‘Mmm,’ Dolça murmured, slightly disappointed. ‘Still, it’s a start.’

  ‘It’s much more than that. Grau’s systems are very good; you can track everything. Both of the labels were from bottles delivered to a Mercadona store in Calle Manuel de Palacio, Lleida. Mercadona’s systems are not so good.’

  ‘Still, that’s great,’ she exclaimed.

  ‘Not so good,’ he continued, ‘so even more accessible. Both bottles were sold to the same person on the seventeenth of August. I had hoped to tell you who it was, but the buyer was one of a rare breed today; they paid cash. Also the store’s camera surveillance is shit.’

  ‘You are a genius, Jordi.’

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘but that won’t stop either of us going to jail if another genius hacks into a record of this call and works out what we’re doing.’

  ‘Is that possible?’

  ‘No, because I will remove it.’

  ‘Is there anywhere you can’t go?’ Dolça asked.

  ‘I’d have trouble telling you the size of Kim Jong Un’s underpants,’ Jordi replied, ‘but if they’re imported, I could probably find out where he buys them. Closer to home,’ he continued, ‘I discovered that Emil Blazquez has a personal reason for wanting the sale to go through. He has a mistress, a woman named Silvi Urquel, who wants to be more than a mistress, and is threatening to out their relationship. If she does . . . Emil’s wife owns twenty-five per cent of Compostella already, and as he told Silvi in a very indiscreet email, a decent lawyer would have a field day with his share. That bad news we were talking about, it would be fucking terrible for him.’’

  ‘What about Sancho, the other Blazquez?’

  ‘Spotless.’

  ‘Interesting,’ she murmured, ‘but probably not relevant to my enquiries. Thank you, my love. When am I going to see you again?’

  ‘As soon as you like. I could catch an AVE to Girona and be there in time for dinner.’

  ‘Just you do that,’ Dolça said. ‘I’ll meet you at the station. But,’ she added, ‘you’ve said nothing about the other name I gave you.’

  ‘That is very true,’ Jordi agreed, ‘and I’m not going to. I’m not even going to mention him. I cover my tracks, as you can appreciate, and now I am hoping that I cover them well enough. I found the biographical stuff easily enough, but when I tried to dig a little deeper I came up against a very thick wall, too thick even for me. It’s called the British security service, and they are not to be fucking messed with. You said you were curious, that’s all. Don’t be any longer; let it lie. See you later; you’re buying dinner and I want Italian.’

  Fifty

  Lottie Mann took pride in being open-minded. She was not one of those Glaswegians who hated Edinburgh in principle, believing that such people were displaying their feelings of inadequacy for all to see. Nevertheless, when she stepped from the train on to the Waverley Station platform she could not help feeling that she was in another country and that the ticket inspection point was, in reality, passport control.

  She rode the escalator to Princes Street, and headed west, striding purposefully past the Scott Monument, wondering as she did why she had never read any of the writer’s nineteenth century works, and indeed how many of her contemporaries actually had. As she neared the National Galleries she glanced up towards the Castle and its esplanade, where the grandstands that had enclosed the Edinburgh Military Tattoo were being dismantled for another nine months. ‘Why do they no’ just hold it in Murrayfield?’ her ancient grandfather had said, every time the annual show had appeared on television, and she had to admit that given the cost, there had been sense in his grumpy argument.

  Passing the galleries and the Mound, she made to cross the street, but was delayed by a passing tram, moving so slowly that if asked, she could have given eye witness descriptions of all four passengers. Even her parents had only vague memories of Glasgow’s legendary equivalents, standout exhibitions in the modern era in the Transport Museum that was a favourite haunt for Dan and Jakey.

  Having reached the northern pavement, she walked up the pedestrianised Castle Street, then turned towards Charlotte Square, where the office of Charles Baxter’s firm, LJMcF, a global practice of property advisers, was located. Rather than search number by number, she used Maps to pinpoint the address, a classic terraced building on the south side of the Georgian square, facing another that she recognised from television coverage as the official residence of Scotland’s First Minister.

