The Spanish Hotel Page 4

“As I understand it you had sex with her quite a number of times over quite a number of years.”

  “Well yeah. Well, not that many times.”

  “Did you have sex with her Tuesday night?”

  “Nah,” Tapper looked relieved. “Since that Valerie moved in I’ve steered well clear.”

  “Valerie? Who’s Valerie?”

  “The bird Sheila was shacked up with. Has she done a runner then?”

  “Sorry, maybe I wasn’t specific enough; Sheila Evans is alive and well. It’s Alice who died yesterday morning.” Collins took the bacon roll away from his mouth and put it back on the plate.

  “Oh shit,” Tapper leant back on the upright chair and put his hands behind his head. “That is bad news.”

  “So are you telling me…?”

  “Just a moment. Mel, take those two puppies of yours for a walk in the park would you.”

  Collins finally got the first bite of his breakfast as they waited in silence for Mel to come out of the kitchen and leave. She left without any pets in tow.

  “Lovely girl, but I don’t want her knowing my business.”

  “And by puppies you meant…”

  “Yeah, they’re the real double whammy. Good for trade, but even better for her tips. But tell me more about Alice, I still can’t believe it.”

  “The way this works is that you tell me more about Alice, not the other way round.”

  “Right you are,” Tapper dropped his elbows to the table and leant forward.

  “Can I just clarify the situation? During our little misunderstanding you implied some sort of sexual relationship with Sheila Evans.”

  “Alice was the one I really liked, but yeah, when the call came from Sheila, I answered it.”

  “I spoke with Sheila last night and she mentioned none of this,” said Collins.

  “She wouldn’t, would she? Sheila’s still a bit confused, if you know what I mean? But can we move this on, I need to know about Alice.”

  “Mr Tapper,” Collins spoke firmly. “Can we be quite clear on protocol? This is shaping up into a murder investigation, and for all I know you might turn out to be the prime suspect. So I decide what we talk about, and when we talk about it. Got it?”

  “Reading you loud and clear.” He put his hands together and drummed the first two fingers of the right one against the left.

  “When did you last see Sheila Evans?”

  “You do mean Sheila, not Alice?”

  “Sheila.”

  “A week ago yesterday, about ten-thirty at O’Neil’s, she had Valerie in tow. So it was a quick hello, and a quick goodbye. Our Sheila is always a bit wary, she thinks I might spill the beans about her need for the real McCoy now and then.”

  “So when was the last time you had sex with Sheila?”

  “At her uncle’s wedding. June sometime, first Saturday of the month I think. Though perhaps to be technically correct I should say the sex bit took place on the Sunday morning.”

  If only WPC Armstrong was here to witness this, thought Collins, what a steep learning curve it would be for her.

  “And Alice, when did you last see Alice Evans?”

  Before Tapper answered there were three loud bangs on the door. Collins looked over his shoulder to see a gang of five men wearing yellow hard hats. He reached into his inside pocket and pulled out his warrant card. Moments after he waved it their way, the fattest of the five men held up his middle finger and mouthed “Swivel” through the glass door.

  “Sorry about that,” said Tapper. “Some good business just walked down towards the supermarket though. Still, they’ll be back tomorrow. And just like you, they’ll tease Mel by asking for a couple of tasty baps instead of saying rolls. Now what were you asking?”

  Collins was about to defend his use of the word ‘baps’, but then placed it into the insignificant compartment. “When did you last see Alice Evans?”

  “A week ago yesterday. We met in O’Neil’s about an hour after Sheila left. One door closes and another opens, isn’t that what they say? I knew my luck was in when I saw her walk in. I mean, she wouldn’t arrive on her own, and so late in the evening, just to quench her thirst would she?”

  “I don’t know Mr Tapper, you tell me.”

  “Nah, she knows I’m always in there on a Wednesday, particularly if there’s a Champions League game on Sky. To be honest, that’s why I go there on a Wednesday night, not only for the football, but also because I know that people know I’ll be there. Does that make sense?”

