19 - Fatal Last Words

by Quintin Jardine

  As the sergeant left, Pye turned to his computer and keyed in a note, as dictated earlier by Skinner. ‘For the attention of Mr Frame. There follows verified likeness of the man calling himself Coben, seen in Edinburgh Monday last week. Chief Constable Skinner requests your assistance in determining any links between him and the person of the same name, believed killed seven years ago in Serbia.’ He sent it to the unit’s printer; by the time he had crossed the office, it had emerged. He signed it, keyed a number that Skinner had given him in a second call from his car into the fax machine, then fed it in, followed by the photofit.

  ‘You’re right, Ray,’ he whispered to himself as he walked back to his tiny glass-walled room, ‘this is heavy-duty.’

  He had barely resumed his seat before his phone rang. He snatched it up, thinking that it might be Skinner, checking that his orders had been followed. But the voice in his ear was female, and English. ‘Sammy? Becky. I bet you thought I’d given up on you and gone back to checking stolen cars.’

  ‘You want to know the truth?’ Pye asked, then confessed, unprompted. ‘I’ve been so busy chasing other leads and angles that I’d forgotten about you.’

  ‘Then let me remind you. I’m the colleague who’s been letting crime run rampant through west Edinburgh while she tries to crack the mysteries of a computer you and her boyfriend dumped on her.’

  ‘Yes, I know, I’m sorry. But this investigation has had me chasing fugitive former secretaries of state, banging up dukes’ daughters with huge heroin habits, and now, when I thought I had only one mystifying homicide to clear up, I find that I’ve got two. That might seem like just another week at the office to a veteran of the Sweeney, but to us provincial hicks . . .’

  ‘Stop it!’ Stallings chuckled. ‘I get enough grief from ’im indoors without hearing it from you too. He called me this morning to tell me that Mount is now officially on your caseload as well.’

  ‘Are you going to help us with it?’

  ‘To be honest wiff yer, as that annoying bastard always says on the football commentaries, I don’t know. However, I am going to make your fucking hair stand on end, as my beloved would put it. I have finally got into the boy sllinco’s box on his girlfriend’s computer. I’m sorry it’s taken so long, but sometimes you crack a password easily, sometimes the obvious takes forever; in this case, the latter. I won’t bore you with all the names and combinations I tried, but finally I recalled which paper Mr Collins works for and used that. No joy first up, so I reversed it, tried eritlas . . . sounds like a place in Middle Earth, doesn’t it . . . and bingo.’

  ‘Well done, Becky. What did you find?’

  ‘He didn’t use it much; only for one purpose as far as I can see, to communicate with someone using the screen name neboc@redmail.com.’

  Pye gulped. ‘Spell that, please,’ he asked, quietly.

  ‘All of it?’

  ‘No, just the front end.’ He noted the letters as she read them out, then reversed them. ‘Fuck,’ he whispered.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Sorry, go on. What was in his files? I need the text of all the messages he sent.’

  ‘Apart from one message, he didn’t send text, just images.’

  ‘That word-message. What did it say? When was it sent?’

  ‘Sunday afternoon, just; ten past twelve. It said, “Got it. Left as arranged.” Whatever that may mean.’

  The inspector considered the words. ‘I think I might be able to guess: the disk drive from Glover’s computer, and his back-up. He must have done a dead drop. What about the images?’

  ‘They’re stored within his mailbox facility,’ she told him, ‘so they don’t show up on Carol’s hard disk, but I accessed them no problem. They’re dated, and they go back for a few months.’

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘That’s the strange thing. I’d say they’re surveillance photos. They’re all of one bloke, and they’re all really boring, just day-to-day stuff: him at work, him with wife and kid, and so on. And then you get to last Sunday morning. Boy, was he busy on Sunday, being photographed through an open window giving a very athletically built young lady a real seeing-to.’ She paused. ‘Is your hair standing on end yet?’ she asked.

  ‘You’re getting there,’ Pye replied, holding down his impatience. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, here’s the clincher. I’ve seen the bloke, when he did an inquiry at Fettes a couple of months back. He’s the Tayside DCC, Andy Martin. I don’t know who the girl is, but it is definitely not his wife. The images were sent to neboc on Sunday, at half past ten, a few hours before the text message. How’s the hair?’

  ‘Erect.’

