Skinner's Trail

`How. Banker's transfer?'

`No. That costs an arm and a leg. We just write sterling cheques on the Scottish account, and pay them into Banca Catalana.'

`Who are the signatories on the Scottish account?'

`Just me. Santi and I have a very simple system. I leave him a supply of blank, signed cheques. When we need to transfer dough across, I just give him a call and he completes a cheque and pays it in. It's a bit unorthodox, but it's practical. It keeps costs down and it's perfectly legal . . . isn't it?'

`Let's give you the benefit of the doubt on that last point . . . for now. Don't you think it's a kind of slapdash way to treat clients' money? D'you never worry about security?'

`Mr Skinner, I trust Santi Alberni like a brother.'

Skinner snorted. 'A bloke called Abel said something similar. Mr Ainscow, take a look at this.' He took a document from the folder and passed it across the table. 'Can you confirm that it's a copy of your receipt to Mr and Mrs Comfort for their deposit on the Pitkeathly apartment?' Ainscow accepted the paper, looked at it for a few seconds, and nodded. `Yes, it is.

`And all that money was transferred to Spain?'

`Yes. So?'

`Okay, look at this one. It's Santi Alberni's receipt to the Pitkeathlys. And remember, this was a no-commission deal. He took a second page from the file, and handed it across the table.

Ainscow studied it, his brow furrowing as he did. He looked up. 'Jesus.'

`That's what Pitkeathly said, too. Alberni said that one million pesetas was all he got. What's your version? Was all the Comfort money sent to Spain?'

‘For sure! Look, I have to give detailed monthly management accounts to my bank. The guy along the corridor does them for me, and he's shit hot. If there was an anomaly of that size, he'd have picked it up.'

A nervous twitch fluttered in the corner of Ainscow's right eye. He opened his mouth to speak, hesitated, then sighed. `Oh, look. I have to tell you this. I said I trusted Santi like a brother. That's always been true, but just recently — since he bought that new house, in fact — I've been getting a bit worried about him. He's borrowed up to here.' Ainscow drew a finger across his throat. 'I just hope he hasn't been a silly bugger.'

`You maintain that you're certain that the Comfort money all went to Spain? There's no possibility of error?'

`I wish there were. Then I could just say "Sorry, it's all a mistake!", pay Pitkeathly, and clean the mess up. But my accountant hasn't given me that option. It's all gone, and I can prove it.' He paused. 'There'd be two cheques. Five grand is the maximum we put on a single cheque, so it'd be one for that value, in pesetas, and another for the balance. Just over seven grand in total at current rates. Hold on a sec.'

Ainscow jumped up and stepped across to a filing cabinet against the back wall. He pulled open a drawer, and took out a sheaf of bank statements.

`Look, there you are. That's the Comfort money.' He brought the statements across and held them out.

Brian Mackie, who was closer than Skinner, followed Ainscow's pointing finger, examined the paper for a few seconds, then nodded his head. 'The amounts seem to tally, sir. Looks like it is.'

`Bugger,' said Skinner. 'Seems like I'll be taking some police work on holiday with me after all!'

Twenty-two

‘You know, Bob. Every time I close the door behind me as we leave for Spain, I say a little prayer that everything'll be okay at the other end. But never more so than this time.'

Sarah slammed the heavy front door of the Fairyhouse Avenue bungalow, and turned the key in the double-locking Chubb. Her husband smiled as she joined him on the pathway, where he stood holding his son. 'Your prayer's been answered before you've even left. I called when you were in the shower, to check that everything was in hand. It is, so relax and enjoy the trip. Mary's fixed us up with a hired cot, as we asked. She says it's brand new, and you can be sure it will be.'

They strapped Jazz into his secure carrier in the rear of the big white BMW, with Sarah seated alongside him, and set off at ten a.m. on a dull grey morning, for the sun of Spain. Bob was as good as his word in the sedate pace which he set on the journey. They stopped every two hours to check on the baby, but Jazz was content to sleep the day away, made drowsy by the smooth movement of the car. They took the Al south, bypassing the centre of Newcastle and skirting the ever-thronged MetroCentre, then heading on towards the curiously named Scotch Corner. After a stop for dinner, for parents and child, in a comfortable roadhouse on the outskirts of Newbury, they arrived at the modest Stena terminal in Southampton two hours ahead of their boarding time.

Their cabin was comfortable, the crossing was flat, and the pretty harbour of Cherbourg was bathed in morning sunlight as they disembarked in France. They waited for a while in an open-fronted waterside café, feasting on strong coffee and croissants and watching Jazz as his ears took in the sound of the gulls, and of vessels docking and making ready to sail. Eventually, they drove up the long hill out of port, and were soon into the open, undulating country of the peninsula. The sky was clear blue and, as the morning stretched towards noon and as they watched the rise, with the sun, of their car's external temperature read-out, they were grateful for its air-conditioning. Sarah, with the greyness of the drive through industrial England fresh in her mind, was impressed by her first sight of the grand modern cities of Rennes and Nantes, and charmed by the rural communities beyond, in particular by one where the main Euro-route heading south wound through a paved shopping court.

Later they agreed that the highlight of their first day in France had been that encounter in the petrol station. They were just north of Niort, crossing rich flat country, when, uncertain of the distance to the next oasis, Bob decided that he would fill up the BMW's tank there, despite the ramshackle look of the place, with its ancient pumps. He drew alongside the museum pieces, then saw that the wooden hut was empty. He sounded his horn and waited for a good two minutes. As he stood there, in T-shirt and shorts, he realised for the first time the strength of the warm wind which was blowing across the plain.

He was about to drive on, when a sturdy, nut-brown old man, wearing oily blue overalls and a flat Breton cap, appeared from the side of the farmhouse which bounded the yard. The old man looked at the car and, as he drew near, made a swift, truly Gallic gesture, with a hand half-cupped over his lower regions, to indicate beyond any doubt the reason for his absence. Suddenly he caught sight of Sarah in the back of the car. He swept off his beret and bowed in profuse apologies. Bob grinned and pointed to one of the pumps on which a green sans plomb sticker had been affixed. Idly he wondered what else might be floating around in the tank beneath his feet, but took comfort from the Routier sign on the hut.

As the pump chugged laboriously, the old man nodded at the car. Angleterre?'

Bob shook his head vigorously. 'Non! Ecossais. Edimbourg:

The old man's eyes lit up and he smiled, `Ah! Edimbourg,' he said, with evident if mysterious pleasure at the sound of the name.

Still the pump droned on. The attendant shrugged his shoulders and cast his eyes all around him. 'Eh, monsieur, le vent. C'est trës fort, non?'

Bob searched his French. ‘Oui, mais c'est trës chaud.'

The ancient looked at him in amazement. `Chaud, monsieur? Trës chaud? Eh, monsieur, c'est comme l'hiver!'

As they reached Bordeaux, Sarah was still laughing spontaneously at the memory of the old man, his gesture and his notion of winter chills. They spent the night in a small two-star hotel on the edge of the city, which Bob had found some years before on a trip with Alex, and had used frequently since. They ate early, before Sarah, seeing clearly that Nineties woman had not reached this part of France, retired to bathe and feed Jazz, and to bed him down for the night.

Next morning they took a leisurely breakfast, allowing Bordeaux's commuter traffic to clear before setting out on the last stage of their trip. Sarah dozed all the way to and through Toulouse, and so, when she awakened, the change in the texture of the countryside was suddenly and immediately apparent. 'Why, look, the hills seem almost, well, reddish.'

Eventually the road swept round a long curve, and there it was, like a huge tooth from a giant's mouth: Le Canigou, the great mountain, snow-capped almost all the year round — the high point of the Pyrenean skyline which dominated the view from their terrace in L'Escala.

`Yes!' Sarah squealed with delight, but quietly, lest she wake her sleeping child. 'My mountain. Now I know we're there!'

Twenty-three

‘So come on, Kath. Tell me what you know about Santi Alberni?' As he asked his sudden question, Bob gazed across the marina to the Pyrenees, fringed by the deepening red of the setting sun,

They were seated at a small rectangular table under a long yellow and brown striped awning, on the terrace of their favourite restaurant. Trattoria La Clota was quieter than it should have been at nine p.m. on a Saturday, but, even so, half the tables on the terrace were occupied. Conversations in French, Dutch, Spanish, and a language which Bob guessed might be Polish, went on all around them as they leaned back in their seats, the debris of their paella spread before them and an empty bottle of Torres Gran Vina Sol inverted in the ice-bucket.

A few seconds' silence made Bob turn to look again at their blonde companion. 'Who's asking?' she said. 'The property owner or the policeman?'

He smiled. 'Shrewd lady. It's Mr Plod that's asking. But don't worry, he never reveals his sources.'

Kathleen, their hostess, laughed. 'I've heard that one before from the boys here!' Even after twenty-five years in Spain, her tones were still almost as Scottish as his. She was about to answer him when her eye was caught by a movement at a table in the far corner of the terrace. 'Excuse me for a moment, please.' She bustled across the paved courtyard to answer the summons of the beckoning hand.

`Bob, you're terrible,' said Sarah. 'We're only just here and you're at work. Why don't you begin by telling her how good the paella was?'

`She knows that. Besides, if I did, Senor Carlos would probably put the prices up.'

Carlos Pallares and his Scottish wife were the Skinners' closest friends in L'Escala. For years their restaurant had been an unofficial advice centre. They had helped solve all types of problems for all types of people, and had been rewarded by a consistent custom the like of which most of the other restaurants in the town could only imagine. Bob and Sarah's arrival that evening had been anticipated. No sooner had they crossed the narrow roadway from the parking bays than the nutmeg-brown Carlos had come bounding down the four steps from the dining room and bar. `Hola, my friends. Is good to see you. And this is the new arrival, yes?'

As they had anticipated, Jazz became the star of the show. Throughout their meal a stream of restaurant staff had ventured out, one by one, to peer into the buggy and go through the universal language of baby sounds.

Kathleen returned to their table. 'Everything all right up the road?'

`Yes,' said Sarah. 'No problem. Mary was as good as her word. The place was spotless, the water was hot, and the cot was there. It's brand new. We think we might buy it, rather than hiring.'

`Plans for more Jazzes, yes?'

Sarah winced. 'Give us a break!'

Kathleen laughed and, as she sat down, Bob poured her a glass of wine from a second bottle.

`So what do you want to know about friend Santi?'

`I want to know what you think about him. What sort of a bloke is he? You know just about everyone around here, and there's no one better for sizing people up.'

‘Hmm. Thanks for the compliment. Is that why you phoned Carlos the other day?'

Skinner nodded. 'Yes. All he could say was that Santi isn't one of the local inner circle. But Carlos is a cagey character.'

`Hah, that's one way of putting it. He's right, though. No one here really knows too much about Alberni. He's been in the property business for a few years. Before that he worked in a bar down the coast somewhere. What sort of a man is he? Well on the surface he's everyone's friend. He's very showy, always well dressed. But nothing is Santi's. Flash car on the firm. Big new villa, with a swimming pool, mortgaged to the hilt. Having said all that, most people here like him. What's it all about, anyway?'

'Between you and me?'

`Course.'

D'you know a bloke called Pitkeathly?'

`Greg and Jean? Sure! Nice couple. From Edinburgh, too, aren't they?'

`That's right. Well, they've had a wee problem. I hope it's all a mistake. I'm sure it is.'

There was a sudden bustle as a party of eight Germans converged on the restaurant. Kathleen jumped to her feet. `Must go. Coffee, yes?'

Skinner nodded, smiling. 'Si, cortado, por favor. Y Para la senora, Americano con poco leche frio apart.’

Kathleen scribbled a note in her book, and moved off to seat the Germans at a long table in front of the door.

Bob leaned over to look at his son. Jazz's eyes, caught and fascinated by the movement around him, sparkled in the silvery light of the street lamps. Then they fixed on his, and a tiny smile touched the corners of his mouth. A lump seemed to form in Bob's throat.

Sarah broke the moment by digging him in the ribs with her sharp knuckles. 'Hey copper, this piece of detecting that you brought without telling me — it is all a mistake, isn't it?'

`I'm not so sure about that, love. But even if it ain't, it'll be Arturo Pujol's problem. I'll brief him tomorrow, and that'll be it as far as I'm concerned.

`Honest!'

He turned back towards Jazz, and so he did not see her eyes narrow as she gazed at him, or her wry smile as she mouthed the word, 'Sure.'

Twenty-four

‘Commandante, Buenos dias! Que tal?'

`Muy bien, mi amigo, muy bien!'

Skinner held the heavy wooden door of his villa open with his shoulder, and shook hands with his friend. 'Come away in, Arturo. It's good to see you again.'

`And you Bob. And you.

Skinner led Commandante Arturo Pujol through the tiled hallway, into the living room, and beyond to the wide terrace of his villa, of which the greater part was flooded by the early afternoon sun. He offered him a blue cushioned seat beside a drinks trolley, on which four bottles of Damm Estrella beer sat chilling in a silver ice bucket. He uncapped two of them and handed one to Pujol, who took it with thanks, declining the offered glass.

`It's good of you to come round, Arturo. I'd have come to the barracks, no problem.'

`No, no, no, my friend. It is always a pleasure to come to the home of a colleague as distinguished as you. Assistant Chief of Police, government security advisor. Your rank dazzles this humble rural para-military.'

Skinner's laugh choked on a mouthful of beer.

`And also, it gives me a chance to meet once again your lovely wife, and to see your new son, who is already the talk of L'Escala. When Bob Skinner hires a crib from Mary, all of his friends learn very quickly. Where are they, anyway?'

`Here we are, Arturo.' Sarah emerged through the double door from the living room, pushing Jazz in his heavily shaded buggy. Pujol kissed her on both cheeks, then looked down to admire the baby. He leaned into the buggy and slipped a two-thousand-peseta note under the pillow. 'For a little gift, Sarah, yes?'

`Why, thank you, Arturo.'

`You choose something. I have no wife to do these things for me.

`Okay. I'll buy him a toy from that nice shop in the old town — something tough that'll last for ever.'

She parked the buggy in an area of the terrace that was still in shade, and took a seat beside her husband and the Guardia Commandant.

Arturo Pujol was out of uniform, and no one at all would have taken him for a policeman. He was a stocky, bald man with a moustache, and the expression of someone who is anticipating a nasty surprise. But Skinner knew him in uniform and had noted, on his visits to the barracks, the respect in which Pujol was held by his men. He knew too that the Guardia's legendary toughness had not died with Franco, and that it was present in his self-effacing friend.

They made small talk for a while, in English, in which Pujol was much more proficient than was Skinner in Spanish.

They compared notes on the standard of football in their respective countries, each looking back to the times when things had been very much better. Pujol asked Sarah about her new appointment, and bemoaned the lack of good medical support from which his own force suffered.

Eventually, halfway through his second beer, Pujol raised the subject which had led to his visit. 'So what is this problem that you bring with you from Scotland, Robert, and how does it relate to our friend Santiago Alberni?'

`Let me show you,' said Skinner. He picked up Greg Pitkeathly's folder, which he had placed in readiness in the lower shelf of the drinks trolley, and handed it to the commandant. Pujol took it without a word, and began to read through the dated documents in sequence. After a few minutes he put it down in his lap, and took another swig of Estrella.

`I see what you mean. This is why you asked about Alberni, and it is why your colleague Senor Mackie made his enquiries with our national records office.' He smiled at Skinner's reaction. 'Yes, I know about that. They sent me a copy of the request as a matter of form, and a copy of the result. Our friend is, as you say, quite clean. So what would you like me to do?'

