‘You’ll let her down gently, won’t you? She’ll probably still want to charge him with leaving the scene of a threat, or any other offence she can dream up.’

  Pye smiled. ‘Kid gloves, I promise.’ He rose from his chair. ‘I need a stimulant after that let-down.’

  He followed his sergeant into the CID suite, and made himself an instant coffee. ‘I don’t know why I drink this stuff,’ he said, as he stirred in the milk. ‘It’s pish. Did you ever sample the chief’s coffee, that he made in his old filter machine?’

  ‘I never had that pleasure,’ Haddock admitted.

  ‘I’m not sure that pleasure is the right word: more of a challenge, I’d say, to see how long it took you to stop trembling afterwards.’

  He went back to his office, and to his desk; through the glass wall, Haddock saw him wince as he tasted the coffee. In the same moment he heard the DCI’s phone ring, and saw him as he picked up the call. As he watched, he saw his expression change, from casual, to astonished. He was halfway to the office when Pye beckoned to him as he replaced the handset.

  ‘Fucking de Matteo,’ he exclaimed, as Haddock reached the doorway. ‘He should never have pissed off Bob Skinner. I don’t know what he’s got, but it’s making him very happy. He wants forensic back into King Robert Village, and that means he wants us too. One call to Lottie and we’re on our way.’

  Sixty-Five

  ‘This investigation’s got an extra bloody wheel,’ Dan Provan complained, slouched in a chair in the Pitt Street police office.

  ‘Maybe so,’ Lottie Mann acknowledged, ‘but somehow it’s managed to steer the car in the right direction. Pye’s DC just called me to confirm that while Rogozin was being killed, Paco Fonter was buying coffee and rolls in Harthill services.’

  ‘But it was him bangin’ on the door of the Garrick Casino earlier on?’

  ‘It was him, but he thought better of it. Lucky Louie’s let us down.’

  ‘Looks like it,’ the DS agreed, mournfully. ‘That lands us firmly back at square one. The man McCullough and now Fonter both eliminated as suspects . . . without the investigating officers speaking to either of them, by the way. I fuckin’ hate this new force, Lottie; that would never have happened in Strathclyde.’

  She shook her head. ‘The outcome’s what matters, Dan; you know that. Christ, you taught me that. But we’re not quite back at the starting gate. We know for sure that Rogozin was killed on the walkway behind the casino, because the CSIs found his blood, hair and skin on a concrete fence post. We’ve still got Louie’s botched identification . . . “Angry football man. Been there before.” So we go back to the Garrick and we ask which of their footballing members were in the place on Sunday.’

  ‘Lottie, that’s no’ going to be as easy as you think,’ Provan warned. ‘Half the footballers in the west of Scotland are members of the Garrick, and I suspect a few from the east as well. Pike lives in Edinburgh, for example; so do quite a few of the Merrytown guys.’

  ‘But we can focus on Merrytown,’ Mann countered. ‘It’s Rogozin’s club.’

  ‘Fair enough, but how many of them actually had anything to do with him? Angela Renwick runs the club; it’s her that deals wi’ the players and most of the time she’s talking to their agents, no’ them.

  ‘There’s another problem,’ he added. ‘There’ll be no record of who was there on Sunday night. Members aren’t asked to sign in unless they’re introducing a guest, and there are no video recordings of the gaming rooms. The gaming staff are watching the wheel and the cards rather than the punters, and it’s possible for a member to stand in front of a slot machine all night and never be noticed. So anything we get there’s no’ going to be guaranteed comprehensive.’

  ‘Still, it’s all we’ve got and we have to do it,’ the DI insisted.

  ‘Yes, and we will, I will, no argument.’ He paused. ‘But it’s no’ all we’ve got. We still have Lucky Louie: his real name is Brandon Shandley, by the way, but he never went to Glasgow Academy. He must have found the blazer, or stolen it. When I dropped him at the Royal Infirmary last night, after you went home, I spoke to one of the A and E medics, Dr Khan. He reckoned it’ll take a week to stabilise him, and to get him over his malnutrition, and to get the Eldorado, the meths and everything else even partially out of his system.’

  ‘He couldn’t just walk out, could he? Sign himself out?’

