The Mallorcan Bookseller (The 3R International Series Book 1) Read online

  They hugged and she wanted to know everything about what had happened. He briefed her as they walked to the multi-storey carpark and as they approached the van, she stopped.

  “Hellfire Dad, can’t you hire anything other than a bloody white van!”

  He laughed. She was not keen on his choice of vehicles, never convinced at his rationale that white vans didn’t stick out in the sort of places they often worked in and around.

  “It’s perfect. But don’t worry, I’ve got you something more up your street. We can pick it up on our way to your place,” said Greg.

  “Good, but let’s hope your choice of something I’d like is the same as what mine would be.”

  She smiled. It was good seeing her dad again, but she could see the strain on his face. He had known the MacDonalds a long time and she knew how much of a part they had played in making 3R a success.

  She wasn’t disappointed when they got to the car rental unit. She slid into the open top Merc SLK and waved as she called out.

  “See you back at my place.”

  He didn’t think he was too far behind her. However, she could park in the underground carpark, where she had a spot allocated with her apartment, but he had to find a space in the public parking area close by. He found one quicker than he thought and walked the short distance to where her apartment was, just around from the small marina, but as he put the key in the door, she opened it. She had already showered and changed and was standing ready to go.

  “Okay, you said we had two things to do, first was check out this London cop in the bookshop and then second was to look around where the van was stolen. So why don’t you drop me off at El Corte Inglés and I’ll see if I can’t find something more than what the local cops got from the street CCTV?” said Terri.

  “Good plan.”

  They went in the van, so Greg drove and he pulled across the Ma19 de Levante Motorway, the main road heading towards La Seu and the city centre, before he turned right up on to Avinguda de Gabriel Alomar and within a couple of minutes he was pulling up by El Corte Inglés and Terri got out of the van.

  “Catch up soon,” said Terri, before she disappeared into the crowded pavement.

  She walked towards the little railway station, the one where she knew you could get the train to Sóller and Port de Sóller. She loved taking friends on that train. Such a great trip, but not today she thought. She crossed over the Alexandre Rossello, the main road and it didn’t take long to find the empty shop unit, where the van had been parked when it was stolen. There were some guys still working inside. She tapped on the glass front door.

  “It’s not open, can’t you see?” yelled one of the workmen in Spanish.

  She could get by in Spanish, which was helpful as they had clients in Madrid and a couple of Spanish speaking countries in South America.

  “Entiendo a mi amigo. I understand my friend. I just want some help please,” said Terri.

  The workman turned at the sound of her voice and seeing this strikingly blonde young woman with a wide smile and a short summer dress, he jumped up and ran to the door. So shallow, she thought, but it worked, so why knock it?

  “I’m so sorry. Are you American?” said the workman.

  “No mate, but don’t worry, not a bad guess. I’m from the Gold Coast, Australia.”

  “You are a long way from home Señorita,” smiled the workman.

  “I’m looking for the guy who had his van stolen yesterday.”

  The workman looked disappointed and looked towards the other workman.

  “Juan, she’s asking about your van.”

  Juan, an older man had been routing some wires through the wall. He turned and saw Terri and smiled.

  “Señorita, you don’t look like a cop?” said Juan.

  “No, I’m working for the client whose house was burgled by the guys using your van. Just wanted to check some things with you,” said Terri.

  “But I’ve already spoken to the cops yesterday and to some more detectives today. Can’t they tell you?” said Juan.

  “I can see you’re busy Juan, but it won’t take a minute.”

  She tried the wide smile again and bingo, it worked again. Shallow times two, but hey it works. She went through what had happened and the timings of when he had parked the van and she got him to show her exactly where it had been parked and what vehicles had been parked near the van. He almost seemed disappointed at having to go back to work when she thanked him for his help and walked towards the door.

  “Thank you Señorita and I hope you catch the burglars.”

  Interesting, thought Terri. The police have still not released the fact that this was a murder as well as a high value burglary. Did that mean this wasn’t an isolated case and maybe the local police commissioner was getting a bit jumpy at reputational damage to the island? After all, the economy is pretty much built on tourism and negative press could harm the numbers of tourists coming to the island.

  *****

  She started by walking across to the central reservation in the middle of the road. It was a raised grassed area and she stood looking around her, trying to identify potential CCTV locations other than from just the main road cameras. It was feasible that one of the nearby offices or shops might have cameras that would give a different angle than the street CCTV, one that just might have caught a good image of the thief. There were a couple of possibilities. One was El Corte Inglés itself, which might be a bit difficult as viewing their CCTV would probably entail overcoming data protection issues that a major chain like El Corte Inglés would have to comply with. However, the second possibility was a small shop that looked like an independent retailer. It was a bit further away, but bingo, it was of all things, a camera shop. She walked in to see a young man, maybe about nineteen or twenty. She waited for any sort of reaction. The young guy almost jumped up to greet her. This should work she thought and out came the wide smile once again.

