Fatal Last Words

Fifty-two

Neil McIlhenney sat at his desk and brooded on his misfortune. The normal pattern of crime in the force area had made it unlikely that his time of deputising for the holidaying head of CID would be blighted by a homicide investigation. Murder tends to be a winter pastime in Edinburgh. ‘I should be so lucky,’ he hummed, ‘lucky, lucky, lucky.’ One death was bad enough, but two, that was calamitous. And for both to remain complete mysteries after more that twenty-four hours. . he shook his head as he imagined Mario McGuire’s dark satanic smile fixed upon him.

‘Stuck in the fucking mud, mate.’ He could hear his friend’s gently mocking tone. Not that Mario would blame him, for he and his teams had done their best, but he had definitely fallen behind in the game of one-upmanship that had been played between them throughout their police careers. George Regan had just called him to advise him that not only had the chief suspect in the Mustafic killing, Hugo Playfair, vanished without trace, it seemed that he had never existed in the first place. Sammy Pye was on his way to Fettes, but would he accuse Bruce Anderson, or would he eliminate him? True, there were other leads, but none of them pointed to a quick conclusion.

‘Stuck in the fucking mud,’ he said aloud, just as his door opened and ACC Mackie, tall, bald-headed and shirt-sleeved, stepped into his office.

‘Are you indeed?’ he murmured. ‘In that case I don’t know whether I’m about to give you a hand out or push you deeper in.’

‘Go ahead, then,’ the superintendent challenged. ‘Things can only get better.’ My morning for dodgy pop songs, he thought.

‘Want a bet? The odds against a best-selling crime author being murdered at a major festival are pretty astronomical, you’ll agree?’ McIlhenney nodded, with a sudden certainty that the nineties group D: Ream had been entirely wrong, and that things were, in fact, about to get significantly worse. ‘In that case,’ Mackie continued, ‘what price against it happening twice?’

‘What?’ The big detective gasped, pushing himself to his feet. ‘Another killing in Charlotte Square?’

‘No. This one happened in Melbourne, Australia, at a similar festival there. The victim’s a man called Henry Mount, from Gullane. Apparently he was standing in a place called Federation Square, where they’re having their own festival, signing books for admiring readers, then next minute he was on the ground, stone cold bloody dead. I’ve just sent George Regan. . hope you don’t mind me pinching one of your people, but tact and a gentle touch is required. . to break the news to the widow, and I’ve just told the DCC. He and Mount were near neighbours and regular pub chums. Naturally, he’s distressed; he said you’d know what to do.’

‘Sure, but is there any evidence that this wasn’t a natural death?’

‘The Australian assistant commissioner who called me said that the hole in the back of his head points in a certain direction. Plus, if you’re going to shoot yourself you tend not to do it in a square full of people, with a bottle of beer in one hand and a cigar in the other.’ The ACC laid a note on McIlhenney’s desk. ‘These are the numbers for the Victoria State Police, main switchboard, and for the mobile of the lead investigating officer, Inspector Michael Giarratano. It’s pretty long distance. . they’re nine hours ahead of us. . but I imagine you’ll want to touch base.’

‘I can do better than that,’ McIlhenney murmured. ‘Thanks, Brian. The boss was right, I do know what to do.’

‘I’ll leave you to get on with it, then.’ He smiled, running a hand over his shiny dome. ‘Of course, if you need a senior officer to go out there and liaise. .’

‘I may have that covered. Cheers.’ He was reaching for the phone as Mackie left, and punching in a mobile number on the console. It took longer than normal for him to hear a ringtone, but only a couple of seconds for it to stop.

‘What now?’ Mario McGuire sighed.

‘Where are you?’ McIlhenney asked.

‘In the QVB, having a beer.’

‘QVB?’

‘Queen Victoria Building. Everything has an acronym here, mate.’

‘Is Paula there?’

‘Of course.’

‘Then put her on.’

‘If you insist, but when the bean-counters spot the cost of this call. . Here she is.’

‘Neil, my love,’ Paula Viareggio exclaimed breezily. ‘How are you?’

‘I’m fine, for now, but you’re going to kill me shortly, and I wanted to tell you why. There’s a dead man lying on the ground in Melbourne as we speak, he’s Scottish, and it’s almost certain that it relates to a murder investigation that we have under way here. I need your man to get on a plane as fast as he can, team up with the locals, take a look at the situation and report back to us. I’d send somebody else, I’d even go myself, but it would take a couple of days to get there, and this has to be handled now, right now. Sorry, Paulie.’

‘So far,’ she replied, ‘I’m taking this quietly, although from the expression on Mario’s face as he’s watching me, I might not be looking too pleased. Tell me more.’

‘The dead man’s name is Henry Mount.’

‘Henry Mount!’ she squealed. ‘Oh no. He’s one of my favourite authors, just like Ainsley Glover was one of Mario’s. I’ve read all his books; most of them twice. Of course he can go. What happened to him?’

‘That’s the damndest thing. Nobody’s sure. He was standing in a public place, happy as Larry, and next second he was on the ground. It seems as if he was shot, but nobody saw anything and nobody heard anything.’

He waited for Paula to reply, or to pass the phone to Mario, but there was only silence on the line. When she did speak, her tone was quieter, tentative. ‘Neil,’ she said, ‘this might be a strange thing to ask, but was he smoking a cigar?’