  “I think I understand what you are saying.” Collins looked down at the one-and-a-half cold bacon rolls on the plate and decided he could not eat any more of them while dealing with a man who seemed to be from a different planet.

  “Do I take it you had sex with Alice that night?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And where would that have been?”

  “Here in the café. It was a bit of mutual back scratching. I knew she was keen, so I asked her to indulge a little fantasy of mine. Don’t worry though, I cleaned the preparation surfaces twice the next morning.” It was Tapper’s turn to glance at the two rolls.

  “Where were you between ten Tuesday night and eleven yesterday morning?” Collins asked the question he had been leading up to since he walked through the door a second time.

  “Tuesday evening and Tuesday night, I was at home with the wife. Yesterday morning, I was in here by six-thirty. We actually get quite busy about seven.”

  “At home with your wife?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And how can I contact Mrs Tapper to corroborate this?”

  “My guess is she’ll be back from the park soon, it’s only just up the hill.”

  “Mel?” Collins paused and clamped his tongue between his lips. “Is Mel your wife?”

  “Yeah, we got hitched a year ago last August. August twenty-fifth.”

  “Mr Tapper, I think I’ll take your alibi as read, but you do realise you as good as admitted to having sex with Sheila Evans while your wife was listening from the kitchen? Assuming Valerie moved in with Sheila after you got married that is.”

  “Nah I didn’t, that’s why I sent her for a walk.”

  “I think she will tell you otherwise when she gets back, and perhaps I shouldn’t be here when she does.”

  “Hang on, you can’t go without telling me what happened to Alice.”

  “Phone Sheila, she’ll tell you.” Collins stood up and tucked his newspapers under his arm. Smiling, he added: “Who knows, she might even let you sleep on her sofa tonight.”

  Chapter 4

  Detective Inspector Stuart Doyle closed the door to Collins’ office behind him and sat down. “What news from the Rialto?”

  “I’m meeting the mysterious Aisha late this afternoon and…”

  “So the embassy was okay about that? They gave you her details?”

  “Oh, the guy I spoke to today was a lot more forthcoming than the one I met yesterday. To be fair to yesterday’s man, I think he was relatively junior, and unsure about what he could and couldn’t say. Anyway, the important thing is that as soon as I’ve actioned a few things here, I will be on my way to meet the lady in question. The only thing I hope for is that I don’t find out she’s another of Jeff Tapper’s little circle of lady friends.”

  “Any more on what Alice actually did at the embassy?” Doyle asked.

  “Pretty well as her sister described it, booking flights and hotels. They were kind enough to show me the office where she worked along with two other women and a guy. It was not the sort of room where anything cloak and dagger would take place, people in and out of it all the time. It had a nice chandelier mind.”

  “To be honest, I would be very surprised if Saudi Arabia is behind Alice’s death,” said Doyle. “They’re not like that are they? They buy our aircraft and weapons, they let us and the yanks land and operate out of there during both Gulf wars. On the whole I think they’re quite a stabilising influence in the region.�
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  “Sex, that’s my bet on what is behind this,” speculated Collins. “Back when I was a DC it was all about wide-eyed boys going down the sewers to tunnel into a bank vault or turning over a security van, now it seems that every bloody case I head up seems to have sex lurking in the background.”

  “Is there something Sumitra has found out that you haven’t told me yet?”

  “Not really, no, nothing perverted like we sometimes get. Alice had had sex with someone the night before she died. As you know, there was a used condom wrapped in a tissue down by the side of the bed. The semen matched the male body hair found in the bed, so no surprises there. Therefore we know she had sex with just the one man that night, though we do also know that Alice was not adverse to sex outside of a loving relationship as it were. There is the possibility that she had an argument with someone that morning and we know she hit the fags big time, suggesting something was weighing on her mind. Then there’s her unusual dress, but if you think about it, maybe all it was is that she was entertaining in her silk robe when she decided to go out on the balcony for a cigarette. You might do that, mighten you? Just put on a coat and shoes to go outside, it was only four degrees C that morning, but the biggest bit of evidence floating around is this; ‘I told her about Spain’ malarkey.”

