All The

Dead

Poets

Published by Long Midnight Publishing, 2025

copyright © 2025 Douglas Lindsay

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission of the author.

Douglas Lindsay has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

All the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

www.douglaslindsay.com

1

Detective Inspector Alexander Buchan stood on the balcony of his apartment by the River Clyde, looking down on the early morning July sun glinting off the still water. Away to his left, three single sculls headed silently towards him in a line. In the air the sounds of the city, though it was not yet seven o’clock, and the traffic was only just beginning to build.

He took a drink of coffee, then set the mug down on the small table. Phone out of his pocket, took a quick photograph of the approaching rowers, then typed a short message and pressed send.

Hot again. Thinking of moving to Iceland. x

He laid the phone on the table. Took another drink. The phone pinged.

It was a photograph from Agnes Roth’s bedroom window, much of St Andrews enveloped in mist.

Topping out at 21 here today. Just move to the east coast, it’ll be easier. : ) x

He smiled, he acknowledged the message – they’d already spoken that morning – slipped the phone back into his pocket, lifted the coffee, and drained the mug.

‘What’re your plans for the day, furball?’ he said.

Edelman was sitting upright in a seat, looking down on the river, through the glass of the balcony wall. Aware he was being spoken to, he gave Buchan a quick glance, and then turned back to the steady approach of the rowers.

‘Thought so,’ said Buchan.

He turned away from the heat of the morning, back through to the sitting room. Took a moment, debating whether to have something to eat, then decided he’d stop off at the Stand Alone café on the way into work.

2

Buchan walked into the office at a little before eight in the morning. It wasn’t usually busy at that time, but today it wasn’t due to get busy at all. There was a climate conference in town and the detective constables had all been seconded onto security detail.

Someone in the Scottish establishment had decided Glasgow needed to relive the glory days of COP 26, when the world had turned up to discuss the forthcoming climate apocalypse. Questions had been asked about hosting a future COP, but they’d been politely told by all involved to get to the back of the queue.

A discussion was begun on how nothing ever really came out of COP. Worthless words, hollow promises, contrived communiqués wrung dry of meaning through the tortuous machinations of diplomacy. And who was there to make anyone stick to their bold pledges?

It was time for action, it was time to gather together people who could make genuine promises, and follow them through. Clearly no government on earth was willing to do that, so this conference – titled AH35 – had assembled those who would.

‘Scotland is the home of the Fringe, after all,’ the conference chairman had said the previous evening on the BBC. ‘This is why Scotland is the perfect place for the COP Fringe. And just like the Edinburgh Fringe is bigger, grander, edgier and more celebrated than the Edinburgh Festival, this Glasgow Fringe, AH35, is going to be bigger, grander, edgier, and a damn sight more productive than COP, I can promise you that.’

Buchan had missed those particular bold words. All that AH35 meant to him was that there would be fewer officers available for regular casework, there would be demonstrations, and there would be counter demonstrations, and the city was going to be a tumult of annoyance, desperation and rage for the next few days, coinciding with the hottest spell of weather they’d seen in years.

‘This heat?’ the chairman had said. ‘This is why we’re here. The planet is speaking to us.’

‘Thought you might be wearing shorts,’ said Detective Sergeant Kane, as she entered the office, laying a light summer jacket over the back of her chair, then coming to join Buchan at the window.

The sun was already high, glinting off the silver-blue of the river. There remained barely a ripple on the surface, and if one didn’t know, impossible to tell which way the river flowed.

Buchan had his hands in his pockets, absent the usual cup of coffee. He’d had two more cups at the Stand Alone.

‘Glasgow’s going to see quite enough absurdity over the next three days,’ he said, and Kane laughed.

She stood beside him, coffee in hand, and took a drink.

‘Did you see that guy on the TV last night?’ she asked.

Buchan gave her a glance.

‘You know I don’t have a TV, right?’

Kane rolled her eyes.

‘I also know that you know you can watch TV on your phone or your laptop.’

‘First I’ve heard of it,’ said Buchan. ‘Who’s the guy?’

‘The conference chairman. I probably wouldn’t say this in public, but he’s thirty maybe, eased into cushy jobs working for his dad, never had to struggle to make ends meet, never had kids, and the sod’s on Newsnight pontificating about how everyone else needs to lead their flippin’ life. Piss off, Greta Thunberg, you know what I mean?’

‘I think you’d be OK saying that in public,’ said Buchan, drily. ‘The chief might not be so happy if you did it in uniform, but I reckon you could give it a go. Can’t walk three yards without finding a television camera out there. I’ll hold the fort, if you want to nip out.’

Kane smiled ruefully, shaking her head.

‘I’ll keep it between us, I think,’ she said. ‘But really, I cannot stand these self-righteous twelve-year-olds.’

Buchan gave her a quick smile, then the smile died as he looked over his shoulder at the clock above the door.

‘You ready for Ferguson this morning?’

‘Locked and loaded,’ said Kane, her expression darkening at the mention of the name.

She too glanced at the clock, then she sighed, nodded to herself, and turned away from the window.

‘If he hasn’t confessed by ten-thirty, we get to waterboard, right?’

‘I think that’s the law,’ said Buchan. ‘Let’s see how it goes.’

3

‘Can you tell us what the brazen bull was?’ asked Kane.

Buchan was sitting to her right, yet to speak. Thomas Ferguson, accused of murdering his former partner, was sitting directly across from Kane. His lawyer, Evelyn Russell, was opposite Buchan.

Ferguson rubbed his nose again. Maybe the tenth time he’d done it since he’d entered the room.

‘You need a tissue, son,’ said Buchan.

Ferguson sniffed, stared at Buchan as though trying to work out whether he was being serious, then he smirked.

‘I’m good.’

‘You were telling us about the brazen bull,’ said Kane.

Ferguson slowly moved his eyes from Buchan back over to Kane, trying to exert a control over the interview he didn’t possess.

‘I don’t know that,’ he said.

‘You don’t know the brazen bull?’ said Kane.

‘Nope.’

‘You’ve never heard that name before?’

‘Nope.’

He couldn’t help the glance at Buchan, then his eyes quickly returned to Kane.

‘The detective inspector asked you about it three days ago,’ said Kane.

Another glance, another stupid smile.

He was twenty-seven, with a severe, unattractive face. Harsh. Already ravaged by excess.

‘Don’t remember,’ he said.

‘You said on Tuesday you’d never heard of it.’

‘Did I? That’ll be that, then.’

‘Since then we’ve had access to your computer. We’ve had access to your search history. The week before Janet McIntyre was murdered, you searched Google two hundred and seventeen times.’

She held his gaze, recognising the flicker of discomfort. She opened the slim, brown folder on the desk in front of her.

‘Let’s see what we’ve got here,’ she said. ‘Bit of a long list, obviously.’

She paused, letting her eyes run over the list. Buchan was looking at the lawyer, her cold face, expression detached.

‘How to boil a fucking egg,’ said Kane. ‘Culinary tips, that’s nice, Thomas. Good to try new things.’

‘You know if you put ‘fucking’ in the question, you don’t get that stupid AI answer at the top of the search?’

He tapped the side of his head.

‘Good to know,’ said Kane. ‘How long did you boil the egg for?’

‘Seriously?’ said Russell.

‘Big tits,’ said Kane, looking at the list. ‘Safe porn sites. Lesbians. Lesbian tits. Lesbian gangbang. Play Call of Duty free. Watch Rangers and fucking Celtic free. How to unblock a fucking toilet.’ She lifted her eyes, then looked back at the list. ‘I like this one. Cunt. What were you hoping to find?’

‘Was having a laugh,’ he said. ‘Like it’s any of your business.’

‘Let’s see what else we have.’

She looked back through the list.

‘Is this going anywhere?’ asked Russell.

‘On April the sixteenth...,’ said Kane, ignoring Russell. ‘Oh, look. What was the brazen fucking bull? Then we have just brazen bull. Brazen bull ancient Greece. Has brazen bull been used in a murder? How long does brazen bull take to kill someone? How painful would death by brazen bull be?’

She looked up again.

‘You had to ask?’

He smirked again, cast a quick look in Russell’s direction.

‘I’ll need to see that,’ said Russell.

Buchan had the same slim folder sitting in front of him, and he pushed it across the desk. She pulled it towards herself, opened it and started reading quickly through the list.

‘You previously stated that no one else used your computer,’ said Kane. ‘We pushed you on that, you insisted. Which means that you, Thomas Ferguson, extensively researched the torture and execution method of the brazen bull.’

He swallowed, he squeezed his shoulders, then he finally smirked again, and sat back in the chair.

‘The brazen bull,’ he said. ‘Now I remember. Needed the, you know, the nudge.’

‘What was your interest in the brazen bull?’

Another smile, lips briefly parted this time, showing the ravages of his teeth.

‘I’m a... what d’you call that?’ He looked at Buchan, then at Russell, then back to Kane. ‘A classicist. One o’ they cunts who likes all that ancient Roman and Greek pish. Love me some of those ancient Greeks. You know that lot used to shag the sheep before slitting its throat and eating the cunt for lunch? They really used every bit of the meat, eh?’

‘You also researched where to buy a large brass container.’

‘I’m going to need to stop you there,’ said Russell.

‘It’s fine, hen,’ said Ferguson, his eyes still on Kane.

‘What did you need the brass container for, Thomas?’ asked Kane, leaning forward.

The interview was about to end, and she needed to use the energy that was building before Russell pulled the plug.

‘We’re done,’ said Russell.

‘I didn’t need it,’ said Thomas, leaning into the table. ‘D’you need to need everything you ever look up on the internet? Everything’s just there, hen. Every fucking thing on earth is right there in front of you, and sometimes you just look at shit, and you think, huh, well would you look at that, there you go. So I looked at brass containers? Fucking aye, lock me up, why don’t you?’

Kane put her elbows on the desk, hands clasped, mouth rested against her fingers. She was close enough that Ferguson could lash out, and Buchan straightened himself, poised to move quickly if he needed to.

‘We’re done,’ said Russell again, and she lifted the folder Buchan had given her, put it with her other papers, and started to get up.

Ferguson grabbed her arm, scowling.

‘We’re not done, hen,’ he said.

A flash of fear on Russell’s face, which she quickly banished, but it was apparent his grip was hurting her. She made no effort to pull her arm away. Buchan got to his feet, pushing his chair noisily back. Ferguson ignored him, continuing to look harshly at Russell, teeth grinding, then with a darker scowl he finally released her arm.

‘I said we’re not done,’ he said, although some of the viciousness had left his voice.

She held his look, then turned to Buchan.

‘We’re good,’ she said.

She sat in her seat, she placed the closed folder on the desk in front of her.

Buchan accepted her retreat, and then sat down and indicated for Ferguson to continue.

‘You were saying.’

‘What?’ said Ferguson, smirking again, believing he had control.

‘We’re not done,’ said Buchan. ‘What else was it you wanted to say?’

Ferguson laughed.

‘Depends what else the bird wants to ask us, in’t it?’

‘You’ve been very blasé,’ said Kane, her voice remaining level in the face of the drama Ferguson had injected into the interview. ‘We know you looked online to read about the brazen bull, we know you sourced buying a large, brass tank.’

‘Aye, whatever, if that’s how you want to put it. I never bought a large, brass tank though, did I?’

‘You left those items on your search history. Right there for us to find. And you must’ve known we’d look.’

‘Again, so fuck? I’ve got nothing to hide, hen.’

‘Did you know you can use a private browser? Or that you can delete things from your search history?’

Another smirk.

‘No need, hen. No gonnae hide my love of the classics.’

Another laugh.

‘Have you ever used a private browser?’

A slight hesitation, then he laughed.

‘Just for porn.’

‘Why? There seems to have been plenty of times when you didn’t hide porn.’

‘Sometimes you just want to watch something that’s a bit more spicy. You don’t want it on your search history, you know what I’m saying.’

‘OK, that’s good to know,’ said Kane.

Something in her tone was putting the slightest dent in Ferguson’s confidence. A hiccup in his cockiness, then he laughed, and turned to Russell to try to bring her in on his amusement. Russell did not look at him.

‘Is this going anywhere, detective?’ she asked.

Buchan and Kane could read her voice. She was done with Ferguson, but she had a job to do for today. For this moment, until she could get out of here, and inform her client she would no longer be representing him.

‘Yes,’ said Kane. ‘Can you think of anything else you might have searched on a private browser?’

She looked Ferguson in the eye, her face cold.

He laughed again, but he was beginning to understand where this was going. The laughter died, and then he forced it back again.

‘Nope.’

‘Nothing?’

‘Nope.’

‘Does the name Stuart Menzies mean anything to you?’

He sucked his teeth a little, cheeks thin. A small movement of his neck. Leant on his elbow, picked at something in his teeth. Glanced at Buchan, looked back at Kane.

‘Don’t know it,’ he said.

‘No? Because someone using that name ordered something on your computer. And you said,’ and she paused to lift a sheet of paper, ‘you said that no one else used your computer. So either you let Stuart Menzies use your computer, or you ordered something using the name Stuart Menzies.’

A twitch, a sniff. Another glance at Buchan, calculating, as though Buchan was all that stood in the way of him running amok, taking out all three of them, before walking out of the building.

‘Not that I can remember what it was Stuart Menzies ordered online,’ said Kane. ‘I’ll need to check.’

She lifted a document, clipped at the top left, then looked through the first couple of pages.

Silence.

Kane held them there. With another client, another time, Russell might have greeted this with an eye roll, a barbed comment, but her face was expressionless now, while she waited for the end.

‘Stuart Menzies ordered a... where is it, where is it... right, right, here it is. An antique, brass storage chest. Hand crafted. Very nice. Four feet, by three feet, by two-feet-eight-inches. Nice size, lovely bit of work. Seven hundred and fifty pounds.’ She let out a low whistle. There was a small frown on her face, and she folded the papers over to a page with a large image of the advert for the antique chest.

She studied it for a moment, and then placed the paper on the desk and pushed it across for both Ferguson and Russell to see.

‘Look familiar?’ she asked.

Ferguson looked at it, as though searching for a way out, then he sat back, head down, eyes directed at a random spot in the middle of the desk.

‘And this,’ said Kane, tapping the image, ‘this looks very similar to the brass chest in which Janet McIntyre died. Was murdered, in fact. Roasted alive, the box suspended on bricks, a fire lit beneath it. Horrible way to go. There must have been a lot of screaming.’

She looked at Ferguson, waiting for him to raise his eyes.

Silence. Russell glanced between the two detectives, but they were both locked in on Ferguson.

Finally he lifted his gaze, and looked at Kane.

‘You think?’

‘Well, was there, Thomas? Was there a lot of screaming?’

He laughed, the laugh turned into a grimace.

Almost there, thought Buchan. The scowl said it all. He’s not going to be able to stop himself making the barbed comment. The bitch asked for it, or she had it coming, or should’ve done it years ago.

‘I think we’re done,’ said Russell into the silence.

She didn’t bother glancing at Ferguson, knowing he wasn’t going to object this time.

Damn thought Buchan. Not unreasonable, though. Russell had a job and a reputation to protect. She had to work for the client far beyond the stage where he’d become aggressive and objectionable.

‘Thomas Ferguson,’ said Kane, ‘you’re under arrest for the murder of Janet McIntyre. Anything you say will be noted, and may be held against you –’

Ferguson abruptly pushed his chair back and got to his feet.

‘I’m fucking done with this, by the way,’ he said. He turned to Russell, jabbing a finger towards her. ‘And you can get to fuck.’

Buchan was on his feet. The door opened. DCs Armstrong and Cutler from Dalmarnock entered the room.

Ferguson’s shoulders dropped, he scowled, his eyes fell.

4

‘You heard how the conference is going?’ asked Buchan.

A morning of paperwork, and speaking to the procurator fiscal. They’d spoken to Jane Russell about the brief flare-up during the interview. Everything had been written up, and they were on top of things. The paperwork wouldn’t go away, but they were about to enter the stage where Ferguson’s case got bogged down in the court system. In the first instance, however, he would be in court the following Monday morning, he would plead as he was going to plead – and they didn’t doubt it would be not guilty – and then he would be taken to prison, and the lawyers would get to work. Buchan’s team just had to make sure they had everything in order.

‘I’ve steered well clear so far,’ said Kane. She was taking ten minutes, reading the Herald, drinking a cup of tea. ‘No doubt they’ve managed to save the earth by now.’ She looked up. ‘You know the opening address was being done by the National Poet? I mean, start off with a bang, why don’t you?’

‘We have a national poet?’ said Buchan.

‘The Makar. You know this.’

Buchan looked sceptically across the desks.

‘You didn’t know about the Makar?’

‘The Makar is the Gaelic name for the National Poet?’

She smiled.

‘Yes.’

‘Is that new?’

‘We’ve had one since two thousand and four.’

‘I missed that. Do I know any of his poems?’

‘Do you know anyone’s poems?’

‘Burns wrote one about a mouse.’

She laughed.

‘Anyway, the National Poet is currently a woman. Bella Favalli.’

‘I’m not familiar with her work,’ said Buchan. ‘What’s she doing?’

‘She’s been commissioned to write a new work for the conference. The Scotsman and Herald both carried it this morning.’

‘If you read it out to me, I’m demoting you to whatever comes below constable.’

‘Funny. It’s called Tears for the Christmas Island Pipistrelle.’

‘Tears for the Christmas Island Pipistrelle?’

‘Yes. The Christmas Island pipistrelle was a bat. It went extinct in the last twenty years.’

‘On Christmas Island?’

‘Yes.’

‘The Indian Ocean Christmas Island?’

‘Come on, boss, this is a global conference.’

Buchan sighed, shook his head, then turned back to his computer, hoping the discussion would be at an end. He typed quickly, making mistakes every fourth or fifth word, and correcting as he went along.

He felt Kane’s eyes on him, and looked up.

‘Just the first line,’ said Kane.

‘This is why I hate people,’ said Buchan.

‘One day,’ said Kane, reading from the poem, ‘when the mist sits softly in the glen, we will all be the Christmas Island pipistrelle, and there will be no one left to weep for us.’

She left it at that, and looked at Buchan.

‘What d’you think?’

‘That’s the first line?’

‘First two lines actually.’

‘That’s beautiful,’ said Buchan, drily, as he looked back at the screen and started typing again. ‘I’ll get Agnes to read the whole thing to me tonight, though I might ask her to wait until I’m asleep.’

Kane smiled, took another drink of tea, and then folded the newspaper, pushed it to the side of the desk, decisively tapped her keyboard, and the screen sprung back to life.

‘Nice job,’ said Buchan, and he stopped typing and looked across the desk. ‘I never said. You did a nice job with Ferguson.’

‘Thank you. He never confessed.’

‘He said enough to hang himself,’ said Buchan. ‘He’ll cave. It won’t need to go to trial.’

‘Hmm,’ said Kane.

She also thought that was how it would play out, but the moment of presenting the damning evidence was the moment when he would most likely think himself done for. The moment of weakness.

Time would pass, his confidence would return, and he would start to think he could balls it out, excuses and labyrinthine logic conjured up while lying awake in a prison cell at two o’clock in the morning.

‘We’re good,’ said Buchan, reading her mind. ‘We’re good.’

THE DAY PASSED QUIETLY, the office empty bar Buchan and Kane, and Constable Rylance who sat at the far end of the room doing paperwork on a long-running fraud case.

The lack of people aside, this was most days in the Serious Crime Unit. Ten percent out and about, five percent interviews, eighty-five percent putting cases together, making phone calls, researching online, writing reports, and ensuring the procurator had everything they’d need.

There was a demonstration in George Square. Nominally the demonstrators were on the same side as those organising the conference, but they were objecting to all the people flying in from around the world to attend. Consequently, the George Square event had attracted people from both ends of the spectrum. Climate evangelists, outraged that twenty-three different long-haul flights had brought in delegations from the South Pacific, and climate sceptics, keen to point out the double standard. Nevertheless, there were still others who managed to find themselves on a completely different side, and in a counter-demonstration.

It hadn’t started getting nasty yet, though it was warm, and there was alcohol, and the heat was going to continue long into the evening.

Sunday afternoon, when a storm was due to clear the humid air, could not come quickly enough. No police officers in the city had made plans for the weekend. Chances were that they would all be called upon at some point.

Four-forty-seven, Kane’s phone rang. Buchan was standing at the window, looking down on the river. There was a warm wind blowing now, the water low and choppy, waves dancing against the banks.

‘Kane.’

Buchan checked the time. He glanced at Kane, who was listening to the call, her face impassive. His spider sense kicked in. Just after quarter to five on a Friday afternoon? There was an inevitability about it.

‘Thanks, Danny,’ said Kane. ‘We’ll be there in... damn, we’d better walk. Call it fifteen minutes.’

She nodded, she hung up.

‘Call to arms?’ said Buchan, already turning off his computer.

‘The poet we talked about,’ said Kane. ‘Bella Favalli?’

‘Don’t tell me there’s more poetry been released,’ said Buchan, grimly.

‘She’s dead. Looks like murder.’

‘Just how much does it look like murder?’ asked Buchan.

‘Slit throat.’

‘Looks like murder,’ said Buchan, as they walked quickly from the office.

5

Asmall suite in a lower floor of the Grand Europa Hotel on Randolph Street. The air conditioning was on high, there were eight people in the room, now that Buchan and Kane had arrived.

Bella Favalli was sitting on the couch, next to a trolley of food. A fruit basket, afternoon pastries, a thermos of coffee, a small jug of milk, a bottle of white wine in an ice bucket. Her throat had been slit using the knife that was part of the wine bottle opener. The murder weapon had been left beside the food, staining the white cloth draped over the trolley.

DC Danny Cherry approached, Buchan and Kane still standing in the middle of the room, taking in the scene.

‘Nice in here,’ said Cherry. ‘I mean the temperature.’

Kane still looked hot from the walk over. ‘Might just stay the night to make sure the place is undisturbed,’ she said.

‘What’ve we got?’ asked Buchan, taking the time to study the three people in the room who weren’t police officers.

‘Bella Favalli,’ said Cherry, indicating the deceased. ‘She opened the conference early this afternoon. Well, the thing started with a lunch, then the first assembly, with introductory comments, was at two o’clock. Ms Favalli read her, you know, whatever it was.’

‘Poem,’ said Kane.

‘That. She read that, she sat in on the whole session. It lasted two hours, so she was back here just after four. There’s a further session from five until seven – which is ongoing, by the way – and then there’s an official dinner at eight. Favalli was due at the latter, not the former. She’d done her bit. She would’ve been here the whole weekend, but she was bookending the event, with the intention she wrote a piece of work on Sunday morning, and read it at the closing ceremony.’

‘When was the last time anyone saw her?’ asked Buchan.

‘At the moment, far as we know, the conference broke up bang on time, she filed out with everyone else, she got in the elevator, she walked along here to her room. We’ve yet to speak to anyone who shared the elevator or got off at the same floor, but given that five hundred people were dispersing at the same time, she can’t have been alone.

‘At some point she gets room service. Manager says she never ordered room service. So, I’d say some guy shows up, knocks on the door, complimentary room service, madam, and she’s like, free food and wine, come right in. He says he’ll open the wine. The knife in the bottle opener is a good size, and very sharp. It would’ve been brought along to do a job. So, I’d say no question it was pre-meditated. Show up, throat slit, exit stage left. There must have been a bit of a struggle, so I’d say the positioning of the corpse on the sofa, with the trolley right beside her, that looks like it was kind of arranged after the job was done. We’ve yet to look at CCTV footage, but it’ll be available from the corridor outside, and we might be able to track back on the killer’s movements.’

‘Why was she found?’

‘It was called in. Unknown number, called the front desk. I had a quick word with the woman on reception who took the call, and she said it sounded like one of those AI-generated voices. She was sceptical, she called housekeeping to check on Favalli to make sure she was OK, and here we are.’

‘OK, Danny, thanks. Nice job being on top of it already. Who’ve we got here?’

Cherry glanced over his shoulder at the group of three men. Two of them in their late fifties, the third maybe around thirty. Their voices were low, so that even though they were only a few yards away, Buchan couldn’t make out what they were saying.

‘The young guy is the conference chairman. The guy in the light grey suit is his dad. He’s been involved in some way in the background. I’m not sure of the story. The guy in the dark grey suit is the hotel manager.’ He paused, he smiled. ‘The chairman thinks this should be kept a secret.’

Buchan looked over at them. He hadn’t been thinking this through as they walked over. He was coming to a murder scene, he hadn’t known what to expect, so he’d done what he usually did, and cleared his mind, his focus more on the awful heat.

‘Is this woman famous?’ asked Buchan.

Cherry looked at Kane with a shrug.

‘I’d never heard of her. Are any modern poets famous?’

‘If you read the right Scottish paper,’ said Kane, ‘but she was the National Poet, so you know, that’s something.’

‘We have a national poet?’ said Cherry. ‘Isn’t that Burns?’

‘We have a living, paid by the government, national poet,’ said Kane.

‘Huh,’ said Cherry. Then he looked over at Favalli and added, ‘Dead now.’

‘And the chairman told you he wanted it kept under wraps?’ said Buchan.

‘Told, I think, is the right way to put it.’

‘We know her next of kin yet?’

‘No. Unmarried, certainly. I’ll try to get her family details.’

‘OK. I’ll deal with these clowns. We’ll sit on it for the moment. And obviously, there’ll be no mention of the poet until we’ve notified her parents.’ He thought it through, he nodded to himself. ‘Given the sensitivity of the weekend, I might speak to the chief before we say anything public. But can you speak to press department, let them know what’s coming.’

‘Boss.’

Cherry nodded at them, and then turned away. As he was getting to the door, he was met by two other people entering the room, and he greeted them and was on his way.

Sergeant Meyers, head of SCU Scenes of Crime team, and Dr Johanna Benz, the new forensic pathologist for central Glasgow, approached Buchan and Kane, Benz already attired for the job.

‘Jesus,’ muttered Benz.

She was talking about the number of people in the room, rather than the state or positioning of the corpse.

‘Busy enough in here for you?’ asked Meyers, drily, looking at Buchan.

‘Not long here,’ he said. ‘Just getting the lay of the land.’

‘I’m going to need this place cleared,’ said Meyers.

Buchan smiled, then nodded at Benz.

‘I’ll leave you to it,’ he said.

He walked over to the group of three men, who had appeared to pay no attention to anyone else in the room since he’d arrived.

‘Afternoon, gentlemen,’ he said, holding forward his ID. ‘DI Buchan, Special Crimes Unit. We need to clear the room, and we need to have a chat. Is there an office we can use?’

They all gave him the same look, son and father with identical contempt.

Buchan indicated the hotel manager. ‘Mr?’

‘McLaughlin.’

‘I’d like a word with you first, if that’s OK. We can go to your office?’

‘I’d like to talk to you first,’ said the chairman.

‘Later,’ said Buchan. ‘You can have a word with Detective Sergeant Kane.’

‘I don’t want to speak to –’

Buchan sharply raised his hand, and the chairman stopped talking. His father remained silent throughout.

Buchan turned away from them, nodded at McLaughlin, and said, ‘Show me to your office, please,’ and McLaughlin glanced at the others, and then started following Buchan.

As Buchan walked past Kane, he made a small gesture back to the chairman and his father, and Kane acknowledged him.

There were on-duty officers Buchan didn’t recognise either side of the door on the inside.

‘Out in the hall,’ he said. ‘No one in here except Sgt Meyers’ team when they come,’ and they said, ‘Sir,’ in unison.

6

‘You know who he is, right?’

Buchan was in McLaughlin’s office. The manager had taken up position behind his desk. The desk was enormous, and there was nothing on it to suggest that so much space was required. The monitor and keyboard would have fitted a desk a sixth of the size.

‘The chairman? I’ve never heard of the chairman.’

‘I meant the chairman’s dad,’ said McLaughlin.

The first thing he’d done when coming into the office was offer Buchan a glass of whisky, pouring himself one upon Buchan’s refusal. There was something about it that spoke of who McLaughlin thought he was. The whisky was a statement. There was also something about his face that said he’d been drinking since lunchtime. No doubt there’d been plenty of alcohol on the go at the opening lunch, and he wouldn’t have been the only one.

‘I’ve heard of neither the chairman, nor his dad.’

‘He’s one of the richest men in Scotland. Possibly the richest. But he’s kind of under the wire. You don’t see him on the Sunday Times rich list.’

‘How come you’ve heard of him?’

‘Business,’ he said.

‘He’s the money behind the SNP?’

‘Quite the reverse. Big unionist. Silent donor propping up the Tories.’

‘What’s his involvement here?’

‘Hard to say. It’s his son’s brainchild. I’m guessing Lucas was struggling to make the numbers work, wasn’t getting the quality of people on board he needed, so he ran along to daddy. That’d be a familiar playbook, right?’ He took a noisy slurp. ‘Look at me, paw, breaking out on my own. Then two minutes later he realises he’s bitten off more than he can chew, and he picks up the phone.’ Another slurp. ‘Dad doesn’t like the spotlight, though, so the kid remains front and centre, while the dad works the shadows. He controls things in this country you wouldn’t believe.’

‘The Grand Europa Hotel Glasgow?’

‘Ha!’

‘I’m serious.’

‘You know who owns the Grand Europa Hotel Glasgow?’

‘I don’t,’ said Buchan.

‘The state of Qatar. Sir John might be wealthy, and he might be A-list in Scotland, but compared to Qatar...’

‘So, the climate conference is being held in an establishment owned by oil money?’

‘Irony can be pretty ironic sometimes,’ said McLaughlin. He took another drink, set the glass down. ‘I think you’ll find the climate movement is full of it. If irony’s the word you want to use.’

Buchan glanced out of the window. They were on the fourteenth floor, higher than the buildings across the street, so that he was looking across rooftops towards the river, albeit the river itself was out of sight from here. The air was cool, though not as cold as it had been in the poet’s bedroom.

Buchan turned back to the manager, who was watching him, waiting for the next question, and knowing what it was going to be.

‘Sir John?’ said Buchan, accepting he was going to have to go there.