  ‘No, I took care of that. Mr Shandley’s going to be unable to walk unaided for a few days, but if he does try to escape, or if he’s awkward in any way, Dr Khan’s going to section him, for his own safety. The guy’s mental, Lottie, but somewhere in there is a memory. With a bit of Louie luck and a bit of time, they might be able to unlock it and get us an identification that’s a wee bit more reliable than “Angry football man” or “Fuck would I know?”, his last two efforts.’

  ‘True,’ she agreed. ‘How do we progress this, do you think? Together in sequence or . . .’

  ‘I’ll go back to the Garrick,’ Provan volunteered. ‘I know them there already.’

  ‘Thanks, Dan. You do that and I’ll try to contact Mr Fonter on Skype, if he doesn’t call me. I can take a statement from him, send it to Spain, then he can scan the signed document and send it back to me to go on the file.’

  The little sergeant shook his head. ‘I barely understand any of that shite, lass. I’m the last of the Tippex and typewriter generation.’

  ‘Then it’s lucky for Fonter that I do,’ Mann laughed, ‘otherwise he’d be on the first plane back to Scotland.’

  Sixty-Six

  ‘You know Ms Hoy, don’t you?’ Skinner asked.

  ‘Yes, we’ve met,’ Pye said. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Overwhelmed by all this police interest,’ the security manager laughed, lightly, as they shook hands.

  ‘We didn’t start this ball rolling,’ the DCI pointed out. ‘This one is a private initiative.’ He looked at his former chief constable, almost severely. ‘Dorward’s team are on the way, sir. I hope it’s going to be worth their while, or God help us all. What do you expect them to find?’

  ‘I expect them to find the DNA of Annette Bordeaux, Sammy,’ he declared. ‘This is where she was killed; I’m absolutely certain of it.’

  Behind him, the younger detective chuckled, shaking his head. ‘I should have bloody known you’d do this,’ he murmured.

  ‘I told you Chaz was innocent, Sauce.’

  ‘And you think you’ve proved it?’

  Skinner smiled: no ‘sir’, no ‘chief’ this time; the young man was growing in confidence and maturity, challenging him in a manner that drew a reproving glance from Pye. He felt strangely proud.

  ‘The way I’d put it, Detective Sergeant Haddock,’ he replied, ‘I think I’ve made him the less likely of two suspects; in the context of the case you’ve built, that will have the same effect. The charges will be dropped. Do you have overshoes with you, and a couple spare?’ he asked the DCI. Pye nodded. ‘Good, since this is about to become a crime scene. Let’s get booted up and I’ll show you what I’ve found.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we wait for Dorward?’ the DCI suggested.

  The former chief gazed at him. ‘You know Dorward,’ he chuckled. ‘When he gets here he’ll seal the place off and raise merry hell if anyone other than his people venture in there. Come on.’

  ‘You don’t need me, do you?’ Christine Hoy said.

  ‘No, not any more, but thanks for your help and take good care of that video you shot.’

  He led the two detectives into the apartment, showing them the layout before taking them through to the utility room. ‘Okay,’ he began, briskly. ‘On Thursday, eight days before Annette Bordeaux was murdered, Dimitri Rogozin checked into this apartment. On that same day, Merrytown FC were away in Finland playing a Europa League tie.

  ‘Telephone records show that a call was made from the landline in this apartment to the landline in the penthouse, directly above. I believe that call was Rogozin summoning Annie, telling her to get down here. And I believe she came.’

  ‘You believe, boss,’ Pye said, ‘but can you prove it?’

  ‘That’s why I need forensics in here. There’s no existing security footage of that evening; it was wiped after a week, as is normal, but Christine Hoy is certain that Annette didn’t come in here through the front door. That leaves only one alternative: she came in through that fire exit. When they dust it for prints they’ll find Rogozin’s on it, for sure. When they dust the handle on the equivalent door above, they’ll find Annette’s.’

  Skinner smiled again, in a special way; as a serving detective, it had become known to close colleagues as his ‘Gotcha grin’.

  ‘I believe they’ll find something else too,’ he continued, ‘Rogozin’s palm print on the outside of the penthouse door. That’s how he did it.’

  ‘Did what?’ Haddock asked.

