Death's Door bs-17 Read online

  He sipped his wine, its chill contrasting with the warm wave that he felt flow through him. ‘And mine on you,’ he told her, ‘every bit as much. Whatever you want, it’s yours.’

  ‘You always say that. Sometimes I feel that I’m taking advantage of you.’

  ‘No.’ He grinned at her. ‘Paula, let’s stop faffing around. After tonight, I don’t want you just to go home as usual. Neil and Lou are right, we’re not fooling anyone. I’d like you to move in here. Or, if you prefer it, I’ll move into your place. Or, if you want a third option, we could buy a house together. I’ve been up for this for a while; I felt it had to come from you, that’s all.’ He paused and the grin became a chuckle. ‘Hey, do you think Nana Viareggio’s ready for it?’

  ‘Nana Viareggio’s ready to see off Armageddon,’ Paula retorted. ‘She can handle the idea of two of her grand-children living together. I know this, because I’ve spoken to her about it. She told me that she’s been waiting for it to happen for twenty years, and if it does, she’ll die happy . . . although she did add that she doesn’t plan to do that for a while. As for our mothers, they’re used to the idea.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Now that’s sorted, when do we make the move?’

  She winked at him. ‘I’ve got two suitcases in my car: that’s the real reason I was late. But, Mario, there is something else, and it does have to do with last night. For all your fertility situation, as long as we’ve been . . . together, I’ve been on the pill. Silly of me, maybe, but I’ve always been one for belt and braces, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘And now you want to take your belt off?’

  She nodded.

  ‘To give an even break to the few miserable sperm that I might produce?’

  She nodded.

  He put down his glass and took her in his arms again. ‘Then unbuckle the damn thing right now, although I warn you, we’ve got a better chance of winning the lottery than of you getting pregnant with me.’

  ‘Hey, somebody wins that every week,’ she pointed out. ‘But I just want to buy a ticket, that’s all.’

  ‘You can have as many tickets as you like,’ he lifted her off her feet and headed for the door, ‘starting right now.’

  He had almost reached the bedroom when the phone rang. He swore quietly. ‘I’ve got to answer it,’ he said, setting her down. ‘You know that as long as I’m in this job, I’ll always have to answer it?’

  ‘I can live with that,’ she replied. ‘Go on.’

  He took one pace towards the sideboard and snatched a cordless telephone from its cradle. ‘McGuire,’ she heard him bark testily, and felt a moment of sympathy for whoever was at the other end of the line.

  ‘Yes, Stevie,’ he continued. His forehead twisted into a heavy frown. ‘Shit. It doesn’t get any easier, does it? I’ll be there inside half an hour.’ He paused. ‘Of course I’ve got something better to do,’ he bellowed, ‘but it’s my fucking job to be there.’

  He slammed the phone back into its cradle. ‘Sorry, love.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘It is your fucking job, right enough. I’ll come with you. I’ll wait in the car while you do what you have to do. Once you’re done, it’ll cost you dinner somewhere fancy: sod the pasta for tonight.’ She laid a hand on his cheek, and flashed him a smile that on anyone else might have seemed demure. ‘Get used to it, love: this is how it’s going to be.’

  Twenty-four

  ‘Maybe I’ve been at this game too long, boss,’ said Ray Wilding, as he forced his way past the last thorn bush and back on to the sandy path. ‘I can’t remember the last time I chucked my load at a crime scene.’ His tunic was splashed with the evidence of his weakness.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Steele reassured him. ‘I can . . . and it wasn’t that long ago either.’

  ‘What do you think got him in such a state? He’s only been there for a day and a half, yet the poor bastard’s face is chewed off. Was it crows, or seagulls, do you think?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ PC Reid muttered. ‘Normally you’d say so, but I doubt if birds that size could have got to him through the bushes. If they did they’d have been trapped there. No, I’d say it was foxes. There are plenty of them around here.’

  Sniffer dogs had found the young man’s body. There had been two false alarms, both due to the searchers happening upon the remains of cats in the undergrowth, but the third time had proved lucky, if not for the victim. He had been dragged, naked, for a hundred yards, before being left, jammed between two bushes, food for the scavengers. They had gnawed on more than his face, as the two detectives had discovered when they had forced their way through the tangle to reach him; his genitals were mangled, and blood-smeared bone was exposed in several places.