‘Sir John Hannigan. Made his money in retail. Expanded into online betting. You see his ads at most football grounds. Does huge business in England, but he hasn’t moved there. Likes to stay close to the seat of power. Big fish, small pond.’ He smiled.

Terrific, thought Buchan.

‘Not sure how you think this is going to play out, inspector, but Sir John will let you know. For a kick off, this is a sealed story. This is the biggest event in Scotland since COP 26, and no one gets to hear about the poet dying this weekend. When she’s a no-show, they’ll say she’s come down with something, or she’s got a family thing, or there’s some other minor drama.’

‘That’s going to look bad for everyone when it turns out she was murdered on the Friday afternoon, don’t you think?’

‘Not if people never get to find out she was murdered.’

‘How are you going to explain the police investigation that’s about to break out all over the hotel?’

McLaughlin laughed.

‘Good luck with that.’

Buchan stared grimly at him, considering how this would be playing out.

Cherry would contact Press Department. The story would quickly travel upwards within Police Scotland. Hannigan speaks to someone in the government, they call the police, the lid would be tightened. Possibly Hannigan would’ve made that call before Buchan had ever arrived at the scene. Someone like that would be way ahead of the game.

His phone started ringing. McLaughlin smiled.

‘You could set your watch by it,’ he said, as he lifted the whisky glass.

Buchan checked the phone. Cherry.

‘Danny,’ he said, turning his back on McLaughlin, and standing by the window.

‘There’s a lid. I spoke to the chief and she asked that you get over there to speak to her. In the meantime, as light a touch as possible.’

Buchan had a few things to say, but he wasn’t going to say them within earshot of McLaughlin.

‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘You’re still on site?’

‘Yep.’

‘K. Coordinate with Sam. I’ll be in touch.’

‘Boss.’

They hung up. Buchan slipped the phone into his pocket, and then turned to face McLaughlin. The look hadn’t left his face.

‘How late are you working today?’ asked Buchan.

‘Seriously? This is the biggest, most important single event in Glasgow’s history. I’ll be here until Monday afternoon at the earliest.’

He sounded like he was going to grandstand upon the nature of his, and his hotel’s importance a little more, so Buchan cut him off with, ‘I’ll speak to you later,’ and then he turned away and quickly walked from the room.

7

The walk back to the SCU building was hot. Traffic backed up all over town, the air full of the sound of car horns and furious anger.

Buchan walked from the ground up the stairs to the seventh floor. He wasn’t looking forward to the conversation he was about to have. A murder had been committed, and they needed to get on with the job. Interviews had to be done while memories were fresh, and if the killer was one of the delegates, they needed to get hold of them before they got on a plane to who knew where in the world.

They may well, of course, already have left.

He stood for a second outside the chief’s office. He knocked once, opened the door, and walked in. It was cooler in here than the rest of the building, the blinds drawn against the sun.

‘You look hot,’ said DCI Gilmour, as Buchan closed the door behind him.

‘It’s a brave new world,’ said Buchan, coming to stand across the desk. ‘God knows what it’s like in the Middle East these days.’

‘Fifty-one degrees in Abu Dhabi three days ago,’ said Gilmour. ‘I saw that on the news.’

‘We’re doing all right with our paltry thirty-two then,’ said Buchan. Then he added, quickly, ‘What’s up?’ as he didn’t want to stand there talking about the weather.

‘How’s it looking at the Europa?’

‘We have a murder, and we have a hotel full of suspects, and at least three hundred delegates staying at other hotels, guest houses, Airbnbs, whatever, in the city. I’m going to need my team on this. All of them.’

‘Any chance the poet might’ve committed suicide?’

He stared grimly across the desk. That was a ridiculous question, but her motive in asking it was obvious. She’d been told this needed to be played down, and if Bella Favalli had committed suicide, that was going to be a lot better for everyone. It would be very easy, then, to not announce her death until the event was over. Suicide was sad. The family needed protecting. Bella wouldn’t have wanted the event to be overshadowed.

‘No.’

‘You know the Japanese ritual of jigai?’

Buchan gave it the right amount of thought. He knew he’d never heard of it before, but he ran it through the database all the same, then shook his head.

‘It’s the female equivalent of seppuku, or hara-kiri as it’s more commonly known. The woman cuts the jugular vein. Doesn’t slit her throat, just that vein.’ She paused, she waited for Buchan’s face to do something. Buchan’s face remained impassive. ‘I understand Ms Favalli’s entire throat had not been slit, rather the jugular singled out and cut.’ Another pause, Buchan remained silent. ‘As one would find in jigai.’

‘No,’ said Buchan.

‘We have to consider the possibility.’

‘Really? Did you just Google that?’

She straightened her shoulders.

‘I don’t like that tone, inspector.’

‘She didn’t kill herself.’

‘I don’t know this woman, but a quick search online reveals a lot about her. She lived in Japan for a couple of years. She read Japanese literature extensively, she wrote about it. She appears to have reviewed literally dozens of Japanese books. She’s translated Japanese poetry. And, as she documented extensively in the past few years, she was a very conflicted person. She was a young woman talking about her mental health problems on the internet.’

‘Oh, that was her?’

‘Funny. It’s all there. And I know what you’re thinking. If this gets out now, if this leaks, it’s a huge story. It overshadows the conference, very possibly some people leave. As a result, there will be people there who want Bella’s death covered up. In fact, everyone there will want it covered up. But Bella Favalli had deep mental health issues. Suicide is not out of the question. And I know this is political, and I know you know that I’ve already had the justice minister on the phone, but really, if we shout murder, and it turns out it’s suicide, then we’re all out of our jobs. That’s just the way it is.’

Buchan felt a familiar weight of dejection fall upon him. They’d been called to a murder, it seemed fairly straightforward, there was a lot of work to be done, and he’d been ready to get on with it. And then the Scottish establishment had come to the event, and in an instant he was superfluous.

Damn, maybe she was right. If everything she’d just said was true, perhaps the girl had killed herself. Who in their right mind would want to be a poet?

‘It might be possible,’ he said, ‘that someone did their research. They knew she was steeped in Japanese culture, they knew she was struggling, and they set her death up to look exactly how it would’ve looked had she killed herself. And they picked this moment to do it, because they would know the Scottish political and cultural mafia wouldn’t want a murder investigation to ruin their glorious weekend.’

She smiled.

‘The Scottish political and cultural mafia? How thinly you disguise your contempt.’

‘Am I wrong?’

‘There are many who would think Daniel and me part of that.’

‘It’s not about you,’ he said, barely able to keep the irritation from his voice. He paused, deep breath, shook his head. ‘Chief, it’s not about you,’ he repeated, his voice softer. ‘Every country has it’s... elite, it’s whatever, and there’s no doubt who runs Scotland. Or, in fact, who still runs Scotland. We see it every day, in every political discussion. And here they are, wanting to show the world who we are, and how we can run things, and how great we’re going to be. Because we may have hosted COP 26, but that was Westminster hosting COP 26, not the Scottish... whatever.’

‘Political and cultural mafia,’ she said, ruefully.

‘Yes. But you can’t just brush aside a death. Because if it turns out to be murder, and the story gets out that it was ignored until it was wheels up on the great climate activist politicians of the earth, and very possibly the killer was allowed to swan around Glasgow, living the lavish, protected, diplomatic life, you think there’s a single politician going to hold their hand up and say, it was us, we wanted it kept quiet? Because they won’t. They’ll say they were acting on police advice. And when journalists ask if it’s possible the killer is now on the other side of the earth, they’ll say, talk to the police. In fact, it doesn’t matter what the question is, the answer will be, talk to the police. And the chief constable? She’s not taking the responsibility. The buck hasn’t stopped with her on any other matter since she arrived, so it damned well isn’t going to now. It’s going to stop at SCU. And you and I can’t pass the buck. You’re the boss, and I’m leading the investigation, and we’ll be out there telling everyone how we screwed up, just before we’re forced to hand in our resignations.’

‘Unless it is suicide.’

‘Maybe it is, but all that means is we run the investigation with that in mind. The possibility that she killed herself? Fine, it’s often a possibility in a murder investigation. But that doesn’t mean we don’t do our jobs in the way they need to be done. Did she order that room service? If not, did everyone else get the same thing? Is there CCTV of the person who delivered it to her room? Who was the last person she spoke to? Who did she sit beside at lunch? What was her frame of mind? And all of that, given the number of people involved here, is going to take a lot of man hours, and that’s even before we get into her private life.

‘This is a major investigation, chief, and it needs to start right now, not after Dr Benz has sent off for tests to be done, or when she’s come back with her preliminary report, and certainly not after everyone who’s currently staying at the hotel has left.’ He paused, struggling to restrain himself. ‘It will end badly.’

‘You saw Johanna?’

‘She arrived as I was leaving, we haven’t spoken yet.’

Gilmour sat forward, elbows on the desk, hands clasped, thinking it over.

He gave her the space. He automatically glanced at the window, even though there was nothing to see with the blind drawn. For the first time in a few minutes he felt the heat. He rubbed the sweat from his top lip, he turned back.

‘Speak to Johanna,’ she said. ‘Ruth’s been in as well?’

‘Possibly still there.’

‘Speak to Ruth. We’ve got a decision to make if either of them suspect foul play. Until we have something def –’

‘There’s been a suspicious death, and we need to investigate it. We have to do the right thing, no matter who ends up on the other end of the phone.’

‘Until we have something definite,’ she persisted, ‘do not speak to anyone outside the group of people at the hotel who already know what happened.’

This time he didn’t respond.

‘You spoke to the chairman already?’ she asked, not letting the silence linger.

‘Not yet. Plus, the chairman’s dad appears to be the person to speak to.’

‘Talk to them, get your investigation up and running, but for now, I do not want the chief constable calling me back this evening. I do not want to read about the investigation online. Be as low-key as you can be, and do not step it up a gear until we’ve spoken again.’

He nodded. He tried to think if there was anything else to say. There wasn’t.

‘I’m going to stay in Glasgow this evening,’ she said, ‘so call me, please.’

He nodded, he turned away, then was walking quickly down the stairs.

8

The silence of the dead.

Buchan and Kane were at the mortuary, standing over the corpse of Bella Favalli. Dr Benz was on the other side, slowly going over the skin of the deceased, toe to head.

Favalli had been a large woman in her early thirties. Pale, white skin. ‘No one’s mistaking her for anything other than Scottish,’ Kane had said.

There were tattoos all over her body. SpongeBob on her ankle. A snake winding its way up her shin. A large red rose on her thigh. A band around both wrists. Celtic graphics on one arm, Chinese calligraphy on the other. A lone wolf at the top of her chest.

‘Any tattoos on her back?’ asked Kane.

Benz lifted her eyes.

‘You know Bob Ross?’

Kane processed the name, then shook her head.

‘The artist,’ said Benz.

‘Oh, right, happy little clouds Bob Ross.’

‘Yes. She has a scene done in the style of Bob Ross. On her back. Trees, a lake, mountains and clouds. And edelweiss.’

‘It’s Bob Ross multiplied by the Sound of Music.’

‘Yes,’ said Benz. ‘I estimate around thirty percent of her skin surface is tattooed.’

Benz’s German accent remained strong.

Buchan made a small gesture towards the neck.

‘Are there any stories to tell other than death as a result of loss of blood from the neck?’ he asked.

Benz gave him a curious look, then turned back to the corpse.

‘Are there any stories to tell...,’ she said. ‘Nicely put. You are a poet.’

‘Let’s not get carried away,’ said Buchan, to Kane’s accompanying laugh.

‘She died from loss of blood from the neck, this much is certain. You will want to know if the wound was self-inflicted, or whether there is any clear sign of outside involvement.’

She ran her gloved hand softly down Favalli’s neck, a peculiarly gentle gesture. Buchan was unused to Benz’s ways.

‘Unfortunately, I cannot answer this yet. This cut is certainly consistent with suicide. Had she done this to herself, this is how it would have been done. If the cut was inflicted by a third party, to have replicated suicide this accurately, in my opinion they would need to have sedated her in some way. This is not something I can learn without toxicology. I’ve made an initial search of her body, and so far have been unable to find any sign of injection. Similarly, there is no immediate sign of a classic chloroform handkerchief manoeuvre so beloved of film and television. Nevertheless, it would not be beyond the wit of a killer with a degree of skill to mask either of those. It is early days.’

‘OK,’ said Buchan, nodding, accepting the news. It had never been going to be an easy win.

‘You haven’t been inside yet,’ he said, stating the obvious, making another small gesture towards the corpse.

‘I am waiting for you to leave. It is my understanding that you are not a fan of viscera, or its pungency. And with someone this size, it will be... messy.’

She winced as she said it, as though there might be someone there to offend.

‘We’ll leave you to it,’ said Buchan, ‘though I think we’re already going to know the last thing she ate, given she’d attended the official opening banquet earlier in the day.’

‘This is someone who did not only eat at meal times,’ said Benz, then she made a small gesture ushering them towards the door. ‘I will work now.’

Buchan nodded, said, ‘Thanks, Johanna,’ and Benz said, ‘I will contact you as soon as I have anything further,’ then Buchan and Kane turned away to the door.

Walking along the short corridor back towards the main hospital reception area, Kane said, ‘This is someone who did not only eat at meal times,’ shaking her head, laughing, then she added, ‘I love this woman.’

9

They were back at the hotel, having agreed for the moment that no one else would be notified of the death.

Buchan was not happy, and fighting the urge to find a reporter in their midst to give them the inside scoop, but it wasn’t as though he didn’t hold the press in as much disdain as he held the politicians and the upper ranks of deskbound Police Scotland. He was disappointed, though unsurprised, that no journalist had managed to sniff out the story.

Kane and Cherry were speaking to hotel security, in order to examine as much of the CCTV footage as they’d have time to look at. Buchan was waiting to speak to the event chairman. They’d been given a small office on the minus-one level, a high window letting in a degree of natural light.

He checked his watch, he looked back at the laptop. Familiarising himself with the work of Sir John Hannigan, and his son, Lucas.

His phone pinged. Roth.

Hey. At the apartment. You going to be in before midnight?

He typed a quick reply.

Will do what we can here, aim to finish by nine-ish. Eat without me if you’re hungry.

She replied, I’ll drink wine and wait. : )

There was a knock at the door, and the chairman, Lucas Hannigan, entered.

Buchan had read through his resumé. Honours in Social Constructs from the University of St Andrews. Master’s in Social Constructs from the University of St Andrews. Currently working towards a PhD in Social Constructs at the University of Glasgow, with a focus on The Intersectionality of the Non-Binary In Neo-Colonial West Of Scotland Poverty Constituencies. Currently employed as Communications Re-engineering Supervisor at BetMC, his father’s company.

‘You wanted a word?’

He carried himself with all the assurance of private school, and thirtysomething pious self-belief.

‘Thanks for coming down,’ said Buchan, and he indicated the seat.

‘We’re a little time-short,’ said Hannigan.

Buchan made another gesture towards the seat, and this time he sat down.

He was wearing a soft-collared shirt, a Black Watch tartan bow tie, and a tweed waistcoat. He’d changed in the hour and a half since Buchan had last seen him.

‘How’s the conference going?’

‘It’s extraordinary. Life goals, my friend, life goals.’

‘Have there been any security issues?’

‘We’re locked down. I mean, total lock down, no one in that shouldn’t be, no reports of anyone unexpectedly packing up and leaving early. Some staff have come and gone, but that’s normal. Completely normal.’

He laughed, though Buchan wasn’t entirely sure why.

Hannigan sniffed. Loudly, then a second time.

Ah, thought Buchan.

‘Any reports of anyone else not turning up for something they should be at?’

‘Nope. I mean, really, so far, and I know we’re barely ten percent through this thing, but it’s been absolutely clockwork.’

‘Was the death of the poet part of the plan, then?’

Hannigan’s brow furrowed as he failed to pick up on Buchan’s tone.

‘I mean, obviously not. It’s sad, but everyone knew Bella had had a really difficult time. I just hope she’s at peace now. And you know, if it turns out that inviting her here was the thing that drove her over the edge?’ He let out a low whistle, closed his eyes for a moment.

‘Did you speak to her at today’s lunch, or before the event?’

‘Seriously? I was sitting next to her at lunch. We literally had lunch.’

‘Did you talk to her?’

‘Of course.’

‘And how did she seem?’

‘She was buzzing. I mean, being the National Poet, you know, it’s a great honour. But FYI, the National Poet in any given year could walk into the local Waterstones and no one would know who they were. But this, we’re talking a global event. We’re talking money, we’re talking Hollywood, we’re talking world leaders. There are journalists here from seventy-three different countries, we’ve literally got seven Oscar winners, we’ve got heads of state, we’ve got Prime Ministers, we’ve got foreign ministers, we’ve got ministers of environment and science, and Bella got to read her new work to this audience. Who wouldn’t be buzzing? She honestly said, when she sat down – and she got a standing ovation by the way – she turned to me and said, this is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. She squeezed my arm, then she said, thank you. She was so excited about getting to close out the event on Sunday. You can always tell with writers and poets and artists, you know? Their minds are always working, always seeing things in colours the rest of us don’t even know exist.’

Buchan leant into the desk and stared harshly across at him. Hannigan looked a little disconcerted, and covered that by continuing to talk about himself.

‘I mean, it was my idea to invite her, you know. That’s the beautiful thing for me. We have this wonderful event, she’s such a star, you know, and it was me who brought her on board. Dad says it’s the best thing I’ve done.’ A pause, and then, ‘What?’

‘You’re not describing someone who was about to commit suicide.’

Hannigan stared blankly across the desk, a little wide-eyed, then he made a small throwaway gesture.

‘You can’t say that.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s mental health one-o-one. None of us, none of us, have any idea what anyone else is thinking.’ You should have a pretty good idea what I’m thinking right now, thought Buchan. ‘And when you’ve got the kind of issues Bella was dealing with, you know, one minute you’re high, queen of the world, then suddenly the event’s over, all that adrenalin stops flowing, and then, bam, you crash like a high-flying turkey.’

‘Had she been diagnosed with bi-polar, manic depression...?’

‘Self.’

‘Self?’

‘She’d self-diagnosed manic depression.’

‘Had she been prescribed medication?’

‘Bella didn’t believe in medication. She was all about the power of self, of mindfulness. She was big into Ayurvedic healing and diet.’

‘D’you know if she’d ever attempted suicide before?’

‘We were talking about that today, you know. She said she thought about it, like literally every day of her life. You know, she woke up, and she thought, will I kill myself today?’

‘The answer appears to have always been no,’ said Buchan.

‘Until today.’

‘What was different about today, other than her achieving her career highlight, and a kind of global recognition that most living poets could only dream of?’

‘You just said it. That was what was different. She got back to her hotel room, and she crashed. Maybe the person she’d put on when talking to me was a façade, you know? Faced with the silent, cold reality of her own company in an empty hotel room, she reached for the wine bottle opener, and...’ and he finished the sentence by running his thumb across his throat.

Buchan looked grimly across the desk. If it was possible, this man was even worse than he’d feared he might be.

‘When the history books are written about this event,’ said Hannigan, to fill the silence, ‘Bella will sadly be little more than a footnote. She will be remembered kindly and sympathetically, but ultimately over the course of this weekend, we will change the narrative of climate science belief systems going forward. We will literally go down in history.’

‘Are the Chinese government represented here?’ asked Buchan.

It was nothing to do with the investigation, but he couldn’t help himself.

‘No.’

‘The Indian, the Russian and the US governments?’

‘We have people from those countries. Not Russia, obviously.’

‘But not the governments.’

A pause, and then, ‘No.’

‘Those four countries produce more CO2 than the rest of the world combined. How exactly is it you’re going to effect change?’

Buchan was needlessly baiting him, but Hannigan was ready for it. This was safe ground.

‘By talking. By influencing. By spreading the word, putting processes in place. The American government may not be here, but we have American business. We have people who can effect change much better than any government can. We are literally changing the world this weekend, and it makes no difference whether it starts big or small, whether it starts with China or it starts with Palau, but this is where it starts.’

‘Had there been any threat made against Ms Favalli, or against any of the other attendees?’ asked Buchan, making the decision to not taunt him any further, because he really didn’t want to hear the soundbite responses.

‘Threat?’

‘Threat.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘There’s potential Ms Favalli has been murdered.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘How many security guards do you have on site?’

A moment, then he said, ‘We have just over a hundred event specific security, and that number is multiplied by a million when you add police resource, and delegates’ private security.’

‘Why does anyone have security?’ asked Buchan.

Hannigan started to smile curiously.

‘These are players. We have players in town. To be honest, from the heart, we’re not taking on Big Oil, we’re not taking on Big Coal, we’re not taking on Big Plastic, we’re not taking on Big Agriculture. But they don’t know that, and what we’re talking about is not popular with these people. Some of this stuff is literally dangerous to say, dangerous to suggest, dangerous to even start to try to put out there.’

‘So there’s a threat?’

‘Yes.’ He paused. He realised Buchan had played him into a corner. ‘Fine, sure, there are threats. But we’re not talking actual, individual threats against actual individuals. Bella, as far as I’m aware, had not received a threat. No one else here has received an actual threat.’

‘OK, thanks,’ said Buchan, and he nodded towards the door.

‘That’s it?’

‘For now. You can go.’

‘Oh.’

Hannigan didn’t immediately get up, then Buchan pulled a notepad closer to him and started writing quickly. Hannigan watched him for a moment, trying to read upside down what he was writing, and then he turned away, walked from the room and closed the door behind him.

Buchan stopped writing as soon as Hannigan was gone, and then he closed the notebook, got up and followed him from the room.

10

‘How’re we looking?’ asked Buchan, entering the small control room where Kane and Cherry were going through CCTV footage.

Kane quickly brought up an image of a woman pushing a trolley, then sat back a little from the screen to give Buchan a better view.

‘This is the woman who delivered the room service. There’s no record of Ms Favalli ordering room service, so we can assume it was presented as a gift from either the hotel or the conference. However, neither the hotel nor the conference ordered the gift.’

‘Did they have an explanation, since they seem to be in denial about the obvious?’

‘McLaughlin suggested Favalli placed the order directly with a member of staff.’

‘But they’ve been unable to identify the member of staff.’

‘Correct.’

‘Nor have they identified the woman delivering the trolley.’

‘Correct.’

‘And was Favalli charged for the delivery?’

‘Nope.’

‘Sounds like a bit of a red flag,’ said Buchan.

‘It’s draped in a red flag. Nevertheless, they have a lot of staff on duty today, they’re coming and going, they had around thirty staff on over lunch who have since left the building, and that’s a lot of people to catch up with.’

‘Thirty staff who’ve left the building?’ said Buchan.

‘They have an in-built defence mechanism,’ said Kane. ‘No jumping to conclusions until they’ve spoken to everyone. Or we’ve spoken to everyone.’

‘Except they’re happy to jump to the conclusion she killed herself.’

‘True.’

‘Have you got someone trying to track down all these members of staff?’

‘Our resources are currently the three of us.’

Buchan nodded, face set hard.

‘This is so damned stupid,’ he muttered. Then, ‘You got anything, Danny?’

‘I’ve been looking at people arriving since this morning,’ he said. ‘Not looking for anything in particular, obviously, because I don’t know what it is, or who it is, I’m looking for. But, you know...’

‘You’ll know when you see it.’

‘Yes, and so far, I haven’t seen it. The woman who delivered the food leaves the room, we see her walk down the corridor to the lift, and then she vanishes. Her aside, no one we recognise, no one looking suspicious. If anyone walked in through the front door, they were wearing their balls.’

‘Well, that’s a way to put it,’ said Buchan. ‘You won’t have been able to run facial recognition on it yet, though.’

‘Nope. They’re letting us look at their files, but they’re not letting us copy them, or take them out of house. We’re going to need paperwork for that, and I’m guessing there’s not a lot of point in asking for the paperwork at the moment.’

‘There doesn’t seem to be a lot of point in anything, but we need to put as much together as we can, to make it impossible for them to deny this is a murder investigation.’

‘We see her glance at the camera,’ said Kane, indicating the woman outside Favalli’s room. ‘The glasses are large, there’s lots of hair going on. Five minutes later she could’ve been walking through the lobby, wig off, glasses off, and we’re going to need more than some rough black and white footage to spot her.’

Buchan looked behind him, grabbed a seat, then pulled it forward and sat in between them, a little behind. He wasn’t so interested in what was on screen, and certainly didn’t think he’d be able to see anything they’d missed. He just needed to sit and think.

‘You thought about dropping a quiet word to a compliant journalist?’ asked Kane.

‘Have decided against it for the moment. Though, to be honest, most likely every journalist in this place would immediately run it by someone in the government, they’d part deny it and part threaten said journalist with exclusion from the inner circle, and there the story would die, until such times as it becomes untenable for it to be kept under wraps.’

He looked between the two of them, they shared a moment of resignation, and then he clapped his hands once to get them out of it and said, ‘We’ve got the next of kin details?’

‘Favalli’s mum is dead. A prominent feature of her work, dealing with not having a mum. And she never mentions her father in her work, or online. He is, nevertheless, still alive.’

‘Whereabouts?’

‘Baillieston.’

Buchan nodded.

‘I don’t suppose he’s been told the bad news?’

‘No.’

‘We’d better get around there,’ said Buchan. ‘If you don’t mind coming along.’

‘We’ve been told to keep this as tight as possible,’ said Kane. ‘We’re OK letting the next of kin know?’

‘The girl’s father needs to know, and I don’t give a damn what any of these clowns say. You need a little longer, Danny?’

Cherry nodded. ‘There’s a lot of footage.’

‘When’s your shift due to end?’

Cherry checked his watch.

‘About an hour.’

‘What about Ellie, you know what shift she’s doing?’

‘Same, I think,’ said Cherry.

‘OK, I’ll go and find her, and see if I can get her to come down and help you out.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Unless you hear otherwise, give this another hour, then head home. Write up what you’ve managed to cover before you go.’

‘Boss,’ he said.

A look between Buchan and Kane, and then they were up and on their way out, first to find DC Dawkins, and then to head out into the heat of the afternoon.

11

Buchan’s 1959 Facel Vega was ill-equipped to deal with the temperature. They drove with the windows open, the breeze through the car, but it was still much too warm, and conversation was difficult. They did not talk.

THE MAN WAS IN HIS early sixties. They seemed to have interrupted him at peace in his sitting room, drinking a glass of white wine, eating nuts, listening to the Bill Evans Trio. My Man’s Gone Now was playing. The television wasn’t on, there were no books or newspapers around his chair, no sign of a phone. It was cool in this room, a much more natural chill than that of the hotel.

Aldo Favalli settled back in his seat, and made a gesture for the officers to sit down. He’d invited them in without asking why they’d come, as though he’d been expecting this moment. Which seemed odd, thought Buchan, given that his daughter had been a poet rather than a firefighter or a soldier.

He didn’t look at them as they sat, then he lifted the glass of wine, took a drink, said, ‘You sure?’ and they both shook their heads.

‘Bill Evans,’ said Buchan, deciding he may as well delay the inevitable a second or two.

‘Yes,’ said Favalli. ‘Thank God there’s someone left who remembers these things. The old ways are almost gone.’ He seemed to realise just how unnecessarily dramatic he’d sounded, as though an elf surveying the rise of men in Middle Earth, and he waved it away, and said, ‘You come with bad news, I presume.’

‘Yes,’ said Buchan. ‘It’s about Bella, I’m afraid.’

A moment, a slight intake of breath, and then the creasing of his brow.

‘She’s at this ridiculous thing in Glasgow?’

‘Yes,’ said Buchan. ‘I’m sorry, but Bella was found dead in her hotel room late this afternoon.’ A pause, the hooded eyes staring back at him. ‘She’d been at the opening lunch, she’d made her speech, she’d stayed for the remainder of the afternoon session, and then she returned to her room sometime after four o’clock. She was found dead around an hour later.’

Aldo Favalli’s brow was still creased. Young women don’t just die in hotel rooms, and Buchan, of course, had no plan of how to avoid saying the obvious.

‘She never took drugs,’ said Favalli.

‘No.’ Another short pause, and then Buchan forced his way into what he was sure was a lie. ‘It appears she committed suicide.’

Aldo Favalli’s eyes narrowed, the look of confusion increased, and then he seemed to relax for a moment and he shook his head.

‘Maybe you’ve got the wrong person,’ he said. ‘That’s... Bella wouldn’t have killed herself.’

‘It’s definitely Bella,’ said Buchan. ‘I’m sorry. Obviously we’ll need to wait to hear the findings of the police pathologist, but for now we think it was suicide.’

‘For now? What’s the alternative?’

Buchan didn’t answer, and again Favalli made a small, dismissive gesture.

‘The alternative seems equally ridiculous.’

He looked away, staring at the old, pale green carpet. The tune finished, and for a moment there was silence, bar the sounds of the early evening coming in the open window. Somewhere nearby a blackbird. Waltz for Debby started playing. Favalli lifted the glass of wine and took a drink, then sat forward, elbows on his knees, glass in hand, eyes wide and staring into nothingness.

‘When was the last time you spoke to her?’ asked Buchan.

‘Three weeks ago. She came over for dinner. She blessed me with an hour of her time. I made a carrot cake for dessert. She left before I was able to serve it.’

His tone was maudlin, and he waved away the words, as though trying to banish them.

‘It happened,’ he muttered, almost to himself.

‘You and Bella didn’t get along?’ asked Kane.

‘Oh, we got along fine. I just... bored her. She was the National Poet. She had things to say, and people to meet, and I was a dinosaur, and she took me for granted, and presumed I’d be there if she ever needed me. Which, of course, I was.’

‘When was the last time she needed you?’

He smiled sadly.

‘I don’t remember,’ he said. Then he shook his head, and straightened his shoulders. ‘She just... she wouldn’t have killed herself. She just wouldn’t. And how? How did she do it?’

‘She wrote a lot about Japan,’ said Kane.

Favalli nodded.

‘She travelled there often?’

‘Three times, at least. She and I went after Jane died, and she returned a couple of times thereafter. Maybe she went and I never knew, there have been weeks at a time when we haven’t spoken.’

