Death's Door

Seventy-four

‘Thanks, Griff.’ Sammy Pye took the report from Montell. The new DI had arrived in the office at five minutes past eight to find the South African already there.

‘I finished that last night,’ the detective constable told him. ‘I’ve been through every file and every folder on that disk. I can tell you just about everything there is to know about the personal and business life of Daniel Ballester, and I’m glad the bastard’s dead.’

‘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.’