Death's Door

Twenty-eight

In the twenty-first century the Caledonian Hotel may carry the name of an international chain, but to Edinburgh’s citizens it is still known, with simple affection, as the Caley. For over a hundred years it has stood at the west end of Princes Street, glaring along its length at its rival, the Balmoral, formerly the North British, with its red sandstone seeming to blush against the greyness of the rest of the famous thoroughfare.

For all that, the majority of Edinburghers have never set foot in its foyer, or been escorted by an usher to the lifts that carry guests to the five-star accommodation of its upper floors.

‘I thought the ACC would have come with us,’ said Stevie Steele, as they stepped out into a long, carpeted corridor.

‘No,’ Mario McGuire replied, ‘he reckoned that if he did it would look as if he was making sure we behaved ourselves. But reading between the lines, I suspect that he had enough last night of Mr Boras and his bag-carrier, Barker, to do him for a while.’

They counted off the numbers until they reached their destination. Steele checked his watch to make certain that it was exactly ten a.m., then rapped on the polished wood and waited.

A tall man, immaculately dressed and groomed, opened the door; both detectives knew at once that he was Keith Barker. Mackie’s description had been perfect: ‘So fucking smooth it’s a wonder the clothes don’t slide off him, and I’m sure he wears a touch of eyeliner.’

‘Gentlemen,’ he said, extending a hand first to McGuire in the assumption that as the older of the two he was the senior officer, ‘you will be the police officers.’

The head of CID resisted the urge to reply, ‘No, we’re the fucking chambermaids.’ Instead he nodded, then introduced himself and his colleague. Barker stood aside and ushered them into the suite.

Davor and Sanda Boras were seated in armchairs, he with the air of a monarch, or perhaps a Mafia don, she with the slightly vacant gaze of one who has been heavily sedated. Neither rose as the aide presented the two detectives and offered them seats on a couch that faced the couple.

A woman in a dark grey suit, worn over a black blouse, hovered behind Sanda Boras. McGuire glanced at her and then at Barker, who read his silent question. ‘This is Camilla Britto,’ he said, ‘Mrs Boras’s secretary.’

‘Okay,’ said the chief superintendent. ‘We had assumed that we would be conducting this interview in private. On balance, I think we’d prefer that.’

‘And we would not,’ Davor Boras snapped. ‘Miss Britto will remain, to attend to my wife’s needs as they arise. Mr Barker will remain to attend to mine.’

Steele glanced to his right, looking for the first signs of an eruption, but the head of CID simply shrugged. ‘If that’s how you wish it, sir,’ he replied.

‘I will start with a question,’ the stocky millionaire announced. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘What’s not to understand? I’m asking what you are doing here, talking to my wife and me, when you should be out somewhere pursuing this man who has killed our daughter, and that other poor woman.’

McGuire drew a breath; he knew that command had brought with it an added need for patience and yet there were times when it ran up against his nature.

Steele read the moment. ‘You are part of the investigation, sir,’ he interjected. ‘We need to know everything that you know about your daughter, her recent life, her movements, her associates, because in there may be one tiny piece of information that will lead us to this man. This may seem intrusive to you, and it may even seem like a waste of our time and yours, but it is necessary.’ From a corner of his eye, he saw Barker look towards his employer and give a tiny nod.

‘Very well. If you say so. But how long has your investigation into the first death been running?’

‘Two months.’

‘Were that girl’s parents of any help to you?’

‘Yes, and they still are. Questions arise all the time, and often they help to answer them.’

‘Okay, okay.’ Boras sighed. ‘Go on, then.’

‘Thanks,’ said McGuire. ‘When was the last time either of you saw Zrinka?’

‘In February. She came home to see her mother.’

‘You were away at the time?’

‘No, I wasn’t, but she didn’t come to see me.’

‘Are you saying that you and she weren’t close?’

Boras’s tiny eyes blazed. ‘I am saying that I am an extremely busy man, sir. Often I work from the moment that I rise until the moment that I retire. Zrinka knew that, and she understood. She and I got on well enough; we didn’t talk a lot, that was all.’

‘How long had she been in Edinburgh?’

‘For almost two years.’

‘Where did she live? Did she flat-share? All the records we’ve accessed so far show her as residing with you.’

