‘But he’s a British citizen,’ Mann pointed out. ‘Is he allowed to spend that much time in Spain?’

  ‘Yes. He bought his apartment in Girona for seven hundred thousand euro. Invest half a million in property in Spain, and you have a Golden Visa, that lets you live and work here as if you were a citizen. Actually, he didn’t really need it. When he became chairman, Xavi Aislado covered him by getting him a business visa; that’s another route.’

  ‘I wonder if that’s sustainable.’

  ‘Perfectly,’ Roza said.

  ‘I meant domestically,’ Mann murmured.

  They were interrupted by the return of the manager of the Banco Sabadell office in which they sat, a brisk little man whose status seemed to be emphasised in that he wore a tie, pale blue and white-striped. ‘He mirado los movimientos de la cuenta que solicitaste,’ he announced. ‘Ha habido tres retiros de efectivo recientes cada uno por cuatrocientos euros. El primero, hace quince días fue en Figueres. El segundo cuatro días después, en La Rambla de Barcelona desde un cajero automático comercial. El tercero fue hace siete días, en Sant Sadurni d’Anoia. Eso es todo lo que puedo decirte.’

  ‘There have been three cash withdrawals from the Land account over the last fortnight,’ Roza translated. ‘Figueres, Barcelona and Sant Sadurni: that’s the place where most of the world’s cava is made. That suggests Gilbert Land, or whoever is making them, is moving south.’

  ‘¿Existen registros visuales de los retiros? ¿Alguno de los cajeros automáticos tenía una cámara?’ she asked the manager. ‘Did they catch anyone on camera?’ she added for Mann’s benefit.

  ‘Si señora. Sí lo hizo el cajero de Sant Sadurni, y tengo la cara de la persona que usó la tarjeta. No parece ser el titular, Señor Land. Un momento,’ he said as there was a rap on the office door and a woman wearing bank uniform entered, carrying a sheet of paper. She handed it to the manager who passed it immediately to Roza.

  It was a print of a still from the security camera of an ATM. It was that of a woman, but not recognisable. She wore large sunglasses and a scarf was wound around her head and the lower half of her face, revealing only a single lock of blonde hair.

  ‘Estás en lo correcto,’ Roza told the manager. ‘Seguro que no es Senor Land. For sure that’s not Land,’ she repeated.

  ‘No hay otro signatario en la cuenta,’ he exclaimed. ‘Debo cancelar la tarjeta de inmediato.’

  ‘No,’ the comissari said, sharply. ‘Necesitamos que lo mantengas abierto. Si se usa de nuevo, nos dirá dónde está esta mujer.’ She turned to Mann. ‘He says he’s going to cancel the card. I’ve told him not to.’

  ‘¡Pero señora, debo proteger la seguridad de la cuenta! Posee casi cinco millones de euros. Debo proteger al Senor Land.’

  ‘Did he say there’s five million euros in the account?’ the Scot gasped. Roza nodded.

  ‘No creemos que el Senor Land exista. Si lo hizo, creemos que está muerto. ¿Esto es el Señor Land?’ She signalled to Mann, who understood what was needed and displayed a post-mortem image of the dead Gavin Ayre on her phone. She thrust it towards the manager.

  He shook his head, vigorously. ‘No, ese no es el Senor Land. Es mucho mayor que ese hombre. Los detalles de la cuenta muestran que tiene sesenta y tres años.’

  ‘He’s saying that according to his account details, Land is sixty-three,’ Roza told Mann.

  ‘Fuck,’ she murmured. ‘Then there really are two of them.’

  Fifty-Four

  ‘That puts a completely different complexion on things,’ Mario McGuire told his junior colleague. ‘You’ve been operating on the probability that the dead man Ayre and Land in Spain were one and the same. Now we know they’re not, you need to focus on the link that we know exists between them.’

  ‘And the money that’s behind them,’ Haddock added. ‘Lottie says there’s about five million euro in Land’s account. There’s slightly more than that in Ayre’s. It all seems to be coming from countries that offer people banking secrecy. But who or what’s behind it all? You would say that organised crime is a strong possibility. Yes?’

