A Silent Death

by Peter May

  She blew exasperation through pursed lips and shook her head. ‘I always knew I didn’t like the English.’

  Mackenzie smiled. ‘Don’t worry. Neither do I. I’m Scottish. And I don’t much care for the Spanish either.’

  The squeal of tyres echoed around the car park as Cristina accelerated towards the exit, leaving rubber on concrete.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Cleland’s villa – actually Templeton’s villa, since it was rented in that name – sat in its own extensive gardens in an elevated position above cliffs that fell away to the A7 below. From its terrace it appeared as if the infinity pool poured itself in a long waterfall over the edge of the cliff, and the house was set far enough back for almost none of the traffic noise from the road to reach it. In fact, from the house you would not have known there was a road there at all. The view was straight out to sea towards North Africa.

  The sun was dipping now towards the west, throwing a pink cast across the few feathery clouds that stretched along the horizon. Palm trees in twos and threes were dotted around the grounds, among a profusion of flowering shrubs: bougainvillea, jasmine, oleander. Pink, red, white. A large Mediterranean pine cast a deep shadow at the end of the garden. The warm evening air was heavy with its fragrance.

  It was the first time that Cristina had been back to the villa since the night of the shooting. She drew in behind the Guardia jeep parked outside the gate, and waved acknowledgement to the two officers sitting smoking inside it. She and Mackenzie stepped over the crime-scene tape stretched across the open gate and started up the path towards the porticoed main entrance which was at the back of the house.

  They had taken a diversion into Estepona on the way here for Mackenzie to buy what he needed for a stay of indeterminate length. Cristina had driven the police SUV along the pedestrian Calle Real and parked, lights flashing, outside a shop selling men’s clothes at budget prices.

  Mackenzie had given her a look. ‘Is it legal to park here?’

  ‘We’re the police.’

  ‘Which doesn’t mean we’re above the law.’ He recalled being on the end of a similar look from the traffic cop on Boston Road in Hanwell just a few days earlier.

  ‘It’s an emergency,’ Cristina had told him dryly.

  And he’d frowned. ‘What emergency?’

  ‘An underwear emergency. Apparently.’

  Mackenzie had emerged ten minutes later with two large plastic carrier bags bulging with his purchases, and presented her with a receipt to be reclaimed on police expenses. He had asked if she would like to see what he’d bought. She had not even thought it worthy of a response and driven off in silence.

  Now she was filled with apprehension. Just being here, albeit in daylight, brought back the full horror of that night, whose consequences had not yet played themselves out.

  Mackenzie caught her by the arm to stop her on the path. ‘Tell me exactly what happened,’ he said, and reluctantly she took him through the events which had unfolded in the dark that fateful night. From the discovery that the gates had been forced, to Matías’s stumble on the front terrace, over what later turned out to be a heat lamp, to Cristina’s entry through the open door. Her recollection of the moment that had almost certainly saved her life was unbearably vivid. Cleland silhouetted suddenly in the inky dark by light spilling from the bedroom behind him. His panic as he swung around to discharge his weapon three times at the figure who had stepped into the light. And then the realization that he had just shot his lover as she emerged in all innocence from the bedroom. Cristina could still see the blood pooling on the floor around the dead girl’s body, and hear the anguish that ripped itself in anger from Cleland’s throat as he directed blame for his actions entirely at her.

  She relived every moment of it before returning to the present and becoming aware of Mackenzie’s eyes on her, his fingers still wrapped gently around her arm. She saw intensity in his hazel eyes. And something else. Not pity. Sympathy. But she was not sure she wanted the sympathy of this big Scotsman who towered over her, taller than most of her colleagues. Freckle-spattered skin, strangely pale as if it never saw the sun. She retrieved her arm from his grasp.

  ‘Do you have the key?’ he said.

  She nodded.

  ‘Then let’s go in.’

  *

  The door opened into a strange stillness, the air dusted with dusky light from all the windows that let it in from every wall and ceiling. The hall was wide and ran the length of the house from back to front, leading into a main living area on two levels, and acres of sliding glass that opened on to the terrace beyond, with its view of the sea.

