‘Are you interviewing me for a job here?’
‘No, I’m just trying to figure out what kind of a man you are. I mean, here we are in a foreign country where we have no legal jurisdiction, assisting the local police in the murder of a British national, and after five minutes on the case you go and punch the victim’s husband in the face.’
‘I didn’t punch him.’
‘What? Punch, head-butt, that’s beside the point.’
‘Then what’s the point?’
‘The point is I haven’t a clue why they’d send someone like you here.’
‘Someone like me?’
‘I’m not quite sure yet what you’re bringing to the table.’
‘What, because you have all the answers?’
‘No. I don’t. Not yet.’
‘So do you or do not know who killed Kim Walker?’
‘No, I–’
‘That’s why I’m here,’ Ryker said. ‘And that’s all you need to know.’
CHAPTER 16
The food came and Ryker blasted through his steak and chips in less than five minutes. He’d not had a full meal since boarding the first pond-hopping plane almost two days earlier. He wished he’d had some red wine to wash the food down with but he knew that with the combination of the heat, the early hour, and his groggy state, alcohol was the last thing he needed.
Green ate his food at a much more leisurely pace. ‘How much do you know so far?’ He took a swig of his wine.
‘Not a lot. I’d intended to talk to Walker about that, find the lay of the land. But we didn’t exactly get off on the right foot.’
‘No. You didn’t. And if you’d come to me beforehand, like I expected you to, then I’d have warned you against speaking to him anyway. He’s given official statements to me and the Spanish police on numerous occasions already. He’s grieving. This is a tough time for him – it’s only been a few days. We need to keep out of his hair if possible.’
‘If possible.’
‘He’s also got a prominent and rather noisy lawyer. Things will get messy for you very quickly if you’re not careful.’
‘Why is his lawyer involved?’
‘I’m not that bothered what your history is, but think about what you’re dealing with here. A man has lost his wife. You need to show some tact.’
‘Have you ruled him out?’
Green chewed on a bit of meat before answering. ‘Not officially. But I don’t think it was him.’
‘So what’s your theory then?’
‘You’re asking me? From what I gather it’s theories being spouted by the boffins back home that have caused you to be here.’
‘And which theories would those be?’
‘That Kim Walker wasn’t who she said she was. She was using a bogus identity. And she may have been killed as some sort of revenge attack because of her past.’
Ryker was a little surprised at how much of the true picture Green had figured out. Whether that was through his own work, official channels or simply the inevitable chin-wagging within police forces he couldn’t be sure. But he’d be careful not to give Green any tangible details of what he knew about the Red Cobra. Not unless he needed to.
‘And does that fit what you know?’ Ryker asked.
‘It could do. But at the moment we’ve got a lot of loose ends and no one knows what direction this investigation will go in. Kim Walker was pregnant, did you know that?’
‘Yes,’ Ryker said with a sickening feeling. Whoever Kim Walker really was, her murder was one of the most gruesome and heart-wrenching he’d ever seen.
‘Four months,’ Green said, a hint of anger in his voice. ‘The forensics team believe the baby died before she did, though how they can be so sure of that, I really don’t know. A blunt-force blow to Kim’s stomach was the most likely cause of the baby’s death.’ Green reached down into his briefcase and took some papers which he passed over to Ryker. ‘Kim was attacked as she walked into her house. The intruder was already inside, we think.’
‘No signs of forced entry.’
‘No, none. The husband, the maid, the gardener, the pool cleaner, anyone who knows that house, who had any kind of access, they all have solid alibis.’
‘No cameras?’
‘CCTV? No. The Walkers had decent enough security but they weren’t paranoid. Just good old locks and bolts.’
Ryker looked down at the papers. They included the same bloody photographs that Winter had already shown him. Ryker didn’t need to see those again. He handed them back to Green, averting his eyes from the gory images.
‘It was horrific,’ Green said. ‘The maid found her like that. Lucky, I guess, that it wasn’t the husband.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Kim was knocked unconscious with chloroform. She was raped. Her stomach was cut open while she was still alive. It’s not clear why. The baby wasn't taken out. There were numerous other stab wounds, slashes, all non-fatal. She was partly suffocated, a plastic bag put over her head and tied around her neck, but it was a blunt-force blow that killed her. One of several that she received to her face and head.’
‘And the scene?’ Ryker asked.
Green paused as a young couple – both with bright-white skin, Northern European tourists, no doubt – walked arm in arm along the street in front of the restaurant terrace. The grisly conversation was hardly something they’d be keen to overhear on their sunny Spanish getaway.
‘Kim was found in the entrance hall,’ Green carried on when the couple were out of earshot. ‘Attacked, beaten and killed in the same spot, it looks like, though the ordeal certainly wasn’t quick. We’ve found zero trace evidence of a third party. The house was clean. I mean, the maid seems to scrub that place from top to bottom every day from what I’ve seen anyway, but the area around Kim’s body was heavily bleached. The door and frame of the front entrance were thoroughly scrubbed down too, no prints on them. Not even Kim’s or Patrick’s.’
‘And no other trace evidence? Clothing fibres? Blood? DNA?’ Ryker asked.
‘Nothing. Maybe the killer was wearing a plastic suit. Gloves. Shoe covers. But nothing’s been recovered to confirm that.’
‘All in all very professional then.’
‘Very,’ Green said. ‘But also an absolute statement. A killer with that kind of forethought and knowledge of evidence transfer... I mean he could have taken the body and disposed of it, and we’d have no clue where Kim went or what happened.’
‘He?’
‘What?’
‘You said he. The killer.’
‘A figure of speech. An assumption.’
‘Those are two different things,’ Ryker said.
‘An assumption then. And she was raped. Yeah, perhaps with an object rather than a dick, but I’ve never seen a woman do a thing like that.’
‘You haven’t. I have.’
‘You don’t think the killer’s a he?’ Green said, perturbed. ‘You know something I don’t?’
‘I know lots of things you don’t.’
‘About this case?’