Quintin Jardine - Fatal Last Words

‘Can’t keep your hands off, can you?’ She smiled at him again. ‘You see?’ she challenged. ‘You’re going to be no ordinary chief constable.’

Sergeant Ian McCall winced as the mortuary attendants twisted the dead man’s head, violently, to straighten the neck, as they eased the body’s bulk into the plastic coffin.

One of them noticed his expression. ‘Another few hours and we’d have had to shove a bloody sight harder than that,’ he said. ‘This one’s only been dead for a few hours, so rigor’s only just setting in. We had a body once, a guy that gassed himself in his garage in a wee sports car wi’ a hard top. Wasnae found for a day. Fuckin’ job we had getting him out, then the two of us had tae sit on his knees and his chest tae straighten him out. We could hear the joints crackin’ like. Then there was-’

‘Save it for your memoirs, pal,’ said Inspector John ‘Jock’ Varley tersely. He turned to the medical officer who had just certified that Ainsley Glover was indeed far more dead than any of the characters that he had killed off during his fourteen-year, twenty-book career. ‘You’re sure about your diagnosis?’ he asked.

The doctor stared at him, frostily. ‘I’m as sure as I can be,’ she said. ‘It looks like a massive coronary. The man was significantly overweight and, from what Dr Mosley tells me, had a history of cardiac problems.’

The inspector looked at the director. ‘Is that so?’

She nodded. ‘I didn’t know him then, but I believe Ainsley had a mild heart attack a couple of years ago. A warning, he called it, when he told me about it. And he was diabetic; last night he asked me if I could find him a quiet place to inject himself.’

‘So how did he get in here, and how come he wasn’t found until this morning?’

‘The yurt isn’t usually locked until the site closes,’ said Gwyn Richards.

‘The what?’ McCall exclaimed.

‘The tent,’ Mosley told him. ‘It’s a Mongolian nomadic design, and yurt is their name for it. The Book Festival has used it as the author centre since long before my time; it’s become a tradition.’

‘And is it traditional to lock it for the night without checking that it’s empty?’

The voice that came from behind them was friendly, but there was something about it that commanded attention.

‘And you are?’ the director asked as she turned to face its owner, tall, with close-cut but lustrous, freshly washed grey hair, dressed in jeans and a pale blue check shirt. Then her face fell. ‘Not the bloody press,’ she moaned, glowering at Sergeant McCall. ‘I thought you told that young PC not to let anyone in here.’

‘Don’t blame the officers,’ the stranger said. ‘They’d have had trouble keeping me out.’ He extended his hand. ‘Bob Skinner, deputy chief constable. I passed by earlier, just as Ian was arriving; I thought I’d better check it out.’

Mosley was dark-skinned, but she felt a hot flush come to her cheeks. ‘God, I’m so sorry. I should have known.’

Skinner shrugged. ‘Why? You and Aileen may be friends, but we’ve never met.’ He looked at Gwyn Richards. ‘Security, yes?’

‘Yes, sir,’ the Welshman replied. ‘And to answer your question, my boys are supposed to check that all the buildings and venues are empty before they’re locked up for the night, but the yurt’s not that big, so to be honest they often just glance in then switch the lights out, without checking every inch.’

‘How many do you have on site?’

‘Me and two others, one of whom’s going to have a bit of explaining to do.’

‘Unless he did check, and the place was indeed empty.’ The big DCC grinned. ‘But let’s not over-complicate matters. You found the dead man when you opened up this morning?’

‘Yes, but-’

‘I asked Gwyn to open the yurt,’ said Randall Mosley. ‘I found an email from Ainsley-’

‘Ainsley?’

‘The dead man is, sorry, was Ainsley Glover. He’s one of Scotland’s top-selling crime novelists. He’s more than that, really,’ she added. ‘He’s quite a public figure.’

Skinner nodded, his face suddenly sombre. ‘I know.’ He stepped forward and looked at the body. ‘As of a few weeks back, he’s been an MSP, directly elected to a constituency, not one of those who’re taken from a party list.’

‘That’s right,’ the director confirmed. ‘He stood as an independent anti-Trident candidate through in the west of Scotland; his election was quite a surprise.’

The big police officer looked towards the coffin as the attendants strained to lift it from the floor. ‘Not as big a surprise as this, though,’ he murmured. ‘Just leave that for a bit, gentlemen, if you don’t mind.’ The pair looked puzzled, yet at the same time relieved to lay their burden down.

He turned back to Mosley. ‘An email, you said?’

‘Yes. It was very short. It said that he was here, and. . well, it was pretty clear he was in trouble.’

‘Was it timed?’

‘It hit my mailbox at twelve minutes past twelve.’

‘How did he send it?’

She pointed to the discarded device, which still lay on the floor. ‘He seems to have used that.’

‘But that’s a phone as well. Why didn’t he call you, call anyone, or even send a text?’

‘The man was dying,’ the medical officer said, sharply. ‘He’d have been in pain, afraid and probably very confused. What he did might seem illogical to you, but in the circumstances I wouldn’t really expect him to act normally.’

‘How old are you, doctor?’ Skinner asked. ‘I’m sorry, we haven’t been introduced.’

‘Dr Rina Brookmyre, and I’m twenty-five. . if that has anything to do with it.’

‘Your experience has. I’ve been a cop for longer than you’ve been alive, and I’m here to tell you that the prospect of imminent death usually gets your attention. If Mr Glover was able to type an email, then find Dr Mosley’s address in his directory and send it, he was surely capable of pressing the “nine” key three times, then the “call” button.’ He turned to Varley. ‘Jock, what brought you along here? Is the Gayfield Square office so bad that the duty inspector has to attend every sudden death?’

The inspector scratched his moustache as he returned his gaze. ‘Ian thought fit to call me, sir. Given the venue, and the fact that it’s going to be crawling with people in an hour or two, I felt that I should come along.’

Skinner nodded. ‘That was my thinking too, when I saw the car arrive.’ He looked down at the director. ‘Randall, I don’t want to make life difficult for you, but I need this area cordoned off for a while. I want nobody else in here until my CID people have checked the scene thoroughly. Thing is, I know this place is crawling with crime writers, but I really don’t like locked-room mysteries.’

‘ Why have we caught this one?’ Detective Inspector Sammy Pye asked quietly. ‘It’s a bit off our patch.’

Neil McIlhenney nodded agreement, as the two men stood in the centre of the yurt. ‘That’s true,’ the detective superintendent conceded, ‘but Gayfield Square don’t have the staff to handle this at the moment. Some clown. .’ he said, jabbing himself in the chest with his right index finger, ‘who calls himself CID commander in Edinburgh inadvertently approved a holiday rota that left a DS in charge there for the second half of August. We’ve got a dead MSP in that plastic box on the floor; no way am I lumbering a detective sergeant with the investigation. You’re almost at full strength, apart from DC Montell, so you’ve got it. Besides, it’s the head of CID’s policy to put expertise and efficiency before territorial layout. If he was here, and not on bloody leave himself, he’d say that your diplomatic skills might be required.’ He paused. ‘Speaking of Montell, who’s he on holiday with?’