  Cristina found herself almost afraid to breathe, and could barely bring herself to look at the large patch of red-brown that stained the marble tiles. She could not help stepping over it, almost as if the body were still there, haunting her, blaming her as Cleland had done.

  ‘Is this the master bedroom?’ Mackenzie asked, as he pushed open the door to their left. Cristina nodded mutely and followed him in. It was where Angela had passed the last moments of her life.

  It was a large room, its cold marble floor strewn with handmade Chinese rugs. Through French windows it had its own terrace that gave on to the garden at the side. A glass table and two chairs stood on the terrace. Cristina imagined Cleland and Angela sitting drinking coffee first thing, enjoying the warmth of early morning sunshine on this east-facing side of the house. She wondered what they had talked about. How much Angela had known about what he did, or who he really was. They would probably never know.

  Mirrored wardrobe doors that rose from floor to ceiling reflected a king-size bed, fully made up. The couple had left earlier in the day, not expecting to return that night. Why had they come back? Forensics officers had been through every centimetre of the place, every cupboard, every drawer, every hidden space, but all they had found that might have brought Cleland back was a folder lying on the desk in his study. And all it contained were colour catalogues of luxury yachts, pictures and prices, names, addresses and phone numbers of agents. Had Cleland been a prospective purchaser?

  Mackenzie slid open the wardrobe doors. Angela’s clothes hung on one side, Cleland’s on the other. She had far fewer than he. ‘Looks like he’d been living here longer than her,’ he said. ‘Do we know where and when they met?’

  Cristina shook her head.

  Mackenzie ran his hands along the softness of the hanging trousers and jackets, stopping from time to time to examine labels, then crouching to cast his eyes over the rows of polished shoes tilted along racks on the floor. He could feel Cleland here, smell him. The body oils exuded by the skin, his aftershave, his cologne, as though he had just stepped out a few minutes earlier.

  ‘He liked his clothes,’ he said. ‘Image-conscious. Designer labels. Italian shoes. Not cheap. How much did he pay in rental for this place?’

  ‘Five thousand a month.’

  Mackenzie raised an eyebrow. ‘And maybe as much on clothes by the look of it. What was he driving?’

  ‘Mercedes. A-Class.’

  Mackenzie nodded. ‘If they haven’t already done so, it would be a good idea for forensics to check the addresses listed in his sat-nav. I wonder where he did his banking.’

  ‘The financial people said Templeton had an account at the Banco Popular in Sabanillas.’

  ‘I bet there wasn’t much in it.’

  ‘About twenty thousand apparently.’ Which seemed a lot to Cristina.

  Mackenzie nodded again. ‘It’s not where Cleland did his banking though. He would almost certainly have had several accounts at different banks under various names. I don’t suppose forensics found bank statements?’

  ‘Only for the account in Sabanillas.’

  They moved on, then, to the living space at the front of the villa with its open-plan dining area and an impressively equipped kitchen. Mackenzie crouched to bring his eyes level with the black granite work surface on the island, then stood up to sheaf through the cho
pping boards stacked at one end. He removed several kitchen knives from their wooden block and examined the cutting edges.

  Cristina watched in silence as he looked in each of the drawers and opened the doors of all the wall cabinets, before examining the contents of the big American fridge plumbed in for ice on tap. She had no idea what he was looking for.

  ‘I would have loved a kitchen like this,’ he said. ‘I’d have made better use of it than Cleland.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I mean he was no cook. The work tops are pristine, chopping boards unused. His knives are razor-sharp, suggesting that unless he was obsessive about keeping them sharpened, they’ve had only very occasional use. There’s precious little in the way of food in the house, so apart from breakfast they probably ate out most of the time, or had food delivered. If we find out where he ate, we might learn who he ate with – apart from Angela. Known associates. It’s a starting point.’

  None of this, Cristina realized, would ever have occurred to her, and she found herself grudgingly impressed.

  Mackenzie spent the next twenty minutes just wandering around the house, touching things, picking them up, laying them down, absorbing Cleland through his personal possessions, while Cristina followed at a discreet and silent distance.