  ‘Killed her, and set up Baker.’ He waited, letting them absorb his allegation.

  ‘On that Thursday evening, I believe that Annette told him that it was all over; she said that he had lost his hold over her, as Paco had kicked his drug habit three months before and was completely clean. She told him to lay off or else.’

  ‘Or else what? She wouldn’t have told Paco, surely. Or gone to the police.’

  ‘No, she wouldn’t, I agree. I think she threatened to tell her brother, Chaz Baker.’

  The detectives looked at each other; their growing unease was evident.

  ‘We know some of that,’ Pye conceded. ‘Sirena Burbujas told us as much, but how does that tie in with him killing her?’

  ‘I’ll show you,’ he replied. ‘I believe that when she confronted him, Rogozin decided that Annette had to go. Maybe they argued, maybe he was conciliatory, but either way, he’s thinking, “She dies”. And he came up with a plan to get rid of her, while diverting the blame on to someone else, Baker.

  ‘She’d come down the fire stair,’ he opened the door, carefully using the edge of the handle, and blocked it with the extinguisher, ‘and she went back up the same way. Either he accompanied her or he chased her, but whatever, he was last through that door, for on the way out,’ he pointed to the work surface, ‘he ripped off a piece of that kitchen roll.’

  He knelt in the doorway and pointed to a small object on the floor, a wedge no more than one inch square, formed from a piece of paper, folded into itself several times.

  Behind him, Haddock whistled softly. ‘I’m getting there,’ he murmured.

  ‘Follow,’ Skinner ordered, crossing the landing in one long stride and jogging up the stair to the top floor. ‘Look again.’ As the detectives caught up with him, he pointed to an identical impromptu plug, compacted by the weight of the door.

  ‘That Thursday evening,’ he told them, ‘the bastard Russian followed Annette up here, and was inside with her. I’m sure the original forensic trawl of the penthouse will have revealed quite a few unattributed fingerprints and DNA traces. You need to compare them against his.’

  ‘We will,’ Pye promised.

  ‘You’ll find matches, I’m sure. He couldn’t have been wearing gloves. So,’ he continued, ‘having gained access and spent however long he did here, Rogozin left by the same doorway, putting that wee wedge in place to stop it closing properly. You’d never have known by looking at it from the inside that it wasn’t secure. The door is very heavy and the frame overlaps it by at least the width of the paper square.’

  He led them back down to the seventh-floor apartment. ‘Before he went back inside, I believe that he went down the escape and wedged open the door that leads to the outside.

  ‘Why? So that he could access the building later, without being seen. I believe that he did that on the Friday of the following week, on a day when he knew Paco was away. He came in through the fire escape exit, and climbed the stairs. First he went into the untenanted apartment, and left the things he had brought with him, Chaz Baker’s belt and training top, taken without difficulty from the Merrytown training centre.

  ‘Preparations made, he went up to the penthouse. He entered through the booby-trapped door, and overpowered Annette in her bedroom. He hit her, breaking her nose and leaving the blood spray that Dorward’s team found later, then he took her downstairs, where he strangled her with the belt.’

  ‘And then he sent the text to Baker,’ Haddock said, ‘using her phone.’

  ‘Absolutely. He sent a message that would be bound to bring him running. And then he waited.’ He paused. ‘He waited until he heard the lift going up to the top floor. He waited until he heard it go down again. Then, once Chaz had gone, he took Annette’s body back up to the penthouse and left her there, with the incriminating belt that killed her around her neck. He left by the way he’d entered, then drove to the training complex where he dumped the blooded training top.’

  ‘For us to find,’ Pye sighed, ‘and draw the conclusion we were meant to.’

  ‘Why did he come back next morning and make that call from the landline, if he knew she was dead?’ Haddock asked.

  Skinner frowned at him. ‘Come on, Sauce,’ he said with a touch of impatience. ‘He did it because he knew she was dead . . . to throw up a smokescreen in case the investigation uncovered their relationship. He was being very clever, or rather he thought he was; too clever as it’s turned out. If he hadn’t done that, we might never have discovered that he’d been there a week before.’

  He beamed. ‘There you are, lads. That’s how she was killed and that’s who killed her.’

  ‘Subject to forensic confirmation,’ the young DS pointed out.

