Питер Мэй - A Silent Death

‘The financial people said Templeton had an account at the Banco Popular in Sabanillas.’

‘I bet there wasn’t much in it.’

‘About twenty thousand apparently.’ Which seemed a lot to Cristina.

Mackenzie nodded again. ‘It’s not where Cleland did his banking though. He would almost certainly have had several accounts at different banks under various names. I don’t suppose forensics found bank statements?’

‘Only for the account in Sabanillas.’

They moved on, then, to the living space at the front of the villa with its open-plan dining area and an impressively equipped kitchen. Mackenzie crouched to bring his eyes level with the black granite work surface on the island, then stood up to sheaf through the chopping boards stacked at one end. He removed several kitchen knives from their wooden block and examined the cutting edges.

Cristina watched in silence as he looked in each of the drawers and opened the doors of all the wall cabinets, before examining the contents of the big American fridge plumbed in for ice on tap. She had no idea what he was looking for.

‘I would have loved a kitchen like this,’ he said. ‘I’d have made better use of it than Cleland.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I mean he was no cook. The work tops are pristine, chopping boards unused. His knives are razor-sharp, suggesting that unless he was obsessive about keeping them sharpened, they’ve had only very occasional use. There’s precious little in the way of food in the house, so apart from breakfast they probably ate out most of the time, or had food delivered. If we find out where he ate, we might learn who he ate with — apart from Angela. Known associates. It’s a starting point.’

None of this, Cristina realized, would ever have occurred to her, and she found herself grudgingly impressed.

Mackenzie spent the next twenty minutes just wandering around the house, touching things, picking them up, laying them down, absorbing Cleland through his personal possessions, while Cristina followed at a discreet and silent distance.

In the study he went through all the desk drawers. The shallow topmost drawer contained pens and pencils, an eraser, a sharpener, paperclips, a small screwdriver and some loose coins.

Cristina said, ‘Forensics took his computer, and the folder, and all of his documents, as well as the contents of the bin. Apparently it was full of strips of paper from a shredder.’

Mackenzie ran his eye quickly around the room and spotted the shredder sitting on a cabinet against the back wall, next to a laser printer. Beside the printer a white cylindrical object with rounded edges encased in a fine mesh, stood about seven inches high. He crossed to examine it. Coloured lights flashed on its top surface when he touched it.

‘What is it?’ Cristina came to stand beside him, inclining her head to look at it with curiosity.

‘It’s an Apple HomePod. They might have taken his computer, but if this is still connected to the internet his music is probably in the cloud.’

Cristina had no idea what he was talking about.

Mackenzie said suddenly, ‘Hey, Siri. Resume.’ And immediately the room was filled with the sound of a dead man’s voice. Luciano Pavarotti’s soaring rendition of Puccini’s ‘Nessun Dorma’. The last thing Cleland had been listening to. ‘Stop,’ he said. Then, ‘Let me hear my favourite playlist.’

Now the room resounded to strains of Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. And it only served to underline for Mackenzie the difference between the two men. Cleland with his private education and privileged upbringing, schooled in the appreciation of classical music and opera, while Mackenzie had been listening to Skid Row and Tom Petty and Sheryl Crow.

As Gaetano evoked the windswept slopes of Sir Walter’s Scott’s Lammermuir Hills, Mackenzie turned his attentions to Cleland’s shredder. Sometimes when a shredder’s bin was full, the shredding device itself would jam. He removed its bin. Empty. But several shreds of paper hung loose from the mechanism above. He crossed to the desk and retrieved the screwdriver he had seen earlier, then returned to the shredder to carefully unscrew and remove the lid that covered the paper feeder. And there, jammed between the teeth that shredded documents delivered by the rollers, was the crumpled top third of a sheet of paper.

Very delicately, Mackenzie eased it free, then smoothed it out on top of Cleland’s desk. Cristina peered over his shoulder as he bent over it. ‘What is it?’ Even she didn’t know why she was whispering.

‘A letter or a bill of some kind. The bulk of it’s gone, but we have the letterhead. A name and address.’

She read aloud. ‘Condesa Business Centre. That’s at the port.’

‘What port is that?’

‘Puerto de la Condesa. It’s ten minutes along the coast, just before you get to Santa Ana.’

Puerto de la Condesa was clustered around a sheltered inlet between Santa Ana de las Vides to the east and Castillo de la Condesa to the west. Built in the style of a traditional Spanish pueblo, with white-painted walls below red Roman tiles, colonnades and arches on three levels led to shaded plazas jammed with bars and restaurants. Reflecting white and red in the still blue waters of a crowded marina, the port derived a distinctive identity from a blue and white faux lighthouse at the open end of its breakwater.

Cristina told him that most people thought the puerto dated back to the sixteenth century, like Marviña itself. In fact it had been built in the 1980s by a developer trying to add a touch of class to what had become known as the new Golden Mile.

Apartment complexes built around tropical gardens dotted the surrounding hillsides, spoiled only by the later development of ugly serried blocks of jerry-built apartments more reminiscent of 1960s British council estates — sunshine being the only differentiating factor.

Cristina parked at the entrance to the port and she and Mackenzie climbed to the second level, passing bars that advertised large-screen football for British and Scandinavian holidaymakers, a fish-and-chip shop, a laundry, a café advertising full English breakfast. Through an archway they emerged into the Plaza de la Fuente, with its fountain sparkling in the slanting evening sunlight. Tables belonging to Argentinian and Italian restaurants were laid out in the square, and the smell of food reminded Mackenzie just how hungry he was. He had still not eaten since the morning.

They entered a colonnade mired in shadow and felt the temperature drop. The Condesa Business Centre was set back on the right, behind sandwich boards offering tours to Gibraltar and Ronda and Tangier. Its windows advertised a variety of services, from internet access and mailboxes, to passport renewals, photocopying and fax.

Tourists in shorts and open sandals sat huddled over computers in its dingy interior, indulging in their daily fix of the worldwide web. From behind a counter a tanned young man with a crop of sun-bleached hair offered them a cheery greeting in a very English accent.

‘Evening folks. What can I do for you good people today?’

But Mackenzie couldn’t help noticing the slightly apprehensive eye he cast over Cristina’s uniform. He placed the crumpled and torn top third of the Condesa Business Centre letterhead on to the counter top. ‘Yours?’ he asked.

The young man glanced at it. ‘Looks like it.’

‘You have a client called Ian Templeton.’

‘Do I?’

‘You tell me.’

‘I have hundreds of clients. I don’t recall them all by name.’ He paused. ‘And you are?’

‘Investigator John Mackenzie of the National Crime Agency. I’m working on secondment with the Spanish police.’ He tipped his head towards Cristina, and both men dropped their eyes to the diminutive figure of the young Spanish policewoman. She breathed in to puff up her chest and try to look taller.