‘What?’
‘There’ll have to be a by-election. And if the Nats win this time, they’ll have the same number of seats as us. Remember your interesting suggestion earlier on, that I should run a minority government? If Glover’s seat goes to them, they’ll have just as much right to do that as we will. You might just find yourself marrying the Leader of the Opposition, not the First Minister.’
He reached out his left hand and ruffled her hair. ‘In case you haven’t noticed, I’m marrying you, not either of those.’
Seven
‘What we need to do, Dr Mosley, DS Wilding and I,’ said Sammy Pye, ‘is to establish who were the last people to speak to Mr Glover before his death.’
‘Why?’ the director asked. ‘The doctor says he had a heart attack. He was fat and he was diabetic. I’m sorry he’s gone; he was a nice man, a very talented author and it’s tragic, but I’ve got a Book Festival to run. As we’re sitting here my staff are coming on site, and we’re due to open to the public in twenty minutes.’
‘We appreciate that,’ Ray Wilding told her, ‘and yes, all the indications are that it was a sudden death, no more, but it was unattended, no witnesses, and so procedure says it’s a police matter. Plus, there’s another issue. We need to get in touch with Mr Glover’s next of kin. We always prefer if formal identification can be made before the post-mortem. The information will be on file in the Parliament, I’m sure, with him being an MSP and all, but it would save time if you could help us.’
Mosley seemed to soften. ‘OK,’ she sighed. ‘Next of kin: it’s my understanding that Ainsley was widowed a few years ago, and that he’s lived alone ever since, in a big house out in Barnton. I believe also that he has two children, a son and a daughter.’ She paused for a second, then nodded. ‘Yes. In fact I’ve met the daughter: Ainsley brought her to the programme launch party in June. She’s in her mid-twenties, and I’m pretty sure. . that’s right, he said she was a dentist.’
‘Can you remember her name?’ asked Pye.
‘Carol. Now I think about it, when I saw him last night, I asked after her. He said she was fine and that she’d just joined a new practice, somewhere down in Inverleith. And he mentioned that she’d just got engaged, as well.’
‘That’s good,’ Wilding murmured. ‘It means she’ll still be using her dad’s name.’ He glanced at Pye. ‘I’ll get on to that now, boss, OK?’
‘Yes, do that, Ray,’ the inspector agreed. ‘See if you can track her down through the list of practices. When you find out where she lives, go straight there. Take PC Knight with you.’ Wilding made to rise from his folding chair, until Pye raised a hand to stop him. ‘Hold on a minute,’ he exclaimed. ‘My brain’s still in Sunday-morning mode.’ He reached into his pocket and produced Glover’s wireless device, which he had encased, as a matter of police routine, in an evidence envelope. It was still switched on. ‘My wife has something similar to this; she keeps her whole bloody life on it, so maybe Mr Glover did the same.’
Wilding held out his right hand. ‘Let me see it,’ he said. ‘Becky has one of these things; I know how to access the data.’ Pye passed the device to him and watched as he thumbed his way through the menu, without taking it out of the envelope. In less than half a minute, a broad smile of triumph lit up his face. ‘There you are,’ he declared, showing the screen to the detective inspector. ‘Carol Glover, 7 Skopes Street, Corstorphine. I’m on my way,’ he announced.
‘Have PC Knight drive you in the patrol car,’ Pye told him. ‘If Miss Glover’s there, call me to confirm, and let the mortuary know, to make sure that he isn’t opened up before she’s seen him. But give her all the time she needs to compose herself before you take her there.’
The sergeant looked at the young DI for just long enough to convey that some things need not be spelled out to an experienced officer, then nodded and left.
Pye gazed after him. ‘That’s me in Ray’s bad books. I’m new in the rank,’ he explained to the director. ‘I still give orders that aren’t needed.’
‘The art of delegation is more complex than is often thought,’ she replied. ‘It’s not just what, or to whom, but how as well.’ She smiled, as if a memory had returned. ‘If you really know what you’re doing, sometimes you can delegate up the chain, as well as down. Now, can we get on, please?’
‘Sorry. I asked you about people to whom Mr Glover may have spoken last night during your party in the Speigeltent.’
‘It would probably be easier if I gave you the guest list; Ainsley was a pretty gregarious chap for a writer. They can be rather solitary as a species, but he seemed to be able to work a room with the best of them. I suppose that’s what led him to stand for the Holyrood Parliament.’
‘I’ll take a copy of the list anyway,’ Pye told her, ‘but for now let’s just stick to your own knowledge; those people you actually saw him speaking to at your party.’
‘As far as I can recall. .’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, there was Henry Mount, and Fred Noble, of course; they and Ainsley are usually described as the ruling triumvirate of Scottish crime writers. The three of them went into a huddle early on, before going their own separate ways. Then there was Sandy Rankin, the Sunday Herald reviewer. . most authors find it politic to be nice to her. They were both with another journalist, Xavi Aislado.’ She looked at Pye. ‘Do you know him? A very tall man, very serious; he’s the editor of the Saltire newspaper.’
‘Yes, I know him,’ said the inspector. ‘I didn’t have him down as a party-goer.’
‘He doesn’t look as if he is, I agree, but his paper is one of our major sponsors, so I suppose he felt obliged to come along. Anyway, Ainsley spent a few minutes with him and Sandy. It was then that he sought me out and asked me if I could find him a private place to inject his insulin. I told him that it would be all right to use the yurt, since it wouldn’t be locked until everyone had left. After that, I saw him talking to Bruce Anderson: you know, the former Secretary of State for Scotland.’
‘One politician to another?’
‘I suppose you might say so. From what I could make out, although I wasn’t close enough to hear specifics, but judging by their rising voices, and by the expression on Bruce’s face, they seemed to be having something of a debate, and it was becoming heated.’
‘I thought you said that Mr Glover was an amiable man.’
‘Oh, he was, absolutely, but he never shrank from speaking his mind. From what I’ve been told, Bruce’s politics have been broadly confrontational since he came back into public life, whereas Ainsley was a single-issue man who was out to create a consensus against nuclear weapons.’
‘How did their discussion end?’
‘I have no idea what was said, but I know that it ended acrimoniously. The last time I saw Ainsley he wasn’t with Bruce, but with another journo, a guy called Ryan McCool, who has a column in the Glasgow evening paper.’
‘They were still in the Speigeltent?’
‘No. The party was starting to break up by then. Ainsley and McCool were heading towards the yurt.’
‘It was still generally open to authors?’
‘Not for business or refreshments, no. But some people had left things there; that’s why it couldn’t be locked at that point.’
‘So you saw Mr Glover and this man McCool heading towards it, and the next time you saw Mr Glover was next morning, and he was inside and he was dead.’
‘That’s it.’ She looked at him. ‘Sums it up perfectly, in fact.’
‘I don’t suppose you have a contact number for McCool,’ said Pye, poker-faced.
Mosley smiled. ‘Oh yes, Detective Inspector. I have contact numbers for just about everyone.’
Eight
She drew her brush through her thick unruly hair, still damp from the shower, drawing it behind her head and gathering it in her free hand until she was able to slip a band over it and secure it in a ponytail. It was a style she never wore outdoors, but it was a part of her ritual as she prepared for the day.