As Easy as Murder (27 page)

‘Eh?’

‘Mr Cowling wasn’t your run-of-the-mill public servant,’ I told him. ‘As I understand it he was the sort who might have made a few enemies in his career. He’s been rumbled by someone, that’s for sure. That’s why he got off his mark; no cover story for Shirl, no tearful farewell. He just waited until she turned her back on him, literally, and he ran for it.’

‘Bloody hell!’

‘Indeed. I had him down as a man who’d lost his bottle. I was planning to find him and give him a piece of my mind for messing up my pal’s life. But this connection that you’ve made, that changes everything.’ It occurred to me at that point that I should call Mark, to tell him not to bother tracing Major Fleur, but I decided that could wait till morning. He wouldn’t do anything until then anyway, and my vichyssoise was getting warm.

A
lex called me early next morning, just as Tom was leaving for school and Jonny was heading down to the beach with a mat, a towel and a book, a story called
The Loner
that I’d just read and thought he might enjoy. He couldn’t begin his schedule-planning with Brush until America woke up, but the European Tour press officer had warned him that he might have quite a busy day dealing with media, and so he decided that he’d better grab some relaxation time while he could. We’d spent the rest of our dinner date walking through old memories, some of them mutual, others confessions of a sort. The most surprising to me was Jonny’s revelation that he’d got a girl pregnant in his second year at college, a psychology major who hadn’t been as clever as she’d thought. She’d insisted on a termination, and he hadn’t argued. He’d felt guilty ever since; another reason for his self-imposed emotional isolation.

‘Don’t,’ I told him. ‘Her choice, not yours. That’s a moral maze and you were too young to get lost in it.’

‘When you found you were pregnant with Tom,’ he ventured,
‘after you and Uncle Oz had split up, did you ever consider having an abortion?’

‘Not for one micro-second,’ I replied. ‘Oh, I made a very bad choice in keeping him secret, but I was always going to have him. You see, the difference between your girl and me . . . I loved his dad.’ I looked him in the eye. ‘That’s why you’re screwed up about women, Jonny, isn’t it? It’s got fuck all to do with concentrating on your career.’

‘True. There are whispers already that I’m gay. Even on the amateur circuit, if you don’t have a girl in tow you’re looked on as odd. Among the pros . . . look no further than at the Ryder Cup. A guy gets divorced and there’s paper talk that the other players’ wives will freeze him out. They shouldn’t even be there! It’s a golf match, for fuck’s sake!’

His outrage made me laugh. ‘If you make the team next year,’ I suggested, ‘and you don’t have a girlfriend, you may find that your mother doesn’t share that view.’

I was still smiling as I picked up the phone next morning. ‘Can I come up for coffee?’ my friend asked.

‘And croissants, if you play your cards right. I’ve fed my guys, but I haven’t had my own yet. But shouldn’t you be heading in the other direction, for your office?’

‘You’re forgetting,’ he chuckled, ‘I’m acting boss. I decide where I go. Anyway, this is business of a sort.’

‘You’re not wrong,’ I agreed. ‘I have something to tell you as well.’

By the time he arrived, just over half an hour later, I was showered and dressed, out of the house dress that I normally throw
on when I get out of bed, and into denim cut-offs and a baggy T-shirt with a Gaudi motif, that I’d bought in Barcelona. By that time also, I’d phoned Shirley.

Her voice sounded bleary, and I guessed her eyes matched. ‘Sleepless night?’ I asked her.

‘Pretty much.’

‘I take it he hasn’t been in touch.’

‘No, not a cheep; not a phone call, not a text, nothing. He’s a son of a bitch; that’s the long and short of it.’

‘Maybe not,’ I said. ‘Maybe there was a good reason for him going, one that he couldn’t tell you about.’

‘Huh,’ she snorted. ‘That doesn’t wash with me. My idea of a partnership is that you don’t keep secrets from each other.’

She was quoting me back at myself. I’d said the same to her, word for word, not long after I’d moved back to St Martí and we’d renewed our friendship. ‘Yes,’ I conceded, ‘but remember this. We know that the man worked in a culture of secrecy. It’s his way; the sort of lifetime habit that can be hard to break.’

