‘And then again maybe not. Ruth’s away at her mother’s; she often does that when I’m on this shift. She’ll be back by the time I knock off, though. We’ll probably go out for something to eat later on.’
‘Us too. The sad truth is, if I wasn’t on duty I’d be stuck up a ladder with a roller in my hand. Becky’s in a redecoration frenzy at the moment, and I’m the painter.’
‘Is that right? When she moved up from London, I thought she was talking about getting a place of her own.’
Wilding smiled, sheepishly. ‘She was, but we’re . . . we’re getting on fine together, so what’s the point?’
Pye whistled. ‘Is this Ray Wilding I’m hearing? The man with more notches on his headboard than Billy the Kid had on his gun.’
‘I’m afraid it is. And I always swore blind I’d never marry a cop.’
‘Marry? Did you say marry?’
‘Well, in a manner of speaking,’ the sergeant admitted. ‘We’re going to see how it goes.’
‘And DI Stallings isn’t missing the Met? She doesn’t regard this as a backwater?’
‘Hell no. On that last investigation she had the best result of her career. The DCC might have been involved in the arrest, with big Montell and me, but he faded right into the background afterwards, as is his way. Becky’s on the record as the senior investigating officer. She’d never have got near something that size in London.’
‘Excuse me, gentlemen.’ The voice came from the speaker above their heads, breaking into their conversation. ‘You’re supposed to be witnessing this, aren’t you?’
Both detectives looked through the glass screen that separated them from the autopsy room. In truth they had been trying to ignore, as best they could, the little old man in the green gown, while he and his assistant delved into the remains of the late Ainsley Glover as he lay naked on the stainless-steel table. ‘Sorry, Prof,’ said Pye, leaning forward to speak into the microphone that was set into a console beneath the window. ‘I didn’t realise we were getting to the exciting part.’
‘You think you jest, young Detective Inspector,’ said Professor Joe Hutchinson, Scotland’s pre-eminent pathologist. ‘Let me wipe the smile off your face. I have a cause of death for you. Would you like to step into my office?’ He stretched out a hand in a gesture of invitation. ‘It’s OK, we’ve put all the bits away, or back.’
Reluctantly, Pye and Wilding opened a door to the left of the window and stepped into the examination room, just as the old man stripped off his surgical gloves and threw them in the general direction of a bin in the corner. They tried not to look at his assistant, who was busy sewing the subject back together.
‘Heart failure,’ Professor Hutchinson declared, looking up almost belligerently at the officers; he stood no more than five feet four and they towered over him.
‘As the doctor on the scene told us,’ said Wilding.
‘Of course she did. In the end the heart always fails. Young Dr Brookmyre can’t be faulted for that. Also, I gather that she was made aware of the subject’s medical history. Is that correct?’
‘Yes,’ Pye confirmed. ‘I wasn’t there, but my colleague told me that Dr Mosley, the Book Festival director, said that he’d had a recent heart attack.’
‘He had, although the indications are that it was fairly minor, as these things go. Even so, that would have led my young colleague to her diagnosis. If only . . .’ The tiny pathologist’s eyes twinkled, he paused, and suddenly the detectives were on edge, knowing that their morning was about to change, and guessing that it would not be for the better. ‘If only that young colleague had taken a closer look, then she might not have induced such complacency in you two flatfeet. Mr Glover died of heart failure,’ he went on, ‘but that always has an underlying cause.’
‘And in this case?’ asked Pye.
‘In this case, if she’d bothered to smell his breath, a fairly routine piece of procedure, I have to say, she might have been less presumptuous.’ He pointed to the body. ‘Even now the scent is there. Go on, gentlemen, have a sniff. Go on, I insist.’
Wilding shrugged his shoulders, stepped up to the table and leaned over the body.
‘What do you detect, detective?’ the professor challenged.
‘It’s sort of sweet, isn’t it?’ the DS offered.
‘Fruity, would be my description, but you get the picture. A classic sign.’>
‘Of what?’ asked Pye.
‘Of hyperglycaemia.’
‘Low blood sugar?’
