‘In that case, don’t go crossing the street on your own,’ Amanda told him. ‘At the best of times, you’re the most accident-prone man I’ve ever known.’
‘Maybe Fred isn’t next in line,’ June Connelly murmured. ‘Maybe this person was only after Ainsley and Henry.’
‘But why?’ Wilding asked. ‘As I understand it, of the three of them, Mr Noble’s the biggest seller. If you’re going to start knocking off Edinburgh crime writers, surely he’d be at the top of the list.’
‘Or maybe it’s one of my readers,’ the dark figure brooded as he nursed his whisky in the depths of his armchair, ‘thinking that he’s doing me a favour by taking out the opposition.’
‘Or maybe it’s you yourself, Fred,’ said the woman opposite, mischievously. ‘That’s the question these gentlemen are being too delicate to ask.’ She glanced at them. ‘Isn’t it?’
The sergeant shook his head. ‘When Mr Glover was murdered, Mr Noble was appearing live on the BBC2 Edinburgh Festival review programme. Even at that time of night, I reckon he has a few witnesses to his alibi.’
‘Then perhaps it has to do with the project,’ Connelly persisted, her voice thick. Wilding found himself wondering how big a share of the bottle of malt she had consumed.
‘Hey, that’s a point,’ Noble agreed.
The DI looked at them surprised. ‘What project?’
‘Ainsley and Henry had a joint thing going,’ the agent told him. ‘I have no idea what it was, only that it was contemporary, non-fiction. I asked Ainsley what it was about, more than once, but he’d only smile and mutter, “Due course, due course,” in his most infuriating tone.’
‘But just the two of them?’
‘They approached me,’ Noble confessed. ‘In January, I think it was. They said that there was something they wanted to do together and that it would involve a lot of investigation. They felt that it wouldn’t be right not to offer me the chance to join them . . . Henry did say they reckoned they’d need a third person anyway . . . but I said to them that I was going to be way too busy this year to think about taking on anything else.’
‘Did they tell you what it was about?’
‘I wouldn’t let them. I told them that if I didn’t know, there was no chance of me getting too comfy at a writers’ festival somewhere and blabbing about it.’ He looked at Pye. ‘So what do you reckon? Am I off the hook?’
‘It’s a line of inquiry,’ the young inspector conceded, ‘and we’ll follow it up; but off the hook? No. Those officers will still be at your door, front and back, until this investigation is over.’
Sixty-three
‘Bob,’ said Piers Frame, ‘I’ve told you. Military intelligence deny all knowledge of this man Coben.’
‘I’m sure they do, and I’m inclined to believe them, for once in my life. But he exists, Piers. Andy Martin’s not an excitable type, and he never makes a mistake over a name. If he says that’s what the guy called himself, you can bank on it.’
‘But he’s irrelevant now, isn’t he? The man Glover is sadly no longer with us, and therefore this Coben will have no interest in Martin.’
‘Unless he really didn’t take to being offered the window exit from his office, and decided that he’d exact some form of retribution. Or unless he decided simply to discredit him, as a precaution.’
‘Are you saying he has done?’
‘I’m saying that somebody has. It involves Martin, it involves my older daughter and I’ve been stuck right in the middle of it.’ He described the sending of the graphic and compromising photographs to the media, and their disruption of his press briefing.
‘I see,’ Frame murmured. ‘Yes, I can understand now why you’re following this line. However,’ he drawled, ‘hasn’t your interest in the fellow, and your pursuit of him, turned into a personal vendetta, old chap?’
‘Certainly,’ Skinner agreed. ‘I’m looking forward to spending a few minutes with the man in an interview room. But there is an overiding professional need to find him. The MoD spooks were watching Glover, in a routine way. This man goes to see Martin to warn him off, goes to the length of threatening his family, and yet you tell me he’s not a spook himself. If that’s so, it suggests to me that he was involved with Glover in another context, and puts him right at the top of the list in terms of murder suspects. Now, with the second death, if I can connect Henry Mount to Coben—’
‘Mount? Yes, I saw a note about that in a Foreign Office bulletin this morning. Are you telling me you can link a murder in Edinburgh with a suspected shooting in Melbourne?’