‘There appears to have been a heavy Japanese influence on her work,’ said Kane. ‘She died by a traditional method of female suicide. Jigai.’

He took a deep breath. His hands were beginning to shake a little, and he laid down the glass and sat back.

‘What is it? I mean, what’s the ritual?’

‘The slitting of the jugular vein.’

He wasn’t looking at them. Staring blankly straight ahead at the wall, just beneath a framed poster of a nineteen-thirties LNER advert for Highland travel, while Scott La Faro played bass.

‘How do you know she did it to herself?’ he asked.

‘We’re not one hundred percent certain,’ said Kane. ‘Reading her work, there are a lot of suggestions of mental health struggles. This was obviously an important weekend for her, but it might well have been very stressful. Suicide, at this stage, makes more sense than the alternative, that’s all. There was no threat against her, no implication that anyone would want her dead.’

Favalli stared at the wall throughout, only blinking occasionally.

‘Did you know about her mental health struggles?’ asked Buchan.

Favalli glanced at him, then looked away, eyes lowered.

‘She leaned into them, that’s what they say now, isn’t it. She had mental health struggles because that’s what people have these days. You’re practically encouraged to have mental health struggles. Who even are you if you don’t? Yes, it was hard losing her mum. It was hard for us both. But it’s what happens. It’s the natural order. Your parents die before you.’

The words seemed to stick in his throat, and he coughed, then looked back at them.

‘I didn’t believe her,’ he said. ‘And you turning up here with tales of... she’s not going to have killed herself. That nonsense she’d write about depression? I told her she shouldn’t be so flippant. Everyone gets depressed. You cannot equate waking up in a terrible mood with the kind of soul-sucking...’

He grimaced and waved away the words, might have muttered, ‘Sorry.’

‘She’d never attempted suicide?’ said Kane.

‘No.’ A moment, and then, ‘Not that I’d know. The last few years, I doubt she’d have told me. And even if she had...’ He looked between them again, and then his head bowed, and his voice had lost any of its spark. ‘I wouldn’t have believed her. Just as I don’t believe it now.’

He straightened his back, and now looked at them with a degree of contempt he hadn’t shown previously. They both knew what was coming. He wasn’t stupid.

‘This isn’t in the news, is it?’

‘No,’ said Buchan.

‘And it won’t be news until the event is finished, and all these money grabbing, gravy train riding, spongers have fled the scene. We don’t want any trouble while the eyes of the world are on us. We can reveal the poet’s death once we’ve all gone back to talking about Gaza and the Donbas and Sudan and every other blighted hellscape on earth.’

Neither Buchan nor Kane had anything to say. Silence was agreement.

‘Have you brought a court injunction with you, preventing me from speaking to the press?’

‘We’re not asking anything of you, Mr Favalli,’ said Buchan. ‘The people at the conference would no doubt like this kept under wraps, but we don’t work for them. If you need to talk to someone, if you need help, then you’re free to go ahead.’

The brief spark began to fade. Grief knocked at the door. His head dipped.

‘You’ll need me to make a formal identification?’ he said, his voice low.

‘Yes, please,’ said Kane. ‘Can we set that up for tomorrow morning?’

‘Let me know where and when.’

‘I’ll take your number, and message you after I’ve spoken to pathology.’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Is there anyone else you’ll need to notify this evening?’ asked Kane.

‘Would you rather I didn’t?’

‘No. Like the inspector says, she was your daughter, and you’re free to speak to anyone you choose. Given that, as you rightly guessed, the lid is being kept on this over the weekend, it would be good for us to know who knows, that’s all.’

‘Aye, well don’t worry, there’s no one to tell. No one that I care about, at any rate. Bella didn’t have any brothers or sisters. There was no stepmum. Her grandparents, all four of them, are gone. I’ve got a sister in Dorset, but she can wait to hear the news. Far as I know, she was lucky if Bella bothered writing to her to thank her for her Christmas. If she did remember, she’d do it in rhyme. Jesus, Alice hated that, she really did. The one thing poets don’t understand, is just how much everyone else hates poetry.’

He lifted the glass of wine, and took another drink.

‘Bella didn’t have a partner?’ asked Buchan.

‘I have no idea,’ said Favalli, ‘but I doubt it. She didn’t have much time for other people. Very career-focussed.’ Then he quickly added, ‘You should go.’

‘You’ll be all right?’ asked Kane.

‘What can I say?’ said Favalli. ‘You’ve given me bad news, not shot me in the head. I’ll drink more than I would’ve done, I’ll probably blub like a fucking bairn once you’ve left the house, and I’ll spend the night hating myself for not seeing her more often, even though she barely gave me the chance.’

A long sigh, another shake of the head. There was something about him that said he preferred it when he didn’t have to talk. That he hated every word that ended up coming out of his mouth. And that tied in perfectly with the peaceful scene into which Buchan and Kane had walked, leading Death on its pale horse as they came.

‘I’ll be fine,’ he said, and he got to his feet. ‘And don’t worry, I won’t call the Daily Mail.’

Buchan and Kane rose. Favalli stopped for a moment, as though he might have something else to say, then he shook his head and opened the door. Hot air from the hallway swept in on a summer breeze. Bill Evans played on in the early evening heat.

12

Buchan stopped back at the Grand Europa Hotel to speak to the head of security, Miranda Proust, but she was unavailable. No one, in fact, seemed to know where she was. He had a brief word with her deputy, but decided he’d save the questions for the boss when she could be located.

He was restless, the constraints put on the investigation giving him a bad feeling. In his impotence, he went to the mortuary to see Dr Benz before he went home for the night. He called first to make sure Benz would still be there, she said of course she would be, but that she had nothing to tell him, and now he was walking into the mortuary, to find Benz working on the corpse of Bella Favalli.

She had drawn a great wound down the centre of her abdomen, and pulled out various organs, which were lying on the copious surface of the deceased’s skin.

‘You interrupt me,’ said Benz without looking up. ‘You do not like this, but I’d like to get home this evening, so I will not stop for you.’

He took a step back, looked around, saw a small box of single-use surgical masks on a shelf behind Benz, said, ‘You mind if I take a mask?’ and Benz replied, ‘Go ahead. Help yourself to anything else you’d like while you’re at it.’

He smiled, collected the mask, slipped it on, and then returned to his position, a couple of feet back from the table. The smell was grim. Rich and foul and bitter, and he never got used to it. Sometimes the reminiscence of the smell caught him unawares, appearing out of nowhere, regardless of where he might be. As though there were particles of human viscera lodged in his nostrils.

‘How’s it looking?’ he asked.

‘As we discussed on the phone,’ said Benz. ‘There is nothing new. I am, since you are here, willing to speculate, however. I would not put this in writing, as without proof I would not like to be asked to defend this in court.’

‘Speculate away,’ said Buchan. ‘I’m not recording you.’

‘There was coffee in her mouth, this much is true.’

‘There was coffee as part of the room service, and a half-drunk cup.’

‘I am waiting for the bloods. Coffee is strong, a powerful masking agent. I now suspect the killer placed chloroform over her mouth and nose, and held her while she passed out. They then cleaned off the traces of chloroform left on her face, nostrils and mouth, and poured the coffee down her throat. There was coffee on her lips, coffee coated the inside of her mouth, her throat.’ She paused, then added, ‘I am not sure it was all natural.’

‘The killer applied the coffee to cover what was beneath.’

‘Yes. But I will wait for the bloods.’

‘Then the jugular is slit, and everything is organised to imply Ms Favalli killed herself.’

‘Yes.’

‘How sure are you?’ asked Buchan.

A pause, and then finally she lifted her eyes, and then she straightened, and stopped poking around at an organ the function of which Buchan didn’t know.

‘I am very sure,’ she said. ‘However, I am aware of the politics of this moment, and I am not going to give you what you want this evening. If our leaders are determined this was suicide, it will remain that way at least until tomorrow morning. Even then, you will be aware that I myself am not running these tests. They have been dispatched to the laboratory in Alloa, and we must await their return. It would not be difficult for someone in a position of power to stand in the way of a quick release of information.’ She shrugged, her eyes expressive behind the mask.

‘There are forces at play,’ said Buchan.

‘Melodramatic, but yes, there are forces at play. I am about to cut into the spleen. Would you like to watch? The smell is frequently significantly worse.’

Buchan smiled behind the mask.

‘You’ve managed to get rid of me, Johanna. I’m leaving.’

‘Thank you. As soon as I have definite information, or if I hear of a hold-up, I will message.’

‘Thanks.’

13

Hank Mobley, with Horace Silver on piano, Base on Balls, the volume low. There was the smell of Asian cooking in the air. The windows were open, the blinds had been raised as the sun had passed far enough to the west that it was no longer shining straight into the room. It was cooler than he’d thought it would be, but then it usually was on warm days. Roth had a way of heat management in the apartment that he never had when she wasn’t there.

‘Hey,’ he said, shoes off, having walked through to the open-plan.

Roth was at the hob, swooshing fried rice around in a wok. The overhead fan was on. Edelman was asleep on the sofa. It was too damned hot for a cat.

She smiled.

‘I know you’ll want a shower, but it’s late. We’ll eat first. You don’t have to head out?’

‘Not as far as I know,’ said Buchan. ‘Give me two minutes to throw some water on my face.’

‘YOU’VE NOT BEEN FOLLOWING the conference?’

He took some rice and pork, then dabbed at his lips and took a small drink of wine.

‘Focussing more on the specifics of Favalli’s life.’

‘You don’t think there might be a correlation between what’s happening at the conference and why someone would kill the appointed poet?’

‘Was assuming that killing a poet had its own motive,’ he said, and Roth laughed.

‘You’re terrible. Don’t say that in public.’

‘One day someone’s going to have to, or the poets will persist,’ said Buchan, and she laughed again.

‘You’ve been following it?’ he asked.

‘Sure. You want an update?’

‘I’d rather sit in silence and listen to Hank here, but you’re probably right.’

‘You’re so rude,’ she said, laughing again, then she glanced over at Edelman to bring him in on her side, but Edelman was still sleeping.

‘Go on, then,’ said Buchan. ‘What were they talking about today?’

‘Big announcement this evening,’ she said, and she made the banner headline sign. ‘A new NGO to save the earth.’

‘Aren’t there already NGOs trying to save the earth?’

‘Probably.’

‘They’ll not be happy about having a competitor.’

‘They should be pleased, surely, that there’s another ally in the fight.’

‘That’s not how humans work.’

‘Cynic.’

‘You’ve been in the police. You know this already.’

‘Fine, you’re probably right. Anyway,’ she said, pausing to take a bite.

‘This is amazing,’ he said, using the gap to squeeze in the compliment.

‘Thank you. So this NGO is called Apparent Horizon 2035. Like, the whole event has been styled AH35, and no one really knew what the AH stood for. Lots of internet conspiracy about that one. Anyway, tonight they had the big reveal.’

‘Apparent Horizon?’

‘Yes.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It’s physics. Something to do with light rays, and the boundaries of a black hole. I don’t really understand physics, and I know you also don’t understand physics, so a discussion on this would not go well. But whatever it is, it’s specifically different to an event horizon.’

‘I’ve heard of event horizon. What does it mean?’

‘Pass.’

‘Solid start for Apparent Horizon,’ said Buchan. ‘Where are they going to be based? Lausanne? Geneva? Davos?’

‘Perthshire.’

‘Ah, that makes sense. Not great for the Scottish enlightenment to make a big announcement about more non-governmental jobs in Switzerland.’

‘Exactly. So their m.o. isn’t to raise money from the public or governments. Their plan is to target gazillionaires and get them to save the earth. So they’ll go to Elon and say, rather than trying to get to Mars, which has zero chance of happening while you’re still alive by the way, and if it does, you’ll be too old to get on the bus to the airport, never mind get on the damn interplanetary spaceship, why not be the man who saves the rainforest? Or the elephants? Or polar bears? You could do something now that’ll see achievable goals in your lifetime. Go on, Elon, go and buy up a billion acres of Amazon rainforest and let it be. Buy up two hundred million acres that have been destroyed and reforest it. Be the guy who did the thing.’

‘That’s the plan?’

‘That’s the plan.’

‘If Elon Musk was going to do that, wouldn’t he just set up his own organisation, rather than share the glory with a bunch of desperate, attention-seeking climate muppets?’

She laughed again.

‘I hope you don’t call them that to their faces.’

‘Not yet, but if this goes on long enough... Anyway, how many billionaires have they got on board so far?’

‘One. An American investor by the name of Randy Ackerman.’

‘I don’t know Randy.’

‘Made his money in Florida real estate, and crypto. The internet seems divided on whether or not he’s an actual billionaire or if he’s just got a lot of money. Anyway, he’s gifted Apparent Horizon ten thousand acres in Perthshire, including Glenalmond Castle, which they’ll use as the NGO’s HQ, while rewilding the ten thousand acres.’

‘How much does ten thousand acres of Perthshire cost you these days?’

‘Twenty-five million.’

He let out a low whistle.

‘So, the plan is to get billionaires to buy up as much land on earth as they can get hold of?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘And they presume those billionaires will then use this land for the benefit of mankind, rather than, I don’t know, building mega-cities, prisons, or endless fields of maize and palm in order to make even more money?’

‘The billionaires aren’t buying the land. The billionaires are giving Apparent Horizon the money to buy the land.’

‘Sounds solid,’ said Buchan.

‘They’re going to put packages together. Like, buy this island in the Pacific, and save the turtle, that kind of thing. Or buy land, plant eight billion trees, and save the whatever forest. The Scottish one is to replant the Great Wood, and reintroduce at the very least lynx, if not wolves.’

‘This is getting better and better,’ said Buchan. ‘We could do with wolves. I might pay attention to the rest of the weekend, particularly now there won’t be any poetry.’

She laughed again, shaking her head.

‘I shouldn’t laugh, but thank God I’m not on the force anymore, and I’m allowed to laugh at anything I like.’

‘That’s not true,’ said Buchan. ‘We can arrest people now for laughing at the wrong jokes.’

His phone rang. It was on the table beside them, its ring not too loud, the vibration carrying through the wood.

DS Kane.

They looked at each other with typical resignation.

‘There goes the evening,’ said Roth. ‘Hey, at least you’re going to quit soon, and come and study history in St Andrews, right?’

‘On the verge of handing in my resignation,’ said Buchan, drily. ‘Sorry...’

‘Don’t be daft.’

He lifted the phone and stepped away from the table. As he approached the window, Edelman finally stirred, noticed him, then stretched, yawned, and settled back into position.

‘Sam,’ he said.

‘We have an escalation,’ said Kane, by way of introduction.

Buchan closed his eyes, then took a step nearer the window, opened his eyes and looked down on the river, the lights of the Science Centre on the other bank glinting on the water.

‘There’s a body dumped in an industrial waste unit, basically a skip, on a small estate this side of the airport, just off the motorway. It was due to get emptied tomorrow morning. There was a guy raking through the bins, found the corpse.’

‘Any chance it’s another poet?’ said Buchan, grimly.

‘Looks like the person we have on CCTV delivering the food to the poet’s room.’

‘Really? I wasn’t sure we got a great look at her face?’

‘She was wearing glasses, not a Spiderman mask. She might’ve been able to walk out of the building unrecognised, but having her here, I’m pretty damned sure.’

‘Dammit,’ said Buchan. ‘How’s it looking?’

‘Only got here five minutes ago. You’re my first call. Very low-key at the moment. No press, it hasn’t gone up the chain.’

‘Ping me your location. I’ll be ten minutes.’

‘Boss.’

She hung up.

Buchan slipped the phone into his pocket, then turned away from the window.

‘Another corpse,’ he said, walking back to the table. He lifted his glass of water and downed it.

‘You want a coffee to go?’ asked Roth.

‘Please.’

‘I’m on it,’ she said, getting to her feet.

‘You want to come?’ he asked, as he walked through to the bedroom.

‘You need an English literature student?’ she said, a laugh in her voice.

‘Maybe this one’ll turn out to be a poet ‘n all,’ said Buchan from the other room. ‘You might come in handy.’

‘Got to wash my hair,’ said Roth, and Buchan smiled.

He stopped, he turned back through into the kitchen.

‘You mind just spending a bit of time trawling around, looking to see if there’s any gossip in the margins.’

‘Sure,’ said Roth. ‘I’ll call if there’s anything remotely intriguing.’

‘Thanks.’

He returned to the bathroom.

14

The guy was in his mid-thirties, yet wore all life’s seasons on his face. Wearing a light coat, which still seemed too much for the warm evening, and a beanie, which was definitely not required. He mostly stared at the ground. So far he’d volunteered his name as Sammy, and that was as far as they’d got.

There were two squad cars, and Buchan’s Facel. Dr Benz had been called, as had Meyers’s team. Buchan, having seen the deceased, had also made the call to get Gilmour over. They were going to have to escalate, and there was no point in annoying her by doing it without consultation.

‘I just don’t want any shit, you know?’

‘You found a corpse,’ said Buchan. ‘As long as you’re not responsible for this woman being a corpse, you’re not going to get any shit.’

‘I’m trying to build a...’ The thin-faced man turned and gestured somewhere into the middle of the small industrial unit. ‘I’m just trying to build a wee business, you know. Try to get a bit of, like, you know, self-respect ‘n that. I know what everyone thinks. That I’m this loser, you know. Fuckin’ wee Sammy, too out his face to do nuthin’. I’m clean ten months now, you know. Nae drugs, nae booze, nae fags. Vape like shit these days, drink fuckin’ Red Bull by the gallon, but I’m getting there. Had a fucking banana last week, man.’

‘Why were you in the bin?’

‘Like I says, got a wee business going. Sell on Etsy and Ebay. That’s all. Pick up stuff fi’ places, clean it up maybe if it needs it, do a few repairs, sell it on. Every cunt knows me around here. Not one of them thinks I’m gonnae make a go of it. They’re all waiting for us to screw up, you know what I mean. And I’m like that, I’ve got to make this work, right?’

‘Why were you in the bin?’ repeated Buchan.

He wasn’t getting impatient. He knew a thousand people like Sammy. There was something about them. The hopeless case, giving it one last shot. Maybe they had a five percent success rate. Maybe it was less than that.

‘You know how much packaging costs, man? Fuck me. That’s like... you know, I got a wee unit o’er by. Got it free for six months. One month to go. Don’t know how I’m gonnae afford it when I start having to pay. Hoping I can get some kind of a deal, man, you know. So, since I’m no’ paying for that, two main costs are postage and packaging. Cannae do nuthin’ about the postage, but see yon packaging? Most folk just dump it, you know. See they cunts,’ and he indicated the large unit they were standing next to. ‘They just chuck away this stuff like fuckin’ biscuits man, you know what I’m saying? So I’m like that. See every Friday, I’m in there like a badger.’

He indicated a large pile of cardboard boxes to the side of the bin where he’d found the corpse.

‘Look at that. Would’ve got twice that if I hadn’t found that dead cunt. Don’t suppose youse are going to let us keep that.’

‘I’m afraid not,’ said Buchan. ‘Our people’ll need to go through it.’

‘Thought as much.’

‘When’d you get here?’

Sammy took a moment, looking around the estate. He pointed at another unit, with a large sign across the top saying Ross & Weir Bargains.

‘They bastards put out a bit of packagin’ ‘n all. I’ll go there when youse’re done wi’ us. Usually I get what I need here, but that lot... no’ as good, but I’ll get what I need for next few days, maybe.’

‘When did you get here?’ repeated Buchan.

Sammy looked at his wrist. He wasn’t wearing a watch.

‘Never left my unit, you know. Waited until it was dark, every cunt had gone, then I came over. Let’s say it was about half-nine.’

‘Was it dark at half-nine?’

‘Naw. But you know what I mean. Got fed up waiting. It was getting dark. Main thing was, everyone had fucked off and nae bastard watched us going through the bins.’

‘You placed the call to the police at nine-forty-two.’

‘If you say so.’

‘Did you consider not calling the police?’

He laughed.

‘Course I did. Jesus. But then the body gets found eventually by some cunt, and then some other cunt says, see yon bastard Sammy Cartwright, he’s always going through they bins, and then youse lot are turning up at my door, and I’m getting nicked for God knows what.’

‘Sounds about right,’ said Buchan. ‘You did the right thing.’

‘Aye, what a hero.’

‘You’ve been here all evening?’

‘Aye, I says.’

‘Did you see anything? Did you see anyone at these bins?’

‘You mean, some cunt dumping a body?’ and he laughed.

To their right, a car arrived. Dr Benz. She parked, she got out, she stood and surveyed the scene. She was already dressed for the forensic investigation.

‘Fucking spacebird’s arrived,’ said Sammy.

‘Aye,’ said Buchan, ‘I mean someone dumping a body.’

Sammy looked back, shaking his head.

‘Nah.’

‘Did you see anyone around here? Anyone you didn’t recognise?’

‘To be honest, I’m no’ paying any attention. I’m in there, sitting on my laptop, looking at shit, you know. Looking to buy something for biscuits, or pick it up for free, you know. Freecycle? I love that shit. Pick it up for nothing, even if you sell it on for a tenner, you made a tenner, right?’

‘The true spirit of Freecycle,’ said Buchan, and Sammy smiled.

‘Aye, whatever.’

‘Did you hear anything? Like a car, or a car door, when you thought everyone had already gone?’

‘I don’t know, man. Might’ve, you know. But listen to that.’

He jerked his thumb in the direction of the motorway, only a hundred yards away, the sound of the traffic still loud after ten in the evening.

‘I mean, sometimes you cannae hear biscuits, man, you know. So there’s a car door closing? Look at that,’ and he indicated the fence on the other side of the industrial lot from the motorway, where there was a nineteen-seventies scheme of two-story townhouses.

‘Most of us who live in there cannae afford air for the tyres, never mind a fucking car, but it’s no’ like there are nae cars. Noises all around, man. That, and planes gettin’ tae fuck.’

Buchan looked around, taking in all the sounds of the city, and the layout of the small estate.

‘Fair enough, Sammy,’ he said. ‘Thanks for your help, appreciate you calling it in.’

‘Aye, nae bother.’

‘We’ll need you to make a formal statement.’

‘The fuck?’

‘Come on, Sammy, you know how this works.’

‘Whatever. I’m no’ telling you my second name, though.’

‘It’s Cartwright,’ said Buchan.

‘The fuck you know that already?’

‘You just referred to yourself as Sammy Cartwright. See yon bastard Sammy Cartwright, he’s always going through they bins...’

‘Fuck me, man.’

‘Appreciate it if you didn’t go anywhere just yet.’

He sighed heavily, head shaking.

‘Knew I should’ve kept my mouth shut.’

‘You know about the Crime Prevent scheme?’ said Buchan, turning back from a few yards away.

‘Naw.’

‘You may not want to be that guy, but it gives rewards for helping the police. This,’ he said, indicating the bin, ‘this’ll make you eligible. You might be able to get a couple of thousand. I’ll get one of my team to help you with the forms, if you’d like.’

‘A couple o’ grand, man?’ said Sammy, shoulders straightening a little.

‘Might be less, but aye, something along those lines.’

‘Fuck me, that sees us good to the end of the year at this place. Where’re the fucking forms, man?’

‘Stick around,’ said Buchan.

15

The body had been removed from the skip and placed on a sheet on the ground. Dr Benz was bending over the corpse, studying the head, Buchan and Kane to the side, waiting to have a word. There had been no more officers summoned to the scene. There were no blue lights flashing, nothing to draw attention to the area, other than the couple of small spotlights that had been set up around the corpse and the skip.

‘You are hovering,’ said Benz without looking round.

‘What have you got for us?’ asked Buchan.

Benz took a moment. He imagined a look of tired resignation on her face. Then she straightened up slowly, as though her legs were very stiff, and took a step towards them.

‘Knife to the forehead. A clean kill. The only other indicator is a slight cut on the right forefinger, suggesting she belatedly raised her hands at the attack, in time to get the graze, but not in time, obviously, to stop the knife. She was either attacked completely out of the blue, or she was with someone she didn’t consider a threat. Either way, death would’ve been instantaneous. Knife jammed in to the hilt and not removed. Not a lot of blood. The body remains warm. I’d say she’s dead less than two hours. What time was she discovered?’

‘Nine-forty, give or take.’

Benz nodded to herself, thinking it through.

‘I doubt the body would have been in the dumpster too long.’

She stretched, rubbing her forehead with the back of her wrist, and then couldn’t stifle a yawn. She covered her face with the top of her arm.

‘Were you still in work?’ asked Buchan.

‘I’ve only been in this city three months,’ said Benz. ‘I don’t have a life.’

‘You should go home, take a look at this in the morning.’

‘Very thoughtful of you, inspector,’ she said, ‘but given what’s going on here, and the horror that this has the distinct possibility of growing in to, I’m prepared to work late to be completely on top of it before I go to bed.’

‘Thank you.’

She made a small gesture of dismissal, then said, ‘I will get on. I’ll get her taken back to the lab, and give you a call tonight if anything else presents itself. You know her ID yet?’

‘No.’

‘And there’s nothing on the corpse,’ she said, nodding, not asking a question.

‘No.’

‘Jane Doe she is. I will be in touch.’

‘Thanks.’

She turned away, taking her gloves off as she went, to speak to Sgt Meyers.

Buchan and Kane watched her go, then when she’d started talking to Meyers, Kane said, ‘A similar warmth to Mary I feel.’

‘Hmm,’ said Buchan. ‘You spend your life cutting open corpses, it’s going to haunt you.’

‘I’m not sure she’s haunted.’

The lights of a car approached, driving into the small estate.

‘Damn,’ said Kane. ‘I’ll handle this.’

‘It’s OK,’ said Buchan. ‘It’s the chief.’

Kane looked a little surprised.

‘You called the chief? To a crime scene?’

‘We’re not sitting on this. At least, I’m not sitting on it. If it’s my call, we’re turning up at the Grand Europa tomorrow morning with a team of at least a hundred.’

‘Alexander, Samantha,’ said Gilmour, nodding as she approached. ‘Tell me.’

‘Unidentified woman,’ said Buchan, ‘dumped in the skip by this warehouse. The witness says the skip is emptied every Saturday morning, so whoever dumped the body, likely expected the corpse to be removed, and be dumped in landfill by the end of the day.’

‘The corpse wasn’t covered at all?’

‘Black bags. There’s a lad there who goes through this skip every Friday evening. They toss useable packaging material. He rakes through the bins for his own business needs. Found the black bag, and decided he didn’t want to be the one getting the blame for it being in there.’

‘Attempting to control the narrative.’

‘Yes.’

‘Any chance he killed this person, and then made up a story?’

‘There’s some chance, but I’d put it at less than five percent. He’s a particular type of person, and creating an elaborate murder tale in which he in some way unnecessarily implicates himself, is not it.’

‘Open mind,’ said Gilmour, and Buchan, wary of where she was likely to go with this, said, ‘Always. But really, he is not our person of interest.’

Gilmour, reading his thought process, gave him a sharp glance, and then walked over to where the SOCO’s were making moves to remove the corpse from the scene. She studied the face, she made a small gesture for the two women to continue their work, and then she returned to Buchan and Kane.

‘You think this is the person who killed Bella Favalli?’

‘Yes,’ said Buchan, Kane nodding alongside him.

‘You’re basing that on what exactly?’

Buchan stopped himself smiling grimly at her tone, and the wording of the question.

‘It looks like her,’ he said. ‘She was wearing a limited disguise when delivering food to Bella Favalli’s room, but removing it would have been enough to make it harder to recognise her leaving the hotel. We have her on CCTV...’ and he paused, while Kane held forward a photograph, which she’d taken from the monitor using her phone. Nevertheless, the picture was clear enough.

‘May I?’ said Gilmour.

Kane handed her the phone, and she took it, then walked back over to where the corpse lay. The officer had just pulled the zip over the head, and on Gilmour’s return, undid the zip and held the sides of the body bag apart. Gilmour knelt low, and placed the phone side-by-side with the victim’s face. The knife was yet to be removed from the forehead.

‘What d’you think?’ asked Gilmour.

Constable Jacqueline Stone leant in a little closer. She hadn’t seen the photograph previously.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘You think this is the same person?’

‘Yes, ma’am. The nose, the line of the jaw.’

Gilmour held the phone there, and then got to her feet, making a small gesture to Stone that she could continue what she’d been doing, then returned to Buchan and Kane, handing back the phone.

‘That’s what you’re going on?’ she said.

‘Yes,’ said Buchan. ‘You don’t think it’s the same person?’

‘Not a hundred percent. I mean, yes, they’re similar, but we’re going to need more. Did we get any DNA from Favalli’s hotel room?’

Buchan didn’t immediately respond. He’d hoped she would arrive with full support for her officers, but it was no surprise she was arriving aware of the consequences of full support for her officers, and was going to be cagey.

Sgt Meyers approached, having overheard, acknowledging Kane and Buchan.

‘Chief,’ she said to Gilmour. ‘No. In the footage, we can see that the person delivering the food is wearing gloves. They had no intention of leaving behind DNA, and while we’re still waiting on some results, we’ve found nothing yet, and we’re not optimistic that we’ll get anything.’

‘Ultimately, we’re going to be going off this photograph?’ said Gilmour.

‘It’s her,’ said Buchan.

‘Apparently,’ said Gilmour, humourlessly. ‘Although it seems you’re unaware that two people can look alike. It happens. And before you cry coincidence, coincidences also happen.’

She paused, she looked at the ground, she conjured up the rebuke, then she said, ‘I know where you’re going with this, inspector, and the answer’s no. I will not give you cover for this, I will not throw my weight behind this. I’d like a full report on everything you’ve got so far on my desk by eight a.m. I’ll consider it, I’ll pass it further up the chain, and we’ll see where we are. You are not turning up at that hotel heavy-handed. You are not in fact, this evening, turning up there at all.’

He had nothing to say, though what he wasn’t saying was written very obviously on his face.

‘You don’t know that the person in the sergeant’s photograph even killed Bella Favalli. You have proof of that? Does Dr Benz even have proof at this stage that Favalli was actually murdered? Do we have that committed to paper?’