‘No, my son, the opposite. We’ll need some more detailed lab work than I’ve been able to do here, but it’s already clear to me that the man’s glucose levels were fatally high, absolutely off the bloody clock.’
‘But he was seen going off to inject himself with insulin.’
‘Well, he didn’t. I’ve only been able to find minimal levels in his bloodstream. This poor chap developed ketoacidosis. That means he went into a diabetic coma . . . and died. When was he last seen alive?’
‘Around about midnight.’
‘And how was he?’
‘Fine. He was lucid, in good form, although he did tell someone that he felt a bit hyper and needed to inject.’
‘Well, he didn’t. I put the time of death at about one thirty, without much room for error. If he appeared normal at midnight and died that quickly, he didn’t dose himself with his insulin. More like he ate three or four giant-sized bars of chocolate . . . only there’s none in his stomach, just some white wine and a melange of partly digested canapés. The only conclusion I can come to is that he died as a result of a catastrophic pharmaceutical error or, to use the vernacular, that he chose to top himself, by injecting himself with a massive dose of glucose. Either way, gentlemen, I wish you an enjoyable Sunday.’
Twelve
‘Are you sure you should do this?’ Aileen asked, as Bob slipped his warrant card into the pocket of the light cotton jacket that he had taken from his wardrobe.
‘I’ve just been asked to do it,’ he pointed out. ‘In the last fifteen minutes I’ve had two phone calls from concerned neighbours, people who know me well enough to have our ex-directory number. One of them you know quite well, Colonel Rendell up the road. He’s a crusty old boy, ex-military, and he was quite annoyed when he told me that his wife is afraid to take their dogs for their usual morning walk because of what’s down there. He demanded, point-blank, that I go down there and sort them out. Yes, I could delegate the task; I could pick up that phone and have a van-load down there inside half an hour, doing those vehicle checks I talked about earlier. I could probably have some of their dogs taken away for examination by a vet . . . the bastards are noisy enough, that’s for sure. But I don’t feel inclined to. All I’m going to do just now is take the old colonel’s wife’s spaniels for a walk, as a favour to him, and maybe have a chat with our visitors along the way. What’s wrong with that?’
‘For a start,’ she replied, with a smile, ‘you’ll look daft walking two spaniels. You’ll keep your temper, promise me.’
‘Of course I will. I won’t lay a finger on them. I’ll ask them nicely, like I promised you. I might even offer them a police escort to the designated site.’
She frowned, unconvinced. ‘I think I’ll come with you.’
‘No,’ he told her firmly. ‘This is a police matter. I won’t let you get involved.’
‘Think you could stop me if I insisted?’ Her tone was light but the challenge was serious.
‘Don’t let’s go there, please,’ he said, deflecting it. ‘Let me do this, and see what comes of it.’
She yielded to him. ‘If you must. Go on then, but step carefully.’
‘Carefully and light as a feather, babe.’ He turned and headed for the door, but before he had taken his third step, the phone rang. He turned and picked up the receiver from the table on his side of the new king-size bed that he had bought when Aileen had moved in with him. ‘Skinner,’ he said.
He had been expectin
g another outraged citizen; instead, Detective Superintendent Neil McIlhenney spoke into his ear. ‘Sorry to break into your Sunday again, boss,’ he began.
‘Don’t worry, chum,’ he replied. ‘It’s well broken already. What’s up? Nothing trivial, I take it?’
‘I fear it isn’t. I’ve just had a call from young Sammy Pye; he’s at the mortuary. The sudden death at the Book Festival that you looked in on this morning: just as suddenly, it’s got complicated.’ Skinner frowned, but said nothing. ‘Do I take it you’re not totally surprised?’ McIlhenney asked him.
‘I don’t really know why, but I’m not,’ Skinner admitted. ‘You know how you can walk in on an event and somehow it just doesn’t feel the way it looks?’
‘You mean when everybody else is seeing what they expect to see, a run-of-the-mill event, but you’re looking at a crime scene? That’s happened to me maybe three or four times in my career, that’s all.’
‘But not this morning?’
‘I can’t say it did, but I got there after you’d gone, remember. I didn’t see the same as you, literally.’
