GRAVE MATTER

ELEVEN

The flight home was met at Gatwick at three in the afternoon by Blanche, who, after dropping Amber off to rejoin her children, whisked me off to another crime scene.

"What's happened?" I asked as we headed towards Ascot.

"Igor Akinfeev died this morning," she replies, her eyes fixed on the road ahead.

"Don't tell me, suicide," I say, without feeling.

"Police have been quick to announce that there is nothing suspicious about the death," she says.

"Who found him?"

"Avron Cohen, his bodyguard, returned from running errands early this morning. When he knocked on the bathroom door, there was no reply. The missed calls on the oligarch's mobile, which he rarely left unattended, was another reason for concern. So finally, Cohen, an ex-Mossad agent who had guarded Akinfeev for six years, kicked down the door. Inside, Akinfeev was lying on the bathroom floor on his back. A length of a scarf tied tightly around his throat. Overhead, another frayed length of the scarf dangled from the metal shower rail. Akinfeev was dead."

"What's the background?" I ask.

"By the time he met his end, By the time he met his end, Akinfeev was a broken man. His lawsuit against the Russian owner of a London football club had failed catastrophically, destroying him financially and demolishing his pride. Akinfeev left with no alternative but to give up his beloved mansion, moved to his ex-wife's home in Ascot, which is where we are heading now. So far, friends and family alike explained that he had fallen into a deep depression. He was in such a financial mess that he had borrowed heavily from the Russian Mafia, but could not pay them back. Cohen and Akinfeev's daughter Gabriella Paltrova told officers this morning that the oligarch had talked about ending it all in the previous months. And in the bathroom where they found the body, there was no sign of a struggle. Police announced within an hour that there is nothing suspicious about the death."

"But you think differently?" I say.

"They've called in another Home Office Pathologist."

I looked at her, shocked. "Can they do that?"

"They've done it," Blanche could not hide her bitterness. "Professor Stephen Baker.

A horrible, obnoxious man who is in the pocket of the Home Secretary. He will dismiss Akinfeev's injuries as consistent with hanging, even though the police deployed specialists in chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear materials to Akinfeev's home as a precaution."

"Did they find anything?"

"The specialists said they later found nothing of concern."

"Do you believe them?"

"One paramedic's radiation alarm sounded as he entered."

"Toxicology?"

"A forensic scientist carried out on the spot toxicology tests found traces of prescription medicines, including drugs for insomnia and depression, in Akinfeev's body, but no sign of anything that might have contributed to his death."

"You've already looked at the body?" I smiled at her ingenuity.

Blanche looked sideways at me, a half-smile appearing on her face. "I may have."

"Well, go on.

What did you find?"

"The strangulation mark is different to the strangulation mark in a hanging. Circular, instead of V-shaped. The first paramedic on the scene said it was odd that Akinfeev's face was quite a deep purple, when victims of hanging are usually pale."

"Anything else?"

"A fresh wound on the back of Akinfeev's head, a fractured rib, and the presence of an unidentified fingerprint on the shower rail. The police said Akinfeev sustained the injuries when his body fell from the shower rail, and Inspector Brooks concluded that the police were content and believed Mr Akinfeev took his own life."

"There are many people who would want Akinfeev's dead," I say. "The Russian government have wanted to silence Akinfeev for a long time. He had been saying that the Russian President is a danger to the whole world for a long time."

"But how did they do it?"

"In some cases, Russian assassins have killed someone and made it look like suicide. They do a good job of it that medically, and legally you've got to say that's where it all points to, despite intelligence to the contrary. Sophisticated agents are also clever at planting evidence to make a person appear to be wanting to commit suicide when they want exactly the opposite."

"We're here," Blanche announced.

The double gates and the signs warning of dog patrols to the strings of barbed wire topping a 6ft fence, everything around the Akinfeev's mansion, were designed to repel intruders and prying eyes.

The meandering road past several luxury gated homes remained sealed off as police worked inside the house.

"If his neighbours know of anything untoward, they were not telling," Blanche said. "House calls to some neighbours were mainly answered by bodyguards, whose discretion concerning the identity of the owners of the property was absolute."

"I will need to get inside somehow," I said.

"Some of the world's wealthiest have descended on the area, lured by like-minded mega-rich and the connections that they provide," Blanche said solemnly. "The local Polo club is at the bottom of Akinfeev's road. His neighbours are other wealthy Russians, The Queen of Jordan and wealthy Saudis with their own Gurkha security staff living within the grounds."

"I don't want to get into their properties," I said, "Only Akinfeev's."

"It's not his property," Blanche said, "his ex-wife has been letting him live there while he sorted his finances out."

The Russians all want to be near the local golf club, and they make sure they have a membership before they purchase a house. They fly in by helicopter or light aircraft, and they've all got security. According to the locals, you don't see them at all."

"Surely somebody must have spoken to, Akinfeev while he was here?"

"Akinfeev lived here for at least eighteen months, according to another neighbour who gave his name only as Bob. He said he only discovered who lives there when a friend did some work on his bathroom. He never saw him. There are lots of businessmen, but they did not see him in any of the local pubs or restaurants, keeping himself to himself, he told me."