‘How was she?’
‘Icy and tearful, all at once; not surprising, in the circumstances. She told me that I was a treacherous slapper, and that she’d like to tear my hair out by the roots. I told her more or less what I’ve just told you, and said that Andy was mortified afterwards, that he called me later to say it could never happen again.’
‘He did that?’ Bob barked. ‘Better to have said nothing at all than to rub your nose in your own mistake. The bastard! I tell you, they’re going to be selling tickets at the next ACPOS meeting.’
‘Dad, stay away from him!’ she said apprehensively.
‘It’ll be the other way round, baby; I’m pretty sure of that. I saw him yesterday; if he was my true friend, and yours, he would have told me about what had happened between you, and apologised. But he didn’t have the balls to do either. He won’t come near me for a long time, if ever.’
‘Oh, Pops!’
‘That’s how it is, wee one. Subject closed. Now, this interdict of yours; that was fast work.’
‘The photographs arrived in my email,’ she told him, ‘followed shortly afterwards by a call from a Sun reporter. I told Mitchell at once, of course; what affects me affects the firm. He went straight up to the court and got the interdict preventing publication.’
‘Is he happy that it will hold?’ he asked.
‘He said that if it doesn’t, the editor who publishes the pictures, or even our names, will wind up in jail for contempt. We’ll go for a full interdict in due course.’
‘In a couple of days, kid,’ her father assured her, ‘this will have blown over as far as the media are concerned. They’ll have some sort of a story today and tomorrow, but with no names and no pictures, it won’t feature very high up the news schedules. Still, you’re staying at our place tonight, no question.’
‘If you say so.’ She fell silent for a few moments. ‘Pops, what I don’t understand is who would do this, and why? Those pictures weren’t taken by accident. Somebody was watching my flat. And the timing too. . just before your unveiling as chief constable. Is somebody out to get me? Have I upset a client that I don’t know about?’
Bob chuckled, taking her by surprise. ‘Alex, from what I know of your firm’s client list, it’s unlikely to include someone who’d take it out on a junior member of staff by photographing her in an intimate situation. You’re a bystander in this business, even if you’re not entirely innocent. Don’t worry, I’ve been wondering the same as you. Whoever’s behind this is either after me. . but when I ask myself who would be that crazy, I can’t come up with a name. . or it’s Andy who was the target. I promise you this, I’ll find this character. When I do I’m going nowhere near him myself, but I’ll have him charged with breach of the peace, that wonderful Scottish catch-all which lets you do just about anyone for just about anything. And the first person I’m going looking for is a man who calls himself Coben. See you tonight, babe,’ he said softly. ‘Keep your chin up, but most of all,’ he laughed, ‘please keep your bedroom curtains closed in future.’
Sixty-two
Fred Noble stood, his right hand grasping the high mantelshelf of the Victorian fireplace in his drawing room, so hard that his knuckles shone white, contrasting sharply with its black marble, and with his customary dark clothing. ‘Henry?’ he murmured. ‘You have to be kidding me.’
‘I wish I was,’ Sammy Pye told the author, watching as his wife, Amanda, handed him a large malt whisky. She waved the bottle at the DI and at Ray Wilding, but they both declined the unspoken offer. ‘One of our colleagues happens to be in Australia; he’s in Melbourne right now, he’s seen the body and he’s established the cause of death, subject to autopsy confirmation.’
‘What was it?’ asked June Connelly, from an armchair.
‘Before I go into that,’ Pye replied, ‘I must stress that what’s said here has to stay here, within this room.’ He looked up at Noble. ‘But the time has come for you to be fully in the picture. . especially you, sir. I know that you were friends with Mr Mount, but did that extend to reading his work?’
‘Of course. I’ve read the lot, I think.’
‘In that case, do you remember a book called Havana Death, and how one of the characters is murdered?’
The tall man frowned for a second, then his eyes widened. ‘The old CIA trick, with the bullet in the cigar? That’s how Henry died?’
‘So it seems.’ Pye turned to Connelly. ‘You were Mr Glover’s agent,’ he said, ‘so you’ll be familiar with a story called Black Sugar.’
She nodded. ‘I’m familiar with it, but I confess I read a hell of a lot of crime novels; not all the details stick in my memory.’
‘The victim’s a diabetic,’ Wilding explained. ‘He’s drugged, and then killed by a massive injection of glucose. That’s what happened to Ainsley Glover. That information’s been withheld from the public, and we’ll be asking the Australians not to go into too much detail about Mr Mount’s death. We don’t have too many cards in our hands in this investigation. That degree of confidentiality might help us along the way.’
‘Plus’ Pye added, ‘the last thing we need is a press contest to see who can write the most garish headline.’
Noble lowered himself into the empty chair that faced Connelly across the hearth, taking his wife’s hand as she came to sit on the arm. ‘First Ainsley, now Henry,’ she said. ‘This is like Agatha bloody Christie, Ten Little What-nots. Are you telling us that Fred’s next on the list?’
‘I hope we’re not,’ the DI replied, sincerely. ‘But we don’t need to spell out the need for caution. I’ve been authorised to offer you both protection at any level you’d like. You could move to a safe house, we could move a personal protection officer in here, or we could have uniforms outside, round the clock. Everywhere you go, they’ll go, although, Mr Noble, you should probably think about cancelling your public engagements.’
‘I won’t do that,’ the author declared instantly. ‘I’ve got two gigs at the Book Festival and I’m doing them both.’
‘Wait a minute,’ Amanda Noble retorted. ‘This is no time to be going all macho on me.’
‘I’m not turning chicken on you either, though. We’ll have protection on the doorstep, fine, but I won’t be made a prisoner. My first event isn’t till Sunday; maybe the police will have caught this nutter by then.’
‘We might, we might not,’ said Pye. ‘Think about it, please. In the meantime, I’ll have a protection team organised.’
‘But won’t that give the media the hint that there’s a link?’
‘Mr Noble, as soon as the Victoria State Police announce Henry Mount’s identity, and the fact that he was murdered. . at the moment their media seem to be assuming that some bloke had a heart attack, so no big story. . the most downmarket tabloid will assume that there’s a link, and your phone will start ringing to melting point. It’s the connection between the methods used in each case that we hope to keep under wraps.’
‘Point taken.’ He paused and looked up at his wife. ‘Switch on the answer machine, love, as soon as we’re done here, and turn off our mobiles.’ His eyes swung back to the DI. ‘I’ll think about pulling out of those events. . the first one’s a panel discussion anyway: it can go on without me. . but even as we speak, I’m thinking about this too. Ainsley and Henry both liked to go in for dead clever murders. . so to speak.’ He grinned. ‘In one Jecks book there’s a female Egyptian bank manager called Cleo who’s poisoned by the bite of an asp. My homicides aren’t that prosaic or elaborate; they usually involve sharp objects, blunt instruments, or the occasional firearm, and they’re nearly all committed at close range. The most sophisticated thing I’ve ever done was have a bloke,’ he glanced at the detectives ‘. . a police officer actually. . walk in front of a bus, under hypnotic instruction.’