Skinner shot him a look of surprise. 'Take it over, of course. Treat it as a complaint made against a Spanish national in Spain.

`Mmm. Si, that is the proper thing for me to do.'

`Does that give you a problem?'

`Me, not at all. But it may be a little harsh for Alberni.' `What d'you mean?'

`I mean that if I take this up officially, a record will be made. And even if Alberni has a perfect answer, and there is no problem, with him at any rate, that record will remain. Even a visit from the Guardia will be enough. Word gets around here, and it will cast a shadow on him in the future. It will mean that his record is not quite so clean. And possibly that will be through no fault of his. It could affect his credit rating. It could affect his business, if someone checks him out thoroughly enough. The papers which you have shown me still leave a strong possibility of a simple mistake. Do you want to cast such a shadow, if it is for nothing?'

`So you don't want to touch it?' said Skinner, surprised.

Pujol raised his hands in protest. 'No, no, no, Bob. If you feel it is necessary and if you insist, I will take it up at once. But what I would ask you to do is talk to the man yourself first. His English is as good as mine. Go to see him. Talk the matter over with him. See what he has to say. Once you have done that, if you still believe that there is a problem, then I will take it up.

It is the fairest way, believe me.' He turned to Sarah. 'Don't you agree?'

Sarah grimaced. 'There goes some more holiday time. But yes, I think that's right.'

Pujol handed the folder back to Skinner. 'There. Perhaps you can call on him tomorrow. I, happen to know that he is away today, with a client, but tomorrow, a Saturday, he should certainly be in his office.'

Skinner took the papers. 'Okay, if that's how you want it. Let's just hope today's client isn't being stitched up too!'

`If he is,' said Pujol, suddenly very serious, 'we will find that out. If you decide that there is something to be investigated, then it will not be this case alone that we will look into. I promise you, my people will turn InterCosta inside out. If this company is dishonest, then it is giving Catalunya's biggest industry a bad name. For that, we will come down hard, very hard indeed. If I find that Senor Alberni has been stealing from his clients, or from constructors, or anyone, he will go to prison not just for what he has done; but as an example to others. And now,' he said, pushing himself up from his chair, 'beautiful as the day is, and agreeable as my companions may be, I must go.

How do you say it? Duty, she is calling. I like to go for a drive around the town while everyone is at siesta. Just to make sure that everything is quiet. And, of course, in beautiful L'Escala it always is.'

As Bob escorted their visitor to the door, Sarah pushed Jazz in his buggy through to the small bedroom next to their own and, without waking him from his afternoon slumber, laid him gently in his cot.

When Bob closed the front door and turned to go back to the terrace, she was in the hall, blocking his way. She wound her arms around him. 'As Arturo was saying, it's siesta time . .

He could feel the heat of her body through his T-shirt. He looked down at her, reading her agenda for the afternoon in her smouldering eyes. 'Hey, are you sure? It's only been a couple of weeks since Jazz.'

`Exactly!' she murmured. 'Nineteen whole days, and a while before that too. My darling, I'm just about as horny as I've ever been. And just at this moment, from your significantly altered profile, you ain't going to persuade me that you ain't too!'

His laughter died in his throat as she pulled his head down and kissed him fiercely. He swept her off her feet in a single strong movement and carried her through the living room and into their bedroom. It was late enough in the afternoon for the sun to be flooding in through the brown-framed three-quarter-glazed doors which led out to the terrace, but not too late for it to have passed by the small square window to the side, above one of the two chests of drawers which flanked the white-quilted bed.

He laid her down, and in seconds they were naked, kissing and fondling, their fingers and tongues searching, exploring, reacquainting themselves with familiar regions. And then Bob's hand found Sarah's secret centre, the heart of her moistness, and she climaxed at once, suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, a bucking, thrusting, crying-out orgasm almost frightening in its intensity. As it peaked, she clamped her thighs closed on his fingers and twisted towards him, eyes shut, with a shout that was almost a scream. She lay still for a while, with her head resting on his shoulder. Occasionally, a small shiver ran through her.

Eventually she looked up at him, into his eyes. 'Bob, I'm sorry,' she whispered. 'That was so selfish. I don't know what happened.

He nuzzled her auburn hair, laughing 'Selfish nothing. Don't be daft. Listen, love, if that's what happens when you have a baby, can I have one too!'

She chuckled with pleasure, a playful sound with more than a hint of promise. 'Okay, let's see what we can do about that.' As she spoke, she rolled over, straddling him, taking him deep inside her, and in a single movement pulling her knees up and sitting on him, bolt upright. She seemed barely to move, yet he could feel the honey grip of secret muscles, strengthened by childbirth, tensing and relaxing as they massaged him. He lay on his back, looking up, touching her only with his eyes. She started to sway more vigorously, rocking backwards and forwards upon him, tensing, relaxing, tensing again. Pleasure seemed to wash upwards and over him, starting from the soles of his feet, moving up through his ankles, his calves. He surrendered himself to the most powerful orgasm of his life, even though he expected that when the high tide of pleasure broke upon his groin he would die of its intensity. He was helpless beneath her. Someone in the room was shouting out aloud, and dimly he was aware that it was himself. Then the cries became a duet, and he knew that Sarah had climaxed also in the same moment. He saw her back arch and felt those secret muscles grasp tight and hold on as he pulsed and pumped into her, on and on. They held their frozen pose, neither breathing, each concentrating only on the other's pleasure, until eventually, with a last triumphant shout, Sarah relaxed, and slumped, shuddering, on to his chest.

A full five minutes elapsed in silence, as if each were printing every detail, every moment of the experience indelibly upon their memory. Eventually Bob wrapped his arms around his wife and kissed her on the forehead.

`Do you think it gets any better than that?' she asked. It was an entirely serious question.

'I think we should hope not, my love. If it did, I don't know if either of us could stand it. Think of it — that wee lad through there left an orphan because his parents humped each other to death!'

`Christ, imagine the post-mortems!'

Sarah spluttered with laughter and, as she did, Jazz's hungry, wailing cry rang out, bang on cue through the babyminder intercom, to rescue them from their jeopardy and to signal an end to their siesta.

Twenty-five

TANCAT CERRADO. FERMÈ. CLOSED.

Whether callers were Catalan, Castellano, French or English, the message was the same in all four signs hanging in the glass door. The office of InterCosta, on the ground floor of a high-rise block on the Passeig Maritim, a long promenade looking across the small, windswept Riells Bay to L'Escala's ever-growing marina complex, was very definitely not open for business. Skinner wondered idly whether it was company policy to leave German callers at a loss.

It was ten a.m. At such an hour on a Saturday morning, even the most indolent of Costa Brava property agents is normally to be found behind his desk. On the first day of June, the peak sales month, absence is unthinkable.

Skinner re-crossed the sun-washed road and climbed back into his car, which was parked in one of the angled bays opposite the high-rise, its nose facing the sea wall. He sat there for ten minutes reading the sports section of La Vanguardia, watching the weekend windsurfers and looking occasionally in his rear-view mirror, checking for signs of activity at InterCosta. He saw several people stop at the office. One man, carrying a leather document case under his arm, pushed at the door without looking at the signs, and recoiled in surprise from the unexpected resistance. He peered through the glass for several seconds, and banged on the door with his fist in exasperation, before striding smartly back to a red Mercedes and driving off.

That bloke had an appointment, thought Skinner. Something up here.

He started the BMW's engine, reversed into the road and drove off, heading round Riells Bay to the marina and La Clota. Kathleen was on duty on the restaurant terrace when he arrived. She looked over as his car drew up, surprised to see him. 'Hello, Bob, you're early. Did you leave something last night?'

Skinner laughed. 'Aye, the baby. We're not used to having him around yet!'

Kathleen feigned horror. `Och, that's terrible. How could you forget a lovely wee boy like that!'

`No, seriously, Kath, I'm here to pick your brains . . . again.

I know Alberni's new pad is in Camp dels Pilans, but do you know where, exactly.'

She angled her blonde head in thought. 'Yes. Come in and I'll show you.' She led the way into the unlit restaurant. Skinner's eyes had difficulty adjusting to the change from the bright morning outside. He peered in vain at the map which Kathleen held in front of him, until she led him into the neon-lit stainless-steel kitchen, where half a dozen staff were busy preparing the day's first meals. 'Look here,' she said. 'Take this turn here, and on round this road, up the hill. It's on top. You can't miss it: it's painted a horrible pink colour.'

`Thanks, Kath. I'll just nip up there and see what's keeping the boy off his work.'

Twenty-six

The villa was, as Kathleen had said, a truly horrible pink. It stood on an isolated site on the crest of a curving road which defined the limits of Camp dels Pilans, the only suburb of L'Escala to the west of the main road to Girona and Figueras. Set in the awful stucco, the two small windows on either side of the front door resembled, Skinner thought, hooded eyes looking northwards with embarrassment.

He pulled the BMW to a halt at the garden gate, and stepped out, picking up Pitkeathly's folder from the front passenger seat. He opened the gate and walked up the narrow path to the front door, timing his approach to avoid the sweep of a badly adjusted lawn-sprinkler, which seemed to be watering mainly the path and beyond it — to the right of the house — the driveway up to a single garage integral with the villa. Much of the spray was falling on a big Peugeot saloon, then running down the sides, creating zigzag patterns through the coating of reddish dust which the car had picked up since its last official wash.

To the left of the front garden, beside a path leading to the rear of the villa, a large mongrel dog was chained. As Skinner approached the door, a low growl in the animal's throat turned into a ferocious, snarling bark. It made towards him, but was pulled up short by its chain a good six feet away. Skinner shot the beast a glance which made it think again. Suddenly its ferocity was spent, and it slunk back to its place in the shade, beside empty food and water bowls.

A round brass bell-push was set in the centre of the studded door. Skinner pressed it and stood back, waiting for Alberni, or his wife to answer its call. But no one came. He rang the bell again. Another minute elapsed without a response. He pounded the door with his fist, but with no greater success.

Exasperation grew in him. 'Come on, you bastard,' he muttered. 'I'm supposed to be on my fucking holidays, and here I am chasing you around L'Escala.'

He abandoned his assault on the front door and walked around the corner to his left, towards the rear of the house, past the dog, which gave another token growl, then fell silent again quickly.

The back garden was a shambles. Plastic poolside chairs were gathered around a small white table on which was scattered an assortment of empty beer and wine bottles and half a dozen empty glasses. A cigarette packet was floating in the middle of the pool.

`You've been on the piss last night, Santi my son.' Skinner spoke the thought aloud. He looked around. The sliding patio doors were wide open and pink curtains as hideous as the house itself flapped limply in the gentle breeze. He walked across to the doors and stuck his head inside. Despite its airing, the villa still smelled stale. He listened, but there was no sound other than, from another room, the soft buzz of a refrigerator motor.

`Senor Alberni! Senora!' He shouted loudly into the empty room, with unconcealed impatience. He waited and listened for sounds of human movement, but there were none. ` Senora, Senora!' he bellowed again, and waited once more, but the obstinate silence remained. He thought of searching the place, but decided that Pujol's brief did not extend that far. Angry and exasperated, Skinner retraced his steps through the untidy garden, to the front of the house.

This time the dog merely whined. The sound was so different to its earlier reaction to Skinner's presence that he stopped. The animal looked up at him and whined again. `Come on, boy,' said Skinner. `I'm not that fierce.' He knelt down and stroked the mongrel. It whined once more, and this time the sound turned into a keen of distress. He looked at it closely and realised that it was sniffing, its nostrils flared. He followed the direction of its gaze, towards the garage door. It was the type that opened up and over, and it was slightly ajar. Skinner patted the animal's head once more, then stood up.

He walked over to the garage, grasped the door by its single, central handle, and pulled it up.

The sudden inrush of air made the body spin slowly round on the end of the rope.

`Sweet suffering Christ,' Skinner hissed into the garage gloom.

The man was hanging from a pulley set in the garage ceiling towards the far mall, and close to a heavy work bench.

The stout yellow rope on which he twisted was fastened into a classic hangman's knot, and was tied securely at its other end to one of the legs of the workbench, which was bolted to the floor. His feet, in hand-stitched brown shoes, were well clear of the ground, and his arms hung limply, hands unclenched.

One of the white plastic garden chairs lay on its side, on the floor.

Skinner stood in the doorway, frozen, for several seconds.

Suddenly the thought came to him that the hanging man might not be dead yet, and he snapped out of his trance. He rushed over to the body, but as soon as he saw the face he knew that it was too late for any heroic rescue. The man was small and lightly built but, even so, the rope was cutting deep into his neck. His face was blue. His eyes bulged horribly, as if about to pop from their sockets. His tongue, black and swollen, protruded grotesquely between lips and teeth drawn back as if in a last, strangling snarl.

Skinner's stomach turned. He snatched a single deep breath to bring himself under control, and looked away through the garage window, in which was framed the beautiful, jagged, snow-crested skyline of Canigou and the high Pyrenees.

When he had mastered himself, he turned back to the body. He touched a hand. It was still as warm as his own. He looked again at the contorted face. The man had a small black moustache, but otherwise was freshly shaved. His thinning black hair was well groomed. He was smartly dressed in expensive blue slacks and a white, short-sleeved Dior shirt.

`All spruced up and ready for work, Alberni. I can picture the whole scene. The wife thinks it's business as usual. She goes off to her day job, then you step into the garage and jump into eternity. Very nice. Very thoughtful. A real considerate guy, eh. You stupid bastard!'

There was something about the suicides of otherwise healthy people that always angered Skinner. The determination and physical courage necessary for the act counted for nothing in his mind against the grief and the hurt that the victims, almost invariably, left behind. It was the sheer selfishness of the deed that enraged him.

He held the body with both hands to still its twisting on the rope, then turned and left the garage, closing the door behind him to hide the sight from any chance passers-by. Outside, he turned off the lawn sprinkler at its tap beside the garage door. Then on impulse he disconnected its hose, fetched over one of the dog's two dishes and filled it with water. The mongrel looked up at him, and Skinner could have sworn that it nodded its thanks.

He returned to the back of the villa, and entered the living area through the open doors. This time he searched without hesitation. He searched first for Senora Alberni, fearful lest her husband had decided — as he had seen others do before — that life for his beloved would be unbearable without him. He moved swiftly from room to room, but all he found were untidy relics of the previous evening, and signs of a rushed breakfast: an uncleared dinner table set for six, the remains of a selection of pastries set out on a dessert trolley, more glasses, more empty bottles, a single breakfast-sized coffee cup smeared with lipstick lying, with a cereal bowl, unwashed in the kitchen sink. In the Albernis' bedroom, the bed had been hastily made. The door of one of two fitted wardrobes lay open, revealing a rail of women's clothing hung inside. On the dressing table, a jar of make-up base lay uncapped.

Skinner, reassured that Senora Alberni was not in the house, returned to the living room. He found a telephone on a dark-wood sideboard, beside a number of framed family photographs. The largest showed a wedding scene. In this picture, the man now hanging in the garage wore a white tuxedo and black evening trousers. He smiled, looking youthful and handsome, and wore the same dark moustache; his hair, not so thin then, was immaculately groomed. The

bride was a striking, dark-haired woman, perhaps a year or two older than her husband. Skinner would have described her as handsome rather than beautiful. Her eyes were her best feature: dark, oval, warm, and inviting trust. Beneath the pair, on the photograph's surround, the names Santiago and Gloria were inscribed in gold leaf.

Skinner picked up the telephone and retrieved the Guardia Civil number from his mental filing cabinet. The call was answered by a gruff-sounding man on the fifth ring. 'Commandante Pujol, por favor. Commandante Skinner, Escocia.'

