An address was found for the credit card details Persephone had sent to them. The cardholder was indeed a Russian, by the name of Alexander Kuznetsov. He lived in Taunton, not too far from the address Jeremy Perrin’s company was registered at.
‘Are you going to pay him a visit?’ asked Carson.
‘I think we should,’ answered Ottey.
‘Be interesting to hear what he has to say,’ Carson went on.
‘He’ll say nothing,’ ventured Cross.
‘What makes you so sure of that?’ asked Carson.
‘If Perrin is anything to go by, George could well be right,’ said Ottey.
‘This man has been intimidating our victim, together with two other men. It’s unlikely they’re doing it for themselves. They’re employed by Perrin, so why don’t you start with him? Then if, as you suspect, you get nowhere, go to Kuznetsov’s address early doors and follow him. See where he takes you,’ suggested Carson.
‘Excellent suggestion, sir,’ said Cross.
‘Thank you,’ said Carson, leaving. He turned at the door. Ottey knew exactly what he was doing. Checking if Cross was being sarcastic. Then he remembered it was George and so just left, rather pleased with himself.
*
‘Alexander Kuznetsov,’ said Cross, to Jeremy Perrin minutes later, on the phone.
‘Let me look into it,’ Perrin replied.
‘You don’t recognise the name?’ asked Cross.
‘I do not. But I have several employees on my payroll, Sergeant.’
‘I’ve seen your company accounts as filed at Companies House, Mr Perrin. Your turnover hardly suggests having such a large workforce that you’d be unable to recognise one of their names,’ retorted Cross.
‘Was there anything else, DS Cross?’
‘No,’ he replied, but lost out in the phone-going-down-first competition.
*
At seven the next morning, Cross walked out of Tony’s café beneath his flat, with a china mug of tea, a takeaway cup of coffee and an old-fashioned greaseproof paper bag containing a bacon sarnie for Ottey. She took hold of the bag greedily from Cross, biting into it so quickly that he actually thought she’d bitten through the paper.
‘Oh my god, it’s worth getting up this early just for one of Tony’s bacon sandwiches,’ she said. ‘Best in Bristol, don’t you think?’
What Cross was actually thinking was that he wished she wouldn’t speak with her mouth full. He was about to say something when she continued.
‘He should have a Michelin star, just for this,’ she said as she leaned over him in the passenger seat, which he found most alarming, and motioned her thanks to Tony who was standing in the café window. ‘Thank you!’ she yelled. Cross was horrified as he saw a piece of toast fly out of her mouth and onto his lap. He was paralysed.
‘Oops,’ she said, scooping it up and horrifying him even further by popping it straight into her mouth. She saw the look on his face. ‘Mother of two,’ she said by way of explanation, which just left him even more perplexed.
‘He can’t possibly hear you,’ said Cross, making sure she didn’t spill his tea.
‘He knows what I’m saying,’ she replied.
In truth the generosity and thoughtfulness of this breakfast treat, whenever she picked Cross up from his flat early in the morning, had nothing to do with him. The first time it happened, Tony was making Cross a cup of tea in the café when he noticed Ottey waiting in the car outside.
‘Your lift?’ he asked Cross.
‘My colleague,’ he replied.
‘What does she want?’ asked Tony.
‘For me to get into her car.’
‘To eat and drink, George.’
‘Nothing.’
‘You asked her, and she said nothing?’
‘I did not.’
‘So how do you know?’ he asked without waiting for an answer. He made her a coffee and a bacon sandwich, which she loved, Cross had told Tony the next day. From then on, whenever Ottey picked Cross up early for work, she was treated to a coffee and a bacon sandwich. This was made sweeter and all the more rewarding when she discovered that Tony actually charged Cross for it.
*
Ottey parked a hundred yards or so down the road from Kuznetsov’s flat. The Mercedes SUV was parked in the paved front garden. He lived in a flat of a mid-century two-storey, suburban dwelling. A time to Cross’s mind when architects seemed to be devoid of either ideas or taste. Universally bland seemed to be the rule of thumb when it came to the suburbs of that era. Almost as if it was your fault you ended up there and this was all you were getting in return. Or maybe it was an architectural brainwashing of the population, telling them that life was dull, so just muddle along and don’t have any ideas out of the norm, or make any trouble.
The Russian appeared just after eight, got into his vehicle and drove off. Ottey duly followed. They drove for just under half an hour, ending up deep in rural Somerset. They then found themselves driving alongside a long stretch of beautifully renovated stone wall, at least a mile long. It was typical of many country estates in Somerset, but not all owners had the financial wherewithal to fix their perimeter walls to this extent. Kuznetsov turned off the road and pulled up to a grand set of black and gold iron gates. He pressed a code into an entry post. The gates opened and he drove in. Ottey then pulled up and pressed the buzzer on the entry post. The lens of a camera adjusted its iris as she did so.
‘Ashleigh Manor,’ said a disembodied voice.
‘DI Ottey and DS Cross, Avon and Somerset Police,’ Ottey informed him.
‘Who do you wish to see?’
‘The owner,’ she replied.
‘Do you have an appointment?’
‘We do not.’
‘You’ll need to make an appointment and come back,’ the voice said followed by a click, before Ottey could object. She pressed the buzzer again but this time it wasn’t answered. She pulled out of the entrance, irritably.
‘There’ll be a tradesman’s entrance, obviously,’ she said after a moment.
‘The response will surely be the same,’ Cross pointed out.