  ‘You find a single trace of her in this apartment, that’s all you’ll need. Even without it, the circumstantial case against Rogozin is now just as good, no, better than the one you had against Chaz. No way will de Matteo take it to trial.’ He paused. ‘The only thing I couldn’t find was the wedge he used on the outside door, but that pathway is swept regularly, at least a couple of times a week, so it’s long gone.’

  ‘Okay,’ Pye conceded, grudgingly, ‘I’ll buy it, Chief, at least for as long as it takes to prove it, or otherwise. Now please, can we get out of here before Dorward arrives and gives us all detention?’

  Sixty-Seven

  ‘How much is a membership here?’ Dan Provan asked.

  Melvyn Holding stared at him, astonishment in his eyes. ‘You must be kidding. Detective Sergeant,’ he murmured. ‘Do you really believe you have to pay to come in here and lose money? Membership is free; you can join in person or online. Either way all you have to do is fill in a form. Why do you ask anyway?’

  ‘I seem to be here so often, Ah thought I might as well join.’

  ‘I might be able to make you a better offer than that,’ the manager observed. ‘You must be pretty near retirement age. If you’d like to supplement your pension, I could use a guy like you to supervise my security staff.’

  The little man’s glare told him that he had made a mistake. ‘Fuck you very much,’ he growled. ‘I’ve got another ten years in this job.’

  Holding rushed to repair the damage. ‘Sorry, sorry; I was joking of course. How can I help you today, Mr Provan? How’s your investigation progressing?’

  ‘We’re still focusing on the Garrick,’ the DS replied, tersely. ‘Specifically on anybody with a football connection who was here on Sunday, at the same time as Rogozin.’

  ‘I couldn’t tell you that myself, but let me speak to the gaming room supervisor; in fact, let me bring him up here. Come into my office, please, while I go and get him.’

  He led the way into a small room off the entrance lobby; it was furnished minimally, with one desk and two chairs, but its focal point was a window that looked down into a long room where the gaming tables were situated. It was quiet, but some players were in place, a broad racial mix of white, Asian and Chinese. Provan stood looking through it until he saw Holding come into view. He called out to a dark-haired woman in a three-piece suit, an image that reminded him of a snooker referee he had seen on television; they exchanged a few words, and she followed him from the room.

  They were with him less than thirty seconds later. ‘This is Minah Denis,’ the manager said. ‘She was supervisor on Sunday.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ the woman said, surprising Provan by offering a handshake; he accepted awkwardly.

  ‘You were asking about football people, I’m told,’ she began. ‘Sunday’s a big night for them, players mostly. We do get some coaches in too, and directors, but they tend not to mix socially. Mr Rogozin, though, he was here a lot, not just on Sundays. Speaking ill of the dead, I know, but he was an arrogant man and a terrible loser, and yet . . . I could never help thinking that a lot of the reckless gambling, “Everyzzing on ten black!”,’ she mimicked in a passable accent, ‘and all that sort of stuff, was for show, that he’d created an image for himself and was living up to it.’

  ‘Was he like that on Sunday?’ the DS asked.

  ‘He wasn’t quite as loud as normal, but he had company. Funny, but thinking back, he seemed a wee bit nervous. The man he was with didn’t gamble. In fact he hardly said a word, he just watched Rogozin play, until he, the other man, had had enough. He tapped Mr Rogozin on the shoulder, said something to him, and they left.’

  ‘The other football folk; were there many?’

  ‘We were pretty busy,’ Denis replied. ‘Let’s see. There were a handful from Rangers and Celtic; they all came in together, as they do quite often. The Old Firm guys think they’re a race apart. Then there were four lads from Hearts, and two from Motherwell. Mostly it’s the foreigner players that tend to come here,’ she explained. ‘We don’t get so many of the Scots lads. Maybe they’re family men,’ she surmised.

  ‘How about Merrytown? Any from there?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, them too. Three of them, Art Mustard . . . he’s nice . . . Flowers, the American . . . he’s not . . . and Jimmy Pike, the English lad. There was a girl with them; dark haired, Alice, they called her. I hadn’t seen her before, at least I don’t think I had; Jimmy had been in with a woman before but she wasn’t with him on Sunday.’