`Si, Commandante.'

A few seconds later, he was put through. Tiola, Bob.'

`Aye, hello Arturo,' he said, wearily. 'Listen, I'm at Alberni's. Not the office — the villa. You're in on this one, like it or not.'

`Why, won't he speak to you?'

'No. He's having trouble getting the words out, on account of he's hanging from a rope in his garage.'

`What!' Pujol's tone was incredulous. 'Is he dead?'

`If he isn't fucking dead, then he never will be! It looks like he topped himself as soon as his wife went to work.'

`Do you think he learned that you were coming to see him?'

`Could be. Let's see what we can find out. I've had a quick look round, but I can't see anything that looks like a "sorry" note. You and your guys better get up here right now.'

Twenty-seven

‘Arturo wants me to help him?'

`Yes. Apparently his local doctor's off to Barcelona for the weekend, and the nearest alternative in Girona can't get along here for five or six hours. There was some sort of gypsy war there last night apparently. So our friend the commandant asked me to ask you if you, as a properly qualified person, could see your way clear to come up to Alberni's to state, for the medical record, the blindingly obvious: that the man is as dead as a fucking doornail. Because, apparently, until someone does that, the chief of the local police will not allow anyone to take the poor bastard down from his pulley.'

Sarah looked astonished. 'Why doesn't Arturo . . .?' `Pull rank on him and tell him to piss off?'

Sarah nodded.

`He's got to live with the guy. Arturo knows he's an idiot, but he's still carrying the badge, and they have to work in harmony. Will you do it?'

`Of course. Will you stay with Jazz?'

`Sure, but I've got to go back up there too, once you've done your bit. I found the stiff, so I'll have to make a formal statement. Arturo wants me to hang around, too. They're going to fetch the widow back from the bank in Figueras where she works, and he'd like me there to explain how the body was found, if necessary. But, before she gets back they have to get him down off that rope.

`Okay. Jazz is in his cot. He's out like a light. I'll be as quick as I can. Just don't go picking him up to talk football, or anything like that.'

Twenty-eight

The garage was full of policemen. Pujol and his Guardia were in immaculately pressed green uniforms. The local police, under the command of their impressively hatted chief, wore shapeless blue tunics which would have been unacceptable, Sarah thought to herself, on a garage forecourt.

Pujol introduced her to the local chief with impressive formality, referring to her as Senora Profesora Skinner. The man's heavy grey eyebrows bristled with scepticism, until she disarmed him by congratulating him in fluent Spanish on the efficiency of his local force.

Sarah never went anywhere, not even on holiday, without the basic tools of her trade. She stepped across to where the body hung, policemen moving aside deferentially as she did. She took hold of Alberni's right hand, which was already cooling. Her fingers moved quickly and expertly to confirm the absence of any pulse. She climbed up on the white plastic chair, which had been righted. She took a small torch from her shoulder bag and shone it in the bulging eyes. Finally she produced a stethoscope and, unfastening the second button of the Dior shirt, held it to the hairy chest.

She jumped down from the chair, and stepped back towards Pujol and the Policia chief. The man is dead,' she said formally, in Spanish, to the grey eyebrows. He nodded emphatically as if to confirm her finding. `I'd say around two hours,' she explained to Pujol in English. She glanced at her watch. 'That would make it nine-thirty: about an hour before Bob found him.'

`How long would it take?' Pujol asked, wincing. He was pale; clearly, Sarah realised, unused or — odd for a policeman — unreconciled to violent death.

`Not long. He looks to have made a good job of it. That's a heavy knot, and the rope's been oiled to make the noose as tight as possible. I'd say he gave it some thought. Although he looks grotesque, all that facial stuffs reflex. He'd have lost consciousness in only a few seconds, not through strangulation but through pressure on the arteries, and he'd have been brain dead within five minutes. You can tell his wife, if she asks, that it didn't involve much pain . . . apart from the mental pain that drove him to do it.'

Pujol took Sarah's hands in his. 'My dear, you have been most kind. The Guardia Civil will, of course, pay you a proper professional fee for your services.'

She smiled and shook her head. Old Pals Act, Arturo,' she said. For a second the dapper commandant looked puzzled, until he worked out the meaning of the saying. 'In that case, perhaps I offer you something in return. Would it interest you, professionally, to attend the postmortem? To see how we do things here? We have a good pathologist in Figueras, and I know he would be delighted to meet you. It will be on Monday morning at ten o'clock.'

Sarah's eyes widened with pleasure. `I'd be delighted, Arturo.' Suddenly a thought struck her. 'But what about . . .?' She jerked a thumb surreptitiously toward the Policia chief, who had gone across to direct the untying of the knot and the lowering of Alberni's stiffening body from the pulley.

Pujol shook his head. 'No problem. As soon as that body crosses the L'Escala municipal limit, it's all mine. That clown has nothing to do with it from then on.'

`In that case, I'll see you on Monday.'

`Excellent. I will collect you at nine-thirty. Let us hope that Bob does not mind.'

Sarah laughed. 'Don't worry. Minding the baby's still a novelty for him! Long may it stay that way!'

Twenty-nine

Skinner could barely believe what he saw when he returned to the Alberni villa.

There was movement in the garden as he came to the crest of the road. He drew the BMW to a halt a few yards away from the gate. Before him, as he stepped out into the street, stood a white ambulance, its back doors open wide. Closer to him was a police car from which a trim, well-dressed dark haired woman was emerging. And as she did, the local police chief led his men away from the garage, carrying the body of Santi Alberni, covered over, on a stretcher.

Skinner looked on, incredulous at the crassness of the man, as the Policia commandant signalled to the bearers to halt, and as he beckoned the woman towards him. Theatrically he drew back the sheet. 'Su marido, si?'

The woman stared at the contorted face on the stretcher and shrieked. Her knees began to buckle but, before she could fall to the ground in her faint, Skinner stepped up behind her and caught her, his arm round her waist. She clutched him and leaned against his chest, sobbing.

‘Dickhead’ Skinner roared at the policeman. 'If you were on my force, I'd have you making tea for the fucking traffic wardens.' He searched his limited Spanish. 'Tonto! Usted es tonto!'

Arturo Pujol stepped between them. 'Bob, please. Look after Senora Alberni. I will deal with this.' He snapped an order to the stretcher bearers. The body was covered once more, and borne into the ambulance. He turned to the Policia commander and began to speak rapidly to him in Catalan. This time there was nothing placatory in his tone. It was quiet but ferocious. This was another side of Arturo Pujol, and Skinner could see at once from the fearful reaction of the Policia, and the silent, grim satisfaction of the Guardia officers, why his amiable friend was afforded such respect. This was old-style Guardia, and it made Skinner suddenly grateful that he had not been around in Spain during those former days.

Leaving Pujol to continue his dressing-down, he guided Gloria Alberni along the path and into her home. Inside, she sat down in a big chair in the living room, and buried her face in her hands. Skinner left her to sob. He walked through to the kitchen, found coffee and a percolator, and made a fresh pot. When he returned to the living area, carrying the coffee in cups on a tray, Gloria Alberni's sobbing had subsided. She sat staring at the wall, expressionless, overwhelmed. Skinner fetched a small table, and put a cup of coffee close to her hand.

`Senora Alberni, do you speak English?'

She turned towards him slowly, taking in for the first time the kindly tanned face, the steel-grey hair, and the concern in his blue eyes.

`Yes,' she replied. 'I work in the National Westminster Bank in Figueras. Good English is required.' The vestiges of sobs tugged at her words.

`In that case, if we may, we will speak in English. I am a friend of Commandante Pujol of the Guardia Civil. My name is Bob Skinner. I am a policeman also. I am from Scotland, but I have a home in L'Escala.

She nodded. 'What happened to my husband?'

`Has no one told you anything?'

`Nothing. The men from the L'Escala police, they just came to the bank and said I was to come. They said nothing at all on the way here. I asked but they said nothing: And then when I got here . . .' She broke down again, as the awful memory of the face on the stretcher swept over her. She controlled herself more quickly this time, gathering her inner strength to fight off hysteria.

`What happened, Senor...'

`Skinner,' he reminded her. 'Senora Alberni, it appears that your husband has killed himself' He paused as his words sank in, final confirmation for her that this was not a dream, that the face on the stretcher had been real, that the body on the stretcher had been that of Santi, her husband.

When he was satisfied that she was ready to hear more, he went on. 'I came here to see him on a business matter. I called at the office but it was closed, and so I came here. There was no answer to the bell. I looked around, and found him in the garage. He was hanging. He was dead. I am very sorry.'

Gloria Alberni shuddered in her chair. She picked up her coffee and took a sip. She shook her head. 'I do not understand, Senor Skinner. You say he killed himself. He hanged himself How can that be? Why would he?'

`Senora, the Guardia will ask all these questions of you, once you are ready.'

`I am ready now.' From long experience, Skinner recognised that this, the first moment after the shock of bereavement, might be the best time to interview the woman.

Once the truth sank in, she would collapse again, and after that it could be days before she was able to talk sensibly about the morning of her husband's death. There was even a chance that her mind would reject the memory of it.

`If you're sure, I'll fetch Senor Pujol.'

`No!' she said vehemently. 'I do not like the Guardia men.'

`Senor Pujol is okay.'

`No. I would rather speak to you. You are a policeman, you said.'

Skinner thought for a second or two. Finally he nodded. `Yes, okay. Arturo won't mind. I reckon he's got enough on his plate.' He sat down on a chair opposite the woman.

`So tell me, Senora. At what time did you leave for work this morning?'

She looked across at him. The tears had cut ridges through her make-up, but still she looked handsome; a classic Spanish face, Skinner thought.

`It would be around fifteen minutes to nine, maybe twenty to. I was late. We had friends visit us last night for dinner. We ate late, and the men had a lot to drink.'

‘Your husband too?'

`No, not so much as the rest. Santi does not drink a lot. Wine, a little whisky, but not a lot.'

`Was he still in bed when you left?'

`No. He was up. But he said his first appointment at the office wasn't till ten, so he was not in a hurry. He made the coffee and heated the croissants, while I was getting ready. I remember I was worried by the mess. We went to bed last night without cleaning up. But he said it was okay: he would take care of everything.'

Did you feed the dog?'

`No. Santi always does that. I don't like dogs much. That one outside, Romario it is called, after the footballer — that was Santi's.'

`What about the lawn-sprinkler?'

`Why? Was that on?'

Skinner nodded.

`Santi must have done that too. He is determined that the grass should be good from the start here. We got this house at a good price. Santi believes that once this area is fully developed we will be able to sell it and make a big profit.'

`How did he seem this morning?'

`Okay. As usual.'

Did he say anything else to you?'

`No, only to hurry up and get to work. He shooed me out the door, but before I left he kissed me and told me he loved me. Then he patted my — how you say? — my bum, and pushed me out of the door.'

Did he seem sad, preoccupied?'

Senora Alberni leaned back in her chair. She was silent for a few seconds, then she shook her head. 'No. He was quiet, that is true, but he has been that way for a few weeks now. He never talks to me about his business, and I don't talk to him about mine, but I think that there was something there that has been concerning him.'

Skinner stood up and strolled across the room. 'Senora, it looks to me as if, whatever it was, it worried him enough for him to kill himself.'

She shook her head again. 'No!' The word came out like a wail. Skinner thought that the tears would start again, but she held herself together. `Santi would not do that.

Skinner looked down at her sadly for a while, until she returned his gaze. He held her with his eyes, big, blue, kind, and full of concern. 'Senora, I have met very few people in your situation who are prepared to believe that their partner would choose to desert them in this way. It happens, though. I am very sorry, but that is the way it is. If I were you, I would try to come to terms with that. If you choose to believe the alternative — and there is only one alternative — then you will be headed for a load of grief. Pujol's people will investigate the business, and they will find whatever was worrying Santi. I hope that will put your mind at rest. I'll go and speak to the Commandante now, and tell him what you've told me. There will be no more questions, I think, but they will want to look around — and through Santi's papers. So far, they haven't found a note, but there might be one. Do you have a safe here?'

Gloria Alberni nodded. 'Si. It is upstairs, in Santi's wardrobe.' She pointed to a bunch of keys lying on a low coffee table in the centre of the room. 'Those are Santi's. That little gold key is for the safe.

Skinner picked up the bunch and slipped the gold key from the ring. 'Thanks. Senora, is there anyone you can ring? You should have someone here with you — a relative, a friend.'

`We have no relatives here. Santi and I are both from Tarragona. He has only his mother. I will call my father now, and ask him to tell her what has happened, then to come here if he can. My best friends are the people who were here last night, but if one of them came, it would only make me think of us all happy together such a short time ago.'

`When will your father arrive?'

`Tonight, I hope.'

`Well, until he gets here, I would be happy if you stayed with my wife and me. She's a doctor, and that may help you, too. Will you do that?'

She looked at him gratefully, and nodded. He picked up a pen from the sideboard, scribbled his address on a piece of paper from the memo pad beside the phone, and handed it to her. 'When you make your call, tell your father to come here.'

She took the paper from him, as she stood up, and walked over to the telephone. She was starting to dial as Skinner left the room in search of Pujol. He found the Commandante, his composure almost restored, in the kitchen. Through the small window Skinner could see only green uniforms outside. There was no sign of the local police, or of the ambulance.

`That man!' Pujol spat, as soon as Skinner entered the room. 'I say that I have to live with him. Well, no more. After that outrage, he has to live with me — and live very carefully.'

Skinner laughed. 'Don't worry about it. Every police force has a guy like that somewhere.' He explained to Pujol that he had questioned Senora Alberni, and the reason for it, which Pujol accepted readily.

`Of course, Bob, you were quite right. You are much more experienced than me in these matters, and perhaps to a Spanish person a little less intimidating than .someone in a Guardia Civil uniform.' He looked around the kitchen. 'She said Alberni made the coffee, eh.' He pointed to a full cup lying on the work-surface. Alongside it a croissant lay, untouched, on a plate. 'It looks like he could not face his. I suppose he was only trying to behave as normal until she left, and he could then do what he had to do.'

`Mmm, maybe,' said Skinner. 'But maybe he didn't know he was going to do it until after she'd left. In my experience most suicides don't sit down and plan their end. It starts off

with a worry, which gets a little worse week by week, then day by day, until full-scale depression sets in. They don't threaten suicide, they probably don't even contemplate it. The great majority of people who threaten to kill themselves don't do it. What they're really saying is, "I'm in trouble here. Will someone give a shit, please!"'

He glanced once more through the window, then continued. With guys like Alberni, the worry, the depression, deepens until, one day, it's there. The big idea. The urge to opt out. And they rush at it. It's very much a spur-of-the-moment thing. It has to be. If they thought about it, they wouldn't do it. They just swallow the pills, and half a bottle of gin, or they pick up the gun and go bang! right then, or they wander out to the garage, tie a noose in a rope, make it secure and kick the chair away. That's how it's done. Oh Christ, I've seen a fair few. A few too fucking many. They're rarely planned; almost invariably they come from a fatal urge which, for that short time, is just too strong to resist. That's how it would have been with Alberni this morning. She goes off to work, and he's left with only his nightmare, whatever it was, for company. And his time comes. His big idea. He goes into the garage, and out of this life.

`I have to admit that oiling the rope to make sure that the noose would run was a nice touch. I haven't seen that one before. Rivers of blood, yes. Brains on the ceiling, yes. But never an oily rope. That's a first. He's still a selfish bastard, though, to do that to her.' He gestured with his thumb towards the living room.

