‘Wow!’ the DC exclaimed. ‘That’s much more than I’d expected. Are you allowed to give me any more details? The card number for example.’

  ‘That’s all I’ve got, I’m afraid. For anything else, I think you’ll have to ask in Spain.’ O’Reilly frowned. ‘What’s this about? Can I ask you? Or aren’t you allowed to say?’

  ‘It’s an ongoing investigation, that’s all I’m allowed to tell you. But, I’m from the Serious Crimes Unit, if that helps.’

  ‘Big time, eh? I hope I’ve helped you catch the . . . the perp, if that’s what you call them. Meantime,’ she continued, ‘I’ll get you that discount.’

  Twenty-Six

  As ACC Lowell Payne gazed at the face on his tablet, he found his mind dwelling on the continuing influence of Bob Skinner on a service he had left some time before. His own career had blossomed after his path had crossed that of the man who had been married to his wife’s late sister. He had never met Myra but her daughter Alexis had been a regular visitor to her Aunt Jean during her student days in Glasgow, and still was.

  Payne had been a sergeant in the cumbersome and unloved Strathclyde force at the time, locked at that rank for the rest of his career, he had assumed: then Skinner had become chief constable and everything had changed. Merit was identified and rewarded, and he had been a beneficiary. He had never dreamed of reaching command status, and yet he had, in the sensitive and at times secretive division that in the unified police service had replaced what was known as Special Branch in the former regional set-up.

  When he looked at Sauce Haddock, the youngest of Skinner’s many protégés, he saw himself, but with a difference. Payne knew that he had finally reached his ceiling; he expected the newly promoted detective superintendent to surpass it, possibly while he was still in the service himself.

  ‘I’ve reached out,’ he said, ‘like you asked me to. The Security Service has never heard of your man Gavin Ayre. They’ve reached out themselves to other interests and nobody, anywhere, has his image, his DNA or his fingerprints on record. That’s not surprising. I expect the General Register Office will come back to confirm that Gavin Ayre was born on the date on his passport, but that the original died in infancy. It’s a flaw in the system that can still be exploited. You pull a birth certificate and use it to obtain a passport. It doesn’t work with a driving licence though. You need to pass a test for that. Ayre’s licence is a very impressive forgery. Your man’s a ghost, Sauce.’

  Haddock frowned as he looked at the figure on his own screen, confident in his tunic with his badges of rank on his shoulders. Most police officers over forty-five, and the younger ones who knew of the connection, believed that Lowell Payne would still be a uniformed inspector at best had it not been for his tenuous relationship to Bob Skinner. He was not among them. He recognised the ACC’s sharp analytical mind, his ability to envisage every possibility in a developing situation and most of all his thoroughness. He had been raised to believe that while rank deserved automatic respect, the person who held it had to earn it. Payne passed muster with him on both levels, unlike his own line manager, ACC Becky Stallings, who had never in his experience made a positive contribution to any investigation. Most people in the HR department could do her job, and more efficiently at that.

  ‘What’s your thinking, Superintendent?’ Payne asked.

  ‘So he’s Caspar, and the spooks don’t know of him,’ Haddock replied. ‘But, suppose he was a spook himself, would they tell us?’

  ‘A reasonable question,’ the ACC conceded. ‘My contact would, I’m pretty sure.’ In fact, he had reached out to Clyde Houseman who had been the MI5 presence in Scotland until a combination of circumstances had precipitated his recall to Millbank. Houseman had been his best conduit to military intelligence, who treated their secrets as personal property and were notoriously unwilling to share. ‘Sorry, Sauce,’ he said. ‘I can’t take it any further.’

  Haddock sighed as he closed the connection. He was pondering his next move when there was a light knock at the door and Jackie Wright eased herself into the room. ‘What have you got?’ he asked. ‘Something? Anything?’

  ‘Maybe,’ she replied. ‘Benjamin’s called me from St James’s Quarter. She’s established that the bikini bottom in Ayre’s bedroom was bought in Spain, in a shopping mall in Girona.’

  ‘That’s something,’ he conceded. ‘Do we know who bought it?’

  ‘That’s the hard part. They’ve got the last four digits of a card number, but we’ll need to involve the Spanish police to trace the holder . . . if that’s even possible. What’s the police force there?’