  “So you need to talk to this Aisha woman pretty pronto then,” stated Doyle.

  “I do, yes. The thing is though, there are two sides to a coin, and it is usually worth investigating both sides simultaneously. That’s when you tend to spot something is wrong. And the two sides to this particular coin are Aisha and Spain.”

  “George, you’re not sending me to Spain are you?” Doyle looked perturbed.

  “I’m investigating Aisha, so it obviously falls to the next most senior officer on the case to investigate Spain.”

  “Claire will kill me, I’ve been promising her this trip to Dublin for months.”

  “I would have had to cancel your leave anyway, this way you get to salvage something from it.”

  “How do you work that one out?”

  “Isn’t lateral thinking meant to be in every good detective’s toolkit?”

  “Are you suggesting it would be okay for me to take Claire with me?”

  “Why not? For the cost of a cheap flight you could have a bit of quality time together. The Met will be paying for your flight, the car hire and the hotel room. Just don’t go trying to get them to pay for Claire’s food and drink.”

  “So exactly what do you want me to do when I get there?”

  “Stay at the same hotel Alice booked on her credit card, and then be a detective. Investigate what she did there, what company she kept during her stay. If I knew what to look for, I wouldn’t ask you to go. Just go and see what you can find out.”

  “And Claire is just along for the ride, right?”

  “Absolutely. Whatever you do, don’t go getting Claire embroiled in this.” He paused a moment. “Whatever this is.”

  A disconsolate looking Doyle left his office and then Collins ran his finger down the list of internal telephone numbers. He then tapped the number into the phone on his desk.

  “Sergeant Foster, DCI Collins here. Would WPC Armstrong be available to come on an interview with a female who I am meeting in an hour or so?”

  “Sorry sir, we’ve had a nurse at the hospital being accused of stealing from a patient, Armstrong’s dealing with that at the moment.”

  “So she’s not in the station?”

  “Umm… Well she’s here, but she is just about to leave.”

  “Get someone else to go to the hospital would you?” Don’t ask, tell, that’s the way to deal with sergeants, thought Collins.

  “With respect sir, can I not offer you Moffat? She’s a good WPC. I assume you particularly want a WPC due to who you are interviewing?”

  “Your assumption is correct, but Armstrong has knowledge of the case. I cannot be continually explaining the case to one constable after another. I have other things to think about while we are travelling. Continuity is what I need.”

  “Would I be right in my next assumption sir? Will you be wanting a squad car thrown in?”

  “I was planning on using one from our pool, but now you mention it, a marked car might be more appropriate. I find security guards react quicker to a blue flasher than they do a warrant card, so it will probably make parking easier.”

  “Twenty minutes out in the yard okay for you then sir?”

  “Excellent.” Collins put the phone down.

  “Can I start by confirming you are Aisha Al Nuaimi and you were acquainted with Alice Evans?”

  “That is correct, yes.”

  “And what do you do here at the Foreign Office?”

  “My title is Executive Officer, but that doesn’t tell you much. Most of my work centres round liaison work with embassies, particularly Middle Eastern and Asian embassies. That’s how I met Alice.”

  Collins changed tack sharply. “Did you know Alice was dead?”

  He watched her gulp and moved her eyes up to the left before she answered.

  “Yes, her fall got a brief mention on the radio news this morning.”

  “Can you tell me how long had you had known Alice?”

  “Two years maybe, no sorry, more like three. We were not great friends, but we did get on well. Somehow we got into this routine of meeting for lunch. I say lunch, but really it was just a sandwich and a coffee at a Starbucks or the equivalent. We had this thing where we would never go to the same place twice.”

