‘It’s been suggested to us,’ Wright said, ‘that she was planning to visit her aunt when she and Gordon finished their travels around Europe.’

  ‘Then I guess she would have,’ Letts said. ‘She talked about her often enough. She said places like that, they gave her the horrors. When she was young she saw one of her grandmas pass her last days in one of them, and she was half convinced that she was helped on her way. Sandra, lately she had no anger left in her she said, apart from that. She said she’d never forgot it and never would.’

  Fifty-Two

  Lottie Mann hung her coat on a hook, smiling as she glanced through her office window at the impressive stonework of the main grandstand of Ibrox Stadium. It was one of the images that defined the city of Glasgow in her mind and the sight of it made her feel happy to be home.

  She stepped out into the squad room, where Wright and Stirling sat, their desks not far apart. Maya Smith and three other detective constables were in a group beyond them. As she approached her eye was caught by a new addition to the refreshment table.

  ‘Where did that come from?’ she asked, pointing towards the cactus.

  ‘Me, via Trudi Pollock’s shop,’ Stirling replied. ‘A wee present for the team.’

  ‘If you knew my other half,’ she chuckled, ‘you’d never have done that. “We’ve got enough pricks in here already,” he’d say. I can hear him now, the only thing being that women are in the majority now. But thanks John, it’s the thought that counts. I’d have brought us back some Edinburgh Rock, but I can’t stand the stuff. So,’ she continued, ‘I had my audience with Mr Baxter. A man who likes to make an impression.’

  Wright smiled. ‘Kate, my partner would agree with that. She’s a surveyor, like him, but with a firm on a much lower level. She says that LJMcF is so far up itself that it hasn’t seen daylight for years, and that it’s Charles Baxter that sets the tone. He got one cap for Scotland rugby, as a replacement off the bench, and he’s dined out on it ever since. But, he is international class in the property business, no doubt about that.’

  ‘Maybe so,’ Mann said, ‘but he didn’t exactly fill any gaps in my knowledge of Sandra Bulloch’s property holdings. I’d like to know more about them; John, that’s your task. Find out what she had, how it was owned and where. From what Baxter said, it’ll all be held within a company, or a series of companies, in tax havens. Do that, but without referring back to Baxter or LJMcF, if you can.’

  She turned to Wright. ‘Jackie, the one thing Baxter did say that I reflected on during the train journey back: Faye Bulloch. My fault, but I think she’s been given too easy a ride up to now. Re-interview her, without that bastard Lee in the room, if you can manage it. Ask her to account for her movements from the last time Gordon Pollock saw her until the day that Sandra’s motor home was dumped in Irvine. Let’s take nothing and nobody for granted . . . especially not her.’

  As her sergeants set about their tasks, Mann returned to her personal space, a glass walled office with internal venetian blinds that could be closed but never were. Alone, she took out her phone and made a call.

  ‘DCI Mann,’ Bob Skinner exclaimed. ‘This is a surprise.’

  ‘Can you speak, sir?’

  ‘I have a couple of minutes. Do you have news for me? Have you made an arrest?’

  ‘Not even close. We’re following various lines of enquiry but none of them are leading us anywhere significant. I’ve found out more about Sandra’s movements in the weeks leading up to her disappearance. She toured Europe with Gordon Pollock in the motor home. He seems to have been her protégé. As it stands, he’s the only significant witness we have.’

  ‘Could he be a suspect?’

  ‘No chance. I did have someone check his movements after they went their separate ways. When Sandra made her last petrol purchase, he was in New York, where he stayed for two weeks. From there he went back to London and stayed there until he went to Kenya a few months later. He’s ruled out. We are having another look at Faye Bulloch, though,’ she said.

  ‘Look all you like,’ Skinner replied. ‘She didn’t do it.’

  ‘What makes you so sure?’ the DCI asked.

  ‘Experience.’ He paused. ‘Plus,’ he added, ‘Faye isn’t a complete idiot. If she did kill her sister, in her very own camper van, she wouldn’t have dumped the bloody thing within a few miles of her own bloody house. You’d have found it a hundred miles away, and you’d be tracing her through a rail ticket from wherever that was back to Ayrshire. So,’ he exclaimed, ‘why are you calling me, Lottie? I really do have to be somewhere else in a minute.’

