‘Where to?’ Stirling asked.

  ‘I don’t know, John. Speight had property all over the place. There was a place in Las Vegas where his youngest child lived with her mother . . . Rae Something her name was, and the kid was called Raeleen. It went to her, then there was the mansion in Ayr where he died, and I believe there was a house in the Caribbean, possibly in the Bahamas. They went to Sandra in the will along with his wealth, apart from some hotels that he owned, a few specific bequests and the trusts he left for his kids.’

  ‘What about the sister?’

  ‘Zilch,’ Mann said. ‘She was a cow. She was a serious suspect at the time. Sandra obviously couldn’t be part of the investigation, but looking back, I reckon she did her best to point us in Faye’s direction.’

  ‘So there was no love lost there?’ Wright suggested.

  ‘None at all.’

  ‘Which makes the sister a person of interest, doesn’t it?’

  The DCI nodded. ‘When we have a list she’ll probably be at the top, but before we get that far we need to know all we can about Sandra herself. While I’m away telling the press who the victim is and trying to downplay the inevitable hysteria that’ll follow, that’s what I need you to be doing. Find out where she lived? How did she live? Who did she live with, if anyone? But start with the motor home. Find out everything there is to know about it and see where it takes us.’

  Stirling raised a hand. ‘Boss, does the thing have navigation? Could we track its movements before it was dumped?’

  ‘The socos have looked there already, John,’ Wright told him. ‘They found that system was disabled, and any information on it had been deleted. Nobody’s making this easy for us.’

  Twenty-Three

  ‘Bob?’ the man ventured, although he seemed in no doubt as he approached Skinner in the Girona station forecourt.

  ‘Raul,’ he replied, extending his right hand. ‘Good to meet you and thank you for coming all this way. It makes life easier for me. I have a lot going on over the next couple of days.’

  ‘It’s my pleasure,’ Raul Sanchez assured him. ‘I like this city, and it’s very easy to get here. Fifty minutes on the high speed train from Barcelona.’

  ‘Let’s go,’ Skinner said leading the way to the parking area outside. ‘I’ve booked us a table in a Japanese restaurant close to my place. I can dump the car, we can walk there and I can still get you back for the return AVE. You’re okay with sushi?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course. It’s obligatory in today’s Spain, and especially in Madrid. I’ve heard of a place that gives the sushi chef an armed guard, in case its rivals try to kidnap him.’

  Skinner drove the short distance from the station to his home. Spotting a vacant slot outside their dinner venue, he parked there and programmed a payment through an app on his phone before stepping inside.

  ‘To drink, gentlemen?’ their waiter asked, after seating them.

  ‘Corona zero,’ Skinner replied.

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ his guest agreed. ‘I have heard that there is now a zero alcohol Guinness, Bob,’ he said. ‘Is that true?’

  ‘It is. Someone told me they both taste the same, but I don’t like the standard version so I haven’t tried it. The Corona zero does the job for me.’

  The waiter returned with menus and the drinks, each with the obligatory wedge of lime in the neck of the bottle. ‘Standard platter’s my usual,’ Bob told his guest, as the young man hovered.

  ‘That will be fine by me. Cool, I believe you say in English now.’

  ‘Hah,’ he laughed, ‘not in the version I’ve always spoken. So, my friend, are you happy with the way our offspring are progressing?’

  ‘Very happy,’ Sanchez replied. ‘And I speak for Inge also when I say that.’

  ‘Ignacio has . . . how do I put it? . . . an interesting history. You know that?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, I do. The first time we met, the first time that Pilar brought him to Madrid, he told me his life story; how he was brought up in Spain by his mother, never knowing who his father was, the things they got up to, how he met you, what happened when his mother took him to Scotland, the spell in prison. He told me everything, I think.’

  ‘Yes. My boy had quite an upbringing.’

  ‘It’s quite a tale. I admired his courage in being open about it from the start.’

  ‘Have you met his mother yet?’

  ‘No, we have not. But she has invited us to visit her in Scotland. What’s she like, Bob? Can you talk about her?’