  ‘Say what you like, Sauce, but it’s a guess at this point. The Crown Office here and the prosecutors in Spain don’t buy those. At the moment your problem is that you don’t have any lines of inquiry. You need to find Geraldine Black, Ayre’s supposed half-sister. From what you’re telling me, Lottie seems to be your best chance of doing that. But at the moment that’s all you’ve got.’

  ‘We need to find Gilbert Land too,’ Haddock pointed out. ‘Could it be that he and Ayre fell out, fatally?’

  ‘It could, but it’s still guesswork. You need more than that. You and big Singh, get yourselves back out to Ayre’s house. Search it again, see if there’s something that you missed.’

  Fifty-Five

  ‘No me importa que mañana te pierdas tu partido de golf del sábado por la mañana,’ Commissari Roza told the lieutenant in her Barcelona office. ‘No me importa si tienes que trabajar todo el fin de semana. Necesito saber acerca de todos los movimientos de helicópteros en las coordenadas que le he dado, y necesito saber quiénes eran los pasajeros.’

  She ended the call. ‘Get the message?’ she asked Mann. ‘Suppose he has to work all weekend, I want to know who landed here in a helicopter and when. Jose is a golfer, but sometimes he needs to remember that his job is more important.’ She checked the time on her phone. ‘We can get to Riudaura this evening to see the old man . . . or we can go and eat and leave it until tomorrow. What do you say?’

  The Scot shrugged her broad shoulders. ‘I say you’re the boss. I’m only an observer here.’

  ‘Do you need to report to Scotland? To Sauce, your boss? Where did he get that name by the way?’

  ‘It’s tribal,’ she said. ‘It would take too long to explain, and even then you probably wouldn’t get it. I’ve got nothing to tell him after updating him on what the banker told us. Besides, I know that he missed a golf game last weekend because of this investigation. If I called him and interrupted another, I don’t think he’d take it nearly as well as your man Jose.’

  Fifty-Six

  ‘You’re still in the office?’ Sarah looked surprised.

  ‘Yes,’ Bob replied. ‘There’s a lot going on here. I’m about to knock off, though.’

  ‘Your work or police work?’ she asked.

  ‘InterMedia,’ he said. ‘I’ve done all I can in the other thing. Lottie’s being looked after and, I assume, progressing. Sauce hasn’t called me in a while so I guess he’s happy too.’

  ‘That’s good. Listen,’ she continued. ‘I’m sorry I was such a cow earlier on, it’s just that . . . I’ve always been sensitive to suggestions that your career helped mine in any way, and when you said . . .’

  He nodded. ‘I know, and I get it. I should have kept my mouth shut; not at the event but when you told me. The fact is, you were already on a long list of possible invitees without anyone being aware of our connection, and you being you, you’d have made the short list very quickly, and beyond. Are you going to accept?’

  ‘I need to clear it with the University here,’ Sarah said, ‘but subject to that formality . . . these things reflect credit on the institution as much as the individual . . . I will. I don’t know how the schedule will be, not yet, but . . .’

  ‘You could fly with me,’ he suggested.

  ‘Could I? Would that be acceptable to InterMedia?’

  He grinned. ‘I’ll run it past the chairman, but I think he’ll say it’s okay.’ He paused. ‘What about Dawn? The other kids will be fine with Trish in charge but she’s a toddler.’

  ‘She’ll come with me until she’s school age.’

  ‘You sure?’ he asked.

  ‘I wouldn’t do it if I wasn’t. It’ll work for us both. I know you’re struggling to balance your home and work lives. This will ease the pressure. In the holidays the family can live in Spain and I’ll commute to Edinburgh.’

  ‘You’ve got it all worked out, haven’t you?’ Bob laughed. ‘Are you turning into a control freak?’

  She gazed into the computer camera. ‘Can you have two of those in one family?’ She smiled. ‘Go on, get off home. Enjoy your bachelor pad while you still can. Come back here as soon as you can.’

  Fifty-Seven

  ‘Do we even know what we’re looking for, Sauce?’ Tarvil Singh asked.

  ‘No,’ Haddock admitted, ‘but when the DCC suggests something, “Why?” isn’t something he necessarily wants to hear.’ He looked at the open kitchen drawer, ‘Eight of everything,’ he said, ‘everything in its proper place.’