  ‘Mmm. And how does that relate to your inquiry?’

  ‘It takes us well along the road. Becky, I’ll tell Ray he owes you a large one.’

  ‘A large what?’ she murmured archly.

  ‘A large whatever you fucking like. Got to go.’

  He hung up, and looked out into the CID room, where Haddock and Cowan were both at their desks. ‘Who was checking on Ed Collins being at that play on Saturday?’ he shouted.

  The female officer jumped to her feet and crossed the office. ‘I was, sir. The people who were on the box office don’t remember him, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t there. The lighting isn’t great, they said; they don’t see faces, just people. But I do know one thing: he definitely didn’t get to Deacon Brodie’s until after half twelve. I found a staff member who was having a fag at the door and saw him come in; he recognised him from his picture in the paper. It appears with his reports apparently.’

  ‘OK. Ray,’ he called to Wilding, but saw that he had his phone to his ear. He waited until he had finished. ‘Andy Martin?’ he asked, as he hung up.

  ‘Yes. Our Coben and his are one and the same.’

  ‘Then he should definitely not have upset him. The guy got even big time, with the help of Ed Collins. Come on, we’re off to the Saltire offices to lift their ace sports reporter.’

  Seventy-four

  As they approached the ugly grey monolith that was Torness power station, and the even uglier cement factory beyond, Bob Skinner sat in the passenger seat of his car and fretted. ‘This is one single inquiry, Neil,’ he muttered. ‘I don’t know how, but I feel it in my water. The deaths of these two authors and of Asmir Mustafic are tied together, I’m sure of it. The link is General Tadic, indirectly, through the man Coben, and through Hugo Playfair, or Lazar Erceg, as Boras says he’s really called. But I don’t know how they tie together, and I don’t know why they were killed.’

  ‘Or by whom?’

  ‘No, that’s easy. Coben’s our man; thanks to the cigar salesman, we know he was in Edinburgh last week and that he bought Henry Mount’s cigar box. We know his background, and that tells me that he’s well capable of rigging that Havana. He’s moving among us, Neil, this fucking man, openly, and yet we don’t know who he is. Come on, chum, help me here. What else don’t we know?’

  ‘This joint project,’ McIlhenney replied, ‘that Glover and Mount are supposed to have been involved in: we don’t know what that’s about. The only hint is that Glover was asking questions about people in the Balkans.’

  ‘There you are, that ties in too. Go on.’

  ‘According to one of young Haddock’s sources, Ainsley said that it was about “The cleaner”, whoever the hell he is, she is, whatever.’

  ‘More information, good. What else?’

  ‘There might have been a third person in the project. Sammy says that Mount and Glover asked Fred Noble if he wanted to play, but he said he was too busy.’

  ‘Did they tell him what it was about?’ Skinner asked eagerly.

  ‘He says no, that he didn’t want to know, so that he couldn’t let anything slip accidentally.’

  ‘Noble said that? Can anyone confirm it?’

  ‘Glover’s agent can’t. All he told her was that they were working on it and it was big.’

  ‘What do we know about her?’


  ‘We know she didn’t kill Glover. She was in London when he died. Forget her.’

  ‘What do we know about Fred Noble?’

  ‘He’s a best-selling author, the most successful of the so-called Triumvirate, although he hasn’t been around for as long as Glover or Mount. He moved to Edinburgh six years ago, and—’

  ‘Six years ago? After Frankie Coben was supposedly killed?’

  ‘Yes, but he didn’t kill Glover either. He was on telly when he died.’

  ‘Who says our man is acting alone? Didn’t you tell me you were looking into someone’s movements on the night?’

  ‘Ed Collins, Carol Glover’s fiancée.’

  ‘The boy who works for the Saltire?’

  ‘Right.’

  Skinner snatched up his mobile from the central console, retrieved the direct number of the Leith CID office and called it. DC Alice Cowan’s strong voice filled the car as she answered.

  ‘Alice,’ he said, ‘DCC here . . . sorry, chief constable here. Is DI Pye there?’

  ‘No, sir. He and Ray, sorry, DS Wilding, are out.’

  ‘Do you know if they’ve got anything solid on Ed Collins yet?’

  ‘Hell yes, sir. They’ve just gone to arrest him. He’s been working with Coben. I’m on to Collins’s bank just now. He’s been receiving regular payments for months and not from his employer. We’re trying to trace the source.’

