Fatal Last Words

Twelve

‘Are you sure you should do this?’ Aileen asked, as Bob slipped his warrant card into the pocket of the light cotton jacket that he had taken from his wardrobe.

‘I’ve just been asked to do it,’ he pointed out. ‘In the last fifteen minutes I’ve had two phone calls from concerned neighbours, people who know me well enough to have our ex-directory number. One of them you know quite well, Colonel Rendell up the road. He’s a crusty old boy, ex-military, and he was quite annoyed when he told me that his wife is afraid to take their dogs for their usual morning walk because of what’s down there. He demanded, point-blank, that I go down there and sort them out. Yes, I could delegate the task; I could pick up that phone and have a van-load down there inside half an hour, doing those vehicle checks I talked about earlier. I could probably have some of their dogs taken away for examination by a vet. . the bastards are noisy enough, that’s for sure. But I don’t feel inclined to. All I’m going to do just now is take the old colonel’s wife’s spaniels for a walk, as a favour to him, and maybe have a chat with our visitors along the way. What’s wrong with that?’

‘For a start,’ she replied, with a smile, ‘you’ll look daft walking two spaniels. You’ll keep your temper, promise me.’

‘Of course I will. I won’t lay a finger on them. I’ll ask them nicely, like I promised you. I might even offer them a police escort to the designated site.’

She frowned, unconvinced. ‘I think I’ll come with you.’

‘No,’ he told her firmly. ‘This is a police matter. I won’t let you get involved.’

‘Think you could stop me if I insisted?’ Her tone was light but the challenge was serious.

‘Don’t let’s go there, please,’ he said, deflecting it. ‘Let me do this, and see what comes of it.’

She yielded to him. ‘If you must. Go on then, but step carefully.’

‘Carefully and light as a feather, babe.’ He turned and headed for the door, but before he had taken his third step, the phone rang. He turned and picked up the receiver from the table on his side of the new king-size bed that he had bought when Aileen had moved in with him. ‘Skinner,’ he said.

He had been expecting another outraged citizen; instead, Detective Superintendent Neil McIlhenney spoke into his ear. ‘Sorry to break into your Sunday again, boss,’ he began.

‘Don’t worry, chum,’ he replied. ‘It’s well broken already. What’s up? Nothing trivial, I take it?’

‘I fear it isn’t. I’ve just had a call from young Sammy Pye; he’s at the mortuary. The sudden death at the Book Festival that you looked in on this morning: just as suddenly, it’s got complicated.’ Skinner frowned, but said nothing. ‘Do I take it you’re not totally surprised?’ McIlhenney asked him.

‘I don’t really know why, but I’m not,’ Skinner admitted. ‘You know how you can walk in on an event and somehow it just doesn’t feel the way it looks?’

‘You mean when everybody else is seeing what they expect to see, a run-of-the-mill event, but you’re looking at a crime scene? That’s happened to me maybe three or four times in my career, that’s all.’

‘But not this morning?’

‘I can’t say it did, but I got there after you’d gone, remember. I didn’t see the same as you, literally.’

‘True. So what’s happened to confirm my special insight?’ He listened as the superintendent passed on Pye’s news. ‘Mmm,’ he murmured, when the story was complete. ‘Have you ever heard of that method of doing yourself in?’

‘No, I haven’t. But if I was diabetic, of a mind to end it all and I was looking for a method that was quick and painless, I can see that might be a reasonable proposition. Instead of balancing your sugar levels, shove them over the top, then slip into a coma, and die quietly and painlessly.’

‘So why would he send Randy Mosley a message asking for help? Are you going to tell me he changed his mind after he’d done it?’

‘I’m not going to tell you anything, gaffer, but that would make sense. Plus it’s much more likely than the old prof’s other explanation, an error by Glover’s pharmacist.’

‘I’ll give you that,’ Skinner conceded, ‘but let’s put an end to the speculation and do what needs to be done.’

‘I’m already doing it. Sammy and Ray Wilding are on their way back to Charlotte Square. By now they’ll have asked Dr Mosley to close off the hospitality centre and the author’s quiet room. . That’s what they call the bit where he died. Appropriate, yes?. . and not to let her cleaners take any of yesterday’s rubbish off the site. Earlier on we had no reason to look for the syringe, or the pen, whatever the guy used. Now we do. More than that, we’ll need to interview everyone Glover was seen with last night, including your old friend Bruce Anderson.’

Skinner made a low growling sound at the back of his throat. ‘I’m tempted to sit in on that one, Neil. In fact I would if I didn’t have to sort something out here, then pick up the kids. You keep close to it, and give Sammy a message from me: tell him to rule nothing out as far as Anderson’s concerned.’