  Stepping into the reception area, Mann had the distinct feeling that she was entering a hotel rather than an office. A young man, tall, blue-suited, with a rugby forward’s build, stepped out of a side room to greet her. ‘Detective Chief Inspector Mann?’ he began.

  ‘Is it that bloody obvious?’ she retorted.

  He smiled. ‘You’re our only female visitor today, so from that point of view it is. You’re here to see Mr Baxter? Give me a moment and I’ll let him know you’ve arrived.’ He returned to his bolt-hole, but only for half a minute. ‘The boss is ready for you,’ he said. ‘First floor, his room is facing you when you get to the top of the stairs.’

  The direction was unnecessary for he was waiting for her in his doorway. She had no doubt that it was Baxter; there was a presence about him that only a boss could have assumed, and survived. He was as tall as the man in reception, and as solidly built. Mann wondered if they had both played for the same club.

  As she approached he peered at her, over the same narrow gold-framed spectacles that she had seen in the photos she had found in preparing for the meeting. Professionally, LJMcF was a firm of chartered surveyors, but in practice it was much more. ‘Strategic global property advice and management,’ its online presence declared.

  ‘Welcome to Edinburgh, Chief Inspector,’ Baxter said, offering a handshake. ‘You are only the second police officer to visit this office, and the first wasn’t serving when he came here. Sir Robert Skinner. Did you ever meet him?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Mann replied. ‘He was my last chief in Strathclyde, and I’ve encountered him since, quite recently in fact.’

  He ushered her into what she acknowledged silently as a magnificent room, furnished and presented in the way its architect had envisaged more than two hundred years before, its windows looking across at the more celebrated building opposite with something that might have been taken for disdain.

  ‘Ironic,’ Baxter sighed, ‘that his visit here was in the aftermath of Leo Speight’s demise. Now you’re here investigating poor Sandra’s.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw her?’ Mann asked as she settled into the leather armchair that he offered her.

  ‘Probably just over four years ago,’ he replied. ‘After she inherited I went out to the Bahamas to brief her on her property holdings and to take her instruction on how they should be managed.’

  ‘And how was that?’

  ‘How were they managed? Remotely, as far as Sandra was concerned. That’s what she wanted. She was honest enough to admit that she knew nothing about the property business and told me that as Leo had trusted me, then she would too. It was just what I wanted to hear, to be honest with you. Nothing’s worse than a hands-on client.’

  ‘You haven’t seen her since? Never?’

  He shook his large head. ‘Never. The plan originally was that I would visit to brief her every six months, but when the pandemic happened that was shelved, and we did our business by video link.’

  ‘That business was routine, was it? Forgive me,’ the DCI said, ‘I know as much about the property market as Sandra did . . . she used to be my boss, by the way, so I did know her.’

  Baxter removed his spectacles and gazed at her. ‘Can I ask you what you thought of her? Or is that not allowed?’

  Mann met him eye to eye. ‘I’m used to asking the questions,’ she replied. ‘But since this is informal . . . I didn’t like her. I thought she was remote, peremptory, rude at times, and frankly not the team player she should have been at her rank and in her job. But now, through this investigation I can see that she had some issues in her personal life, specifically a former partner, that might have affected her.’

  ‘I don’t know about those,’ Baxter admitted, ‘but I can see where you’re coming from. She was pretty crusty initially in the Bahamas, but I put that down to grief. I don’t suppose you ever met Leo . . .’

  She shook her head. ‘I investigated his death but no, I never met him.’

  ‘No, well: Leo Speight was a brilliant individual, and I don’t simply mean in the boxing ring. He’s had very few peers, historically, in his sport. I’ve studied some of them since then and reached the conclusion that to make it to his level one needs to be intellectually superior also. That’s not only the case in boxing; I see it in other sports as well, golf being a good example. Leo had a very quick mind, one of the sharpest I’ve ever encountered. He was capable of reading and analysing any situation. I learned just how capable very early in our relationship. When he first contacted me and asked me to help him invest his wealth in property, we had a meeting in this very room. I’ll be honest, I was expecting a roughneck in a leather jacket and trainers with scar tissue and a bent nose. The man who arrived couldn’t have been further from that stereotype. He had an aura about him . . . I can’t put it any better than that . . . his suit was tailor made and his shoes had probably come from his own last. I gave him a run-through of the property business, rather pompously in hindsight, but realised very quickly that he’d done his own research and knew it all already. He told me how much he wanted to invest, and where. Most of it was in dollars, lesser amounts in sterling, euros and yen: he explained that this was money earned through what they call pay-per-view, post-tax, and retained in the original currency. He asked me for a list of prospective investments in the relevant markets.’

