, he thought, but some bugger doesn’t want us to.
‘When you do, will you let me know, please. Maman and I have been looking for Lucille’s birth certificate among Antonia’s papers, but we can’t find it.’
‘Sure, will do. But until then we’re guessing. Those men friends you told me about, her lovers: she never gave you any clue to their names?’
‘No, not really. She gave one or two of them nicknames. The DAC in the Met, for example, she called him “Bullshit”, for whatever unimaginable reason. The mandarin she called “Chairman Mao”, and the QC was always “Howling Mad”. Other than that, she never let anything slip.’
‘You mentioned five men in her life,’ the chief said, ‘but when we met you said she’d had six relationships in the time you lived with her. Was the sixth Michael Thomas?’
She laughed. ‘Him?’ she exclaimed. ‘You know about that?’
‘The whole bloody force seems to know about that. He was seen leaving the flat she was renting, far too late for it to have been a work visit.’
‘Then that was careless of her, and not typical. It was very definitely a one-night stand. It was also the only time that she ever had a man when she and I were under the same roof. Actually, I found it quite embarrassing,’ she confessed. ‘The walls were thin.’ He heard what might have been a giggle. ‘It’s very off-putting to hear your sister faking it. Next morning I complained. She laughed and said not to worry, that it had been what she described as “tactical sex” and wouldn’t happen again.
‘No,’ she continued, ‘her most recent relationship was still going on, and had been for at least three months. I’m more than a little surprised that I haven’t heard from the poor man; he must be distraught, for they were close. For the first time I sensed that there was no motive behind the relationship, nothing “tactical” about it.’
‘I don’t suppose she told you his name, either.’
‘Ah, but this time she did,’ Marina exclaimed. ‘That’s why I believe it was serious. She told me he is called Don Sturgeon, and that he works as an IT consultant. She never brought him home and she never introduced us, but I saw him once when he came to pick her up. He is very attractive: clean-cut, well-dressed, almost military looking.’
Skinner felt his right eyebrow twitch. ‘Indeed?’ he murmured. ‘Anything else that you can recall about him?’
‘Yes,’ she replied at once. ‘His skin tone; it’s almost the same as mine. It made me wonder if he was Mauritian too, and that’s what she saw in him.’
‘In this life,’ the chief observed, ‘anything is possible. Marina,’ he exclaimed as a picture formed in his mind, ‘are you doing anything, right now?’