  His dad owned the shop, but he wasn’t in at the moment, so he was in charge. Given the opportunity to spend time with a woman he was probably still at the stage of dreaming of, he didn’t seem too bothered about data protection and with no one else coming into the shop, he only needed a little gentle persuasion to encourage him to want to show her how the CCTV cameras worked. He had helped his dad fit the cameras quite recently, just after someone tried to force their front door and they had decided to upgrade what was already a good system into a really good High Definition CCTV system. She had to admit, the equipment they had was superb quality, from the HD cameras to the super high quality DVR, the digital video recorder. He beamed when she praised the system, telling her that it was his idea to go for the 1080P HD and super DVR set-up because of the increased processing capability.

  Terri had thought it was a long shot, especially with the empty shop unit being across the street, but one of these cameras could clearly pick up the parking area outside the shopfront. She gave the young man the times of the theft and crossed her fingers. It took him just seconds on the digital systems to bring up first of all, the images of the van parked outside the shop and then after it had been stolen. He seemed to be in his element now and she just kept smoothing his ego as he went into geek mode as he broke the images down into smaller time chunks. Then he pushed two buttons and went to the back of the shop, returning a few moments later with a DVD and a set of photo images showing the van, then a van with a male approaching the vehicle from the rear, then getting into the driver’s seat and the van moving away. This was followed by a close up of the male. It wasn’t crystal clear, which she accepted because of the distances involved, but it gave a reasonable outline and a pretty good full face picture as he looked to his left, over his shoulder, before opening the driver’s door and getting into the cab.

  “That’s the best I can do Terri,” said Pablo, the young man. “I hope it helps and oh, if you give me your email, I can send you the images as jpegs.”

  “Pablo, you have been an absolute star. I could kiss y
ou!”

  Pablo flushed up. And stood there, waiting hopefully rather than expectantly. Terri had said it figuratively, but saw the look on the young man’s face. ‘Ah well, best not disappoint,’ and she leaned over the counter. Pablo closed his eyes and she kissed him on his forehead. He opened his eyes and a look of disappointment crossed his face. Terri smiled at him.

  “Mate, you never want to close your eyes on your first kiss,” and she kissed him full on the lips. “There you go Pablo. One to tell your mates and no doubt you’ve got the CCTV images to remind you as well,” she winked at him, glancing up at the cameras in the shop as she walked out the shop and texted Greg, ‘Ready when you are. All good here, got some good images. Will start walking towards the theatre’ and she finished it with a smiley face emoji.

  *****

  After dropping off Terri, Greg had carried on the same road that took him around the city centre, eventually bearing left down Carrer d’Alemanya before taking a left into Baro de Pinbar and then straight onto Rambla dels Ducs de Palma de Mallorca. He knew there was a car park at the end, by the Teatre Principal, so headed there keeping an eye out for Sa Petita Llibreria as he drove. The road was fairly busy, which was helping as it meant he had to drive slowly and it gave him a better chance to look out for the bookshop. He was almost at the carpark entrance when he saw it, on his right and pretty much diagonally across from the theatre. He signalled left and pulled across the road into the multi-storey car park and found a space.

  He felt the heat when he got out of the airconditioned van. It was probably somewhere around 30-32 degrees, but with the sun bouncing off the light coloured buildings around the theatre, as well as the pavements, it was making it feel more like 37-38 degrees, so he was glad he didn’t have far to walk before he got to the front door of Sa Petita Llibreria.

  As he walked through the door, he heard an old fashioned bell ring above his head announcing his arrival. He took in his surroundings and saw what appeared to be a sales counter at the rear of the shop, floor to ceiling shelving all around the sides of the shop, all crammed with books and then two units in the centre of the shop, double sided, about eight feet tall, four feet wide and again the shelves were full of books. He heard a movement ahead of him and a woman appeared from behind the counter.

  “Fiona?” said Greg.

  Anna stopped in her stride. She hadn’t seen him for what? Thirty five years or more?

  “Greg, is that you?"

  “My God, you look wonderful.” He moved forward and they hugged, as old friends.

  “What are you doing here?” said Anna.

  “Where do I start? Listen, can we go for a coffee or have you had lunch?” said Greg.

  “We can go when my son gets back, he’s just popped out and Greg,” she paused. “It’s Anna. I left Fiona behind a long time ago, so it’s Anna Martínez, ex-Foreign Office, okay?”

  “Yes, yes, of course.”

  He understood immediately. It was often the case that field agents took up a new name or went back to their original name when they left the Service, so he wondered if Anna was her original name or a new identity.

