Fatal Last Words

Eighty-seven

‘So that’s it all wrapped up?’ Ray Wilding exclaimed. ‘Randy Mosley did the authors and some old soldier murdered the gypsy out in Gullane?’

‘That last charge may be culpable homicide, not murder,’ Sammy Pye pointed out, ‘if the fiscal offers him a deal for a guilty plea, but that’s about it, yes.’

The sergeant handed him a coffee that he had fetched from the office machine. ‘And with Mosley in custody, that ought to mean that Fred Noble’s safe as well?’

‘Yes. I’ve pulled his protection team out already.’ The DI grinned. ‘By the way, remember that hypnosis idea of his? Well, I checked with an expert, just for the sake of it. Clinically impossible; it wouldn’t have worked.’

‘Come on,’ Wilding pointed out, ‘it was a work of fiction, and it was credible as far as the readers were concerned, so surely that’s fair enough?’ And then he raised his eyebrows, as if in a show of triumph. ‘But if what your so-called expert says is the case,’ he asked, slowly, ‘isn’t it strange that Noble’s just walked in front of a bus?’

Pye’s face, ever youthful and positive, seemed to age ten years in as many seconds; the mug trembled in his hands. ‘Tell me you’re kidding,’ he whispered.