‘What?’ Her half-scream, half-laugh, interrupted him. ‘Are you telling me that Mirko is dead?’
‘You know I am,’ he told her. ‘You killed him on Sunday evening, at around about eleven.’
‘Oh no, I didn’t,’ she declared. ‘I was in Lord and Lady Elmore’s house with Denzel until ten forty-five on Sunday. We went there for drinks after our last event. Ask my poor dupe, he’ll confirm it.’
The police officers looked at Chandler; he nodded confirmation.
‘See,’ she said. ‘I didn’t kill him, but I bless the man who did. The last witness is dead, Tadic is free, my general is free, my lover is free. Now it’s his turn to get me out of jail.’
Eighty-four
Aileen sat upstairs in the study, reading a brief on the escalating costs of the Forth River crossing, wishing that her colleagues had followed her instincts and chosen a tunnel rather than a second bridge. Normally she had a mind like blotting paper, but she found that after only a few minutes her concentration lapsed, as she wondered what was happening downstairs. Eventually, she gave up, put the folder back in her blue box and switched on the radio, listening to the folk music programme on Radio Scotland, but with the volume moderate, to guard against any chance of the sound escaping.
She was almost asleep when her mobile buzzed and vibrated on the table beside her. She shook herself back to full wakefulness and picked it up.
‘It’s done,’ he told her quietly.
‘Was there any difficulty?’
‘None we couldn’t handle.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Still in the building, waiting for a van. We’re taking them out the back way, and up to Fettes. Neil and I are going with them, and the new fiscal’s meeting us up there. I can’t let this lie overnight. I must have charges laid formally before this breaks in the media. There’ll be a court appearance tomorrow morning, ten o’clock as normal. I’ll instruct Alan Royston to set up a media briefing half an hour before.’
‘Will you take it yourself?’
‘No. Sammy Pye will be front and centre; he’s senior investigator and that’s how it works.’
‘Did it play out the way you thought?’ she asked, wondering why he was not more elated.
‘Not quite, but three out of four ain’t bad. It looks like she didn’t kill the gypsy after all.’
‘What about Denzel? Will he be charged too?’
‘I don’t anticipate that, although the fiscal might have a different view. Coben says that she’s actually married to Tadic, that she was with him when the attempt was made on his life. He made her fake her death, to protect her, when he realised that sooner or later someone was going to get him. Chandler was used, all the way along, the poor dupe.’
‘I’m a dupe too; she took me in.’
‘Me too. We all were, until this evening, when I saw that fax. Christ, she’s clever. She had Collins use her name when he saw Andy and when he bought the cigars, knowing that we’d go looking for a man. Nobody outside their circle in Serbia twigged to the fact that Coben was female. Nobody actually studied those documents in the Tadic file, took a close look at them.’ She heard him sigh. ‘That’s what happens when you do things in secret.’
‘I’ll remember that,’ she told him. ‘I’ve decided to follow your suggestion. I’m not doing any more deals with my coalition partners. I’m going to blow them out, and form a minority government. If it doesn’t survive the by-election for Ainsley’s vacant seat, then so be it. I’m putting my political integrity first, from now on.’
He chuckled. ‘We’d better enjoy this place while we can, then. You stay put, and I’ll come back here when we’re done up the road. If I’m in time, maybe we’ll go across the road and have a drink in the Book Festival bar. I suppose I should find the deputy director, if I can, and tell him he’s been promoted.’
Eighty-five
‘And that’s it,’ said Skinner, as Brian Mackie and David Mackenzie looked back at him across his meeting table, ‘that’s how it went. In about ten minutes Sammy Pye’s going to tell the media that a woman’s been charged with three murders, but he’s not going to name her: standard practice, as we all know. About a minute later they’re going to be tear-arsing up to the Sheriff Court to find out who she is, so make sure you don’t get knocked over in the rush. I wish I could be there, to see the looks on their faces. . and the expression on hers, even more so.’
‘How do you think she’ll react?’ asked the ACC.
‘I think it’ll break her,’ the chief replied. ‘I sensed last night that she was starting to unravel. She couldn’t stop talking, once she started. Until now, she’s had a total belief in her own supremacy, her own ability to out-think everybody else. Young Collins, for example, ex-army, not an idiot, gets involved for money, and he thought he was dealing with a man. We’ve been through her place like a dose of salts. We found Glover’s hard disk and Mount’s computer, and her own records, some of which she hadn’t bothered to delete. She contacted Collins by email; there’s no indication that they ever met face to face until the morning he died.’
‘If she hadn’t been caught?’ Mackenzie murmured.
‘She’d have gone looking for Mirko Andelić, and found out very quickly that he was dead. It was a pure accident that she didn’t see Hugo Playfair’s picture in the press, or read his name, because yes, Henry Mount had spilled it to her and Glover, after he’d been to see Boras.’
‘And Boras, sir, what about him?’
‘Forget it.’ Skinner stood, ending the meeting. He signalled to McIlhenney to stay behind as the others left.
‘Do you want me in court, boss?’ the detective superintendent asked.
‘No, give young Sammy all the glory.’ He paused. ‘Once he’s had his moment, you’d better have him send the Andelić material back to Regan, and tell him it’s his again. That’s the bugger, Neil. I’ve still got a killer in my own village.’
‘No chance of Playfair being it?’ The detective shook his head almost before he was finished speaking. ‘Nah, of course there isn’t. He was the guy’s minder; once he’d lost him, he had to disappear, before we started asking him awkward questions.’
‘Yes, like who the fuck was he,’ the chief constable exclaimed as his colleague headed for the door, ‘and where had he come from. No, it’s a local; I’m sure of that. One of my near neighbours followed a man and killed him out of prejudice, battered his head in with a hammer, or similar blunt metal object.’ He froze, and suddenly his eyes were somewhere else. ‘Or similar object,’ he murmured. ‘Neil,’ he called out.
In the doorway, McIlhenney turned. ‘Sir?’
‘When you tell Sammy to send that file back to Regan, have him send two items up to me, assuming that we’re efficient enough to have the second of them. I want the post-mortem report on Andelić, complete with pictures, and I want George’s list of everyone who was in the Golf Inn on Sunday night, before he died.’
Eighty-six
As the old man turned over the soil in his rose garden, his wife’s two pet nuisances, as he insisted on calling them, played around at his feet. The bloody animals have been walked twice today already, he thought. Where do they draw their energy from? His strong wrists twisted, flicking some earth at Jarvis with his hoe, then a second damp clod at Joe, smiling as they dodged out of the way. But he was always careful to miss them.
‘Must oil that bloody gate,’ he muttered as he heard it creak, twice, once on opening, then on closing. He turned to face his visitor, and saw Bob Skinner walk towards him.
And he knew.
‘I need to see your stick, Donald,’ he said, then bent to pick it up from where it lay on the path. He tossed it in the air, then caught it, spinning the rough, hickory in his fingers, admiring the steel circlet at its neck and then the heavy steel cap at the end of the hand grip. Peering at it intently.