Skinner was unaware that his voice had risen, almost to a shout. Pujol touched his shoulder, gently. 'Hey, my friend, I think you care more than you like people to know. And I think that maybe you have seen too much of death by violence.'

The shout dropped to a whisper. 'Oh, Arturo, old son, you don't know the half of it.' Bob held up his big, tanned hands. `See these things. I killed a guy with these once. Not so long ago, at that. I am a martial artist of the first rank, Commandante. With just one of these hands, I could put your lights out for good in about a second and a half. And that's not all. I am a fully trained and expert marksman, with experience. In doing my duty as a policeman, I have killed three people, and seriously wounded a fourth. Not one of them could have had any complaint about the outcome. They were all armed and offering violence, and I killed them all without a moment of hesitation. Because, in those circumstances, that's my job. Just as it's yours, my friend.

`You've never killed anyone, Arturo. Though you carry a gun, you've never used it. I can tell. Because it marks you, you see. You carry it with you like a piece of luggage you can't throw away, and when you meet someone with a matching piece, you can tell. You know you both belong to the same club . . . the AES, the Authorised Executioners' Society. My best friend's a member. He'll never get over his initiation. It's a club I hope you never join. So yes, Commandante, I have seen too much of death. And yes, I care. Thank Christ, I care. It's the caring that makes the difference between the likes of my friend Andy and me, and the guys on the other side of the argument. That's why, in the end, I get so angry with people like Alberni. When you've had to take life yourself, and know the hellish taste of it, the selfishness and the waste and the sheer bloody un-necessariness of suicide just makes you mad.'

He smashed his right fist into his left palm. Beside him, Pujol, struck silent by his friend's confession, jumped at the explosive sound.

‘But life goes on, and all that. I've got a wife and son I want to see soon, so let's do what has to be done here, and I'll take Gloria away with me.' He held up the key. 'This opens Alberni's safe. Your guys still haven't found a note anywhere?' Pujol shook his head. 'Okay, let's you and I take a look and see if it's upstairs. Come on.'

He led the way up the curving, tiled staircase to the upper floor of the house, and into the Albernis' bedroom. The safe was where Senora Alberni had said it would be, but it was bolted to the floor. Skinner knelt beside it and unlocked it with the small golden key. Even with the doors of the wardrobe wide open, it was dark inside and difficult to see. He felt inside the safe, and lifted out two boxes, its only contents. He carried them across to the dressing table and set them down. One was a jewel box, secured by a clasp. Skinner flicked it open, and found not jewels but an assortment of documents. Pujol examined them one by one. 'Marriage certificate, birth certificates, life insurance, household insurance; all of these are personal documents. I see no letter from Alberni.'

`And no family jewels either. Maybe they kept them in the cigar box.' Skinner lifted the wooden lid of the second box. Pujol gasped with surprise, and muttered a Spanish imprecation. Skinner's reaction was confined to a slight raising of the eyebrows.

The cigar box was stuffed with Spanish banknotes. Pujol picked up a handful and flicked through it — then another, then another. 'It is in notes from one thousand pesetas to ten thousand.'

`How much d'you reckon is there?'

Pujol did not answer at once. Instead, he took out all of the cash from the box and arranged it in separate piles of one-thousand, two-thousand, five-thousand and ten-thousand peseta notes. He picked each bundle up in turn, flicking through it with his thumb, nodding continuously as he did, as if keeping count. Eventually he put the last bundle down. 'I'd say that there is a little over five million pesetas there.'

`In sterling,' said Skinner, 'that's twenty-five grand.'

'So Senor Alberni did not have the money problems of which we were told.'

`Maybe having all this money was his problem. It all fits together, Arturo. Alberni's a thief. He does Pitkeathly, then word gets to him on the L'Escala grapevine that a Scottish copper's in town and looking for him. He panics — so much so that this morning he goes up the rope.'

`Who would know you were going to see him? I did not tell anyone.'

`You wouldn't have to. Scotland does a check on Alberni through your police national computer. A copy comes in for you. You come to see me. And you have to leave word with your office where you are. Yes?' Pujol nodded in confirmation.

`Okay, you run a police force, and police forces, regrettably, run on gossip.' Pujol smiled a wry smile of agreement. 'By yesterday afternoon it's bar talk wherever your people drink, maybe in that bar up in Avinguda Girona, that there's a problem with Alberni, and that a guy's come all the way from Scotland to see him, a guy so heavy that the Commandante goes to visit him. A friend of Alberni hears this and passes it on. Or maybe Alberni has a source in your building: someone who feeds him information. Don't be offended; corruption happens in many places, and stupidity is universal.

`Professionally I hate easy answers. But this one is so fucking obvious that even I can't ignore it. We have to ask the lady about this cash. I'll do it. She'd probably still be frightened by that green uniform of yours.'

`Si, please do that. You take the money. I will lock the safe.'

Skinner picked up the box and went downstairs at a trot. Gloria Alberni had finished the phone call to her father, and had resumed her seat. She was dabbing her eyes with a small white handkerchief. Skinner guessed that the first aftershock was heading her way.

`Senora, what can you tell us about this?' He showed her the box, and raised its lid.

The woman's tear-filled eyes opened wide with surprise. `Where did you find that?'

`It was in your husband's safe.'

`I have never seen that before. How much money is there?'

‘Pujol reckons five million pesetas.'

`Five million,' she gasped. 'What was Santi doing with five million in his safe?'

`Could it have been cash he was holding for a client?'

`No way. Santi always banked clients' cash as soon as he received it. He banked with Banca Catalana, here in L'Escala.

I know he had a special arrangement with them, so that he could make deposits even when the bank was closed.'

‘Pujol will want to find out where it came from. You understand?'

`Si. I want to know where it came from! Five million pesetas! Almost under my bed!'

Thirty

‘Boss! What can I do for you?' Brian had been expecting a call from a friend to confirm a golf tie. Instead he heard Skinner's voice, crystal-clear, via satellite.

`You can listen and do what I ask. It'll keep my phone bill down if it's arranged at your end. I want you to contact Paul Ainscow and get him on the first plane out here. He's needed here now to go through the accounts of InterCosta. But you'll have to break some bad news to him. His partner Alberni hanged himself this morning. We found twenty-five grand's worth of used notes in his safe. It looks as if Pitkeathly's just the tip of the iceberg.'

Brian Mackie whistled. 'Tough on Ainscow. Is there anything else you want me to tell him?'

`No — other than that he should probably have legal advice handy, and a good accountant. We'll want to go through those books with a fine-tooth comb.'

`That's twice you've said "we", boss. Are you helping out there?'

`Yes. Arturo Pujol's asked me to give him a hand because of the UK interest. Sort of unofficial liaison.'

What's Sarah saying to that?'

Skinner laughed. 'He's cute, my friend Arturo. He invited her to observe their pathologist at work on Monday, knowing she'd jump at the chance. So she can hardly dig me up. Anyway, we're both keen that this is cleared up as quickly as possible, for the sake of Alberni's widow. Nice woman. Sarah's looking after her now. She's given her a sedative from the farmacia . . . sorry, Brian, that's chemist to you! Okay, go on, get a hold of Ainscow. Tell him first available flight tomorrow, without fail! Tell him to let me know, through you, what flight he's on, and I'll have the Guardia pick him up from the airport. So long.

He hung up and went out to join Sarah on the terrace. He found her in a bikini, walking Jazz up and down in her arms. He was awake and as bright as the day, taking a greater interest than ever in his surroundings, and in the things going on about him. Sarah had dressed him in a pale-blue sun-suit, and a wide brimmed sunhat fastened under his chin.

`Here, gimme a shot,' said Bob. Sarah passed the wriggling baby to him and sat down on a cushioned sun-bed. She unclipped her bikini top, picked up a yellow bottle of Delial factor four, and stretched out on her back to prepare herself for the sun.

Shielding him from the sun with his body, Bob turned the baby to face the Bay of Rosas. The bite-shaped expanse of blue water seemed to be alive with windsurfers. 'Fancy some of that, Jazz boy?' The baby wriggled and gurgled in his arms. 'Never done any myself, but I'm sure it'll become second nature to you.'

He felt the wriggling subside. 'Time to go back to the buggy, is it? Come on, then.' He laid the unprotesting baby in his mobile crib and, stripping off his shirt, settled on a recliner alongside Sarah.

`Is Gloria out for the count?' he asked.

`Yes. I found a good strong sedative down there. It isn't really over-the-counter stuff, even here, but I flashed my stethoscope and ID at him, and used Arturo's name to back them up. He came across without an argument.'

`How long will she be out?'

`Let's see. It's three now. I'd say till seven, anyway. I've got some Librium for when she wakes up. When did she think her father would get here?'

`She hoped he'd make it for eight. Where will they stay?'

`At her place. I asked her if she wanted them to be booked into the Bonaire or the Nieves Mar, but she said no. I suspect she was worried about cost, but she didn't say so — just that she'd have to face it some time, and it might as well be now.'

`She's a brave lady.'

A thought struck Sarah. 'God, I wasn't in the house, but didn't you say that it looked as if a bomb had hit it. I really hate the thought of her going back to the debris of last night's party with Santi and their friends and all.

`No, that won't happen. Arturo set half a dozen of his finest to making the place look spotless. I told him he should have used the Policia for that, but he said he didn't want any breakages.'

'Yes! That man with the hat, wasn't he awful! Gloria told me about the stretcher. She said she thought you were going to hit him.'

The thought did cross my mind. Arturo's too. What a bollocking he gave the guy — Chief of Police or not.'

`You'd better not park on any yellow lines in L'Escala for a while!'

Bob laughed. The only line I'd like to park on is the one round that pillock's hat.' He propped himself up on an elbow, and picked up the sun cream. 'Want your back done?'

Nope. It's not too comfortable lying face-down right now. The D cups are still pretty tender, thanks to the milk monster over there!'

Thirty-one

‘I must say, Mr Skinner, the thought of an airport welcome by the Guardia Civil had me worried all the way across. It was quite a relief when their driver turned out to be in plain clothes!'

Skinner smiled. 'Even the Guardia have men in suits, Mr Ainscow.'

The two Scots shook hands on the pavement of the Passeig Maritim, outside the office of InterCosta. Ainscow thanked his driver, and the black car which had delivered him pulled away from the kerb and headed off in the direction of L'Escala's old town. It was 4:30 p.m., and even on a Sunday the few shops along the Passeig were in the process of reopening after their afternoon break, in the hope of gathering in a few more pesetas from the weekend visitors.

`You made good time,' said Skinner.

`Yes, I took the quickest option available: Air France from Edinburgh and on to Barcelona from Charles de Gaulle. Bloody expensive, though. Not the way I'd choose to travel. I take charters to Girona from Glasgow when I can, and look for deals on schedules to Barcelona in the winter months, when Girona's shut. How do you come down?'

`Varies. Quite often, like on this trip, I drive down. Look, shall we go inside?'

Ainscow nodded. Skinner pushed open the door of the small office, and the two stepped inside. Ainscow dropped his flight bag on the floor and placed his briefcase on one of three desks in the room.

`That's the desk you use normally, when you're here?' Skinner asked.

`Yes. That's ... that was Santi's over there, and the other's used by a part-time secretary.'

`Right. Nothing's been touched here since yesterday. Everything is exactly as it was the last time Alberni locked up. What I want you to do, or more precisely what the Guardia want, is to go through the books of the business, and try to locate all the funds transferred under that crazy blank-cheque system of yours. Have you called the InterCosta accountant?'

Ainscow looked at him a shade sheepishly. 'We don't have one. We have a book-keeper over here, and I have one in the UK. We operate as a partnership, so there's no need for filing of accounts anywhere. However, I have located an independent accountant in Girona. She'll be here tomorrow.'

`Good. What about a lawyer?'

`I'll call one if and when I need one. There's a bloke in Torroella that I've used in the past. But I've got nothing to hide. It was Santi who had the five million in his safe, not me. Do you want me to begin today?'

`No. Wait till your accountant gets here — and the Guardia man. They're sending someone up from their fraud department.

`Have you met Pujol, the local Commandante?'

`No.'

'Didn't think you would. Not too many people seek out the company of the Guardia. He's coming down here this afternoon to meet you.' Skinner looked out of the window, peering through a chink in the mass of posters which covered most of its surface and darkened the room. 'In fact, here he is now.'

As he spoke, Pujol, out of uniform, appeared in the doorway. Skinner made the formal introductions.

`I am glad to see you here, Senor,' said the Commandante. `I think that there are matters with your company which have to be looked into: things that happened here in Spain.'

Ainscow broke in. 'Look, I want you to know that apart from this Pitkeathly business, and let's hope that still turns out to have been a mistake, there has never been a single complaint to me in Scotland by any client about any transaction. Ask around town and you will find nothing but satisfied people.'

`We shall ask, Senor. In fact we are asking already. Tell me, how long have you been in business with Senor Alberni.'

`Nearly ten years. I was in the estate-agency business back home. I built up a chain in central Scotland, then sold to an insurance company at the height of the boom. I did well — well enough to buy my place in Punta Montgo, and to spend some quality time out here. That's when I got to know Santi. He was working as a salesman for a big promoter-developer. He had sold me a couple of apartments as investments. I was looking for a manager and the thought shuck me: why not set up Santi in a business of his own, combining estate agency with property management, and all the other add-ons that brings? Then I thought that a business like that should have a UK outlet on the estate agency side. I looked at the restrictive covenant attached to my sale, and discovered that I was clear to deal in overseas property. So InterCosta opened in Scotland as well. Initially I ran it from our house, but when the Stirling

Business Centre was built, I liked it and moved in there. Gives clients a better impression, you understand.'

`You said you were partners,' said Skinner. 'What was the profit split?'

`I put up the development capital, so I had seventy-five per cent. Santi had twenty-five, but he still had a good package, by Spanish standards.'

`Has the business been profitable?' asked Pujol.

`It's washed its face, I'd say. If I were to be completely frank, I'd have to say that it's under-performing. It's always made a profit, but somehow it's never come up to business-plan forecasts. Some years the profit has been so low that I've given Santi a fifty-per cent share just so that he'd have something worth having.'

`Where has the problem been? Sales?' Skinner quizzed.

Not really. The way the thing is structured, we're not dependent on the market. Property management — and by that I mean looking after villas and apartments and providing a rental service — that's always given us a second income stream. The problem has always been that the overhead at the Spanish end was way over budget.'

`Why didn't you crack down on it? Put in an accountant?'

`In a business like this, it's not that easy to pin down the overhead. There are always things that you didn't budget for. Things like putting clients up in a hotel for a night or two because the maid forgot to renew the gas bottle in their apartment and you can't get one till Monday, unexpected trips to the airport with clients, people taking inspection flights over and ripping you off by buying from someone else. Loads of wee things like that can cut into your costs. I've always reckoned I'd just have to live 'with that. As I said to you in Scotland, Mr

Skinner, I've been feeling a bit uneasy lately, but until Pitkeathly there's been nothing to go on. Now there's this five million.'

`How often did you see Santi Alberni?' Pujol asked.

I'm over here about half a dozen times a year, in some years more. When I'm here, even apart from on business, I see Santi a lot. And Gloria, of course.'

`Are you married, Senor?'

Was once — not now.'

Pujol sighed. 'Ah, yes. I can say the same. And so could Bob here, until recently. Now he has a wife and a new family to go home to, so we should let him do that. Senor, I shall drive you to your villa, and tomorrow we will begin the search for the origin of Santi Alberni's five million.'

Thirty-two

Gloria and her father called in while you were gone. To thank us for yesterday.'

`I hope you told them it was de nada.'

`Of course.'