Buchan had no reply. He had nowhere to take this. He needed the conclusive report from Benz, but was absolutely not going to push her on it. It would come when it came, and he wouldn’t now be surprised to find that Benz had been right when suggesting someone would sit on it over the weekend.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said Gilmour. ‘That we’re in some kind of a Jaws situation. And I’m Mayor Vaughn, ignoring the facts and playing politics, and you’re the heroic sheriff who understands what’s going on, and wants to protect people. Every damn story on earth’s a cliché, Alexander, and I don’t care what part I’m playing in this one, but the boy who cried wolf is also a cliché, and sometimes that boy never does get eaten by a wolf.

‘I want more, and you are not escalating this until we’ve got more, or until I know that everyone from the chief constable down is on board. When this thing is over, you and I still want to have our jobs, I presume at least we can agree on that.’

She stared harshly at him.

Standing here, unable to do the job he felt needed doing, he wasn’t sure he did want his job at the end of it. Still, when the time came and he left the police, he would want to do it on his own terms, not because some idiot in a suit decided he was on the wrong side of a political fence that ought not to have been there in the first place.

‘I’ll get the report written up tonight,’ said Buchan, then he turned away from Gilmour without waiting for her reply. Then he threw, ‘I’ll give you a lift back to town,’ over his shoulder at Kane.

‘I’ll need to seal the scene,’ said Kane, ‘and I need to organise the statement from Cartwright.’

‘I’ll wait,’ said Buchan. ‘I’ll start putting the report together in the car. Take as long as you need.’

He paused. He felt churlish. He looked at Gilmour.

‘If there’s anything else urgent or obvious before eight tomorrow, I’ll call.’ Then, without waiting for acknowledgement, he turned to Meyers, and said, ‘Thanks, Ruth. Give me a shout if anything else comes up.’

‘Boss,’ said Meyers, and then she nodded at Kane and Gilmour and turned away, as Buchan did the same.

SHORTLY AFTERWARDS, sitting in the car, Kane said, ‘The boy who cried wolf? Seriously? That little bastard always gets eaten by the damned wolf.’

Buchan left it a few moments, then said, ‘Are you saying I’m the little bastard in this scenario?’ and Kane rolled her eyes, and looked out of the window at the city passing in the night.

16

Buchan couldn’t stop himself, and after dropping off Kane, he headed straight to the Grand Europa Hotel. He was wary, of course. He didn’t want the complete fall-out with Gilmour, he didn’t even want to bump into either Lucas Hannigan or his father. Nevertheless, he couldn’t just go home, and rely on the BBC, and second-hand reports from Roth.

The bar in the Europa was called the Paris-Dakar. He sat at the bar, and thought of the Winter Moon. This was his usual position at his ex-wife’s bar, the place he hadn’t been to now in almost two months. His life had changed, Janey’s life had changed. There was a man now, a someone else, and since Buchan also had a someone else, what was there for them? The nights when he sat at the bar drinking neat gin, feeling miserable, wishing he could think of something to say to Janey, something, anything of significance, had been pointless enough. Now? Now, there was nothing. Once upon a time they’d had something, and it was him who’d thrown it away.

‘What can I get you?’ asked the woman at the bar, her accent English.

The place was noisy. The walls were decorated with classic car posters, many advertising old editions of the Paris-Dakar rally. Someone obviously didn’t know that the race hadn’t started until 1978, as many of the images – passing as original poster art – were for editions of the rally from the fifties and sixties. Duke Ellington was playing, and Buchan really liked the place, hotel bar or not. Perhaps he and Roth could come here some night when it had returned to normal. Which, hopefully, would start in three days’ time.

‘Monkey 47?’

‘Sure.’

‘You keep it in the freezer?’

Her brow crinkled, she did a thing with her nose, she turned and looked along the bar.

‘We do not. Would you like ice?’

‘Double gin, no mixer, lots of ice,’ said Buchan.

‘No lemon?’

‘No lemon.’

‘Coming right up,’ she said.

She was early forties, maybe. A confidence about her, a comfort behind the bar, that Buchan liked.

He watched her for a moment, and then looked around the rest of the room. He’d stopped in the doorway to make sure neither of the Hannigans were here, and now he took a bit more time.

He recognised a few people, bit-part players in the Scottish government. He only knew the name of one of them.

Randy Ackerman, the man who apparently was happy to give away a couple of hundred million dollars – and Buchan was extremely sceptical about how that would play out – was in a corner at a table of three. Nothing showy, low voices, the kind of conversation you wouldn’t hear if you were at the next table. There was a table of eight that included a couple of Scottish actors he recognised, one of them flamboyantly gay, who seemed to be very drunk, and trying to dominate the room.

‘Monkey 47, no mixer, no lemon, lots of ice,’ said the barwoman, as she placed the drink on a small mat before Buchan. ‘Would you like some snacks?’

‘No thanks.’

He lifted the glass, acknowledged her, had a quick check along the bar to see if she was about to be summoned by any other customers, then said, ‘How’s the evening going?’

She leant on the bar, looking at him curiously, then she smiled.

‘You have the air of an interloper,’ she said.

For a moment he hid behind the second sip from the glass.

‘You an uncredited journalist, who’s slipped someone twenty quid to get in? No, that’s not it, you don’t have the journalists’ air. You’re an undercover petrochemical operative, here to sabotage, or at the very least, intelligence gather? That would make you an industrial spy. That’d be pretty cool, I can get behind that.’

‘Not that interesting, I’m afraid,’ said Buchan. ‘I’m with Green World. Similar concept, but without the millions these guys are going to get. Just here to get with the programme.’ He paused, he took a moderately guilty look around the bar, then returned with, ‘To be honest, I fell asleep this afternoon,’ and he winced at himself.

‘Very poor,’ she said.

‘Hope to God I wasn’t caught on camera. If my boss finds out, she will lose her shit.’

She smiled, then turned away, picked up a thin towel, and started drying a half-pint glass.

‘You worked here long?’ asked Buchan, and she laughed.

‘What a line,’ she said, then she shrugged her way into the conversation. ‘What d’you want to know?’

‘You worked here long?’ he asked again, and she looked a little surprised.

‘OK, you’re serious. I’ve worked here since two days ago, and I’ll be going on Monday. They’ve thrown money at this thing, this much is clear. Everything’s got to work, Glasgow has to look good, everything about this organisation has to look polished. I mean, that’s not my hot take, that was genuinely what they told everyone when we arrived for work on Wednesday.’

‘You’re a professional bar worker?’

‘Worked behind a bar since I was eighteen,’ she said. ‘So, yes, I’m a go-to for people who want someone who’s on top of their game. And, asking around, that’s what they’ve done across the board. Might only be for one weekend, but this is the best damn run hotel in the country.’

Bella Favalli might beg to differ, thought Buchan. If the Hannigans paid to get the best security available, they’d been a sold a bad bunch.

‘You can read a room, then,’ said Buchan.

She thought about it for a moment, and then smiled through a small nod.

‘Nice way to put it, and yes, thank you, I can read a room.’

‘How’s the room looking?’

She smiled again, then cast her eye around.

‘So, you’re not an undercover investigator then,’ she said, but she was still considering the question. Then she continued, ‘Happy. I’ve been here since two this afternoon. Quiet, obviously, when the sessions were taking place, though there were still people here you might’ve thought should’ve been in there. Had a couple admit they were playing hookie.’

‘People talk to you?’

‘You’re talking to me,’ she said.

‘But then I’m an undercover investigator.’

‘Well, there you are.’

‘People talk to you?’

She smiled, shaking her head a little.

‘Look at me, hun. I got the face, and I got the boobs. Men like it. Women like it too, oftentimes.’

‘Who talked to you?’

‘And I’m discreet. People like that too.’

‘No drama?’ he said, and he turned away from her, looking around the room.

She was right. There was a relaxed air. The feeling in the room was that this thing was going well. These people were on an all-expenses-paid junket to save the earth, and it was going as planned. Apparent Horizon 35 was off to a solid start.

‘You think there’s been drama?’ she asked, waiting for him to turn back.

‘There’s usually drama,’ he said, taking another drink. ‘Sometimes it just plays out in the margins, out of sight.’

‘Nope,’ she said. ‘Least, I don’t think so. The place is chill. I mean, I actually like what they’re doing. And don’t get me wrong, I’m a cynical old witch. I hate the woke as much as the next forty-five year-old. But this plan? They don’t need anybody to do anything. They don’t need governments to agree on anything, they don’t need people to stick their plastic bottles in the right coloured bin, they don’t need El Niño to fail to happen.’

‘They just need some rich guys to cough up a few billion pounds each,’ said Buchan.

‘Sure. And they can afford it, so you never know, right?’

She smiled.

‘Hey, you’re working your way through that pretty quickly,’ she said. ‘You want another one?’

‘I’m good, thanks.’

‘On the house.’

‘I’m good.’

She studied him, he noticed the quick glance at his ring finger.

‘Not married, but someone to go home to?’ she said.

‘Yep.’

‘Face and boobs not doing it for you?’ she said, and she leant a little further into the counter.

Buchan smiled, head shaking. He reached into his pocket, brought out a ten pound note, placed it on the bar and said, ‘Thanks.’

He lifted his drink, then turned away from the counter, and looked around the bar. Almost every table occupied, perhaps even a little busier than it had been when he’d entered, as people turned up after dinner. Or perhaps it was after late evening meetings, the first attempts at thrashing out the closing statement that everyone would get to take back to their home country, with a promise of a new tomorrow.

Looking through the crowd, he noticed Randy Ackerman was now alone. Head down, glass of vodka or gin or water in one hand, phone in the other.

Buchan picked his way through the crowd, then pulled out the seat opposite Ackerman and sat down, placing his glass on a mat on the table, deciding to drop the pretence of being anything other than who he was.

Ackerman didn’t immediately look up, though it was obvious he was aware Buchan was there, and then he finally lifted his head, as he turned off his phone and slipped it into his pocket.

He looked Buchan in the eye, and asked the question with raised eyebrows.

‘Mr Ackerman?’

A continued cold look, and then, ‘What d’you want?’

Buchan reached into his pocket, produced his ID, and placed it on the table.

‘Wondered if you had time for a few words,’ he said.

Ackerman stared at the ID, then pushed it back.

‘Detective Inspector Buchan of the Serious Crime Unit,’ he said. ‘Interesting. Has there been a serious crime committed?’

‘Not that I know,’ said Buchan.

Ackerman smiled, and then asked the next question, ‘What do you want?’ with little more than a dismissive gesture.

‘I’m just part of the team here, that’s all,’ said Buchan. ‘Making sure everything’s OK.’

‘Right.’

Ackerman held his gaze, then leant a little more closely into the table.

‘I don’t think you’re being very up front with me, detective inspector, which is an interesting approach, given you are presumably going to expect me to be up front with you.’

‘Why d’you think I’m not up front?’

‘Because you’re probably here about the poet.’

Ah, well, there goes that, thought Buchan. At least he already knew.

‘What have you heard about the poet?’ asked Buchan.

Ackerman laughed.

‘You police officers. The damn same, the world over. The poet’s dead. They’re saying she killed herself. Now, we all know what that means. That girl could’ve been gunned down in a hail of bullets, shot by Al Capone himself, and they’d still say she’d killed herself. No one’s stupid around here. Maybe she killed herself and maybe she didn’t, but she sure looked happy enough when she read that dumb poem at lunch. Hey, we all applauded. Why the hell not? Free liquor, free food, saving the earth. It’s easy to be munificent, no matter how much the girl was murdering the English language. But then she went and killed herself? No one’s buying that. But I get it. It’s expedient. None of these fellas want a murder on their hands at this stage. Lousy for business.’

‘You any idea why someone might’ve wanted to kill her?’ asked Buchan, and Ackerman laughed.

‘The hell would I know that? Most likely, some jealous ex-lover saw her on TV, and turned up at the hotel to proclaim his continued undying love. She though, she’s now the national damn poet, whatever that is, and she sends him packing. Little Johnny, upset with this turn of affairs, does what men have always done. He kills the girl. Men are assholes. Always have been, always will be.’

‘Did you speak to the poet?’

He stared seriously at Buchan for a few moments, then burst out laughing.

‘Did I speak to the poet? Jesus. We got introduced.’ He paused, he looked around the room. ‘Look, I know the way things are in the world. Here, in this room, I’m the big fucking cheese. I’m the money. I’ve got more money than all these other suckers put together. But I’m not what this thing needs. This thing needs the superstar billionaires. But today, I’m the star attraction, and most of these people can’t suck my cock hard enough, you know what I’m saying? But the poet? I ain’t ever heard of her, but she sure as hell had heard of herself. She’s looking at me, she was looking at everyone, like, bow to me, for I am queen.’ He laughed again, more loudly this time. ‘Piece of work, my friend, she was a piece of work. That’s how I know she didn’t kill herself. People with that level of self-importance, particularly on a day like this when they’re being fêted, they don’t kill themselves. Maybe when the party’s over, maybe when they crash. But today, shortly after being greeted like she’s the lovechild of Emily Dickenson and Walt Whitman? She wasn’t slitting her own throat.’

‘Who told you?’

‘Sorry, what?’

He took a drink, a smile on his face.

‘Who told you about Ms Favalli’s death?’

The smile died away, and he looked around the room, couldn’t find who he was looking for, but used the glass as a prop to indicate someone who wasn’t there.

‘Sir John. Nice of him to keep me in the loop.’

‘You know how many people know about it?’

‘He said they were going to keep it locked down. He was telling me, as a matter of courtesy. Between you and me, I’d say he told me to get ahead of the curve. Didn’t want me hearing that shit from someone else, in case I got spooked and me and my money went home.’

‘Are you going to take your money home?’

He nodded, downed the rest of his glass.

‘Not yet. See how it plays out. This whole thing, the grandstanding and the self-congratulating, and the shady deals in shadowy corners, it’s all bullshit, but it doesn’t distract from the goal, you know what I’m saying? The aspiration is solid.’

He picked something from his teeth, then leant forward on his elbows.

‘I’m going to keep a close watch on this money, and if I find out these fuckers are squandering it on any bullshit that’s unrelated to the endgame, that’s the minute the money goes home. That, and as soon as other people start getting murdered. I don’t want to be a part of something that’s cursed from the get-go.’

Buchan finally lifted his drink and drained it, then got to his feet. He nodded a thank you, Ackerman gave a small gesture in response, then Buchan turned away, walked back to the bar, set down the glass, gave the bartender a wave, and then he walked out through the ever-growing throng of self-proclaimed climate heroes.

17

They were sitting together on the balcony, looking across the river to the Science Centre, in the meagre cool of a midnight breeze. They had a small glass of gin each that neither was really drinking.

There was music coming from somewhere up the river, and the ever-present sound of the motorway away to their left, carried through the stillness of night.

‘Maybe it’s about time you started doing cosy mysteries,’ said Roth, into the silence.

Buchan let it sit there for a while, then said, ‘How would that work? When a new case comes up, unless it looks like it’s going to be a murder down at the bowling club, or something to do with amateur dramatics involving a vicar, I should pass?’

He felt her familiar smile in the night.

‘Well, if that was an option, that’s exactly what I’d suggest, but that seems unlikely. You probably don’t get too many cosy murders in Glasgow in any case.’

‘Not even in Milngavie.’

‘You quit the police,’ she said, and now she lifted the glass, to the tinkling of ice. ‘You come with me to St Andrews. You do your well-established plan of taking a master’s in history, and then on the side you become a gentleman private detective. Like Poirot or Lord Peter Wimsey. Then you get to choose your cases, and you can investigate a poisoning at the rectory, murder resulting from a bad LBW decision down at the cricket club, or some other genteel St Andrews type murder case.’

‘I feel the last time there was a murder in St Andrews it was brutal. Like most actual murders.’

‘But that’s the beauty of being a gentleman detective. You can say no.’ She took a drink, and kept the glass in her hand. ‘You could get a dog. Oh, a Jack Russell, that’d be perfect. Good at hunting rats. We have rats in St Andrews. Plus, what with you being a gentleman detective, your rat-hunting Jack Russell would serve as a metaphor for you hunting criminals.’

‘This your way of saying you want a dog?’

She took another drink. They stared in silence across the river. Somewhere a bird landed in the water. There was splashing.

Perhaps it wasn’t a bird.

‘Fair,’ she said. ‘I don’t actually want a dog.’

‘So, you want me to come to St Andrews, but then not live with you, because I’ll be living with my rat-hunting dog?’

‘All right,’ she said, laughing, ‘I shouldn’t have mentioned the dog. But the plan still stands. This is a good plan.’

‘I’ll keep it in mind,’ he said.

Silence returned. The splashing from the river stopped, there was a murmur of wings. The music drifting down the river shifted a beat, as the tune changed. Somewhere someone laughed loudly and drunkenly, and there was a shout, and then nothing. The sounds of the city blended into each other. It was a clear night, but the stars were not bright here. Occasionally a passing satellite would stand out from the fog of light pollution, and the light cast by the waxing moon.

‘Of course, the death of a poet could be a perfect cosy mystery,’ said Roth after a while.

‘Hmm,’ said Buchan. He finally lifted his glass and took a drink. ‘Her killer’s body dumped in a skip on the edge of town, however, tells a different story. If only we were allowed to investigate it properly.’

‘You should be careful,’ she said, and the whimsy in her voice had gone. ‘They won’t like it if you get in the way of the narrative.’

‘I know.’

Silence took them again.

Sometime later, the clink of an ice cube against glass, the sound fresh in the heat of the night.

18

No sun, the river still, the air heavy and damp.

He’d abandoned his intention to finish writing the update for Gilmour the night before, and instead had arrived at the office just before seven on the Saturday morning, and had had the report – such as it was – written and passed upstairs by seven-forty.

The preliminary report from Benz on the presumed killer of the National Poet had arrived in his inbox at two-fifteen in the morning, and he had a fleeting moment of guilt, thinking of himself sipping gin on the balcony overlooking the river, and collapsing into bed around one. But they all had their ways and their methods, and if this was Benz’s, then it was to the benefit of them all.

There had been one thing of note from Benz’s examination of Jane Doe’s corpse. In addition to the scratch on the right forefinger, there were skin fragments beneath her fingernails, indicating she’d managed to scratch her attacker in return. Not much, Benz had written, but they had skin, and they would have DNA.

The weapon used to commit the murder was a Tri-Steel Trailmaster, six-inch blade. The knife had been delivered to the forehead with exceptional force, cleanly penetrating the frontal calvarium and thrusting deep into the brain, resulting in massive intracranial haemorrhage and sudden death. Expensive knife to leave buried in someone’s head, Benz had observed.

Jane Doe had been in her mid-thirties. Slim, great muscle tone. She’d had expensive dental work done. Such a waste of great teeth, Benz had written in her email to Buchan, though not in the report. She had three healed wounds in her abdomen, suggesting a history of violence. Her left knee had undergone elaborate, and again expensive, repair. Likely ex-military. Current military not out of the question.

‘That would add a whole new level of shit,’ Buchan had muttered to the room.

Nevertheless, something about her suggested the beginning of regression. She’d been exceptionally fit. Now, perhaps, she’d lost a little of it. She hadn’t put weight on, but Benz said the liver showed signs of recent, heavy alcohol consumption. She would’ve lost her edge.

Report written, checked and sent, Buchan made himself another cup of coffee, and took up his usual position by the window. It was still and grey outside, as it had been since he’d woken, and as it was due to be all day. The kind of day that needs to be cleared by a good, hard rain, but rain wasn’t on the cards until late the following afternoon. It wouldn’t be as hot as it had been the previous two days because the sun would not be making an appearance, but it would feel even worse.

There was a sound at the door behind him, footsteps across the floor.

‘Alexander,’ said the voice behind him, and he turned, a little surprised, to find Gilmour coming to stand beside him at the window. She was carrying a large, transparent, plastic cup, filled with a drink of thickest purple.

He nodded at her, then they stood in silence for a few moments, looking down at the river, and across to the traffic on Clyde Street.

She took a drink of the purple health gunk, then licked a little of it from her lips. He wasn’t looking at her.

‘I don’t want to fall out over this,’ she said.

He stayed silent.

‘You understand the politics of this job, of this office. You’ve been caught up in them before. And you may have wriggled out of that, and you may have solved those cases – we’ll ignore Jan Baltazar just waltzing out of the country – but frankly, you know your coat has been on a shaky peg since I got here. And that’s nothing to do with me, by the way. Your card is marked. If you start down a road the powers-that-be don’t want you to go down, you’re liable to find yourself suspended very, very quickly. Not just off the case, but suspended.’

‘And if it turns out I’m going down the right road?’

‘You think anyone will find out? Have you ever seen papers released by this government? They release entire pages of redactions. They allow themselves the occasional definite article. They are not forthcoming. They are not honest... We are governed by liars and idiots, and that’s not about to change.’

‘I need to know I did a good job,’ said Buchan. ‘And at the moment, you’re not letting me do a good job.’

‘I’m not letting you? Come on, Alex. You know how this works. No one from me up is letting you turn up there with a full team. I’m the one who’s on your side, saying don’t do anything idiotic or you’ll be out on your ear. Everyone else? Everyone above me? They won’t be able to push you out the door fast enough.’

She was trying to be conversational. She took another drink of juice.

‘You read Dr Benz’s report on last night’s corpse?’ asked Buchan.

‘Yes.’

‘You’ve seen the corpse, you’ve read the report. The woman sounds like she might well have been a hitman, and it certainly feels like she was professionally hit herself having committed the murder. A knife straight through the forehead into the brain? That’s not an injury from getting into a random fight. That’s a brutal blow from someone who knows what they’re doing... So, quite possibly, we have someone who pays a killer to do a hit at the conference, and then pays a different killer to make sure the first killer is silenced. Think about what that means. Generally, you don’t need to silence professional killers. Their silence is implicit.’

‘Rather than imagining some great murder conspiracy,’ said Gilmour, ‘perhaps you could see this contradiction as proof that you’re off the mark. Yes, something doesn’t make sense, but it doesn’t need to be explained by an elaborate network of state assassins. Maybe Bella Favalli killed herself. Maybe last night’s victim wasn’t the woman who delivered food to Favalli’s room. Maybe whoever killed the woman in the skip has nothing to do with Apparent Horizon 35.’

‘How is it we’re supposed to find out if we can’t investigate it properly?’

‘Am I even talking here?’

‘We need to –’

‘And you went to speak to Randy Ackerman last night when I asked you not to go to the hotel.’

Buchan momentarily closed his eyes, then was shaking his head as he looked back out on the river. He took a drink of coffee. He wasn’t going to justify trying to do his job.

‘You didn’t tell him about the poet, did you?’

‘He already knew about the poet.’

‘From Hannigan?’

‘Yes. He wasn’t aware that it had gone any further than him, and there certainly didn’t seem to be any hint of a febrile atmosphere about the place. There was a feeling of...  conviviality and self-congratulatory hubris.’

‘We Scots can certainly do self-congratulatory hubris when it suits us. What about the woman in the skip?’

‘Did I tell him about the woman in the skip?’

‘Yes.’

‘I didn’t mention her, and neither did he. I’d say he didn’t know.’

‘Well, that’s something.’

‘So what d’you want from your team?’ he asked. ‘Doing nothing, when there’s been at least one murder, and a clear possibility of a second, seems... wrong. Regardless of who’s going to be pissed off at us about it.’

She took a drink, she nodded to herself as she thought it through.

‘We must remember this is a murder investigation,’ she said. ‘As you say, at least one of them definitely is. And murder investigations are not usually solved within the first two days. I completely understand your misgivings about letting the attendees disperse to all the corners of the earth, but we just have to let that happen. And if it turns out, a month from now, we have a suspect in New Zealand, we’ll deal with it.’

‘So, we’re parking this until Monday afternoon? Or, in fact, probably at least Tuesday or Wednesday, so we don’t distract from the great Scotland Saves The Earth headlines on Tuesday morning.’

‘Frankly, yes. Albeit there are obviously things you can do. We need to identify the woman in the skip, the work of which does not impact the conference. You can try to trace her movements, in and out and around the city. There’s no reason her family, should she have one, cannot be notified. There is plenty of work to be done. And, of course, you can use the requisite facial recognition programs to establish whether she was the woman in the hotel delivering food to the poet.’

‘What about the possibility of getting DNA from the skin sample beneath her fingertips?’ asked Buchan.

‘If we get identifiable DNA from beneath the fingertips, then obviously we can run with it,’ said Gilmour.

‘How about we get a DNA sample from everyone at the conference to see if we get a match.’

Gilmour looked at him, and he turned.

‘I don’t know if you’re joking,’ she said.

‘It’s what needs to be done,’ said Buchan.

‘No.’

‘It’s what needs to be done.’

‘I don’t care,’ said Gilmour. ‘There are literally heads of state at this conference. Maybe there aren’t any big dogs, but there are heads of state, nevertheless. The Foreign Office are going to have a cow if we start demanding DNA samples, not to mention the Scottish government, and everyone else. There are people who will be able to avoid giving the sample, and as soon as that happens, you completely void the point of the exercise. Because you can guarantee the person whose DNA you really need, will be one of the ones able to avoid giving it.’ She paused, then added, ‘No.’

‘And you’re not letting us move any further on the poet?’

She let out an exasperated sigh.

‘We are absolutely going to wait on Dr Benz and the results of any tests. Meanwhile, I understand Favalli was a heavy user of social media. There will be plenty to learn that might help in understanding her mental state without ploughing full throttle into a very public investigation.’

‘For his part, just like Favalli’s father, the American was highly sceptical she would’ve killed herself.’

‘Go on.’

‘He thought her too full of her own triumph. This was her moment on the world stage, and she wasn’t going to ruin it by dying.’

‘He has a degree in psychology, does he?’

‘I don’t know what he’s got a degree in.’

‘Well, thank you, Mr Ackerman, for your insight. You can always trust an American’s understanding of the human psyche.’

She took another drink, she nodded to herself again at her latest internal monologue.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘Inspector, I hope this time I’ve been clear. I’m not saying do not go to the hotel, but if you do, then please have good reason. Nothing speculative. Do not charge in there full throttle.’

‘Can I get more of my team back, along with Sam and Danny?’ he asked.

‘Seriously? You don’t even have Danny today. He’s back on duty at the conference. I’m sure you and the sergeant will be able to cover things.’

He kept his mouth shut.

‘Let me know when you identify Jane Doe,’ she said.

She turned, she walked quickly from the office.

Buchan did not watch her go. He took a drink of coffee, and looked once more upon the silent river.

19

‘Sorry I’m late,’ said Kane, coming into the office.

She stopped for a moment, taking in the silence, just after eight-thirty on a Saturday morning.

‘You’re not late,’ said Buchan.

‘Quite like it like this,’ she said. ‘Peaceful.’

‘I’m sure if the government had their way, they’d happily reduce police numbers to the point where there’s just the two of us.’

‘Just spoke to Danny,’ she said, sitting at her desk, firing up her computer.

‘Already had the chief down here telling us we can’t use him,’ said Buchan.

‘I know,’ said Kane. ‘I was surreptitious.’

‘Interesting.’

‘I took him one of our notebooks, so he can log in, do some work. The line management over there isn’t great, and I also spoke to Ellie. She and Danny have been on the same detail, so she’s basically going to cover for him, and if she can find some time herself, she’ll join him.’

Buchan was nodding appreciatively by the time she’d finished.

‘Nice job, sergeant.’

‘Thank you. What’d the chief say?’

‘I got a list of dos and don’ts. We can try to identify last night’s victim, we can look at the poet’s social media, and we can drink coffee and eat pastries. On the other hand, we can’t do our jobs properly.’

‘Shall we park Danny for now, or is there anything you’d like him to do?’

‘The social media thing is going to be dull, but it needs done. Tell him this is why he needs to do his sergeant’s exam, to get away from this kind of mindless crap.’

‘I’m a sergeant, and I do tonnes of mindless crap,’ said Kane.

‘That’s why you need to do your inspector’s exam,’ said Buchan, drily.

Kane smiled. ‘You know if there’s anything in particular he should be looking for?’

‘Just the obvious. Disagreements, in particular disagreements with people about this weekend. You know what these artists are like, they’re always getting into stupid spats with other ridiculous people. And I know, it’s liable to lead us off on an absurdly wild goose chase, because the chances of someone killing her because they fell out online seems unlikely, but we can’t not look at it.’

‘I’ll give him a shout.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Where are we at the moment?’

‘We’ve got Johanna’s initial report on last night,’ said Buchan. ‘Looks like the killer might’ve left behind some DNA, so that could be useful.’

‘We can test all the delegates,’ said Kane, with a dark smile to indicate she knew full well that wouldn’t happen.

‘That aside, the victim had a strong hint of ex-military, contract killer about her.’

‘Oh, perfect.’

‘Aye. So, I’m running her image through the usual programmes, see where it gets us. Only just started. When I’ve got somewhere, assuming we do get somewhere, I’ll go over and talk to Johanna.’

‘We didn’t get anywhere with the woman’s face from the hotel, though.’

‘This is a much clearer image. We’ll see.’

‘Blood tests back on the poet?’ asked Kane.

Buchan shook his head.

‘I need to speak to Johanna about that as well. Nothing yet, but she’s not wrong. We ain’t getting it this weekend. The word will have come down from on high. Don’t deliver the results before Tuesday morning.’

‘The act of murder and catching the killer is secondary to a weekend where Scotland leads the world.’

‘Exactly.’

He shook his head, made a throwaway gesture.

‘You managed to have a look at the papers this morning?’ he asked.

‘Just the headlines.’

‘There’s no mention of the poet. She may not be famous, but in the normal course of events, the National Poet dying is making the front page of at least the Herald and the Scotsman. Given her appearance at this thing yesterday, it’s everyone’s front page. But the front pages are all about Ackerman, or at least, Ackerman’s money, and how Scotland’s going to be leading the way in the field of planetary survival.

‘We can’t build a ferry or stop people overdosing on drugs, but we can shut down a story when it suits us.’

