‘Wilkie’s a medical student.’
‘Sure, but not even they can be in two places at once.’
‘Carol’s a dentist; they do anaesthetics.’
‘But not with the drug that was used on the victim.’
‘Maybe it was a conspiracy; the two of them, and a third party. Their dad must have been worth a few bob.’
The sergeant sighed. ‘You spent too long in Special Branch, Alice. Or maybe you’ve been reading too many crime novels.’
She looked at him disdainfully. ‘I don’t read crime novels; they’re for saddos.’
‘Like me, you mean? So what do you read?’
‘Romance, mostly.’
‘Jesus, and you’re calling me a sad person.’
‘Not you,’ she said, backtracking. ‘You’re different. You’ve got a professional interest in the subject.’
Wilding laughed. ‘When in a friggin’ hole, Alice, stop digging. Are you saying that my approach to crime-solving is based on pearls of wisdom that I pick up from reading police procedurals? Do you think DI Walter Strachan’s my mentor?’ He winked at her. ‘Because if you do, you’re wrong; my professional style’s based on somebody else fictional, but he’s retired now, so I’m on my own.’
‘Excuse us.’
They turned, startled by a voice that came from the entrance to the tent. Cowan looked out and saw two men standing there. The younger, forties, she reckoned, was tall, over six feet, with a small head on a long body, floppy dark hair and a narrow build; he was dressed mainly in black. His companion was an inch or two shorter but with a bigger frame, clothed in jeans and a red T-shirt, emblazoned with a devilish face she took for that of a bull, a first impression confirmed, once she could read it, by the name ‘Cordoba’ stencilled below. What little was left of the man’s greying hair was cropped so close that at first glance he seemed totally bald, making it consequently difficult to guess his age.
‘CID?’ he asked.
‘That’s us,’ Wilding confirmed, stepping into view past the DC. ‘Mr Mount, is it?’ The bald man nodded. ‘And Mr Noble?’
‘That’s me,’ his companion confirmed.
‘I read your books,’ the detective explained. ‘You both look more or less like the photos on the cover.’
‘That’s good to know,’ said Fred Noble with a tentative smile. ‘It means we haven’t aged much in the five years since they were taken. Randy Mosley said you wanted to talk to Henry and me about poor old Ainsley.’
Wilding nodded. ‘That’s right. We’re talking to everybody who was with him last night.’ As he spoke he noticed a thick and recently lit cigar burning between the first two fingers of Henry Mount’s right hand. ‘Sir,’ he murmured, nodding towards it, ‘I’m sorry, but even if it doesn’t look it, this is a workplace, so. .’
‘Of course; excuse me,’ the author responded. He lifted up his left foot, stubbed out the offending object on the sole of his shoe, and slipped it into his pocket. ‘My vice,’ he explained, his accent more than hinting at west of Scotland origins. ‘Deeply non-PC these days, but I look on it as an aid to weight loss.’ He smiled. ‘It’s a weak excuse, I’ll grant you, but it’s the best I can come up with. Wish I could give it up: they’re bloody expensive, even abroad, where you’re not giving most of the cost to that bastard in Eleven Downing Street.’
‘You don’t like politicians, Mr Mount?’
He looked at Cowan, appraising her, trying to read behind her question. ‘I used to work in the world of politics, lady. I don’t like politicians of a certain colour, especially not when they pursue policies that discriminate against the people they should be trying to help the most.’
‘Mr Glover was a politician.’
‘Hah!’ Mount’s guffaw filled the tent. ‘Congratulations, officer, you’ve just won Henry’s Golden Cigar for the unsubtle question of the week. My God, I could have written your dialogue. Come to think of it, I did; last book but one.’
‘I must read it,’ said the DC drily. ‘I might pick up some more tips.’
‘You do that; I can use the sales. Now, if you want a proper answer, I never regarded Ainsley as a politician, any more than he did. He was a sincere man, and when he got passionate about an issue, he could talk about nothing else.’
‘Gentlemen,’ Wilding intervened, ‘come round here and have a seat, so we can do this like a proper interview.’ He introduced himself, and his colleague, as the two writers each took a chair. ‘You were saying, Mr Mount,’ he continued.
‘I was saying that while Ainsley might have been an MSP, he wasn’t part of any machine.’
‘Do you know if he had any enemies in Parliament?’
‘None he ever mentioned; he was a man who made friends, not foes.’
‘What about Dr Anderson?’
‘Anderson?’ Fred Noble spat the name out. ‘It’s an honour to have that man as an enemy. That’s one thing that Ally and I had in common: we were both on his shit list.’
‘Why?’
‘Same reason in each case: he accused each of us of modelling characters on him.’
‘And did you?’
‘I didn’t and Ally swore he didn’t either. Truth is, the guy’s ego is so big he couldn’t park it in an aircraft hangar.’
‘Were you aware that he and Mr Glover had an argument last night?’
‘Everybody in the bloody tent was aware of it. There was nearly another one after it. Henry was going to go across and nut him after what he called Ally, but I persuaded him that there are better ways of getting your name in the papers.’
‘Our poor old pal’s found the best way of all,’ said Mount gloomily. ‘You guys are quite certain that this is murder, are you? There are precedents for pathologists getting it wrong.’
‘The pathologist in question is Professor Hutchinson.’
‘Joe? No doubt then, it’s homicide, right enough. Are you going to tell us the cause of death?’
Wilding smiled, and shook his head. ‘I like wearing a suit to work. The uniform does not flatter me at all. How about you, Mr Mount? Are you on Dr Anderson’s shit list?’
The bulky author nodded. ‘I am, actually.’ Noble looked at him, surprised. ‘Not for anything in a book, Fred,’ he continued. ‘I do a monthly blog on my website; it makes up for nobody ever having asked me to write a newspaper column, and paying me for it. I comment on anything and everything under the sun. A couple of years back, there was a media story about some rich waster, a duke’s daughter, who got into bother in the US for possession of cocaine. Instead of banging her up for a few years, as they would have done if she’d been a hooker, they took her to the nearest airport and stuck her on a plane home. I wrote about it, said that although I don’t believe in the criminalisation of drugs, I believe even less in the rich being exempt from the law. I went on to comment on useless prats like her being allowed to adopt one of daddy’s old titles as a courtesy, and suggested that the best way to put a stop to the silly practice would be for the tabloids to stop referring to her as Lady Whatever. . Lady Anthea Walters, it was. . and just as plain Miss or, better still, by her surname alone, just like ordinary criminals and footballers and the like. That piece was very popular: I had a lot of positive feedback from readers, including several Americans, pissed off that she’d been turned loose. In among them, though, was a piece of vitriol from Bruce Anderson. It was threatening, only it wasn’t; it said that he was a man of influence, and that he would put it to work against me unless a full apology appeared in the following month’s blog, but it didn’t explain how he thought he could hurt me.’
‘How did you deal with it?’ asked Cowan.
A look came into Mount’s eye, as wicked as that of the bull on his T-shirt. ‘First I sent him a private response by email. I told him that from what I knew of him, he and I were adherents of the same political party, and that as far as I knew it was committed to freedom of speech. I closed by inviting him to get back in touch if there was any part of “Go and abuse yourself with a lavatory brush” that needed explanation. The next month I published both his message and my response.’