Quintin Jardine - Fatal Last Words

‘Hmm,’ Skinner grunted. ‘Not him, or I’d have been grinning all over my face when I got back. No, it was Ainsley Glover, best-selling crime writer turned populist Member of the Scottish Parliament.’

‘Oh no,’ she sighed.

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘There’s no mistake?’

‘My darling, when I said he’d turned purple in the hospitality room I was speaking the truth. He couldn’t have got any deader if he tried.’

‘What a pity. I didn’t have much of a chance to get to know him, but he seemed a nice man.’ She fossicked in her bag for her phone. ‘I must call the duty press officer and tell him to put out a statement of regret, expressing sympathy to the family.’ She sighed. ‘Oh, what a shame; I was really looking forward to seeing him perform in Parliament. You know, I was even thinking of offering him a job in the administration. He got in on his anti-Trident ticket, but he seemed to be shaping up as an ally of ours.’

‘I’d have marked him out as the opposite, given his views.’

‘Not necessarily; in fact, the Parliament’s pretty solidly anti-Trident. Most of my people are, all the Nats and even one or two Tories, in private. No, Ainsley was quietly socialist. The truth is, he used to be a member of our Edinburgh Pentlands constituency party. We found that out during the election, but I made our campaign managers keep quiet about it. It was pretty clear that the seat he was fighting was going to be between him and the Nationalists, and sure as hell we didn’t want them to win.’ She gasped, then let out a low moan. ‘Oh Jesus! That’s just what I do not need.’

‘What?’

‘There’ll have to be a by-election. And if the Nats win this time, they’ll have the same number of seats as us. Remember your interesting suggestion earlier on, that I should run a minority government? If Glover’s seat goes to them, they’ll have just as much right to do that as we will. You might just find yourself marrying the Leader of the Opposition, not the First Minister.’

He reached out his left hand and ruffled her hair. ‘In case you haven’t noticed, I’m marrying you, not either of those.’

‘ What we need to do, Dr Mosley, DS Wilding and I,’ said Sammy Pye, ‘is to establish who were the last people to speak to Mr Glover before his death.’

‘Why?’ the director asked. ‘The doctor says he had a heart attack. He was fat and he was diabetic. I’m sorry he’s gone; he was a nice man, a very talented author and it’s tragic, but I’ve got a Book Festival to run. As we’re sitting here my staff are coming on site, and we’re due to open to the public in twenty minutes.’

‘We appreciate that,’ Ray Wilding told her, ‘and yes, all the indications are that it was a sudden death, no more, but it was unattended, no witnesses, and so procedure says it’s a police matter. Plus, there’s another issue. We need to get in touch with Mr Glover’s next of kin. We always prefer if formal identification can be made before the post-mortem. The information will be on file in the Parliament, I’m sure, with him being an MSP and all, but it would save time if you could help us.’

Mosley seemed to soften. ‘OK,’ she sighed. ‘Next of kin: it’s my understanding that Ainsley was widowed a few years ago, and that he’s lived alone ever since, in a big house out in Barnton. I believe also that he has two children, a son and a daughter.’ She paused for a second, then nodded. ‘Yes. In fact I’ve met the daughter: Ainsley brought her to the programme launch party in June. She’s in her mid-twenties, and I’m pretty sure. . that’s right, he said she was a dentist.’

‘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.’