‘True. So what’s happened to confirm my special insight?’ He listened as the superintendent passed on Pye’s news. ‘Mmm,’ he murmured, when the story was complete. ‘Have you ever heard of that method of doing yourself in?’
‘No, I haven’t. But if I was diabetic, of a mind to end it all and I was looking for a method that was quick and painless, I can see that might be a reasonable proposition. Instead of balancing your sugar levels, shove them over the top, then slip into a coma, and die quietly and painlessly.’
‘So why would he send Randy Mosley a message asking for help? Are you going to tell me he changed his mind after he’d done it?’
‘I’m not going to tell you anything, gaffer, but that would make sense. Plus it’s much more likely than the old prof’s other explanation, an error by Glover’s pharmacist.’
‘I’ll give you that,’ Skinner conceded, ‘but let’s put an end to the speculation and do what needs to be done.’
‘I’m already doing it. Sammy and Ray Wilding are on their way back to Charlotte Square. By now they’ll have asked Dr Mosley to close off the hospitality centre and the author’s quiet room . . . That’s what they call the bit where he died. Appropriate, yes? . . . and not to let her cleaners take any of yesterday’s rubbish off the site. Earlier on we had no reason to look for the syringe, or the pen, whatever the guy used. Now we do. More than that, we’ll need to interview everyone Glover was seen with last night, including your old friend Bruce Anderson.’
Skinner made a low growling sound at the back of his throat. ‘I’m tempted to sit in on that one, Neil. In fact I would if I didn’t have to sort something out here, then pick up the kids. You keep close to it, and give Sammy a message from me: tell him to rule nothing out as far as Anderson’s concerned.’
Thirteen
‘Am I going to see you again?’ Alex asked. They were lying naked on her uncovered bed, the duvet on the floor beside them. ‘Or is that it? A quick shag for old time’s sake and so long for another few years.’
‘Jesus, kid, I don’t know,’ Andy Martin replied plaintively. ‘I should, though. Right now I should be saying, like you did earlier, if you recall, that we’re out of our minds to have let this happen. I’ve got a lovely wife and daughter, and another on the way. I don’t need to tell you what they mean to me.’ He stopped and his forehead creased into a frown as he raised himself on an elbow and looked at her, a question in his eyes.
She stopped him from putting it into words. ‘Yes, Andy,’ she said, ‘I’m on the pill. I haven’t been sitting here pining for you . . . not all the time. There have been a few guys since we split, but . . . never anybody who’s given me a sense of permanence, never anybody I’ve even considered giving a key to the front door.’ She looked up at him. ‘You can’t say that, though, can you? It didn’t take you long to wash me out of your hair and settle down with Karen. What’s with her? What does she have that I don’t? Bigger tits, that’s obvious, from what I remember of her, but what else ties you to her?’
He bridled at her sudden aggression. ‘I love her. Will that do?’
‘You’re just after telling me that you still love me. Was that just bullshit?’
‘No, it wasn’t. I love you, in a different way. Karen’s safe; she’s comfortable; she makes me feel peaceful. You’re different, Alex. You’re exciting; you’re dangerous; you unsettle me. You turn me into a guy I barely know.’
‘Do you like him?’
‘What?’
‘Do you like this guy?’
‘That’s the problem, I do.’
‘Are you sure you don’t know him? He sounds to me like the Andy you used to be. All those things you called me; you were the same. Now? If I’m honest, do you know what I thought when we met up at my dad’s place? I thought, “My God, Andy’s really done it. He’s turned into a boring old fart!” Mind you, you always had that tendency.’ She grinned. ‘A tendency to be boring, that is, not flatulence.’
He held his hand, flat, above her left breast, touching the nipple lightly with his palm as he began to move it slowly in a circle. ‘And do you still think so?’ he asked her.
She shivered, and pouted her lips. ‘Oww! I’ll give you a couple of minutes to stop that. Let’s just say you’ve proved that you haven’t become irredeemably tedious. I’ve seen the old Andy again, and yes, I still love him.’ She slapped his hand away, and pulled herself up into a sitting position. ‘Which brings me back to the question you still haven’t answered: what happens now?’