‘She had a small flat off Princes Street,’ said Sanda Boras, slowly. ‘It has a view of the castle. She chose it and I bought it for her.’ Her husband seemed to stiffen in his chair. He stared at her, in evident surprise.

Steele frowned. ‘We checked the property register yesterday,’ he murmured. ‘We didn’t find anything with your name.’

‘We used my family name, Kolar,’ the mother replied. ‘So my husband wouldn’t know. He is a kind man, you understand, but he believes that his children should either follow him into his business or make their own way in the world. Zrinka and her brother both chose to go their own way. I agree with him, you understand, but a little help doesn’t do harm. It’s a nice flat. She worked there.’ She smiled. ‘The place was a mess, always.’

‘Did she live there alone?’

‘Yes. Recently, that is. There was a man not long after she moved to Edinburgh, who stayed with her for a few months, but he moved on.’

‘Did they argue?’ McGuire asked.

‘Not that she told me. She said that it had run its course and that he had left. If she’d been upset about it, I’d have known.’

‘Did she say whether he was upset, the man?’

‘She told me they were agreed, that they apart as friends.’

‘Parted,’ Boras grunted.

‘Pardon, dear?’

‘You said “apart”. That is wrong. “Parted” is what you should have said.’

‘I’m sorry.’ She looked back towards the chief superintendent. ‘I’ve lived here for a long time, but my English, it is not yet perfect.’

‘Nobody’s is, Mrs Boras; especially not mine. My Italian’s probably better.’

‘Italian?’

‘I got that from my mother and my grandparents. My dad was Irish, a lovely man, but one of few words. . long ones at any rate.’

‘My husband’s grandmother was Italian too. That is something you have in common.’

The big detective glanced at Boras: he looked impatient and irascible. ‘The only thing, I reckon,’ he said gently. ‘Can you tell me anything about Zrinka’s boyfriend, this man?’

‘I never met him. I never came to visit her in Edinburgh after we bought the flat. I spoke to him only once, when I called Zrinka’s mobile and he answered.’

‘How did he sound? Did he have an accent?’

Mrs Boras ran her right hand over her hair. Her reddened eyes creased slightly as she frowned, trying to summon up a memory. ‘He spoke well, as if he was educated: like many of the people we know in London.’

‘What was his name?’

‘Dominic. Dominic Padstow. That’s all I can tell you about him.’

‘Not him, then,’ Steele murmured.

‘What do you mean?’ Keith Barker interrupted.

‘We believe we’ve identified Zrinka’s companion in the tent,’ the inspector replied. ‘We found his belongings last night in the bushes, well away from where the body was hidden. They included a photographic driver’s licence in the name of Harry Paul, of Aberfeldy.’

‘That should be conclusive, shouldn’t it?’

‘No.’ Steele stared at Boras’s assistant, warning him not to take the matter further. ‘It still has to be formalised.’

‘Does that name mean anything to either you?’ asked McGuire, moving on quickly.

Boras shook his head, but his wife nodded hers. ‘Zrinka mentioned him last time we spoke. She described him as her boyfriend of the moment, and that there was a good chance he could turn into more than that. She said he was nice, and seemed safe. Safe,’ she whispered. ‘That’s ironic, isn’t it?’

‘When was that, Mrs Boras? The last time you spoke?’

‘Sunday evening: I called her to ask what she was doing this week.’

It occurred to the head of CID that the mother was becoming stronger the longer the interview lasted, and less reliant on her medication, while, somehow, her husband, when facing personal issues, might be the weaker of the two. ‘Can you remember what she said?’

‘Yes, I remember very well. She told me that she has an appointment,’ her husband twitched at her linguistic slip, but said nothing, ‘in North Berwick the next evening, with a gallery-owner who was interested in putting some of her work on show. She was going to take ten pictures down there, and she hoped he would take them all. She was pleased because his commission on his sales was less than the Edinburgh galleries. Zrinka was annoyed by the amount some of them wanted to charge her.’

‘She sold her work from a stall, I understand,’ said Steele.

‘That’s right. She told me that suppose she sell only one picture a week, the rent of the stall was less than the commission she would have paid to a gallery. If she sell two …’

Davor Boras seemed to rally. ‘She was my daughter, sir,’ he barked. ‘She knew that the fewer people between her and the buyer, the more she would make.’

‘Was she happy?’ McGuire asked the mother.

‘Yes.’