‘Go, Scotland,’ said Kane, then her eyes widened a little and she made a small gesture in the direction of Buchan’s computer.

The body in the skip had been identified.

His eyes scanned the page, he clicked on a link, he read it quickly.

‘Laurie Foyle, aged thirty-three. Served just under a year in the Royal Engineers. Dishonourable discharge. Insubordination, fighting, malign influence.’

‘That sounds wonderfully Victorian. I wonder if men ever get charged with being a malign influence.’

‘She later served four months of a two-year sentence for aggravated assault. She got into a fight with three men at a gym, hospitalised two of them. And after that... nothing.’

‘When was that?’

‘Eleven years ago, since when...’

He made a small gesture, and Kane said, ‘She’s a ghost.’

‘Yep. And now she’s dead.’

‘Where was the gym?’

‘Kilmarnock.’

He read a little more of the details, then he turned to look at Kane, thinking it over.

‘You got the name of the arresting officer?’ she asked.

‘Yep.’

He was staring vaguely at her, but not really engaging. If he spoke to someone down there, he didn’t have to mention the conference, after all. They’d found a body, they’d identified her, now they were following up.

‘OK,’ he said, nodding, turning back to his computer. ‘Let’s do this. You OK to look through the life of this woman online? See if you can find anything where there might be an intersection with Favalli. Seems unlikely, but we don’t want to miss it.’

‘Boss,’ said Kane, and they turned away and got to work.

20

Kane called when Buchan was already halfway down the M77. He turned off Oscar Peterson, and put the phone on speaker.

‘OK to talk?’ asked Kane.

‘Yep,’ said Buchan, ‘not there yet.’

‘Not sure what this does for us, but there’s been another spanner in the works of the well-oiled machine. Randy Ackerman turns out not to be an entirely upright guy.’

‘A billionaire isn’t clean? What’s the story?’

‘Randy Ackerman isn’t his real name, believe it or not. Until he was thirty, he was the much more mundane Michael Smith. Back in his Michael Smith days, he was married twice, and acquired five charges of domestic violence along the way. His first wife died of internal injuries following a fall. A fall... The police never managed to pin it on him. The second wife managed to get out before he killed her. He never did any time for that, but he did do time for fraud and embezzlement. He hit his thirties, and decided to give himself a clean slate. Randy Ackerman was born. He has at least managed to stay out of trouble as Randy, though there was one complaint of domestic violence filed against him. That, as is the case with ninety-nine percent of such claims, didn’t go anywhere.’

‘This was too late for this morning’s papers though,’ said Buchan.

‘Oh, it was too late for this morning’s radio news. It’s literally just started circulating in the last twenty minutes. The Mail online has it. Seems to be reasonably well-sourced. I haven’t fact-checked it yet. But I called Danny, and apparently Mr Ackerman must’ve heard it was coming, because the word is he upped and left in the middle of the night.’

Buchan let out a low whistle.

‘Do we know if he’s taken his money with him?’

‘Too early for there to be any word on that.’

Buchan drove in silence for a short while.

‘Like I say, not sure what it does for the investigation,’ said Kane.

‘It could point to someone intentionally spiking the event, or it could just be that the ex-wife, or someone else with a long-held grudge, had never realised he’d reinvented himself, saw him on the news, and thought, hang on a second...’

He checked in his mirrors, then moved out to overtake a slow-moving nineteen-seventies VW campervan.

‘Thanks, Sam. Anything else, give me a call.’

‘Will do.’

RETIRED DETECTIVE SERGEANT Louise Morrison was walking her English springer spaniel, Chipper, on Troon beach. Morrison was carrying a tennis ball, and a tennis ball flipper, but so far Chipper had been interested in neither the ball nor Buchan, and was running full pelt around the beach, chasing seagulls.

Morrison was in her early fifties, and was dressed, thought Buchan, for colder weather than this late July day on the Clyde coast. There was something of a breeze off the water, but it wasn’t cold, and Buchan still felt the muggy warmth on his skin.

At least the sun wasn’t shining here either, and the beach was yet to get busy.

‘OK, spill the beans, inspector,’ she said.

They’d met in the carpark, shaken hands, and immediately started walking without much of an introduction.

Buchan took out the picture of the woman he was now presuming to be Laurie Foyle, her body lain out in an industrial lot next to Glasgow airport, and showed it to Morrison.

She took the photo, she took her time, she started nodding.

‘Wow, did not expect to see that. Someone got the better of Laurie. And this... frontal attack to the forehead. She did not see that coming, did she?’

‘Slight cut on her finger, managed to get a little of her assailant beneath her fingernails. But aye, she saw it coming too late.’

‘Wow,’ she said again, then she handed the image back to Buchan. ‘So, what’s the story?’

‘To be honest, I’m here to learn Laurie’s story from you. Her arrest and brief incarceration aside, there’s not much.’

‘Yep, fair enough,’ said Morrison.

She walked on, she smiled a moment, she indicated the dog.

‘Look at that daft sod. If he ever caught one of those things, he’d drop it and run a mile.’

He didn’t push her, walking on in silence. He was no more interested in Chipper, than Chipper was in him.

‘Look, Laurie was a fighter,’ said Morrison, getting to it. There was a practicality about her, something he recognised in a good officer. Despite the dog, he thought. ‘Awful childhood. Abusive parents, taken into care. Ended up at the wrong place, got sexually abused. Troubled teen, tale as old as time. But, like I say, she was a fighter. She decided she was fed up taking anyone’s shit. Started working out, getting fit. Boxing, tae kwon do,  I don’t know, a couple of others. She was good. Joined the military at some point, not sure what age she would’ve been. The army would have been perfect for her, if not for the discipline. Laurie didn’t take to people telling her what to do. Plus she told me a male lieutenant tried to rape her. Laurie beat the crap out of him. The way she told it to me, the higher powers knew full well what kind of person this officer was, but they didn’t want a commissioned man being maligned by an upstart sapper from the wrong side of the wrong side of the tracks. Laurie never stood a chance.

‘She comes back home, she gets a security job in a supermarket. You know what those supermarket jobs are like, right? Even worse now, but it wasn’t much better back then. You’re pretty much just a uniform, with zero authority. Might as well have a scarecrow, for the good they can do. Laurie wasn’t one to stand by, though. Laurie got involved. And people don’t like that. Civil liberties don’t like that. Ultimately, she gets suspended for rugby tackling a kid who was walking out the store pushing a trolley full of alcohol. We’re talking maybe a grand’s worth. She says, where’d you think you’re going, he gives her the middle finger and tells her to fuck off, and things escalate.

‘The kid ends up in hospital, Laurie gets put on unpaid leave pending the investigation. That night she goes to the gym. Guy starts hitting on her. Laurie says no thanks. Another couple of guys join the fray, lah-de-dah, two of the three, or was it all three...’

‘Two.’

‘Two of the three end up in hospital. We’re obliged to arrest Laurie. Now, I’m not saying I’m not kind of on her side here. You’ll have gathered that. I liked her. She had a code, that was the thing. In her admittedly long history of violence, she gave it to people who had it coming.’

‘In Laurie’s eyes at least.’

‘I’d say in most people’s. Unfortunately, the procurator saw it slightly differently, the court too, and she got nicked. I think we’d’ve been better recruiting her myself, but that suggestion didn’t play well.

‘But she somehow managed to stay out of trouble in prison. She’s fit, she worked hard, she helped people, far as I know she stepped in and stopped a few fights. She didn’t serve long.’

She ran her hand through her long hair, then held it away from her neck for a moment, hoping she might benefit from a touch of the breeze, for the first time acknowledging that the Fair Isle jumper had been a mistake.

‘We all know the type,’ she said. ‘You just know you’re going to be seeing them again. Sooner, rather than later. And then... I never did.’

‘What happened?’

She gave Buchan a glance, and then kind of shrugged to herself.

‘She left. I mean, it’s a free country, there was nothing stopping her moving away from Kilmarnock. Why wouldn’t you? And she was kind of marked around here anyway. She wasn’t going to last long.’

She turned to look for Chipper, who was now behind them, rolling around in seaweed.

‘Damn, I hate it when he does that,’ she said. ‘God knows what he’s found.’

He waited for her to start shouting at the dog, but she just left him to it, then turned and looked out over the sea, towards the hills of Arran, fifteen miles across the water.

Buchan followed, and they stood in silence for a while. Nice to come to the seaside, he thought, and he wondered how long it had been since he’d been down here. Then he remembered the Rachel Randall case, which hadn’t been so long ago.

He really ought to come some day when he wasn’t investigating murder.

‘Laurie went to London,’ she said. ‘There was no reason for me to know that, except I went looking. I was curious. Best place for her, a woman of her skills. She was never going to get a job in the Foreign Office, or selling ten grand handbags in Harrods. She fell in with some crew. Moroccans, I heard. Don’t know the story there. But that would’ve suited her. Hired hand. Paid to do clandestine damage to people. And that, I’m afraid, is where my story ends.’

Chipper approached, looking perky, his coat now with the sheen of whatever dead seabird he’d just rubbed himself in. He sniffed at the tennis ball.

‘You’re disgusting, you know that?’ said Morrison. ‘Don’t think for a second you’re getting back in the house until you’ve been scrubbed clean.’

Chipper ran off down the beach.

‘Filthy mutt,’ she said, and she turned, and started walking in the same direction as the dog.

‘You know, if you’d come here with this news eight or nine years ago, I might’ve been quite upset. I liked her. Just one of those ones who never caught a break. Thought maybe she had now that she was in London. But you know, life moves on, shit happens. Laurie just came to be like everyone else. Somebody I used to know, another ex-con lost out there in the great wilderness.’

She looked at Buchan, and kind of shrugged a little, as though aware of her own tendency to poetical whimsy.

‘Dead now, I guess,’ she said.

‘So, you don’t know anything other than that she was working for some Moroccans?’

‘Nope, but I can give you a contact. Obviously, that’s a few years old now, and she and I kind of lost touch. So... well, she might still be there.’

‘Thanks,’ said Buchan.

‘Laurie was using the name Laurie Q.’

‘Laurie Q,’ he said. ‘Well, that won’t have drawn any unwanted attention.’

Morrison shrugged. ‘New life, new rules. Guess she decided to lean into it.’

Silence fell upon them, and they walked to the insistent rush of the waves up the beach, and the cry of the gulls. Away ahead, Chipper had found someone to play with, and a kid was throwing a small stick for him to run after.

‘He’s such a slut,’ said Morrison.

‘You think she could’ve become an assassin?’

Morrison stopped to look at him, Buchan stopping a pace later.

‘Boy, there’s a question. You going to explain that?’

‘I can’t.’

‘You think she might’ve assassinated someone?’

‘There’s a possibility, though assassination could also be a strong word here. We suspect her of killing someone, yes. Whether she was paid to do it, or chose to, we don’t know.’

‘Cold-blooded killing?’

‘Definitely. Well-planned, well-executed.’

‘Well, I’ll be...’

She looked somewhere between surprised and impressed, then her brow furrowed.

‘So, you think she killed someone, and then... she was silenced?’

‘We don’t know,’ said Buchan. ‘Her body was found last night, so...’

‘Early days.’

‘Early days,’ repeated Buchan.

Silence returned, and with it this time Buchan felt a familiar restlessness. He had an investigation to get on with.

‘Wait,’ said Morrison. ‘I’ve been running the matrix here, trying to think what’s been in the news, because Laurie being found dead isn’t in the news, and I don’t think there’ve been reports of any other murders in our neck of the woods in the last week. But that ridiculous climate conference in Glasgow, I heard you were all dragged into getting involved with that. Like, everyone.’

‘Not my sergeant and me,’ said Buchan.

‘Hmm,’ she said, the sound swallowed by the waves. ‘So, this whatever it is with Laurie, nothing to do with the conference?’

‘The conference is indeed swallowing up an absolute tonne of resource, but other crime opportunities are available,’ he said.

‘I shan’t probe any further,’ she said, and they walked on.

Buchan glanced at his watch.

‘Why’d you quit the force?’ he asked.

She blew out a long sigh, then said, ‘Breast cancer. First one, then the other. By the time the treatment had finished, I just thought, I’m done. We all know what stress does to your chances of cancer reoffending, so I just thought, nuh-huh. Now Chip and I walk along this beach, and the most stressed I ever get is when he rubs himself in some dead wildlife, and as you saw, even that isn’t all that stressed at all.’

‘Thanks for your help, sergeant.’

‘You can call me Lou.’

‘Appreciate it. Oh, you know if either Laurie’s birth parents are still alive?’

‘The dad’s definitely dead. The mum, I’m not sure. But if she’s alive, I can’t believe Laurie would’ve wanted any contact with her. Let me ask around.’

‘OK, thanks. I need to get on, so I’m going to retreat to the car, and not beat myself up about the fact I took the time to drive down here, rather than just make the phone call.’

‘Always good to talk face-to-face,’ she said. ‘And that’s a damn nice car you’ve got there.’

‘It is.’

‘I’ve got your number. I’ll WhatsApp you my contact in London. She’s good.’

‘Thanks,’ said Buchan.

They formally shook hands, and then Buchan turned away, and started heading back towards the carpark.

21

‘Ido not like the beans,’ said Benz.

Buchan had found her in the canteen, eating a full fried breakfast. He’d joined her with a cup of coffee and a cinnamon Danish.

‘No, beans I do not mind, it is the sauce you people cover them in. It is not food.’

‘I agree,’ said Buchan.

She was cutting up sausages and black pudding with the kind of medical efficiency with which he imagined her dissecting a corpse.

‘You have learned much about the victim?’ asked Benz.

‘Ex-army, ex-con, went to London, the last I heard she’d got in with a Moroccan drug gang. That was seven or eight years ago, and we don’t know how her career’s progressed in the meantime.’

‘This makes sense. She has the body of a soldier. She fights. She has the wounds.’

‘You can tell how recent those wounds are?’

She dissected another piece of sausage. This woman’s appetite, hot on the heels of having cut open a corpse, is voracious, thought Buchan.

‘One in the last year, the others, maybe three to five years ago. She has seen combat of some description.’

‘She did basic military training twelve years ago, but didn’t last much longer than that.’

‘Yes, I saw,’ said Benz. ‘But we need to talk about her alcohol consumption. She retained muscle, and must have continued to exercise. However, her liver had been decimated even more than I suspected. She was drinking herself to death.’

‘Which would explain why she didn’t see the knife coming,’ said Buchan.

‘No, that was another matter entirely. She had been drugged.’

‘There we go,’ said Buchan. Then, ‘Wait, how d’you have the results back on that, but you don’t have them for the dead poet?’

‘I suspect you already know the answer.’

‘These damn people,’ he muttered.

‘A simple case of formaldehyde. A cloth, or some such, placed over her nose. That she was still conscious and at least attempted to stave off the attack perhaps points to her killer being impatient, unable to wait for the effects to fully kick in.’

‘But it would’ve been enough to make her lose control, making her an easier target?’

‘Yes.’

‘We’re looking for a connection between Foyle and Bella Favalli,’ said Buchan, ‘but I’m not sure we’ll find it. Obviously, we have no idea who killed Foyle. But both deaths speak of contract killings. Someone paid Foyle to kill the poet, then the same person paid someone else to kill Foyle, so there would be no paper trail.’

‘Curious in itself,’ said Benz. ‘If Foyle is a contract killer, would you not trust her to keep her mouth shut? Are you then going to kill the killer who killed Foyle to keep them quiet?’

‘Favalli’s murder is obviously connected to the conference. With Foyle’s murder, there’s a degree of separation from the conference. Her body was disposed of in such a way, they would have hoped it would be dumped in landfill, and then disappear into a mound of decomposing waste. We only discovered her identity through discovering her body. Far as her killer knows, it has nothing to do with the conference.’

‘That is reasonable.’ More food, a drink of tea. ‘However, you cannot run on such an assumption until we have established beyond doubt that Favalli was murdered.’

‘We know she was murdered,’ said Buchan.

‘We do. But we do not have proof beyond doubt, and for now, we know our superiors do not want us to have proof beyond doubt.’

Buchan leant forward, elbows on the table. Absent-mindedly lifted the pastry and took a bite. Drummed his fingers arrhythmically.

‘Perhaps they are right,’ said Benz.

‘How d’you mean?’

‘Perhaps the success of the conference, the part it can play in reversing the seemingly irreversible slide into a fiery hellscape that awaits us, is worth the deceit. The future of the planet is more important than the life of a poet.’

Buchan sat back for a moment, watching her eat. She seemed to have spoken without much thought, just tossing a random notion out into the world.

‘I can’t have that,’ he said. ‘That leads to someone committing murder, and us letting them walk away. I know this sounds just as pious as the fifteen-year-olds with their lanyards and their sanctimony, but is that world going to be any better than one of desert and wildfires and flooding and the death of species?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It would. We criticise these people for their lack of real-world solutions. They are dreamers. I do not know the reason why the poet was killed, but the people who are attempting to cover it up are showing a practicality that is unfamiliar with the climate protest movement.

‘We are all the same. We all see a situation through the prism of how it impacts us. And this negatively impacts your job. You are being told what you cannot do, and no officer likes that. I understand. But perhaps we should pay lip service to the pragmatism.’

Buchan’s phone rang, the volume low as ever, the vibration insistent against his thigh.

‘Sorry,’ he said, as he took the phone from his pocket.

‘Of course,’ said Benz.

‘Danny,’ he said, turning a little to the side, but not getting up from the table.

‘Boss. You seen the statement the conference have just issued on the poet?’

‘Go on,’ he said.

‘Her death is now news. Looks like a journalist at the Telegraph got hold of it, and from the way the conference’s PR’s handled it, I’d say they either knew it was coming, or were at least ready for it.’

‘Damn,’ said Buchan. ‘It’s starting to come off the rails, eh?’

‘Yeah,’ said Cherry. ‘The Ackerman take-down, and now this. Sounds like it might be coordinated.’

‘What’d the statement say?’ asked Buchan.

‘Acknowledging she’d been found dead, but saying there were no suspicious circumstances, and that the police aren’t looking for anyone else in relation to the death.’

Buchan stared silently at the floor, keeping the expletive to himself.

‘That it?’

‘There’s the expected line about respecting the privacy of her family. And, wait for it, they’re using the opportunity to announce they’re bringing another poet off the substitutes’ bench. Presumably they were about to announce that anyway.’

‘Really?’

‘Like he was just sitting waiting for the position to become available.’

‘Dammit,’ muttered Buchan. ‘There’s no situation that can’t be made worse.’

‘He’s going to write a poem today, to be read at this evening’s formal dinner. This is apparently, and I’m reading from the draft here, a thrilling fusion of the arts and environmental activism, sending a message of remembrance of poets past, hope, rebirth and deliverance to the world.’

‘Oh my God,’ muttered Buchan.

‘We are to be excited that he’s writing a poem today, and premiering it this evening,’ said Cherry, enjoying Buchan’s disgruntlement.

‘Why?’ said Buchan. ‘How hard can it be?’ and Cherry laughed darkly.

‘Anyway, wondered if you thought we should be putting some protection in place for the new poet. Given that the last one was killed.’

Buchan lowered his eyes, staring at his half-eaten cinnamon pastry. He needed to get on with the day. It had been useful speaking to Benz, but really now he was just sitting have a chat over coffee and second breakfast.

‘I’m coming over to speak to Hannigan. One of the Hannigans. I’ll find you when I’m there.’

‘K,’ said Cherry.

‘Who’s the new poet?’ asked Buchan.

‘Name’s Calum Cameron. His website describes him as a gender-queer, post-liberal Gaelic poet. In the photograph he’s got a pink man-bun, maybe six earrings in each side. A tattoo on his neck.’

‘If he’s gender-queer, are you making a mess of his pronouns?’

‘No. He’s gender-queer, using he/him pronouns. And no, I don’t know either. But here’s the weird thing. He’s a complete nobody.’

Buchan took a moment, and then said the obvious.

‘He’s a poet.’

‘No, I mean, he’s a nobody even within the peculiar construct of the world of poets. In every sphere, no matter how niche, there are big fish and there are wee fish. At least Favalli was the National Poet. Big fish. This guy? He’s never had a collection published, not even by some tiny-assed small press in a twenty-page pamphlet with a run of fifty unsold copies. It’s kind of weird. I mean, I know nothing about poetry, but presumably there are some poets of renown in Scotland.’

‘OK, see what you can dig up on him, and send it over. Nice to get something else to get excited about,’ said Buchan, his voice flat.

Cherry laughed again, then said, ‘Boss.’

‘Thanks, Danny.’

And they hung up.

Buchan stared grimly across the table at Benz.

‘There is news?’ she asked.

She was almost finished eating.

‘The wheels are coming off,’ said Buchan. ‘Although whether they’re falling off, or being removed by surreptitious mechanics, remains to be seen.’

‘News of the poet’s death is live?’

‘Yes, it is. Apparently the police do not consider her death suspicious.’

‘That’s good,’ said Benz. ‘Be sure to let them know.’

‘And to make everything worse, the conference is bringing in another poet.’

‘Oh,’ said Benz.

She lifted a piece of toast and mopped up the remainder of the egg yolk.

‘Perhaps this one will also die,’ she said.

22

Buchan parked back at the office. Went to the fifth floor, checked in on Kane. The office was empty. A sweltering Saturday afternoon. The sun had not shone all day, but it didn’t matter. The room was uncomfortably warm.

There was a message on his desk. A note from Gilmour.

Will be in the office until five. Come and see me.

He lifted it, he scrunched it up and tossed it into the bin. It would be very easy to leave without her knowing he’d been in.

‘Dammit,’ he muttered to himself, and then he turned, walked out into the corridor, and then quickly climbed the stairs to the seventh floor.

HE DIDN’T SIT DOWN, and Gilmour didn’t ask him to.

‘You had nothing to do with Ackerman?’ she asked.

He’d been anticipating her talking about the poet, and hadn’t expected she’d lead off with Ackerman.

‘I had nothing to do with Ackerman.’

‘You spoke to him last night when you shouldn’t have done,’ she said.

‘We spoke about this already.’

‘I’m not sure how much I can trust you.’

‘Good to know,’ said Buchan. ‘In terms of the investigation into the poet’s death, I considered him an irrelevance.’

She held his stare, trying to read him, Buchan supposed. Treating him with the kind of cold contempt Buchan himself would treat a suspect. Nice to know where you stand with your boss, he thought.

‘What about the poet?’

Buchan had been here before. Just wanting to get on with the job, with authority standing in his way. And it wasn’t him who was trying to hide the facts, or ignore awkward questions.

‘What about her?’ asked Buchan.

‘You know what I’m asking,’ said Gilmour. ‘You have previous.’

‘Previous what?’

‘On the Randall case,’ said Gilmour. ‘We had something to keep under wraps, and you leaked it. That it ultimately worked to our advantage was fortuitous, but that’s all we can say about it. You went rogue when it suited you, so do not stand there with the innocence of Job because I’m suggesting it might have happened again.’

‘I had nothing to do with the leak about the poet,’ said Buchan. Trying to keep his voice locked in neutral. Say what had to be said, and get out. ‘It was leaked to the Telegraph. I don’t know anyone on the Telegraph. You can’t seriously think that that’s something I’d do.’

‘Well, it was leaked to the Telegraph for a reason. The local press are so supine, so beholden to Holyrood, that they wouldn’t dare rock the boat. They wouldn’t want to lose privileges. Choosing the Telegraph as the go-to makes perfect sense, and it wouldn’t matter if you knew anyone there or not. So, tell me it wasn’t you.’

‘I just did.’

‘Tell me so I believe it. There are enough knives out for the police as it is, and the fewer of them aimed at SCU the better.’

‘The Randall thing was a one-off. This wasn’t worth the risk. Because what’s happened here, where the conference have gone straight to saying it was a suicide, was always going to happen. Leaking the news changes nothing for us, it’s just bad for them. So whoever did it, is someone who wants to lay waste to the conference. I have neither beef nor buy-in with the conference. I just want to be able to do my job, and neither of these leaks helps me do that.’

Conversation over, he thought. The last argument, however convincing it had actually been, was enough for now.

She had nothing else to say, and she made a small gesture towards the door with her chin, and then turned to look at the monitor to her left.

Buchan did not linger any further in his annoyance.

23

Soon enough he was walking down beside the river to the Grand Europa Hotel, the air thick and heavy. This must be one hundred percent moisture, he thought. Whatever that actually meant.

A few weeks previously, Roth had listened to a podcast on dehumidifiers, after which she’d explained humidity to him in scientific terms. At the end of the explanation, she’d said, ‘You didn’t understand a word of that, did you?’ and he’d said, ‘It was like watching The Big Short,’ and Roth had said, ‘Maybe if I explained it while lying in a bath drinking champagne,’ and Buchan had said, ‘Maybe if you got Margot Robbie to explain it while lying in a bath drinking champagne,’ and Roth had then pointed out how the joke didn’t really work, because Margot Robbie lying in a bath drinking champagne hadn’t actually helped with The Big Short.

Traffic on the Broomielaw was heavy and loud and angry. It seemed like every second driver was leaning on their car horn. There was a man at a window, four storeys above, shouting at the queue at the lights by York Street.

‘Would youse all shut the fuck up!’

Buchan stopped, and looked up at him, through the heat and the haze and the fog of anger and the villainy of cacophonous sound.

‘The fuck you looking at?’ the guy shouted at him. ‘You get tae fuck ‘n all.’

Buchan walked on.

THE AIR CONDITIONING at the Grand Europa Hotel was glorious.

The lobby seemed busier than the previous day, noisier too. A lot of journalists doing pieces to camera, and he approached the reception desk slowly, allowing himself to tune in to what was being said.

They were all talking about Ackerman and Favalli. He caught no talk of today’s agenda, and instead, breathless analysis of how the organisers were having to spend the day fire-fighting.

He arrived at event reception, cutting off the greeting of the three young women at the desk, by holding forward his ID.

‘Is the chairman free?’ he asked.

The woman in the middle straightened her shoulders and took a moment. Formulating how to say no, thought Buchan.

‘Mr Hannigan will not be available until Monday afternoon. He’s scheduled to attend every session, every event, every dinner.’

‘What’s happening at the moment?’ asked Buchan.

She held his look, and then her eyes slid to the side. By the long reception desk, there was a large board, containing the day’s programme of events.

The conference was currently in session, discussing The World’s Reforestation: Undoing Five Millennia of Arboreal Slaughter In Ten Years.

‘Good luck with that,’ muttered Buchan.

He turned back to the desk.

‘Is Sir John Hannigan here today?’

She stared blankly, then she turned to her monitor, and quickly typed in the name.

‘There is no Sir John Hannigan among the delegates,’ she said.

‘There may not be, but I’d like to speak to him,’ said Buchan.

‘There is no Sir John Hannigan.’

‘I know, and I’d like to speak to him.’

She smiled uncomfortably.

‘I’m not sure what you want me to do.’

‘I want you to call Sir John Hannigan and tell him Detective Inspector Buchan’s here to see him. You can either do that, or I’ll need to walk into the main conference chamber, and speak to the chairman, to ask him where to find his dad.’

She placed her hands on the counter, palms flat, and tapped them a couple of times.

‘Sir John is busy,’ she said.

‘You just said he wasn’t here.’

‘I’m not sure where he is. But he’s busy.’

‘Looks like I’ll go and speak to Lucas, then,’ said Buchan.

He took a step to his right. She started to rise to stop him, as though she might reach over the counter to grab his shirt sleeve, when her phone rang.

She straightened, she looked at the phone, she held a finger up to Buchan.

‘One moment.’

She answered the phone. She spoke in quiet, affirmative monosyllables. She hung up.

‘Sir John will be down shortly, if you’d like to wait,’ she said matter-of-factly, as though that had been her intention all along, and she held her hand out to indicate the seats to her right, part of the hotel’s regular reception area.

Buchan held her gaze for a moment, and then looked around.

‘So not only is he watching reception and therefore knows I’m here, he knows I’m asking to see him? He has you bugged?’

She blinked. She indicated the seats again.

‘If you’d like to take a seat, Sir John will be right down.’

‘You going to stand for that?’ asked Buchan.

She did not rise to the bait. Buchan turned away.

24

‘This is news to me,’ said Hannigan.

‘You hadn’t heard that the woman we suspect of murdering Bella Favalli had herself been found dead?’

Sir John Hannigan smiled. He was wearing a dark blue suit, crisp white shirt, a maroon tie with a thin blue swirl running through it.

‘Everything about that sentence,’ said Hannigan, head shaking. ‘Ms Favalli was not murdered, QED, there is no suspect, and whoever else it is who died is completely unrelated to Ms Favalli’s unfortunate suicide.’

‘The person who died was the same person who delivered food to Favalli’s room just before her death.’

‘Interesting. I was served breakfast this morning by a young Asian woman who asked me whether or not I’d like more coffee. Are we now connected?’

Oh, for crying out loud.

‘The second deceased was named Laurie Foyle. She would’ve been the last person to see Ms Favalli alive. That means there’s a connection between the two women, and your breakfast doesn’t come into it.’

Hannigan sighed heavily. Buchan didn’t suspect him of involvement in Favalli’s murder, but he certainly thought he knew far more than he was prepared to admit.

‘How many people will die in Glasgow over the weekend?’ said Hannigan. ‘How many die in an average weekend in the city? I mean, I don’t know. I’m genuinely asking. Because it seems relevant.’

‘Can we please just cut the crap,’ said Buchan.

He felt hot again, despite the air conditioning. There was always something about the smooth, well-dressed conceit of people like Sir John Hannigan, and suddenly he found himself hoping they’d find evidence of Hannigan having paid Foyle to commit the murder, and evidence of Hannigan himself burying the knife in Foyle’s head.

‘Go on,’ said Hannigan, coldly, his demeanour switching. ‘I wouldn’t want to be accused by a police officer of bringing crap to a conversation.’

