“Anything is possible,” said the inspector.
The Policía’s headquarters were located in a drab quarter of Ibiza Town but within walking distance of a glittering waterfront promenade. With a flash of her credentials, Inspector Aragón secured a coveted table at El Principe, where they plied Mariella Cruz with some of the finest food and drink the island had to offer. It was approaching half past ten when the inspector’s phone rang. Gabriel paid the bill with Edward Knight’s cash, and they hurried back to the Policía HQ.
At any given time during Ibiza’s high season there are nearly one million tourists on the island. A significant portion are German citizens, drawn by the warm weather and discount air fares. During the second week of June there were more than ten thousand. Some fifteen hundred were German males between the ages of thirty and fifty. Mariella Cruz sat at Inspector Aragón’s desk, head in her hands, eyes fixed dully on the computer monitor, as passport photos came and went. Only a handful warranted more than a second or two of scrutiny. The last appeared on the screen shortly after midnight: Gerhardt Zimmer, forty-eight years of age, from Frankfurt.
“No,” she murmured. “Not even close.”
The list of Austrian males was mercifully shorter. Mariella dispensed with them quickly, then turned her attention to the male visitors from Switzerland. The twenty-second entry on the list was Peter Hoffmann, thirty-nine years of age, 188 centimeters in height, born in Zurich. He had a full head of straw-colored hair and a fine-boned, cleanly shaved face.
Mariella Cruz stared intently at the screen. “That’s him.”
“Are you sure?” asked Gabriel.
“Definitely. No doubt about it.”
Gabriel drew his phone, searched the name Peter Hoffmann, and was buried beneath an avalanche of results. He added the wordsZurichandSwitzerland, and the number of results shrank considerably. One was an asset manager at Bank Josef Bänzinger & Co. Gabriel clicked on the link and saw a photograph of the same man, though this time he was wearing a pair of rimless spectacles.
He showed the photo to Inspector Aragón. “He did his graduate work at the London School of Economics.”
“Which would explain his perfect English.”
“It would,” agreed Gabriel.
“And before that?”
“University of Cambridge.”
“Which would explain how he knows Alice Winter.”
So it would appear, thought Gabriel. He snapped a photo of Peter Hoffmann’s passport, then looked at Mariella Cruz.
“Who left the restaurant first?”
She delivered her answer to the computer screen. “He did.”
“Where did he go?”
“Back to the beach.”
“Was he with anyone?”
“I didn’t notice.”
“And what about the Englishwoman?”
“She stayed for another ten minutes or so, then left.”
“How did she pay the bill?”
“Cash,” she answered. “No tip.”
They stopped at the Ibiza Gran Hotel long enough for Gabriel to remove a substantial sum of cash from his room safe. During the drive back to San Rafael he slipped the money unobserved into Mariella Cruz’s worn handbag. Inspector Aragón escorted her through thedarkness of the encampment to her caravan. Then she returned to the Citroën and they started back to Ibiza Town.
“How much did you give her?” she asked.
“A standard bundle of hundred-euro banknotes.”
“Ten thousand euros?”
