‘Does she know her dad was murdered?’
‘She will if she heard me on the radio. If not, she still thinks that he died from a heart attack. They’ve gone to fill in the blanks.’
‘Fine,’ said McGuire. He hesitated for a second, before continuing. ‘Neil, bringing Sammy in, that’s a good shout, but are you sure you want to put him in with Anderson?’
The detective superintendent sighed. ‘Maybe not. I suppose I should take the lead on that one, or sit in at least. Bugger it; and there was me looking forward to getting the sand between my toes this afternoon.’ He looked up as the door of the yurt opened and Andy Martin stepped inside. ‘Got to go now,’ he said. ‘Sleep tight.’
‘With luck. Keep me informed, chum.’
McIlhenney snapped his phone shut and rose to his feet.
‘Hello, Andy,’ he said, extending his hand to the newcomer. ‘Good to see you, although I’m sorry your Sunday’s screwed up too.’ As they shook, he thought for an instant that something flashed in the other man’s eyes, something he could not read, but it was so fleeting that he decided almost as quickly that he had been mistaken. ‘You’re sure we couldn’t have done this over the phone?’ he asked, moving on.
‘Not unless it was secure.’ The reply was abrupt, renewing McIlhenney’s curiosity; his own eyes must have betrayed him, for Martin’s face softened at once. ‘Sorry, Neil. I didn’t mean to snap. You’re right, this day is not turning out as I’d have liked. I should have laid off the whoopee juice last night and gone straight home after the dinner.’
The big superintendent smiled sympathetically. ‘So let’s get this done,’ he said, ‘and then you can get home.’
Martin looked around the tent. He nodded briefly to Pye, who replied, ‘Afternoon, sir.’
The DCC glanced at his watch. ‘Don’t remind me of the fact. Sammy, can you give us a minute?’
‘No, he won’t.’ McIlhenney’s intervention took the senior officer by surprise. ‘I’m sorry, Andy,’ he went on, ‘but DI Pye is leading this inquiry. If what you’ve got to say is relevant to it then he’s going to hear it. I’m not cutting him out of anything.’
‘I told you, this is highly sensitive,’ said Martin, his voice suddenly formal and commanding.
Pye looked at the two men. He had known them both for years, as his career had progressed. Martin had brought him into CID, and he had worked with McIlhenney in Special Branch. He had never known them to be at odds, yet there they were staring each other down.
‘Look, boss,’ he said to the superintendent, ‘I’ll step outside. I don’t mind.’
‘You’ll stand your ground,’ McIlhenney snapped. ‘DCC Martin’s warrant card was issued by the Tayside force, not this one. He’s come here because he has information that he thinks may be relevant to your investigation and you are fucking well going to hear it.’
‘I’ve got a long memory, my friend,’ Martin murmured, ‘and you know how good it is.’
‘In that case you’ll have DCC Skinner’s phone number stored in there. You call him and tell him what we’ve got going on here and see whose side he comes down on. But you’d better tell him that now you’ve kicked this game off, you’re not leaving here till it’s played out.’
‘Don’t threaten me.’
‘Sorry, sir; not a threat, but a promise.’
‘Gentlemen!’ Pye exclaimed, feeling totally out of his depth. He was ignored, by them both, and found himself wondering what he would do if Martin headed for the door.
And so a huge sigh of relief escaped from within him when instead he shrugged and said, ‘Have it your way, but Bob will hear of this. . and so will you, down the line.’
‘You mean if you come back as deputy when he moves up? You think none of us have seen that one coming? Well, I don’t give a shit about down the line, because I’m right and you bloody well know it.’ He looked at the inspector. ‘Sammy, do you have a notebook?’
‘No notes, Neil,’ Martin interjected, ‘and no tape.’
McIlhenney frowned. ‘OK, I’ll give you that much. Tell us your story and maybe we can all be friends again.’
‘Maybe.’ Martin pointed to a table at the back of the yurt; Randall Mosley had left behind a kettle, half a dozen mugs, a carton of milk and a jar of Nescafé. ‘Any chance of a coffee? The last one I had went cold, and the one before that. .’ he paused, ‘it was way back.’
‘Help yourself.’
‘You?’
The superintendent nodded; the DI shook his head. They waited and watched the kettle as it boiled, and as their visitor filled two mugs, handing one to McIlhenney as if it was a peace offering.
The trio took seats at the small table near the entrance, Pye securing the door with a bolt.
‘Right,’ said Martin briskly and almost cheerfully, as if the confrontation had never happened. ‘I believe it’s possible that the security services were involved in Ainsley Glover’s death.’
‘What?’ McIlhenney gasped. ‘Have you been reading one of his books?’
‘I can understand that reaction, but hear me out. I’ve never mentioned this before, probably because I was slightly embarrassed by the fact, being a serving police officer, but Ainsley Glover was a distant relation of mine. I know that he’s always been regarded as very much an Edinburgh toff, and mostly he was. His father was Professor of Medical Law at the university, but his mother was from Glasgow, and she was my mother’s cousin. She was older than my mum, just as Ainsley was older than me, so they were never that close, but they’d meet up at family events. The first time I ever came across Ainsley was at his sister’s wedding. I was about fourteen at the time, and so he’d have been late twenties. He was a nice bloke, distinctive-looking even then, chubby, and with that fly-away hair of his. His wife, Joyce, she was about the same size as him that night; she was pregnant with their first kid.’
‘I know he was widowed,’ said McIlhenney. ‘What happened to her?’
‘She died of viral meningitis, in her thirties. I believe that’s when Ainsley started to write, as a form of therapy.’
‘What was his profession before that?’
‘He was an accountant at the beginning, but he did some part-time lecturing as well. After Joyce died, he concentrated on that, and became head of the accountancy school at Heriot-Watt. I didn’t see him again for a few years after the wedding, not until I was at university myself, and playing first-team rugby. We had a game at Goldenacre one Saturday; I was getting a bit of a reputation by then, and he turned up with his kids. He hung around afterwards, and said hello when I came out. I won’t say he was a regular attender, but he was in the stand on the odd occasion after that, at Edinburgh games, usually on his own. He knew fuck all about the game, but that’s true of quite a few people who call themselves rugby followers. After I joined the police, moved through here and started playing for the Accies, I didn’t have to jump straight on the bus home when the game was finished. If I saw him there, we’d have a couple of pints in the clubhouse afterwards. At least I would; Ainsley had to keep off the beer, not so much for his weight but because of his condition. Did you know that, by the way? That he was diabetic?’
‘Yes,’ McIlhenney confirmed casually, ‘we knew that.’
‘Fine. Anyway that was the extent of it. I stopped playing regularly because of the job, and so I stopped seeing Ainsley socially, until I got to the age when I found myself going to funerals as often as weddings. I saw him at his mother’s send-off, but there wasn’t much said between us that day. The only other time. . that’s right,’ he exclaimed, his eyes glazing for a second as if he was examining a mental picture, ‘was when I met him by accident in the Café Royal bar, about fifteen years ago. He was with Joyce and another couple; it must have been just before she died. I had just made CID, and I was with Bob; he was a DCI then on the drugs squad. Ainsley came over, I introduced them. . and that’s when Inspector Walter Strachan was born.’