Skinner waited until he had caught his eye. ‘You’re not going to tell me who this patient is, are you?’ he said.
‘No. Under no circumstances.’
He looked at the archbishop. ‘You’re not bound by the doctor-patient relationship, though, Jim.’
‘Maybe not, but I can claim another privilege.’
‘Fair enough. The matter is closed, Dr Anderson,’ he said abruptly, then paused. ‘Jim, do you mind if Bruce and I have a minute alone?’
‘How can I?’ Gainer chuckled. ‘Private conversations are at the heart of my priesthood.’
Skinner sat quietly as the cleric and the DI left the room. ‘Tell me this, Bruce, please,’ he began after the door had closed. ‘How can a man who does the sort of work that you clearly excel in be such an abrasive, lying, manipulative arsehole of a politician, with both entities crammed into the same body?’
Anderson smiled, sadly. ‘Do you think I don’t ask myself that question every so often? I have the occasional glimpse of my own faults. My only answer is this: I believe that I’m so good at my private work because I have an addictive personality myself. My drug is politics, and in its pursuit I’m a different man to the one my patients meet. My judgement goes out the window sometimes, as it did when we had our differences, long ago, and again when I lost my temper with Glover the other night. What the man said was true. I saw my flirtation with the rebellious side of my party as a way back in; that’s why I reversed my position on the Trident issue. That’s why, even now, I’m tempted to contest the by-election for the newly vacant Holyrood seat. . which, I repeat, I had no hand in causing.’
‘Well, physician,’ said Skinner slowly, ‘my advice to you is this. Heal yourself of your addiction; get rid of your Mr Hyde. Don’t yield to that temptation. Focus on doing good, and nothing but good. For if you don’t, then pretty soon you’re going to come into conflict with the lady I’m going to marry, and I won’t like that. I told you yesterday that I don’t bear grudges for myself, but anyone who goes out of his way to hurt her. . and, Bruce, that’s how you play the game. . that person’s letting himself in for more grief than he could ever handle.’
Fifty-four
‘What I don’t understand,’ said Colin Mount, shaking with what George Regan recognised as a combination of shock and anger, ‘is why, after Ainsley Glover was murdered, you could allow this to happen to my father.’
‘Col, please, not now.’ Trudy Mount’s voice was cracked as she spoke from the depths of an armchair.
‘It’s a fair question,’ the DI told her. ‘All I can offer as an answer is that we had no reason to think that the attack on Mr Glover was anything other than a one-off.’
‘But wouldn’t it have been wise to consider the possibility?’
‘What possibility, sir? That some madman is acting out a fantasy about crime writers and using literary festivals as a background? Let me ask you, do you think your father would have come up with a plot like that?’
A soft chuckle came from the chair, where the new widow held a tall glass, gin and tonic, ice, no lemon, mixed by her son. The likeness between them was striking: both fair-haired, tall, slim built, she in her mid-fifties, he around thirty. ‘No, he wouldn’t, Mr Regan; his work was more concerned with financial crimes. His lead character, Petra Jecks, was an accountant, turned policewoman. But he’d have been well pleased if he had, I can tell you. The more complex the mystery, the better Henry liked them.’
‘Who were his favourites?’ Regan asked.
‘What’s that got to do with the investigation?’ Colin Mount snapped.
‘Almost certainly nothing at all, it’s a straight question. I don’t expect to be involved in the inquiry; my assumption is that my colleague DI Pye will be linking with the Australian investigators, since he’s senior officer in the Glover case. I was asked to break the news of your father’s death because I’m working a homicide locally.’
‘I appreciate the way you did it, Mr Regan,’ Mrs Mount told him, ‘with great sympathy and compassion. Please excuse my son’s abruptness.’
‘I have no need to. I understand it.’
‘You ask about Henry’s favourites; you’ll find them all on the shelves in his office. Most are American, but the two old stagers were at the top of the list. You’ll know who I mean, Ainsley and Fred Noble. They were friends, but he admired their work. They were called The Triumvirate; Henry was very pleased to be counted among their number, although he’d never have admitted that publicly.’
‘Have you been aware of any threats to your husband?’
Mrs Mount shook her head. ‘No, none at all. And I’d have known if something had been troubling him. I could read him like one of his books.’
Regan looked at her son. ‘How about you? Had your father mentioned anything to you?’
‘I thought you weren’t involved in the investigation?’ he shot back.
‘I said that I don’t expect to be, but I’m here now. I’d be letting myself and you down if I didn’t ask the obvious questions.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Colin Mount, mollified. ‘No, Dad was business as usual before he went to Australia. He was sorry that Mum couldn’t go, but still excited about the trip.’
‘Normally, I would have gone with him,’ Mrs Mount explained. ‘But I’ve just had a small operation, and the medical advice was to stay at home.’ She frowned, deeply. ‘If only. .’ she murmured.
‘It would still have happened, Mum. It’s probably as well you weren’t there.’
Sudden ferocity shone in the woman’s eyes. ‘That he should have died alone? Is that what you’re saying? If I’d been there. .’
‘What, Mum? You think whoever killed him would have thought twice because you were there?’
She subsided as quickly as she had flared up. ‘No, but. .’ Her voice tailed off.
‘My mother has a very protective nature,’ her son explained. ‘She gave me hell when I had a motorbike, until I sold the bloody thing just to get some peace and quiet. She was the same with Dad. She’s probably the only person in Gullane, maybe even in the whole damn world, who thinks he stopped smoking.’
‘What do you mean?’ she protested. ‘He did.’
Colin laughed. ‘See what I mean? He told you he did, sure. But not even you could separate my old man from his Havanas.’
‘Oh, I knew that, really,’ Trudy Mount exclaimed, with a smile that did not fool Regan for a second.
‘So your husband was in good humour,’ the DI continued.
‘Exceptionally. He had just finished a Jecks book, for publication next year, and he was working on a new project. I’m not sure what it was. . he could be secretive about his work, even with me. . but it was something different. Still financial, though; he’d been talking to Ainsley.’ She caught Regan’s puzzled expression. ‘Henry used him as an informal, unpaid consultant on accountancy matters; he knew quite a bit himself, having trained to be a CA before going into the diplomatic service, but if he needed advice on anything, Ainsley would happily provide it.’
‘Mr Mount was a diplomat before he was a writer?’
‘Yes. He retired when he did his first big book deal, about ten years ago. We retired to Gullane then; Henry had always wanted to live here. It made a pleasant change after some of the places we’d been. Venezuela, for example, you would not have liked, or Berlin, back in the early eighties. It’s transformed now, of course.’
‘But he didn’t write about that part of his life?’
‘No. He said that he wanted to keep both sides of his career completely separate.’
‘Can I see his office?’ Regan asked.
‘Of course.’ She looked at her son. ‘Colin, drive the inspector along there, would you?’
The detective was taken by surprise. ‘He didn’t work at home?’
‘No. Henry was very disciplined when he wrote, and he didn’t like the inevitable domestic disturbances: doorbell ringing, me hoovering, that sort of thing. He had an office on the outskirts of the village, and did all his writing there. I never went near the place; it was an understanding we had. I used to tease him about keeping a mistress down there; he said that he did, and her name was Petra Jecks.’