‘Are you trying to tell me you know something?’

‘No,’ I replied, truthfully. ‘I’m not trying to tell you anything. I’m asking how you are, that’s all.’ I heard the gate creak. ‘Look, I’ll come up and see you later. Bye for now.’

Alex reached the door just as I opened it. I let him in and told him he should go to the first-floor terrace, unless he didn’t want to be seen with me that early in the morning.

‘People will talk, you mean?’ he laughed. ‘Let them, I’ll be in good company. People talk about you all the time, Primavera. For
example, did you enjoy dinner last night? Are you sure the boy’s your nephew?’

‘How the hell did you know that?’ I demanded. ‘Have you got a spy in the village?’

‘Only you, my dear, I assure you. No, I called the office before I came here, and the sullen Magda was very quick to tell me about you. She and her boyfriend had dinner at Can Coll last night. She saw you walk past and go into Can Roura with, as she described him, your young lover. She added that a little later, when they were leaving, she looked in, through the open door and saw you kissing him.’

I felt myself flush up. ‘Yes, platonically. Alex . . .’

‘Hey,’ he said, in his soothing voice, ‘I believe you. But even if your tongue was down his throat like she said, it’s your business, not mine. Most certainly it’s not Magda’s. She is not going to enjoy the job I’m going to give her when I get to Girona. I’m only telling you because I don’t want you to hear the story first from anyone else. For all I know, she’s phoned a newspaper by now. For her sake, I hope not; I’ll end the career of anyone I catch spreading gossip from my office. Now,’ he said, briskly, ‘come on, girl, what about these croissants?’

I served them up on a tray, on the terrace, five minutes later. He’d finished the first of his before he said anything more. When he did, he began, ‘Jorge’s done some good work for me. He’s established that Christine McGuigan was what she said she was, a freelance journalist and photographer who used the name Christy Mann because it looked better on by-lines.’

‘It’ll look good on her tombstone too,’ I said, a little cruelly, I concede.

‘She was, as we knew already, twenty-seven years old,’ he continued, ‘born in Cork, Ireland, where her widowed father still lives. The Irish embassy in Madrid came up with her life story pretty quickly. She trained as a photographer on an evening paper in Dublin, then had a spell as a sports reporter with a satellite television station that’s no longer in existence.’ He paused. ‘She moved to Spain just over a year ago; that’s when she decided to become Christy Mann apparently. Since then she’s operated mostly on the Costa del Sol, but in other areas whenever she was given a specific commission. Most of her video work was for websites, but she did contribute photography to newspapers in Britain, Ireland and in Spain; all of it was as Christy. As Christine, she was a member of the National Union of Journalists of the UK and Ireland, but that lapsed. She never resigned formally; just stopped paying her subscription.’

‘What brought her to the golf tournament?’ I asked. ‘Did you find any lead in her room to who it was who hired her? She told me she was from an internet station that she called Spotlight Television, but given what became of her I don’t believe that any more.’

He picked up his second croissant. ‘Primavera, we didn’t find anything. She was in the Novotel, right enough; she checked in on Thursday afternoon; as Christine McGuigan, incidentally, even though there’s no evidence of her having used that name in Spain before. She had a lime-green suitcase, the clerk recalled. There was no sign of it, or anything else, in her room; it had been stripped bare. There was nothing left, not so much as a toothbrush.’

‘Bugger,’ I murmured. ‘Her killer really didn’t want her identified, did he?’

‘Clearly not,’ Alex agreed, ‘as he’s shown by removing every clue to her identity, including her face, as he did with his first victim. I’m sure he didn’t expect her to be traced to the Novotel, but he covered that base just in case. But this time, we’ve been lucky, thanks to your run-in with her. And to me asking for her passport,’ he added. ‘Jorge’s established that she’s used the name Christy Mann since arriving in Spain. It’s on her tax identification document, on her bank accounts, in the telephone directory, everywhere we’ve looked.’

