The DCI did as he asked, then turned the mouse and keyboard over to the sergeant. Haddock keyed in the word ‘Zamora’, then waited as the application found its target.

  ‘Okay,’ he murmured, ‘let’s see.’ He zoomed in on the town until he was close enough to read street names. ‘Plaza Major, Plaza Major,’ he repeated as his eyes scanned across the screen. ‘Yes,’ he exclaimed as he found it, and as he selected the Street View icon from the top right corner of the monitor. He pulled it down, clicked and a height image appeared of an open square, a photograph shot on a bright sunny day, probably around noon, in the summer months, as the shadows cast by parked vehicles, most of them police cars, were very small.

  He rotated the image until he found what he was after then leaned back. ‘There you are, gaffer,’ he exclaimed. ‘See that bar in the photo? Los Primos? That’s where we start looking.’

  Sixty-Three

  ‘How often has this place been used?’ Skinner asked, as they stepped into the apartment.

  ‘To my knowledge very rarely,’ Christine Hoy told him. ‘I’m always advised for security reasons, but if the club wants to put someone in here they advise Paul Cope, the concierge. He receives the guest and hands over the keys; also he puts the cleaner in there before to give it a dusting over and, afterwards, to change and launder the bedding and towels. He’ll stock the fridge as well, with whatever shopping list he’s given.’

  ‘That happens every time? Rogozin used it and he was a maverick.’

  ‘Mr Rogozin played by the rules. He didn’t have his own key.’

  Skinner frowned. ‘Are you sure about that? I checked with Mr Cope before I went to your office, and he told me that he didn’t hand over the key on the day Annette died, yet we know from CCTV that he was there, and that he let himself in. He must have had one made.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ Hoy conceded. ‘They’re not high tech; it’s one area where the builder skimped a bit.’

  ‘So,’ he continued, ‘it follows that if Cope didn’t know that Rogozin was here, he didn’t put cleaners in after his visit. Any forensic traces that were left on that visit will still be there, and are unlikely to be confused with holdover from his visit nine days earlier, as the place would have been serviced then. I take it the cleaner’s thorough?’

  ‘Elsie? She’s not the best, but she’s okay and she’s cheap. She’s also Paul Cope’s mother-in-law,’ she added, with a smile.

  ‘Do you review the security recordings before you wipe the tapes?’

  ‘Not always personally,’ she replied, ‘but yes, they are checked, either by me or by my assistant.’

  ‘Who would check the footage of this floor and the one above?’

  ‘That is always me.’

  ‘Right. Let’s go back to Rogozin’s previous visit, on the Thursday of the week before the murder. Can you recall that?’

  ‘Sure. I saw him arrive and I saw him leave next morning.’

  ‘Between those times was there any movement on the penthouse floor or in and out of this apartment?’

  ‘No, none at all.’

  Skinner smiled. ‘That’s interesting, for the police have information that Rogozin and Annette Bordeaux were together on that Thursday night, in one apartment or the other. That can only mean one thing.’

  ‘That they used the fire escape!’ the security manager exclaimed.

  ‘Exactly. Show me where it is, please, Christine.’

  ‘Through here; follow me.’ She led him through a door that led from the entrance hallway into a second corridor, and from there into a large, lavishly equipped kitchen with a dining area, beneath a west-facing window. ‘In here,’ she said, opening another door. ‘This is a utility room, and there’s the fire door.’

  He looked at it. Like the rest of the room it was painted cream, apart from a thick brown handle, and a notice at eye level, in large red letters. He looked at the door frame and smiled. ‘Abso-fucking-lutely,’ he whispered, forgetting his companion for a second.

  Various cleaning products, among them sprays, kitchen rolls, and a pack of disposable latex gloves were stacked on a work surface on his right. He plucked a pair of gloves from the box, put them on, then turned the handle. The door opened, inwards.

  A fire extinguisher hung on the wall beside it. He glanced at Hoy over his shoulder. ‘It never ceases to amaze me,’ he remarked as he lifted it from its bracket, ‘that designers put these things beside emergency doors with big red signs on them like this one, saying “Fire exit: keep closed”, so they can be used to do this.’

