‘Can you remember her name?’ asked Pye.
‘Carol. Now I think about it, when I saw him last night, I asked after her. He said she was fine and that she’d just joined a new practice, somewhere down in Inverleith. And he mentioned that she’d just got engaged, as well.’
‘That’s good,’ Wilding murmured. ‘It means she’ll still be using her dad’s name.’ He glanced at Pye. ‘I’ll get on to that now, boss, OK?’
‘Yes, do that, Ray,’ the inspector agreed. ‘See if you can track her down through the list of practices. When you find out where she lives, go straight there. Take PC Knight with you.’ Wilding made to rise from his folding chair, until Pye raised a hand to stop him. ‘Hold on a minute,’ he exclaimed. ‘My brain’s still in Sunday-morning mode.’ He reached into his pocket and produced Glover’s wireless device, which he had encased, as a matter of police routine, in an evidence envelope. It was still switched on. ‘My wife has something similar to this; she keeps her whole bloody life on it, so maybe Mr Glover did the same.’
Wilding held out his right hand. ‘Let me see it,’ he said. ‘Becky has one of these things; I know how to access the data.’ Pye passed the device to him and watched as he thumbed his way through the menu, without taking it out of the envelope. In less than half a minute, a broad smile of triumph lit up his face. ‘There you are,’ he declared, showing the screen to the detective inspector. ‘Carol Glover, 7 Skopes Street, Corstorphine. I’m on my way,’ he announced.
‘Have PC Knight drive you in the patrol car,’ Pye told him. ‘If Miss Glover’s there, call me to confirm, and let the mortuary know, to make sure that he isn’t opened up before she’s seen him. But give her all the time she needs to compose herself before you take her there.’
The sergeant looked at the young DI for just long enough to convey that some things need not be spelled out to an experienced officer, then nodded and left.
Pye gazed after him. ‘That’s me in Ray’s bad books. I’m new in the rank,’ he explained to the director. ‘I still give orders that aren’t needed.’
‘The art of delegation is more complex than is often thought,’ she replied. ‘It’s not just what, or to whom, but how as well.’ She smiled, as if a memory had returned. ‘If you really know what you’re doing, sometimes you can delegate up the chain, as well as down. Now, can we get on, please?’
‘Sorry. I asked you about people to whom Mr Glover may have spoken last night during your party in the Speigeltent.’
‘It would probably be easier if I gave you the guest list; Ainsley was a pretty gregarious chap for a writer. They can be rather solitary as a species, but he seemed to be able to work a room with the best of them. I suppose that’s what led him to stand for the Holyrood Parliament.’
‘I’ll take a copy of the list anyway,’ Pye told her, ‘but for now let’s just stick to your own knowledge; those people you actually saw him speaking to at your party.’
‘As far as I can recall . . .’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, there was Henry Mount, and Fred Noble, of course; they and Ainsley are usually described as the ruling triumvirate of Scottish crime writers. The three of them went into a huddle early on, before going their own separate ways. Then there was Sandy Rankin, the Sunday Herald reviewer . . . most authors find it politic to be nice to her. They were both with another journalist, Xavi Aislado.’ She looked at Pye. ‘Do you know him? A very tall man, very serious; he’s the editor of the Saltire newspaper.’
‘Yes, I know him,’ said the inspector. ‘I didn’t have him down as a party-goer.’
‘He doesn’t look as if he is, I agree, but his paper is one of our major sponsors, so I suppose he felt obliged to come along. Anyway, Ainsley spent a few minutes with him and Sandy. It was then that he sought me out and asked me if I could find him a private place to inject his insulin. I told him that it would be all right to use the yurt, since it wouldn’t be locked until everyone had left. After that, I saw him talking to Bruce Anderson: you know, the former Secretary of State for Scotland.’
‘One politician to another?’
‘I suppose you might say so. From what I could make out, although I wasn’t close enough to hear specifics, but judging by their rising voices, and by the expression on Bruce’s face, they seemed to be having something of a debate, and it was becoming heated.’