  ‘I wanted to ask your opinion, sir, about the man I’ve just interviewed. You met him, just after Leo Speight died. Charles Baxter, the property adviser, and co-executor. He’s been managing Sandra’s portfolio since she inherited, and I have evidence that she was planning to call on him or speak to him when she got back to Britain. I interviewed him this morning and he’s adamant that she never did. Maybe your meeting is too far in the past for you to answer this, but I wondered . . . what was your opinion of him, in terms of reliability?’

  Skinner was silent, for so long that Mann thought the call had been discontinued, until . . .

  ‘Let me put it this way,’ he murmured. ‘If I was you and I had two conflicting descriptions of the same event, one from Charles Baxter, and one from my late granny’s budgie, if I wanted to judge the truth I would lean towards Joey all day long. Good luck and keep me in the loop, if you’d be so good.’

  Fifty-Three

  Preferring to interview her subjects face to face, Dolça Nuñez had thought of driving to Lleida, but two factors had dissuaded her. The first was that the journey would have taken up to three hours, depending on the traffic. The second, she did not own a car. Yes, she could have requisitioned one of the InterMedia pool vehicles but that would have required her to state her purpose, and compromised the privacy of her mission for Sir Robert.

  Instead she stuck with basics and sourced the phone number of the Mercadona store in Carrer (online directories often used the Catalan word rather than the Spanish Calle) Manuel de Palacio, and called it, hoping that it was not one of those that closed during the afternoon hours.

  ‘Is the manager available?’ she asked the gruff woman who answered.

  ‘A moment.’

  She waited, for several moments. Eventually a man responded. ‘I am the manager, madam, Carles Adamo. How can I help you?’

  ‘Good afternoon,’ she said, adding an edge of excitement to her voice. ‘My name is Dolça Otero, I’m a market researcher employed by the makers of a new product called Ciervorapido. I’m looking to assess the brand’s impact, both with stores and with customers. Can you help me?’

  ‘Not a lot, I’m afraid,’ Señor Adamo confessed. ‘I know the brand you’re talking about, but only because it was forced on to my shelves by my regional management. I told them it was one of those gimmicky products that might be okay for the big cities, but not for this city or for my branch, not without a special promo, but there wasn’t the budget for that apparently. I told them so but as always they know best and sent the stuff anyway. I’m sure you know how that is.’

  ‘Yes,’ Dolça ad-libbed, ‘I’ve heard the same from other supermarket managers.’

  ‘And they probably told you the same as me, that we were right. You know what? So far I have sold only two bottles of the stuff, and they were to the same customer. The rest, I’m going to send back to Grau, the wholesaler.’

  She made a conscious effort to curb her excitement. ‘I don’t suppose you know who that customer was,’ she ventured. ‘It would be good for my survey if I could interview them too.’

  ‘I know who she was, but I can’t put you in touch I’m afraid. She’s a regular; a street musician, I think. Not a big spender; always pays cash. I was there when she bought the stuff. Her name’s Maria, Maria Gallardo, but I don’t know where she lives. That’s too bad for her, if you were going to pay her for her thoughts.’

  ‘Yes, too bad,’ Dolça sighed, ‘but thank you anyway. That will blend very nicely into my research. Good afternoon.’

  She ended the call, and leaned back in her chair. ‘Gallardo, Gallardo, Gallardo,’ she thought. ‘Why is that name . . ?’ She sat bolt upright. ‘Of course.’ She grabbed her phone from the desk and made another call. ‘Jordi,’ she exclaimed as the connection was made, ‘where are you?’

  ‘Can’t you hear?’ he replied. ‘I’m where I told you I would be. On the AVE, heading for Madrid then on to Girona, and linguine with a nice sea food sauce.’

  ‘Good, I can’t wait. But right now, do you have your laptop?’

  ‘Of course I do. It’s chained to me, you know that.’