  ‘That could not have been easy,’ Steele murmured to his sergeant. ‘This guy is strong; that’s the one thing we do know about him. Him? Yes, almost certainly. I don’t see a woman doing that. Strong and agile.’

  ‘He’d have dragged him in a straight line from the clearing, I suppose, whereas we forced our way through from the nearest path. Maybe that was easier.’

  ‘I don’t see that: it’s fucking jungle in there, all of it.’

  ‘He must have picked up a few scratches doing it,’ Wilding commented, licking blood from a tear on the back of his hand.

  ‘Depends what he was wearing. Gloves, a heavy anorak: they’d protect him from the thorns.’

  ‘True, but I bet you he didn’t get out of there intact. What do you think he did with the boy’s gear? He’s moved his clothes and his rucksack.’

  ‘The dogs are looking now,’ Reid told the sergeant. ‘If he’s dumped them around here, they’ll find them, now that they’ve got the lad’s scent.’

  ‘I can smell him from here,’ said a voice from behind them, as Mario McGuire trudged along the path. He glanced at Wilding’s tunic. ‘Or is that you, Ray? Nasty, is it?’

  Steele nodded, then described what they had found.

  ‘I suppose I’d better take a look.’ The head of CID sighed.

  ‘I doubt if you could, sir. It was a tight squeeze for Ray and me, and you’re bigger than either of us. Anyway, Arthur Dorward’s sent his smallest officer in to photograph the body in situ and to look for anything else that shouldn’t be there, anything personal that the killer might have left behind.’

  ‘If it’s that tight, how are we going to get the body out?’

  ‘Reid’s fixed that: he’s been on to a farmer he knows. Once Dorward’s team have finished in there, he’ll go in with a chainsaw and cut a pathway for the mortuary crew.’

  ‘He knows what he’ll see in there?’

  ‘The body’ll be covered up.’

  ‘Fine. Why do you think the shooter hid the man,’ McGuire asked suddenly, ‘yet left the woman for all to see?’

  ‘I reckon he’s playing games, running blockers, trying to distract us, making us use up our resources doing all this stuff.’

  ‘I think I agree with you. He’s using up the first vital hours after the crime. He’s smart and he knows his statistics. Most murders are solved within a couple of days; those that aren’t might never be.’

  ‘He may have picked the wrong force, though. How many unsolved homicides have we got on our books?’

  ‘One or two,’ the head of CID pointed out, ‘including one in this very village. Twenty-five years on and we still haven’t cleared it up.’

  ‘In the DCC’s home town?’

  ‘Indeed. It was before his time here.’

  ‘Still . . .’

  ‘I know what you mean: he wouldn’t let it lie. And he didn’t. He reckons he’s solved it. As for clearing it off our books, he says that God’s done that already.’

  ‘I could do with his help on this one, sir,’ said Steele.

  ‘God’s or Bob Skinner’s?’ McGuire grunted. ‘In the absence of either, you’d better carry on with the search of the area, and get the body out of here. I’ll call Brian Mackie and let him know w
hat’s happened; right now he’s giving the woman’s dad the VIP treatment. Midday tomorrow, I’m taking a press briefing accompanied by Mr Davor Boras.’

  He caught the inspector’s surprised expression. ‘ACC’s decision,’ he explained. ‘Before that, though, you and I are going to interview Boras and his wife, in their suite at the Caledonian Hotel. Some time between now and then, I suggest that you get home to Maggie.’

  Steele nodded. ‘I called her a while back, as soon as the dogs found the body. She knows I’ll be late. I’m sorry I had to break into your evening, though.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. You had to, and that’s that. There’s one thing you could do for me, though.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You could recommend somewhere to eat around here.’

  ‘Bar meal okay?’

  ‘No, no, Stevie.’ The big detective beamed. ‘This is Paula we’re talking about.’

  ‘Ah,’ the inspector chuckled, ‘you mean expensive.’