`How's she bearing up?'

`Pretty well. She's got guts — and her father being here's helping her a lot too. Arturo's told her that he'll release the body tomorrow straight after the autopsy, all being well. They're fixing the funeral for Wednesday. Gloria asked if we'd go. I said yes, if Kathleen could find us a babysitter.'

`Wait and see: Kathleen'll do it herself. There'll be no stopping her.'

`Then she'll be Jazz's first official sitter. It's just too bad about the reason we need one.'

`Yes. Here, try this theory for size. Apparently Ainscow's footloose and fancy free. No current missus. Arturo was wondering if he and Gloria might have been having it off, then Santi found out and couldn't take it. What d'you think?'

`No way. She's a well-brought-up Spanish lady. She wouldn't do that. And Santi was a Spanish guy, remember. If Arturo's idea was right, Santi would have been more likely to kill her, and Ainscow, than himself. No way, no way, no way.'

`Yes, that's more or less what I said to Arturo as well.'

They were dining at home, on their wide terrace. The air had cleared with the cooling of the day, and the jagged skyline of the Pyrenees was etched sharply on the horizon. The sun had just fallen and the sky along the mountains had taken on the pinkish tinge that they knew would darken and turn purple with the breakthrough of the earliest of the evening stars.

Sarah raised her glass of Fonter towards the Pyrenees in a toast. 'To my big mountain. It's a dream here; Bob, isn't it?'

He looked at her and smiled; a smile from the eyes, a smile from the heart. 'Because of you, Professor Sarah, all because of you. The best night I ever had in this town was the night you said you'd marry me. I still dream about that — here and in Scotland.'

She smiled back at him. Their eyes locked, and the air between them seemed to grow warmer, in defiance of the gathering -dusk. 'Ask me again,' she whispered.

He gave a tiny shake of his head. 'No. You might give me a different answer.'

`No chance of that, copper. You're stuck with me.'

He reached across the table and took her hand. 'Well, in that case . His smile widened again into a grin which had , only one meaning.

And then the telephone rang.

'Bugger.' Bob walked into the villa and picked it up. 'Nola.'

`Hi, hombre. How goes it with you, and how's my kid brother?' Alex's timing has always been accidentally impeccable, Bob thought.

`It goes great with us all, and your kid brother is unstoppable. Eats, sleeps, shits and smiles; that just about sums him up. He doesn't stint on any of them, either.'

`Buy him a drink for me, then.'

Bob laughed at his daughter's obvious delight in her new sibling. 'Aye, I'll do that.'

`I hear you're busy out there, Pops. Andy said you'd fallen on some police work.'

`Andy said?'

`Yes. I'm at his place just now.' Before he could comment, she added, `I'm staying at Fairyhouse Avenue tonight.'

`Yes, fine. How are the finals?'

`One to go, on Tuesday. Studying's over, though. You could say that quiet confidence is flowing down the telephone line.'

`Good. Keep your mind on Tuesday, and let's hope that confidence is not misplaced.'

`So what is this thing you're caught up in?'

`It's a mess, but we'll sort it out in the next couple of days, I reckon. Now go and give Andy's phone bill a break. I'll call you after your last exam.'

`Don't make it Tuesday evening, then. Andy's taking me out to celebrate. Bye.'

He went back to the terrace, and to Sarah. She looked at him, enquiring with her eyes.

`Alex. Asking after Jazz. She's at Andy's.'

`Mmm.' Sarah smiled a quiet smile.

Bob reached his hand across the table once more. 'Now Professor, as I was saying ..

And then, through the baby intercom, came the strident sound of Jazz's first waking cry.

Bob shook his head and laughed. 'That does it. I'm going to have a beer. I know whose needs come first in this house!'

Thirty-three

‘My God, Bob, I'm cooked. Stand back, man, and let me get out of this shirt. Why did I choose to wear this spring gear? Why didn't I just put on a blouse and shorts, like every sensible woman I've seen today?'

`How's Jazz?'

'Fine, Good as gold. What does a Spanish postmortem look like then?'

'Messy, just like everywhere else. Dr Martinez, the pathologist, was first-class, though. We could use one or two like him back home. Nothing unnecessary. Straight to the point . . . Back in a minute.' She ran off towards the bedroom to change. When she reappeared in the kitchen a few minutes later, she was wearing a Lycra swimsuit and shorts.

Bob handed her a coffee. 'What's the verdict, then?'

‘Exactly as you'd expect. Death by asphyxiation, due to hanging. All vital organs okay, brain normal. Santi was as healthy as a horse, so you can rule out terminal illness as a motive. Slight alcohol level in the blood, but no more than you'd find from three or four beers the night before, No unusual marks on the body, apart from horizontal bruising on each upper arm. The pathologist suggested — and it's as good an explanation as I can think of — that the short sleeves of his shirt tightened on him as he struggled, after kicking the chair away. There was an oily mark on the chair by the way, and oil on the sole of Santi's left shoe.'

`How do you know he struggled?'

`Martinez found yellow hemp fibres from the rope under his fingernails. His proposition was that, after Santi kicked the chair away, he thought better of it and clawed at the rope. That fits too. It's a common finding in autopsies on hanging suicides.'

`So that's it then. Suicide officially.'

Sarah nodded. 'Yes. Arturo said he's completely satisfied. He's going to put the papers before a magistrate, but that's what they'll say, and that's what the magistrate will rule.' She paused, looking suddenly gloomy. 'I wish it was otherwise, for Gloria's sake. I looked in to see her on the way back, to let her know what had happened. She still refuses to believe that her husband could have done something like that. You couldn't do some clever detecting and prove otherwise, could you?'

A wry expression twisted Bob's face for a second. 'Much as I'd like to help the lady, and much as I hate pat answers, there are times when a responsible investigator has to accept the obvious and leave it at that. You know me. I've been gnawing away at the scene in my mind, looking for something that might argue against the suicide explanation. But if there is anything, I'm stuffed if I can see it. Anyway, that's enough shop for today. I phoned Ainscow. He won't be through until tomorrow, he reckons. He, Arturo and I are meeting in the afternoon. Also, while you were out, I managed to begin work on this great treatise on detecting that I came down here to write. But that is it. Enough, the sun is calling. So why don't we attend to Jazz's needs, and then we can all go out for lunch. Between you and me, my love, there's quite a lot I'd do for a pizza!'

Thirty-four

It looked more like a business meeting over coffee by the beach, in true Costa style, than the culmination of a criminal investigation.

The three men sat around a table on the pavement outside La Caravel, Skinner with a cortado — a Spanish version of espresso with a little milk — Pujol and Ainscow with café con leche. Just across the way, the pocket-sized town beach was thronged with its usual late-afternoon mixture of mothers, infants and shoppers gathered together in a summer ritual of sunbathing and gossip. Some, from the bags which they carried, had come straight from the Maxor supermarket, less than two hundred metres away in one of the old town's narrow streets.

Pujol sampled his coffee, replaced the small white cup in its saucer, and picked up his briefcase. He opened it and withdrew a neatly typed document, which he placed in the centre of the table.

He looked at Skinner then at Ainscow. Finally, he said, That is a report prepared by my agent, after going through the accounts of InterCosta with Senor Ainscow's accountant. It is of course in Spanish, and I have not had the opportunity to have it translated. However I will summarise it for you. It seems that, for some time, amounts of money have been disappearing

from the company account. They have been between three hundred thousand and two million pesetas. Each, shall we say, withdrawal has related to a sales transaction. It has not come from the property management side. That has been going on for years. It will take much time to identify every one of the thefts, but my hombre and yours, Senor Ainscow, they are agreed that the total missing could be as much as two hundred million pesetas.'

'A million sterling!' said Skinner in surprise. Ainscow said nothing, but looked grim.

'Si. Over a number of years, but it is still a lot of money.' `So how was it done?'

`Very simply. Senor Ainscow has told you of the way in which money was moved from Scotland to Espana. I know that you may think it irresponsible, Bob, but in fact it is quite a common practice in our property business. The banks have only themselves to blame. It is very expensive to move money from country to country by official transfer. Because of this, many people use blank cheques made out for cash, drawn on accounts in foreign countries. It is as effective as official transfer, it is often quicker, and it is not expensive.

What has happened with InterCosta is that some of those cheques have been diverted. Senor Ainscow's records in Scotland show that they have been completed and honoured, but they have not all been paid into the InterCosta account in Banca Catalana. Some have been cashed somewhere else, with money-changers. Many of them here will accept ordinary cheques for a higher commission.

`It is so simple. The theft was not from the client. It was from the company itself, from the profits of InterCosta.'

`Yes,' said Skinner, 'I understand. I assume that, every time, the sum stolen was always within the level of commission due on that sale.'

`Exactamente! The sellers of the properties concerned were always paid in full. The buyers, they pay their money, they get their apartment, everybody is happy. The only person who does not get his money is Senor Ainscow. It seems that Alberni's great mistake was to forget, until it was too late, that Senor Pitkeathly's apartment was to be sold without commission being charged.'

Skinner looked across the table at Pujol. 'The InterCosta records confirm Alberni's guilt?'

`Bob, the cheques are cashed in Espana. The theft is of the profits from the company. Senor Ainscow here is entitled to seventy-five per cent of these profits. Why would he steal from himself?'

Skinner nodded in acceptance of the point. 'Yes, why indeed.' He looked at the other man. 'Seems like you've been stuffed all right, Mr Ainscow. What are you going to do about it all, Arturo?'

The Cormandante shrugged his shoulders. `God, he knows. We have asked all the banks. Alberni has very little cash in his personal account. There is no trace of any other among his papers. He has simply made it disappear. There are many things he could have done here. For example, he could have set up dummy companies, with other people as administrators, and used them to buy property. That would be untraceable. Or he could have buried it in his garden. Or he could have given it all to the casinos. Many Spanish people, even more so if they are Catalan, are big gamblers.'

`What action will you take?'

`I have been giving that much thought, and I have spoken to Senor Ainscow about it. What I intend to do is . . . nothing. There will be no hearing. What would that achieve? Gloria Alberni knew nothing of this: of that we are both certain. She will have to live in L'Escala. It will be kinder if it is without disgrace. There is another reason too. What I have done so far is more or less unofficial. If I do any more, it will mean a full-scale investigation, by other people, of the company's business. If that happened, then our Ministerio de Hacienda — our taxman, you would say — might decide to look also at some of the declarations which have been made to the Notary of the prices paid for properties on which the tax is calculated. You know, Bob, that often the price which is declared is not the real price. It is much less. If our tax authorities took an interest, it could be catastrophic for many clients of InterCosta. And maybe not only InterCosta, too. They might then decide to investigate other companies in L'Escala.

`If that were to happen, how would it be for relations between the town and the Guardia Civil? My people live here. I live in Albons, not far away. We would be outcasts .. . leprosos! It is unthinkable. So if you agree, and Senor Ainscow agrees, I will do no more. I will bury this business with Santiago Alberni.'

Skinner shrugged his shoulders. 'It's your investigation, Arturo, I've got no problem with that outcome. Pitkeathly might, but then he's got to live here too.'

Ainscow broke in. 'I'll take care of Pitkeathly, Mr Skinner, don't you worry. That twenty-five grand in Santi's safe belongs to the company, clearly. I'll have that back, and I'll pay the Pitkeathly’s this missing half million pesetas from it.'

`That's fair,' said Skinner. 'What will you do about the business?'

Now that I see how profitable it could be, I'll probably look for new people out here. Two probably: one Spanish, one British. I'll let them buy in for twenty per cent each, in profits. That way they'll be watching each other. And from now on my accountant will be looking out for me.' For the first time that afternoon, Ainscow smiled. 'How about it, Mr Skinner, fancy staying here as a partner in InterCosta?'

Skinner, leaning back in his chair and finishing his cortado, smiled too. 'Bugger off!'

Thirty-five

‘Oh, Bob. Poor Gloria, there are so few people.'

`That's the way it is when they bury a suicide. Folk are embarrassed, they disapprove, they don't want to be involved. There's no church service either, no requiem mass for the sinner. I'm glad the priest's turned out, though. Sometimes they refuse.'

Sarah spotted a familiar face wearing a look of unfamiliar grimness. 'What's Carlos doing here?'

The UBET asked him to represent them. You know, the local business organisation. Santi was a member. Kath said he'd be here when she arrived to baby-sit.'

They were about to join their friend when the cortege — the hearse and a single car — swung into the little walled cemetery on the road from L'Escala to Villadamat. Gloria's father was in the front seat of the black Mercedes. When the car came to a stop not far from the new grave, he jumped out first, opening the rear door and holding out his hand to assist his daughter as she emerged. Two other women, both middle-aged, rose with dignity from the other side. One bore a striking resemblance to Gloria. The other, Bob and Sarah each assumed correctly, was Santi's mother.

The graveside service was mercifully brief. Although Bob could not follow much of it, he was aware that the priest had little to say, and suspected that he had never met the man he was burying. He offered a few words of comfort to Gloria, pronounced the rites, and the coffin was interred in a silence broken only by the sobbing of three women.

The small congregation began to disperse at once. Carlos had not noticed the presence of Bob and Sarah, and when they turned to look for him again, they saw him hurrying off. They were about to follow when Gloria's father approached. `Senor, Senora, you will join us at the villa to toast Santi?' He spoke to Sarah in Spanish.

`Thank you, Senor Gomez, but we must go back home to our baby.'

Bob cut in. 'Why don't you go for a while? I'll drop you off and then I'll relieve Kath. I'm sure Senor Gomez will run you home.'

`Okay. Maybe Gloria could use seeing someone her own age today. To cope with the aftermath of this, she'll need all the friends she can get.'

Thirty—six

‘Do these really come from Scotland?'

`Razor shells? Yup. There's every chance that these came from our west coast. We ignore them, and the Spanish treat them as a delicacy. But that's my fellow countrymen for you. If you can't serve it with chips, salt and vinegar, or roll it in breadcrumbs and call it scampi, they're not interested.'

It was mid-evening, late enough for buenas tardes to have become buenas noches, but far too early for adios. Bob and Sarah were finishing a tapas supper in the marble-lined bar of El Golf Isabel, one of their favourite old-town restaurants. Jazz was asleep in his buggy behind them — two hours away, Sarah estimated, from his next feed. On the next day, she had determined, she would begin to supplement his diet with rusks.

Apart from Navajos, the distinctive Spanish name of Scotland's secret export, the plates spread before them included small portions of mountain ham, meatballs, small green peppers fried in olive oil, and a delicious spicy chicken dish. Finally they were finished, and Romeo, the olive-skinned Italian waiter, appeared to clear their table. As they had noticed earlier, he seemed to take his name to heart, and his excessive attentions to Sarah, and her cleavage, pushed Bob's annoyance level close to breaking point. She, seeing the gathering frown, laughed as her admirer retreated to the kitchen to fetch two Creme Catalan desserts. 'Don't worry about him, Bob. It's good for a girl's morale, especially when she's just had a baby.'

`I'm not worried about him. Not one bit, but he should be bloody worried about me!' He spoke just loudly enough for his words to carry across to the kitchen area.

She laughed again at his annoyance, until eventually Bob's resolve cracked, and his grin returned.

`That's better. I'm sure he's got the message. This was a really nice idea of yours, darling, after the gloom of this afternoon.'

`How was it at the villa?'

`Grim. Poor Gloria; that's a really bad scene, you know. Her father had to give her some bad news from Santi's insurance company. They're not paying out on his life policy.'

Bob shook his head sadly. 'To be expected with a suicide. Some do, depending on the circumstances; some just point-blank refuse. Sounds like Santi was with one of the latter kind, for them to have reached that decision so quickly. There'll be no chance of them changing it either.'