‘We have done. We know how he was killed, and if I’m right about this Coben, we probably know who did it.’
‘So what do you want from me?’
‘I want you to trawl through the entire intelligence community until you find something that connects with this man, or with the name. I want you to look under every one of the stones where these people hide, and get me a lead to him.’
Frame sighed. ‘All right, Bob, I’ll do that for you. If I refused you’d probably go over my head anyway, and get what you want. However, it does seem to me that if this person is behind your two killings, then he’s exposed himself rather recklessly with this stunt involving your daughter.’
‘You can say that again, Piers, because by doing that he’s got my keen personal attention. He may think that I’ll be flying a desk for the rest of my career, and that I’m no longer a threat. If he does, he’s got it wrong . . . and if he looks at my record, he’ll find that when it comes to getting my man, even the fucking Mounties have nothing on me.’
Sixty-four
‘I didn’t go too far, did I, boss,’ Pye asked, ‘offering Fred Noble round-the-clock protection? When I told him I was authorised to offer it, I knew I might be stretching it a bit.’
‘As far as I’m concerned, Sammy,’ Neil McIlhenney replied, smiling across his desk, ‘that warrant card in your pocket gives you all the authority you need. It was a matter for your judgement and it was the right call. His wife was bound to have asked for it anyway, and we couldn’t have refused. How’s Noble taking it?’
‘I don’t think that his own situation’s really dawned on him yet. He’s lost two good friends; that’s all he’s thinking about. When we left, he and Glover’s agent-cum-ladyfriend were looking at the bottom of two whisky glasses and thinking about changing the view. Mrs Noble’s a diamond, though; she’ll keep them on line.’
‘What if he decides to go to the off-licence to restock; or, worse, what if he decides to go to the Oxford, where these writers seem to hang out?’
‘Then his protection officers will insist on going with him, in full uniform. It won’t come to that, though. His wife won’t let him over the door.’
‘What about this project you mentioned? Neither he nor Connelly had a clue about it, you say?’
‘No. I pressed them, but Noble was adamant that neither of the dead men had dropped a clue. Connelly said that she’d only really have been interested when they had something ready to sell. She also said that the buggers were so carried away with the thing that they’d never considered who was going to sell it for them, as in which of their agents.’
‘Or if it would sell at all, I suppose.’
‘Oh no,’ said Pye firmly. ‘They’d considered that all right. Glover told Mrs Connelly that if it worked out, it would be the biggest thing that he and Mount had ever done in sales terms, and that it would make them both international names.’
‘Indeed,’ McIlhenney exclaimed. ‘It’s done that already, if it’s the reason why they’re fucking dead. What’s our next objective?’ he asked.
‘We have two, sir, haven’t we? We need to ask Mrs Mount what she knows about the project.’
‘Her son may be a better source, from what George Regan said; Mount seems to have kept secrets from his wife . . . his continuing cigar habit, for one. Mario should be sound asleep right now, but tomorrow morning, his time, he’ll be looking to see what us
eful traces the late Henry might have left behind him. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear from him. What’s your second step?’
‘It’s got to be this man Coben, hasn’t it? Andy Martin’s visitor. We now have two computer thefts, following on each murder. They point straight to this mysterious project as the reason for the killings. Fuck all to do with a vendetta against crime writers . . .’
‘Don’t you prioritise Coben; the boss is dealing with that himself. But are you telling me now that you needn’t have offered Noble protection?’
‘No, not at all. One, maybe I’m wrong and the thefts have nothing to do with the project, and maybe there is a lunatic at work. Two, if they have, if that’s the motive, it’s possible that the killer will assume that if Glover and Mount were involved, then Noble is too.’ He paused. ‘Unless, of course,’ he murmured, ‘he knows who the third partner is . . . Noble told us that they reckoned they night need another person, even if it wasn’t him.’
