slip when we left Gatwick and I’m anxious that we retain that advantage.’
‘Sure,’ the assistant chief replied. ‘Let’s head off.’
‘I’d like to travel with you, Mr Mackie, if I may,’ said Barker.
‘Yes,’ Boras barked. ‘That would be best.’
‘If that’s how you want it,’ Mackie replied evenly, ‘it’s fine with me. I’ll take the lead car with Mr Barker. You and your wife take the larger vehicle, please, Mr Boras. It’s more comfortable.’
‘No blue lights, I notice,’ Barker murmured, as the police officer slid after him into the back seat of their Mondeo, tapping the driver on the shoulder as a signal to move off.
‘No. There’s no point in attracting attention to Mr Boras. His daughter’s identity hasn’t been picked up by the media yet, and I want to keep it that way until the formal identification’s been made. As an ex-journalist you’ll understand that, I’m sure. Once the news breaks the family will come under intense scrutiny.’
‘Of course. But as I said earlier, Mr Boras himself is always under intense scrutiny. That’s why this business needs to be very carefully managed. There could be significant financial implications.’
‘In what way?’
‘The City’s a very sensitive animal, Mr Mackie. Although Continental IT has become a massive business, my employer remains extremely hands-on in its day-to-day management. I’m not saying that he is the company, you understand, but the financial markets recognise his importance to its well-being. Therefore anything that happens to distract him in his personal life will be seen to have a knock-on effect.’
‘And the share price might suffer?’
‘Exactly. This is why I wanted to travel with you, Mr Mackie: to make you understand the sensitivity of this situation, at all sorts of levels.’
‘I think I do already, but carry on.’
He did. ‘Make no mistake, Mr Mackie, Zrinka’s death is a tragedy for the Boras family; I cannot tell you how badly it has affected Davor and Sanda. What we must do now is ensure that it does not become a tragedy for others. Continental IT employs thousands, indeed tens of thousands of people across Europe and at our call centre in Mumbai; a crisis of confidence among the institutional shareholders could put many of those jobs at risk. For that reason, I’d like to work with your media people in preparing any public statements about Zrinka, and I’d like her father to be involved in every press briefing, so that he can answer questions directly and send out the right business message: so that he can be seen to be in control.’
The assistant chief constable frowned. ‘I hear what you’re saying, Mr Barker, and I’ve got no problem with putting Mr Boras in front of the press. But I’d like to check our perspectives here. I suppose that Zrinka’s death is a tragedy for you too . . .’
‘Of course, of course,’ Barker exclaimed, a little too quickly.
‘. . . being so close to the family, so maybe your professional thinking is affected. As I understand it, Continental IT is a hugely successful company. Last year it returned profits of more than a half a billion euros. Or am I wrong?’
‘No, that’s correct.’
‘In addition to that fifty-five per cent of the shares are held by an investment trust owned by the Boras family; so, although it’s a public company, effective control still lies in their hands.’
The ginger eyebrows rose. ‘You have been doing your homework. You’re an unusual policeman, if I may say so.’
‘I like to know who I’m dealing with. But I’m not so unusual: I had a good teacher. What I’m getting around to saying is that, from where I’m sat, you’re anticipating a crisis that isn’t going to happen. Okay, so some institutional shareholders get a bit twitchy, short term. That isn’t going to affect the employees’ interests at all, and long-term it isn’t going to affect the company’s stock-market value.’
The ex-journalist shifted in his seat, glancing out of the window at the Gyle shopping mall as the car cruised through the roundabout that led into it. ‘Ah, but with respect,’ he ventured, ‘the issues are greater than you know.’
‘So enlighten me.’ Barker winced, slightly, and nodded in the direction of the driver. Mackie caught the implication. ‘Don’t worry about PC Cash,’ he said. ‘In this car he never hears what’s said in the back seat. Isn’t that right, Wattie?’
A voice came from the front. ‘I beg your pardon, sir?’
Boras’s assistant frowned. ‘On that basis, then.’ Nonetheless his voice dropped to little more than a whisper. ‘At this moment,’ he continued, ‘Mr Boras is negotiating an agreed takeover of Continental IT by a very large American company. In these circumstances the share price is of paramount importance. Nothing can be allowed to destabilise it, even in the short term. That’s why it has to be clear to everybody that it is business as usual for Davor Boras, in spite of his grief.’ He sighed. ‘This couldn’t have happened at a worse moment.’
‘Is there an ideal moment for a father to lose his daughter, Mr Barker?’ asked Mackie, quietly.
‘Of course not, but happening when it has, so close to the takeover, I’m tempted to wonder whether the two events might be connected.’
The police officer gasped. ‘Are you suggesting that the Americans might have arranged a hit on Zrinka to devalue her father’s business?’
‘Dark things happen; you must know that.’
‘Yes, but in this case that isn’t one of them. Ms Boras’s murder has got nothing to do with Continental IT. We may not know who killed her, not yet, but we know that much. Mr Barker, you can have everything you ask for in terms of the media. Our PR manager, Alan Royston, will clear our statement with you. When we brief the press, your boss can sit beside our head of CID. All that’s fine.’
‘Thank you very much.’
‘In return . . .’ he paused ‘I . . . want Mr Boras, and his wife, if she’s up to it, to be available for interview by our investigating officers tomorrow morning. We need to talk to them about their relationship with Zrinka.’
‘They may not like that.’
Mackie made eye contact and held it. ‘I may not give a fuck,’ he said quietly. ‘That’s what’s going to happen.’
Twenty-three
Mario was in the kitchen of his penthouse in Leith’s gentrified quarter; ‘Willow’, from the first Cafe del Mar
‘You’re late,’ he murmured, as he turned in her embrace to kiss her. ‘It’s quarter to seven.’
‘Things to do,’ Paula replied, after a while.
‘Such as?’
She jerked a thumb over her shoulder and he followed its direction. A brown-paper bag lay on the work surface. ‘Rolls,’ she murmured, ‘for the morning.’
‘What about the bacon?’
‘Don’t kid me. You’ve always got bacon in the fridge.’
‘I’m that predictable, eh?’
‘Only in your shopping habits. The rest of the time you’re as daft and impulsive as you ever were.’
He pressed her closer to him. ‘Much like yourself, then.’
‘Is that what you think? Is that what’s wrong with me?’
‘I don’t see anything wrong with you. You wanted me to look you in the eye and tell you that, and here, I’m doing it.’
‘I know, love.’ She took a button of his open-necked shirt and twirled it in her fingers. ‘And I love you for your faith in me; but that’s not what we were talking about earlier. I was going on about last night, and the way I felt when I held the baby.’
‘And I told you it would wear off.’ He looked at her, suddenly serious. ‘Hey, you’re not working up to tell me that you want to try for a kid with someone else, are you?’
