Quintin Jardine - Death's Door

‘Me too. I’ll read through it.’ As the door of his office closed once more he began to read. Montell’s paper was well structured: it began with a printout of Ballester’s diary entries over a three-year period. There was no detail, only times and venues of appointments, with individuals identified by initials. His involvement with Zrinka Boras was identifiable on that basis, as was his liaison with Stacey Gavin. On the day of her death, there was a single entry: ‘SQ’. Then on the day before Zrinka’s murder, another, ‘NB’.

‘South Queensferry, North Berwick,’ Pye murmured. He moved on to the descriptions of each of the folders on the disk, beginning with ‘My Pictures’. Montell’s summary revealed that there were few. There were some from Ballester’s youth and childhood, but the main concentration was in the folders marked ‘Zrinka’ and ‘Stacey’. They included intimate shots of both women, and in Stacey’s folder was a nude shot of Ballester himself, taken by Stacey while he posed for her portrait, for the next image was one of the young artist, partly hidden by a canvas on an easel, brush in hand.

From ‘My Pictures’, Pye moved on to a group under a one-word heading, ‘Business’. He read through printouts of each one; each contained detail of a story on which the journalist had been involved, with notes, interview summaries and frank opinions, which, to Pye, revealed much more about the author than about his subjects. As he progressed, he understood why Montell had found the man repellent: the notes showed the man inside, and not, he was sure, the Ballester that Zrinka and Stacey had thought, at first, that they knew. As he read, he was certain that Zrinka must have come upon these files, and that they had brought their relationship to an end.

And yet: Pye checked the list once, then again. He reached across his desk and found a pad on which was scrawled the number of the Royal Horseguards Hotel. He picked up his phone and dialled. The receptionist answered on the second ring.

‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘I’m trying to contact one of your overnight guests, Mr McGuire.’

There was a pause, and then, ‘He hasn’t checked out yet. I’ll try his room.’

He waited, until a familiar voice answered, a shade gruffly.

‘Morning, boss, it’s Sammy. How are you?’

‘Never go on the piss with Bob Skinner. What’s up, Sam?’

‘Maybe nothing, but I thought you should know. Montell’s done a full analysis of Ballester’s computer. Most of his sad life’s there, all his seedy stories, even the Diana nonsense, but there’s one thing that isn’t. There is nothing relating to Davor Boras or his company. Yet he spent a whole chunk of his life digging into it. Does it strike you as passing strange that there’s nothing about it?’

McGuire was fully awake in an instant. ‘It sure does. And I’m afraid it’s going to give the bloke along the corridor a whole new lease of life.’

‘He’s sure about that?’ Skinner exclaimed. ‘There are no entries on Boras?’

‘Montell’s thorough,’ McGuire told him. ‘Sammy wouldn’t have called me if he’d been in any doubt.’

‘And here was me ready to give up. I’ve lain awake half the night thinking that I’m an impressionable fool, down here because of a flight of Arthur Dorward’s fancy. You know the techs. They always want to show they’re the cleverest kids in school. But now. .’

‘Arthur only deals in fact. He told you what was and wasn’t there and you drew conclusions, which I support.’

‘So what are your conclusions from the fact that while Ballester’s entire career as a journalist can be traced through his computer, there’s nothing at all on the one that ties him to Boras?’

‘They were wiped by whoever killed him. And that brings me back to Dražen, the only person we know of that his secretive father might trust with the task.’

‘Yet he was flying at the time Ballester was killed,’ Skinner pointed out.

‘That’s if he was the man who got on the plane,’ said McGuire. ‘I’ve been doing some after-midnight thinking as well. What if a substitute caught the flight to Edinburgh?’

’That still leaves Dražen with the seemingly impossible task of getting to Wooler in time to kill Ballester, then get up to Edinburgh.’

‘He’s a rich man too.’

‘Another plane? Mario, get Sammy on line, please.’ He waited as McGuire called Pye on his mobile, then took it as it was handed over.

‘This is the DCC,’ he said. ‘I want your team to get on to the Civil Aviation Authority and check their records for all aircraft owned personally by Davor Boras, his son Dražen, also known as David Barnes, and by any companies they might control. I know of one, a jet belonging to Daddy, so disregard that. If you get any other results, find out where those planes are based, and when their last recorded movements were.

’Also, I want to know if Dražen, or David Barnes for that matter, has a pilot’s licence. Finally, I want you to check flight arrivals from JFK at Heathrow on Saturday morning, looking for Dražen, under either of his names, and departures from there to Edinburgh at midday.’

‘Yes, sir. Do I call you back on this number?’

‘No, you won’t be able to. DCS McGuire or I will call you, when we can.’

‘I’d better get on with it, then, boss.’ The line went dead.

‘That’s under way,’ said Skinner, reaching for his jacket. ‘Let’s book ourselves in here for another night, just in case.’

‘We’re not going straight home?’

‘Hell, no. We’re going back to where I was last night.

You’ve done your Special Branch stint, now it’s time you saw where the real game’s played. Let me stretch that memory of yours. When you saw Dražen on Saturday, can you remember how he was dressed?’

‘Yes, I can. No way could I have forgotten it.’

‘I am not comfortable with this, Bob,’ said Amanda Dennis. ‘You giving two fingers to the people in Langley is one thing, but my being seen to help you do it, that’s quite another.’

‘Mandy,’ Skinner cajoled, ‘we both know that you’re as annoyed with them as I am. Besides, eventually I’ll get what I’m looking for; all I’m asking you to do is save me some time.’

‘You are a persuasive old sod,’ she exclaimed. ‘On second thoughts delete the “old”: you’re younger than me. Come on.’

She led Skinner and McGuire, the latter unusually silent, out of her office and across to the lift. They took it down to the third floor and stepped into a corridor with a door at the end. She entered a code into a keypad on the wall then swung it open. ‘This is our counter-terrorist section,’ she said, for McGuire’s benefit. ‘Not nearly as flashy as you see on the telly, but the job is much the same.’

Heads turned as they crossed the floor; Skinner recognised one or two faces from previous visits. They stopped at a desk the size of a dining table where a man was working at a computer terminal. He was in shirtsleeves, wore glasses and was totally bald; whether by nature or design, neither visitor could tell. ‘Adrian,’ she murmured, ‘these are two friends of ours from the north, Bob and Mario. They’re working on something very sensitive and need your help; give them what they need, please. Gentlemen, come back up when you’re done.’

‘Thanks, Amanda.’ Skinner turned to Adrian as she left. ‘Before we start I need to make a phone call. May I use yours?’

‘Sure,’ the man replied affably.

‘Mobiles are a last resort in here,’ the DCC explained to McGuire, as he dialled. ‘They give too much away. Sammy, how goes?’