‘Jesus, gaffer, what is this?’ Sauce Haddock murmured as he and Pye walked towards the suite in the Norton House Hotel, where they had arranged to meet Paco Fonter. ‘A minder at the door?’ He looked more closely at the man in the grey suit. ‘Here, isn’t that the guy that the boss . . . Mr Skinner . . . had a problem with in Fettes Avenue?’

  ‘Could be,’ the DCI murmured. ‘You had a better view of him than I did. If it is him, there’s maybe no harm in his being here, for all there are no reporters in sight.’

  The hotel had been recommended to the Merrytown chief executive by the police family support officer who had been assigned to Fonter, standard practice following a homicide. It had been chosen for two reasons: its proximity to Edinburgh’s general air terminal, where the footballer’s private jet had landed, and the fact that no journalists had booked in there after the Annette Bordeaux story had broken.

  Pye produced his warrant card and held it up as they reached their destination, and its guardian, Haddock following suit. The man nodded, but said nothing; he simply rapped on the door, then opened it and stepped aside.

  DS’s eyes widened as he stepped into the suite, and he struggled to contain a gasp. There were five people crowded into the small sitting room; a buzz of conversation stopped as five heads turned to stare at the detectives. At first glance, Haddock recognised none of them, not until his gaze settled on a man, tall, dark, wearing a suit that would have cost him at least two months of a detective sergeant’s salary: the man who had been nose to nose with Bob Skinner in Fettes Avenue, while the heavy in the corridor outside had been picking himself up.

  There were two women among the quintet; one of them, slim, platinum haired, early forties, stepped towards Pye, hand outstretched. ‘Chief Inspector?’ she began, then continued without waiting for an answer. ‘Angela Renwick, chief executive; we spoke.’

  He nodded. ‘We did, Ms Renwick,’ he agreed. ‘And we arranged that we would interview Mr Fonter here, privately.’ He leaned on the word. ‘I didn’t expect to find . . .’ He stopped himself, but only just, from adding, ‘. . . half the first team squad.’

  ‘The whole Merrytown community is stunned by what’s happened,’ Ms Renwick said, filling the void. ‘Each of us felt we had to be here for Paco. Let me introduce you. This is Sirena Burbujas, who was Annette’s agent.’

  A short, chubby woman with large brown eyes and dark hair in a curly perm nodded a greeting.

  ‘Cisco Serra, Paco’s agent.’

  A Latino man peered at them through white-framed spectacles.

  ‘Tank Bridges, assistant manager and first team coach.’

  A massive, glowering figure eyed them, making no effort to hide his hostility.

  ‘And I am Rogozin,’ the third man in the room declared, forestalling any introduction.

  ‘Mr Dimitri Rogozin is our owner,’ the chief executive added, not seeing the flash of anger in the Russian’s eyes, that she should believe any explanation was necessary.

  ‘Thank you.’ The senior detective looked around the five. ‘I’m DCI Pye and this is my colleague Detective Sergeant Haddock. And Mr Fonter?’ he continued.

  ‘Paco, he is in seclusion,’ Rogozin replied. ‘He is in bedroom, resting.’

  ‘I’ll tell him you’re here,’ Renwick volunteered.

  ‘Please do,’ Pye murmured. ‘We’d be grateful if the rest of you could go somewhere else while we speak to him.’

  ‘I no leave,’ Cisco Serra protested, as the chief executive moved towards a door to their right.

  ‘Nor I,’ Rogozin added.

  ‘I’m afraid we’re going to insist that you do,’ the DCI told them. ‘Mr Fonter has suffered a tragic loss, and we’ll treat him as gently as we can, but this is a police investigation.’

  ‘But you have arrested the man you say killed Anya!’ the Russian exclaimed. ‘You have arrested Chaz. He is in jail.’

  ‘Oh no he isn’t,’ Haddock countered. ‘Mr Baker was granted bail.’

  ‘Bail?’ the Russian repeated. ‘What is this bail?’

  ‘He’s been released,’ the DS explained, ‘pending his next court appearance and trial. The sheriff must have been satisfied that he wouldn’t do a runner.’ As he spoke he glanced at Tank Bridges and saw not a flicker of surprise in his eyes. He guessed that he had received a call or a text from his boss.

  ‘Will he come here?’