‘I thought you said that Mr Glover was an amiable man.’
‘Oh, he was, absolutely, but he never shrank from speaking his mind. From what I’ve been told, Bruce’s politics have been broadly confrontational since he came back into public life, whereas Ainsley was a single-issue man who was out to create a consensus against nuclear weapons.’
‘How did their discussion end?’
‘I have no idea what was said, but I know that it ended acrimoniously. The last time I saw Ainsley he wasn’t with Bruce, but with another journo, a guy called Ryan McCool, who has a column in the Glasgow evening paper.’
‘They were still in the Speigeltent?’
‘No. The party was starting to break up by then. Ainsley and McCool were heading towards the yurt.’
‘It was still generally open to authors?’
‘Not for business or refreshments, no. But some people had left things there; that’s why it couldn’t be locked at that point.’
‘So you saw Mr Glover and this man McCool heading towards it, and the next time you saw Mr Glover was next morning, and he was inside and he was dead.’
‘That’s it.’ She looked at him. ‘Sums it up perfectly, in fact.’
‘I don’t suppose you have a contact number for McCool,’ said Pye, poker-faced.
Mosley smiled. ‘Oh yes, Detective Inspector. I have contact numbers for just about everyone.’
Eight
She drew her brush through her thick unruly hair, still damp from the shower, drawing it behind her head and gathering it in her free hand until she was able to slip a band over it and secure it in a ponytail. It was a style she never wore outdoors, but it was a part of her ritual as she prepared for the day.
Turning, she took her blue floral kimono from the hook on the bathroom door and slipped it on, tying it in a bow. On another day she might not have bothered; her apartment building sat right on the bank of the Water of Leith, Edinburgh’s river, and was not overlooked by any nearby buildings, and so she often stayed naked, or in her underwear, until she was ready to commit to a choice of clothing for the day. But not that Sunday; not that morning.
She stepped out of the en-suite and walked through her bedroom, without pausing to shake out the tangled summer-weight duvet, then out into the living area and through to the kitchen. He was there, his back to her as he took two mugs from a stand on the work surface and opened the cupboards above, searching. He wore blue jeans, but no shirt, and he was barefoot. In the light of day, his waist seemed thicker than she remembered it, and his blond hair seemed to have acquired silver streaks . . . unless she had never noticed before.
‘Far right,’ she said. ‘Open the furthest door on the right; that’s where I keep the coffee . . . or the tea bags, in case your breakfast habits have changed.’
‘No,’ he told her. ‘I still need a shot of caffeine to kick-start my day.’
‘Make a pot for two, in that case; you’ll find some ground Italian in the fridge, and a filter machine in the cupboard at your feet.’
‘Black?’
‘Did I ever take black coffee?’
‘No, but it’s been a while.’
‘You can say that again, Andy Martin,’ she concurred. ‘You know, I really do find it strange that you’re here, but thanks for coming nonetheless. Was my spare bed OK?’
‘Yes, it was fine, thanks,’ he replied, perhaps a shade too casually. ‘I’m sorry, Alex; I should have gone back to my hotel last night.’
‘Sure you should, and been remembered by the taxi driver, or the night porter when he let you in. You’re still a pretty recognisable face in Edinburgh.
Maybe I shouldn’t have suggested that you come here. Christ, maybe I shouldn’t have called you in the first place! I don’t know what the hell got into me.’
He turned, and she saw to her surprise that he was wearing glasses, rather than his customary contact lenses. ‘Unresolved issues,’ he reminded her quietly, ‘that was how you put it. After we met up at your dad’s a couple of months ago, you felt that there were things left unsaid between us. I’d have met this morning for breakfast, but it was you who didn’t want the two of us to be seen in public. That’s how it went, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘and too bloody right I didn’t want us to be seen. I went out with the guy next door a couple of times, and the next thing I knew I was getting nudges and winks at work. If you and I were spotted together in a Stockbridge café I’d be getting more than that, and your wife would be getting phone calls.’
