‘It won’t always be that way, Mia. You’re not done with those pesadillas yet. I doubt if you ever will be.’ I didn’t dwell on the thought. ‘So, that done and dusted, how did you get the body into the river?’
‘Ignacio found a big blanket chest in her bedroom. It was big enough to take her, so we crammed her in there. We checked there was nobody around, then between us we got it downstairs and into the van. We took the money too; she had that in a supermarket bag in the kitchen.’
‘Why? Why did you do all that? Why not just leave her there?’
‘Now, I don’t know for sure,’ she admitted. ‘I suppose we hoped it would give us time to get out of the country before she was found. And it did.
‘There’s a road beside the river where I used to go running when I was on Airburst. We took the van down there and got lucky. It was high tide; we took her out, stripped her clothes off so there was nothing to identify her, and dropped her into the water off some rocks, then we heaved the chest in after her. Then we headed home. We took the clothes and burned them on the way.’
‘As you burned your old bodega?’ I held a hand up, stopping any response. ‘No, don’t answer that. That happened here in Spain, so I don’t want to know, just in case I’m ever asked whether I do or not.’
I picked up my beer and drained most of it, then looked at them, first at my son, and then at his mother. ‘What’s the bottom line, Mia?’ I asked her. ‘What do you want from me?’
‘I want you to protect Ignacio. And I want you to give me a head start. If I’m arrested, it all comes out, and your career will be over. You couldn’t possibly be appointed to that big new job.’
I looked back at her and felt utter despair wash over me. ‘So fucking what?’ I hissed. ‘When Sarah and I were over here,’ I told her, ‘I decided that I’m withdrawing my application. I don’t want the job. It’s not for me. If that means my police career is over, so be it. My job doesn’t get me up in the morning, not any more. Sarah does, and my children do. Earlier you said to me that I didn’t know what I’ve done. Well, neither do you.’
‘Yes I do,’ she protested. ‘Exactly.’
I shook my head. ‘No you don’t. You could have protected him eighteen years ago, by telling me about him. Do you think, seriously, that I wouldn’t have acknowledged him? Of course I would; I’d never have considered otherwise.
‘You and me, that might not have worked, but as his mother, you would have been untouchable, by Bella, by Tony Manson, by anyone who feared my wrath descending upon them.’
I had to pause to stem my rising anger.
‘But you didn’t,’ I hissed at her. ‘Instead you’ve destroyed our boy.’
‘How?’ she protested.
‘Your story is flawed, Mia. It doesn’t work. My wife did the post-mortem examination of your mother. She will stand in the witness box at any trial and say under oath that the angle of Bella’s wounds prove that she was killed by the person, a much taller person than her, who restrained her from behind. You couldn’t have done it; you’re no taller than she was, and you’re probably not strong enough. It was Ignacio that killed her, not you, and all three of us here know it.’
I looked at him and he nodded. ‘Perdon, Papa,’ he whispered. ‘Lo siento.’
‘I’ll confess to it, Bob.’ Mia’s protestation turned to pleading. ‘I have done, to you, and I’ll stick to it.’
I’d have been happy to let her, but I was forced to set her straight.
‘You can confess until they make you a saint, but proof of guilt is still required in Scotland, and if your story can be disproved forensically, the worst thing that can happen to you is five years for obstructing justice. It won’t help Ignacio. Because there’s more.’
‘How can there be?’
‘The ottoman. The blanket chest. You should have taken it away with you and burned it as well,’ I said. I was angry with her, and that confused me as, after all, I was sitting with a murderer and his accomplice.
‘The fucking thing washed up on the other side of the Firth,’ I said. ‘The local bobbies thought nothing of it, but Edinburgh asked about it and it was handed over. The Fife people hadn’t even bothered to look inside. When the investigators did, they found your mother’s blood, and they found a kitchen knife with two sets of DNA traces on it. They’ve been able to match them to Bella and to Ignacio. And just to put the tin lid on it, they found other blood traces in the box. There was a nail on the inside, with skin fragments on it.’
I turned to Ignacio. ‘The last time we met you had a plaster on the back of your left hand, isn’t that right?’
He nodded, extending it towards me, so that I could see a scar, healed but still vivid, and recent.
‘You tore the back of your hand open when you put your grandmother’s body in the chest, or when you took it out. Either way, it’s crucial, incontrovertible evidence. And it’s done for you.’
Mia reached out and caught my arm, gripping it hard. ‘Surely you can do something about that. In your position you can destroy evidence.’
‘Do you know what I did yesterday?’ I asked her. ‘I spent much of it destroying what’s left of the life of an old man, an old friend, an old colleague, because he did just that. Now you’re asking me to do the same thing.’
‘Yes,’ she acknowledged, ‘I am. Will you?’
Would I have? I hope not, but I’ll never know for sure, because the question was academic by then.
‘Even if I tried,’ I sighed, ‘it’s too late. Sammy Pye and his people in Edinburgh have proved beyond the faintest, most unreasonable doubt that Bella Watson was killed by her grandson.
‘They know that she had two grandsons, and that the other one did not do it. Because of that. .’ I took my iPad from a pocket of my jacket, activated it and showed her a document that appeared on screen. ‘That’s a European arrest warrant, sworn out today in Edinburgh, in Ignacio’s name. They don’t issue those just to pick up suspects, only for people who will be charged with a specific offence, in this case, murder.’
I pointed through the plastic screen and across the road. Neither Mia nor our son had noticed the car that had been parked there for several minutes, or the two men who were standing beside it.
‘See those guys?’ I said. ‘They’re detectives of the Catalan police force. When I saw that warrant, I was duty bound, as a serving police officer, to seek to enforce it. I arranged for them to be here, Mia, because I had a suspicion that I would be meeting the man named on it. However, I had no suspicion that he was my son. So, my dear, you have put me in the position of being forced to hand him over.’
‘You could say it isn’t him,’ Mia suggested, hopelessly.
‘But John knows it is,’ I pointed out. ‘He’ll have his name on his employment records. Those cops know John; everybody in fucking L’Escala knows John.’
‘He could run for it.’ She was desperate.
‘No way. Those cops are armed; I’m not having him shot trying to escape.’
‘They could take me instead.’ She was starting to cry.
‘No, they couldn’t. Mia, you didn’t leave any DNA in the apartment, and you were never photographed behind the wheel of your van. Any traces you might have left on the outside of the chest were washed off in the water. There is no evidence that you were ever there.’
I glanced across the road again, and saw the two detectives begin to move towards us.
‘This is what’s going to happen,’ I said, quickly. ‘They’ll take Ignacio into custody, and I will ensure that he’s extradited to Scotland at once. I can have two guys on a plane tomorrow. Once he’s there,’ I promised, ‘I’ll arrange for his case to be handled by the best young lawyer in Scotland, who just happens to be his half-sister.
‘Mia, you’ll get yourself to Edinburgh and you’ll tell the story of what happened. . the true story, mind, all of it. . to Detective Inspector Sammy Pye.’
I took Ignacio by the arm and drew him to his feet.