  ‘He’ll have been told not to,’ Pye replied. ‘He wouldn’t be allowed to interfere with witnesses.’

  Renwick had reappeared; she was standing in the door of the suite’s bedroom, concern on her face. ‘Are you saying Chaz is out?’ she exclaimed. ‘Does that mean he can come back to work?’ she asked.

  ‘That might be a matter for you to decide,’ the DCI suggested. ‘In theory, if it didn’t conflict with any bail conditions, he could.’

  She frowned. ‘But how could he run a squad when he’s accused of killing the leading scorer’s wife?’

  ‘No bother.’ Tank Bridges’ quiet Liverpudlian voice was at odds with his granite-hewn features. ‘I take most of the training anyway. Chaz’ll pick the team, and give the orders on match day.’

  ‘You say that he will,’ Cisco Serra challenged, ‘but what if Paco refuses to play?’

  ‘Paco do what he’s told,’ Rogozin growled.

  ‘Paco is my client,’ the agent snapped back at him. ‘If I advise him that he no’ play, he no’ play.’

  ‘That’s academic,’ the assistant manager told them both. ‘Paco’s come back from Spain with a buggered hamstring. Our Alice McDade hasn’t seen him yet, but the Spanish international physio reckons he’s out for at least six weeks, probably two months.’

  ‘Oh shit,’ Rogozin sighed. ‘How we get to Champions League now?’

  ‘Fucking typical,’ Pye whispered to Haddock. ‘We’re here investigating a murder and they’re talking about football.’ He stepped forward. ‘Enough, gentlemen,’ he said, firmly. ‘Take it somewhere else, please, and leave us to speak with Mr Fonter.’

  ‘I stay,’ the Russian hissed. ‘He’s my man; I be here when you talk to him.’ He stepped forward to within a yard of the senior detective, his handsome face distorted by a frown.

  Suddenly Haddock was filling the space between them. ‘You be downstairs when we talk to him,’ he murmured, ‘or out in the corridor with your other man. That was not a request my boss just made.’

  ‘You Scottish people,’ Rogozin whispered, ‘you need to learn respect.’

  ‘You’re not the man to teach us,’ the young sergeant replied, quietly. ‘If I construed that as a threat to a police officer, sir, I’d have you in a police van before you could say Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. If you don’t leave us alone with Mr Fonter, I might just do that.’

  Pye frowned as he stared at the back his colleague’s head. It was an aspect of Sauce Haddock that he had not seen before.

  Tank Bridges broke the impasse. ‘Boss,’ he said to the Russian, ‘these are the cops and they’re not kidding. The club doesn’t need any more trouble than it has already.’ He stepped in and ushered the reluctant Rogozin and Serra towards the exit, leaving Sirena Burbujas, who had observed the exchanges in silence, and Renwick to follow. It was only as they left that the bedroom door opened once more, and a slim young man appeared.

  Paco Fonter was taller than Pye had expected, around six feet three inches. He had the hollow-eyed look of a man in need of sleep, but he managed nonetheless to convey an air of bronzed athleticism as he moved gracefully, if a little carefully, towards them. He was dressed in black, jeans and a polo shirt, and his long dark hair was tied back in a ponytail.

  ‘Guys,’ he murmured. ‘Sorry I keep you waiting. And sorry it took me so long to get back from Spain. Dimitri insisted on sending his plane for me, but first he had to have the crew file a flight plan and have it cleared. Where is Annie?’ he asked, a hitch in his voice. ‘When can I see her?’

  ‘Your wife’s body’s in the city mortuary,’ the DCI answered. ‘We can make arrangements any time you like. In fact we can take you there when we’re finished talking.’

  ‘Thank you, you do that, please.’ He frowned. ‘Ms Renwick said your name is Pye, yes?’

  ‘Yes, I’m the SIO, senior investigating officer.’ He glanced to his left. ‘This is Detective Sergeant Haddock.’

  ‘What’s this crazy thing that Angela tell me? You arrest Chaz? The boss?’

  ‘He was charged this morning,’ Haddock replied.

  ‘I don’t believe it. Chaz is good guy. A tough boss, sure, but good guy. Not like Bridges, who’s a gilipollas all the way through.’

  ‘A what?’ Pye murmured.

  ‘Arsehole,’ his sergeant volunteered, quietly.