  ‘Girona’s in Catalonia,’ Haddock said, ‘so it’s probably the Mossos d’Esquadra. They’ll take their own time, if past experience is anything to go by. But,’ he smiled, ‘maybe there’s an informal route we can try first. Give me all the information you have, please, and leave it with me.’

  Twenty-Seven

  ‘Paul,’ Jenny Bramley said quietly. ‘I saw from the sign-out book that you were here until midnight. I told you to take today off, not just this morning, yet here you are in the lab at lunchtime. You don’t have anything to prove to me, you know.’

  Paul Dorward met her gaze. ‘If I thought I did, I’d be long gone,’ he replied. ‘And I did appreciate the day-off offer. My old man would never have done that. He wouldn’t have been here until ten o’clock either, as the same book told me you were. But morning was enough, really. I wanted to see what the pube from Gavin Ayre’s seaside palace tells us about the donor, if it tells us anything.’

  ‘And does it? Will it help Haddock and his shoal?’

  He grinned. ‘Don’t let him hear you say that. “Sauce” he tolerates, but only from those who know him well enough. Any other fishy gags get shut down.’

  ‘I’ll bear that in mind when I speak to him.’ She took a breath. ‘When I do, will I have anything to tell him?’

  ‘Well, you won’t be able to put a name to her, I’m afraid, not yet at least. Like Ayre, she hasn’t shown up on any of the standard databases. I’m still waiting for European feedback.’

  She frowned deeply. ‘Pretty much what I expected you to say,’ she sighed. ‘Let’s hope the clothing we sent back to Edinburgh gives them a lead to her.’

  ‘Yes,’ Dorward agreed, ‘let’s hope. But,’ he continued, ‘when you talk to Sauce, you will get his attention. Where did you say those garments were found?’

  ‘In Ayre’s bedroom, in the dressing area.’

  ‘How many bedrooms were there?’

  ‘Five, all en-suite.’

  The ginger-haired scientist grinned. ‘In that case, you might be triggering another investigation. Like I told you, there was a semen trace on a pair of the knickers you gave me. As I said, I ran a profile, and yes, it was Ayre’s.’

  ‘To be expected.’

  ‘Normally, but . . . My dad always said never to leave a step untaken, one thing he did get right. So, when I got the completed profile on the female, I compared it with all the other DNA traces recovered from the scene, just two of them unknown, excluding careless police officers that I eliminated, and also with Gavin Ayre’s, automatically. And guess what?’ A wide smile spread across his face. ‘She’s his half-sister. I’m not a criminal lawyer, but still I’m pretty certain that counts as incest in Scotland. How about letting me call Sauce? I really would like to make his day.’

  Bramley’s beam matched his. ‘Then go ahead. You’ve earned it!’

  Twenty-Eight

  Bob Skinner regarded it as one of life’s ironies. He had spent thirty years anticipating the day when his daily commute would be a thing of the past, only to drift into a new one when his role in Girona required him to spend at least two or three days there every week.

  His Spanish property was reachable, in the coastal town of L’Escala, a little under fifty kilometres from the InterMedia head office, but the traffic was a bind. Eventually he had taken a big decision, to spend most of the performance bonus from his first year in the chair on an apartment in the city, a duplex in a new-build seven-storey block. It was so close to the business hub that on occasion he and his senior colleagues would meet there, out of the melee that was inevitable in a building whose main activity was news and current affairs.

  Street noise drifted upwards as he and Hector Sureda, the company’s CEO, stood on the rooftop terrace, each with a beer in hand. ‘It’s exciting, Bob, is it not,’ his colleague murmured, ‘to be launching a business in North America. Did you ever go there when you were a cop?’

  ‘A few times,’ Skinner replied. ‘Chiefly I was at Quantico, the FBI headquarters, on international exchanges, and as a lecturer a couple of times. I didn’t go down too well there. The Americans don’t like being told by a foreigner that much, no, most of their street crime can be blamed four square on the Second Amendment.’

  ‘The age-old problem,’ Sureda said. ‘The right to bear arms.’

  ‘Mmm,’ Skinner grunted. ‘But it doesn’t define “arms”, nor does it say a word about ammunition.’

  ‘Is that where you would start to tackle it?’

