‘Hell, boss! What sort of a mood are you in?’
‘The sort that comes over me when I’m trying to figure out how somebody could have been in two places at once. To answer your question, when we were with Boras, we were talking to people he’s been involved with for over fifteen years. On Saturday, he was acting on his own, but he’s still under their umbrella.’ Succinctly, keeping his voice low, he summarised Amanda Dennis’s message.
‘We’re being warned off by them? Does that mean we have to start checking under our cars every morning?’
‘No. It’s a bluff. But it might as well have been a warning. If Drazen didn’t kill Stevie, although I’m damn near certain he did, then we will never know who did.’
‘Boss, I met the man myself. He walked into our office in Queen Charlotte Street at around two fifteen, and the boys took him round to the Waterfront, where I saw him. You’ve read Montell’s report of their discussion in the investigation file. He got back from Los Angeles that morning, found out what had happened to his sister, went to see his folks, and caught a BA flight up to Edinburgh. He checked into the George, then took a taxi down to Leith. The pathologist has Ballester dying at half past twelve, in Wooler. He couldn’t have done it.’
Skinner frowned. ‘There’s flexibility in the time of death. Suppose he killed the guy an hour earlier? He could have got to Edinburgh from Wooler by road in that time.’
McGuire shook his head. ‘But not from London to Wooler by road, no way.’
‘Fly to Newcastle, hire a car?’
‘No time and eminently traceable.’
‘Fuck it!’ Skinner snapped. ‘Private plane? Davor has one.’
‘It’s a jet. Brian Mackie’s a plane anorak; he met it at Turnhouse. He told me the thing could cross the Atlantic. You won’t land that in the fucking Cheviots and take off again.’
‘No.’ The DCC looked down at his glass, and realised that his second pint was almost gone. ‘Mario, I need to shut my brain down for a while. I’m in danger of becoming obsessive. I’ve promised Maggie that I’ll find Stevie’s killer; if I can’t . . .’
‘Then you can’t, big man, and that’ll be an end of it. Nobody will ever blame you for not trying.’
Skinner rose to his feet. ‘I will, son,’ he said. ‘Two more, please,’ he called to the barman.
Seventy-four
‘Thanks, Griff.’ Sammy Pye took the report from Montell. The new DI had arrived in the office at five minutes past eight to find the South African already there.
‘I finished that last night,’ the detective constable told him. ‘I’ve been through every file and every folder on that disk. I can tell you just about everything there is to know about the personal and business life of Daniel Ballester, and I’m glad the bastard’s dead.’
‘Me too. I’ll read through it.’ As the door of his office closed once more he began to read. Montell’s paper was well structured: it began with a printout of Ballester’s diary entries over a three-year period. There was no detail, only times and venues of appointments, with individuals identified by initials. His involvement with Zrinka Boras was identifiable on that basis, as was his liaison with Stacey Gavin. On the day of her death, there was a single entry: ‘SQ’. Then on the day before Zrinka’s murder, another, ‘NB’.
‘South Queensferry, North Berwick,’ Pye murmured. He moved on to the descriptions of each of the folders on the disk, beginning with ‘My Pictures’. Montell’s summary revealed that there were few. There were some from Ballester’s youth and childhood, but the main concentration was in the folders marked ‘Zrinka’ and ‘Stacey’. They included intimate shots of both women, and in Stacey’s folder was a nude shot of Ballester himself, taken by Stacey while he posed for her portrait, for the next image was one of the young artist, partly hidden by a canvas on an easel, brush in hand.
From ‘My Pictures’, Pye moved on to a group under a one-word heading, ‘Business’. He read through printouts of each one; each contained detail of a story on which the journalist had been involved, with notes, interview summaries and frank opinions, which, to Pye, revealed much more about the author than about his subjects. As he progressed, he understood why Montell had found the man repellent: the notes showed the man inside, and not, he was sure, the Ballester that Zrinka and Stacey had thought, at first, that they knew. As he read, he was certain that Zrinka must have come upon these files, and that they had brought their relationship to an end.
And yet: Pye checked the list once, then again. He reached across his desk and found a pad on which was scrawled the number of the Royal Horseguards Hotel. He picked up his phone and dialled. The receptionist answered on the second ring.
‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘I’m trying to contact one of your overnight guests, Mr McGuire.’
There was a pause, and then, ‘He hasn’t checked out yet. I’ll try his room.’
He waited, until a familiar voice answered, a shade gruffly.
‘Morning, boss, it’s Sammy. How are you?’
‘Never go on the piss with Bob Skinner. What’s up, Sam?’
‘Maybe nothing, but I thought you should know. Montell’s done a full analysis of Ballester’s computer. Most of his sad life’s there, all his seedy stories, even the Diana nonsense, but there’s one thing that isn’t. There is nothing relating to Davor Boras or his company. Yet he spent a whole chunk of his life digging into it. Does it strike you as passing strange that there’s nothing about it?’
McGuire was fully awake in an instant. ‘It sure does. And I’m afraid it’s going to give the bloke along the corridor a whole new lease of life.’
Seventy-five
‘He’s sure about that?’ Skinner exclaimed. ‘There are no entries on Boras?’
‘Montell’s thorough,’ McGuire told him. ‘Sammy wouldn’t have called me if he’d been in any doubt.’
‘And here was me ready to give up. I’ve lain awake half the night thinking that I’m an impressionable fool, down here because of a flight of Arthur Dorward’s fancy. You know the techs. They always want to show they’re the cleverest kids in school. But now . . .’
‘Arthur only deals in fact. He told you what was and wasn’t there and you drew conclusions, which I support.’
‘So what are your conclusions from the fact that while Ballester’s entire career as a journalist can be traced through his computer, there’s nothing at all on the one that ties him to Boras?’
‘They were wiped by whoever killed him. And that brings me back to Drazen, the only person we know of that his secretive father might trust with the task.’
‘Yet he was flying at the time Ballester was killed,’ Skinner pointed out.
‘That’s if he was the man who got on the plane,’ said McGuire. ‘I’ve been doing some after-midnight thinking as well. What if a substitute caught the flight to Edinburgh?’
’That still leaves Drazen with the seemingly impossible task of getting to Wooler in time to kill Ballester, then get up to Edinburgh.’
‘He’s a rich man too.’
‘Another plane? Mario, get Sammy on line, please.’ He waited as McGuire called Pye on his mobile, then took it as it was handed over.
‘This is the DCC,’ he said. ‘I want your team to get on to the Civil Aviation Authority and check their records for all aircraft owned personally by Davor Boras, his son Drazen, also known as David Barnes, and by any companies they might control. I know of one, a jet belonging to Daddy, so disregard that. If you get any other results, find out where those planes are based, and when their last recorded movements were.
’Also, I want to know if Drazen, or David Barnes for that matter, has a pilot’s licence. Finally, I want you to check flight arrivals from JFK at Heathrow on Saturday morning, looking for Drazen, under either of his names, and departures from there to Edinburgh at midday.’
‘Yes, sir. Do I call you back on this number?’
‘No, you won’t be able to. DCS McGuire or I will call you, when we can.’
