Fatal Last Words

Eighty

Next morning, the chief constable was behind his desk at five minutes past eight. He knew that Amanda Dennis, a single, career-driven woman, was an early starter as well as a late finisher, and wanted to be there when she called. As he waited, he scanned the morning’s press, left in his outer office by the night staff before they departed.

Ed Collins’ death was as widely reported by the Scottish titles as he had expected, given the man’s profession. Some newspapers speculated upon possible reasons for the murder, ranging from gambling on football matches to his being silenced to prevent him breaking a story. ‘Closest to the truth,’ he murmured. But none made a connection to the death of the two authors, other than the Sun, which splashed a front page picture of ‘Tragic Carol Glover, the woman who lost dad and lover in the same week’. The wording seemed to imply carelessness but stopped just short of hinting at guilt. Only the Saltire hazarded no guesses, as only its editor had been told the truth by Skinner, and Aislado had no wish to share it with his rivals or anyone else.

But the main story of the morning was the astonishing disappearance of Dražen Boras from Brankholme Prison. The entire story had leaked. Ngaio Arnott’s husband had been held in custody for a while, then released on police bail. He was probably in the clear, but the Secretary of State for Justice was twisting in the wind. Skinner was fairly sure that Garfield Haywood had a very limited future in the prison service.

He had broken the news in person to Maggie Steele, barely five minutes before it was confirmed by a police spokesman. She had been less angry than he had feared, and eventually philosophical, after Skinner had told her about Boras’s volunteering information to the investigation.

‘Do you believe him, Bob, that he feels some sort of contrition?’

‘I reckon I do; so does Neil.’

‘Will they catch him?’

‘If they’re very lucky, they’ll get him in the next few hours. Longer term, they might find him through her. . he’ll dump her eventually. I spoke to the investigating officers, and they told me that the husband’s saying he knew she was having an affair but had no idea that it was with a prisoner. Yes, they might get him.’

‘They won’t, and we both know it. When you and Mario found him, he was using an alias. A man like him, he’s bound to have another ready, for emergencies.’

She had been right, and he had been forced to agree. Boras was gone, and would leave no trail second time around.

His secure phone rang, interrupting his musing. He grabbed it. ‘Amanda.’

‘Good guess. Good news first?’

‘Whatever.’

‘OK. We’ve found Henry Mount’s informant; in fact we’ve found where his interest in Tadic began. Mount was never a spook, just run-of-the mill diplomatic service. He was never stationed in Yugoslavia, but he had a posting to Berlin as I think you know, and to Poland. Eventually he was repatriated, so to speak, and given a job in the FCO, in a section that monitors events in certain countries. His Iron Curtain experience led to him being assigned to the Yugoslav section. That’s where he saw the intelligence about Tadic’s murders, and that’s where he met his eventual source. She’s a woman called Dani Cornwell. She worked for Mount when he was an undersecretary, and they kept in touch after he quit. They were close.’

‘How close? Trudy Mount’s a friend too.’

‘They had a thing when they worked together. It stopped but their friendship didn’t. She was as affected by Tadic as he was; when she found out about the secret trial, she was outraged. Then when she learned they were going to have to do it all over again, she boiled over and poured out her soul to Mount. He agreed that the story had to be told, and thus. .’

‘It began.’

‘Precisely. Ms Cornwell fed him everything she had and kept on digging. A couple of weeks ago she found out about Dražen Boras and his role in planting the man Ergec, and she told Henry.’

‘And a few days later he went to see Boras, and probably made himself, and Glover, dispensable in the process. Once Coben had all the information he was going to get from them, the information he needed, he shut them down, and cut their project off at source, stealing their computers and wiping out every trace of their work.’

‘He’s that thorough?’

‘For sure. We believe that his helper, Glover’s daughter’s fella, removed his hard disk and passed it on. Coben probably burgled Mount’s place himself.’

‘He killed the associate? The man Collins?’

‘Yes. The man was in it for money, but I don’t imagine he signed up to be an accessory to murder. My bet is Coben killed him before he could figure out the truth.’

‘But can you prove it?’

‘Yes, I can, for at least two of them. . if I can find him. We’ve got a partial fingerprint on a pen, and we’ll find DNA traces for sure on a cigar box that’s on its way back from Australia. Plus we’ll get DNA from Collins’ flat. But I repeat, we need to find him.’

‘There, I’m afraid, I can’t help you. All I know is this: everything that relates to Coben, and there is very little of it, is in the papers for the Tadic trial. I can’t get anywhere near them, nor can anybody in this country, I reckon. They’re UN property, and they’re sealed. Sorry, Bob, I think you’re in a cul de sac.’

Skinner smiled. ‘I don’t agree, Amanda,’ he said. ‘There’s a man in Scotland who has automatic access to those papers, and I happen to know him.’ He paused. ‘Was that the bad news, incidentally?’

‘Not all of it. The worst concerns the witnesses Danica Andelić, and her brother. They’re dead.’

Skinner’s heart sank. ‘That’s what Glover was afraid of, and me too. When? How?’

‘Last year. After the trial, it was decided that Mirko and Danica had to be separated for a while, for their own safety, to make them as difficult to trace as possible. He was relocated with Playfair, she was established in Macedonia, and Aca went to Moldova. The Andelič children were taken in by Danica and Aca’s mother, their grandmother. They were all gypsies, so they simply joined travelling groups. I don’t know how their whereabouts leaked, but they did. Not through Mount’s contact, that’s for sure; she didn’t know. As for the how, they were both gutted. . a favourite trick of Tadic’s, from what I’m told. Given what we know now, it seems your man Coben got to them, and then went looking for Mirko.’