‘WC and shower,’ he said.
He followed Clarke up the curving stone staircase. The master bedroom contained a large bed and a wall-length built-in wardrobe with mirrored doors. Salman bin Mahmoud’s various suits, jackets and shirts were neatly arranged, some still in the polythene wrapping from their last dry-clean. Tiered drawers inside the wardrobe held underwear, belts, ties, jewellery.
‘Liked his cufflinks,’ Fox commented.
Condoms and a selection of over-the-counter pills sat in a bedside drawer. There was no reading matter by the bed. Clarke picked up a remote and pressed the power button. From a recessed area at the foot of the bed a flat-screen TV rose into view. When she switched the TV on, it was tuned to an Arabic news channel.
Fox went to check the en suite bathroom. ‘I’m not the expert here,’ he said, ‘but I’m seeing nothing that could be described as ladies’ toiletries.’
‘So one-night stands rather than a regular girlfriend?’ Clarke switched the TV off and returned to the hallway. The next door led to an office. Desk drawers gaped and the computer had been removed by the investigators. The walls were lined with framed posters from Sean Connery’s run as James Bond. There were also dozens of replica Aston Martin DB5s in different sizes.
‘Think I had this one,’ Fox said, lifting the model to inspect it. He pressed a button and the roof sprang up along with the ejector seat, the figure in the seat landing on the floor.
Clarke was studying a map of the Middle East, which sat at eye level when she lowered herself onto the desk chair.
‘Did he think of himself as an exile?’ she wondered aloud. ‘Below the surface trappings, I mean?’
‘You’re asking if he was happy or just putting on a show?’ Fox could only shrug. ‘All the interviews we’ve done, nobody’s said anything.’
‘I’m not sure his circle of friends and hangers-on would be the types to pry.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Were they interested in him or just in what he represented – specifically moneyed exoticism? And meantime he’s worried sick about his family back home?’
Fox was still mulling that over as he followed Clarke to the next room. It was another large sitting room, more comfortable than the formal one downstairs. Sofa and two chairs, home cinema system, the shelves filled with framed photographs. Most were of Salman’s family – not just his mother and father, but what looked like uncles, aunts, cousins. A black-and-white photo, creased and faded, showed his grandparents or maybe even great-grandparents. But there were more recent photos too, dating to his time in the UK. Clarke had seen a few of these already – they were copies of photos printed in society magazines, the ones Fox had stored on his computer. Others showed Salman with friends and admirers at parties, including one in the VIP area of the Jenever Club. Isabella Meiklejohn and Giovanni Morelli featured in most of these. Usually Salman was hugging Isabella, but in one he had wrapped his arms around Gio from behind, both men laughing with their perfect teeth.
‘How much do we know about Morelli?’ Clarke asked.
‘He’s studying English lit, comes from a well-to-do family in Rome, father an industrialist and mother a countess or suchlike.’
‘Did any of them know each other before they parachuted into Edinburgh?’
‘That first time we spoke to Morelli and Meiklejohn, didn’t they say something about meeting at a party?’
Clarke nodded, deep in thought. ‘That’s how the three of them met specifically, which isn’t quite the same thing. Maybe it’s just my prejudice showing again, but the rich are the original networkers, aren’t they? Same Caribbean beaches in summer and alpine ski resorts in winter. And when families end up there, the younger members tend to congregate. There are only so many party invitations after all … ’ Her eyes met Fox’s. ‘Did anyone ask them during their interviews?’
‘I’ve not listened to the recordings; just looked at the edited highlights. Are you saying we head back to Lady Isabella’s?’
‘I doubt she’d let us in this time.’
‘But we could insist.’
Clarke was shaking her head. ‘It can wait,’ she said.
One further room on this floor: a large bathroom with jacuzzi bath and a shower big enough to share. Then up a further flight of stairs to a couple of guest bedrooms, both en suite, beds made, towels and robes laid out, never to be used.
‘Salman had a cleaner, right?’
‘A local company. They told us he was great to work for, a complete charmer, et cetera.’ Fox followed as Clarke headed back downstairs to the sitting room. ‘We’re not ruling out that this was just a random hate crime – wrong time, wrong place – or connected somehow to the other attacks on overseas students?’
‘Come on, Malcolm, this is different. He wasn’t slapped about and called a few names – he was stabbed to death in a part of town where he didn’t belong.’ Clarke’s eyes were sweeping the room and its contents one last time.
‘And the attack on Morelli – is that connected to the muggings or the murder?’
Clarke picked up one of the photos. ‘Is that Stewart Scoular in the background, talking to the woman in the dress that seems both backless and mostly frontless?’
Fox peered at the print. ‘Looks like,’ he conceded.
She exhaled and put the photograph back. ‘We should talk to him again.’
‘Scoular?’
‘Morelli,’ she corrected. ‘You’re right – we need to find out if there’s something in his friendship with Salman that led to both men being attacked. Let’s get him down to the station tomorrow.’
‘Rather than his home?’
‘I think we’ve maybe been tugging the forelock, Malcolm. We need to start making people feel a lot less comfortable – cop shop’s a pretty good place for that, wouldn’t you say?’
Fox considered for a moment, then nodded his agreement.
21
‘You,’ Cole Burnett told Benny through lips cracked with dried blood, ‘you are fucking dead, my man.’
Burnett was strapped to a rickety metal chair, the kind you’d find tossed into