  He swung the heavy steel door wider and used the extinguisher to hold it open.

  His smile grew even wider as he looked out and down, at the concrete landing. He took out his phone and selected camera mode. ‘Christine, do you have yours?’ he asked.

  She nodded.

  ‘Good. I need you to video me doing this, and be ready to swear under oath that neither you nor I had opened this door before this moment.’

  He waited until she was ready, then knelt and shot several images of a metre-square area at the top of the fire escape steps. ‘Very good,’ he said as he stood. ‘Now, follow me, please. Try to step across the landing, not on it.’

  The stairway led up a dozen steps then turned on itself; twelve more and they had reached the top.

  The stairwell was well lit by narrow windows and by LED lights on the wall of each landing.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Skinner murmured as he leaned down to peer at the concrete square, focusing on the foot of the closed door. ‘Once again, please.’ He reached for his phone again, shooting more images, as his escort filmed him.

  ‘That’s excellent,’ he exclaimed. ‘Now for the hard part.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Going all the way down and back up again.’

  She shrugged. ‘I need the exercise.’

  They jogged down the fire escape stair, counting off the floors one by one until they arrived at the foot. There he opened the exit door, slowly, and looked down at his feet, and beyond. He frowned, then stepped outside as Hoy held the door ajar.

  He saw that he was standing in a public cycleway, leading from the roadway that ran past the apartment block, down to the Meadows. It was neat and tidy, with hardly a leaf to be seen, even in mid-September, and with absolutely no confectionery wrappers or other detritus.

  ‘That’s a bugger,’ he murmured, ‘but I’ve got enough. Okay,’ he said as he stepped back into the escape stairway, ‘time for the climb.’

  The ascent took twice as long as the descent, even though they kept up a brisk pace. As they reached the open door, Skinner was pleased to note that his companion was breathing as heavily as he was, for all that she was twenty years younger.

  ‘What now?’ she asked, as he hung the fire extinguisher back in position and closed the door firmly.

  ‘Now we get out of here, exactly the way we came in and we lock the door behind us.’

  As soon as they were back in the corridor, he produced his phone again, but this time for its original purpose, scrolling to a number and making a call.

  ‘What can I do for you, Chief?’ a familiar voice said in his ear.

  ‘Get yourself fitted for sackcloth, Sammy, my friend, and warm up the ashes. If I’m right, this is more than reasonable doubt. You need to get Arthur Dorward and his forensic team back into King Robert Village, seventh floor this time. I’ll stand guard until they get here.’

  Sixty-Four

  ‘How do we go about this?’ Sauce Haddock pondered, frowning as he spoke. ‘Cisco Serra’s best guess is that Paco would head for home, but that’s all it is. We don’t know for sure.’

  Pye nodded. ‘True, but thanks to the ingenious people at Google we know what home looks like. We know also that there appears to be a police station on the same square.’

  ‘We can’t just ask them to go and lift him, not without a warrant.’

  ‘I’m not suggesting that, but we could ask them to verify whether he’s there or not.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘We could ask them to give us the number and then we could phone him. Or we could ask them to ask him to phone us.’

  ‘Thereby alerting him that we’re on to him,’ the DS pointed out.

  ‘Not necessarily; we could say it’s about Annette’s murder.’

  ‘We could, but if we involve the Policia Nacional, or the Guardia Civil, whichever it is, or even the Zamora local cops, that starts to formalise it.’

  ‘Yes,’ Pye conceded, ‘but we still need a number.’

  ‘Fuck’s sake,’ his junior muttered. ‘It’s a long time since you sat your inspector’s exams. Let me see your terminal.’

  He leaned in again, keyed ‘Directory enquiries Spain’ into the search bar, clicked and waited as a number of links appeared. He chose the first, Telefonica, and entered ‘Los Primos’.

  ‘Et voilà ,’ he declared.

  ‘Wrong language, you smug bastard,’ the DCI growled, ‘which brings up another problem.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Haddock countered.

  He stepped across to the doorway of the small office and called across the CID suite, ‘Does anyone here speak Spanish?’