  Twenty-five

  ‘Why do I have to come here? Why is my daughter still in this place?’

  ‘First and foremost,’ Brian Mackie began, ‘because she hasn’t been formally identified. But once that is done, release of her body must be authorised by the fiscal’s office.’

  ‘Who?’ Keith Barker exclaimed.

  ‘The procurator fiscal; that’s the Scottish legal title for the public prosecutor at local level. He’s a part of the Crown Office, which is headed by the Lord Advocate . . . that’s the Scottish equivalent of the Attorney General.

  ‘I should explain that in criminal investigations the police act as agents of the fiscal, and report to his office. So Zrinka is in his care, not ours. I should warn you, though, that in homicide investigations it’s quite common for the body to be retained for some time. Once an arrest’s been made, there could be circumstances in which the defence requires a second autopsy.’

  ‘This can’t be!’ Boras protested. ‘I can’t allow this.’

  ‘Let’s deal with that later,’ said Mackie, firmly. ‘First things first: let’s get the formal identification over with.’

  He opened the front passenger door of the car and stepped out into the small courtyard in front of the square, grey single-storey building on the Cowgate, at its junction with Infirmary Street. He could understand the father’s distress. The mortuary was an ugly building, bleak and forbidding. He hated having to take family members there to see the remains of their loved ones, but since the council’s so-called refurbishment of the building there was usually no alternative.

  He led his two companions to the door, opened it, and held it for them. Walton Blackwell, the mortuary superintendent, was waiting for them; he had been fully briefed about the visitors. ‘Mr Mackie, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘we’re ready for you. The viewing room is this way.’

  Boras stepped forward; his personal assistant made to follow him, but his employer put a hand on his sleeve. ‘No, Barker, this I do myself.’

  ‘Mr Blackwell and I have to come with you,’ Mackie explained gently. ‘It’s part of the formality: your identification has to be witnessed.’

  ‘I understand that.’

  The superintendent led the way into a small windowless chamber; there was an extractor fan set in the ceiling, whirring noisily. A trolley lay directly below it, and on it, a human figure, under a white sheet.

  ‘Ready?’ asked Blackwell. As Boras nodded assent, he drew back the cover, to reveal the dead face. ‘Is this the body of your daughter, Zrinka?’

  The question was unnecessary, they all knew why they were there, but Mackie had to put it. He gazed at the man, expecting him to crack, to break down, as most visitors did in there at such a time. But Davor Boras held himself upright, his face impassive and his broad shoulders square; he gazed at the pale, lifeless girl for several seconds, and then he said, ‘Yes,’ crisply, turned on his heel and marched out of the room.

  The ACC followed, expecting him to stop in the reception area, but he did not. With a gesture of command to Barker, he strode into the courtyard, opened the car door and slid inside.

  ‘I’ll need you to sign a formal statement,’ Mackie told him, when the three were together once more.

  ‘Of course. Now take us back to the hotel, please. I must be with my wife.’

  ‘Sure. Wattie, take us to the Caley.’

  ‘You will speak to your fiscal, Mr Mackie,’ Boras exclaimed. ‘You will tell him that my daughter’s body must be returned to her family. Her mother cannot see her in this place and, besides, we must take her home.’ For the first time, a trace of an Eastern European accent sounded in his voice.

  Assistant chief constables are unused to orders, especially from civilians, but Brian Mackie had sympathy with the man. ‘I’ll be happy to put your request to him,’ he replied. ‘In this case, I can see no good reason not to release her. There are no grounds for dispute that I can see: the cause of death is very clear and there were no other physical injuries. However, I have to repeat that it’s his decision.’

  ‘If he is difficult, then go to his boss, this Lord Advocate.’

  ‘That I can’t do.’

  ‘Then I will. I am a man of influence, sir. I have friends in government.’

  ‘But possibly not in the Scottish government. Look, sir, let’s not go looking for problems before they happen. I know the fiscal well, he’s a reasonable guy and he usually takes police advice. It’ll be okay, I’m sure.’

  ‘It had better be.’ Boras frowned, then fixed his piercing eyes on the police officer. ‘Tell me everything, sir. Tell me everything about how my daughter died. Don’t soft-soap me; don’t play things down. I want to know exactly what was done to her.’

