Fatal Last Words

Thirty-eight

‘Not you people again,’ Bruce Anderson exclaimed through the small loudspeaker in the doorway of the Darnaway Street building. ‘I’ve given you my formal statement; now let that be an end of it and go away.’

‘I can’t do that, sir,’ Pye insisted. ‘Now let us in, if you please.’

‘And if I don’t please?’

‘Then an officer will break it down.’

‘Are you serious, man? You wait there while I phone your chief constable. We’ll see what he has to say about this.’

‘No, sir, I will not wait. Either you will open this door in the next ten seconds, or PC Childs here will; it’ll be a lot quieter for the neighbours if it’s you who does it.’

‘This is outrageous,’ Anderson snapped, but a second later a buzz came from the small speaker, and a click sounded in the lock. The DI pushed it open, leading Haddock and half a dozen uniformed officers inside and up the staircase to the first floor. The door to the flat remained closed. Seeing no bell, Pye knocked, softly, then took a pace back as it swung open, watching anger follow astonishment across the former Secretary of State’s face as he took in the throng on the landing. ‘Good God Almighty!’ he shouted. ‘What is the meaning of this?’

Sauce Haddock handed him a twice-folded sheet of A4 paper. ‘This is a warrant to search these premises, sir,’ he said, ‘and also to search your clinic. It was issued by the Sheriff this morning.’

‘On what grounds?’

‘The search relates to our investigation into the murder of Ainsley Glover,’ Pye told him. ‘Is there anyone else in the house, sir?’

‘No. Lady Walters and my daughter have gone to Harvey Nichols.’

‘Good. That means we don’t have to remove them from the premises while we search.’

Anderson scanned the warrant. ‘This appears to be genuine,’ he said, ‘but you’re searching nothing unless my solicitor is present.’

‘Sorry, sir, but we are; the search will be filmed and you may remain present for the duration, but I’m not obliged to let anyone else in here, and I don’t plan to do so. Now I suggest that you allow us to come inside and do our job. I assure you that we’ll be as quiet, neat and discreet as we can.’ For a moment the DI thought that Anderson was going to try to block his way, but finally he stood aside.

Pye led the squad into the flat. ‘Begin with the bedrooms, Constable,’ he told Haddock as the squad crowded into the narrow hallway, ‘then the bathroom, kitchen, the study, and finally the living room. Dr Anderson and I will be in there while you’re at work. Film everything you find, in situ, before you remove it. Doctor, if you’d like to come with me.’

‘I’m going to have your nuts in the crusher for this,’ the politician murmured, softly but with feeling, as he followed the detective into the room where he had received him and McIlhenney a little less that twenty-four hours earlier.

‘Don’t threaten me, sir,’ Pye replied calmly. ‘You’re in a vulnerable situation; don’t make it worse.’

‘What do you mean vulnerable?’

‘You’ve lied to us, yesterday, and again this morning when you gave my colleagues a formal signed statement.’

‘Lied to you?’ The man’s eyes narrowed, and for the first time he looked unsure of himself. ‘Regarding what, precisely?’

‘I’ve got a problem with your account of your whereabouts at the time of Mr Glover’s death. Your statement has you returning home from the Book Festival party at around eleven thirty, and staying put. That’s right, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

The inspector looked him in the eye. ‘So how does that tally,’ he asked, ‘with the version of a witness who saw you heading back up North Charlotte Street, towards the square, just before midnight?’

Anderson’s facial muscles froze, but only for a second or so. ‘It doesn’t,’ he snapped, ‘which means that your witness mistook me for somebody else.’

‘My witness wasn’t alone, Dr Anderson.’ He spoke the truth, without adding that he had still to ask Sandy Rankin’s companions, Jock Fisher and Ryan McCool, whether they, too, had seen him. ‘You really don’t want to mess me about any longer,’ he added. ‘You are a suspect, make no mistake about it, a very strong suspect at that. You fit the profile of the person we’re after; you showed strong antagonism towards the victim, you have medical expertise and you were seen heading towards the place where he was killed.’

‘But I wasn’t!’

‘Doctor, I urge you to consider your position. You were seen in North Charlotte Street twice. Once by Lord Elmore and his wife, heading home around eleven thirty, and again by others, going in the opposite direction around twenty minutes later.’

‘I wasn’t going back to the Book Festival!’ Anderson shouted.

‘Then where were you going?’

‘I cannot tell you that.’

‘You have to, sir. I’ll let you withdraw the statement you signed this morning, without comeback, but you have to be telling me the truth from now on.’

‘I cannot do that.’

‘In that case-’

‘Sir,’ Haddock called from the doorway. ‘Sorry to interrupt, but I wonder if you could join us for a minute.’

‘Right now?’

‘Yes please.’

Pye rose from his seat. ‘Excuse me, Dr Anderson.’ He followed the DC from the room, into the hall, past the uniformed bulk of Constable Childs who stood leaning on his unused door ram, and through to a large bedroom. ‘What have you got, Sauce?’ he asked.

‘Have a look, sir.’ He pointed the DI into a small dressing room, where a woman police officer stood, holding a pair of high-heeled shoes.

‘Not my style, Sauce.’

‘I hope not, sir.’ Haddock took one of the shoes and held it upside down. A packet fell out and he caught it neatly. It was clear plastic, filled with a brown powder. ‘I don’t think that’s sugar, boss,’ he said. ‘There’s the same again in the other shoe. Afghanistan’s finest, going by that drugs course I did last month; if I’m wrong you can stick me back in a uniform tomorrow.’

‘And me alongside you,’ the inspector murmured. ‘Have you got this locus on video? I want no suggestion that it was planted.’

‘Too right we have.’

‘OK. Bag the stuff, in the shoes, as you found it, then carry on with the search; I want to find any other drugs that are in here, and the paraphernalia that goes with the stuff. Tear this fucking place apart if you have to. I’ll be busy with Anderson for a while.’

He turned and walked back through to the drawing room. It was empty. ‘Dr Anderson?’ he called out. He waited for a few moments, frowning, then returned to the hall and checked the bathroom, and then the kitchen. ‘Oh no,’ he whispered, as he retraced his steps. ‘Don’t let this have happened, God, please.’

There was a door at the far end of the living room. He strode across and threw it open, revealing a study, with a window that looked on to the back of the building, and two doors. The first concealed a cupboard, filled with books and papers. He tried the second, and found it locked, by a Yale, which he opened easily, and by a heavy mortice which he could not. He peered through the keyhole and saw enough to make out a stairway, narrower and less grand than the main entrance. ‘Magic,’ he moaned, ‘a first-floor flat with a back door.’

He went to the window and peered out into a courtyard enclosed by the building in which he stood and by two adjoining streets. There were several parking places, some occupied, some vacant. Blue exhaust smoke hung in the air, and as his gaze found the exit road, he thought he caught a momentary flash of brake lights reflected in the dark polish of a stationary vehicle.

‘Fuck it!’ he swore, then dashed back through to the hall. ‘Childs,’ he called to the burly officer in the hallway ‘I’ve got something needs opening; bring the ram that I threatened Anderson with earlier.’