‘Karen would handle them, especially if I told her the truth.’
‘What, that your ex-fiancée wanted to prove to herself that she could discuss the circumstances of our break-up without running off in floods of tears?’
‘Is that how it was?’ he asked, as he found the coffee-maker and filled it with water from the sink’s single tap. ‘You wanted to repeat all those things you yelled at me in Bob’s garden a few weeks back, but in a quieter voice?’
She smiled at his jibe. ‘No. And be fair, last night I didn’t; I behaved much better. No, it went deeper than that. I wanted to see whether you and I can ever have a normal relationship in the future, as two old friends.’
‘And can we?’
Alex opened another cupboard and retrieved a brown paper bag containing four croissants. She twisted the control knob of her eye-level oven, setting the temperature to a hundred and fifty Celsius, then placed the curved French rolls on the centre grid.
‘Honestly?’ she asked, her back to him.
‘There’s no other way, kid.’
She turned and gazed at him; he had taken off the spectacles and hung them on his gold neck chain. She held his green eyes for a few seconds, then looked away. ‘I don’t know yet,’ she confessed. ‘We got a lot of stuff off our chests last night, that’s for sure. I’m sorry I did what I did, Andy. I dumped all the blame for me getting pregnant on to you, and that wasn’t fair. When I had the termination, I was angry with you. As I said last night, as I saw it you’d nagged me about starting a family as soon as we could, nagged me into coming off the pill.’
‘As I suppose I did,’ he conceded. ‘Not constantly, but yes, I suggested that you put your career on hold to have kids. And that was selfish of me. Alex, I’m sorry about my reaction when I found out about it all. I hope that was the last immature thing I’ll ever do in my life. You hurt me, so I had to hurt you. If I had taken just a few minutes to try to see your point of view . . . But I didn’t.’
‘No, you didn’t.’
‘And that’s why you’re not sure we can ever be friends again?’
‘No, that’s not why. We’re square on what happened. We were both responsible for it, and we both handled it badly. That’s behind us, I hope.’
‘So what’s your problem?’
‘My problem is that every time I see you I’m confronted by the truth about the true level of my moral integrity, and by my lack of proper self-discipline. And isn’t that a fancy phrase for a Sunday morning?’
‘Yes. So what does it mean?’
‘It means that . . . that, no, I don’t think we can ever be “just friends”. Because if I’m honest with myself, I have to admit that there’s an obstacle in the way.’
‘A big obstacle?’ he murmured.
‘The biggest, I’m afraid. I still love you.’ She was aware that the sash of her kimono had worked loose. It was accidental, unplanned, but she did nothing about it as the ends slipped apart and the garment fell open. ‘You know, Andy, I’m seen as this strong modern woman, but in some ways I’m just plain weak.’ She looked at him again, and this time she held his gaze. ‘You see how weak I am?’
He took a step towards her, reaching for the blue gown and pulling her close. ‘What makes you think I’m any stronger?’ he whispered.
Nine
‘I hope this is serious, mate,’ Ryan McCool growled as he settled into a chair at a small coffee table in the lobby of the Caledonian Hotel, the great red sandstone edifice that looks eastward along Princes Street, its facade angled as if it is trying not to notice the Balmoral, its grey rival at the other end of the famous thoroughfare. ‘I crashed out at two thirty this morning, and I don’t appreciate being hauled out of bed at this hour.’ His lined face was pale, his hair was tousled and he was dressed in cargo pants and a white T-shirt which claimed that Prestwick Airport was ‘Pure dead brilliant’. Little encouragement to the traveller, Sammy Pye thought, the middle word especially.
The journalist looked up at the waiter who had appeared at his side, without a summons. ‘You better bring us coffee,’ he said, then glanced at his companion. ‘That all right for you?’
‘I could use some, thanks,’ the inspector conceded. ‘I was up at half five.’ He waited until they were alone. ‘Yes, it is serious, I’m afraid. I’ve got some bad news for you.’