  ‘Is there Wi-Fi on the train?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Even better. There’s something else I need you to do for me, someone I want you to find. Her name is Maria Gallardo, she lives in Lleida, and I think she might be a busker. I need to know everything there is to know about her, ideally by the time you get to Madrid.’

  ‘Then hang up and let me get on with it,’ Jordi said. ‘This train goes very fast.’

  Fifty-Four

  Cheeky smiled up at her husband from the poolside lounger in the Bright Islands Resort Hotel. ‘I love it when you act on impulse,’ she said. ‘Samantha’s in the resort creche making new friends, you’re off to work and I’m here with nothing to do but relax and fight off the urge to be completely decadent and have a morning strawberry daiquiri. I love you, Sauce Haddock; don’t take too long.’

  He returned her grin. ‘I won’t,’ he promised. ‘Every hour I spend away from here is an hour off the golf course. It looks like a beauty.’ He dropped to one knee and kissed her, then headed for the exit.

  Their rental car, part of the package deal they had bought, was a Lexus hybrid with voice activated controls. ‘Plot me the fastest route to the Foxlake gated community,’ he said.

  ‘Exit left onto the highway and proceed for three miles, then exit onto Reynolds Road,’ a female American voice instructed.

  ‘Yes ma’am,’ he murmured and obeyed.

  The Foxlake community where Sandra Bulloch had lived was seven miles from the hotel. ‘You have reached your destination,’ his guide told him, but she failed to mention the barrier that blocked the entrance. The Lexus purred quietly as he waited for the security guard to make his way from his booth, at a leisurely pace.

  ‘Your business, sir,’ the young man drawled. His shoulder badges bore the insignia of a private security company. He was unarmed, but a large wooden baton swung from his belt.

  Haddock took his Scottish police warrant card, in its enamelled case, from his pocket and held it up for inspection. The guard made to take it from him, but he shook his head. ‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘Look, but don’t touch. I’m looking for Ms Bulloch’s residence, number eleven. Your manager’s meeting me there. Please let him know I’ve arrived.’

  ‘I didn’t catch the name, sir.’

  ‘Haddock, Superintendent Haddock.’

  The guard grinned. ‘Really? Like the guy in Tintin?’

  Harold Haddock was known to friends and colleagues, junior and senior, as the most amiable of men, but there was one button they all knew better than to push and that was his surname. He was happy to be called after a condiment by those who knew him, but nobody made fun of his family. He stared silently back at the man, stone-faced, until the grin vanished, he nodded, ‘Yes sir,’ shuffled back to the booth and raised the barrier.

  The road within Foxlake was one-way and kidney shaped. The community contained seventeen residences; when he arrived at number eleven, Haddock could see the entry barrier in the distance, and watched it rise to admit, without stopping, a car dressed in what the blue light on its roof made him assume was police insignia.

  Each of the homes had a flagpole beside its entrance doorway. Some were bare others were dressed. Sandra Bulloch’s stood out from the rest because it flew the Scottish saltire. ‘Rock on,’ he murmured, as he stepped out of the Lexus. The house was smaller than the mental picture he had carried with him, but still substantial, on a package of land that a satellite scan had told him was generous.

  ‘Mr Haddock!’

  Sauce turned to see a dark-skinned woman walking towards him. On the land enclosed by the roadway an eighteenth house stood, from which he guessed she had emerged. ‘Jane Way,’ she announced as she approached. ‘I’m the community superintendent. I have Ms Bulloch’s key. The cops got in touch with me to tell me you were coming, but nobody’s told me what the issue is.’

  As she spoke, the police car reached them, drawing up behind Haddock’s. A uniformed officer emerged from the passenger seat. The Scot glanced at his epaulettes, his reading of them confirmed when their bearer spoke. ‘Superintendent Haddock?’ he began, hand extended. ‘Superintendent Alan Dossor, Royal Bahamas Police. Welcome to our islands.’

  ‘I’m not tuned into the Bahamian accent yet,’ Haddock said, ‘but that doesn’t sound like one.’