  ‘In an ideal world, yes, but that isn’t the USA. It’s insoluble. The way I see it, the gun lobby can’t be overthrown. They have to live with that. To me the more dangerous part of the Second Amendment is the reference to a well-regulated militia. That opens the door to all sorts of hairy-backs.’

  ‘Will the next presidential campaign focus on that, do you think?’

  ‘It will be an element, for sure. And when it rises to the surface, Hector, what will be the editorial stance of Intermedia Latino, as you and the big man are proposing to call it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sureda admitted. ‘We know the project has been Xavi’s way of keeping in touch with the business with me taking it to you and the board, but that’s a discussion he and I have not had. Maybe we should not take an editorial stance,’ he suggested.

  ‘How would that work?’ Skinner challenged. ‘We’ll be running a news outlet. On present plans we’ll open on the first day of next year, election year in the US. That will dominate the news agenda. We’ll have programme anchors. We’ll have expert opinion, guest input. How can we be neutral?’

  ‘Those guests could be academics.’

  ‘Academics are as polarised in the States as everyone else,’ he countered. ‘Look Hector, the people on our platform have to reflect the philosophy and morality of what we perceive our target audience to be . . . and what its owner believes . . . or you and he wouldn’t have taken it this far.’ He tilted his Corona bottle in Sureda’s direction. ‘Where are politics in America right now?’ he asked. ‘There’s the incumbent in the White House, with an element in his party that’s flat-out socialist, a cuss word to most of the electorate. There’s the opposition party in the grip of the militant Right, the Proud Boys and such. But now, between them, there’s the new guy, the independent. He’s pitching himself as the voice of sanity, the man to rebuild moderate America. From what we hear and read he’s gathering a lot of middle-ground support. Jesus, my wife is still an American citizen. She’s a dual passport holder, as are our three kids, a long-term view we took when Jazz was born. Sarah says she’d vote for Silver, and I believe she’s a pretty good benchmark.’

  ‘But Bob,’ Sureda intervened, ‘as you know, the man is only an independent. There are dozens of those on the ballot at every election.’

  ‘Yes,’ Skinner conceded, ‘but none of the others are attracting serious interest from the media and the voting public. This one is. Will he still be around on January one next year when Intermedia Latino goes live on air, assuming we get regulatory approval . . . that is? If he is, and polling significantly as he is just now . . .’

  ‘Are you going to propose that Intermedia Latino should support him?’

  ‘Not yet, but I am putting it on the table as an alternative to neutrality, which I believe is impossible in practice, or supporting the Democrats, which would be the natural home of the viewing audience we’ll be trying to reach. Hector, you’ve been Xavi’s man in developing the project. I’d like you to talk through the alternatives with him and bring a proposal to the board.’

  ‘Could you not have that conversation, Bob?’ Sureda asked. ‘You talk to him all the time.’

  ‘I talk to him about football, about art and about the price of cheese, but we don’t talk often about board business. When I took the job I told him I wouldn’t be his stooge. We’re both very clear about that. By the same token he and I haven’t discussed Intermedia Latino. So you need to do it, and it’s time you did.’

  The chief executive nodded. ‘Yes, boss,’ he chuckled. ‘We will. Tomorrow, I promise. Now I must go.’

  As he spoke Skinner’s ring tone sounded. He glanced at the screen. ‘Hector, I need to take this. See yourself out, okay?’

  As Sureda left, he accepted the call. ‘Sauce? What’s up?’

  ‘Are you still in Spain, Gaffer?’ Haddock asked.

  He held his phone high, away from his ear, for a few seconds. ‘Very much so,’ he said as he returned it. ‘Can you hear the city in the background?’

  ‘Yes,’ the detective replied. ‘Are you in your new place?’

  ‘I am. It’s just as well. My first-born daughter’s in residence in L’Escala, with her friend Dominick.’

  ‘Dominick Jackson? The psychologist? Are Alex and he . . .?’

  ‘I don’t think so. If they are, she’s not going to tell me and I’m not going to ask. So why are you calling? Are you going to tell me you’ve made an arrest in the Ayre investigation?’

  ‘Sadly no,’ Haddock replied. ‘But if he was still alive I might be arresting him. Or at the very least asking him to explain how his semen got on his half-sister’s pants, that we found in his bedroom.’