  Jackie Wright raised a hand. ‘I do,’ she volunteered, if a little tentatively. He waved to her to join them.

  ‘We want you to call this number,’ Pye said, showing her the computer screen. ‘It’s Paco Fonter’s parents’ bar. First and foremost, we need to find out if he’s there. If he is, will he speak to us?’

  ‘If they ask me why?’

  ‘Tell them it’s to do with the investigation, that’s all; that way you won’t be lying.’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  She picked up the DCI’s phone and keyed in the number, listening as the call connected, then to the single-beep ringtone. It sounded three times before it was picked up and a strong, mature female voice said, ‘Café Los Primos. Cómo puedo ayudarle? ’

  The DC took a deep breath and began, ‘Esta es la policía de Edimburgo, el detective Wright. ¿Me puede decir, es Paco Fonter allí? ’

  ‘Padre o hijo? Hay dos .’

  ‘El hijo, por favor. ¿Está él ahí? ’

  ‘Sí, y ¿por qué estamos hablando Español? ’

  ‘You speak English?’ Wright exclaimed.

  ‘Yes. I am Paco’s mother, Helena Rovegno. I was born and raised in Gibraltar. My son is here. Why do you want to speak to him? Does it have to do with our Annette’s murder?’

  ‘It’s related. It’s something that’s come up.’

  ‘Paco is upstairs in his apartment. If you give me a number, I’ll make sure he calls.’

  ‘Does he have a computer there?’ the DC asked.

  ‘Yes, he does.’

  ‘Can he use Skype?’

  ‘Yes,’ his mother said, ‘that’s how we speak.’

  Wright gave her Pye’s force email address. ‘Ask him to use that, please.’

  She handed the phone back to the chief inspector. ‘Well done,’ he said. ‘Good thinking, asking him to use Skype. What was the rest about?’

  ‘Nothing really; his dad’s name’s Paco too. She wanted to know which one I was after.’

  ‘I see. Thanks, Jackie, that was a big help. We’ll take it from here . . . assuming he does call. Three people on a computer screen might be a bit overpowering.’

  The two men waited, for five minutes, then ten, until Haddock broke the silence. ‘I have this vision,’ he murmured, ‘of a Jeep Renegade heading for the mountains with a tent and a month’s worth of provisions.’

  ‘Is that what you’d do if the police were after you? Become a mountain man?’

  The sergeant laughed. ‘Hell no. I’d call Cheeky’s grandpa and ask for his advice. He’s a world expert when it comes to slipping out of the clutches of the polis.’

  They were still smiling when a tone from the computer and a flashing icon on the monitor told them that an incoming Skype call was awaiting connection. Pye clicked ‘Accept’ and Haddock moved round the desk so that both were in line with the inbuilt camera, as Paco Fonter’s image filled the screen.

  ‘Gentlemen.’ The voice sounded metallic, but it was clear. ‘I must apologise for leaving Scotland without telling you. Things became too much for me, and I felt a very strong need to see my mother and father. I did tell Alice, the club physio, that I was going, since she is in charge of my hamstring recovery, but I should have called you too.’ As he spoke, the detectives studied his expression very closely, looking for signs of nervousness or fear; all either of them saw was the face of a tired man.

  ‘My mother told me there has been a development,’ he said.

  ‘There has,’ Pye confirmed, ‘but not directly into the Annette inquiry. Yesterday morning the body of Dimitri Rogozin was taken out of the River Clyde in Glasgow. The autopsy confirmed that he was dead when he went in, and the investigators in Glasgow have determined where he was attacked and killed.’

  He paused, looking at the screen; Fonter was frowning and his eyes had narrowed.

  ‘It was on the walkway that runs along the north side of the river,’ the DCI continued, ‘just behind the Garrick Casino. Thing is, Mr Fonter, the Glasgow people have reliable witnesses who put you in the Grand Central Hotel earlier that evening, looking for Rogozin, and later, at the casino, demanding to see him. And there’s another, who saw a confrontation between the victim and a man answering your description.’

  The footballer leaned forward, and for a moment the Scots were sure he was going to break the connection. If that had been in his mind, he decided against it; instead he clasped his hands together on the table at which he sat, his gaze fixed upon them.