  ‘It’s not,’ the newcomer confirmed. ‘I started my career with Greater Manchester Police. I made inspector and was happy with that, until my wife and I were watching “Death in Paradise” on telly one night, about five years ago, and she said, “That looks like a good idea.” We laughed but she’d planted the seed. I started to look out for opportunities and to my surprise, I found one here. Level transfer, but I’ve worked my way up.’ He held up a document. ‘I have the document from the court that lets you enter the premises.’

  ‘Can I see that?’ Ms Way asked. ‘Maybe it’ll explain what this is about.’

  ‘It may not,’ Haddock suggested, ‘but I will. Ms Bulloch is deceased, and her death’s being treated as suspicious. I’m head of the national serious crimes squad in Scotland and we’re investigating.’

  ‘Oh my!’ Jane Way exclaimed. ‘How horrible, she was such a pleasant lady. Who’d do that to her?’

  ‘That’s what we’re working to find out,’ he replied. ‘And it’s why I’m here in person,’ he glanced at Dossor, ‘rather than asking our colleagues in the RBPF for assistance. I’m sure they’d have done the same job as me and probably better but this is going to wind up in court in Scotland.’

  ‘Trust me,’ the Bahamian officer said. ‘We’re very glad that you are. Sure, we’re good, but we have three thousand officers, tops. You have five or six times that. Do you want me to hang around, Superintendent, or are you okay on your own?’

  ‘Please stay. We have this thing in Scotland called corroboration.’

  ‘I take that to mean I could still be called as a witness?’ Dossor asked.

  ‘In theory, it does, but . . . I don’t expect to find anything that’s going to help our investigation. I might, but chances are I won’t. Suppose I do, all you’d have to do was confirm my discovery. In those circumstances, the defence would probably accept a witness statement and waive cross-examination.’

  ‘Pity. I’d like to visit Scotland again.’

  Haddock grinned. ‘You still hanker for the wind and rain, do you? Let’s go, if we may. Ms Way, you have the keys?’

  She nodded. ‘And the alarm code,’ she added. ‘Without that, there will be a hell of a noise. This is a very secure community. Ten of these homes lie unoccupied for most of the year, but we’ve never had a home invasion, not ever.’

  She led the way up a slight incline to the entrance door of Sandra Bulloch’s home. The two superintendents watched as she unlocked and opened it, wide enough for her to punch a six-digit code into a keypad. After three seconds, a sound rang out. ‘Clear,’ she said. ‘It’s all yours.’ As she stepped aside, she handed Haddock a slip of paper. ‘The code, should you need it again.’

  ‘Thanks. Has anyone been in here since Ms Bulloch left?’

  ‘Only the cleaners,’ Way replied. ‘They go in once a week regardless, but they’re super reliable.’

  ‘They have keys?’

  ‘They sign for them, in and out. They know the codes, but that’s all. I’ll leave you now. I’ll be in my office if you need me again.’ She walked away, leaving Haddock and Dossor to step into the dead woman’s home.

  An inner door gave them entry to a spacious hall, but it was more than that.

  ‘Jesus,’ the Bahamian superintendent whispered, ‘what’s this? It’s like . . .’

  ‘It’s a trophy room,’ Haddock said, quietly, ‘dedicated to the memory of Leo Speight, undisputed, undefeated world middleweight champion, the man Sandra Bulloch was going to marry, until he went and died on her. If it was all back in Glasgow, there would be a long line of people ready to pay good money to see this stuff.’

  Facing them was a pedestal, on which stood a huge trophy, overlooked by display cases which covered all the available wall space. They were filled with more trophies, smaller but no less impressive, and with signed, framed, photographs of Speight, embracing beaten opponents and shaking hands with household name celebrities.

  Dossor pointed to one of them. ‘Is that . . .’

  ‘Barack Obama? Looks like him. And I can see three British Prime Ministers and two Scottish First Ministers. And is that Sharleen? I think so.’ The cabinets had as their backdrop an array of championship belts. Most were big, garish and colourful, but two stood out less ornate, a mix of gold and ribbon. ‘That’s a Lonsdale belt,’ Haddock murmured. ‘British champions get them, but they only get to keep them after three or four defences. Next to it, that’s the Ring Magazine belt. Only the very best get one of those, and he was.’