  “And your son you say? Would that be Sam Martínez, a London police officer?” said Greg.

  “Why yes, but how did you know?” said Anna.

  “Long story, but I need to talk to him urgently about something I’m working on, but hey a son, that’s great.”

  “Yes, he’s only been back a few weeks. I lost my husband six months ago to cancer and it’s been lovely having Sam home.”

  Greg saw her eyes were red and thought she might have been crying.

  “Oh Anna, I’m so sorry,” he said.

  Just at that moment Sam came back in through the door and saw his mum talking to a man. 'A customer, finally,' thought Sam who hadn’t seen anyone in the shop all day.

  “Sam, this is an old friend of mine from my days in the Foreign Office.”

  “Hi Sam, pleasure to meet you. I’m Greg Chambers and I was looking for you and who should I find but Anna here, who turns out to be your mother!” said Greg.

  “Looking for me, why?” said Sam.

  “I got your details from a mutual contact, DI Lori Garcia. She suggested it would perhaps be useful to speak to you about a burglary at my client, John MacDonald’s villa yesterday.”

  *****

  “How much do you know Greg?” said Sam quietly.

  “I’m guessing you know about Sheila?” said Greg tentatively.

  Sam nodded and even knowing Anna’s real background, Greg could see that this was why she was shaken.

  “I’m so sorry for your loss. Presumably they were good friends of you and your husband Anna?” said Greg.

  “Yes, I’d known them for many years and the boys used to play together in the school holidays.”

  Greg saw Sam move closer to his mother and wrap his arms protectively around her.

  After a moment Sam spoke first.

  “So does Garcia think there’s a connection between Sheila and the IT scam with Bill Patterson?”

  “You’ve got me there Sam,” said Greg thinking the inquisitive nature of the police officer in Sam was showing through straight away. “I know nothing about an IT scam or Bill Patterson. You’d better fill me in, but first, let’s get the kettle on. Anna, are you okay I’m so sorry, it must be a hell of a shock.”

  “Yes, I’m okay,” said Anna thinking, ‘yes, a hell of a bloody shock, one to hear about Sheila this morning and then two, seeing you after thirty five years!’ “I just need a moment, so tea would be lovely.”

  Sam smiled and went to make some tea. His mum was always great in a crisis. He didn’t know where she got it from. From what she said her job hadn’t been all that exciting and she had grown up in a genteel middle England family from Surrey. She had been the same when Dad was diagnosed with the cancer. Immediate shock, followed by a steely determination to sort things as best as they could. He came back with three mugs of tea.

  “I didn’t get a proper chance to introduce myself Sam,” said Greg. “I run a small company called 3R and we specialise in risk reduction and resolution, essentially negating or reducing risk for our clients. They are mostly insurance companies and corporates who have problems with things going missing, or their people being threatened. It happens a lot with some of their foreign ventures.”

  Sam nodded and so he went on.

  “I have known the MacDonalds for around twenty years. They were pretty much my first client. John was just about to move into the big time with Trent MacDonald and I sorted out a small problem for him. I have a lot to thank Sheila for too, as she was the one who persuaded John to take a risk with my small outfit, so this is pretty personal for me. I got the call from John’s eldest, Chris, last night and came straight here.”

  “What does he want you to do?” asked Sam cautiously.

  Greg paused and saw them both looking at him.

  “Get justice for Sheila.”

  Sam decided it might be better not to ask what form of justice that may take in front of his mum, unaware that she had a very good idea of what Greg meant by his use of the word. In fact she probably had a much better idea of what Greg meant by risk resolution. Instead, Sam switched to telling Greg about what happened to Bill and the potential threat Garcia had thought could follow in the form of a follow up burglary, given that Bill lived in a £3 million villa.

  “How do we move from simple IT scams to high value burglaries?” said Greg.

  “I guess Garcia’s thinking there’s a connection between the scammers and an OCG over here. Not the usual connection I know, but you can see it makes sense. The trouble is finding anything out about the scammers is bloody difficult,” said Sam.

  He had put a call into Jimmy back in London to see if he could get anywhere with identifying the scammers. But the issue was there were so many of them and they operated on multiple fronts. Jimmy was looking at intel on similar MOs to see if the scam and burglary tactic was being seen anyw
here else across the UK and Europe, but he’d found nothing so far.

  “Okay,” said Greg. “You’ve given me a great lead there Sam. I’ll get on and check the MacDonald’s IT and bank payments for the last few weeks and see what that brings up. Anna, maybe we could do that coffee or lunch soon? It would be so good to catch up.”

  He also thought it best to not start asking Anna any questions in front of her son until he knew more about what she had told or not told her family.