  ‘Same with the crockery through there in the sideboard. Wedgwood,’ the DI added, ‘Vera Wang lace gold. The mugs in that cupboard are Wedgwood too, and the coffee cups and saucers.’

  The superintendent stared at him. ‘Eh?’

  ‘My mother,’ Singh explained. ‘Wedgwood’s her passion.’

  ‘How about the cutlery?’

  ‘That there? Oh, that’s just bog-standard IKEA. But there’s a Viners canteen in the sideboard. And William Morris placemats. I wonder if Ayre ever had a dinner party for eight. If he did, it was without napkins. I didn’t see any of those.’

  ‘From what we’ve learned of Mr Ayre so far,’ Haddock ventured, ‘I doubt that he hosted any dinner parties in the short time he lived here. As for his sister and the man we now believe, thanks to Lottie’s Spanish banker, to have been Gilbert Land, they seem to have eaten out when they were here.’

  ‘Does the big man have any thoughts about that development?’ Singh asked. ‘I mean, he found Black, didn’t he, through that security firm?’

  ‘For which we thank him, but I haven’t spoken to him since then. It’s been made clear to me that the Chief is keen to keep him at a distance.’

  ‘And Neil McIlhenney’s not a man to mess with,’ the DI observed.

  ‘Not unless you’re Mario McGuire. Come on, Tarvil, we’re done here. Let’s take another look at the stable and the garage and that’ll be us done.’

  The two detectives moved outside. Steady rain was falling as they made their way to the out-building, making Haddock hurry to key in the code and fail at the final digit.

  ‘Come on, Sauce,’ Singh complained. ‘We’re getting wet here.’

  ‘Give us a minute, fucksake.’ He tried again, and the door clicked open. He smiled. ‘Patience, Tarvil, patience.’

  The only change from their previous visit was the light film of dust that had settled on the vehicles. ‘You do these,’ Haddock said. ‘I’ll check the stable.’ He crossed the open area, passing the stall that had housed Ayre’s horse, wondering how it was faring in its new lodgings and what its fate ultimately would be. Perhaps the mounted unit would adopt it; he made a mental note to suggest that to McGuire. He moved into the changing area, opening the wardrobe as Singh had done on their earlier visit, surveying the riding gear and seeing nothing there. He opened the first of the two smaller compartments, finding towels that appeared to have been disturbed, by the clumsy DI, he assumed. He took them out, thinking to fold them more neatly, and saw a small box, with a clip, but no lock to secure it. He opened it, revealing two tangled iPhone cables, several keys and a black rectangle, less than three inches long, less than an inch wide. ‘Hey,’ he called out, holding it up for Singh to see. ‘What about this?’

  ‘I saw it before,’ the DI replied. ‘It’s a storage disk but it’s old. It’s a USB connection. It wouldn’t fit the computer in the house.’

  If that’s so, Haddock thought, it’s the only thing in this whole place that is old. That’s curious. He rummaged in the box and found, beneath the tangled cables, a square foam casing. Wedged within was a small device, no more than three centimetres long. He freed it with his thumb and help it up. ‘And this?’ he asked.

  The DI crossed the room to join him, peering at the black plastic. He took it from Haddock, extended the connector of the memory stick, and joined the two together. ‘Oops,’ he murmured. ‘My bad. I never saw that last time. It’s an adaptor. Now, it’ll fit the computer.’

  Fifty-Eight

  Scientists were still working on the house when they arrived. Mann was astonished to recognise among them, standing outside having a water break, a tall figure with strands of ginger hair escaping from his sterile head covering.

  ‘Paul Dorward,’ she exclaimed. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Much the same as you, DCI Mann,’ he replied. ‘With a potential connection between the two scenes, the wise ones decided there should be a presence here, so I got stuck on a plane at fuck o’clock this morning. I flew to Paris then on to Perpignan, and got here three hours ago.’

  ‘Have you found anything significant?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing, and that’s what’s significant. It’s as if no human being has ever set foot in there.’

  ‘So the Gaffer was right,’ she murmured. ‘Somebody put the cleaners in.’