  ‘Nevertheless,’ the DCI continued, impressed by his sergeant’s fluency in street Spanish, ‘we know what we know about Mr Baker, and that’s enough for us to have charged him. There are still questions to be answered, though, things he won’t tell us.’

  ‘Let me talk to him, if you are sure he did it,’ the big footballer whispered. ‘That might change.’

  ‘You don’t go near him, Paco,’ Haddock warned.

  ‘Were you and Mr Baker friendly away from the ground?’ Pye asked.

  ‘We got on okay.’

  ‘But you didn’t socialise?’

  Fonter peered at the detective, puzzled. ‘What?’

  ‘You didn’t visit each other’s houses, or go out together with your wives, as couples?’

  ‘No, nothing like that.’

  ‘So it would come as a surprise to you if I told you that there appears to have been a relationship between your wife and Mr Baker.’

  ‘Of course it would,’ the player gasped. ‘What sort of relationship?’

  ‘Let’s just call it a friendship,’ Pye said. ‘We know that on Friday, Annette sent him a text, asking him to come and see her at your apartment. It mentioned a secret . . . her word . . . but we don’t know what that meant. Do you have any idea?’

  Fonter shook his head, the ponytail rippling with the movement. ‘No, none at all.’ The pain that had been evident in his expression seemed to intensify. ‘Maybe I don’ know my wife as well as I think.’

  ‘How did you meet?’ Haddock asked him, quietly.

  ‘It was an accident,’ he replied. Both detectives were struck by his fluency in English. ‘It was in Madrid, three years ago, when I play for Getafe in La Liga. I had a film shoot for a TV ad for a video game, and Annie was in the same studio. She was doing some stills for an underwear client.’ His eyes misted at the memory. ‘I had on the suit of lights they make you wear for these things and she was in a dressing robe, ’cos she had hardly anything else on.’

  He smiled, transported back to the past. ‘She looked at me, and she laughed, and said something I did not understand about El Senor de los Anillos , the Lord of the Rings, the movie. I knew who she was, of course; she was famous even then. I felt like an idiot, and started to explain that when they make the ad the graphic guys would put clothes on us. She laugh again, and she said “Ah, you are really naked just now?” I said, “I suppose. How about you?” And . . .’

  He paused. ‘She stop smiling and she went pink. I thought she thought I was making a move on her, so I said, “Sorry. We’re both at work after all.” And then she laughed again and say, “You’re telling me we both take off our clothes for a living?”

  ‘Then I find myself say, “In a way I suppose we do. My name is Paco Fonter. You are a famous model and I am a crap footballer, but would you like to meet up later when we have both got our clothes on?” She said yes, and that was it. We went to dinner in a restaurant where nobody knew either of us, and we were together from then on. She live in London then, but she came to Madrid whenever she could. A year and we got married.’

  ‘I’m not being funny here,’ Pye ventured, ‘but did it have an effect on your career, being married to Annette?’

  Fonter shrugged and gave an open-handed ‘Who can say?’ gesture. ‘Is possible, but in which way? Good or bad? Sure, still I play for España, my country, but here I am in Scotland, playing for a lot of money but in a very poor league. When I was a young guy with Getafe they talked of me going to Real. Then I was with Annie and my face was in the magazines, and I began to get modelling jobs too, without even looking for them.’

  He smiled, but there was sadness in it. ‘One day I asked a journalist why he wasn’t writing about me and Real any more. He said that their president was afraid I was too much outside the game. Never that was true; I always trained as hard as anyone, harder than most, but the big clubs, they did not come. But Rogozin, he did; at that time he owned a piece of a club in Italy, in the bottom half of Serie A. They signed me and I was the top scorer but still the biggest teams never came. Then Rogozin, he bought Merrytown, and Cisco took me here, where to be honest I hate it and where . . .’ his voice faltered, ‘. . . and where this happened.’

  He grimaced. ‘And that puta of an agent, he brought Chaz Baker too, his other client; we have to talk about that, Cisco and me.’

  ‘Serra’s his agent too?’ Haddock exclaimed.

  ‘Sure, didn’t you know that?’

  ‘No, it’s news to us. Which of you was with him first?’

  ‘I was. Cisco took Chaz on as a client when he was with the French club and having trouble. When I sign for Merrytown, it was part of the deal that Rogozin hire him as manager.’