  ‘What’s he been doing for Coben? Do we know?’

  Cowan hesitated. ‘Surveillance, sir.’

  ‘What do you mean, surveillance? Be specific, Alice.’

  ‘He’s been taking photographs, sir,’ she replied, her voice for once expressionless, ‘of DCC Martin.’

  ‘Has he now,’ Skinner growled. ‘When Sammy and Ray pick him up, you tell them I want him brought up to Fettes.’

  As he ended the call, McIlhenney glanced across at him. ‘Is that a good idea, boss?’ he asked. ‘You interviewing the guy?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ the chief constable replied. ‘I’m not going near him. He’s for you.’

  ‘Even so, the thought of you being in the same building as the guy who photographed Alex . . .’

  ‘Hmmm.’ A low growl seemed to fill the car ‘This boy’s fucking lucky I’m not sending him up to Dundee.’ Then he brightened up. ‘Come on, Neil, we’re on a roll here. I love it when that happens. What else do we need?’ Almost instantly he answered his own question. ‘We need to know about Henry Mount’s role in this mysterious project. And we need to know something else, maybe the key to wrapping up this whole business. Who’s his agent?’

  ‘His son, Colin.’

  ‘Colin? I knew he was his father’s manager, but not that he acted for him.’

  ‘The previous agent retired last year; Colin took over from him. George Regan discovered that when he spoke to him.’

  ‘Regan.’ He picked up his phone again, opened his seemingly unending contacts folder and found a mobile number for the East Lothian DI. He grinned, ‘No one’s beyond my reach, chum,’ then called it. ‘George,’ he said into the microphone above the rear-view mirror. ‘Skinner here. What are you up to?’

  ‘Hoping for a miracle sighting of Hugo Playfair, sir. Otherwise we’re completing door-to-door inquiries. I’ve followed up everybody who was in the Golf Inn on Sunday evening, and I’ve found half a dozen people who remember seeing Mustafic leaving there, then turning into Middleshot Road.’

  ‘That’s an odd way back to the bents,’ Skinner mused. ‘But with all that beer in him, he was probably a bit wandered. When I think about it, Middleshot would have led him to the top of the path where he died. Any sightings of Playfair, or anyone else following him?’

  Regan sighed. ‘None, sir.’

  ‘No, that’s the way it goes sometimes. George, this investigation has moved into the stage where we do everything the book says, then hope we get lucky. Your DS can keep an eye on it for a while. I’ve got another task for you. You’ve met Henry Mount’s family, I believe.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Good. We know for sure how Henry died; the cigar that was used to kill him was in a box bought in Edinburgh last week from one of Paula Viareggio’s luxury delis, for cash, by a man going by the name of Coben. I want you to go back and see them, Trudy and Colin . . . I know them both, by the way . . . and to ask them about a few things. The first is a project we believe Henry was working on with Ainsley Glover, something new, nothing to do with the Petra Jecks books.’

  ‘His wife mentioned something yesterday,’ the DI remarked. ‘She said he’d been speaking to Glover about it, so she thought it was financial.’

  ‘Maybe it was, but I doubt that. We need anything we can get on it, however trivial you or they might think it is. We need to know also whether Henry’s career before he became a writer took him anywhere near Yugoslavia. Finally, and this is definitely one for Colin, for Trudy won’t have a clue: we need to know how that cigar box got into Henry’s possession, and whether the name Coben rings any bells.’

  ‘Understood, sir,’ Regan replied. ‘I’m not far from their house; I’m on my way.’

  Seventy-five

  ‘He must be in.’ Ray Wilding pointed to a motorcycle, sitting by the kerb, secured by a heavy chain which tethered its front wheel. ‘I’m pretty sure that’s his: a Triumph Tiger. I noticed one parked at Carol Glover’s and they’re pretty scarce machines.’

  ‘Great job being a football reporter, isn’t it?’ Sammy Pye remarked as he pushed open the door and stepped into the apartment block. It was a modest building, in the west of the city, close to a railway line. ‘Hibs have a midweek game so he doesn’t have to go into the office at all today. And you have enough spare time to earn some extra money by spying on cops.’