  ‘The woman in the Main Course?’ Skinner exclaimed. ‘That was his half-sister?’

  ‘No, she was someone else. She assures us that she did her washing at home, and I believe her. But that’s not why I’m calling, not directly. We want to put a name to Ayre’s half-sister and find her if we can. The route to that is through another piece of clothing that we took from the house yesterday. The bar code information tells us that it was bought from a store called Bershka in Espai Girona, a shopping mall near where you are right now.’

  ‘Near me?’ he laughed. ‘I can practically fucking see it from here! I know it too. Sarah dragged me off there one day last Easter.’

  ‘Right,’ the superintendent continued. ‘What I’d appreciate is for you to use the police contacts that I’m sure you have out there to go to the store, and get them to find the holder of the card that was used in the transaction. We both know it’ll get things done a lot faster than going through normal channels. I’ve got an image of the sales slip that I can send you so that you can brief the locals.’

  ‘That sounds fine in theory, Sauce,’ Skinner conceded, ‘but for one thing. I’m the chair of a group that owns among other things the biggest daily newspaper in this city. As such the police like to keep us at arms’ length. Now, I could go to the head of the Mossos in Barcelona and ask for strings to be pulled, but I don’t want to do that because the people here might not take it too kindly.’

  ‘So you’re saying, Gaffer,’ Haddock sighed, ‘that I’ll have to go through official channels.’

  ‘Fuck no!’ he laughed. ‘I’m saying I’ll do it myself. Send me what you’ve got and I’ll go right now.’

  Twenty-Nine

  ‘Your daft granny was right, you know,’ Noele McClair told her sleeping daughter. ‘There is something to be said for working from home. Maybe I could attend crime scenes by video link and still function as a detective. It would do away with the smell and that would be a bonus. A lot of murders are smelly, Mattie. Like that guy in Game of Thrones said, “People shit themselves when they’re killed.” I’m pretty sure that in the not-too-distant future we’ll be using artificial intelligence to help us process homicides, from the location all the way to prosecution, letting us avoid the nasty bits. Maybe AI will take over completely. Think about the manpower it would save if a suspect was able to say “No comment” to a computer programme rather than having to say it to a couple of expensive CID officers like me and Uncle Sauce. And then there’s juries. AI won’t be secretly prejudiced against anyone who winds up in the dock. It won’t resent being forced to spend days in court listening to sordid details being spelled out in language that it doesn’t understand. It won’t rush to judgement just to get the hell out of there. And as for judges! They . . .’

  Her diatribe was interrupted by her phone’s soothing tone. She picked it up and saw from the country code that the caller was based somewhere in Spain. As she accepted, her assumption was that it was the man from the consulate, but a female voice proved her wrong.

  ‘Detective McClair,’ it said, ‘my name is Núria Alabau. I am a manager of Banco Sabadell in Madrid. Senor Greaves from the consular department in the British Embassy called me about the account you are trying to trace.’

  ‘Yes,’ she exclaimed. ‘Are you authorised to talk to me?’

  ‘I am,’ Alabau confirmed. ‘It is not something I would normally do without an official request through the Policia Nacional, but Senor Greaves said that you are investigating a murder, so I am pleased to help in any way I can.’

  ‘Thank you,’ McClair replied. ‘What I need to do is confirm the name of the account holder, and the contact details that you hold for him. The homicide victim is a man named Gavin Ayre, and he used this account to pay a bill, rather than the sterling account in Jersey that he normally used.’

  ‘Then someone else paid that factura for him. The holder of the account you are asking about is Senor Gilbert Land. He is a Canadian citizen with residencia in Spain, with the identification number x1162323h. His direccion, his address, is Masia Coll in Riudaura, in the comarca, the district, of Garrotxa in Girona province in Catalonia. Masia means farmhouse, roughly, but that does not mean he is a farmer. It is a common name for a large property. I look at the account details and I can see an international payment to an entity called Lloyd and Price. That is the only item that I would call exceptional, but there have been large amounts paid recently to suppliers. From these I would say he has spent a lot on the property over the last few months. The rest is the normal, facturas for the local taxes, light, phone and wifi, and bills, supermarkets, shopping. He has one of our credit cards as well as his debit card, but that is hardly ever used.’