Quintin Jardine - Stay of Execution

He took his phone from the pocket of his slacks, and scrolled through his phone book until he found the number he was looking for, under P. He called it and waited, until a gruff voice answered. ‘Dan? It’s the DCC here. How’s your Sunday been?’

‘Okay,’ said Pringle, cautiously, ‘but I’ve a hell of a feeling. .’

‘You’re right. It’s going to get worse. If there’s a saving grace, it’s going to make you feel like a real detective again.’ He smiled, wickedly. ‘Do you know that my wife’s a sort of old-fashioned fortune-teller? That’s right; she can look at your entrails and tell how bad your luck’s been. In this case she’s been looking inside a deceased Belgian, Monsieur Lebeau, who was signed off as a coronary case. Sarah says that’s wrong, though; she says he’s a cyanide case, and that it couldn’t have been accidental.’

‘Jesus. Where did it happen?’

‘Haddington, last night.’

‘East Lothian? Greg Jay, then.’

‘He’s not even in post yet, Dan. I want you to head this investigation personally. This isn’t your ordinary famous Belgian. This one’s a bandsman, and he was due to be playing for the Pope this week, at his personal invitation. That makes it a wee bit sensitive. Pick your own team, but run it hands on and keep me in touch all the way.’

‘Okay boss. I’ll use my own guy, Ray Wilding, for a start. I don’t suppose you’d lend me Jack McGurk, would you?’

‘You’re welcome. I was going to offer him anyway, as my eyes and ears.’

‘Good. Where do we begin?’

‘With the undertaker who moved the body from the house where he died. You need to talk to him and confirm that he washed residual toothpaste from the dead man’s mouth. We reckon that’s how the poison was administered. If he still has the wipes that he used, we’ll need to get hold of them, as evidence and on safety grounds. You come to Little France to meet up with me, then we’ll head for the house where the man died. I’ve got all the relevant notes here.’

He looked at the brief report of the attending constable, and read the address at which Lebeau had died. ‘While we’re doing that, get McGurk and Wilding out to the undertaker’s to interview him and take possession of anything that might be relevant. We’ll try to find the man’s toothbrush and toothpaste, although we’ll need to handle them with great care. The things are probably still lethal.’

‘I’ll bring evidence bags, then. I always keep some around.’

‘You do that, and. .’ His voice tailed off.

‘What are you thinking, Bob?’ asked Pringle.

‘I’m thinking what I’ve always been trained to think. . the worst. This man was killed by poison administered through toothpaste. What if the tube that he bought wasn’t the only one that was spiked? What if someone went into a chemist’s or a supermarket and planted a whole shelf of the bloody things? As well as your evidence bags, Dan, maybe you should bring a panic button. . just in case we need to press it.’

‘So what did you think of your first rugby international, Colin?’ Mario asked as they walked from the ground to his car, in the police park.

‘Impressive,’ the American admitted. ‘Some of those guys make our gridiron players look like pussies. It’s fast, it’s continuous. . we have time-outs in our game. . and it is certainly rough. Did you ever play the game?’

‘I played at school, and for a while after I left. I was a prop forward, but I was a bit light for the top class.’

‘You were? Man, you’re a brick shit-house.’

‘Maybe, but in those days my top weight was a hundred kilos. You try shoving against a hundred and twenty kilos for eighty minutes; it does your back in. I did think for a while about switching to the back row, but I was too slow for that.’

As they approached his car, a silver Alfa Romeo sports hatchback, he pressed a remote control to unlock it. They climbed inside and headed for the exit, McGuire flashing his warrant card at the young constable on traffic control to pull rank shamelessly on the civilian vehicles coming from their area.

Soon they were at the Western Corner traffic lights, where he turned left, heading westwards until he came to Clermiston Road. ‘It might seem like we’re going to Glasgow,’ he said, ‘but this’ll get us back quicker, I promise you.’

The journey back to the Malmaison took less than fifteen minutes. ‘If we’d gone the straight way we’d never have got back,’ said McGuire, ‘and that would have been bad news. Paula’s cooking tonight and we do not want to keep her waiting.’

‘Man,’ the American exclaimed, ‘we had lunch at Neil’s already. I can’t let you feed me again.’

‘Do you want to tell her that? ’Cause I sure as hell don’t. Besides, what else are you going to do?’

‘That really is too kind of you both,’ said Mawhinney.

‘Mince,’ McGuire replied amiably, as he pulled up outside the waterfront hotel. ‘You get yourself round to my place for six. We’ll walk up to Paula’s and maybe call in at the Wee Black Dug on the way. I want to check that place over.’

Old soldiers are the same the world over , Skinner thought, as he looked at the Belgian veteran. Colonel Auguste Malou cut an imposing figure in his civilian clothes; he was a little overweight, but he had a crispness about him, a neatness that the Scot recognized as the mark of the military man.

Nonetheless, he was also extremely distressed; his moustache quivered as he spoke. ‘It was terrible, gentlemen, most terrible,’ he said, in accented English that was as precise as his dress. The shock of his friend’s death was still written all over his face.

The two detectives had not told him the reason for their visit, but his host, Major Alfred Tubbs, another old soldier, turned farmer rather than bandsman, was worldly enough to know that a deputy chief constable and a detective chief superintendent did not turn out in the aftermath of an ordinary sudden death. He hovered in the background as Skinner spoke to Malou.

‘I’m sure it was,’ the DCC replied. ‘As I understand it you found him, that was all.’

‘That’s right. Bart went to the bathroom to shave and freshen up for dinner. . he had a very heavy beard and often shaved twice a day. He didn’t come back quick and I wanted in there, so I went to give him a hurry-up call. He did not answer my call, so I went in and found him on the floor.’

‘He had been brushing his teeth, I understand.’

Malou nodded. ‘Yes. There was paste all around. At first I thought he was having a fit and was foaming at the mouth, but then I took a closer look. I’ve seen dead men before, sir. You can believe that. I’ve seen them blown up, seen them with their throats cut, seen them with bullets through their brains, but their eyes were all the same. When I saw Bart’s eyes, I didn’t need any lady doctor to tell me he was dead.’

Major Tubbs tapped Skinner on the shoulder. ‘What’s this about?’ he asked quietly.

The deputy chief constable saw no need for further delay. Quietly he told both men about the outcome of the autopsy on Lebeau. Malou stared up at him, his ruddy face suddenly devoid of colour. Tubbs gasped. ‘In my house? This happened in my house?’

‘I’m afraid so. Technically it’s subject to confirmation, and I’ve got our toxicologist working on tissue samples right now, but I can’t afford to wait for that. There are all sorts of considerations, and the most pressing is that of public safety.’ He looked at the Belgian. ‘Colonel Malou, do you still have the toothpaste that Monsieur Lebeau used?’

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘It’s still in the bathroom, and so is his toothbrush.’