  “You referred to it as a routine, how often did you meet?”

  “Once a month, usually on a Wednesday, but the day was not set in tablets of stone. Not the second Wednesday in the month or anything like that.”

  “So tell me, if it was not set in tablets of stone, how was the date fixed?”

  “Email. Again, we did not formalise it, but it was usual for me to suggest the day and venue one month, and Alice would suggest the date and the venue the next month. Funny isn’t it, how people develop these patterns without ever actually agreeing to them.”

  “What did you talk about? Was it all Anglo-Middle Eastern politics?”

  “Ooh no, anything, but. We were just two women breaking the monotony of the daily grind at the office. We talked shop at meetings and conferences, but never during our lunchtime sessions.”

  “So these were not working lunches then?”

  “No, they were not working lunches.”

  “And would you know why Alice’s sister had the idea they were?”

  “No, some misunderstanding I guess. We met through work, but our lunches were separate from that.”

  “If you didn’t talk about work or politics, what did you talk about?”

  “Ooh, I don’t know, holidays, fashion, music. What do people talk about socially? Can you remember what you talked about the entire evening the last time you were down the pub?”

  “I think I might be able to if I was being interviewed in relation to a friend’s death,” rebutted Collins. “Now it’s interesting you used the phrase ‘the last time’, ‘the last time I was down the pub’. When was the last time you spoke to Alice?”

  “It was a Tuesday, so nine days ago.”

  “And what was the main topic of conversation on that occasion?”

  “The housing market. You probably know Alice’s landlord had given her six months notice to get out of her apartment, but had also asked her if she wanted to buy the place.”

  “No, I didn’t know that. Tell me more.” Collins glanced over at a label on the drawer of a grey filing cabinet behind Aisha’s left shoulder. The label read Iraq. Above it was one labelled Iran, and the one below it, Jordan.

  “As I say, she is about two months into her six months notice. The landlord asked to make an inspection visit, but really he was angling to see if he could sell the place to Alice and save himself the estate agent’s fee. I gave her my opinion for what it was worth.”

  “I
ndulge me. What was your opinion? And what was her response?”

  “I think prices in London are too high at the moment. Well, they are always too high, but I suspect they might adjust downwards over the next year or two. That is what I said to Alice, and I suggested that her landlord agreed with me. That is why he was trying to strike a deal now. As for Alice’s response, I think she was going to try and bargain him down a bit, but take on the millstone of a mortgage. She seemed to be applying the argument that she might as well be paying off the capital on her own place rather than paying rent on someone else’s property. Alice said she would crunch the figures on a spreadsheet.”

  Collins scanned the rest of the filing cabinets lined up regimentally along the back wall. Each drawer had the label of a different Middle East country on it, but they were not in alphabetical order. He became intrigued as to why they were organised the way they were. Suddenly it jumped out at him, it was as if the person labelling them was running their finger over a map, bouncing from one country to another. Looking over to the top drawer of the first filing cabinet confirmed his theory. He locked eyes with Aisha again, waited a few seconds, and then asked, “Did you not talk about anything else worth mentioning?”

  “Not that I remember.”

  “Did Alice not mention her trip to Spain?”

  “Oh yes, I remember now.”

  “What did she say about it?”

  “Just that she had a nice time, but she would not recommend the place to me. She said there was not much to do at the place they went to.”

  “Miss Nuaimi, just before she died, Alice told someone that she had told you about Spain. Now what did she tell you that was so important? Something that might well have been troubling her.”

  “Sorry officer,” Aisha shuffled on her seat, “It was a bit personal. That is why I was trying to avoid talking about it.”

  “Well death usually is a bit personal.”

  “Are you aware that Alice went to Spain with a man?” Aisha asked.

  “Yes I am, and I am rather hoping you can tell me the name of that man.”

  “Alice did not say who it was, just that he made her do something she did not want to do.” Aisha fell silent.