  ‘Sure,’ Skinner said. ‘Hers is quite a tale as well. Mia Watson McCullough, she’s a piece of work. She came from a notorious extended criminal family in Edinburgh; the Watsons and the Spreckleys. They were low rent hoodlums, not masterminds, any one of them. Her mother,’ he paused, searching for an adequate description, ‘she was an absolute brute, pure evil. Mia was the only one of her brood with an IQ above a hundred, way above as it happens. She broke free of them as soon as she could: not because she was inherently honest, but because she didn’t want a life on the wrong side of society. And yet,’ he said, ‘that’s where she wound up for a while.’ He frowned at the memory.

  ‘I met her when I investigated the murder of her brother. He had upset the wrong people. He had information they wanted so they took him to an indoor swimming pool and kept throwing him off the high diving board until they got it out of him.’

  ‘That sounds like fairly gentle persuasion,’ Sanchez observed.

  ‘The pool was empty at the time, Raul, hence the murder investigation. The dead boy, he’d have been Nacho’s uncle. When he was killed, Mia was a radio presenter on an Edinburgh station . . . Mia Sparkles, she called herself . . . with a big teenage audience. My daughter Alex was one of them. I was single at the time, she was frankly gorgeous, and she wasn’t directly involved in the investigation so . . . that’s how Nacho came into being.’

  Sanchez nodded. ‘That’s what Ignacio told me.’ He smiled. ‘Not in so much detail but I couldn’t expect that.’

  ‘He probably doesn’t know all the details. I doubt that Mia told him, and I never have. For example, I doubt he’s aware that Mia had . . . unwittingly . . . set her brother up to be killed. When her mother found out, and she would have eventually, Mia would have been a target herself; that’s how dangerous her mother was. I couldn’t have guaranteed her safety, so I told her to disappear, fast. She followed that advice so literally, that I didn’t hear from her or learn of my son’s existence for almost twenty years.’ He paused. ‘I’m telling you all this, Raul, about all of Ignacio’s genetic inheritance, because it’s important to me that you and your wife are fully aware of it. Pilar knows the story. Nacho promised me that he told her as soon as it became serious between them.’

  ‘Yes,’ Raul Sanchez said. ‘He did. Bob, my friend, Inge and I, we have discussed all this, and we accept your son for what he is, not what his ancestors were. This too, he may have his mother’s DNA, but he has yours as well. You are the person I see in him and that makes me feel very secure and happy for my daughter.’

  ‘Thanks for that,’ Skinner replied. ‘I’ve a good feeling about the pair of them too.’

  ‘What do you make of Mia now?’ he asked. ‘Or would you rather not say?’

  ‘I’ve got no trouble with that. First and foremost Mia’s a survivor. When she met and married Cameron McCullough she knew exactly what she was doing . . . and so did he. He saw her as a problem solver. She saw him as a safe bet, and it paid off. If Mia ever gives you a tip about a horse in a big race, you back it, because she’ll be right. One other thing I can tell you about her: she likes your daughter. She doesn’t give anything away but I can tell.’

  ‘I sense that you admire this woman, Bob.’

  He drew a breath. ‘I rate her abilities, but that’s as far as it goes. The young Mia that I briefly fell in love with, she’s long gone. The older version, she’s someone you’d want on your side, rather than the opposite. She’s moved on from her origins, no doubt, but I reckon there’s one thing she did inherit from her awful mother; her ruthlessness. Anyone whoever threatened her son and his partner, they’d discover that very quickly.’ Skinner smiled. ‘Actually, when I think about it, the same’s true of me. Is that what you wanted to know?’ he asked.

  ‘Is that why I wanted to meet with you, do you mean? No it isn’t. I simply felt that it was time I got to know you. With us both being busy men, my business trip to Barcelona today seemed like a good opportunity.’

  ‘I’m glad we’ve taken it. Speaking of business, I took a look at your bank and I talked to our CFO about it. You don’t have any relationship with InterMedia at the moment but should a need or an opportunity arise in the future . . . she’d be open to a discussion.’

