‘Oh my,’ he whispered, when I’d finished. ‘When I said earlier, about arresting you, I was joking. But now. . Why the hell did you have to go and tell me that?’
‘Because you’re my mate and you know I’m not a bloodthirsty killer.’ I paused. ‘But just in case you have to convince anyone else, what time was she killed?’
‘The pathologist says between ten and midnight last night. But not necessarily at this place; the mutilation was done here, clearly as you can see, but he believes that it must have happened some time after death, because of the absence of blood.’
‘In that case,’ I said, ‘you can take me off your suspect list. I was in Mike’s Restaurant with Jonny and Tom and quite a few other people until just before ten. From there I went home and phoned my dad. When we were done, I went online and wrote an email to my sister, telling her all about my week, and my new family member. I finished and sent it at ten minutes to twelve, and then I went to bed. The transmission time will be logged into my computer and there’ll be a record of the call on my phone.’
‘Thank you,’ he said, sincerely. ‘We’re both off the hook.’
‘So what have you got to go on?’ I asked, as we left the tent.
‘Nothing, other than I’m certain that the murderer is local.’
I frowned. ‘Why?’
‘Because he’s left the bodies in two remote areas. It was pure luck that they were found so quickly. This one was discovered by the chef in one of the restaurants along there, walking his dog. Only a local has that sort of knowledge.’
‘Tell me you’re kidding,’ I exclaimed. ‘Haven’t you heard of Google Earth? That will take you anywhere, and usually show you nice pictures as well. For example, you’re in your front garden in Google Earth’s street view.’
‘Yes, I’ve heard of it, but. .’ His eyes widened. ‘They can’t do that, Christ; I’m a cop.’
‘It’s okay,’ I assured him. ‘They pixelate all the faces, and car registration numbers. But what it means is that everyone’s a local, everywhere, when it comes to knowing the lie of the land.’
He ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Thanks,’ he moaned. ‘Now I have nothing to go on. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to be a suspect after all?’
‘I’d rather not, if it’s all the same to you.’ He looked really down, and so I did my best to raise his spirits. ‘Come on; it’s not all that black. You know who this victim is. The two were both killed in more or less the same way, by the same person.’
‘I can’t prove that,’ he muttered, gloomily.
‘Spoken like a defence lawyer.’
He shook his head. ‘No, spoken like our new prosecutor. She’s a hard woman to please.’
‘Then don’t go to her until you have to. What I’m saying is that when you look into Christine McGuigan’s background, she might point you at the identity of the first victim. They have to be connected; they must be. Fuck it, they are! They have a murderer in common. So it could well be that they knew each other and that when you look into McGuigan’s life you’ll find the first victim. And when you do, the next step is to find who else they had in common.’
He peered at me, from under his frowning eyebrows. ‘Since when were you a detective?’ he chuckled, if a little grudgingly.
‘You’re forgetting,’ I retorted. ‘I was once. There was a period in our lives, when Oz and I lived together in Glasgow, when we ran a private inquiry agency.’
‘You wouldn’t like to take it up again, would you? I’m up against it. With Hector on the sick list for God knows how long. . and maybe tied to a desk for the rest of his career. . I’m acting intendant, with two murders on my hands, and bosses in Barcelona who don’t listen to excuses.’
‘They’ll give you help, though, an extra pair of hands.’
‘They have done already. Magda’s been pushing for a move to criminal investigations; I’ve been told to use her, for now.’
‘Magda,’ I repeated. The sullen woman from the woods, the one who had tried to talk down to Tom, the Mystery of the Missing Personality.
‘Exactly,’ he murmured.
I looked around the crime scene, in vain. ‘So where the hell is she?’
‘She has a little girl. She couldn’t come at short notice, she told me.’
‘So have you, and you did.’
‘Yes, but I’m a man; I don’t have a choice.’ He nodded in the direction of another officer in paper clothing. ‘Neither did Jorge over there; it’s his wife’s birthday and he’s had to cancel a family lunch.’
‘Bloody nonsense!’ I exclaimed. ‘She’s at it.’
‘Maybe so, but they don’t know that in Barcelona. I’m stuck with her, which is only a little better than being on my own.’
I felt heart sorry for him; and a little worried. A job like his generates stress at the best of times, and when there’s someone in a small team who isn’t bearing her share of the load, it makes it worse. ‘So, tomorrow,’ I suggested, ‘give her a nice desk in your office. That one next to the toilets should suit her. Then gather up all your petty stuff, all your open burglary investigations and the like, and tell her to get to work on those.’
‘I can’t. All that has to be on the back burner till I make progress on these murders.’
‘In that case, give her a phone and a computer and tell her to find out all she can about Christine McGuigan.’
‘Fine, but I’ll have to tell her where to start looking.’ He paused. ‘The Novotel.’
‘Pardon?’
‘That’s where she said she was staying, remember. The hotel at the airport.’ He waved at his sidekick. ‘Jorge,’ he called out. ‘Let’s leave this to the technicians. Primavera’s given us a lead. You and I will take her back to her golf tournament, and then we will follow it up.’
Ten
It didn’t happen quite as smoothly as that, though. On the way south, Alex explained, politely but firmly, that certain things had to be done by the book, to keep the sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued prosecutor happy, and that it would be necessary for us to stop off at his office in Girona, for me to put everything I had told him on the record.
I was keen to get back to the action, but I didn’t argue. He had enough on his plate without me turning awkward. Back at the ‘Yard’, they went as fast as they could, but the clerical staff didn’t work Sundays and so Jorge had to transcribe the story I told to the tape, and that wasn’t his strong suit. It took him the best part of an hour before Alex was satisfied, but finally, I was able to sign it.
The final round was well under way by the time they dropped me at the course. The early starters, the also-rans who were playing for as many euro as they could pick up, were completing their week’s work, but only their families and managers were interested in them and so the stand by the eighteenth green was almost empty. Behind it, the main leader-board told me three things: the last match was playing the fifteenth hole, the closest challengers to the leaders were six shots adrift, and Jonny was eighteen under par, one shot behind the Irish kid, who had just birdied the fourteenth.
They were a fair distance from the clubhouse, and I was making my way against the flow of the crowds, so it took me a little while to reach them. Just as I did, I heard a roar; by that time my ear was attuned to gallery sounds so I knew that someone had just holed a putt for a birdie at least. I eased my way greenside, just in time to see young Irish pick his ball out of the hole, with an even wider smile than usual splitting his face in two. As he did so, his caddie handed the flag to Uche; a good sign, possibly, since it meant that Jonny had still to putt. I looked around for Tom, and saw him a few yards to my right. His face was expressionless, as he changed one of the numbers on his board, replacing the red nineteen with twenty.
The cheer had subsided as quickly as it had erupted, but I doubt that Jonny would have heard anything as he lined up the shot that faced him, five or six metres I judged, across a slope, downhill at the finish, virtually impossible to leave short yet impossible to stop once it had passed the hole. If his opponent had been allowed to place it, that’s the spot he’d have chosen. Jonny waved Uche to join him; they surveyed the line together, then the caddie backed off. By that time, I’d seen enough of Jonny in competition mode to know that when he made up his mind about a shot, he didn’t hang about. That’s how it was then: step up, line up, steady, stroke.