'I know. It'll mean that Gloria will have to sell the villa as fast as she can, and in a buyer's market too. She may not even get what they paid for it. She's got very little money, and she already has a spare-time job keeping books for a man who owns a few shops. She thinks that, until the villa's sold at least, she'll have to take a third job, at weekends. Bar work, cleaning, anything she can find. She'd like to go back to Tarragona, but she can't do that until the villa is sold.'

`Yeah, it's a damn shame. Too bad the selfish bastard didn't think about that before he topped himself.'

`Maybe he did, and it was still too much for him to face. A million pounds is a lot to have stolen. He'd have done twenty years.'

`Then that's what he should have done.'

Sarah changed the subject. Did you call Alex to ask about her last exam?'

`Yeah. Answerphones were on at her place, and at ours, so I left a message on each. You know our kid — she'll be out on a shopping binge to celebrate.'

Sarah smiled. 'Yes. Something like that.'

As Romeo returned with their desserts, Bob looked up, raising an eyebrow as if to say 'Just try it, son.' But the Italian's ardour was stilled. They ate in silence for a minute or two. Eventually Sarah paused, putting down her spoon.

`What makes it even tougher in a way is that apparently Santi's policy had one of those double-indemnity clauses in it. Suicide, zilch — but if he died by accident or some other violence, it would pay out twice the value. Forty million pesetas: two hundred thousand pounds' She wrinkled her nose. 'Are you sure you couldn't prove he was murdered, Bob?'

He shook his head. 'Sarah, love, much as I'd like to help poor Gloria inherit some big bucks, if I could do that, then at the same time I could turn that agua minerale of yours into Gran Vina Sol. There is nothing, but nothing, for me to go on, and I am not here to waste our time.'

Thirty-seven

The weather held, as their holiday resumed its normal course.

The weaning of Jazz took place successfully, and quickly he developed an appetite for rusks to equal that for the natural element of his diet. And as his input became more varied, so inevitably did his output, introducing Sarah — and Bob once more — to those joys of parenthood which call for a little dedication.

With the Pitkeathly affair and Santi Alberni's suicide behind them, they began to do some of the things which had been on their original agenda. On the Thursday, as their first week at the villa drew to an end, Bob wrote productively in the morning. Later they visited Pals and its ceramic shops, and called for a late lunch at Mas Pou, a celebrated Catalan Tipique restaurant in the distinctive circular village of Palau Sator. Next morning, Bob did something which even a few months earlier would have seemed unthinkable. He telephoned Proud Jimmy and secured his chiefs agreement to the proposition that, since much of his first week had been spent effectively on police work, he would write it off as holiday, and so would delay his return to Fettes by a further seven days.

`Of course, man,' his grizzled boss had said. 'Get to know your new son. Mackie tells me you got a good result in that business.'

`Good for whom, Jimmy? Pitkeathly's got his few quid back, Ainscow's down a million, Alberni's done himself in, and his widow's penniless. Apart from that, everyone's laughing.'

`Aye, well, that's the job sometimes, Bob. You know that. Now enjoy yourself!'

Thirty-eight

‘You know Bob, my friend, in the work I do with the Spanish tourist industry I have been all over the world. America, Sri Lanka, Roma, South Africa, I have seen them all. But, of all the places I have seen, this here, in L'Escala, on the terrace outside our restaurant, looking across the marina to the town and to the mountains, this is my favourite place of all.'

Bob leaned back in his seat and took a deep mouthful of his beer. 'I can see why you say that, Carlos. It's beautiful all right. But, you know, you're really saying something else. Nowadays I have three homes. One here that I bought with — and for —my daughter. One in Gullane that I bought with, and for, my first wife. And one in Edinburgh that I bought with, and for, Sarah. And I'll tell you what's my favourite place. It's the terrace in Puig Pedro, looking out at the same mountains as you do. Or it's Gullane beach frozen solid on a bright cold January morning. Or it's the tree in our back garden in Edinburgh, where Jazz's swing is going to be. It's wherever they are,' he pointed behind him, over his shoulder with his left forefinger, to where Sarah stood in the shade of the awning, holding Jazz to her brown shoulder, and speaking with Kathleen, 'those two; here, there or anywhere, that's my favourite place. And when you sit here in the sun and look out, you're really looking over your shoulder, too, at Kathleen and the boys. That's your favourite place: the one you have with them. And for all you'd admit it, suppose it wasn't here, but in some back street in Girona — that's still how it'd be.'

The two men sat in silence for a while. Then Carlos turned and smiled, a sly smile filled with fun. 'Yes, and I suppose I can see a day when I will be here, but only in an urn behind the bar, and the place will still go on without me!'

`That's right, but it won't be just any old urn. It'll be shaped like the European Cup, and draped in Barcelona ribbons!'

The howls of their laughter startled Jazz, and drew an insistent `Sshh' from Sarah.

`Ah, we mus' keep down the noise,' said Carlos. 'Tell me, that Alberni business. Is all finished now, si?'

Skinner nodded. 'Yes, it's a suicide, and that's how it's been put away in the box.' He offered no detail on the investigation, nor even hinted that one had taken place.

`Suicide. That is very bad, very, how you say, un-Catalan. Even from Tarragona, Alberni was still Catalan. We are not suicidal people. We are excitable, yes. We are happy and sad, like others. But suicide, that is not the way with us. Your Scandinavians, they are so cold they kill themselves all the time! Your French, they are so miserable and always in love. You British, not you but you know what I mean, you are so discontented. But we Catalans, we are happy people, not suicidal. We support the greatest football team in the world, we have a beautiful warm country, we love our wives, we spoil our children. And, when we are not eating them, we are even kind to animals'

Skinner took another mouthful of beer as he considered the point . . . and choked. Wide-eyed, he sat bolt upright in his chair, and slammed his glass back on the table. As Sarah,

Kathleen and Carlos stared at him in alarm, he jumped from his chair and clasped his hands together as if in triumph.

`Carlos, that's it! That's what was wrong. Alberni — he didn't feed the dog! Sarah,' he called out, 'he didn't feed the bloody dog!'

She looked across at him, bewildered. 'Yes, but—'

`Look, he was thoughtful enough to make his wife breakfast. He cared enough for the grass to switch on the lawn sprinkler. But he died and left his dog — Romario the footballer, his dog, not Gloria's; she told me how much he cared for it — left it howling, with licked-clean, bone-dry food and water dishes. That doesn't fit. That's what's wrong with Alberni's death. Now I've got a reason to look into it some more! That guy was done in, and I will prove it. Gloria's insurance company had better get its chequebook out.

`And you, Carlos, can buy in a few litres of aqua minerale, and look for a saving on the wine bill!'

Thirty-nine

‘Where did you put those notes?'

`They're in the escritura. You bring Jazz in, I'll go fetch them.'

Skinner unfastened the straps of his son's car cradle and carried him, asleep, through to his cot. As he went through to the living room, the motorised shutters were rising slowly, and light was advancing into the room from the patio doors towards the centre. Sarah stood waiting for him, a notebook in her hand.

`Good job you took those.'

`Come on, Bob, it's a reflex with me at autopsies. It helps keep my mind on the job. Do you think I never get squeamish over some of the things I see. Remember that time in Advocates Close?'

Skinner looked at her in silence. 'Then you do a hell of a job of covering it up, my darling — even from me. The boys and girls all think you're superhuman, the way you've kept your cool, especially among some of the messes we've had to clear up.'

She flicked the notepad open. 'Here they are. Don't know what good you expect they'll do, though. Just an hour ago we were both agreed it could only be suicide. Are you sure you aren't just grasping at this dog theory like a straw, to humour me?'

`Come on, girl, what sort of a copper do you think I am?

Listen, I was there. I saw that dog. It's a big friendly mutt, but when I got there it seemed terrified — of me. Barking, snarling, all the rest. As soon as it saw I was a friend, it was fine. It more or less pointed me, believe this or not, towards the garage. And those feeding bowls were bone dry.'

`Couldn't they have dried out in the sun?'

Skinner shook his head emphatically. 'They were well in the shade. Believe me. That was a friendly, well-fed, well-groomed animal, treated kindly, just like Carlos said. And it was Santi who treated it that way. Gloria doesn't like dogs. Believe me, he thought as much of the mongrel as he did of his grass. If he switched on the lawn sprinkler, he'd have fed the dog too . . . unless someone stopped him. So, Professor, my forensic genius of a wife, since what I'm saying is what happened, I want you to work out, from those notes, a picture of how it was done. Once you've done that, we'll get around to finding out who did it, and why.'

Sarah looked at him doubtfully. 'Christ, you don't want much. You want me to make bricks, give me some straw. There ain't none in here that I can see.'

`Nonetheless, let's go for it.'

`Okay. Let's go outside.' Sarah led the way outside to the patio. Bob made a diversion via the kitchen to fetch two beers. They sat side-by-side at the white table, facing the mountains. Sarah read through her notes, then read them again.

`Cause of death,' said Bob. 'Is there any chance that he was strangled manually by someone, and then hung up there as dead meat.'

Sarah shook her head. 'Absolutely no indication of any other ligature being applied. Remember, too, the strands of rope under the fingernails.'

`That's true. And there was that oily footmark on the chair, matching the smear on Alberni's shoe. So let's take that as certain: he died by hanging. So someone strung him up. How many would it take?'

`At least two, obviously. To control him, and to hoist him up on to that chair.'

`Alberni wasn't very big, but he'd have put up some sort of a struggle. Surely they'd have had to pop him one to keep him quiet. There were no other signs of injury, no bruising, no bang on the head?'

`No, absolutely none. We looked, believe me. If he'd been hit, anywhere, between his toes even, that guy Martinez would have found it. The only unusual things we found were, as I told you; those funny marks on his upper arms.' She picked up her Estrella and took a swig. 'Bob. Go. Vamoose. Have a swim. Change a diaper. Anything at all, but just go and leave me here for a few minutes to try and figure this one out. Go. Scoot!'

Thus bidden, Bob stood up, slipped off his shirt and the shorts which he wore over his trunks, sauntered around to the side of the house, and plunged into the small pool. He swam its short length, backward and forward, until he lost count, then floated for a while on his back in the sun. 'This time next year, maybe Jazz'll be in here with me.' They had decided that the baby would be taught to swim naturally, even before he could walk. Already, Sarah, a college swimming blue, had introduced him to the pool, and he had reacted with delight, taking his own buoyancy for granted, and splashing and kicking like a cygnet trying to fly.

Sarah broke into his daydream with her shout. 'Copper! Get back here!'

He hauled himself out of the pool at the deep end, and rejoined her at the table where she sat, hands clasped together on the closed notebook. There was an expression of satisfaction on her face which fell only a few points short of smugness.

`I think I've got it. Think I've built you something you can fly in. Sit down. I'll be back:, She disappeared into the house, and returned a few seconds later carrying a ball of string.

`Those marks on his arms could have been made by a rope.'

`How?'

`Like this. Stand up again. Ohh, you're still dripping!' She stepped round behind him with the string. The two guys; let's say they're waiting in the garage with their rope — which Gloria said she'd never seen before. She leaves. Santi comes out. They hear him turning on the lawn sprinkler. Then one of them makes a noise, maybe accidentally, probably deliberately. Santi goes into the garage. They grab him, and before he can do anything, they do this.'

She took the string and slipped it under and around Skinner's left arm, then across behind his back and around the right arm. She pulled sharply on the string, and he found that his arms were pinioned to his side.

`Okay, so far,' she continued. 'He's helpless, and they frogmarch him over to beneath the maintenance pulley, where they've already set up the hanging rope and the chair. With this rope, they hoist him up on to the chair. He realises what's going to happen by now, and he's probably screaming bloody murder, but the villa is empty and isolated and there's only the dog to hear him. One of the guys holds him helpless; the other one slips the noose over his head, and kicks the chair away. They pull the other rope out from behind his back, then stand back and watch the poor man claw at the noose until he blacks out and dies. They take the other rope and they leave. Bingo.'

`How did they get there? How do they leave?'

`Very early, across the field behind the villa. They'd leave by the same way. Well?'

Skinner smiled at his wife. 'God, you're clever. With an instinct for planning like that, I hope you never get mad at me.' He nodded 'Yes, I'll buy it, all right. I want another word with Gloria. I'll do that this evening, then I'll take it to Arturo in the morning.'

`You'd better buy it. It's all you're gonna get.' She grinned at him wickedly. 'You could say your whole case is hanging on it!'

Forty

There was no answer to Bob's ring on the doorbell. A car, this time a battered Renault 5, stood in the driveway. The lawn sprinkler was on. A momentary shiver of apprehension rippled through him.

He walked around to the back of the house, treading softly. `Gloria?' he called.

The area around the pool was neat and tidy, a far cry from the shambles which Bob had found on his first visit six days earlier. A single empty glass lay on the poolside table.

And then he saw it: a dark shape submerged below the sunlit shimmers of the pool, near the deep-end ladder. He took three long steps forward and readied himself to dive . . . only to pull himself up sharp as Gloria's head and shoulders broke the surface. She trod water and shook her hair loose from the side of her head, sending spray across Skinner's feet. Her eyes, previously squeezed tight together, opened first, then widened in surprise.

`Bob, how good to see you.' She caught hold of the poolside ledge with both hands, bracing her feet against the tiles beneath the surface. 'Would you like to swim?'

He smiled and shook his head. 'No, thank you. I've had some of that today. No, I just wanted another word about Santi. Come on out and I'll explain.' Suddenly he realised that she

was wearing only a bikini bottom. 'Oh, I'm sorry. Look, I'll . .

She smiled at his momentary confusion. 'Bob, this is Spain. Just imagine that you're on the beach.' She swam over to the ladder and climbed out. 'Sit down, please. Would you like a drink?'

He nodded. 'Beer would be nice.' He looked after her as she walked towards the house. Dark-skinned, high-breasted, slim-waisted, moving with a natural elegance. Yes, he thought, a man's mind would have to be seriously unbalanced to leave a woman like that behind. He took a seat beside the table.

When she returned, she was wearing a short, pink towelling robe. Her wet black hair was pulled back and tied in a ponytail. In her left hand she carried a bottle of Blanc Pescador, opened, and in the other a litre bottle of Damm Xibeca beer, glistening from the fridge, with a long glass upside down over its neck.

She handed the beer to Bob and refilled her glass on the table, as he unscrewed the Xibeca and poured himself a drink.

`So,' she said, settling into her chair. 'What was it that you wanted to ask me?'

He was about to answer, when a thought struck him. 'Hey, where's the dog?'

She smiled. Was that it? My father took Romario back to Tarragona with him. He likes dogs, too; he'll give him a good home.'

`That's fine. But, no, that wasn't my worry. Gloria, without being critical of my friends in the Guardia, because I understand the reasons for it, I'm still a bit concerned at the speed with which this whole thing has been put to rest.'

She nodded vigorously. `So am I. Santi didn't kill himself and, however it looks, I can't believe he was a thief. That money in the safe, that Ainscow has been allowed to keep. Can anyone say that it ever came from InterCosta? Could I not have said that it was mine, that I had won it in the Casino?'

`Not if you didn't. In any case, that's history now. The Guardia have given the cash to Ainscow, and you won't see it again. What d'you think of Ainscow?'

`I have nothing against him. Santi always got on well with him, in business. Officially they were partners, but Ainscow was the boss. A few times we went to dinner with him, and once or twice he had ladies here, from Scotland. Except I did not think they were ladies. I thought they were more like putas . . . what would you say?'