‘You never sensed anything troubling her, especially recently?’

‘No. My daughter was always happy; she loved Edinburgh, she loved her work.’

‘What was her ambition?’

‘She wanted to be famous in her own right. She loved to paint people caught off-guard in unusual situations. She had her own hero; she wanted to be another Jack Vettriano, with her work on posters all around the world. She signed everything “Zrinka”, with a great flourish, but never with her full name.’

‘Your family owns galleries. Isn’t that right?’

‘Yes,’ said Boras, ‘but the collections there are very serious. They are not places to indulge one’s daughter. Zrinka understood that she could not be hung there until she had come to justify it.’

‘But you have a passion for art, too?’

‘Passion? No it’s strictly business: art is a good investment. If one buys, and then puts the work on public display while it appreciates, that makes sense. My galleries do not offer free admission, and they do not run at a loss.’

‘I think I understand that,’ McGuire conceded. ‘But, if you’ll forgive me, I think you have a greater interest than you’re letting on. No matter, though. We know from her bank records that Zrinka was doing fairly well. Did she have any well-known customers?’

Sanda Boras smiled for the first time since they had come into the room; for the first time, Steele guessed, since the chief super from the Met had driven up to her door. ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘She sold a picture to a footballer once; she was very pleased about that, although none of his team-mates followed his example, as far as I know. The most excited I remember her was a few months ago, early this year. She said that a man and his family had come to the stall, and that one of them, a woman, the man’s daughter, although the rest of them were children, had bought a picture for him, an expensive picture. She told me that she recognised him from his picture in the papers, and that he was a very important man in Edinburgh.’

‘Can you remember his name?’

‘No. I don’t think she say his name. I had to go before she could.’

McGuire turned back to Boras. ‘Your son, sir: does he know of his sister’s death?’

’Not from me,’ he replied. ‘Dražen and I do not speak very often, either. I have not seen him in almost a year. Nor has his mother, I believe. .’ he paused ‘. . although maybe I am wrong about that.’

‘No,’ said his wife, quietly, subdued once more.

‘You didn’t give him a little help?’ the head of CID asked her.

‘He wouldn’t ask, or accept it.’

‘My son has done well enough for himself,’ Boras exclaimed curtly.

‘Doing what, sir?’

‘Trying to prove that he is a better man than his father. Three years ago, once I had seen him through LSE and Harvard Business School, he turned his back on Continental IT, which he would have been running before he was thirty, and set up on his own, in direct competition to me, only his company runs entirely through a website. I wouldn’t have minded, but there was no original thinking in it at all. Everything he did, he copied from me. The last time we spoke I told him as much. He replied that I couldn’t expect to have all the market, and I should be happy with what he had left me. Hah! A website!’

What’s it called? DraženBoras dot com?’

‘My son doesn’t use his family name any more. He anglicised it when he went to Harvard. Now he calls himself David Barnes. His company is called Fishheads dot Com. A nonsensical title.’

‘I’ve heard of it,’ McGuire admitted. ‘Nonsense maybe, but it’s not a name you’d forget. It supplies our family business with bulk stationery and consumables. Paula, my partner, swears by it.’

‘Mr Boras is more inclined to swear at it,’ said Barker. The beginnings of a smile at his small joke appeared on his face, but vanished under his employer’s glare.

‘It’s doing well, then?’ Boras said nothing. ‘I’ll take that as yes,’ the head of CID continued. ‘Don’t you think you should contact your son, though? This is going to go public very shortly.’

‘I told you. We have no contact with him. My son betrayed me; he is a stranger to me and to his mother, God damn him.’

‘I’ve tried to reach him.’ Camilla Britto’s voice came across the room, from a chair beside the window. ‘I have a home number for him. He called me one day, and gave it to me, for use only in case of extreme family crisis. I called it this morning, while Sanda was asleep, but it was on answer mode. I left a voice message, telling him where we are, and asking him to call his parents urgently.’

Boras twisted powerfully in his chair. ‘Did you not hear what I just said? You interfere in my family affairs, woman? As soon as we get back to London, you’re fired.’

‘No, she’s not, Davor,’ his wife told him calmly. ‘Camilla works for me, not you. If there’s any firing to be done I’ll do it, and I wouldn’t start with her. She’s handled this exactly the right way, as you’ll see when your anger lets you think logically again.’