  ‘She was found yesterday morning, on a beach about twenty miles east of Edinburgh, near a village called Gullane.’

  ‘That is where the golf courses are?’

  Mackie was taken by surprise. ‘Yes, do you know it?’

  ‘Golf is my one form of relaxation, now that I am too old for more strenuous games. I am a member of the new Archerfield Club, and I have played all the other courses there.’

  ‘When you played there, was your family with you?’

  ‘Not every time, but the first time, yes. I played on Muirfield fifteen years ago and we took rooms in Greywalls Hotel.’

  ‘Can you remember whether your wife took your children to the beach while you played?’

  ‘Yes, she did. I recall that they crossed the course to get there. Is that significant?’

  ‘It may explain why Zrinka chose to go there. She was last seen alive on Monday night in Gullane, getting off a bus she had caught in North Berwick, with a male companion. They camped overnight in the bushes, near the beach. We found their tent this afternoon.’

  ‘This man; he killed her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What makes you so sure?’

  ‘He’s dead too. We found his body this evening, hidden in the bushes. We haven’t had time to examine him, but I’m sure we’ll find that he was shot too.’

  ‘Shot?’

  ‘Yes. Your daughter was killed by a single shot to the back of the head, Mr Boras, fired at close range. For what it’s worth, the officers who attended the scene believe that she never knew a thing, and the autopsy bears that out. There are no marks on her body, nothing that would indicate a struggle.’

  ‘Thank you, I will tell my wife that.’

  ‘I hope it helps.’

  ‘It will not, but I will tell her anyway. What progress have you made?’

  ‘We’re still trawling for witnesses, people who might have been on the beach yesterday, around the time of the murder. So far, we haven’t found any.’

  ‘Do you expect to?’

  ‘To be honest? No, I don’t. We believe that we’re confronted by a very resourceful, efficient murderer, someone who takes great care to leave no trace of himself at the scene. That’s not easy, these days, given our forensic resources, but so far
he’s succeeded.’

  ‘Could this be a professional hit, Mr Mackie?’ asked Barker.

  ‘I thought we’d dealt with that earlier,’ the ACC replied, uncharacteristically brusque. ‘It isn’t, at least not in the sense you mean. The person who shot Zrinka has killed at least one other woman that we know of.’

  ‘When?’ Boras snapped.

  ‘Two months ago, on the other side of Edinburgh. Like your daughter, she was killed on the seashore early in the morning.’

  ‘You’re telling me that you had two months to catch this animal, but you failed. You allowed him to remain at liberty, you allowed him to kill my Zrinka.’ His voice rose, climbing to reach a crescendo of rage.

  ‘I can’t deny any of that, sir,’ Mackie admitted. ‘Our priority now is to find him before he does it again.’

  Twenty-six

  ‘Seven thirty!’ Alex exclaimed, as she opened the front door. ‘Bloody cops: you’re all the same.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Griff Montell, hanging his head like a guilty dog. ‘I did phone; you have to give me that.’

  ‘Yes,’ she retorted, ‘and I told you that by eight thirty I’d be long gone from here. So what the hell are you doing ringing my doorbell?’

  ‘Spring said that she hadn’t heard you go out,’ he told her bravely, if a little tentatively. ‘So why the hell are you still here?’

  ‘Why do you think? Because I’m not so bloody liberated that I like trawling bars and restaurants on my own.’ Finally she relented and allowed him a small smile. ‘Come on in.’

  He stepped into the flat. ‘Where do you want to go?’

  ‘Nowhere.’ She reached up and rubbed the back of her hand against his chin. ‘Griff, you look knackered, plus you need a shave: I wouldn’t be seen dead with you like that. I’ve cooked something for us . . . against my better judgement, mind you.’

  ‘How did you know I’d ring your bell, me being so late and all?’

  ‘I told your sister to send you in when you got back; from what you said she was subtle about it.’ She frowned at him. ‘Before you get any ideas about the two of us around the supper table, I asked her if she’d like to join us, but she’d already eaten.’