‘Watch and learn,’ she replied. He hated it when she said this. Because it inevitably preceded her doing something foolish, reckless and possibly illegal.
She drove away from the gates down a lane still bordered by the discreetly, but at the same time for those who knew about such things, ostentatiously renovated wall. Cross occupied himself by googling Ashleigh Manor on his phone. After half a mile or so, they came across another entrance, which was much more functional than the other. Ottey pulled up on the other side of the road. It wasn’t long before a delivery van drove up. The wooden gate to the estate slid silently to one side and Ottey accelerated up to the rear of the van and tailgated it through. She was looking childishly pleased with herself when the van stopped at a barrier and a clipboard with an officious-looking man attached to it appeared out of a nearby stone booth. He spoke to the driver and raised the barrier. He then turned towards Ottey’s car, walking in the middle of the drive to prevent her repeating her following-on trick.
‘Can I help you?’ he asked.
‘DI Ottey and DS Cross, Avon and Somerset Police,’ she informed him.
He went through the motions of looking at his clipboard, although all three of them knew they wouldn’t be on any list, then looked up and said, ‘I don’t have you down here.’
‘That’s because we don’t have an appointment,’ she said.
‘Then perhaps—’ he began, before being unceremoniously interrupted by Cross.
‘Could you just call Mr Perrin and tell him we’re here?’
‘Mr Perrin?’ the man repeated.
‘Jeremy Perrin, yes,’ Cross informed him.
He disappeared into the small building and made a call.
‘Nice one, detective,’ Ottey commented.
‘Thank you, ma’am,’ he replied, annoying her unintentionally.
The jobsworth came back out of the building with an upturned mirror on the end of a long pole. He walked round the car looking underneath it with the mirror. He got to the back of the car and said, ‘Open the boot please.’
‘You’re kidding,’ replied Ottey.
‘I am not,’ came the bored reply. She opened it. He had a quick look, then went back into the small building to put away his mirror. He came back with his clipboard and made a great deal of walking to the front of the car and noting down Ottey’s licence plate number. He came over to the driver’s window.
‘Drive up to the main house. You can’t miss it. Someone will see to you there.’
*
The house was vast and sprawling, with outbuildings off to the back of it. Dating back to the seventeenth century, it was baroque in style and imposing. A beautiful building which had obviously had money spent on it recently. It was set in fifty acres of parkland and backed onto a large lake. There was an orangery to one side of it. The ground floor consisted of several tall windows. The gravel leading up to the house looked like it had been recently raked. Ottey thought it was probably raked on a daily basis and for some reason this irritated her. She pulled up to the front of the building and braked sharply, causing Cross to grab hold of the dashboard.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked, alarmed.
‘I don’t know. The gravel annoyed me,’ she replied, knowing how stupid it sounded. To her satisfaction, when they got out of the car, she saw that she had left skid marks, dispersing the gravel and revealing the dark dirt underneath.
They didn’t have to knock on the door as a man in a well-tailored suit with an open shirt was waiting for them.
‘You want to get those brakes checked,’ he said as they approached, walking into an invisible cloud of oud and woody scent as they did so. ‘Jeremy Perrin. An appointment might have been more conventional.’
‘This is a murder enquiry, Mr Perrin. We don’t do conventional,’ replied Ottey sounding way more like a run-of-the-mill American cop show than perhaps she meant to.
‘Murder? Really. I see. Perhaps you should’ve led with that at the main gate and there wouldn’t have been any need for all this cloak and dagger.’
‘Are you the owner of this pile?’ asked Ottey.
‘I am not. I am the executive director of operations for the owner,’ he replied.
‘Who is…?’ she asked.
‘A high-net-worth individual who values his privacy,’ he answered with suitable smug superiority.
‘Is Mr Dimitriev here?’ asked Cross.
Perrin thought for a moment then laughed.
‘He is not. He is abroad.’
‘Really? Where?’ asked Ottey.
‘On his yacht in the Mediterranean. I believe they are currently off the coast of Naples.’
‘When will he be back?’ asked Cross.
‘In about a week, I believe. But he is prone to change his mind at the last moment. He might fancy getting in one last slope.’
‘Slope?’ asked Cross.
‘Skiing,’ translated Ottey. ‘Isn’t it a bit late for that?’
‘He heli-skis. Gets dropped on the summits where there is still snow,’ came the pompous reply.
‘We would like to see him on his return,’ Cross informed Perrin.
‘Of course, and I’m sure he’d be more than happy to help. Though how is beyond me. Whose murder are we talking about?’ he asked.
‘Ed Squire,’ replied Ottey.
Perrin made a shape of non-recognition with his lips. ‘Why would Mr Dimitriev be able to help with this?’ he asked in his best impression of being genuinely puzzled.
‘He could begin by telling us why he had three of his employees intimidating the victim shortly before his murder,’ said Cross.
‘Firstly, are you sure it was them?’
‘One of them, Alexander Kuznetsov, led us here. He works for you.’
‘I know that.’
‘Oh good. It’s just that you didn’t recognise the name the last time we spoke. So, yes, we’re certain,’ replied Cross.
‘Well, why don’t you just ask him?’
‘Because I imagine if he says anything it will be to say he was just following the orders of his employer, or perhaps his employer’s executive director of operations. And as you’ve already wasted enough of our time, I’m disinclined to let either you, or the people who work for you, waste any more of it.’
*
They drove back to the MCU by which time Cross had discovered the name of Dimitriev’s super-yacht, the SY Dacha, and also confirmed on a yacht position tracking website that it was indeed off the coast of Naples.