‘For all her writing about mental health, Bella Favalli was not going to kill herself. Likely it was something she would never have done, but certainly not this weekend. This was her career highlight, and you don’t kill yourself in the middle of the cup final. She was murdered, she was most likely murdered by Laurie Foyle, and Laurie Foyle was then taken out in what looks like a professional hit. Incapacitated, knife to the forehead, dumped in a skip. A clean job. And I completely understand you don’t want anything to shit on your parade, but can we try to think of what might be going on here. Because the last thing you need is anyone else dying, and if we’re not allowed to find out why Favalli died, how can we possibly know if there’ll be anyone else, and who it might be?’

Hannigan made a small gesture.

‘In the unlikely event Ms Favalli was murdered, isn’t it quite possible this was a personal matter, done under the cover of the event. If one was to try to disrupt the event, or to make a political point about it, why kill the poet?’

‘If someone had wanted to kill Favalli, why do it in a venue with the biggest security operation in Scotland this year? Yes, there might be cover of some sort, but there are also several hundred security staff and police officers. That’s a hell of a quid pro quo for a bit of cover, which might not even work anyway, particularly since there’s been no effort to imply that the murder was related to the event. They faked her suicide. That’s going to have worked a lot better if it had been carried out in her living room, on a quiet night in autumn, when work is slow, the evenings are long and lonely, and the fear of irrelevance sits heavy on the heart.’

Hannigan smiled.

‘Who’s the poet now?’ he said.

Buchan stared deadpan across the desk, waiting for an answer.

‘So, you’re not wrong,’ said Hannigan. ‘But if someone wanted to disrupt the conference, why fake the suicide? You may say that the suicide itself does not make sense, but then, neither does anyone staging it. You want to throw this thing into disarray? Slit the woman’s throat from ear-to-ear. Stab her fifty times. Leave her body a bloody mess on the carpet. Take a photograph, and post it online. Create news, and then make sure it’s broadcast. That would all make sense. But this? Hidden away in a private room, a genteel, ancient Japanese suicide method, as little drama as possible. What does that achieve?’

‘I don’t know, and neither do you,’ said Buchan. ‘Which is why, under normal circumstances, we would flood the hotel and the event with officers. You are, after all, already flooded with officers.’

‘But not detectives, thank God,’ he said, with a small laugh, then he waved it away when Buchan didn’t join him. ‘We are where we are. What d’you want from me?’

‘You’ve increased security since yesterday?’

‘As you’ll have noticed. Lucas’s call. He’s a smart lad. And it’s all been done within the weekend conference budget, and at no extra expense to the police. From the off there were plans in place should security need upscaled at the last minute, and I believe the decision to do so was taken on the back of yesterday’s unfortunate incident.’

‘So, someone really doesn’t think she killed herself.’

‘Better safe, et cetera.’

‘You’re aware of no other threats to the event?’

‘I am not. Perhaps you might like to speak to Miranda, she’s head of security.’

‘I’ve been trying to.’

‘There is no try,’ said Hannigan.

There might have been a smirk on his face, but that was a cultural reference too far for Buchan.

‘What about the other poet?’ he asked.

‘You’re on top of developments,’ said Hannigan.

‘You put out a press release.’

‘I didn’t do anything, inspector, this isn’t my conference.’

‘I’m not so sure.’

‘You do my son a disservice. What is it you want to ask about the poet?’

‘Why him?’ asked Buchan. ‘He has no professional reputation. Never published, has only ever been invited to one festival, and the report I saw, he read to a crowd of three people – very possibly his own family members – in the Sunday morning graveyard slot. Won’t you have pissed off a lot of overlooked, successful Scottish poets?’

‘You will need to speak to Lucas. I sense your disdain for poets, and I admit it’s something I share. I understand the need to involve the arts, but surely you get Ewan McGregor or Nicola Benedetti. A poet?’ He said it dismissively, then held up his hands. ‘Like I say, speak to Lucas.’

‘You don’t know if the replacement poet’s been given any extra protection?’

Hannigan burst out laughing, then he pushed his chair back, got to his feet, and walked towards the door. He stopped, he looked down at Buchan, the laughter died, and he flicked the switch.

He was bored with the conversation.

‘Tread lightly, detective. I don’t want to talk to you again before the end of the event. And whatever your excuses are going to be when your boss calls asking what you were thinking coming to speak to me, you’d better get them ready.’

He opened the door of the small office, and walked quickly away.

BUCHAN ATTEMPTED TO see Miranda Proust again, but didn’t get far. He wondered if Hannigan had already been on the phone to tell her to make herself scarce.

‘I can see him at seven,’ he heard her say, her voice loud on the other end of the phone, and the gatekeeper between him and Proust looked at Buchan with raised eyebrows, and Buchan said, ‘Seven,’ nodding, and so it was agreed.

25

Buchan, Kane and Cherry were sitting outside, on a bench, overlooking the river. This had been Buchan’s choice. Kane and Cherry had been unimpressed.

Mid-afternoon, and the temperature continued to rise. Not a breath of wind, the air heavy, their clothes clawing at their skin. Kane was drinking iced water. Cherry had an iced coffee. Buchan was drinking tea. Regular, Scottish breakfast, served at ninety-seven degrees, tea.

There was a small yacht travelling upriver, sail down, engine puttering. There was a woman lying on deck in a slender bikini that just about covered what it needed to, and a man behind the wheel, top off, baseball cap on backwards.

He gave a desultory wave in their direction, then turned away before waiting to see if any of them would wave back, so none of them bothered.

‘Where’d you think they’re going?’ said Cherry.

Silence, except for the low purr of the engine and the rumble of the city.

‘Maybe they missed the turn-off at Bowling,’ said Kane.

‘OK,’ said Buchan, taking a drink, wincing at the heat of it. God, he could be so bloody-minded sometimes. ‘We should talk about work, even if no one in there wants us to. What do we have? You’ve been over the poet’s social media, Danny?’

‘Yep,’ said Cherry, nodding. ‘I mean, we do this every time, right, and you know...’ He let out a long sigh. ‘Bella Favalli, she was a product of our time. She’s a poet, she’s part of the Scottish establishment, she’s under thirty-five, ergo... Queers for Palestine, JK Rowling bad, Trump bad, transwomen are women, she herself is complicit in British colonial genocide because she’s white, ban cars, ban planes... I don’t know what it is they all want exactly. A reintroduction of agrarian communes, and the groat as the unit of currency? It’s exhausting going through her timeline.’

‘There must’ve been people having a go at her, though,’ said Kane. ‘It’s not like those people exist in a vacuum, and particularly since Musk took over Twitter. The opposing view was given a voice again.’

‘Yeah, but there are so many people like her to choose from, and she wasn’t particularly... you know, she’s kind of bland, just saying what everyone else is saying. And sure, every now and again someone would have a snipe at her, or call her a quinoa-chomping, wacko woke-monkey or whatever, and she’d make a short film of herself weeping about the horrendous abuse, then she’d write a poem about it, and her tribe would flood in with praise and tell her how amazing she was.’

‘Did you just make up quinoa-chomping, wacko woke-monkey, or did someone actually call her that?’

‘I think I made it up,’ said Cherry, ‘but there’s lots of that stuff, you know. It’s because that Braverman woman called them tofu-eating wokeratti, and people want to use that, but they don’t want to quote her because they don’t like her, so they use a Thesaurus to come up with something similar.’ He paused then added, ‘We know how it is. If you really intended to do someone harm, you don’t go on the internet and let them know about it. Favalli didn’t wind anyone up, she didn’t pick fights, didn’t go out her way to be divisive. She was a young woman with the views of her age, and she obviously benefitted by being part of the current establishment. A career based on government patronage. Maybe she’s actually a good poet.’ He shrugged. ‘She wasn’t argumentative. She never defended herself. Like I said, her tactic was invariably to film herself crying.’

‘And write poetry,’ added Kane.

‘Exactly,’ said Cherry.

‘Had anyone noticed she’d stopped posting yesterday afternoon?’

‘One or two, but she had a few thousand followers not several million. No one had been asking what had happened to her.’

‘So, we’re back to whether it was a personal attack, or something aimed at sabotaging the conference,’ said Kane.

‘The trouble with the former,’ said Buchan, ‘as I’ve just been discussing with Hannigan senior, is if it’s personal, why do it while she’s in a place with high security, and if it’s the latter, why make it out to be suicide? Why not make the story as bloody and dramatic as possible?’

‘Maybe,’ said Kane, as she held her cold cup briefly to her forehead, ‘maybe they faked the suicide for old-fashioned reasons. They didn’t want a murder investigation to implicate them. However, they presumed news of the suicide would be released, or at least would get out into the wild in some way, and thereafter the conference is haunted, possibly fatally so.’

‘And when we bring in the death of Laurie Foyle,’ said Buchan, ‘that seems more likely. Only trouble is, we then get into what kind of organisation, and what size of organisation are we talking about, where they hire hitmen, then kill the hitmen to take them out the game?’

‘Sounds above our pay grade,’ said Cherry.

‘It’s serious crime, son,’ said Buchan, ‘it’s in the job description.’

‘He might have a point,’ said Kane. ‘If this is the work of some oil giant, or a state actor, it’s one for the security services.’

‘You can just picture some shadowy figure at the FSB planning the assassination of the Scottish National Poet,’ said Buchan. ‘I’ll hold off on the call to Vauxhall Bridge just for the moment.’ He shook his head, then said, ‘God knows.’

He glanced down at his still steaming mug of tea, where he’d placed it on the ground beside the bench, and decided not to pick it up.

‘Getting anywhere on a connection between Foyle and Favalli?’ asked Buchan.

‘Not so far. Favalli was from a well-off, stable background. Private school, University of Glasgow, SNP member, and from there the seamless move to becoming the youngest ever National Poet. There are hundreds of these people in the Scottish establishment now. Laurie Foyle, on the other hand... Well, you know the story. She grew up on the other side of the country, but it might as well have been on the other side of the world.’

‘Any chance they made a connection while Laurie was in prison?’ asked Cherry.

‘How would that happen?’

‘The liberal view, where prisoners are given the benefit of the doubt. The problem isn’t them, but society for letting them down. Nothing that a bit of education, good housing, a decent job and a hug wouldn’t sort out.’

Buchan stared grimly at the river, aware of the touch of the clothes on his skin.

‘I’ll have a look,’ said Kane, ‘but I don’t think so. The timing seems pretty out. While Foyle was in prison, Favalli would’ve been, what...? First year of uni, maybe.’

‘OK,’ said Buchan. ‘I’m going back to the office. Going to stand in front of a fan while I try the Met contact Sgt Morrison gave me.’

‘I’ll come back along too,’ said Kane, while Cherry jerked his thumb in the direction of the hotel.

‘Aye,’ said Buchan, then he got up and started walking back along the river.

‘Your tea, sir,’ said Kane.

Buchan stopped, turned, looked at Kane, then came back, lifted the cup, tipped it out while it was still low to the ground so it wouldn’t splash, and then he placed the cup in the bin. Then he walked on, ignoring Kane shaking her head, and Cherry smiling.

26

Buchan was on a video call with Detective Inspector Erin Idlewild. There was something about her that reminded him of DS Morrison, and he wondered what their connection had been.

‘Wow, how’s Lou?’ asked Idlewild. ‘Last I spoke to her, she was living her best life.’

There was a light in Idlewild’s voice at the mention of Morrison that made him think that at least, they hadn’t been ill-fated lovers.

‘Saw her this morning on Troon beach,’ said Buchan. ‘She seemed pretty happy with her lot.’

‘That’s great. Wow...’ and she let the thought of DS Morrison go. ‘So what can I do for you?’

‘It’s about a woman named Laurie Foyle,’ said Buchan.

‘Yep, yep,’ said Idlewild, nodding. ‘That makes sense. Laurie was the reason Lou and I knew each other in the first place. What’s up?’

‘When was the last time you had any dealings with her?’ asked Buchan. ‘The sergeant said she was known as Laurie Q.’

‘Oh, what was that there? Was known? Still is, far as I know.’

‘We found her body in a skip in Glasgow last night,’ said Buchan.

‘Well, I’ll be...’ said Idlewild. ‘Murdered, I take it?’

‘Incapacitated by formaldehyde, stabbed in the forehead.’

‘Damn,’ she said, and she made a gesture to her own forehead. ‘Knife through the skull, deep into the brain?’

‘Six-inch blade, all the way.’

‘That’s a good job,’ said Idlewild. ‘Sounds professional. Though, to be honest, the very fact of someone murdering Laurie makes it sound professional.’

‘What’s her story since she went to London?’

She let out a sigh, staring off to the side.

‘Damn, Laurie Q’s dead,’ she said, head shaking. ‘Don’t think anyone’s going to believe it.’ Then she tapped the side of the head, telling herself to get on with it. ‘Guess she came down here looking to start again. Ex-con, ex-military, knew how to handle herself. Got a job working for a small-time Moroccan operation. Main guy’s name was Othman Azagury. That didn’t last long. She was too good, and too smart for them. Got a better offer from the McLean crowd out in Wandsworth. That lasted a couple of years. Pretty sure she did some hit work for them, and that was when she discovered her true calling. She worked for that lot for a while, but they got swept up in Operation Cattermole a few years back, don’t know if you remember that one. Headline news, officers of the month in glamour mags. It was a big deal. Laurie managed to avoid it, though, then she disappeared.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘Since then, there’s been talk of her. I mean, it’s not like she’s Big Foot or something, she doesn’t get credit for every unsolved murder in town. But that she’s a hitman for hire, that’s a given.’

‘Who hires her?’

‘She was good, and she had no ideology, though she had some morals, I think. Mostly local gang work. I don’t think she travelled much. Wouldn’t be surprised if MI5 used her on occasion. Or us, for crying out loud. Knew how to kill, knew how to handle herself, one hundred percent discreet.’

‘Wait, the Met hires assassins?’ said Buchan. ‘How come we don’t get to do that?’

‘You can,’ said Idlewild, laughing. ‘The secret is to not ask permission, and put it on expenses as supplementary doughnuts.’

‘I’ll keep it in mind,’ said Buchan, smiling. ‘So, how did anyone find her?’

‘Dark web,’ said Idlewild with a shrug. ‘The way all this work is carried out in the modern world. Even then, you had to know what you were ordering, obviously. Last time I looked, the girl knew what she was doing, that’s all.’

‘When was that?’

‘Hmm... I guess that might have been a year or so ago. A while.’ She paused, then added, ‘Right, there’d been a murder down at Greenwich. Felt like a hit, and we were tentatively looking at a few of the usual suspects. However, turned out the lad was a nobody who was killed by his nobody ex-best friend, who’d learned all his moves from Assassin’s Creed. Bear with me, I’ll have a look at Laurie’s page, then I’ll send you the details.’

She turned to her side, and opened up another laptop, and started typing quickly. Buchan watched her for a moment, and then looked away out of the window. He wondered what the temperature was supposed to be that night, but he already knew the cloud wasn’t due to move. The night would remain muggy and uncomfortable.

‘Well...’

Buchan turned back to the screen. Idlewild was still tapping at the small keyboard, her brow furrowed.

‘Nope,’ said Idlewild. ‘Nope.’

‘What’s up?’

‘She’s gone.’

She was continuing to search for her on the laptop, head still turned to the side.

‘You know, Laurie’s not been hard to find on here for a long time. Impossible to find in real life, and an absolute expert at sniffing out anyone who was either a bad actor, or who was just going to be a regular waste of her time. But she was here. And now... now, she’s no longer here.’

‘But the last time you checked was a year ago?’

‘Yep.’

‘Our pathologist reckoned she’d been drinking a lot. Self-destruct levels of alcohol.’

‘Laurie? Jeez, I really lost touch with that girl.’

‘Would you be able to look into that for me?’ asked Buchan.

She was nodding, then she finally turned back to face him.

‘I can, sure. Can you send me everything you’ve got on her?’

‘Course,’ said Buchan. ‘I’ll get the autopsy and our report down to you in the next five minutes.’

‘Epic,’ said Idlewild. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

The call ended, Buchan closed down the app, and then brought up the reports he had to send on.

27

Buchan walked back into the hotel, and the majesty of the air conditioning at ten minutes before seven. He was recognised by security, and ushered through.

Another new donor had been announced that afternoon. The conference ploughing ahead in the face of ill news, with the media seemingly happy to accept that Bella Favalli was a tragic suicide victim, and that while Ackerman might have a history of domestic violence, everyone deserves a second chance, and here he was giving back to the planet. How could anyone deny him his redemption, particularly since it was to the benefit of all the earth? Rich, middle-aged man reclaiming his personal narrative one, female victims of domestic violence nil, much as it has ever been.

An Australian coalmine magnate, Auguste Spelling, had said he intended to close down his mines, and had promised a large percentage of his wealth to Apparent Horizon 35 in order to buy up huge swathes of the Great Victorian Desert and the Nullabor plain in Western and Southern Australia, which would then be transformed into the kind of lush forest that scientists said existed there millions of years previously. Another drop in the climate ocean, but another big announcement, another wealthy man giving away his fortune for the benefit of the planet, and an attempt at rescuing conference momentum.

The pre-dinner speeches were being shown on the four large screens around the reception area, the volume not too loud, but certainly loud enough to hear if you wanted to pay attention.

As Buchan was approaching the reception desk, there was applause from the television, as the new poet was announced, and stood up to deliver that evening’s performance.

Buchan stopped, then approached the television to get a closer look.

Calum Cameron smiled broadly at the warm welcome, and as the applause quickly died down, he lifted his hand as though needing to quieten the crowd.

His previously pink hair in a man-bun, was now green, and tied tightly into pigtails. He was wearing the kind of garish pink to yellow ombre spectacles that Elton John made a career out of, and the usual small earrings had been replaced on either side by a single, large white loop. One-ninety-nine from Accessorize, thought Buchan.

He was wearing a shirt to match the glasses, and a McLeod tartan kilt, without a sporran or kilt belt.

The noise of the crowd having died quickly away, Cameron looked sombrely around the room, a piece of paper held in his hand.

‘All The Dead Poets,’ he said.

He spoke with what should’ve been a lovely island lilt, thought Buchan, but his tone was nevertheless so affected, the beauty of the accent was lost.

‘All the dead poets,’ muttered Buchan to himself, taking a step closer to the television.

The poet began, his voice with a weight and solemnity to suggest he was reading words for the ages, to be quoted for generations to come.

‘We still hear them, all the dead poets, though they be gone, and will not know it...’

‘Jesus,’ muttered Buchan, and he turned quickly away from the television, nearly bumping into a woman who was standing a couple of yards to his left. ‘Sorry,’ he said, as he made to move past.

‘DI Buchan,’ said the woman. ‘Miranda Proust, was just coming to grab you. Let’s go to my office, and get away from this insufferable bullshit.’

‘APPARENTLY HE’S A HIGHLAND list candidate for the Democratic Green Party in next year’s election. If list voting goes along similar lines to last time, that young man’s going to be an MSP next year.’

‘Just as Donald Dewar intended,’ said Buchan, and she smiled in a way that suggested she didn’t recognise the name Donald Dewar.

She was behind her desk in a small, simply furnished room, on the lower ground floor of the hotel. There was nothing to indicate she was head of security. A desk with a laptop, currently closed. Bland pictures on the wall, the same high windows that Buchan had in the small room they’d been given. Nevertheless, rather here, thought Buchan, than the reception area with the colour and the noise and the bustle and the banners and the celebrities and government ministers clutching at their ten-second soundbites.

Proust was in her fifties. Blue trouser suit, white blouse, short hair clipped back, an air of efficiency, an English accent that Buchan couldn’t pinpoint.

She opened the bottom drawer of her desk, and surprised Buchan by taking out a bottle of Highland Park, and two glasses.

‘You prepared to drink on the job, inspector?’ she said. ‘It’s been a long day.’

Buchan wasn’t a whisky drinker, but there was something about this woman. She was practical, and he was about to get more sense out of her than anyone else he’d spoken to, and if accepting a glass of whisky eased them even more into an open conversation, then it was going to be worth doing.

‘One finger,’ he said, and she replied, ‘One finger coming right up.’

She poured a generous finger into each of the two glasses, pushed one of them across the desk, they toasted each other, then they drank.

‘God, that feels good,’ she said. She stared at the glass in her hands, contemplated another drink, then decided against, and said, ‘OK, we should talk. I can’t be missing for too long. They seem to view my visibility as an essential cog in the security apparatus, as though terrorists are put off by my presence.’

‘I’ve found you quite hard to get hold of,’ said Buchan.

‘Mr Hannigan would not say the same,’ she responded. ‘How’s your investigation coming along?’

‘Bogged down.’

‘What’s the cause?’

‘The poet was very obviously murdered,’ said Buchan deciding he might as well be blunt, ‘and the conference overlords don’t want her to have been murdered. I have no idea who’s controlling this investigation, whether it’s Lucas Hannigan, or someone in the Scottish government, or the chief constable. I just know it’s not me, and they’re not letting me do my job properly.’

She was nodding along by the time he’d finished.

‘Makes sense,’ she said. ‘What d’you need?’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really. I mean, I can’t give you permission to flood the place with officers, and I can’t lock it down giving you the opportunity to interview everyone in attendance, but those kind of radical, very public things aside, I’ll do what I can.’

‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘We’ve all got our jobs to do. And you know how this always goes. Doesn’t matter whether it’s Westminster or Holyrood or anyone anywhere. They try to cover up, it all comes out in the wash anyway, and then they punch down just as hard and low as they can. You and me? We’ll be cannon fodder.’ She waved her finger, then took a another, slightly longer drink. ‘That’s not happening. Tell me what you need.’

‘I’d like a full list of attendees for all three days. ID for them, if you’ve got it. Reason for attending, et cetera.’

‘Yep, I can do all of that.’

‘How about all your CCTV footage from yesterday? My constable’s had a look at some of it, but I need it all, and I need the files.’

A pause this time, then she nodded.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘If I can be blunt, I got the feeling you were avoiding me yesterday,’ said Buchan.

‘Lucas asked me to,’ she said, plainly. ‘They were convinced the poet had killed herself, that was the report I was given, and there didn’t seem to be any reason to doubt it. It’s a story that can be easily told. But the more I heard about it, I thought I really ought to insert myself in this. So, here we are. What else?’

This was going so smoothly, Buchan almost wondered if it was a set-up.

‘Have there been threats made against the conference?’

‘That’s always a question,’ she said. ‘I’m going to say nothing entirely credible, nothing that’s had us increasing security levels.’

‘About that,’ said Buchan, interrupting while the thought was in his head, ‘the increase today because of the poet, that was your work?’

‘Yes. I did that this morning. Lucas wasn’t very happy, but I did it anyway. I’m not relying on him to get my next job, and he couldn’t have his head of security walking out halfway through because her boss isn’t letting her do her job properly.’

‘His father made it sound like it’d been Lucas’s decision,’ said Buchan, with a wry smile, and she rolled her eyes.

‘I’ll bet.’

‘Sorry,’ said Buchan, ‘you were saying about credible threats.’

‘Just in that I don’t think there have been any. There are always people mouthing off about something like this. The world is so polarised, that it’s impossible to campaign for anything without it alienating half the planet. Nevertheless, there’s nothing here to take too seriously, and none of it directed at any single individual, the poet included.’ She took another drink, this time she seemed to wince slightly as it went down. ‘I heard you’d found the body of the woman who delivered the tray of goods to Ms Favalli’s room yesterday afternoon.’

‘We did.’

‘I’m sceptical, but I was told it’s fifty-fifty on whether or not it’s the same woman, and this was also a suicide.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Sources.’

‘Well, your sources don’t want you doing your job properly,’ said Buchan. ‘This was one hundred percent the same person, and she was one hundred percent murdered. Knife to the forehead, body wrapped in a black bag, dumped in a skip.’

‘Dammit.’

She stared off to the side, a look of agitation. Right forefinger tapping rapidly on the desk.

‘Dammit,’ she muttered again.

She turned back to Buchan.

‘This is who we are as a country sometimes,’ she said. ‘Cover-ups and lies and nepotism and cronyism.’

‘That’s every country,’ said Buchan.

‘I suppose. You any idea what’s going on?’

‘None.’

‘You know who this woman is?’

‘Her name was Laurie Foyle, also operated under the name Laurie Q. We have some idea of what kind of person she was. That she would be sent to kill the poet is in keeping with what we know. Why, and who would have employed her to do so, remains a mystery.’

‘She was an assassin?’

‘It appears so. And she did a nice job in and out of that place, and it was only finding her corpse that really allowed us to identify her.’

‘She was paid to kill, then whoever did that cleaned up after themselves,’ said Proust. ‘Damn. That does not suggest it was done by the poet’s jealous ex, does it?’

‘No, but it hasn’t stopped the conference running with the suicide narrative.’

‘It’s an open goal for them, so why wouldn’t they? Mental health, the great, ongoing pandemic.’

She took another long drink.

‘Did you hear the start of that thing from the new guy?’ said Buchan. ‘All the dead poets... Right on the damned nose.’

He shook his head. Proust’s faced briefly scrunched in equivocation.

‘I don’t know, inspector. There are lots of dead poets, after all. And while we can all name a score of dead ones – Burns, McGonigal, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, and on and on – most of us can count the number of living poets we know on one finger. Why all the dead poets? Probably because they’re the only ones anyone’s heard of. The boy looks ridiculous, but it’s not a bad way to start a poem. We still hear them, all the dead poets? That’s decent. Too bad he didn’t just leave it at that.’

‘You’ll have no idea if there’s any threat to him?’

‘Nope,’ she said. ‘But since you’ve brought a lot more certainty about Favalli’s murder, maybe there will be. On the other hand, sounds like there was someone paid to do a job, they did what they were asked, and got killed for their trouble. If you wanted anyone else killed, why not get the same assassin to do all the work before taking them out?’

‘Yep,’ said Buchan, ‘that’s where we are. If it’s personal, why do it at a time when there’s a lot of security, and if it’s targeted at the conference, why the poet, and why make it look like suicide?’

‘Either way,’ said Proust, ‘I’ll make sure the green-haired goblin-poet has a little more security around him.’

She lifted the glass, considered it for a moment, and then downed the rest of it in one.

‘I should get back out there,’ she said. ‘Lucas will notice I’m missing, and God forbid the horrors that could befall the world in that event.’

‘Thanks,’ said Buchan, ‘appreciate the help.’

‘I’m on board, inspector,’ she said. ‘I’ll get those things you asked for as soon as possible, and pass them to...’

‘Sgt Kane.’

‘Right. And if there’s anything else, don’t hesitate.’

‘Thank you,’ said Buchan.

He got to his feet. He looked down at the glass of whisky, which he’d barely touched. Something told him that if he left it there, she would drink it once he was gone. He left it where it was.

They looked at each other across the desk, a look of layers he did not know, then he nodded and turned away.

28

The leaked stories of Auguste Spelling’s past came much more quickly than the sordid tales of Ackerman’s background.

Unacceptable business practices, pay-offs to local officials, tax dodging, tax fraud, using what was in effect slave labour. Old rumours, unsubstantiated reports, wild internet claims, dark mutterings in shadowy corners, all neatly packaged into a sensational tale of long-term business malpractice.

Unlike Randy Ackerman, who’d bolted as soon as his moment of celebrity hit a brick wall, Spelling appeared to be embracing the notoriety. ‘I’m going nowhere,’ he’d already said boldly, speaking to a large press crowd in the hotel lobby.

Nevertheless, the news had broken early enough for the Sunday morning pages to be rewritten. The attempt at resetting the agenda had already come off the rails.

‘IT SAYS HERE, All The Dead Poets is a thrilling fusion of the arts and environmental activism, sending a message of hope, rebirth and deliverance to the world,’ said Roth.

They were at the dinner table. Ten-fifteen. A light noodle dish, spring greens and prawns. A glass of white wine each, one of those nights when they knew they wouldn’t get anywhere near finishing the bottle.

Buchan was expecting the call to a murder scene at any moment.

The evening was as muggy as the day had been, the night promising no improvement. They had the windows open, though no breath of wind crossed the threshold. Edelman had long ago taken himself off to the utility room at the back of the apartment, where a light draught passed through the vents.

‘I heard that,’ said Buchan, who was scrolling through his phone, reading various reports on the day’s events.

‘I’m not sure the work itself quite pulls it off,’ she said.

‘It does if you tell people it does,’ he said. ‘That’s how things work now.’

‘Good point.’

‘So, what d’you think?’ said Buchan, finally turning off his phone, and pushing it to the side. ‘You’ve looked through all the poet’s work?’

‘I have. Didn’t take long.’

‘And? You’re an English literature expert, how’s it looking?’

She put her chin in her hand for a moment and smiled across the table.

‘Enough of that Audrey Hepburn thing,’ he said, ‘we’re working.’

‘I’m not working! You’re working. And it’s after ten on a Saturday evening, and you shouldn’t be.’

‘That perfectly valid point aside,’ said Buchan, ‘what d’you think of Cameron’s work?’

She smiled, she glanced at her phone, though it was now turned off, as that was where she’d just been reading everything that Cameron had written, from poems to blog entries on his meagre website, five-second thoughts on X, to reviews of works by actual poets.

‘Witless, gormless, derivative, bordering on downright copying, though I suspect if he was accused of that, he’d say he was paying homage, or it was pastiche. Either way, he does not appear to have an original bone in his body.’

‘How does he compare to Favalli?’

‘Hmm.’

Chin back in her palm, looking across the room towards the window.

‘She was considerably better. She at least was a poet. She’d read widely, she absorbed ideas, she thought for herself, insomuch as one can tell that kind of thing. There was discontent when she was made the National Poet, because of her connections with the government, and because of her age. But at least she was known, and I doubt too many people were surprised. This guy, getting selected ahead of everyone else for this job? No one knows him, and he’s terrible.’

‘Style, such as it is, over substance?’

She nodded.

‘There are elements who like that kind of thing. This will be why he was invited to do the event. Someone there, and I presume from what you said it would be Hannigan Junior, someone likes the style. They think the style says something. They’re reaching out to their half of the world.’

‘Seems odd when it’s the other half that has most of the money.’

‘If there’s anything worthwhile in the dynamic between father and son, it’s the son trying to get the left on board, while the father will try to get the wealthy right.’