  In the study he went through all the desk drawers. The shallow topmost drawer contained pens and pencils, an eraser, a sharpener, paperclips, a small screwdriver and some loose coins.

  Cristina said, ‘Forensics took his computer, and the folder, and all of his documents, as well as the contents of the bin. Apparently it was full of strips of paper from a shredder.’

  Mackenzie ran his eye quickly around the room and spotted the shredder sitting on a cabinet against the back wall, next to a laser printer. Beside the printer a white cylindrical object with rounded edges encased in a fine mesh, stood about seven inches high. He crossed to examine it. Coloured lights flashed on its top surface when he touched it.

  ‘What is it?’ Cristina came to stand beside him, inclining her head to look at it with curiosity.

  ‘It’s an Apple HomePod. They might have taken his computer, but if this is still connected to the internet his music is probably in the cloud.’

  Cristina had no idea what he was talking about.

  Mackenzie said suddenly, ‘Hey, Siri. Resume.’ And immediately the room was filled with the sound of a dead man’s voice. Luciano Pavarotti’s soaring rendition of Puccini’s ‘Nessun Dorma’. The last thing Cleland had been listening to. ‘Stop,’ he said. Then, ‘Let me hear my favourite playlist.’

  Now the room resounded to strains of Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. And it only served to underline for Mackenzie the difference between the two men. Cleland with his private education and privileged upbringing, schooled in the appreciation of classical music and opera, while Mackenzie had been listening to Skid Row and Tom Petty and Sheryl Crow.

  As Gaetano evoked the windswept slopes of Sir Walter’s Scott’s Lammermuir Hills, Mackenzie turned his attentions to Cleland’s shredder. Sometimes when a shredder’s bin was full, the shredding device itself would jam. He removed its bin. Empty. But several shreds of paper hung loose from the mechanism above. He crossed to the desk and retrieved the screwdriver he had seen earlier, then returned to the shredder to carefully unscrew and remove the lid that covered the paper feeder. And there, jammed between the teeth that shredded documents delivered by the rollers, was the crumpled top third of a sheet of paper.

  Very delicately, Mackenzie eased it free, then smoothed it out on top of Cleland’s desk. Cristina peered over his shoulder as he bent over it. ‘What is it?’ Even she didn’t know why she was whispering.

  ‘A letter or a bill of some kind. The bulk of it’s gone, but we have the letterhead. A name and address.’

  She read aloud. ‘Condesa Business Centre. That’s at the port.’

  ‘What port is that?’

  ‘Puerto de la Condesa. It’s ten minutes along the coast, just before you get to Santa Ana.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Puerto de la Condesa was clustered around a sheltered inlet between Santa Ana de las Vides to the east and Castillo de la Condesa to the west. Built in the style of a traditional Spanish pueblo, with white-painted walls below red Roman tiles, colonnades and arches on three levels led to shaded plazas jammed with bars and restaurants. Reflecting white and red in the still blue waters of a crowded marina, the port derived a distinctive identity from a blue and white faux lighthouse at the open end of its breakwater.

  Cristina told him that most people thought the puerto dated back to the sixteenth century, like Marviña itself. In fact it had been built in the 1980s by a developer trying to add a touch of class to what had become known as the new Golden Mile.

  Apartment complexes built around tropical gardens dotted the surrounding hillsides, spoiled only by the later development of ugly serried blocks of jerry-built apartments more reminiscent of 1960s British council estates – sunshine being the only differentiating factor.

  Cristina parked at the entrance to the port and she and Mackenzie climbed to the second level, passing bars that advertised large-screen football for British and Scandinavian holidaymakers, a fish-and-chip shop, a laundry, a café advertising full English breakfast. Through an archway they emerged into the Plaza de la Fuente, with its fountain sparkling in the slanting evening sunlight. Tables belonging to Argentinian and Italian restaurants were laid out in the square, and the smell of food reminded Mackenzie just how hungry he was. He had still not eaten since the morning.