`Tarts,' said Skinner. She nodded.

`Si, that is the word. Then I did not like Paul . . . But, no, with InterCosta they had no problems that Santi ever spoke of, although he never spoke to me much of InterCosta — or any of his other business.'

Did he have other business?'

`Well, that may be too big a description for it. There were one or two friends that he would help, or advise. Not buyers, not holiday people.' She paused. 'You do not take offence at that, Bob?'

He smiled. 'Not at all. I am a holiday person, and for a while longer, too. What sort of friends?'

`Local people looking for homes, looking for places to rent. Tony and Maria who were here a week ago, they were two of them. Santi found them an apartment when they were getting married. There are people who come here and buy property, then prefer to rent it out long-term, through local agents to local families, rather than to put it on the holiday market. Okay, the weekly rent for holidays is high in the summer, but in the winter there is nothing. Overall, renting to local people is more solid income. They take better care of your property, too. Santi knew many of these owners, and people used to come to him. He never took money for helping them. But if they owned a bar, then there would be free drinks; or if someone's father owned a restaurant, then there would be a big piece off the bill; or if someone was an electrician . . . A favour for a favour, you would say.'

`There's no chance that Santi might have seen himself as a Robin Hood, and have been helping some of these people with InterCosta money?'

`No. I know most of these people. They wouldn't have taken it — any more than he would have taken money from them.'

`How about the other side: the property owners?'

`There were a few; most of them had only one or two apartments. The rental agents here are mostly interested only in holidays. It was known that Santi could place local people, and so some investors would ask him to manage their properties, through InterCosta, because of the good long-term renters he could find.'

`Does anyone stand out among these people?'

She thought for a second or two. 'Well, the biggest would be Nick Vaudan, but he is not an InterCosta client. He manages his own properties. He has a company, Montgo SA, to actually own them.

`Do you know anything about him?'

`I've met him a few times. Friendly guy, machismo sort of guy. He's half French, and I think the other half is Greek. He lives in the south of France, when he is not here. Property is not his main business, according to Santi. The rest is something to do with boats. Here he owns maybe twelve, maybe fifteen, apartments and small villas. Santi used to give him advice on properties he was thinking of buying.'

`Was that on a professional basis?'

'No, no. Santi was very honourable. He would never do anything for money outside InterCosta. Nick did him favours, though. The biggest was getting us this place.'

`How did he do that?'

Gloria paused to refill her glass, and Skinner poured himself another glass of Xibeca, before, screwing the cap tight on what was left in the bottle. Beyond the villa, the sun was beginning to sink towards the hilly horizon.

`The man who built this house was greedy. We made him an offer that we thought was fair, but we needed a mortgage. So he said, "No, you take loan, so someone else take bigger loan. I get my price." That's the Catalan way with property. Santi mentioned this to Nick, and Nick goes to the builder. He shows him cash. The developer can't resist. Nick buys the place next day, for cash, at less than the price we were offering, but still way above the declared value, so the builder can maybe, if he wants, cheat on his income taxes. The day after that, he sells it to us at the same price. We pay the notario fees and the IVA on both sides, so Nick isn't out of pocket. Then Montgo SA buys our previous villa, a little one, at the price we ask, as an investment property.'

`Sounds like a very decent guy.'

`He is. He was at the funeral. In fact he was here, afterwards. I think I saw Sarah speak to him.'

`Is he still in town?'

`As far as I know. He came down for the funeral, and I think he said he was staying for another two weeks.'

`Where does he live?'

`Punta Montgo,. but I don't know which house. He has an office, though. A very small one. Somewhere off the Riells road, near the beach.'

`Okay,' said Skinner, finishing his beer. 'I'll try to persuade Pujol to talk to him. To see if he can think of anyone who might have had a major grudge against your husband. Cause, just between you and me, Gloria, I agree with you. I don't think Santi killed himself, either. But don't build your hopes up because, between what we think and what the Guardia Civil will accept as true, there lies a gap as wide as that blue bay over there! Now, you'd better get inside, and I must be off. It's drying time for you, but it's bathtime for Jazz!'

Forty-one

‘Grgrgrgre’

It was a small squeal. Bob and Sarah looked at each other across the bath, mouths slightly agape with surprise. Bob filled the soft sponge with water, held it over Jazz and squeezed once more, directing the water towards the centre of his long soft belly.

`Grgrgrgrgrgrgrgrgrg!' As the stream splashed into his navel, the baby kicked his legs furiously, splashing water over the side of the plastic bath and on to the floor of his bedroom. And his mouth opened wide in unmistakable delight, showing an expanse of toothless gums.

`He's laughing! Look he's smiling. Sarah, should he be laughing out loud at this age?'

She grinned. 'Why the hell not? He obviously finds you pretty funny.'

Bob beamed at the sudden development of his son's vocal range, and he sent another stream of bath water cascading over his midriff.

`Grgrgrgrgrgrgrgrgrgrgrgrg!'

Bath time for Jazz had become an essential part of the Skinner family's daily ritual. Sarah and Bob had agreed, in considering their parenthood, that, however busy each might be professionally, it would be their cardinal rule that father and mother would do all in their power to be at home every evening, if only for that special time.

As Bob lifted him out of the cooling water, the baby gave a small whimper of annoyance. But as Sarah took him, wrapping him in the folds of a soft yellow towel, the smile returned. She dried him gently, rocking him in her arms and speaking softly to him. The child nuzzled, contented, against her shoulder.

Bob watched her from a chair in the corner of the room, as she completed the process of drying, dusting, oiling and dressing for the night. 'Okay, chum,' she said eventually. 'Let's you and Mom take a walk on the terrace while Daddy makes up those rusks.'

Half an hour later they were seated in the living room. Bob held the baby, fed to the point of contentment, and rubbed his back very gently between the shoulder-blades, until he heard the soft rumble of breaking wind.

`That it?' asked Sarah.

`Yes,' Bob said, quietly. 'Let's give him a minute, then I'll put him to bed.'

Sarah left the room and returned with two flutes of pink cava. She put one on a small table within Bob's reach, holding her own glass as she settled on the couch alongside him.

`So how was your talk with Gloria?'

Worthwhile.' He paused. 'So who was this bloke who was chatting you up at the villa after the funeral, then?' He glanced down at her.

For a second she looked puzzled, until recollection came. Bob saw to his surprise that, for an instant, she flushed.

The amorous Monsieur Nicolas Vaudan, you mean? I didn't realise that Gloria had overheard us.'

'She didn't. I was joking. D'you mean the guy really was chatting you up?'

She nodded. 'Yes. Why not?' she said slightly defensively. 'Most men take it as a compliment when someone else finds their wife attractive.'

'Within reason. Was the guy out of order?'

`Not really, for a Frenchman. Sexually aggressive, Alex would say. Par for the course, really.'

`Not with my wife, it isn't. Anyway, he's only half French, so he's nowhere near par. What'd he say?'

She smiled, self-consciously this time. 'Nothing much. He just came up and introduced himself. I didn't say who I was, and he clearly didn't know. The usual small talk, then the

usual "Madame, even in black vous ëtes tres belle." Then he told me I had beautiful eyes, and bet me they were bedroom eyes.'

A heavy frown gathered on Bob's forehead. 'So what did you say?'

‘You know me. I said "How perceptive. Come on!" No, I said, "If I do, Monsieur, then I flash them only at my husband." And then I told him how I came to be there, the story of how you found Santi. I told him that you were a policeman from Scotland — a very senior policeman, I said; a very large and strong policeman, I even added for good measure — but he was well under control by that time. The guy had the decency to act embarrassed, and to become apologetic. After that he couldn't have been nicer.'

Bob was mollified. 'You didn't tell him why I had gone to see Santi, did you?'

‘I said you were enquiring about a property for a friend: a small lie, but not too far from the truth. Why d'you ask that?'

`Because I'm going to ask Arturo to visit him, and go along with him myself, if he'll let me. What language did you use?' `English. His was better than my French.'

`Not Spanish?'

`No. He told me that he spoke five languages fluently, but that Spanish was his one blind spot.'

Skinner grunted. 'Know what he means.’

Jazz, still on his shoulder, made a soft sound.

Sarah looked at him. 'He's out. Here, gimme him. I'll put him to bed. While I'm doing that, you can make a start on those desperately ugly fish that you bought.'

The monkfish? You love monkfish.'

`Yes, but off the bone. You always buy them whole. Those faces, those mouths, those teeth, those eyes. Uggh!'

`Yeah!' Bob grinned. 'Hey!' he called to her retreating back. `Wonder if lady monkfish have bedroom eyes, too!'

Forty-two

‘Bob, my amigo. I know of your reputation as a policeman and as a detective. I have heard of some of the things you have done. But this idea of yours – if I were to reopen the investigation of the death of Alberni on that basis alone, it would stir up a nest of hornets.'

`Come on, Arturo. I've told you how it was done.'

The Commandante was seated in uniform behind a file-covered desk in his small dark office at the rear of the five-storey yellow-brick Guardia Civil building on the crest of Avinguda Girona. Slowly and deliberately, he shook his head.

`No, you have not. You have told me what you think. And Sarah, very clever also in her field, has produced an explanation to fit your theory. You and I have discussed the matter. You agreed with my reasons for taking it no further. Those reasons have not changed.'

`But, man, if we're talking about murder now—'

`You are talking about murder, Bob. I am not. The Guardia has said it was suicide. The magistrate has said it was suicide. I cannot argue with him without a very good reason, and you have not given me one.'

Pujol paused. 'You have to allow me to be selfish, Bob. I have my career to consider. My superiors would look at me in a very strange way if I did as you ask.'

Skinner shrugged his shoulders in resignation. 'Okay, Arturo. I hear all of that. I won't press you further.'

Pujol smiled. 'That is good.' He paused. 'Of course, if you were in a position to offer me more conclusive information . .

Skinner's eyes narrowed slightly. 'And how would I come by that?'

Pujol shrugged in his turn. 'Well, you are a private citizen. I cannot stop you from asking questions of anyone. But I cannot be seen to be lending you authority, you understand.'

Skinner nodded, a light smile flicking the corners of his mouth. 'I understand.' The smile widened. 'In that case, there are one or two things I'd like to ask you!'

`Hah! The investigator is at work already! Very well, what can I tell you?'

`D'you know a man named Nicolas Vaudan?'

Pujol thought for a moment. 'Si. I know him as I know most people with business interests in L'Escala. He is an extranjero from France. I know of him rather than knowing him in person.'

Skinner cut in. 'The south of France, or so I'm told. But go on. What d'you know about him?'

`Not very much. He has a company which makes investments in immobiliara — apartments and villas — and rents them to local people at very reasonable cost. One of my officers is his tenant, and I have never heard him speak badly of him.'

`Where's his company based?'

`Montgo SA? It has a small office in the edificio in the marina which looks towards L'Escala. Close to the Café Navili.'

Skinner nodded. 'Yes, I know where you mean. Does Vaudan have many associates in L'Escala?'

`He has a secretary who looks after his business here: collecting rent from tenants, and dealing with any problems they have. Her name is Veronica. She is Belgian, I think, and she is very nice. Also there is Paco — Paco Garcia. He is from L'Escala, and he does small things — odd jobs, you would say —for Senor Vaudan around his properties. He paints, fixes the water pipes when they need to be replaced, mends broken tiles, things like that. Paco is a simple fellow: big, clumsy. When Senor Vaudan is here, I often see them together, Paco following after him like a big dog.' From nowhere an image of Tony Manson and Lennie Plenderleith swam into Skinner's mind. He pushed it away and concentrated on Pujol.

`Is Vaudan married?'

`Yes, I think so. I don't know for certain, but I did hear it said once that there is a Madame Vaudan — but that she is very grand, very much of the Côte d' Azur, and does not like it here.'

`Apart from business, does he have many friends here?'

`None come to my mind. Sometimes, when he is here and I drive past, I see him sitting on the terrace of the Club Nautic, but apart from that I do not know what he does or who he sees.'

D'you ever see him with Santi Alberni?'

Pujol shook his head emphatically. 'No.'

'Or hear of any links between them?'

`Never.'

`I take it that Vaudan and his people aren't known to you officially, so to speak.'

`Senor Vaudan and Veronica, certainly not. Paco Garcia is slightly different. In the past we have suspected that he might be involved in minor crimes, mostly smuggling. When he was Younger, he was a bit . . Pujol struggled for the English expression.

`Wild?'

`Si. But now, now he is harmless, I judge.'

Skinner leaned back in his chair and stretched himself. `Well, thanks for that, Arturo. I think I'll go for a stroll in the sun. And who knows, it might take me down past the Café Navili.' He stood up and gestured with a thumb at the files heaped on the small desk. 'I'll leave you to get on with that lot. I sympathise with you. Back home I have an intray too.'

`Si,' said Pujol, showing him to the door. 'And you will have someone to empty it for you also. Here, I do my own dirty work. Good day, my friend, and good luck with your theory. But as you try to prove it, please try not to make too many splashes!'

Forty-three

Skinner almost walked past the man. He was seated on the terrace of the Café Navili, in a cane chair in the shade, looking out across Riells Bay as it glistened in the morning sun. He was alone; a black Americano coffee and a croissant lay before him on the marble-topped table.

The tall policeman glanced at him, then looked ahead, searching for the Montgo SA office. He saw what he thought might be it, just before the walkway took a right turn, and was about to lengthen his stride when the memory came back to him. A slim, sleek man, immaculately suited, with gold-framed spectacles, jet-black hair and a neatly-trimmed moustache, standing a little way from him at Santi's funeral, quite close to Carlos.

Skinner stopped and turned towards the figure and, as he did so, the man picked up a newspaper from beside his chair. Skinner saw that it was French. He stepped up to the table.

`Monsieur Vaudan?'

Surprised, the man looked up. Skinner had a flashing impression of cold, cruel, dark eyes — threatening eyes, dangerous eyes — but then they blinked and, in that instant, softened.

`Oui.' The response was cautious.

`I thought I recognised you from Santi Alberni's funeral. I'm Bob Skinner.'

Vaudan sprang lithely to his feet, extending his hand.

Skinner shook it and felt a strong grip testing his own. He returned it with equal, but no greater, force. The man was, he guessed, around forty, but he moved with the ease of one who made a point of maintaining maximum fitness. He stood around six feet tall. He wore tan slacks and a tailored cotton shirt which gave emphasis to powerful shoulders.

`Monsieur Skinner, I am pleased to meet you. I spoke with your wife after Santi's funeral, at the villa.' His expression seemed to be probing, trying to establish whether his new acquaintance might have intentions which were other than friendly. 'Perhaps she told you.'

Skinner smiled and looked the man straight in his dark eyes. He nodded. 'Yes, she told me.'

A silence hung between the two men for a few seconds. Skinner supposed that Vaudan was trying to guess whether Sarah had told him of his clumsy pass, and whether he should offer an apology. Bob decided to let him off that hook. 'You're from the Côte d'Azur, she said.'

Vaudan relaxed appreciably. 'Yes, that is my home now. But I have lived in other parts of France — and in Greece. My mother was from Athens. Come, sit down, please.' He pulled one of the cane chairs up to his table. 'You will have coffee? Croissants?'

`Coffee, yes, thank you. Cortado, Croissants, no. I make it a rule to eat only one breakfast a day.' He sat down at the table as Vaudan leaned through the service hatch to the bar and called for the waiter. Skinner's Cortado ordered, he returned to join him.

`I understand that you had the misfortune to find poor Santi hanging in his garage. I know from your wife that you are a policeman, but that must have given even you a great shock.'