‘You’d think the left are going to be on board anyway,’ said Buchan. ‘Isn’t saving the world part of their thing? Why do they need a grown-ass man with green hair and the political nous of a fourteen-year-old in order to be persuaded?’

‘That old saying about the left eating itself? It ain’t wrong. They all hate each other. They’re only ever one meeting away from creating the People’s Front of Judea.’

‘That’s what Danny said a while back when we discovered the existence of the Democratic Greens.’

‘So how much money has Apparent Horizon received from these two billionaires?’ asked Roth, the words a filling between a couple of sips of wine.

‘Around seven hundred million dollars,’ said Buchan.

Roth let out a low whistle.

‘Holy shit. I mean, holy shit. What’s to stop Hannigan, I don’t know, just waltzing off, buying an entire Caribbean island and living there the rest of his life?’

‘I think at this stage the money is promised, rather than deposited in a numbered Swiss bank account. Offers will be placed, deals will be done, at the appropriate time. The weekend may be full of self-congratulatory back-slapping, but there’s a long way to go before we can declare earth saved.’

‘Got to start somewhere, eh?’

‘Sure,’ said Buchan.

‘Nevertheless, where there’s that much money,’ she said, and she ran a finger across her throat.

‘Exactly,’ said Buchan. ‘Number one reason people get murdered, men hate women. Number two, money. Now we have two women dead, and there’s a lot of money.’

She let out a long sigh, then lifted her glass of wine, and finished it off, Buchan doing the same.

They stared at each other across the table.

29

The phone went at two-thirty-seven. Buchan, hot and restless and no more than dozing, felt almost relieved to be rescued from the endless nightmare of troubled sleep.

‘Sam,’ he said, sitting up on the edge of the bed.

‘Sorry to wake you...,’ said Kane.

‘That’s OK,’ he said, speaking over her.

‘There’s been an incident at the King’s Head on Rathbone Street. There were protestors outside the venue, a brick got put through a window, some of the people inside took it outside, more bricks were thrown, somebody died.’

‘The protests are related to the conference?’ asked Buchan.

‘Well, that’s the weird thing. It doesn’t appear they were, and yet, by one of those peculiar coincidences we love so much, Lucas Hannigan and the green-haired poet just happened to be drinking inside.’

‘Doesn’t sound like so much of a coincidence,’ said Buchan. ‘We know the victim?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Hannigan and Cameron still there?’

‘They’ve gone already. They weren’t involved at all, Hannigan started talking about making phone calls, and I decided just to let them go.’

‘We know where to find them,’ said Buchan, and Kane said, ‘We do.’

‘OK, I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.’

‘You sure? It’s the middle of the night, and I’ve got it covered. I just thought I should let you –’

‘Fifteen minutes,’ said Buchan, and Kane said, ‘K, see you shortly.’

Buchan placed the phone on the bedside table, and stretched.

‘Not the poet?’ said Roth from behind him.

‘Sadly no,’ said Buchan darkly, getting up and walking around the end of the bed towards the bathroom.

‘Maybe tomorrow,’ said Roth, her voice heavy with sleep.

THERE WAS A MAN SITTING at a table just inside the door of the bar, staring dead-eyed straight ahead, his face blank.

‘Mr Brown?’ said Buchan, inserting himself into the man’s line of vision.

Brown took a few moments, his eyes locked on Buchan’s stomach, then he finally lifted his gaze, and asked the question with a small head movement.

‘DI Buchan, Serious Crime Unit,’ said Buchan. ‘Mind if I sit down.’

A small gesture, and Buchan pulled out the seat opposite.

The man’s eyes barely moved. Buchan watched him for a few moments, getting the measure of him, then said, ‘You mind telling me what happened?’

‘I told your sergeant.’

‘You did. But the first time I hear it, I don’t want it to be second-hand.’

Nothing in response.

‘And to be honest,’ continued Buchan, ‘what happens here is you tell the sergeant, then you tell me, and she and I then compare stories to make sure you’re being consistent. That’s how this works.’

He sat back a little, and lifted his head.

‘You say that to everyone?’

‘Just the ones who’ll understand.’

‘I’m going to tell you the story,’ said Brown, ‘you don’t have to flatter us.’

‘Tell me the story.’

‘Couple of weeks ago we hosted a meeting of some feminist group. A bunch of women. I didn’t pay any attention to it, I just thought, aye whatever. They said they were feminists, but I thought it’d be like one step up fi’ a hen night. I says to them, nae strippers.

‘But then, when Moira finds out, she’s like, what the fuck are you doing, man? You serious? Feminists? The place’ll get burnt tae the ground. And I’m like that, they’re just a bunch of women. And she says, no them, protesters. Protesters. People don’t like it when women meet without men. And I’m like that, why the fuck naw? And she’s like that, because they’ll be excluding transwomen, and people don’t like that. And I’m like that, what the fuck are you on about? And she’s like that, have you looked at the Scottish news in the last five years? And I’m like that, I don’t look at the news, hen, you know I don’t look at the news.

‘Anyway, I look at the news and I think, aw, they guys can fuck off, leave the women alone, right?’

‘There was trouble at the event?’

‘No’ that night. But word gets around that we’re bigots and soon enough we’re racists and pretty much everything else, then a couple of weeks later we get bricks put through the windae.’

‘How’d the fight happen?’

‘Got a security guard lined up for the door. First time I’ve had to do that in thirty-three year, can you believe it? Never had to do it for the most poisonous Old Firm Saturday, but now, in the middle of the gender wars, and I didn’t even know that was a thing, the gloves are aff.’ He shook his head, made a gesture behind him at a broken window. ‘Just before one, brick gets put through there. Couple of the regulars run outside, security guard’s there. Usually you expect, you know, some wee wanker puts in a windae, then legs it. These fuckers were waiting for the people who ran outside. There were seven or eight of them, ended up about the same number of us. And I say us, but I never got involved. I was like fucking Gandalf or something, just standing there feeling my guts getting ripped out.’

‘Gandalf gets involved,’ said Buchan, unable to let that go.

Brown stared across the table, then he nodded.

‘Aye, suppose you’re right. That miserable-faced elf wanker then, he just stands there telling every cunt how shite they are. Him.’

‘Elrond.’

‘Aye, Elrond. I just stood there like fucking Elrond thinking, the time of rational men is over. The time of flippin’ morons is upon us.’

I’m not going to argue against that, thought Buchan.

‘The brick aside, you know who started it? Who threw the first punch?’

‘The first punch?’ He laughed. ‘You don’t think it started with the first brick through the windae? I mean, there were people in here. You throw a brick into a crowded pub, reasonable chance you hit someone. Lucky they didn’t. But see if one of my regulars went out there and decked some cunt, don’t you fucking dare say they started it.’

‘Did you see any of the fight?’

‘Aye. It was... what’d Arthur Montford used to call it? Stramash on the goal line. Ha. You remember that?’

‘Never watched football.’

Brown looked disappointed.

‘It was a stramash. You could tell which side was which though, cause only one side was wearing facemasks. Craven little fucking weasels.’

‘One of them’s dead.’

‘Just the one? No’ nearly enough.’

‘How much trouble has there been between the evening you hosted the women, and tonight?’

‘It got a bit gobby for a week or so. Some dickhead stood out there holding a banner for three nights. Got a bit of graffiti sprayed on the front one night. But I thought it had died down. Was thinking of letting the security guy go, to be honest.’

‘Nothing for the last week then?’

‘Nope.’

‘Then this.’

‘Yep. That’s about the size of it.’

‘Why d’you think it kicked off again tonight?’

Brown laughed again, and then he leant forward, elbow on the table, and rubbed his forehead.

‘Are you serious? It’s fucking roasting, man. Every cunt’s in a bad mood. You seen it out there? We’re in Glasgow for fuck’s sake, and it’s like, I don’t know, In The Heat Of The Night. I was in Tesco earlier, and there was some guy nickin’ stuff, and no one was doing anything, the security guard was standing there like a heidless wonder, and some guy asks the shoplifter what the fuck he’s doing, then punches get thrown, bottles smashed. There’s road rage on every street corner, at every damn set of lights. Kids are greetin’, every cunt’s meltin’. Why tonight? The only surprise was it took until one in the morning.’

‘No,’ said Buchan.

‘No? Ha. Go on, then, fucking Columbo.’

‘You’re not wrong. There’ve been fights all over the place, and we’d struggle with this level of aggravation at the best of times, never mind this weekend when there’s the climate conference in town...’

‘The what?’

‘There’s a climate conference at the Grand Europa.’

He looked uninterested, and shrugged it away.

‘The police are stretched,’ said Buchan, ‘that’s all. But this isn’t a fight that’s come out of aggravation or overheating. This isn’t tempers flaring. This is a premeditated attack. They might have thought you’d be closed, in which case...’

‘In which case they were even more fuckin’ spineless. The wankers could’ve come in here and talked to us. Fuck’s sake, we’re talking about... God, I don’t even know what we’re talking about. That would’ve been a start.’

‘Can you tell me the first people to go outside after the brick came in?’

Brown sighed, unhappy at having to potentially land his customers in trouble. But he shook his head and started talking, nevertheless.

‘The thing comes in there. I mean, you can see where the damn brick came in. Fortunately, there’s nae fucker sitting at that table. But there were a couple of lads next to it. Don’t know them. They only went out after the shouting started. But the brick comes in, then Big Davie and Big Alec are sitting there. They’d been arguing about some metal shite all night. The brick comes through the windae, and they’re like, what the fuck, and out they went. I mean, good on them, the next brick could’ve been anywhere, right?

‘Before you know it, there’s a rammy. Another couple of bricks got tossed at the building, but it quickly comes down to hand-to-hand. Fucking Stalingrad out there. The masked lot started running away, one at time, then soon enough they’d all bolted.’

‘Except the body on the ground.’

Brown shrugged.

‘You see who hit them?’

Brown laughed, head shaking.

‘You want me to say the same thing to you I says to your sergeant?’

‘As long as it’s the truth.’

‘If I knew, I wouldn’t tell you, that’s the truth. But like I said, it was a stramash on the goal line. I’ve nae idea who hit the wee cunt. Also the truth. And one more truth while we’re at it... I’m glad he’s deid. Fuck him.’

‘It was a woman.’

A moment, then he shrugged.

‘Fuck her.’

‘There were two men sitting at that table in the corner, one of them with green hair,’ said Buchan, indicating the corner at the back.

‘Aye, right. Your sergeant bird asked about them ‘n all. I saw they legged it fast enough.’

‘We know where they are,’ said Buchan.

Brown laughed.

‘Nothing to say about them, man. Don’t know anything about them, never seen them before. They came in for a drink just before midnight, sat quietly in that corner. Didn’t get involved. I appreciate the guys who went outside to throw a punch or two, but I’m not having a go at anyone who didn’t want any part of it. No’ their fight.’

Buchan looked at the broken window, and where Hannigan and Cameron had been sitting in relation to it. There was nothing to suggest the brick had been thrown at them, so he didn’t bother putting the question.

‘Thanks,’ he said, turning back to Brown.

‘Nae bother. You can go and compare notes wi’ your sergeant now.’

30

Two hours later, the day dawning. The SOCOs had been and gone. Photographs and statements had been taken. The corpse had been removed after Dr Benz had made a brief appearance. A couple of arrests had been made, albeit most of the combatants had fled. Brown, and two other members of his staff, were starting the clear up.

Buchan and Kane standing to the side, not far off five a.m. They’d agreed the previous evening to meet at the office at eight, Cherry being due at the hotel at eight-thirty.

‘You should come in a bit later,’ he said. ‘Nine at the earliest, ten if you manage to sleep.’

‘What about you?’

‘I’ll need to be in at eight to speak to Danny before his shift.’

She smiled.

‘I’ll be in at eight. We need to see out the weekend, and if it takes six cups of espresso to get going, so be it.’

That was what he’d expected her to say. And she was right. They needed to get to the end of the conference, and try to have made progress while everyone was still in one place.

‘You see the issue here,’ he said, making a small gesture to the scene playing out before them.

‘Hmm,’ said Kane. ‘The attacks on the place had died down for a week. There was no reason for them to have started up again, and yet... here they come.’

Buchan nodded.

‘There’s always the chance there’s been something online,’ said Kane. ‘Things resurface on X all the time, then suddenly a whole new group of people are mad about something that happened two weeks, two months, two years or two decades ago. Random people still get annoyed when they find out John Lennon said the Beatles were bigger than Jesus.’

‘Aye,’ said Buchan.

‘Or, it’s possible they thought we’d be distracted. They planned it for tonight all along. Police presence focussed six blocks away, while over on this side of the river it’s open season. Perfect time to get their revenge.’

They stood and stared at the scene for a moment, and then together they turned and looked across the road, up and down the boulevard. Boarded up and shuttered shops, graffiti lining the walls, difficult to tell with some establishments whether they were shut down completely, or just overnight.

Two doorways down, there were three people huddled together beneath sleeping bags. Buchan wondered if they’d managed to sleep through the fight, and the police sirens, and the hour or so of circling, flashing blue light.

‘One of the local guys spoke to them,’ said Kane, reading his mind. ‘He had to wake two of them who’d slept through the whole thing. The other one thought he was a sheep, huddled together with two sleeping wolves, and kept telling our guy not to wake them up in case he got eaten.’

‘Let’s hope we don’t need to rely on their evidence in court,’ said Buchan, and Kane smiled.

Heavy sigh from Buchan, another quick look at the time.

‘Two hours’ sleep should be enough,’ he said. ‘Let’s go. See you at eight.’

‘Boss,’ said Kane.

31

They were lined up at the office window, Kane in between Cherry and Buchan, each with their morning beverage. Kane and Buchan were drinking coffee, Cherry had a Starbucks caramel Frappuccino.

There was a fan blowing to their left, sending coolish air across them, and the office had somehow cooled overnight. For now, at any rate, they did not want to leave here.

Outside the day was already hot and muggy, the air as heavy as it had been previously.

‘You seen the weather forecast?’ said Cherry into the silence.

Kane nodded.

‘Weather’s so capricious, it hardly seems to matter,’ said Buchan.

‘It’s going to break this afternoon, maybe this evening. Good hard rain.’

‘Perfect for the right-wing press and their gleeful damp squib narrative,’ said Kane.

They each took a drink, as they looked out on a warm, grey Sunday morning. The river was still, the water level high. There wasn’t much traffic on Clyde Street or the Broomielaw. The bridge was quiet. A lone figure sat on the bench beneath La Pasionaria across the river. A woman in running gear, leaning forward, elbows resting on her knees, looking at her phone.

‘What d’you think’s going on with her?’ asked Cherry. ‘Woman on the bench. Nominally out running, but she’s sitting on her phone.’

‘Having an affair, obviously,’ said Kane. ‘A day like this, no one picks this as the day they start running. Look at her shoes, her kit. Serious runner, so she’s not sitting down because she’s tired. She’s come out because this is what she does every Sunday morning, and she sits in a different place every time, talking to her girlfriend.’

Cherry gave Kane a quick sideways glance.

‘You’ve elevated her to a secret lesbian based on her shoes. Nice.’

‘It’s not a secret she’s a lesbian. Her partner’s a woman, and she’s having an affair with another woman.’

‘Wow, that’s a right little triangle,’ said Cherry. There was a pause, and before he could make some lesbian threesome gag, Kane said, ‘Don’t say it,’ and Cherry said, ‘Hadn’t even got as far as thinking it,’ with a smile, then he said, ‘Boss, what d’you reckon?’

‘She’s a lawyer,’ said Buchan, and Kane gave him a curious glance at his willingness to join in something this frivolous. ‘High-flyer, doesn’t suffer fools. Ditched her husband a long time ago, brought her daughter up herself. High standards expected. Kid just finished school, and she’s sent her off to tour Europe by train on her own. The daughter isn’t as confident as her mum wants her to be, and so she ends up on the phone on a Sunday morning in tears, saying she wants to come home, and the mum’s sitting there telling her she can’t come home until she’s seen the Ponte Vecchio, the statue of Alexander in Skopje and the bridge at Mostar.’

‘Wow,’ said Cherry, taking a slurp of cold coffee. ‘Poor kid.’

‘Agnes has really got you working on your creative thinking, eh?’ said Kane, and Buchan, a little self-consciously, put the coffee to his lips.

‘Come on, then,’ said Kane to Cherry, ‘what’ve you got?’

Cherry took another loud slurp, then used the cup to indicate across the river.

‘That’s Janice, she works on the third floor. Runs marathons. Must just have had a call about something.’

Kane gave him a look to see whether or not he was being serious, recognised he wasn’t, then said, ‘Needs work,’ and Cherry smiled.

‘Talking of work,’ said Buchan, mundanely.

‘Yep, I should get over there,’ said Cherry, ‘straighten things out with Ellie before the day gets going. What would you like me to do?’

‘Well, we now have hundreds of extra hours of CCTV footage from the hotel and its environs. We need to get the Regus software working on that. In particular, can we pin down Laurie Foyle.’

‘OK,’ said Cherry.

‘Thanks. I’ll send over the access details. Obviously we’re looking for anyone who’s somewhere they shouldn’t be, any surprises, anybody in our database we wouldn’t expect to be there, and of course, the specific movements of Bella Favalli and Laurie Foyle. And, for that matter, I’m curious about both the Hannigans, and about this new poet. Not sure what’s going on with him yet.’

‘Right,’ said Cherry. ‘I’ll get over there, check in with Ellie, and get on with it.’

‘Thanks. We also have, at last, a full list of attendees, and workers who are registered for the weekend. Thought we could split that,’ he said to Kane, and she nodded. ‘I’ll take a few more of them, though. I’ll need you to stay on top of last night’s incident at the King’s Head, I’m afraid. We still need to speak to some people today, and I don’t want it to drift just because of this bloody conference.’

‘On it,’ said Kane.

‘I think I’ll go and work over there today,’ said Buchan. ‘Closer to the action, get more of a feel for the place. I’ll come across with you Danny. Sam, position yourself as you see fit.’

‘I’ll come over just now, start on this list, and then head out about ten to speak to people about last night.’

A noise behind them, and they turned.

Gilmour. She looked at them for a moment, then said, ‘Men who stare at goats formation? Glad you have the time. I shan’t join you. Inspector?’ and she made an upstairs gesture, then left, letting the door close behind her.

Buchan stared at the closed door, took a moment, lifted the coffee and finished it, then placed the cup on his desk and walked out.

32

‘Busy morning,’ said Gilmour.

He wondered what had happened to her. While his own attitude seemed to be softening the longer he spent living with Roth, and perhaps the closer he got to jumping ship from the police, Gilmour seemed to be becoming more irritable, more unreasonably demanding.

Perhaps it was just the stress of the weekend. The shit hitting the fan, the police caught in the middle of it, and everyone knew that if it came to it, and the conference and the party and the Scottish government needed a scapegoat, Police Scotland would do nicely.

‘It’s a Sunday when neither the sergeant nor the constable are on SCU duty,’ said Buchan. ‘Sam’s not officially on any duty. The order of the day was discussed over coffee, and by the time I get back down there, they’ll already be back over at the hotel working.’

‘Why’s Samantha going over to the hotel?’ said Gilmour. ‘Danny’s due there, but as you noted, Samantha isn’t even on duty.’

‘We’re investigating the poet’s death in as low-key a way as possible. We got CCTV footage, and a full list of delegates from the head of security.’

‘Name?’

‘Miranda Proust,’ said Buchan, a little warily.

Gilmour stared coldly at him.

‘Anyone else on the list for today?’ she asked. ‘I would hope there’s no one, but then I’ve repeatedly asked you not to speak to people, and you keep chalking them up. Sir John was not particularly impressed with your line of questioning. Is it too much to hope that you’ve spoken to him for the last time?’

‘Yes,’ said Buchan, bluntly.

Her shoulders straightened slightly. If only, thought Buchan, the bitter chill that emanated from her was more than metaphorical. He could ask her to follow him around, blessing him with cold stares, her face frozen in outrage.

‘You intend speaking to him again?’

‘If necessary, then yes, I will. I’m going to speak to his son this morning, and I’ll also interview this new poet.’

‘In the name of God,’ said Gilmour, although there was more exasperation than anger in her voice. ‘Because in your world the new poet, whatever the hell his name is, engineered the death of the last one, so he could take her place? Snatch his moment of glory from the jaws of irrelevance?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Buchan, his tone becoming flatter by the sentence. ‘He sounds like an irrelevance, but it seems off to find him here, that’s all.’

‘And are you going to examine the credentials of every other delegate to make sure that in your opinion their attendance is justified?’

‘You know there was a death at a protest outside the King’s Head on Rathbone last night?’ said Buchan.

‘Please don’t tell me you’ve found a way to conflate a trans rights protest and a global conference on the future of the environment?’

‘Lucas Hannigan and the poet were having a drink together in the bar at the time the fight started.’

Gilmour had obviously not yet picked up that piece of information. It looked like it deflated her a little further.

‘Were they involved?’

‘No.’

‘Do the press have it?’

‘Not as far as I know. The press haven’t been particularly interested. It’s not this week’s news.’

‘Dammit,’ she muttered, elbow on the desk. ‘Did you speak to them last night?’

‘Sam did, only briefly.’

Gilmour stared at the floor, wondering where to take this.

Buchan’s phone started ringing, the volume low, the vibration heavy against his leg. Gilmour, without looking at him, made a small gesture for him to answer the phone.

He checked the caller, noticed there was also a message waiting for him from Sgt Morrison in Troon, gave Gilmour a small nod to indicate he needed to answer the call, then turned his back, and went to stand by the window.

‘Buchan.’

‘Inspector,’ said DI Idlewild from the Met. ‘How are we doing today?’

‘Long night,’ said Buchan. ‘Thanks for calling back. How’s it looking?’

‘Interesting. Or maybe sad. Had a word with a couple of guys at a private intelligence operation. Shadow espionage service really. You know, this kind of thing has just exploded. These people, when they leave MI5 or 6, they either run away from it all, and go and grow vegetables in Somerset, or they start a private security firm. Sometimes both. Keeping tracks on them is nearly impossible. Given the endless squeeze on everything in the public sector, there are less and less of us, more and more of them, and they’re harder and harder to do anything about. Security services in the city are the wild west. So, someone like Laurie, she was a Godsend to them.’

‘The people you spoke to had used her in the past?’ asked Buchan, managing to stop himself correcting her less and less.

‘They stopped short of admitting it outright, what with Laurie operating outside the law ‘n all, but it was a tacit admission, yes. Anyway, ‘round about a year and a half ago, out of nowhere, she started becoming unreliable. And get this. It was man trouble. You didn’t know her, so it won’t mean so much, but wow. Laurie Q having man trouble. And she dealt with the fallout by drinking, rather than just killing the guy.’

‘Who was it?’

‘Another of her ilk. Came and went, left her with a broken heart.’

‘That’ll do the most remarkable things to people,’ said Buchan, aware as he said it that he sounded like he was in some American melodrama.

‘It does. And it did for her. She started losing work, her reputation tanked amongst those who were using her. She ended up bailing out. Last my contact heard, she’d gone back to Scotland, was trying to make a go of it in a quieter market.’

‘She was an assassin for hire in Scotland?’

‘Sounds like she was. You think there’s much of a market for it up there?’

‘No. And I mean, really, no, there’s not. If there was, those crimes would come our way, and there’s nothing in the last year that we haven’t got to the bottom of.’

‘I don’t know then...,’ she said, and she let the sentence go.

He thought of the Polish mobster Jan Baltazar, and the madness that had unfolded around that, and wondered if perhaps Laurie Foyle had been involved. After all, there had been gangland murders during those few months of turmoil which they hadn’t actually been able to pin on anyone. Nevertheless, in all that time there had never been a hint of some off-the-shelf, for hire, female assassin. And he didn’t doubt Baltazar would have thrown her under the bus at any point in the drama in the name of expediency.

‘I should let you get back to your Sunday,’ said Buchan. ‘Thanks a lot for doing this over a weekend.’

‘Hey, no problem. If I hear anything else, I’ll give you a shout, and if you need anything, well, you know where to find me.’

‘Thank you,’ he said.

They hung up, then he brought up the message from Morrison.

Laurie’s mum’s still with us. Woodlands, Irvine. Nice area. Go armed.

Buchan smiled grimly, sent a quick reply, and then turned back to Gilmour.

‘I need to go,’ he said. ‘We’ve found the next of kin of the body in the skip. I should let her know.’

Gilmour held his gaze, seemed to spend a little time contemplating further, unnecessary instruction, and then gestured silently towards the door.

33

Back down to Ayrshire on the M77, the motorway quiet on a Sunday morning, blue light on the roof of the Facel, siren when required, only taking them off when he’d reached the outskirts of the town in little under half an hour.

He parked outside the row of terraced houses, looked around for a few moments, and then got out of the car.

The morning was just as warm and muggy down here as it was in the city, no hint of freshness. The street was quiet, cars parked down either side most of the way along. There was no one in sight. From one open window, the sound of music. Modern, so Buchan didn’t know it. Somewhere else, a mother and son having an argument.

Buchan took it all in, then approached the door of number twenty-three and knocked.

SHE WAS THIN, BORDERING on emaciated. Sometimes he wondered how some people were still alive, and Jan Stewart was one of them.

There was a fetid aroma in the sitting room, as though the house already anticipated its owner’s death. And it was cool, as though the heat itself had decided it was unwanted in this place.

She was sitting on a tired sofa, leaning forward, her arms awkwardly folded on her knees. A thin T-shirt hung loosely on her skeletal chest. Her jeans were worn and dirty. Her hands shook. Her head was unsteady. She held an unlit cigarette in one hand, regularly putting it to her lips, then taking it out again, as though every time she needed reminding it wasn’t lit.

The carpet was faded, the television small, the walls decorated with a couple of old film posters. Casablanca, in a cheap frame; Inception, frameless, stuck to the wall with Blu Tack. The latter, in particular, far too big for a room this small.

‘What’s he done now?’ she asked, when Buchan was taking too long getting to the point.

‘I don’t know who you mean, but that’s not why I’m here,’ he said.

She wasn’t really looking at him. She shrugged.

‘What then?’

‘It’s about Laurie Foyle,’ said Buchan.

A moment, then she said, ‘I don’t know that name.’

‘She was your daughter,’ said Buchan.

Her expressionless face stayed aimed at the carpet. And then the significance of the words finally got to her, and she lifted her head. The face did not change, her eyes did not quite meet his.

‘Was?’

‘She was murdered somewhere in Glasgow on Friday night. Her body was dumped in a skip out by the airport.’

His voice faltered a little on the word skip, as though he should have put it more delicately.

Her bloodshot eyes briefly met Buchan’s insistent gaze, and then dropped again.

‘Hadn’t seen her since Wednesday. Can’t help you.’

‘Why did you say you didn’t know the name?’ he asked.

‘I thought you’d arrested her, you’d want me to implicate her or something.’ A pause, and then, ‘But it’s no’ that.’

‘How long had she been staying here?’

She sniffed, put the cigarette in her mouth, and this time looked around, as though there might be a lighter or a match in the vicinity. She found neither.

‘Cannae organise this place for biscuits,’ she muttered.

‘How long had Laurie been staying here?’ asked Buchan.

‘Moved in the end of last year. Said she needed somewhere to be for a few weeks. I thought, here we fucking go, she turns up here looking for whatever, probably thinking she can bribe us or something, after a’ that shite Billy put her through when she was a bairn, then she locked herself in her room most of the time. She let us share her wine and vodka, so the fuck did I care? Aye, move in, hen, on you go.’

‘You know what she did?’

Another slight movement of her head in his direction, then the eyes lowered again.

‘I says. She drank in her room. Hardly seen her.’

‘Where’d the money come from?’

‘I don’t know. Seemed to have some, but then, couldn’t have been too much, could it? Who’d come and stay in this shite-hole if they had money?’

‘She ever talk to you about anything? She ever tell you why she’d come back?’

‘Said it was a guy. Tried to talk to us about him one night, and I’m like that, away and shite, hen, I’m no’ interested. She says, aye, right, fuck off. You treated me like shite when I was a kid, and you’re no different now. And I’m like that, aye whatever, you can leave any time you like. But she didnae.’ A moment, then a scowl on her face. ‘Well, guess she’s left now. I’ll need to start buying my own booze again.’ Her shoulders straightened, she thought about something, she glanced round.

She got up, and walked out into the corridor, out of sight. Buchan heard a door open, a few seconds, then the sound of Jan Stewart rummaging around her daughter’s bedroom.

She was back half a minute later, a half-drunk bottle of red wine in one hand, a full, but small bottle of vodka in the other.

‘It’ll do,’ she said.

She opened the bottle, and took a quick swig of vodka. Then another. Then, ‘What?’ in response to him looking at her.

‘Had her habits changed recently? Had she started going out for work?’

‘Says she was looking for something. I was like, I don’t give a fuck, hen. Long as you keep paying me in booze, the room’s yours.’

‘What was she looking for?’

‘I don’t know, but she got something last week. First time. She was like, maybe I’ll be able to get out of this dump, and I’m like that, you’re no’ a fuckin’ prisoner, hen, you can leave any time you like.’ She looked around again, annoyed, added, ‘I need a fuckin’ lighter. You smoke?’

Buchan shook his head. She wasn’t looking at him.

‘Any idea what it was she got to do? Who she was working for?’

‘She was excited for about five minutes, then she was like, this is just as bad as all that shite I was doing in London. But she went anyway. Seemed unhappy, but to be honest, I hadnae seen the lassie smile since she came back. Don’t know why she bothered.’

She took another, longer drink of vodka.

‘She left on Wednesday?’ asked Buchan.

‘What makes you think that?’

‘You said you hadn’t seen her since Wednesday.’

‘Did I?’

‘Aye.’

‘Must have been it then. Five-minutes-ago-me knew what she was talking about. That was before I started drinking.’

This line amused her, and she laughed, the throaty, uncomfortable laugh of the smoker, which got louder and endured, and then finally turned into a cough, and the cough was the throaty, uncomfortable cough of the smoker.