  ‘And maybe more,’ said the sergeant. ‘The images in his folder were all timed. He snapped Andy leaving the ACPOS dinner, getting into a taxi at ten thirty and going into Alex’s at ten forty-five. Nothing after that till the stuff through the curtains, next morning. He had plenty of time to get back up to Charlotte Square and kill Glover. There was nobody better placed to know how he dosed himself, or to swap the insulin capsule for one with the drug.’

  ‘That’s true, but be honest, Ray; you’ve met Collins. Is he a methodical, cold-blooded killer?’

  ‘I wouldn’t rule it out. He was good enough to trail an experienced police officer for months until he caught him dipping his wick were he shouldn’t have.’ He whistled. ‘Lucky man that he is.’

  His colleague grinned as they climbed the stairs. ‘I’ll tell the new chief you said that,’ he joked. ‘Worse still, I’ll tell DI Stallings.’

  ‘Ah,’ Wilding countered, ‘I didn’t say he was as lucky as me, though.’

  ‘Slippery bastard.’ Pye stopped on the second-floor landing, facing a blue-painted door. A nameplate read ‘E. Collins’. Wilding reached out and rang the bell. The detectives waited, listening for footfalls inside the flat but hearing nothing. ‘I hope this place doesn’t have a back door, like fucking Darnaway Street,’ Pye muttered. ‘Or maybe the sports editor broke his word and called him to warn him we were coming.’>

  ‘Want the door kicked in?’

  ‘Let’s not go that far just yet.’ The DI reached out, turned the handle and pushed. The door opened. ‘Your way looks great, my way’s easier.’

  They stepped into a small hallway; its only pieces of furniture were a coat stand, on which hung two jackets and a grey metallic crash helmet, and a telephone table, but the walls were festooned with football posters, all of them featuring the same club. ‘There’s no such team as Glasgow Rangers, you know,’ said Wilding. ‘It’s just Rangers FC; that’s the proper name.’

  ‘Bluenose,’ Pye grunted.

  ‘Aye, and so’s this boy. Hardly your impartial sports journalist, is he?’

  Ally McCoist, aged twenty-something, smiled at them, larger than life, from a facing door; from the layout of the block they guessed it was the living room.
r />   ‘Mr Collins,’ the sergeant shouted. ‘Police.’

  But there was no sound within the flat. ‘Excuse me, Coisty,’ said Pye, as he opened the door and stepped into the room. ‘Oh shit,’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Yes, I can smell it,’ Wilding murmured as he stood beside him and looked down at the body of Ed Collins, clad in a Rangers replica top, lying in the centre of what a less experienced witness might have taken for a red rug. His eyes were only half open as they gazed lifelessly at the ceiling. There was a cut on his forehead, and a lump. But those wounds were superficial. Collins had been nailed to the floor, through the centre of his chest, by a short samurai sword, a souvenir, the sergeant imagined as he surveyed the scene, from a foreign holiday. He glanced to his right and nodded, indicating its scabbard, which sat on top of a television set in a corner of the room.

  ‘Somebody’s been taking precautions.’

  ‘No, Ray, not just somebody; Coben has.’

  ‘And there’s nothing subtle about this one, it’s not an imaginative death like Glover’s or Mount’s.’

  ‘No,’ the DI agreed. ‘This one’s from the Fred Noble school. What was it he said? “Sharp objects, at close range”, or words to that effect.’ He paused, pointing to the floor. ‘But maybe there is some subtlety here. Look what’s lying beside him; it’s a ballpoint.’

  ‘So?’>

  Pye shrugged. ‘Maybe nothing, except there’s a line somewhere, at the back of my mind.’ He nodded. ‘I remember now: “They may say” he quoted, ‘“that the pen is mightier than the sword, but when it comes down to it, that’s never the way to bet.” It’s from a book called The Sharp End, and yes, it’s by Fred Noble.’

  Seventy-six

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Colin Mount. ‘Mum’s asleep; she had a bad night, so the doctor called again and gave her a pretty strong sedative. I could wake her if it’s really necessary, but I don’t know how much you’d get out of her. I can talk to you, though; I’m on compassionate leave from the station. They’ve been very good about it.’

  ‘Then let’s you and I have a chat first,’ Regan told him, ‘and hope we don’t have to bring your mother into it. Yesterday, she mentioned a project that your father was working on, something away from his usual thing. Can you tell me anything about it?’