McIlhenney grinned. ‘Or unless,’ he said slowly, ‘the killer is that third man.’
Sixty-five
‘I like your hair,’ said Alex quietly to her table companion, in the exclusive restaurant on Gullane’s main street.
‘Thanks,’ said Maggie Rose Steele, an addition to the party, at Skinner’s request. She touched her short red locks. ‘It’s curlier than it used to be, before I had the chemotherapy.’ She smiled. ‘There aren’t too many bonuses from having cancer, but . . .’
‘You’re looking great.’
‘I’m feeling great too,’ she admitted. ‘Perverse as I am, sometimes I’m scared by how well I’ve recovered. I’m over the surgery, I’m off all medication, my weight’s back to what it was before I became pregnant . . . maybe not quite, but that’s no bad thing . . . I’m in the gym three times a week, and I’m ready for action as soon as my maternity leave’s over.’
‘How’s the baby doing?’
‘Stephanie Margaret is doing even better than me, thanks. She’s a handful already; I just hope my sister can cope with her tonight.’ She looked sideways at Alex. ‘This is the first time I’ve been out on my own since she was born.’ And then she frowned. ‘Come to think of it, this is the first time I’ve been out on my own since . . . do you know, I can’t remember when. As a divorcee I found that I wasn’t invited to many hen nights . . . not that I’d have gone. As a senior cop, I wasn’t asked out on too many dates. As a widow: I’ll have to find out.’
‘Next time I’m on a girlie night,’ Alex promised, ‘I’ll make sure you’re invited.’ A dark look crossed her face. ‘There won’t be any of the other kind for a while, that’s for sure. You know what happened, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Maggie murmured. ‘Your dad told me . . . better I heard it from him than through the rumour mill; that was how he put it.’
‘I still can’t believe how stupid I was, in every way. He’s been great about it.’
‘Death to the man who harms his little girl.’ She looked around. ‘I wasn’t going to comment, but I see one notable absentee tonight.’
‘That’s broken beyond repair, I’m afraid. Hell no, I’m not afraid at all. I plan to steer well clear of Andy from now on; for good. And not just him either. It turns out that Mr Montell next door, my Mr Reliable, has a past that he didn’t choose to share with me, so he’s definitely off the escort list. Then there was that disaster I had not so long ago; the one who’s in jail now. No,’ her jaw set firm as she spoke, ‘I’m firmly back on the list of Edinburgh’s eligible singles.’
‘Want a tip from an older woman?’
‘If that older woman is you, sure.’
‘Don’t go looking. Be the person you are and trust to your luck. Don’t put yourself in the market for a man. I suppose I did, long ago; I felt that single was not how you’re supposed to be. Then I got together with Mario. It was OK for a while, I admit; I was never anything like a housewife, and we socialised quite a lot. But if I’d really considered both pros and cons before marrying him, I wouldn’t have. When Stevie happened, it was out of the blue.’
‘He came looking for you?’
‘That’s just it, he didn’t. It just clicked between us. Listen, Stevie was a babe magnet, we both know that. I bet you fancied him yourself, just a bit.’ Alex smiled, and looked into her wine glass. ‘Go on, admit it,’ Maggie teased.
‘Well,’ she giggled, ‘maybe just a wee bit.’
‘Of course; no shame, everybody did, all the girls. And he got into scrapes too, just like you. There was Paula Viareggio, for example; she used him to send out signals to Mario.’
‘Paula’s not that devious.’
‘Not consciously, granted, but that’s what her and Stevie were about. Mind you, that was minor league. There was somebody else made a pitch for him, and that would have been big trouble, huge trouble.’
‘I think I can guess who that was,’ Alex whispered. ‘My former stepmother? Not that she ever said, but I saw her look at him once, and that told me plenty.’