  ‘Is that usual in football?’ the DS asked. ‘Agents placing managers in jobs?’

  Fonter shook his head. ‘No, most of the top managers have top agents. And when one of them comes to a club, it’s normal for him to bring players with him, players he likes because they suit the way he sets up his team. But what is not usual is for a player to bring a manager, and that is what happened with me, mas o menos .’

  ‘Why did Rogozin agree to it?’

  The young Spaniard frowned. ‘Hey, I’m a good player.’ He paused. ‘But I know, not that good. Guys like me, we can get a manager fired; that happens all the time. But I never hear of any who get a manager hired. I asked Cisco about it, ’cos I wasn’t comfortable with it. He told me, and I quote, to mind my fucking business and let him mind his.’

  ‘Did your wife know about the deal with Baker?’

  He looked scornfully at Pye, as if he was in a media conference and the DCI was the dumbest reporter in the room.

  ‘Of course not,’ he retorted. ‘Why the hell should she? She’s . . .’ He stopped in mid-sentence and heaved a huge sigh as reality hit him once again. ‘She was a model, I’m a footballer. We never got involved in each other’s business. She’d no more tell me how to deal with Cisco than I’d interfere between her and Sirena.’

  ‘You never talked to her about your work, your career, your moves? Where you play must have had an effect on her.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Fonter conceded. ‘Sometimes I would talk things through with her, to make sure she was okay with them. But not then, not about the move to Scotland, or anything to do with it.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because Rogozin was involved, and because Cisco was putting it to him about Chaz Baker. I didn’t want to be mixed up in it and I didn’t want Annie to be dragged in. That Russian, he’s not a good man. I don’t like him.’

  He seemed embarrassed. ‘I’m not a guy who scares easily, Senor Pye. I play against some very tough men and they don’t take chances with me. That man Bridges, he yells at the rest of the squad but he is respectful of me. But Rogozin: no, I am cautious of him. I am in Scotland and I am at that fucking club for only one reason; because I didn’t want to tell him no.’

  Twenty-Two

  ‘You’re not seriously going to plead your client not guilty, are you?’ Paula Benedict drawled. She was on the other end of a phone line, but Alex Skinner could picture the sarcasm in her smile.

  ‘No, I’m not,’ she replied, cheerfully.

  ‘Ah!’ the young advocate depute exclaimed. ‘You’ve had a night to think about it and common sense has finally drilled its way through your skull. I see it all the time with you newbies.’

  ‘I’m not going to plead anything, Paula,’ Alex continued. ‘My client is, loud and clear. He maintains his innocence, whatever evidence you may have.’

  ‘They all do! Jesus, you’re naive. You were a hotshot in corporate practice, Skinner. You should have bloody stayed there.’

  ‘Hah!’ she laughed, abandoning her resolve to tolerate Benedict’s patronising tone. ‘Thanks for that advice. Feel free to shove it up your arse.’

  Her shocked gasp turned into a hiss over the phone. ‘You won’t be so cocky in court,’ she snapped. ‘You’ll lead for the defence, I suppose.’

  ‘I don’t know yet. I’ll discuss instructing senior counsel with my client.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘That would be none of your business,’ Alex said, ‘not at this stage.’

  ‘Nobody worth his salt will take you on if you persist in this “not guilty” crap.’

  ‘In that event,’ she insisted, ‘I’ll lead myself. I believe in Chaz. He didn’t do it.’ She hoped that she sounded more positive than actually she felt.

  ‘I don’t imagine I’d be facing you across the court,’ she added. ‘If it’s that much of a high-profile pushover, the Solicitor General will be bound to grab it for himself rather than hand it to a junior AD who’s only just through the door and who’s never led a successful prosecution, or been on the winning side as defence counsel. If that upsets you, Paula, you threw my previous career at me, so don’t be surprised by me throwing yours right back.’

  ‘I’ll be quite happy to act as Rocco’s junior,’ Benedict retorted, defensively. ‘But it needn’t come to that. The fact is, Rocco doesn’t want to tie any of us into what would be a very costly trial that can only have one outcome. When I told him about the line you were taking he authorised me to offer you a deal. We’ll accept a plea of guilty to culpable homicide, and you can portray it as a tragic loss of control in the heat of a lovers’ quarrel. Baker will probably serve five years, max.’

  Alex allowed silence to speak for her.