  ‘Yes,’ he declared. ‘I went looking for Dimitri. My intention was to beat the living shit out of him and then go to the police with the story that Sirena had told me. She came to see me in the hotel on Sunday; she said that the guy had forced himself on Annie, starting from when we were in Italy.’ His face twisted in pain. ‘She said that he drugged her . . .’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Pye said, ‘you don’t need to go on. We know about it; Sirena spoke to us too.’

  ‘Damn her,’ Fonter snapped. ‘I told her not to, to let me deal with it first.’

  ‘We knew about it anyway,’ Haddock volunteered. ‘The team in Glasgow found Rogozin’s iPad in the hotel.’

  ‘They saw the pictures? I was hoping nobody would have to.’

  ‘After you killed him?’ the DS suggested.

  ‘I didn’t kill him. I assure you, I didn’t. Yes, I went after him, to the hotel where I knew he stayed when he comes to Scotland. Yes, I knew most likely he would go to the casino. But they wouldn’t let me in; they wouldn’t even say for sure that he was there. I waited for a while, and as I did, I began to realise that I must not see Rogozin that night, or yes, I might have killed him. So I went to my car and I drove back to the hotel.’

  ‘You didn’t get there until after two,’ Pye said, unsmiling. ‘The night porter remembers seeing you come in.’

  ‘I didn’t go straight back; I sat in my car, playing music to calm me down. I left Glasgow after eleven, and then I stopped at the service area on the motorway. I bought a coffee there, some food . . . a baguette with salmon, another with egg and salad and a Snickers: I was hungry for I hadn’t eaten . . . and I sat there and ate for a while, thinking what I would do. That was when I decided that before I did anything, I had to see Mamma and Papa. There and then I went online on my phone and I booked a flight next day to Madrid and hired a car.’

  ‘What time would that have been?’

  ‘I get to the service area after midnight; I leave after one thirty. I get back to the hotel when you say. I guess you can check with EasyJet when I book the flight.’

  ‘That probably wouldn’t tell us where you were,’ Haddock countered. ‘How did you pay for your food?’

  Fonter’s eyes widened very slightly. ‘Credit card: Mastercard. That would tell you.’ He breathed an audible sigh of relief. ‘Gentlemen, what you want me to do? Should I come back to Scotland now?’

  ‘What you must do is speak to the detectives investigating the Rogozin murder and tell them what you told me. If they’re content to take a statement from you, and assuming Mastercard verifies the time of that transaction . . .’ He paused, considering the situation. ‘Your car is hired for a week, I understand.’

  ‘Yes. I still have to book a return flight, but Alice said it would be okay for me to stay that long.’

  ‘Then as long as you speak to Detective Inspector Mann in Glasgow and eliminate yourself as a suspect, it should be okay. I need you to give me your mobile number, and your email address. She may want to speak to you on video as well. And of course I’ll need your credit card number.’

  ‘Sure.’ He dictated all the requested information to Haddock, who scribbled furiously to keep up.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Fonter,’ Pye said, when he had finished.

  ‘What about Annie?’ he asked. ‘Are things still the same? Is Chaz still accused?’

  ‘That is the situation. Obviously, if there are any developments you’ll be advised.’

  ‘I still can’t believe it, you know,’ Paco Fonter sighed, ‘any of it; that Annie’s dead, that Chaz killed her, or that she gave in to that animal Rogozin to protect me. When you find el servidor público , the public servant, who did kill him, please be sure to thank him for me. I congratulate him for having the courage to do what I could not. Good day, gentlemen.’

  ‘Well,’ Haddock exclaimed as the screen went dark, ‘what did you think of that?’

  ‘I think it’s as well we didn’t go for that European warrant. We’d be looking very silly now.’

  ‘Come on now, gaffer. Before we had that conversation he was odds on favourite as the Russian’s killer.’

  ‘Granted, but his name can be wiped off the board now. Who does that leave, I wonder,’ he mused. ‘Sauce,’ he continued, briskly, ‘see to that Mastercard please. I’ll phone Lottie and tell her what’s happened here.’