  ‘That is very good to know,’ Sanchez exclaimed, just as the sushi arrived, on two large plates.

  The two men settled down to eat and to get to know each other better. The conversation began with business. Skinner radiated enthusiasm for the second career that he had never imagined on the day he walked away from the police service. He described the way in which InterMedia had grown since his involvement . . . coincidentally, he insisted . . . and explained its plans for a Hispanic cable news service in the United States. ‘As a foreign company we thought we’d have problems with the regulators,’ he said, ‘but I know a couple of people with influence in the right places.’

  ‘Do you think this new venture is bankable?’

  He laughed. ‘Our US bankers do, and that’s what matters. Raul, there isn’t a high capital cost in the set-up, and the potential revenue from advertisers looking to address the Hispanic market directly, well that’s scary.’

  ‘Still, it’s a risk. Have you always been a risk-taker, Bob?’

  He shrugged. ‘I dunno. I’ve never walked away from a challenge, whatever the odds. You might say that makes me a risk-taker, but I’ve always had faith in my ability to get a job done. You’re a vice-president of your bank. Surely you have too?’

  Sanchez sighed. ‘In business situations, I suppose so, yes. But life is more than business, and away from there, I . . .’

  Skinner sensed a sea change in the man. ‘Raul,’ he murmured. ‘what’s up?’

  The banker looked at him, across the table, across the platters of sushi. ‘In Barcelona,’ he said, ‘someone has threatened to kill my wife.’

  Twenty-Four

  ‘Sandra Bulloch never lived in Speight’s house,’ John Stirling told the team, gathered for a morning meeting in the Glasgow office. ‘The executors had sold it, for three and a half million, by the time the will was filed with HMRC. It was bought by a stockbroker.’

  ‘Where did she live?’ Mann asked. ‘After she left the service?’ she added.

  ‘I don’t know yet,’ the DS admitted. ‘Her passport and driving licence still have her at the address in Glasgow, in North Kelvinside, that she shared with her former partner, Craig Goram, until they broke up, but I’ve established that she sold that after they split and moved into a small flat on the south side of the river.’

  ‘Could she actually have lived in the motor home?’ Wright suggested.

  ‘Not ever since she left the police, because it’s too new. Recently, I suppose that’s possible, Jackie. I’ve tasked a pair of DCs with tracking down every Alexandra Bulloch on the electoral register, and everybody of that name who’s currently paying council tax. If she doesn’t show up on either of those, well, it might even be probable.’

  ‘Who handled the sale?’

  As Stirling turned to the DCI, he wondered if her question was a test. If so, he had passed. ‘An estate agent. She remembered it well. The property was in Bulloch’s name alone and had been since she bought it, but Goram turned up at the completion, wanting a share of the proceeds and threatening legal action if he didn’t get it. He wanted fifty per cent, but settled for ten after they had a brief private chat.’

  ‘That was quite a climb-down,’ Mann observed. ‘Do we know where Goram is now?’

  ‘He wasn’t hard to find. He’s a teacher; English, in a school in Dumbarton.’

  ‘We should talk to him. Put him at the top of the list in fact, John. If Sandra talked him down from demanding fifty per cent to taking ten in a couple of minutes, it suggests to me that she had something on him. Who else will be on the list?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ve been looking at the Speight investigation file like you asked, boss,’ Wright volunteered. ‘Based on that, and what you’ve told me about it, we have to put Faye Bulloch, the sister, right at the top, above Goram. Leo disinherited her completely when he and Sandra got together.’

  ‘One hundred per cent,’ the DCI confirmed. ‘Faye was our chief suspect back then, until we found out how Leo really died. Yes, we will interview her as soon as I can arrange it. When I say we, I mean me and the DCC. He wants to be involved in that one, for his own reasons. When we do,’ she added, ‘my plan is to go straight for her, to make it clear that she’s our number one person of interest. Maybe we’ll get lucky; maybe she’ll fold and confess. Maybe,’ she muttered, ‘but I won’t be betting the house on it.’

  ‘When are you seeing her, ma’am?’ Stirling asked.

