Quintin Jardine - Stay of Execution

‘All night; at least, that was the police doctor’s preliminary view.’

She frowned, as if that would help her make sense of what she had been told. ‘Are you telling me that Ivor killed himself?’ There was incredulity in her tone. She looked from one detective to the other.

‘No,’ Steele replied. ‘We’re not telling you that.’ He caught Rose’s quick glance, and her message. ‘The circumstances were such that we have to regard his death as suspicious,’ he concluded cautiously.

‘So he was attacked?’

‘That’s a strong possibility,’ said the superintendent. ‘When did you see your husband last, Mrs Whetstone?’ she continued quickly, not wanting to be questioned any further herself.

‘Yesterday morning, when he left for the office.’

‘Did he use public transport? I notice that there are two cars in your drive.’

‘Sometimes he used the bus, but quite often he walks.’ The present tense registered with her at once; she bit her lip awkwardly. ‘It’s his main form of exercise, now he has less time for golf, although he hasn’t been doing it as much lately.’

‘So the MO was right, and he didn’t come home last night.’

‘He was right.’

‘Didn’t this alarm you?’ The question was put softly.

‘No.’

Rose was puzzled. ‘It didn’t? Weren’t you expecting him?’

‘No, because he called me in the afternoon, after the fog had closed in, when it was really very bad. He said that he could hear buses crawling along Lothian Road, and bumping into each other, and that the streets just weren’t safe. He told me that if it hadn’t lifted, or at least got a bit better by the evening, he might well take a room in the Caledonian Hotel. I assumed that he had.’

‘So he didn’t phone to confirm that?’

‘No.’›

‘And you didn’t phone the Caley?’

‘No. I spent the evening with a neighbour, Connie Dallas. She’d just bought a DVD of the extended version of The Two Towers and she invited me to watch it with her. I didn’t get back here until after eleven.’

‘Did you think to check your answering service,’ Steele asked, ‘to see if your husband had called?’

‘We don’t have an answering machine, Inspector, and we don’t use the BT service. Ivor has a mobile,’ she flinched again at her mistaken tense, ‘and that’s all.’

‘Did you try to call him at his office this morning?’

‘No,’ she said, stiffly. ‘Why should I? I have never interrupted him at work, unless it was absolutely necessary.’

‘Were you surprised that he didn’t call you?’

‘A little,’ she confessed. She sniffed, and added, ‘Enough for me to decide to get my own back. When the fog cleared a little I called a taxi and went to Jenners for some retail therapy. It’s always been my way of letting Ivor know when I’m displeased.’ As she spoke, her voice became a whisper, and her gaze dropped. ‘Isn’t that right, Blue?’ she murmured to the dog. Finally, tears began to roll down her cheeks; she reached out to a side table and ripped a handful of tissues from a box, roughly, as if she was annoyed by her weakness.

Rose let the silence last for a few seconds, giving Virginia Whetstone time to gather herself, and to drink some of her tea. ‘How was your husband’s state of mind recently?’ she murmured eventually.

‘Robust!’ The answer was fired back in an instant. ‘Ivor has never been more successful in business, and we are both. . have both enjoyed being back in Edinburgh.’

‘He’s never mentioned any worries?’

‘None.’ The widow knitted her brows. ‘There were a few concerns at first, I suppose; he didn’t care for the woman he had to report to, for instance.’ There was something in Mrs Whetstone’s tone which hinted that she had shared his dislike. ‘The new approach to business came as a surprise to most of the managers, and as a terrible shock to some who couldn’t adapt. Ivor could, though, as Vernon Easterson anticipated. After some self-doubt, his new post began to stimulate him far more than Kelso had in recent years. To be frank he’d become a bit of a boring old sod down there; he was just filling in the years to retirement. The change was a challenge and he embraced it very quickly. It made a new man of him.’

‘Did he talk about his work at home?’

‘When we were in Kelso, never; I knew many of his clients and so it would have been difficult. But here, since he took over the new job, he’s spoken much more of what he’s been doing. Why? Do you think this might have had something to do with. .’ As she looked across at Rose, it was clear that her emotional strength was all but spent.

‘We don’t think anything at this stage, Mrs Whetstone,’ she answered. ‘We’re a few hours into our investigation, that’s all. I think that we should end this conversation now. You’ve had terrible news, and we should help you to deal with it. You have a son, I believe.’

The woman seemed to be shrinking before her eyes. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, tearful again and no longer fighting against it. ‘Poor Murphy. He’s in the USA; he works there, in the drinks industry. I don’t know how I’m going to tell him.’

‘I’ll tell him, if you like,’ Maggie offered. ‘If you give me a number for him, I’ll break the news.’

Virginia Whetstone reached across and squeezed her arm. ‘That’s kind of you, my dear; I know it isn’t part of the job. But it’s something I have to do myself.’

‘Do you have any other relatives nearby? Anyone who can come and be with you?’

‘There’s my mother, but she’s very old, and anyway, I couldn’t stand her fussing over me. Ivor has a sister in Kirkliston; yes, Aisling and her husband must be told.’

‘Perhaps we could call her husband at work. Then he could go home, break the news to his wife and bring her to see you. I just don’t feel right about leaving you here alone.’

‘I appreciate that. Yes, maybe you could call Bert for me; he works for a finance house, Carpenter Dixon, in Edinburgh Park. His other name’s Reynolds.’

Rose looked round at Steele. He nodded, stood up from the couch and stepped out into the hall, taking a cell phone from his pocket as he left. The dog stirred itself from its place on the hearthrug and padded after him.

As the door closed on them, Mrs Whetstone frowned and looked down, into her hands, now clasped together on her lap. ‘You said something earlier about formal identification,’ she murmured.

‘Yes. It’s necessary, I’m afraid.’

‘When will I have to do it?’

‘It will have to be done as soon as possible. . but not necessarily by you. The fiscal will accept an identification by your brother-in-law.’

‘Ohh!’ Her hand went to her mouth. ‘I couldn’t ask Bert to do that.’

‘No?’

‘No, really I couldn’t. I have to do it myself. It’s my duty as a wife, isn’t it?’

It was Maggie’s turn to look at the floor, at the space the dog had vacated. ‘When I’d just started going out with my husband,’ she said slowly, carefully, weighing her words, ‘there was an incident, and he was shot. He’s a policeman, and I was taken to see him because everyone thought that’s what I would want. The truth was, I’d rather have been anywhere else. I didn’t want to see that big hunk of a man lying helpless with tubes coming out of him. I wasn’t really given any choice. You have; you can ask Bert if you want, and nobody’s going to think the worse of you. Not for one second.’

‘Thank you, my dear,’ Virginia Whetstone whispered. ‘But Ivor might, and that I could not permit.’

Cold had come to New York City, down from the Arctic, banishing fall for the rest of the year. Mario McGuire had been completely unprepared for the change, but Colin Mawhinney had found him a heavyweight over-jacket from his precinct storeroom. The big Scots detective was quietly pleased by the experience of standing at the intersection of Seventh Avenue and Broadway with the letters ‘NYPD’ emblazoned across his back.