  ‘Very interesting,’ Mann said, ‘but I’m investigating Sandra Bulloch’s murder, not Leo Speight’s business dealings.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Baxter acknowledged, testily. ‘I’m trying to set a context. Over the next few years I helped Leo build a significant property portfolio, all legal and incorporated in tax-advantageous locations. Through that period he was the most hands-on client I ever had, but a complete contradiction to the norm. He was quick, he would originate ideas, he was mercurial, but there was an air about him, a sense almost of danger.’

  ‘Menace?’

  ‘No, not really. It was as if he was living on the edge, in pursuit of something without quite knowing what it was. Until,’ Baxter paused, ‘about a year before he died, he changed completely, almost overnight. He was almost unnaturally calm and content, as if he had finally reached his destination. I didn’t realise it at the time, because he dropped no hints, but in hindsight, it coincided with he and Sandra becoming a couple.’

  ‘And then he died.’

  ‘Yes. And the relationship that she had been as keen as Leo to hide from her sister came to light, along with the will changes that removed Faye and made Sandra and his children the beneficiaries. As you investigated the death you will know that the stuff hit the fan for Sandra, professionally on top of her bereavement. That’s why, acting on Skinner’s advice, I believe, she went to Butler, my co-executor, asked for access to the Bahamas property and moved out there . . . where she and I finally met.’

  ‘Good,’ Mann sighed. ‘And when you did . . .?’

  ‘I found, to an extent, the woman you described earlier. Remote, a little suspicious, not rude, but on the edge of it. But she’d just lost her man, she had the family complications, she found herself in totally unexpected circumstances. I actually asked her if she felt she was living a dream. “No, but you could call it a nightmare.” That was how she replied. It was only towards the end of that meeting, maybe after getting to know me a little, that she revealed that her biggest worry was that the four children had been treated fairly. I was able to tell her, as co-executor, that they had. I even had her added as a trustee for her nephew and niece. There was no need to do that with the boy Pollock: he was nearing majority by then. As for the youngest, in America . . . what’s she called? Raeleen . . . I had actually met her and the mother, when I went to Vegas to have Leo sign off a property purchase, so I was able to assure Sandra that she would be fine. With all that in place, Sandra began to change. Not as quickly as Leo had but gradually for a year or so, until she was a different woman, relaxed, content, I would almost say happy. As she appeared to be at every one of our online meetings, until she disappeared.’

  ‘Your business dealings: how were they?’

  ‘Uneventful. I managed the estate, if you want to call it that, secured the income, recommended and made a few strategic disposals. Sandra had no wish to grow her holdings. She wasn’t like Leo. She had no real interest in the sector.’

  ‘Not even in Luxembourg?’ the DCI suggested.

  Baxter frowned. ‘Luxembourg,’ he repeated. ‘Again. Sandra doesn’t . . . didn’t have property in Luxembourg. Yes,’ he admitted, ‘young Pollock did mention something about that when he called me a few days ago. I brushed him off, I’m afraid. Why should you be asking about that now?’

  ‘She was there with him not long before she disappeared,’ Mann told him. ‘He heard her make a remark; said she’d have to talk to you about something. Since it was you, the assumption is that it was a property matter. She never did ask you?’

  ‘No, absolutely not. How could she have if this was just before she went out of sight?’

  ‘She didn’t contact you, or try to?’

  ‘I repeat, no, Chief Inspector, absolutely not.’

  ‘Did you know she was coming back to Europe, Mr Baxter?’ Mann asked.

  ‘No, I did not.’

  ‘She didn’t mention buying a motor home and touring Europe?’