  ‘Soonest. The DCC’s arranging it. I’m assuming she’s still living in the house in Troon that Leo bought for her and their kids. Is that right, Jackie?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Wright admitted. ‘My priority’s been to find out as much as I can about the victim’s life, who were her current associates, and what could have led her to be killed as she was. I’m pretty clear that Bonar and the Jersey guy, Gialini, can’t give us any more than they have already, so I plan to speak to the executors of Leo Speight’s estate. There are two of them, a man called Charles Baxter, and Gino Butler, who was Leo’s manager.’

  ‘Gino was also his boyhood friend,’ Mann added. ‘He was closer to Speight than anyone, apart from Sandra latterly, and maybe Rae Letts, the woman in Las Vegas. Yes they should be priorities but we’ll likely need to speak to every adult beneficiary in the will, as well as them. Baxter, he was Leo’s property adviser. I might speak to him myself.’ She stood. ‘Okay, that’s clear. Jackie, you progress that line of enquiry. Prioritise Goram, then the executors. John, you build a profile of Sandra from leaving the police until her death. The Faye interview, big Mario and I will do that whenever he tells me. As for me right now, I have another interview lined up, one I’ll do by myself.’ She checked her watch. ‘Which means I need to get to Edinburgh Airport to be there when his plane touches down.’

  Twenty-Five

  ‘Why doesn’t he go to the police?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘That’s the second question I asked him,’ Bob replied. ‘They have done, but they’re not impressed by progress.’

  ‘The first question being?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He said it has to do with her work. She’s a director of an advertising agency, Diaz Hoverstad, an equal partner, not majority owner. It has an office in Barcelona that took on a commission for a client in the soft drinks industry, to handle the launch of a new product, one that was a bit of a departure from the company’s norm. The brief they were given was to reach all sections of the market; all ethnic groups, all faiths, all genders. They came up with a campaign that was supposed to be light-hearted but completely inclusive, using all media; press, radio, tv, social. It launched in June, when the Spanish school holidays began. It’s gone down reasonably well,’ Raul said, ‘without starting any fires. The early sales figures have been okay, that’s all, but it’s early days. The campaign itself though, it’s been well received. Public awareness has been great, so good that it’s been shortlisted for an industry award. Everything was hunky-dory until the creative director’s car was firebombed . . . she’s the Diaz half of the business. She wasn’t in it, thank Christ, but she was meant to be. She got in there, triggered the car’s information package, plugged in Apple CarPlay and was about to start the engine, when she realised that she’d forgotten some artwork that she needed for a meeting that morning. She jumped out but was only halfway to her front door when the car went up in flames. It was an electric vehicle, with a lot of plastic bodywork that just melted, making it a total write-off. A fire crew attended and a couple of traffic cops, but at the time no crime was suspected. The insurance company’s assessor couldn’t be certain of the cause of the fire, but he put it down as a wiring issue and settled the claim without question. But, a couple of days later, the woman received a letter at the office. Paraphrased it said, “You were lucky last time, but we’ll be back for you and all your blasphemer owners.” The signature was “Las Hermanas de la Trinidad”, the Sisters of the Trinity. Yes, she reported it to the Mossos d’Esquadra, but Raul said they were sceptical to say the least.’

  ‘I can see why they might have been. That sounds like the work of random nutters,’ Sarah observed. ‘Was the car fire reported in the media?’

  ‘There were a couple of newspaper stories, but not much. One of our titles carried a piece. It named her and mentioned the company.’

  ‘So what? A mischief maker’s still the likely source. Why,’ she asked, ‘is Raul so worried?’

  ‘For two reasons. One, the letter was delivered inside an empty bottle of the advertiser’s new product. Second, three days ago, Inge had a parcel arrive at her office in Madrid. It was dumped in the mailbox overnight and addressed to her, personally. Inside there was a dead rat with the product label pasted to it and a note that said, basically, “You’re next,” signed again by the Trinity Sisters. She took that to the Policia Nacional, but they were apathetic too, and wrote it off as the work of cranks, like the Barcelona cops.’