‘What do you want?’ he shot back. ‘You’re in the pound seats now. The minute I walk out of here you could pick up the phone and call Karen, tell her what’s happened.’
She frowned, and poked him in the chest, hard, with her right index finger. ‘The only reason you’re in my bed right now is because you know I’d never do that. Not because I’d be afraid to, mind you. No, because the day I become the sort of woman who’d do that, I’m lost. What do I want? It’s not something I’ve ever thought about until right now, but I know well enough. I want my career to go on as it has; I’m on course to become one of the youngest partners in my firm’s history, and I don’t plan to give that up. I want to stay childless for the foreseeable future. If that means for ever, I can deal with that. And I want you, on any reasonable terms. I’ll never demand that you leave Karen and the kids. I doubt if I could bear you moping around, perpetually guilt-ridden, and anyway, I’m not sure I’d want my weekends taken up with custodial visits. Selfish, eh?’
‘No,’ he replied. ‘You’re being honest, that’s all. But what if I decide that I’ve got to be honest too? What if I decide I have to tell Karen about this? What if she kicks me out? Or what if I decide that I have to leave?’
‘That honour demands it, you mean?’
‘Something like that.’
She drew her knees up to her chest, hugging them to her and gazing straight ahead at her reflection in her wardrobe’s mirrored doors. ‘Then don’t expect to move in here. I’m not sure I could handle that. You asked me what I want, and I told you, but there are other considerations too, Karen first and foremost. I don’t want to be seen to have ripped her life apart. And then there’s my dad. I’m not saying he would disown me. God knows, his own relationship history isn’t unblemished. But at this stage in his life it would be a complication he doesn’t need. Andy, I didn’t plan any of this. What started in the kitchen and ended up in here, as far as I’m concerned it was completely spontaneous. Maybe you came here with visions of getting your end away, but it wasn’t on my agenda, however I might feel about you.’ She caught his eye in the mirror. ‘But you’re not going to leave Karen, are you? Because you love her too, and couldn’t bear to hurt her. That’s how it is, isn’t it?’
He nodded. ‘I’d need to think long and hard about it.’
‘It’s thinking long and hard that’s got us into this mess, buddy,’ sh
e murmured, with a brief, wicked grin. ‘Go back to Perth, Andy,’ she told him. ‘Go to church and tell your priest about this.’
‘I don’t think so. I haven’t been to confession in a while. Alex, I—’
She put a hand on his mouth as if to stop it. ‘Bottom line, do what you can live with. If you want to see me again, I’m here for you. If you want an occasional bit on the side, no strings, fine. That would suit me too. If you want this morning to be a one-off . . . I’d hate that, but don’t worry, wee Danielle’s pet rabbit will be safe from me.’ She slid down beside him once more. ‘Now, before you have to go back to check out of your hotel . . .’
Fourteen
‘What have we got, Sammy?’ Neil McIlhenney asked as they stood in the centre of the yurt.
‘Nothing yet, sir,’ the DI replied. ‘By the time I sent the word back, the cleaners had bagged all of yesterday’s rubbish, from all the venues . . . this place, the office, the two bars, the bookshop and the toilets, public and private. But at least they hadn’t taken it off site. If Glover put his capsule in a bin after he’d used it, it’ll still be there.’
‘Capsule?’
‘Yes. Glover told Ryan McCool, the journalist who was the last man to see him alive, that he used a pen device to inject himself, and that’s how you load those things.’
‘Where is it now, this pen?’
‘Ray gave his personal effects to his daughter, after she did the formal identification.’
‘Everything?’
‘Not quite. She asked us to destroy his clothing; remember, he’d puked on his suit. She took away his wallet, watch, a Mont Blanc ballpoint and a pouch that I guess was the one McCool saw him collect from the author tent. The device should be in there.’
‘What about the thing he used to send the email?’
‘I’ve still got that; I thought the fiscal might want to see the original message.’
‘Yes,’ the superintendent agreed. ‘We need to get the pouch back too. Mind you, it’s not going to tell us anything, is it? It’s that used capsule we need. Who’s doing the rummaging through the refuse?’
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