‘A bad choice of blackmail victim,’ said Kotsev. ‘What a pity.’
‘Well, Lowther wasn’t going to throw away everything that he’d done for his daughter. There was no way he could let the child be taken away from her after all that. Not to mention all the money he’d invested in her happiness. When you’ve already been involved in one crime, it isn’t a big step to the next one, is it?’
‘No, that is true.’
‘And Mr Lowther felt confident he’d get away with it, because he knew Miss Shepherd was a recluse and never talked to anyone.’
‘It will be a tight case?’
‘Yes. We found the gun when we searched the Lowthers’ bungalow. And his son was driving the car. So we’ve cleared that up, Georgi. I’m sorry if it means you wasted your time here.’
‘No, it was not a waste of time,’ said Kotsev. ‘Your theory is interesting. But it is a lot of
Fry was stunned into silence for a moment. ‘You think we have it wrong?’ Then she laughed. ‘You have your own ideas. You want it to be connected to your Bulgarian Mafia. But, Georgi — ’
‘Where do you think the child is?’ asked Kotsev.
‘I don’t know. Do you?’
‘She was taken efficiently. She will be back home very soon.’
‘Back home?’
‘In Bulgaria. With her father.’
‘Georgi, I hope not.’
‘Could it not be for the best, Diane?’ he asked tentatively.
‘No, of course not. What do you mean?’
‘No matter. And the Zhivko bombing? Entirely unrelated?’
‘So far as we can tell.’
Fry wanted to ask Kotsev more. She wanted to ask him lots of things. But there was a hint of distance in his voice that made her hold back.
‘I will be pursuing my own enquiries in Pleven. Meanwhile, if I’m not available, you may speak to my colleague, Inspector Hristo Botev.’
‘Could you spell that for me?’
Kotsev spelled out the name. ‘Hristo Botev. You pronounce the “H” in the throat, almost as if it was a “C”.’
‘It sounds a bit Welsh.’
‘Yes, a bit Welsh. My friend Hristo is very celebrated in Bulgaria. A great hero.’
Fry smiled at his exaggeration. She didn’t imagine that police officers were any more celebrated in Bulgaria than they were in Derbyshire. For most people, they were a necessary evil, at best.
Cooper came into the office, and saw at once that something was disturbing Fry.
‘What’s up?’ he said.
‘That was Georgi Kotsev. He’s going back to Bulgaria this morning.’
‘Well, his interest in the case is over, I suppose.’
‘Not really. We still don’t know where Luanne Mullen is. Or should I say Zlatka?’
‘If she’s not dead, she’ll be back out of the country by now. Don’t you think so?’
‘Georgi does.’
‘Well, then. Sergeant Kotsev will be more use back in Bulgaria, if she’s ever going to be found. I think they did the right thing recalling him.’
‘Yes, you’re right.’
Cooper hesitated, wondering whether he should voice what was on his mind. The picture he had in his head seemed so unlikely that he was sure he must have imagined it. It was surely a false memory, an impression mixed up with something he’d seen in Derwent Gardens. Something, or someone.
‘It’s a pity, though,’ he said tentatively. ‘There was something I wanted to ask Georgi.’
‘Anything important?’
‘It was something I remembered from the incident at Masson Mill. Just before I ended up in the water.’
‘Before you decided to take a swim, Ben?’
‘Yes. Well, it was a very brief impression I had, but I thought someone else was there by the river that night.’
‘Obviously there was — the person who pushed you in.’
‘No, that wasn’t what I meant. There was someone else, further away. I had the impression — well, I wanted to ask Georgi Kotsev whether he’d seen a woman.’
‘A woman?’
Reluctantly, Cooper tried to describe his half-memory. It was no more than a shadow flickering in the darkness, perhaps the rustle of a long skirt on concrete. He might have been describing a dream. Or he might have confused it with the earlier glimpse of a woman who looked like a fortune teller, her blue scarf flashing briefly in the lights in Derwent Gardens.
Fry shook her head. ‘There was no woman by the river, Ben. Georgi would have mentioned it if he’d seen her.’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘I’m sure he would.’
Cooper looked at her closely. Her tone seemed to confirm what he’d been suspecting for a few days now.
‘Did you like him, Diane?’ he said. But Fry looked away. ‘He was a professional.
It was a pleasure to work with him.’
‘A refreshing change, then?’
‘You said it.’
‘Is he married, by the way?’
‘I never asked him,’ said Fry. ‘Why are you interested in Georgi, all of a sudden?’
‘I was reading some of this stuff that the intelligence unit sent us on Bulgaria. They went over the top with the information, for once. There are even some reports from the European Roma Rights Centre. Take a look at this one.’
Fry took the report he held out.
‘So?’
‘There are dozens of these, Diane. The Roma seem to have a lot of problems with the police in Bulgaria.’
‘Georgi Kotsev is different. That’s not his attitude.’
‘If you say so.’
Fry handed the report back. ‘It’s irrelevant anyway. We have incidents like that in this country, too.’
‘Yes, I know. But they don’t all involve gypsies.’
‘Look, this is a report from the Roma Rights Centre. It’s a single-issue campaign group. You’re bound to get a distorted picture, because they’re selective about the cases they publish. They’re not interested in incidents that
‘There are still quite a lot of them.’
‘Ben, I must have missed your appointment as EU Commissioner for Human Rights.’
