Peter Robinson - Many Rivers to Cross

‘What kind of—’

‘Not that kind of favour. I helped them take down some very dangerous men. Same as I try to do here.’

‘Are you sure you didn’t have some dirt on someone?’

Zelda smiled. ‘You’d be surprised how many people I have dirt on, Mr Danvers. That just means that a lot of people are dirty.’

‘You’re not answering my questions.’

‘It’s the best answer you’ll get from me.’

Zelda had to keep reminding herself that, however much they knew, they didn’t know everything. And she certainly wasn’t going to tell them any more than she had to. She wasn’t even going to tell them about Hawkins meeting Keane. She said nothing.

‘Before France,’ Danvers said, calming down. ‘Is that an Eastern European accent I detect? Romanian, is it?’

Zelda sighed. ‘I was born in Moldova, Mr Danvers, as you can no doubt see for yourself from my file, in a town called Dubăsari, in Transnistria, on the river Dniester, not far from the Ukraine border. It’s not a part of the world many people know well. And the “c” in Melnic is hard, more of a “k” than a “ch”. It’s a common enough surname in that part of the world.’ Zelda paused, tired of the pointless sparring. ‘If you think I know anything, and you want to find out what it is, why don’t you tell me what happened and then ask me what I think about it?’

‘We don’t think you know anything, Ms Melnic. But if it will help to improve your attitude and general level of cooperation, I can tell you that Mr Hawkins died in a fire at his home on Saturday night.’

‘A fire?’

‘Yes. According to all the evidence, it appears to have been a chip-pan fire.’

Zelda shook her head. ‘I don’t understand. What is a chip-pan fire?’

‘It’s just a general term. A chip-pan fire is when someone puts a pan full of oil on the burner to heat up and falls asleep, usually because he’s the worse for drink. It catches fire, and Bob’s your uncle.’

Zelda had read enough and been around English people enough to consider herself fairly proficient in the quirks and oddities of their language — including ‘Bob’s your uncle’ — but she had never heard the term ‘chip-pan fire’. Who on earth would want to make chips when they got drunk? Were fish and chips so important to them? It was yet another English eccentricity she would simply have to accept.

But Hawkins? She hadn’t known him well, but one passion of his that was hard to miss was his love of gourmet food and fine wine. She had seen the foodie magazines on his desk from time to time, even heard him discussing reservations at well-reviewed new restaurants over the phone. It would hardly be the epitome of snobbishness to assume that Hawkins had probably never eaten fish and chips in his life, let alone that he had owned a chip pan and cooked them up for himself at home. As for his being drunk, as far as she knew, Hawkins wasn’t much of a drinker. Of course, she realised that some drinkers can hide their addiction well, just as a chip-pan fire may not necessarily require the making of chips. She supposed that Hawkins might have had a glass of wine too many and heated up a pan of oil to make tempura, samosas or some such exotic deep-fried treat. It merely seemed unlikely. ‘Mrs Hawkins?’ she asked.

‘Away at her sister’s in Bath for the weekend.’

‘It must be terrible for her,’ Zelda said.

Danvers inclined his head slightly. ‘Naturally.’

‘Where were you on Saturday night?’ Deborah asked.

‘As a matter of fact, I was in Croatia. Staying with an old friend. On Saturday night we went down into the village for dinner then out on the town dancing.’

‘Dancing?’

‘Why not?’

Deborah shook her head. She looked as if she had never danced in her life. ‘No reason. And your friend’s name and address?’

‘I would rather not say.’

‘Oh. Why is that?’

Zelda turned to address her remarks to Danvers. ‘Her work is secretive and dangerous. The fewer people who know her identity and location the better.’

‘Surely you can’t think...? Oh, well, never mind,’ said Danvers. ‘It’s not essential. If you could perhaps produce your flight details and boarding passes, that should suffice for the moment. You understand this is simply for the purposes of elimination?’

‘Of course.’

Danvers put down the ballpoint pen he had been clicking for the past few minutes. ‘I do hope you realise the seriousness of the situation, Ms Melnic,’ he said. ‘You must be aware that, even as a civilian consultant attached to a multi-national policing operation, you are in a unique position, both because of your special skills and, what shall we call it, your personal acquaintance with the area under investigation. Because of what you know.’

Area under investigation , Zelda thought. That was a nice way of putting what she had been through at the hands of people she now worked hard to identify and put away. Talk about English understatement.

‘Much of the information you deal with every day is highly secret,’ Danvers went on, ‘and Mr Hawkins was a high-ranking officer of the National Crime Agency, as you know, with strong connections to the security services. You signed the Official Secrets Act. Surely you must be aware of what that means? When something like this happens — whatever the reason — we have a duty to investigate the circumstances. It’s also clear that you have lived a somewhat peripatetic and bohemian existence. There are many gaps, many periods during which... well... anything could have happened. People change. Loyalties change.’

Zelda nodded. ‘Things certainly did happen, to put it mildly. But my loyalties didn’t change. I understand what you’re saying. I just can’t help you, that’s all. For a start, I wasn’t even in this country most of my life, and for another thing, I’ve already told you, I’m very part-time here. If you believe that Mr Hawkins was murdered, then I wish you the best of luck with your investigation. If you think that his loyalties had changed, then I can’t help you with that. He didn’t confide in me. As far as I could tell, he was a good man.’ Zelda hoped her nose wasn’t growing as she spoke, that the itch she felt there was just an itch.

The more she thought about it, the more certain she was that putting a pot of oil on the stove was something that would never have entered Hawkins’s mind, even if he had been drinking. And no doubt the ensuing fire would have obliterated any evidence there may have been as to what had really happened.

‘Did you ever notice, in the times you were here lately, anything unusual about Mr Hawkins’s behaviour?’ Danvers asked.

‘I can’t say that I did.’

‘When were you last here?’

‘April. A month ago exactly.’

‘Did you notice any changes in his behaviour, his routine?’

‘No. As far as I could tell, Mr Hawkins was a creature of habit.’

‘Did you ever have any disagreements with him?’ Deborah asked.

‘No. I simply got on with my job. To be honest, it didn’t involve working closely with others. Or with Mr Hawkins. Mostly I examined photographs, CCTV and video footage. Sometimes out in the field, but mostly here, at my desk.’

‘Did he ever ask you to do anything you found unusual or suspicious?’ Deborah asked.

‘Like what?’

‘Deliver a package or a message, for example.’

‘Never.’

‘Have you ever seen him with anyone he shouldn’t have been with?’

‘How would I know who he should or shouldn’t be with?’

‘You know what I’m talking about. Anyone shady. Anyone you recognised , with your skills. From the past, perhaps, or from one of the many photographs you’ve seen.’