Fatal Last Words

Sixty-nine

‘Where’s Neil?’ asked Mario McGuire ‘When I called Fettes they said that he and the chief went off somewhere in a hurry, and that I was to call you instead. Where the hell’s he gone, and what’s he doing with Proud Jimmy?’

‘You are indeed out of touch, boss,’ Sammy Pye told him. ‘Sir James is gone. The new chief constable took up the post yesterday.’

‘Big Bob?’

‘Of course.’

‘Acting chief?’

‘No, permanent. For once in this place, nothing leaked in advance of it happening.’

‘In that case, I won’t be too hard on McIlhenney for not tipping me off, especially since it’s the result we all wanted. Now, where are they off to?’

‘I don’t know. All he told me is that it has nothing to do with our investigation.’

‘Investigations, plural. There’s no longer any serious doubt that Glover and Mount were killed by the same person.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Sammy, I’m the fucking head of CID. If I tell you something as gospel, you’re not supposed to ask me if I’m sure, even if I am giving you information from the other side of the planet.’

‘Sorry, sir,’ said the DI, chastened.

‘That’s OK,’ McGuire chuckled. ‘I’m taking the piss because I’m pleased with myself. You have no idea the buzz you get from swanning into somebody else’s territory and clearing up his crime for him. His boss was so pleased she even picked up my hotel tab in Melbourne.’

‘Paula’s premise held up, about how he was killed?’

‘One hundred per cent. They’ve done the post-mortem and confirmed it. There were powder burns on his fingers and lips, and tobacco in his mouth. His uvula was missing, shot off, and there was an exit wound behind where it used to be. They’ve actually found the bullet. They dug it out of a window frame behind where he was standing. After it went through the top of his spine and into the wood, it was flat as a pancake.’

‘So it’s our investigation, officially,’ said Pye.

‘We pretty much knew that as soon as George discovered his computer had been stolen, but yes, it’s ours, Inspector.’

‘And like with Glover, we’ve got bugger-all forensic evidence.’

‘Ah but,’ exclaimed McGuire, in a voice so exultant that Pye could almost see him beam, ‘we do, my son, we do.’ Without pausing he launched into a step-by-step description of the discovery of the cigar box, ‘You should see the MCG from that room, mate; some view,’ and of his photographing the bar code. ‘Those images will be in McIlhenney’s mailbox right now. He must have gone off in such a rush he didn’t have time to open it.’

‘I’ll see if I can access it,’ the DI volunteered.

‘No need. We’ve cracked that too, thanks to my old grandad, dead these twenty years and more. Paula’s IT traced the bar code. That very box was stocked by the Viareggio deli just off St Andrews Square. It’s six thirty in the evening here in Sydney, so they’ll be open by now. These babies are very rare items; that lot cost going on for two hundred quid the set, and even in Edinburgh they don’t turn over many of them. If we discount the bizarre notion that Henry Mount decided to kill himself by doctoring one of his own Havanas, that means that someone either tampered with the thing after he’d bought it, or they bought it for him. You need to get somebody up to that shop to pinpoint the sale, and get the credit card details, and you need to reinterview Mount’s family.’

‘What about the box, and the cigars?’

‘We’re getting them. My new friend the chief commissioner of Victoria State Police herself has decreed that. They’re in a secure container on their way to the airport even now. You’ll have them tomorrow.’ He laughed. ‘Mind you, I don’t envy the lab, trying to lift DNA off the cigars that are left. They’re handmade, in Cuba; we might have bother summoning witnesses from there.’ He chuckled. ‘Almost as much trouble as you’ll have trying to find me for the rest of my holiday. As of tomorrow, we’re up in Queensland, in a Nissan Movano, and our mobiles will be switched off.’