‘See you lawyers?’ Maggie rolled her eyes. ‘I’m saying nothing. No names, no pack drill, even though the lady in question has gone from among us. Anyway, then Stevie and I clicked . . . and that’s what happened. We were friends, away from the job. That was first, and then one night I just realised, God, I am so horny with this man. And he was gazing at me, thinking the same thing. So we screwed each other’s brains out; I’d never had sex like that in my life before. Afterwards . . . I’ll never forget it . . . I had this great surge, and I felt, “I’m safe. At last I’m safe.” As I was thinking it, Stevie said just that, out loud. That was it, the beginning of what should have been Happy Ever After . . .’ she paused ‘. . . only there’s no such thing. There can’t be; it’s a nonsense saying.’ She looked along the table at six people, heads bowed in conversation. ‘There you see three couples who are together for life. But that’s all it is, for life; there is no “for ever”. Some day three of those people will be in the front row at a funeral, the principal mourner. Come to think of it, three of us at this table have been there already: me, your dad and Neil.’ She reached across the table and squeezed Alex’s hand. ‘This might sound like a weird thing to say, but I really hope that one day in the dim and distant, you’re sat there too, in the worst seat in the house, and that like the three of us, what you’ve had in between makes the hurt of the moment bearable. The Queen, God bless her, once wrote that grief is the price we pay for love.’ She smiled, and simultaneously her eyes filled with tears. ‘And you know what?’ she said. ‘It’s a price worth paying.’
Glancing along the table at that moment, Bob Skinner felt a pang of anxiety, but then Maggie laughed, and washed it away. He picked up his coffee spoon and tapped his wine glass, to attract attention. ‘I promised,’ he began, ‘that there would be no speeches tonight, and this isn’t one. It’s only a few words of thanks, to Maggie, Neil and Brian, for your part in shoving me into my new office . . . we are a team, and you three, along with our big Irish-Italian chum, and others who can’t be here tonight for different reasons, have been among its most valuable players . . . to my lovely Aileen, who bribed me into it with the promise of eventual matrimony, and not least to Our Kid, who, although she doesn’t realise it, has been my constant, my foundation stone throughout my police career, apart from the first year or so when she wasn’t born . . . although maybe even then . . . and without whom the sun would cease to shine on my world.’ He raised his glass and took a sip. ‘A toast to you all.’
‘You forgot all the bad guys,’ Alex called out.
‘Eh?’
‘It’s true,’ she said. ‘You should be toasting all the people you put away, all the Jackie Charleses, all the Big Lennies. If it wasn’t for the likes of them, you wouldn’t have had a career.’
‘And maybe you should switch from corporate law to criminal defence. Then the Skinner family would cover both ends of the business.’
As the laughter subsided, he switched places with Aileen, to b
e next to Neil McIlhenney. ‘Speaking of bad guys,’ he murmured, ‘did we get Crown Office clearance for the use of those images of Hugo Playfair?’
‘Yes,’ the superintendent replied. ‘And the artist did a good job of removing his beard and most of his hair. He even did a third version, sans beard but with sunglasses. They’re all in place, with every newspaper and TV station in the country.’ He checked his watch. ‘The early editions will be on the streets pretty soon. They’ll be well used; the papers love this sort of thing.’
‘Good luck, then. You never know, we may get a result.’
‘You don’t sound too optimistic, Chief.’
Skinner winced. ‘The King is dead, eh. I wonder how long it’ll take me to get used to being called that.’
‘Could be worse, could be Guv.’
‘Not on our force. My first decree: the terms “Guv’nor” and “Neighbour” . . . worse still, “Neebur”, the Taggart version . . . banned. Optimistic? I’m hopeful, but the way this guy disappeared, and the fact that he’s left not a trace of himself behind, tells me that he’s going to be bloody difficult to find, if not impossible. On top of that . . .’ He stopped abruptly.
McIlhenney persisted. ‘On top of what?’
‘I don’t want to put a damper on George Regan’s first major investigation as a DI, but I don’t honestly believe that finding Playfair would wrap it up.’
‘Come on. He’s the last guy the victim spoke to; their conversation ended in a public argument. Playfair’s the clear suspect. He had time to go back to his van, get a weapon, his hammer, then lie in wait for Mustafic.’
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