  They entered a colonnade mired in shadow and felt the temperature drop. The Condesa Business Centre was set back on the right, behind sandwich boards offering tours to Gibraltar and Ronda and Tangier. Its windows advertised a variety of services, from internet access and mailboxes, to passport renewals, photocopying and fax.

  Tourists in shorts and open sandals sat huddled over computers in its dingy interior, indulging in their daily fix of the worldwide web. From behind a counter a tanned young man with a crop of sun-bleached hair offered them a cheery greeting in a very English accent.

  ‘Evening folks. What can I do for you good people today?’

  But Mackenzie couldn’t help noticing the slightly apprehensive eye he cast over Cristina’s uniform. He placed the crumpled and torn top third of the Condesa Business Centre letterhead on to the counter top. ‘Yours?’ he asked.

  The young man glanced at it. ‘Looks like it.’

  ‘You have a client called Ian Templeton.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘I have hundreds of clients. I don’t recall them all by name.’ He paused. ‘And you are?’

  ‘Investigator John Mackenzie of the National Crime Agency. I’m working on secondment with the Spanish police.’ He tipped his head towards Cristina, and both men dropped their eyes to the diminutive figure of the young Spanish policewoman. She breathed in to puff up her chest and try to look taller.

  ‘Okaaay . . .’

  ‘And you are?’ Mackenzie said.

  ‘Dickie Reilly.’

  ‘This your place?’

  ‘It sure is.’

  ‘Well, Mr Reilly, we would very much appreciate it if you would check your customer list and tell us if you have an Ian Templeton on your books.’

  Both men were startled by the force with which Cristina slapped a photograph of Cleland on to the counter in front of him. She seemed immediately abashed and said quickly, ‘This might help.’

  It was the first time Mackenzie had heard her speak English. In an oddly rough voice with a thick accent, as if she were a smoker.

  Reilly turned it around to look at it. ‘Oh, yeah, him. He’s a regular. Couldn’t have told you his name, though.’ He searched under the counter for a large hardback notebook and flipped through it until he found the name. ‘Lives up in La Paloma.’

  ‘Yes,’ Mackenzie said. ‘Does he have a mailbox here?’

>   ‘He certainly does.’ Reilly gave him what he clearly believed to be a winning smile. Mackenzie did not return it.

  ‘We’d like to see the contents.’

  Reilly’s smile didn’t waver. ‘I’m afraid that wouldn’t be possible, Mr Mackenzie. At least, not without some kind of warrant. Customers’ mailboxes are private.’

  Cristina said, ‘You’ve been in Spain long, señor?’

  Reilly looked uncomfortable for the first time. ‘About five years, officer.’

  ‘Official resident?’

  He attempted a laugh, and waggled his outstretched palm. ‘Sort of.’ But his smile was fading.

  Mackenzie said, ‘Either you are or you aren’t.’

  ‘Well . . .’

  Cristina interrupted. ‘This place . . .’ She waved her hand vaguely around the office. ‘You have many computers here. You have health and safety certificate?’

  Reilly raised his hands in submission. ‘Look, okay.’ He glanced nervously along the rows of computers and lowered his voice. ‘But this is strictly unofficial. My business is dependent on confidentiality.’ He turned to a board on the wall behind him. It was hung with rows of keys, each with its own tab. He selected one and handed it to Mackenzie. ‘Number one-two-seven.’

  An entire wall beyond the counter was lined with numbered mailboxes. Reilly busied himself, pretending to ignore them, as they found and opened the mailbox Cleland had rented in the name of Templeton. There were five envelopes inside it. One contained an advertising circular from a wine store in Puerto Banus, another a quarterly subscription reminder from a gymnasium here in the port. The other three were bank statements.

  Mackenzie opened them with a sense of anticipation. Three accounts. Three different banks. A cumulative total of nearly two million euros. He heard Cristina’s tiny gasp at his side. He turned towards her. ‘We can have this money seized. It’ll hurt him. Maybe cut off his source of ready cash. But it’s not all of it, that’s for sure.’ He lifted the subscription reminder. ‘Let’s go see who he pumped iron with.’