Instantly, McCool appeared much more awake. ‘What? News as in real news, the business I’m in?’
‘Yes, I suppose it is.’ The detective had given no thought to the question of a public announcement. It appeared that the situation was domestic in essence, but the police were involved, and it was an issue which he would probably need to discuss with McIlhenney. ‘But,’ he continued firmly, ‘this conversation has to remain confidential for a while. There’s next of kin involved.’
‘That means somebody’s dead?’ Pye nodded. ‘So why are you talking to me?’ the journalist asked. ‘You said you’re a DI. Are you on a criminal investigation?’
‘No, no, I’m not. It’s something we’ve been asked to deal with, and it’s a death, yes, but there’s no reason to suppose that there was anyone else involved. I’ve got to make a formal report to the fiscal, so I need to talk to witnesses.’
‘Witnesses? What am I supposed to have seen?’
‘Who, not what. Last night you were at the Book Festival opening party, yes?’
‘That’s right, me and a couple of hundred others.’
‘It wasn’t as many as that, but never mind. Late in the evening, you were seen talking to Ainsley Glover, the author.’
‘Inspector Walter Strachan’s daddy, the MSP; that’s right. I bumped into him late on, just as the thing was starting to wind down. He was in good form; he told me he’d just had a barney with that arrogant shite Bruce Anderson.’
Recalling Dr Mosley’s comments, Pye was interested in McCool’s confirmation that there had been an argument. Given Glover’s medical history, such as he knew of it, excitement might not have been good for him. ‘Did he say what they had rowed about?’
‘I’m just repeating what he told me, mind, but it was about Trident. Anderson’s in the “anti” camp now, but Ainsley said he couldn’t help reminding him that as a member of the UK cabinet he’d been four-square behind it, and behind the nuclear submarine base at Faslane. You might remember, Bruce took part in a demo there a few weeks back, and got himself carried off the road by your lot. Last night Ainsley told him that was one of the most cynical things he’d ever seen. He reminded him that when he was Secretary of State, Bruce went out of his way to condemn an identical protest, and to praise the cops who put the boot in when they were breaking it up.’
‘What did Anderson say to that?’
‘As accurately as I can quote Ainsley off the top of my head, Bruce told him that he was an opportunist who didn’t even know how to organise a street meeting, far less understand the complexities of global politics, and that he had only stood for the Holyrood Parliament to sell his fucking books. He also described Ainsley’s Inspector Wattie as a stereotypical character without a shred of originality and wound up by calling
him a fat, predatory hack. Ainsley thought that was great. He laughed out loud . . . Bruce is famous for having no sense of humour, and he doesn’t like people laughing at him . . . and asked him if he could put that on his next book jacket. At which point Bruce told him what he could do with it when it was printed, turned on his heel and strode off to bore our High Commissioner to Australia.’
‘It sounds like quite an exchange,’ Pye commented.
‘It was, but there’s history between them. I didn’t know this until last night, but according to Ainsley, a few years ago, one of his books . . . he mentioned the title, but I can’t remember it now . . . had a character in it who was a fictional Secretary of State for Scotland. In the book he was a nasty bastard who got what was coming to him. Bruce decided that it was based on him, although Ainsley denies it to this day. After it was published, Anderson cut him dead at a Scottish Arts Council function. Later on he let it be known around town that Ainsley’s name had gone forward for an OBE, and that he’d blocked it because he didn’t believe he was worthy of it.’
‘Nice man.’
‘Not,’ the journalist grunted, ‘and that I can confirm at first hand. Nobody I know in politics would call Bruce nice, not since he lost his wife, at any rate. I knew him before; he wasn’t to be trusted even then, but afterwards he became one hundred per cent bitter and twisted.’
As he spoke the waiter arrived with a tray, laden with a coffee pot, two cups, a sugar bowl and milk jug. He poured for the two men, then handed McCool a slip of paper. Pye waited until he had signed it.
‘And Mr Glover,’ he asked, as he added a little milk to his cup, ‘what sort of man was he?’
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