  Baxter gasped. ‘Of course not, whyever would she? That would have nothing to do with me. I was her property manager, that’s all. Her other wealth was sheltered in a Jersey company that Leo set up years ago, run by a shifty Italian called Gialini, through a Glasgow solicitor whose name I can’t recall. If she wanted to buy a toy she’d have done it through one of them.’

  ‘She did. I just wondered if she’d mentioned it to you, that’s all.’

  ‘Well she didn’t. Look, Chief Inspector,’ he exclaimed, ‘you’re making me feel like a suspect. This is becoming an interrogation.’

  ‘It’s not,’ she assured him. ‘In a homicide investigation, every box has to be ticked, and every question has to be asked, whether it turns out to be relevant or not. With this one, there are no suspects, because there is no apparent motive.’

  ‘No suspects?’ Baxter challenged. ‘I would have thought there’s one prime suspect, front and centre. The sister, Faye Bulloch, the mother of Leo’s middle two kids. I remember her behaviour after the truth came out about Sandra and Leo. Threatening, vindictive, you name it. She tried to make as much trouble as she could when Butler and I were winding up the estate. She used a weaselly like lawyer from Glasgow, but Mrs Herbert, whose firm did the donkey work, was more than a match for him, and her. She was beyond vitriolic. I don’t want to teach you your job, Ms Mann, but I wouldn’t look past her, sister or not.’

  Fifty-One

  ‘Is that Detective Sergeant Wright?’

  ‘Yes it is,’ she replied. The light mellifluous tone of the caller’s voice made her think of puff candy. Lottie Mann had described her as radiant; at once she understood why.

  ‘This is Rae Letts. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to return your call. I was out of town visiting my mother in Fresno, and I only just got back.’

  ‘Thank you, that’s understood. I . . .’

  ‘Before you say anything else,’ Letts continued. ‘I know why you reached out. Gordon . . . Gordon Pollock, my little girl’s half-brother . . . messaged me to tell me about Sandra having died. I called him back, so I know how. It’s terrible. Why would anyone do such a thing to a lovely lady like Sandra? It makes my skin crawl. I don’t know what I’m going to say to Raeleen; not the truth that’s for sure. You caught the son of a . . ?’

  ‘No,’ Wright admitted. ‘We haven’t got that far, I’m afraid. We’re still interviewing people who knew Ms Bulloch and who might have spoken with her recently. From what you’ve just said I assume that you’ve been in touch with her.’

  ‘Yeah. We speak often. She’s visited me here by the lake.’

  ‘The lake?’

  ‘Lake Las Vegas, it’s where I live, me and Raeleen. Not in the city but close enough for me to get to my job.’

  ‘What do you do?’ Wright asked.

  ‘I work in reception in a golf course; there are over fifty of those in Vegas. I used to be a dancer, but I don’t do that no more. Leo left it so I’d never have to, but Raeleen’s going on eight years old now, and I can’t sit around the house alone all day.’

  ‘You don’t have a partner?’

  ‘No, not since Leo. It’s a funny thing, none of Leo’s ladies ever have, since him. I dunno what that says.’

  ‘A lot about him, I suppose. You said that Sandra’s visited you in the past.’

  ‘Yeah, we’ve been in contact since not long after she settled in the Bahamas. I took Raeleen there once, when she was five, and Sandra visited with us a couple of years ago. There was a PGA golf championship at one of the fifty, and a friend of hers was playing, so she came to follow him on the course.’

  ‘A friend?’ the DS said.

  ‘Yeah, just a friend, not a partner. That’s what she said, and I’m pretty sure she meant it. She went other places with him, she said. I never met the guy, though. I think his name was Ryan something.’

  ‘Were you surprised when Gordon told you that she’d gone back to Europe?’

  ‘I guess I was, a little bit, but not a whole lot. She talked about her auntie a couple of times. She said apart from Faye, who she hated as much as everyone else does, the old lady was her only blood relative left . . . her father’s sister, she said . . . and sometimes she went on a guilt trip for leaving her in that old people’s residence and only ever sending her a birthday card, ’xcept the trip never lasted too long, ’cos it wasn’t Sandra that actually put her in that place. The old lady, she was a widow; she had a stepdaughter from that marriage, a woman that Sandra had never met so she didn’t count her as family. It was her that put the old lady away.’