  ‘Did they ever,’ Dorward confirmed. ‘They’ve even pumped out the septic tank.’

  ‘Who could have done that?’

  ‘Not your average fussy estate agent, that’s for sure.’ He drained his water bottle. ‘I must get back in there. We have one room to do and that’s it.’

  ‘You speak Spanish?’ Mann asked.

  ‘Catalan,’ he replied. ‘I studied in Girona for two years. That’s why Jenny sent me.’ He frowned. ‘I think I might stay if they’ll have me.’

  Mann left him to his thoughts and re-joined Roza, who was waiting by their car. After she had been updated on the team’s progress, the comissari frowned. ‘From what you tell me,’ she said, ‘we may have trouble keeping Madrid out of this. Come on, let’s go and find the old neighbour.’

  They set off down the light slope, stepping carefully on the rough track by the side of the road, too far from any town for there to be any paving. They had walked for less than half a kilometre when a house came into view. It was as modest as Masia Coll was grandiose, a single storey, with a balcony facing west towards the setting sun, but also with a view of the side of the rear of the big house on the hilltop, the area, the officers calculated, where the helipad was located. An elderly man sat there on a rocking chair, beside which stood a telescope on a stand. Mann thought he might be asleep until, without warning, he pushed himself upright and turned to face them.

  ‘Les tomó un tiempo a los policías venir a hablar conmigo,’ he called out.

  ‘He says it’s taken us a while,’ Roza translated. ‘I think he feels neglected.’ She turned to face him again. ‘¿Eres Josep?’ she asked.

  ‘Sí, le dije al grandote hace unos días.’

  ‘He says he told the big guy a few days ago.¿Que mas le dijiste al grandote acerca de el hombre que es dueño de esa masia? What else did you tell him about the man who owns that place?’

  ‘No es un hombre, es una mujer. El hombre solo estuvo aquí una vez. Llegó en helicóptero.’ He raised a hand and made a whirling motion above his head. ‘Hizo un ruido infernal.’

  ‘Not a man, a woman,’ she repeated for Mann’s benefit. ‘The man’s only been here once. He came by helicopter and made a hell of a noise. ¿Cuando? When?’

  ‘Hace dos semanas.’

  ‘Two weeks ago. ¿Lo viste salir?’

  ‘No, pensé que todavía estaba allí, hasta que el tipo grande vino a buscarlo. Dijo que era un amigo, pero no le creí.’

  ‘He hasn’t seen him leave. He thought he was still here until the big guy came. He said he was a friend but he didn’t believe him. ¿Y la mujer?’ she asked.

  ‘Se fue dos días después de que llegara el helicóptero. La vi alejarse en el auto.’

  ‘The woman left a couple of days after the man flew in. By car.’

  ‘Lo he visto antes,’ Josep volunteered.

  ‘¿El tipo grande?’

  ‘No, hombre del helicóptero. Hay joder todo que hacer aquí, pero miro la televisión, así que lo hago mucho. Lo he visto en la televisión, pero no recuerdo cuándo.’

  ‘Wow,’ Roza whispered. ‘What he says,’ she told Mann, ‘is that there’s fuck all to do here but watch TV, so he does that a lot. He says he’s seen helicopter man on television, although he can’t remember when.’

  Fifty-Nine

  ‘That, last night,’ Dominic Jackson said gravely, ‘that wasn’t supposed to happen.’

  ‘No,’ Alex agreed, ‘but it did. It was good, it was spontaneous and it was something that’s been on the cards for a long time, whatever we’ve both been telling people. You are my best friend, Dominick, the best I’ve ever had, and you always will be. I’ve had terrible taste in men before, made terrible choices: Andy Martin, Griff Montell, a couple of blokes I’ve met on nights out whose names I don’t even remember. There was one, I told him who my father was and he was dressed and out of there inside five minutes.’

  ‘I don’t blame him,’ Dominick said. ‘Are you going to tell your father?’

  ‘Why should I? The fact that you and I finally got round to having sex doesn’t change anything between us. It wasn’t a proposal of marriage. You have your professional life and so do I. We don’t live together and there’s no reason why we should. I’ll only make you one promise and it’s this. You’re exclusive. There won’t be anyone else from now on, not ever.’