‘And did he?’
‘No, but somebody else did. Turned up in my bloody office, he did, and told my secretary that no, he didn’t have an appointment but he had come from London on a matter of shared interest, and he hoped that I would have the time to meet him. He introduced himself as Mr Coben, but if that’s his real name, then I’m Dorothy L. Sayers. He didn’t mess about. He told me very politely that he was from the intelligence community, and that I was stepping on something outside my remit. He said that, yes, Ainsley Glover was on their watch list, and that he would remain so. With Scotland entering a phase of, as he put it, electoral instability, there was great concern internationally about the security of the deterrent. If he had simply been one of those protesters he detested, like Anderson, they wouldn’t have been so worried about him, but it was his links to other countries, through his work, that had marked him out, and that the situation was being monitored internationally. So would I please back off and let them do their job. At that moment in time, Coben said — and do his words come back to haunt me now — he wasn’t in any jeopardy. On the other hand, I had a career, a wife and child to think about, and I would do well to keep all three in mind.’
‘Jesus, Andy,’ McIlhenney gasped. ‘How did you react to that?’
‘In my mind, I picked him out of his chair and stuck the head on him. I was so steaming mad inside I almost did that very thing, but in the end I kept it to telling him to get the fuck out of my office. All he did was smile, tell me, “Take my message to heart, sir,” and walk out.’
‘And did you? Take his message to heart?’
Martin nodded. ‘Oh yes, I did. What else was I to do? If it had just been the spooks, I’d probably have taken it to ACPOS, but the military, they’re not subject to the normal rules. So I told Ainsley that there had been a pilferer on the Royal Mail and that they’d been dealt with, guessing that the watchers would be more careful with his letters in future.’ He sighed. ‘And that was that,’ he said. ‘I hadn’t thought much about it since then; not till this morning.’
The superintendent leaned back in his chair. ‘And what about us? You’re suggesting that someone on our own side, national team, that is, might have had Glover killed. What are we supposed to do about that? How are we supposed to investigate it?’
‘I wish I could tell you.’
‘Never mind us, are you going to tell the boss now? Are we? Jesus, is there any question? Now that you’ve told us this story, we have to pass it on to him, even if you don’t.’
The Tayside deputy chief constable ran his thick fingers through his hair. ‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ he said, ‘and I have a problem with it, a big one at that. It’s why I’ve said nothing about this to anyone, until now. If you or I do tell him, what’s he going to do? Keep it to himself, or tell Aileen? He may feel that he has to. If he does that. . I know her, and she won’t sit still for it. Lads, these people operate on a need-to-know basis. I don’t believe for a minute that Ainsley’s surveillance was signed off by ministers. But Aileen’s a minister, First Minister at that, and although defence isn’t in her remit, Scotland as a whole is. Even if Coben’s team had nothing to do with the murder, she will go straight to Downing Street, and the consequences. . they could be unthinkable.’
Twenty-one
‘Come in, Sergeant,’ said Carol Glover, ‘but forgive me for hoping this will be your last visit.’ She stepped aside to let Ray Wilding and DC Alice Cowan pass into the hall of her first-floor tenement flat. She had changed, from the T-shirt and jeans she had worn at their earlier meetings, into a black blouse and a dark grey skirt.
‘I quite understand that,’ the DS assured her. ‘I wish I could guarantee that it will, but in the new circumstances-’
‘New circumstances?’ she exclaimed.
‘You haven’t been listening to the radio or had any calls from the media?’
‘No, I haven’t, and my number’s ex-directory, so it’ll take them a while to trace me. Are you telling me that my father’s death wasn’t caused by a heart attack? Did he overdose on insulin? Is that why you wanted those ampoules earlier?’
‘Can we sit down and talk about this?’
‘Of course, sorry; go on through into the living room.’
They preceded her, and as they entered they saw two young men standing in front of the hearth. One was short, dark and chubby, the other taller, slim, square-shouldered and fair-haired. Their only common feature was a day-old stubble. The smaller of the two was red-eyed; his companion was pale, and frowned as he approached the detectives.
‘I’m Ed Collins,’ he told them, ‘Carol’s fiancé. This is her brother, Wilkie.’
Wilding introduced himself, and Cowan. ‘I’m sorry about your loss,’ he said awkwardly. He had never been confident when dealing with the bereaved, always afraid to go beyond the most basic courtesies.
‘It’s unreal,’ Wilkie Glover muttered, looking at Cowan, younger, closer to him in age, rather than the sergeant, as if he hoped to find more comfort in her. ‘I saw my dad yesterday morning, and he was fine. Some bloody doctor I’m going to make if I couldn’t see the signs.’
‘Don’t be hard on yourself,’ the DC told him. ‘There was nothing you could have noticed.’
‘Things seem to have moved on,’ his sister explained as she offered the visitors places on a low white sofa, then moved beside her brother to face them, both still standing.
‘Listen,’ Collins volunteered, ‘I’ll leave you to it. I’ll go and get us a takeaway for lunch. A couple of pizzas maybe. What do you fancy?’
‘No,’ Carol insisted. ‘I want you here.’ He shrugged, and took a seat at a table by the window. She looked down at Wilding. ‘So tell us. What happened to my dad?’
‘When I came to collect your father’s insulin supplies,’ he began, ‘I told you that there were some more tests we needed to run. They’re now more or less complete. A short time ago we announced that his death is now the subject of a full-scale investigation. Mr Glover was killed by fatally high levels of glucose in his bloodstream-’
‘Hold on,’ Wilkie interrupted. ‘I’ve just been studying that area. Like I said, I saw him yesterday and he was showing no signs of hyperglycaemia.’
‘He wouldn’t have been,’ Wilding replied quietly. ‘He was drugged, immobilised and then injected with massive quantities of the stuff.’
As both siblings stared down at him, he saw their faces go from pale to chalk-white. He rose from the couch. ‘I think it’s you two who need the seat,’ he said.
Carol looked towards her fiancé. ‘Ed,’ she gasped, ‘did you hear that?’
‘I sure did.’ He moved towards her, and put his arms around her, then eased her on to the space that the DS had vacated.
‘We came to take a statement from you, Miss Glover, and we’ll need one from your brother since he’s here. They’re not formal, but even so, the book says they should be done separately, I’m afraid. Do you have another room where we could interview you?’
‘There’s the kitchen.’
‘You don’t need to do that,’ Collins declared, looking at the officers. ‘Wilkie and I will go and get those pizzas, OK?’
‘Fair enough,’ the sergeant agreed.
‘How long should we be gone?’
‘Fifteen minutes will do fine.’
‘It’ll take us that long anyway.’ He nodded to Wilkie and headed for the door.
‘What do you want to ask me?’ said Carol as it closed. ‘I can’t think of anything that I can tell you that would help.’
‘Let’s take it in stages,’ Alice Cowan murmured. ‘Let’s begin with the last time you saw your dad.’
‘Yesterday morning, like my brother; we were all here. The flat Wilkie’s in just now is pretty crappy, so he’s here quite a lot. I’ve told him he can have my spare room, but he says it would cramp my style. . although I think he really means Ed’s.’