Read Online Blood Red by Quintin Jardine - Free Book Online Page A

Africa for a while in a combat zone. Decomposition has a different timetable in the heat.’
    ‘So how long would you say he’s been here?’ asked Garcia, who had climbed the stairway. ‘Our medical examiner . . . he’s gone back to his barbecue . . . says at least three days.’
    ‘Then he’s a fucking idiot . . . pardon my English. If he’d been here for three days in these hot weather conditions he’d be starting to go black; he might even have burst open. I’d say less than two days, that he died Friday night or Saturday morning.’
    ‘And you know better than our doctor, do you?’ he sneered. ‘It’s possible; his housekeeper comes in three days a week; her husband says that she was here on Friday, but that she has her own keys and often comes when he’s not here. So he could have been lying here all that time and she might not have known. The husband, the gardener, he was last here on Wednesday.’
    ‘In this instance, I do know better than your medic. I had a meeting with Senor Planas in his office . . .’ I checked my watch; it showed 2 p.m., ‘. . . exactly two days and two hours ago.’
    ‘And I had a visit from him in mine two hours after that,’ Justine added. ‘And I promise you he was alive when he left, frustrating as I may have found that.’
    Alex winced. ‘What happened?’ I asked him.
    ‘The doc reckons that he probably had a heart attack and fell over the wall. The back of his head’s smashed in.’
    ‘He fell backwards?’
    ‘Seems that way. Accidental death.’
    ‘Yes, Sub-inspector Guinart,’ Gomez conceded. ‘That’s what we thought when you left to collect Senora Michels. But after you had gone, one of the technicians found this, grasped in his hand.’ He reached into his pocket, took out a transparent evidence bag, and held it up.
    All I could see was white plastic. ‘What is it?’ I murmured.
    ‘According to Garcia, who says he knows these things, it’s part of a priest’s collar.’

Thirteen
    I ntendant Gomez said no more about his find. Instead he questioned Justine and me, courteously, about our recent difficulties with the late councillor. We told him how the situation had developed, how I had confronted Planas and how he had come up with his proposition.
    ‘I wish you had come to me with this,’ he declared, ‘and made a formal complaint. I would have started an investigation at once.’
    ‘And you’d have been tied in knots,’ the mayor told him. ‘That old man was as slippery as a shoal of eels.’
    Gomez smiled. ‘I’m the son of a fisherman,’ he said. ‘My father was a trawler skipper, and I used to go out with him. I’m used to eels.’
    ‘Maybe not this one.’
    ‘We’ll never know now.’
    He also asked me about Ben Simmers, and about his attitude to the demand for money. ‘He knew nothing about it,’ I told him. ‘He left all that side of the organisation to me.’ That seemed to satisfy him.
    ‘And you were going to pay the money? Such a ridiculous amount?’
    ‘It would have been worth it . . . and afterwards I’d still have let the world know about it. I’d made no vow of secrecy.’
    That was all he asked us. Matthew Reid’s name had never come up during our exchanges, and I saw no reason to volunteer it.
    The interview had just finished, when we heard running footsteps behind us. Justine and I turned, just as Angel Planas appeared from the front of the house. ‘Where is he?’ he demanded, glaring at Gomez as he approached. Justine laid a hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged it off.
    ‘I’m sorry, Angel,’ she whispered, but he ignored her.
    ‘Come on,’ said Alex Guinart, to us. ‘You’re finished here. I’ll take you home.’
    ‘Why did you come for the mayor?’ I asked him, as we walked towards his vehicle.
    ‘Gomez asked me to,’ he replied. ‘When she told me about your trouble with the old guy, I thought it best to save some time by bringing you along.’
    He said nothing more as we drove back.