Skinner nodded his grey mane. 'Normally, when you walk into a garage, you expect to find a car. But in my time I've seen a few people end up like that, and in other violent ways. It's always ugly.'

Vaudan nodded. 'It is not something in which I am experienced, but I can imagine. Did you know Santi well?'

`No, I'd never met him. I went looking for him on business that same morning. Gloria tells me that you were a good friend of theirs, though. She told me how you helped them with their villa.'

Vaudan's smile seemed genuinely self-deprecating. 'One does what one can to help a friend.'

`You were that close?'

`I'm a nice guy.' Vaudan smiled, but Skinner this time did not return it.

`You have a company here, don't you?'

'Oui. Montgo SA. Just a little property investment. It brings me some nice rental income.'

`Is that your main interest?'

Vaudan shook his head. 'Oh no. Far from it. This is just a sideline, something to cover the cost of maintaining my villa here. In everything I do, Mr Skinner, I am a businessman. My main activity is in boats, luxury vessels. I am a broker: I buy and sell yachts and cruisers of all sorts. I have a number of dealerships in Monaco for major manufacturers. Big, big, money — international money. For such an operation, Monaco is the ideal base. As well as buying and selling, I have a number of cruisers which are available for charter.'

`Around here?'

`No. Frankly there is not enough money here to make such an operation pay. I do some brokerage in Spain, but my chartering is done out of Monte Carlo, and in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean.'

`That's very interesting.' A white-coated waiter arrived with Skinner's cortado, always served at the Navili in a cup rather than in the usual small glass. He took a sip, and tasted its sharp bite.

‘Did you know much about Santi's business?'

'InterCosta? No. Why do you ask?'

`Gloria hasn't said anything to you?'

`No. What would she say?'

Skinner looked the man in the eye once more. 'In confidence, yes?' Vaudan nodded. 'The thing I went to see Santi about wasn't just a property matter; it was police business as well. A man came to see me in Scotland, complaining that he had been involved in a deal with InterCosta, and that some of the money had disappeared. It looked like a clear case of fraud by the company. I interviewed Santi's partner, Ainscow. He showed me certain evidence which pointed to Santi, and I was going to interview him, with the approval of the Guardia, when I found him dead.

`Since then the InterCosta accounts have been examined and it seems clear that Santi was ripping it off for years. The trouble is, it was done very simply but very cleverly. We found some money, but we don't know where the rest is. My continuing interest, as a policeman, is that this business is half-British, and that a British subject has been defrauded. Maybe there are others. Ainscow's prepared to forget about it but, as a policeman, if I see a crime I have a duty to investigate.'

Vaudan nodded. 'Of course, of course.' Skinner felt an edge of concern in his companion. He decided to turn on a little heat. 'Apart from your friendship with Alberni, how strong were your business links?'

`Monsieur, what business links? We were friends.'

`That's not what Gloria told me.' He leaned towards Vaudan, his right forearm resting on the table. 'Look, I'll be frank. I didn't just happen past here this morning. I was on my way to your office. I'm the sort of copper who doesn't put an investigation to bed with lots of questions still unanswered. And, believe me, there are many questions unanswered about the death of Santi Alberni. For example, I'd like to know how come, if Alberni had ripped off a couple of hundred million pesetas from InterCosta, he still died heavily in debt. I'd like to know where all that money went to, because no one has a fucking clue. And, Monsieur Vaudan, I'd like to know, without being fed any more nice-guy crap, what sort of a link there was between you and Alberni to make you risk, I'd guess, around twenty million pesetas of your own to help him buy his new house. Why, for God's sake, if he had stolen all that cash, did he need your help in the first place?

`When I have good answers to all these questions, and a few more, I may start to believe that Santi Alberni strung himself up in his garage. Until I do, I'm inclined to the view that he had some help. Now, my new friend, what do you have to tell me to ease my troubled mind?'

For almost half a minute the Frenchman sat silent, staring out across the sunlit bay towards the high-rise blocks of the Passeig Maritim. And then he turned to face Skinner, and in the dark eyes the coldness and the danger showed once more, with something new: a strange smugness emphasised by the man's confident smile.

‘All right, Skinner. All right. I could make you jump through a few hoops for your answers but, hell, it's a nice day and I have better things to do. I'll give you some answers. But I do not think you will like them. I'm going to say all these things just once, with no one but you and me to hear them, and then I will never repeat them. Have a beer while you listen. You may need it.'

He rose and walked back over to the hatch. 'Juan, deux bieres, si'l vows plait. Pression.' He waited while the barman poured two glasses of St Miguel from its ornate tap, and carried them back to the table, one cupped in each hand.

`This is a wonderful place, L'Escala, is it not?' He settled back into his chair and took a generous mouthful of St Miguel. The creamy head left a white shadow on his moustache. He wiped it off with the back of his hand.

`I came here for the first time around ten years ago. I had sold a cruiser to a man in Monaco, and had agreed to deliver it to L'Escala, where his brother would berth it and look after it for him. I brought it across myself, and spent a day or two training the brother in its ways. I took to the place at once. I had been looking for a second home - somewhere outside France, and when my client told me of a building plot for sale at Punta Montgo, I was interested in it.

Santi Alberni was the agent for the owner. He was very young. It was a prime site, perched on the hill, but difficult to build on. Because of that I was able to beat Santi down on the price. I bought it there and then for cash, for less than half the profit on that one cruiser deal. I was paid for the boat on delivery, in dollars, and I gave the rest of the money to Santi to find me an architect and builder. He did a good job, and less than a year later my wife and I took over my new villa. I have to say that she hated L'Escala as much as I love it. However, I bought her an apartment in Rome, and she was happy. Now she has hers, I have mine, and we have ours near Cannes.'

He paused for another swig of beer. `Santi and I would bump into each other when I was here, but we were not what you would call close friends. Then one day, around seven years ago, he came up to the villa and put a business proposition to me. He told me that InterCosta was making very good profits, and that it tore at his heart to have to give any of them to the taxman. He said that his accountant had advised him that if he converted his share into cash and reinvested it somewhere else, the taxman would never catch up with the money. It would simply be written through the company books as disbursements, and both company tax and. income tax would be avoided.

`He asked me if I would act as the front man in a new company through which this cash profit from InterCosta would be laundered and turned into long-term investments in property. He said that, as a foreign national, I would be less likely to be asked to explain where the cash had come from. I asked him who would own the new company. He said that officially it would be in my name, but that there would be a letter of agreement between us confirming Santi's ownership of the shares. I asked him what would be in it for me, and we settled on half the net rental income. The idea was that the properties would be held for not less than ten years from the date of acquisition, and indefinitely if they were good enough

`We shook hands on the deal, and Montgo SA was formed, in my name, with no traceable link to Santi. Straight away Santi began to deposit large chunks of cash in the company safe. He would bank them at intervals, or sometimes he would buy properties for straight cash. Gradually, as Montgo SA's portfolio built up, so did its income. We took office costs out of

that, and kept back an amount for property maintenance and other contingencies. The rest we split between us.'

`How much?' asked Skinner.

`At first, hardly anything. Then it began to build up. It has never been big money though. Montgo SA is a good landlord. We charge on average around eighty thousand pesetas per month in rent for good-quality accommodation — no rubbish. In the summer people will pay more than that here for a week's rental. Take off office costs, which are peanuts, and our contingency funding, and I would say that over the years Santi and I have split around twelve million pesetas between us.'

`What did you do with your slice?'

`I kept it in cash, and used it to pay for the maintenance of my villa here.'

`How big is the contingency fund?'

`Eighteen million. We used the contingency money to do the deal on Santi's villa.' Vaudan grinned. 'Well I was a nice guy. I agreed to it, and half that cash was mine! What if his mortgage had fallen through?'

`How much has been laundered through Montgo in those seven years?'

`Roughly around one hundred million pesetas.'

`Half a million sterling. Are you sure?'

Vaudan nodded. 'Certain. I don't make mistakes about money. Why?'

`Because that's maybe half of the cash that's been stripped out of InterCosta. Are you involved in any other companies with Alberni?'

`No, thank you. One was quite enough; an amusement, and a neat source of peseta cash-flow. Two would begin to resemble hard work.'

Did you know of any other money laundries that he might have set up?'

Vaudan hesitated. 'Once or twice he mentioned an Englishman named Eensh.'

What?'

Eensh. I-N-C-H. Alan Eensh. I believe he works in Torroella as a property salesman. Santi spoke of him once and said that he had another interest, a company called Torroella Locals. It was like Montgo, only it didn't buy houses. It bought shops along the Costa at knock-down prices, and let them for high rents to short-term businesses — ice-cream parlours, video arcades, sports clothing, fashion. Santi never said, but I always suspected that he might have been funding Monsieur Eensh also.'

`Who does Inch work for in Torroella?'

'A general agency called Immobiliara Brava. It has an office in the old town near the square.'

Skinner nodded, noting the name mentally. 'How well d'you know Paul Ainscow?'

`Not at all. Earlier you called him Santi's partner. That is not what Santi told me. He said that Ainscow was not more than an employee, or an agent, working on salary and commission, and that all of the profit that he was diverting from InterCosta belonged to Santi.'

`You believed that?'

`Why not? Santi was my friend. Why should I think him a liar?'

And you didn't have any scruples about being involved in a scheme that you knew was set up for tax-evasion purposes?'

`Monsieur Skinner, this is Spain. One of the blackest economies in Europe. Tax evasion in business is a way of life.

As for me, I do not do business in Monaco so that I can pay high taxes. Rather the opposite. Think of it, man, I am not a burden to anyone else in this world, therefore why should I work to pay the salaries of people like you, and the millions like you on the public payroll.' The suddenness of Vaudan's contempt took Skinner by surprise.

His eyes flashed in anger, but he checked himself. 'What makes you so fucking special that you shouldn't?'

Vaudan laughed softly. 'Friend, I pay my dues. I simply make sure that they are as low as possible. Check me out. You won't get your hands dirty.'

`I may take you up on that,' Skinner said evenly.

`Now, about Ainscow. You're telling me you didn't know he was the major partner in InterCosta?'

‘Oui. As I said, I've never met the man. He means nothing to me.'

`Now that you do know, what will you do with Montgo SA?' `Why should I do anything?'

`Because what you've told me means that seventy-five per cent of it belongs to Ainscow, and the other quarter to Gloria Alberni.'

Vaudan shook his head. 'Oh no, monsieur. The record says that I am the owner and administrator of Montgo SA and all its assets.'

`What about the letter you mentioned earlier? The one which confirms Santi's legal ownership?'

Vaudan's smile was at its widest, stretching the moustache and revealing an expanse of white teeth. Did the Guardia find a copy among his papers?'

No, not that I know of What about your copy?'

`Hah. Life is strange. A few weeks ago, on my last visit here, I was arranging some papers on my terrace. My copy of the letter was among them. I have never known a tramuntana to spring up so quickly. A few seconds, that was all it took, and they were gone on the wind, all of them, the Montgo SA letter among them. Gone and never seen again.'

Skinner looked at him. Now he understood his air of confidence. 'Let me guess, because of the nature of the thing, it was a private letter prepared by a lawyer, but not signed before the notary.'

'Exactement. And so, my friend the policeman, if Ainscow or anyone else wants to talk to me about the legal ownership of Montgo SA, they had better come with Santi's copy of that letter.'

He picked up his glass from the table and drained it. 'But what letter would that be, anyway? One of which I have never heard. I meant what I said earlier. I will never speak of this again, to you or anyone else. Poor Santi, I am sorry that he chose that way out of his problem with Monsieur Ainscow. But that is life's way: it is filled with winners and losers. Santi lost, but out of it Nick Vaudan seems to have won.'

He made to rise, but Skinner grabbed his arm, and held him in his chair.

'Sit down, pal. If what you've told me is true, it also says to me that Nick Vaudan had a first-class motive for helping Santi proactively, you might say — to commit suicide.' Vaudan shook his hand away. If you check you will find that at the time of Santi's death I was in Monaco selling a very large yacht to a very well-known oil sheikh.'

Skinner nodded. 'Maybe, but some people have long arms.'

'Not me, my friend.' Vaudan looked him coolly, disturbingly, in the eye as he spoke. 'If you think that someone killed Alberni, you'd better look some place else. I didn't do it. That is my word on it, and you can take it to the bank. Now I have no more to say to you. Ever.'

Skinner stood up. `I'm all talked out too, Vaudan. There is just one other thing, though.' He picked up his beer which lay untouched on the table. 'A poor public servant like me couldn't be seen taking a drink from a guy like you. Corruption is all too easily alleged.' With a flick of the wrist, he emptied the contents of the glass into Vaudan's lap.

The man started from his seat, his expression suddenly twisted into one of anger. He seemed ready to spring.

`Yes?' Skinner hissed the word as he stood waiting for him, a smile on his face and an invitation in his eyes; an invitation which Vaudan decided it would be much better not to accept. Lazily Skinner reached out with his left hand and pushed him back into his chair. 'Stay cool, Nick. And, by the way, if you ever make a pass at my wife again, your interest in sex will become academic, very suddenly. See you again.'

Forty-four

‘Brian? Skinner here. I've got a job for you. I want you to run a check with the French police on a man named Nicolas Vaudan.' He spelled out the name. 'He lives on the Riviera with his wife. They also own an apartment in Rome, possibly in her name. He's in the boat business. Deals in high-value yachts and cruisers, and also runs charters. I want to know everything about him and about his business. Has he any convictions, has he ever been arrested, has he ever been investigated for any crime, does he pay his parking tickets quickly . . . ? Everything they can dig up on him. I want to know about his business too. Ask them to check all filed accounts, and to look in particular at his tax affairs.'

He paused to listen. 'Yes, the Guardia could do this, Brian, but they have their reasons for not wanting to get involved. So you use your international contacts to get it moving, and fax me a report as soon as you can . . . Yes, I said fax. The way things are going here, it'll be an asset. I'm taking Sarah and the baby to Girona this afternoon to buy one.'

`Bob?' Sarah's voice sounded from the living room as Skinner replaced the phone in the hall.

`Yes, honey, it's me.'

`I didn't hear you come in. I was dozing on the terrace. Who were you talking to? What were you saying about a fax?

What's the time? God, you've been ages.'

`Question one, Brian Mackie — and question two, get ready for Hipercort. We're going shopping.'

`Okay, but first tell me what you've been up to. Did you see Arturo?'

`Yes, and then I had a long talk with your admirer, Vaudan. Smart bastard — or he thinks he is.'

Quickly he related Vaudan's account of Santi's involvement with Montgo SA, and of the missing letters.

`He's a cute operator, is our Nick. And very confident. I need to talk to Gloria about that document.'

`Then you'll get your chance tonight. You and I are going to La Clota for dinner, á deux, and Gloria's baby-sitting. Now, if we're going to Girona, let's get ready.'

Forty-five

The Panasonic tele/fax with integral answerphone was installed and tested by eight p.m. when Gloria arrived to baby-sit. It stood, white and gleaming, on a table in the living room. Gloria looked at it in surprise.

`Keeps me in touch with the office,' offered Bob. 'Come on through, why don't you.' He led the way through the living room to the terrace. 'Sarah's got the wee fella plugged in, in the bedroom. He's all groomed and ready for bed, so with a touch of luck you won't see any action. Have a seat. While we’re waiting, there are a couple of things I'd like to ask you.'

Gloria turned a chair round to face the sun, and sat down. It was just after seven-thirty. The customary evening clouds were building on the horizon, but the day was still warm. Bob handed his guest a glass of white wine from a bottle in the ice-bucket and offered her olives from a wide, flat dish.