‘Then why did she have her Christine passport on her when you asked her for it?’

‘Because it’s the only photo ID she had, and the airline she flew in on insist on that. She had to book her flight under her real name. Incidentally, she did that only on Wednesday, proving that she got a short-notice summons from whoever hired her.’ He grinned. ‘All that subterfuge overcome by a couple of pieces of blind luck. Without them, I doubt that we’d ever have identified the body. But we have, and that gives us an advantage. The murderer thinks he’s free and clear, but he’s not. Hopefully, just knowing who she is will lead us to him.’

His voice was more confident than his eyes. ‘But you’re no nearer to knowing what links her to the man in the woods, are you?’ I observed. ‘Or to understanding what got them killed.’

He shook his head, ruefully.

‘Then let me make your day,’ I said. From under the breakfast tray I took the large envelope I’d left there, and handed it to him.
He opened it and withdrew a series of photographs, prints that I’d made, using my own camera as an interface with my computer, of the images on Christine McGuigan’s memory card.

He stared at them, one by one. ‘What the hell are these?’ he hissed.

I told him, and explained how I’d come by them. ‘She had no interest in selling photographs of Tom,’ I said. ‘The connection between your two bodies is what, or rather who, you suspected it was after the first murder. It’s Patterson Cowling, and it seems bloody clear from his reaction that he knows it too. Yes, Alex, his disappearance is your business after all.’

He looked at the images, in silence, over and over again. He finished his second croissant, and his coffee. I poured him a refill.

Finally, he turned to me. ‘Primavera, you are a remarkable woman, and I’m proud that you’re my friend. But in the real world, little lady detectives don’t exist. As the last few days have shown you, close up, the real world is a very dangerous place. I thank you for giving this to me. Now I tell you in all seriousness: whatever it is you think you might do from now on, forget it. Every aspect of this, including Mr Cowling’s disappearance, is now a police investigation.’

‘But I could help more,’ I protested. ‘As for danger, I’ve known more in my life than you have, mate.’

He nodded. ‘I’m sure you have, in the days when you didn’t have a son.’

He had a point there, but I wasn’t giving in that easily. ‘Man, I’m not suggesting that I go chasing people with guns. But—’

‘No.’

‘You’re not even going to ask why he might be—’

‘Yes, but I’m not going to ask you. Primavera, I’m adamant. Up till now in this, I’ve humoured you, and yes, you’ve been very useful. But no more. Come on, don’t you have other work to do? Aren’t you going to get involved in your brother-in-law’s wine business?’

He had a second point. I had indeed promised Miles that I’d go there that very week for a tour of inspection by the manager.

I added a third.
So what?
From any viewpoint, Shirley had had a narrow escape. Whether he was only running from her voracity, or whether from real or perceived danger, he was not the kind, manly, uncomplicated, loving companion she thought she’d found and as far as I was concerned she was well shot of him. If he was out in the jungle with man-eating tigers on his tail, that was his problem . . . as long as my friend wasn’t on the menu herself.

‘You’ll look after Shirley?’ I asked. No, the way it came out it was a demand, not a question.

‘I will,’ he promised, getting my point, that someone might imagine she knew where Patterson was headed. ‘I’ll have her house watched, round the clock.’

‘You’ll only need to cover the back entrance,’ I said, ‘in Plaça Puig Sec. I’ve seen prisons with walls and gates that are smaller than she has at the front.’

‘I know,’ he agreed. ‘But just to be sure I can put movement sensors in her garden.’

‘I think you’ll find that she has them. Anything bigger than a cat going through there sets off her alarm. You don’t need to tell her
about this, do you? At the moment she doesn’t realise that Patterson’s in danger.’

‘I must. If there’s any sort of a threat to her, however slight, I have a duty to make her aware of it.’

‘In that case I could—’

He smiled. ‘No, Primavera. Credit me with a little diplomacy. She does know about the work he did, I take it?’

‘Yes.’

‘That makes it easier.’

‘And raises another question. Do you report this to your own . . .’ I paused, knowing nothing about Spanish security services. ‘Who exactly could you report it to?’