Death's Door

Thirty-one

‘You could be forgiven for thinking that.’ Stevie Steele answered the question as he, Griff Montell and Tarvil Singh stared at the live Sky News broadcast in the Leith CID office. He pointed his remote at the wall-mounted television and switched it off. ‘But he chose his words very carefully.’

‘Do you think he told anyone in advance that he was going to offer a reward?’ asked Montell.

‘No chance, or he’d never have been allowed to do it. I’m sure he told nobody on our side, that is. I’ll bet you that creep Barker knew, though. Did you see Mario glare at him when Boras came out with it? I thought he was going to reach across and throttle him.’

‘What’s so bad about it?’ Singh grumbled. ‘The guy’s mega-minted. If somebody killed my kid I’d want to tear him apart. I’d put up a reward if I had the money.’

‘The principle’s fine,’ Steele replied. ‘It’s the practice that’s difficult for us. We need a clear path on this investigation: we need precise and useful information. Thanks to Boras, we’re going to have dickheads from all over bombarding us with useless witness claims, yet we’ll have to check them all out. Congratulations, big man: with Ray Wilding still out at Gullane co-ordinating interviews you’ve just talked yourself into that job.’

‘What’s he going to get at Gullane, sir?’ the South African enquired. ‘The trail’s pretty cold now.’

The inspector frowned at him. ‘As far as the girl and young Paul are concerned, maybe, but what about the killer? He arrived there some time, he stalked them and he left. How did he get there, how did he leave? I want to track as many vehicle movements in and out of Gullane as I can. If it was an urban area we might have had the possibility of CCTV film, but out there we have to do it the hard way. We need to talk to as many people as we can find who drove out of the village on Tuesday morning, to see if any of them saw anything unusual, somebody in an exceptional hurry, for example.’

‘Maybe he never left Gullane,’ the South African murmured. ‘Maybe he’s local.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘I’m just following the only link we have so far between the two girls.’

‘We have one, apart from their occupations?’

‘Yes.’ Montell’s face split into a wicked grin. ‘DCC Skinner owns work by them both. Alex told me.’

Steele threw him a dark look. ‘I think we’ll just leave that one on the back burner, Constable, shall we? Look, you want to be a real detective, stop fucking me about and check out some leads. We know that Zrinka went to North Berwick to drop off some work for sale in a gallery. I want you to find out where that was, and how many they took. Her art bag was empty when we found it, and we think that the killer took a souvenir from Stacey Gavin, so maybe. .’

‘The DCC’s expanding his collection?’

The inspector’s look turned the deepest black. ‘Shut the fuck up, Griff, or I’ll pass your thoughts on to him or, better still, to Alex. She’d have your nuts in a vice if she heard you joke about her old man like that.’

Montell frowned defensively. ‘Why should it be a joke? You can’t deny it’s a link. Why shouldn’t we follow it up?’

‘Because some of us value our careers. Now go and do what you’re fucking told.’

His gaze switched to Singh. ‘Tarvil, while you’re waiting for the crank calls to start, I want you to track down a man called Dominic Padstow, Zrinka’s old boyfriend. That’s all I know about him; just the name. Then get in touch with Stacey Gavin’s parents. There was no sign in the initial investigation that she and Zrinka knew each other, but double-check it. Run the guy Padstow’s name past Stacey’s folks too, and see if it means anything to them.’

He looked at Montell. ‘Griff, once you’ve made those calls to North Berwick, I want you to take Zrinka’s PDA, and go through her contacts file. See if any names there appear in Stacey Gavin’s circle of friends as well.’

He stood, ushering them towards the door. ‘While you’re doing that, I’ve got a job of my own to handle. Dražen Boras hasn’t surfaced yet, according to his mother and her secretary. There’s something worrying about that; I reckon it’s time we tracked him down.’