Buchan waited for the fit to subside, then for her to wash it away with more vodka. The small bottle was not going to last long.

How many people like this had he interviewed over the years? The number didn’t really matter. One or a thousand, he’d never got used to the draining stench of hopelessness.

‘Did she ever tell you what she did in London?’ he asked.

Jan Stewart was staring across the room into nothingness. He waited to see if the question had filtered through.

‘I says already, she wanted to talk about the guy and I wasn’t interested,’ she said eventually. ‘I mean, I’m like that, why d’you think I care?’

‘Did she ever talk about her work in London?’

Stewart took another drink. Lowered the bottle. For the first time, didn’t bother screwing the top back on.

‘Didn’t say. I don’t know who’d employ her in the first place. McDonald’s? Fucking, I don’t know, middle of the night security guard? Lassie was probably on Universal Credit, more like.’

‘Was she claiming Universal Credit up here?’

She took another drink, shrugged in reply. Then she lifted the bottle, and said, ‘Money for this must’ve come fi’ somewhere.’

He stared at her, waiting for her to look at him. Wanting to see her eyes, to see if there was any lie in them. But he knew there wouldn’t be. Everything about this place, and her demeanour, told its own story.

Finally she turned her head in response to his silence.

‘What?’

‘Would you be able to come and identify the body?’

She stared at him, her face unchanging for a few moments, and then she smirked, a look which quickly died, replaced with another faraway expression, moods and whims and interest flitting in and out, travelling across her face and through her head, disappearing again.

‘Naw.’ A pause, then she added, ‘You can bring her here, if you like. I’ll take a look.’

She took another drink.

Buchan opened his phone, and brought up the best image they had of her when delivering food to the room of the poet, Favalli, from Friday afternoon.

‘Do you recognise this photograph?’

She took the phone from Buchan’s hand and looked at the picture.

‘She didn’t wear glasses. And what the fuck’s going on with that hair?’

‘Does it look like your daughter?’

‘I says she never wore glasses.’

‘Maybe she needed glasses for work,’ said Buchan.

‘And a wig? What fucking job was she doing?’

‘You’ve already said you had no idea about her life,’ said Buchan.

She shrugged again, passing the phone back.

‘Could that be your daughter?’ he asked.

‘Aye.’

‘How certain are you?’

‘Fuck me. Aye, it’s her, all right. You happy? That’s wee Laurie. Fucking turns up here asking for nothing, and I mean, what was that even about? Why go and see your mum and no’ ask for anything? And now she’s dead.’ Another, fuller shrug, this time moving her arms. The bottle jerked slightly, some of the liquid sploshed out of the top, and she scowled at it, as though it had a mind of its own.

‘Had Laurie mentioned the Apparent Horizon 35 conference to you?’

The pointlessness of the question showed in Stewart’s face. It took a while, and then her brow creased.

‘Apparent what? I mean, what? You’re just saying words now.’ A pause, a slug at the bottle, a head shake, then, ‘You’re still here?’

34

Cherry phoned shortly after Buchan hit the M77 on the way home, blue light going, doing eighty-five in the outside lane. There was no particular rush, other than the need to get on with this. To do as much, and speak to as many people, before the conference broke up.

The late morning was dank and heavy, the dark clouds piling in from the south-west.

‘Boss,’ said Cherry. ‘Where are you?’

‘Been speaking to Laurie’s mum. Laurie had been staying there. Other than saying Laurie wasn’t happy with the job she had in Glasgow, she wasn’t much use. But there’s that at least. How’re you doing?’

‘I’m about ten, maybe fifteen percent through the hotel’s CCTV record of the first couple of days, but I’ve been pulled, sorry. Shit’s starting to hit the fan out there.’

‘How’d you mean?’

‘Huge protest from far-right groups, or at least, you know, concerned citizens insisting they’re not far-right, but adamant this is all a waste of time, and another example of the liberal elite attempting to geo-control the earth. Counter-protest from far-left groups. Men in masks on both sides. A lot of chanting so far, but has potential for growth.’

‘At the front of the hotel?’

‘Aye. Randolph Street.’

‘OK, thanks. You find anything useful so far?’

‘Aye, that’s why I called. The green-haired poet,’ said Cherry. ‘He may have been pulled off the subs’ bench, but he was already on site. He was here the first day. Didn’t have green hair. Or pink hair, like he has in older photographs. None of the piercings. Obviously he had that stupid facial hair he’s got, but he’s wearing a suit, hair tied back, looks like a hippy who’s decided to clean himself up for a funeral or a job interview. But he was definitely in attendance.’

‘And one day later he’s got green hair and looks like a clown.’

‘Aye.’

‘So, a clear attempt at being incognito, while still being in attendance.’

‘I’d say exactly that. I’ll send you the clip.’

‘Anything else?’

‘That’s it, I’m afraid.’

‘No, that’s great. Be careful out there. Give me a shout when you get off duty.’

‘Will do, boss.’

They hung up. Buchan slowed behind a Tiguan doing sixty-five in the outside lane.

THE SKY WAS DARKENING as he walked back across the bridge. Then he walked up Broomhill to take a look at the protest – he didn’t know who was in charge of policing here, and whether they would have exaggerated the likelihood of trouble in order to get more officers on board – but before he had turned the corner onto Randolph, he could hear the chanting, and when he got to the junction of Crawford, there were already officers in place, ensuring not too many more people got through.

Buchan turned away, and accepted he really was going to have to walk round the long way. The air was grim and thick, his shirt clung to his chest, and he tried to think of the cold air of the high Alps the last time he and Roth had been there.

The thought of it wouldn’t stick. It was just too damned hot.

The walk took him an extra fifteen minutes. Fortunately, and probably because there were no television cameras, there were no protestors at the rear of the hotel. He passed through security, and into the chill air.

He stood for a moment in the quiet corridor, enjoying the stillness and the cold. Closed his eyes, took a deep breath. Felt his shirt tight on his skin.

‘OK,’ he muttered, after a few moments. ‘Come on.’

HE FOUND KANE IN THEIR small basement office.

‘Just about to call you,’ she said, as he walked into the room.

‘What’ve we got?’

Buchan poured himself a glass of water from the bottle on the side desk.

‘Plot thickens, I’m afraid. The victim from the fight at the pub last night was called Lilith Ramsey. Professional activist. She’d been protesting outside the hotel here for the past two days, and was expected back here this morning.’

‘Are you using the word ‘professional’ here just to mean it was all she did, or was she actually being paid for it?’

‘Kind of a mix of the two. She was being paid, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t believe in what she was doing. She started protesting, and now, in the modern way, she basically got endorsements from brands and people and quangos, to promote products as she protested. Some organisation might not want to officially protest that particular thing, they might want the distance, but then there’s someone wearing their T-shirt, so they’re still represented.’

‘This is a thing?’

‘It’s 2025, people can make money doing pretty much anything. My cousin’s boy spends his life hillwalking, and scrapes a living on Instagram promoting shoes and coats and drinks and anything else anyone will pay him to use. Take a human activity, any human activity, and it’ll have been monetized for the untrained, private individual. See Only Fans.’

‘Yeah, fair point,’ he said, having drunk the entire glass of water while she talked, pouring himself another. ‘So, tell me about Lilith Ramsey.’

‘Here’s the next kicker. She was also a poet, a published one at that. She was part of a poetry group at university. I just spoke to an English tutor there...’

‘Where was this?’

‘Glasgow,’ she said, and Buchan was already nodding. ‘So, no surprise, Bella Favalli was also part of this group. The guy I spoke to was far more favourable about Bella than either you or I might be, but then he teaches this stuff, and he appears to actually like poetry. Called Bella their shining star. On the other hand, Lilith was all passion, dynamism, determination, and no ability. Poetry wasn’t her superpower.’

‘That’s the phrase he used?’

‘Yes. They used to have poetry slams against other university teams.’

Buchan looked vaguely at her.

‘A poetry slam?’

‘Yes. Spoken word poetry competitions.’

‘That’s a thing?’

‘It’s a thing.’

‘I’m going to kill myself,’ said Buchan, and Kane laughed.

‘On the poetry slam circuit they would’ve come up against the St Andrews team, of which our new poet in residence, Mr Cameron, was a member. There is in fact video of a battle between the two groups on YouTube. This is from eight years ago. It’s not, in itself, particularly revealing.’

‘We know if there’s any connection between Lilith and Bella in the years since they left uni? We know if they kept in touch? Did they have the same publisher?’

‘Not the same publisher, but otherwise, I haven’t started on that yet. I was about to head out and speak to her parents. Five-minute drive. They’ve already been informed.’

Buchan thought about the city, and the houses that would be within five minutes of where they were, then he nodded.

‘I’m guessing they live in a two-million-pound, west end townhouse, and Lilith spent her time protesting about her very existence, while still eating at home every night, before retreating to her very comfortable, en suite double bed on the third floor.’

‘I don’t like to judge,’ said Kane, and Buchan nodded ruefully.

‘That’ll be a tough interview,’ he said. ‘Would you like me to take it?’

‘You’ve done the second victim’s mother,’ she said. ‘I’m happy to do this one unless you want to.’

‘No, that’ll be good. I need to pin down Cameron, and I need to pin down Hannigan. The kid, I mean.’

‘Good luck with that. This is his big day. Conference Chairman of the Month.’

‘He also went to St Andrews,’ said Buchan.

‘Yes.’

‘We know if he was interested in poetry?’ then he was shaking his head at himself. ‘He was the clown who invited Favalli along here in the first place, and he was out drinking last night with Cameron. We know he’s interested in poetry. Seems fairly obvious what we have here is some good, old-fashioned cronyism.’

‘We were wondering why they asked some nobody off the sidelines, and that certainly makes sense,’ said Kane.

‘Scotland,’ said Buchan, ‘the grift that keeps giving.’

Hands on his hips, he stared at the floor, then quickly came up, nodding.

‘Right. You go and speak to Lilith Ramsey’s parents, I’ll get hold of the poet and the chairman.’

Kane nodded, decisively hit the shutdown key, closed the lid of the laptop, and then got to her feet.

‘Feels like we’re making progress,’ she said, and Buchan nodded.

They were putting pieces together, certainly, but it wasn’t necessarily a jigsaw that led to murder. Nevertheless, a positive direction to head in was still better than no direction at all.

35

The poet Calum Cameron was standing at the window of his room, looking down on the street five floors below. Buchan would have left him to the window while they talked, but he was even more interested in what was going on down there than Cameron.

There were two large groups, perhaps equal in size, with a solid police presence in between. The atmosphere was tense and loud, but something about it that said it wasn’t going to explode. A lot of topless young men. All mouth, no trousers, thought Buchan. Every now and again something would be thrown across the top of the police, but so far there’d been nothing with any great weight. Meanwhile, the police were cramming more officers into the centre, preparing to push the two groups further away from each other.

‘At times like these,’ said the poet, his voice soft, ‘one can do nothing but wonder at the savage within us all. It is so utterly remarkable. We are so utterly unique amongst the creatures of the earth. Such poetry, such barbarism.’

Utterly unique. Some poet, thought Buchan.

Cameron turned, as though suddenly realising he wasn’t alone.

‘What was it you wanted?’ he asked. ‘I know I look like I’m standing here staring at this, and I won’t lie, I love this. It’s so authentic, you know. It’s really going to inform my work. This is the great thing about real life. Look at these boors down here on the right. Ha! They are literally on our right, and at the same time, they are of the right. Protesting God knows what. They don’t even care, they just have an excuse to turn up and be the orcs of Middle Earth. And we have our great heroes on the left, standing up for all that is good. What an analogy. It’s almost too perfect to put into rhyme, the audience wouldn’t believe it.’

‘If the audience was standing over there, the right and left would be reversed,’ said Buchan. ‘It’s a meaningless analogy.’

‘No, but then we the audience, on either side of the argument, are viewing the fight from a different perspective. Again, the analogy writes itself. Too perfect.’

‘If you say so. Why d’you think you’re here?’

The poet looked at him, his hands sliding a little self-consciously into the pockets of his blue jeans. His green hair was currently hanging down over his neck, and looked thin and dry. Shorn of make-up, or photographic filters, he looked pale and unshaven and sickly. Perhaps that was just part of his poet’s persona, thought Buchan. Roth would make a joke about him needing to go and recuperate beside a Swiss lake.

‘What does that mean?’

‘Apparently there are currently around a hundred and fifty active, mainstream published poets in Scotland. That is, published by the traditional publishing houses. I saw an estimate that there are around three thousand Scottish poets self-publishing on Amazon, and similar.’ Cameron was looking at him with a smirk. ‘And then there’s an unidentified number of talentless, deadbeat, irrelevant poets, who haven’t even written enough to bother publishing it themselves. Which of those three groups would you say you belonged in?’

Buchan’s words did as he’d been intending, cheap though they might have been, and the poet’s face dropped.

‘You’ve never published,’ said Buchan, ‘you’ve never been published. You stated on your website you’d been rejected at least four times by every mainstream and niche poetry publisher in the UK and US. Called it a badge of honour.’

‘And it’s exactly that. Doesn’t bother me that they can’t see what I do, that they don’t understand me. I’m outside the poetical normative mainstream, free as a bird, you know? I’m a seagull. Apex predator one moment, soaring a million miles high out across the ocean the next. I can see the curve of the earth without leaving this hotel room.’

‘Apex predator? A seagull? You mean when it’s in amongst a bag of chips?’

‘You can mock all you like. You, and the other normies out there. Think they’re too damned good for me. Well, who the fuck,’ and he scowled at Buchan as he said it, ‘who the fuck is it who delivered a specially-written poem last night to the conference? Who the fuck is it who’s been up all night writing today’s piece to close out the conference? We all have our part to play. I’m the poet, and this is my part. You? I don’t know who you are. Or why you are. Why are you here?’

‘Tell me about poetry club at St Andrews.’

Cameron hadn’t seen that question coming, and he looked a little curious for a moment, then that seemed to quickly turn to annoyance.

‘What are you asking about that for? Seriously? I’m in the middle of possibly the best weekend of my life, a career weekend. This is my Queen at Live Aid moment. This is my, I don’t know, Trainspotting, my breakthrough. And you want to talk about another life.’ He laughed ruefully, head shaking, then said, ‘Yep, I’m going to be that guy. Just fuck off and leave me alone.’

‘You knew Bella Favalli when you were doing poetry competitions?’ asked Buchan.

Another head shake. He was rattled, at least, but that could just have been because Buchan was refusing to bow to his genius.

‘They weren’t competitions, they were poetry slams. It’s a thing, and quite different from a... I mean, is there a police officer who understands the first thing about poetry, because frankly I don’t see any point in talking to you.’

‘Did you know Ms Favalli at university?’

‘Yes, we met. We were all poets. University poetry is one of the most thriving cultural institutions in Scotland. When the second Scottish enlightenment finally arrives, it will be poets at its vanguard. Not politicians, not musicians, not crime writers, not whoever else sees themselves as part of the establishment. It’ll be renegade poets.’

‘Like you?’

‘Yes.’

‘And Ms Favalli, was she also a renegade poet?’

Scoffing laughter.

‘Seriously? Bella sold out long ago. No wonder the poor bitch killed herself. I mean, if that’d been me, I wouldn’t have been able to look myself in the mirror either. Makar? Oh, please. She was basically just a paid employee of the government. Do this, write that, say the next thing. Her poetry was so bland, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone at the party’s head office wrote it for her. Or, and this would make sense, they got Grok or ChatGPT to write it.’

‘When was the last time you spoke to her?’

‘Seriously, me and Bella? Speak? Like eight years ago maybe. She thought she was too good for me, and I knew I was too good for her. Bella and I did not speak.’

‘You were here on Friday?’ said Buchan.

‘What?’

‘You were here on Friday?’

As Buchan had been anticipating, his eyes widened, staring into the light of a question he hadn’t seen coming.

‘No.’

‘You weren’t here on Friday?’

‘No.’

Buchan stared deadpan at him. Cameron swallowed, the sound loud in the room.

‘No,’ he repeated.

‘You shook Bella Favalli’s hand at the end of the lunch,’ said Buchan. ‘You were one of the last people to talk to her before she left the hall. Given that she was dead not very long afterwards, you would have been one of the last people to speak to her in her life. What did you say?’

Cameron swallowed again, and then his hand drifted towards his heart. Buchan recognised the look. He was about to make this about him, rather than Favalli. She may have died, but he was the one who was going to have to live with the trauma.

‘This is so hard for me,’ he said.

‘I’ll bet,’ said Buchan. ‘So let’s start with you acknowledging you were here on Friday.’

Another swallow, and then a nod.

‘Yes.’

‘Why did you lie?’

‘I didn’t.’

Buchan stared at him with dead eyes. This interview couldn’t be over quickly enough, but it was much too early to say that the poet had nothing to hide.

‘You’re right. I was here. Sorry, mental block. The stress of being questioned by the police. You must get it all the –’

‘You weren’t stressed until I caught you out in a lie.’

‘No, that’s not... You know...’

His words ran out.

‘What did you say to Ms Favalli after the lunch?’ asked Buchan.

‘I congratulated her, of course. She was, you know... she did a terrific job.’

‘You hated the poem, then?’

Cameron stared blankly back. He couldn’t deny it. This, thought Buchan is not necessarily someone who couldn’t lie, it was just someone who couldn’t bring himself to praise a fellow writer.

‘Did you not feel two-faced congratulating her?’

‘Of course not,’ said Cameron, ‘writers lie to each all the time. Everybody lies to everyone else in this situation. There probably wasn’t a person in the room who actually liked that trite nonsense.’

‘How did she seem?’

‘Oh, euphoric. She was full of her own majesty.’

‘Did you think she was going to go to her room and kill herself?’

The brow furrowed a little more.

‘Of course not. She was, well, like I say, she was resplendent in self-congratulation.’

‘So, why would she kill herself?’

‘Oh, God, seriously? She looked in the mirror and thought, wait, they’re going to be talking about something else this evening. How can I make this about me? I presume she intended getting found in the act, and screwed up.’

‘Tell me about Lucas Hannigan.’

The eyes widened again, he swallowed a little more loudly.

‘Lucas?’

‘Yes.’

‘What about him?’

‘Did you know him at university?’

His absolute silence and uncomfortable demeanour screamed yes, no actual words required.

‘Don’t,’ he finally said, lifting a warning finger. ‘Don’t suggest what you’re going to suggest.’

‘That you only got this gig because you’re friends with Lucas Hannigan?’ said Buchan.

‘See, that’s what I’m talking about.’

‘How did you get this job?’

‘Seriously? I’m good, that’s all. Sometimes, being good is what matters.’

‘So why has no one else ever thought you were good enough to publish? Why, in fact, have you not thought yourself good enough to self-publish?’

‘These are complicated matters,’ he said, vaguely, and then managed from somewhere to grab an element of self-control, and added, ‘Why do you care? Didn’t you say you were a detective inspector? I mean, literally, like, what the hell? Is it the job of the police to question why someone got a job at the conference? Are you going to interview the cleaners?’

‘We’re investigating the possibility Ms Favalli was murdered. If she was, who would have benefitted from her death?’

He stared coldly at Cameron. A moment, and then Cameron took a step back, and then suddenly he was all movement, his head shaking, waving his hands, and finally walking away from the window, saying, ‘No. Just no. That’s... just no, that’s outrageous. I’m not having that. I want to see my lawyer.’

‘Have you got a lawyer?’ asked Buchan.

Cameron stared at him from a few yards away. Again, from somewhere, he managed to find some inner resolve, and he made a gesture towards the door.

‘Look, if you’ve got nothing else, can you... just go. I’ve got work to do, and this... I can’t handle this right now. If you need to speak to me tomorrow, well I’ll be easy enough to find.’

He waved another hand in the direction of the door.

‘You met Lucas for a drink last night at the King’s Head,’ said Buchan.

Cameron stared blankly back, although there seemed to be some hurt somewhere in his eyes that his attempt at controlling the interview had been ineffective.

‘That’s not illegal, is it?’

‘Why there? They’ve taken over one of the nicest hotels in the city for the weekend.’

‘Lucas’s suggestion. I think he just wanted to, you know, escape the fishbowl. I mean, that seemed reasonable.’

‘You think the protest that started with the brick through the window might’ve been related to Lucas’s presence at the bar?’

His face scrunched in curiosity, and he shrugged.

‘No. It was, you know, it was because they’d hosted those bloody right-wing, racist women. I mean, fuck off, they deserved to get a brick put through the window. Fuck around, find out, you know what I’m saying.’

‘Why did you go there then?’

‘Oh, neither Lucas nor I knew about the feminist bullshit. Didn’t find out until the aftermath of the handbags at midnight.’

‘Handbags at midnight? Someone died.’

Cameron stared blankly at him again, then swallowed loudly.

‘I did not know that,’ he said.

‘Her name was Lilith Ramsey.’

Cameron lifted a self-conscious hand to his face, scratched his chin.

‘I don’t ... I don’t know that name.’

‘She was a contemporary of Bella Favalli at university. She was also involved in the poetry competitions.’

‘Wait, Lilith? That Lilith?’ he said, his mouth hanging open, a look of shock on his face.

‘You remember her?’

‘Well, I remember her, yes,’ he said. ‘But, you know, it’s been a long time.’

‘You didn’t know she was here this weekend protesting the conference?’

He shook his head, made a small gesture of hopelessness with his shoulders.

‘Did you speak to her last night?’

‘What? No, of course not. I haven’t... I don’t even know that I spoke to her all that much back in the day. But it’s been years since I saw her.’

Buchan watched him in silence for a short while, then turned back to the window, and looked down on the hustling and jostling of the mob.

There was always the risk of escalation when there were this many people. But the chanting back and forth had the feel of football fans shouting at each other with the length of the pitch in between them, and little danger of getting any closer.

Nevertheless, the torrential rain everyone had been talking about couldn’t come quickly enough.

He turned away from the window, threw an ugly glance at the preposterous poet with green hair, and left the room.

36

Buchan and Kane met in the corridor outside their office, Kane with much more purpose in her stride than Buchan.

Buchan was tired out by it, the suffocating heat and the suffocating bullshit of people taking themselves too seriously. Worse than that, he didn’t feel like they were really getting anywhere.

‘Hey,’ he said, his tone betraying him, though it was apparent from Kane’s demeanour she was feeling much more positive.

‘How’d you get on with the poet?’ she asked, as they entered the office, and closed the door.

‘I didn’t kill him, so there’s that,’ said Buchan. ‘How’d it go with the girl’s parents?’

She sighed as she poured them a glass of water each, handed one to Buchan, and took a long drink.

‘It was sad,’ she said. ‘I mean, of course it was sad. But they’d said they’d kind of lost her to a million causes a long time ago. Her dad called it the cult of virtue signalling. At first there were the discussions, then there were the arguments, and then, the shouting. He said he’d voted Liberal or Lib Dem all his life, and he ends up sounding like this raving right winger, because his daughter’s views are so anti-liberal to him. He never saw her point of view, she never saw his.’

‘How about the mother?’

‘Never argued, but more or less agreed with the dad. She managed to keep the middle ground, but her feeling of having lost their daughter to something, this thing they didn’t approve of and didn’t like, was just as strong.’

‘When was the last time they’d talked to her?’

‘The mum said twenty-four days. They met for coffee. Neutral territory, that was how the dad described it. They talked, but not about anything. TV shows and the weather, and around the periphery of anything of any meaning. Then Lilith went off to a Queers for Palestine rally in Buchanan Street. Her final comment, which the dad said was aimed at winding them up, having managed to be civil to each other for an hour, was, ‘Hopefully I’ll get arrested...’’

‘Did she get arrested?’

‘No. She’d never been arrested. Must have been quite galling for her not having that badge of honour. But she’s a martyr now, so there’s that. Her dad’s words, again.’

Buchan leant forward, hands in his hair for a moment, then he straightened up, shaking his head at himself.

‘There’s more,’ he said, realising Kane wasn’t done.

‘Yes. She and Favalli were actually quite close at university. The two had an opposites attract type of a thing. Ultimately, though, they fell out. Ramsey seems like the kind of girl who falls out with people. When you look at the polarisation of Scotland, you’d think they’d be on the same side, but sounds like it only took one issue for them not to be.’

‘Which was?’

‘Independence. And, just to be clear, they both thought Scotland should be independent. But Favalli was a rule follower. You don’t get to be independent without a vote, you don’t hold a vote without Westminster’s agreement. Ramsey was all for declaring UDI.’ She paused, she frowned. ‘Wait, the D stands for declaration, so you wouldn’t declare UDI would you?’

‘Adopt?’ said Buchan.

‘Aye, something like that. Anyway, they fell out, and as far as the parents know they hadn’t spoken in years. Pretty big caveat there, in that they didn’t know too much about their daughter anymore. Nevertheless, I’m not sure what we draw from this. This is a major event in their home city, Favalli was invited to it, and there’s no doubt Ramsey was going to be in town protesting. Presumably, though we don’t know, the protest at the pub on something completely unrelated, was an add-on.’

‘She died with a brick to the head, falling back, banging her head?’

‘Yes.’

‘It was the latter that killed her?’

‘Dr Benz thinks the brick would’ve done the job. Perhaps, on the night, the bang to the head finished her off, but the brick was more or less impaled in her forehead. There would’ve been serious damage if she’d survived.’

‘Decent throw,’ said Buchan.

‘It was.’

‘We know who threw it?’

‘No one’s saying. The rest of Ramsey’s crew turned and fled. Very noble of them. There obviously wasn’t a no-soldier-left-behind diktat to live up to. The folks from the pub are happy to say who went outside, but no one’s saying who threw any of the bricks, or any of the punches.’

‘You suspect anyone?’ asked Buchan. ‘I didn’t really get a feel for it.’

‘Nope. If we do, you know, if phone camera footage turns up, or the killer decides to make an event out of it, it’ll be a shitshow. Someone defending their local and their friends against brick-throwing thugs? They will have a lot of people on their side.’

‘So, for now, it does just seem to be a coincidence, regardless of Cameron and Hannigan being inside.’

‘I guess. Oh, one other thing though, from her parents. The mum let me see Lilith’s book of protest poetry. Published last year by Greyfriar Books. So, you know, respectable enough publisher, reasonably well known in the business.’

‘Is it any good?’ asked Buchan, his scepticism apparent, and Kane smiled.

‘I don’t know, sir. You can dig it up and ask Agnes what she thinks. It had words in it, and in the one I looked at, not many of them rhymed. That’s about all I can say.’

‘What was it called?’

‘Winter On The Other Side Of The Revolution.’

Buchan started to make a note of it, then stopped himself. Then thought that yes, he probably should see what Roth thought of it, and he took down the name.

‘The lecturer at Glasgow told you that Ramsey wasn’t much of a poet, though, right?’

‘Yep.’

Buchan brought the book up on his phone, skimming quickly down its Amazon page.

‘Seven five-star reviews,’ said Buchan. ‘Reads like the reincarnation of Shelley’s Masque of Anarchy... I’ll bet it does.’ He came away from the book, and started typing a message to Roth.

‘You’ll also note the book is currently ranked at somewhere around the four and a half million mark,’ said Kane, ‘so for all the great, and obviously honest write-ups, its sales, at least on Amazon, are negligible.’

‘She must’ve hated Amazon though,’ said Buchan. ‘Her type all do. She likely encouraged the tribe to get their copies elsewhere.’

He internally chastised himself for the her type line.

Can you read Winter On The Other Side Of The Revolution please. Let me know what you think. A short book of protest poetry. Thanks.

He was just getting up, saying to Kane, ‘Can you keep on it, please. The whole thing just feels a little off,’ when the reply came straight back.

Will do. x

‘Yep,’ said Kane. ‘I’ll give you a shout if anything comes up. You going to speak to Hannigan Junior?’

He checked his watch.

‘He’s blessing me with five minutes of his time. Better go.’

Kane nodded, Buchan walked quickly from the office.

37

‘Detective Buchan!’ said Lucas Hannigan, when they met in hotel reception. Hannigan was ten minutes late, and full of enthusiasm.

Neither man held forward a hand.

‘You’ve still got white...’ said Buchan, indicating Hannigan’s nostrils.

A moment’s confusion, he swallowed, he sniffed loudly and fully, rubbed his nose several times, then took out a paper hankie and blew his nose, and then rubbed it again.

‘We’re good,’ he said. ‘Sugar-frosted doughnut.’

‘You ate a doughnut with your nose?’ said Buchan, his tone still bone dry, and Hannigan laughed uncomfortably.

‘Come on,’ he said, moving off, ‘let’s go into this side office. We’re good in here for a few minutes.’

Buchan followed him into a windowless office, though the door was glass, and they could see out into reception. He noticed Hannigan glancing at his own reflection in the glass as he passed through, as he quickly rubbed his nose again.

Hannigan didn’t sit down, instead leaning back against a desk.

‘What have we got?’ he said.

‘You seem chipper,’ said Buchan.

‘This is going like you wouldn’t believe,’ said Hannigan.

‘The poet died, your two principal donors have both had their reputations trashed, there are huge protests outside, and a protestor died with a brick to the head outside a pub you were drinking in last night. You’re right, it is going like most people wouldn’t believe.’

‘Yeah, OK, if that’s the kind of breakdown you’re aiming for. But seriously, man, the poet was a troubled soul, that’s just who she was. Our donors? Sure, everyone has flaws, you know, but the money’s still on the table. And the death outside the pub? Obviously tragic, but also completely unrelated to the conference. That’s just how it is. And now,’ and he snapped his fingers. ‘We’re making news, man. No such thing as bad publicity, ‘n all that. We’ve got queries coming in from all over. And get this... we’ve had Bill fucking Gates on the phone. I mean, am I right? Now we’re talking money. Now we’re talking buying up the Amazon rainforest.’

‘You spoke to Mr Gates?’

‘Well, you know, it was his people. Bill’s people. Checking us out, seeing where we are, seeing what our plans are about. This is going to work, my friend.’

‘You need to calm down,’ said Buchan.

‘I can’t!’ said Hannigan, and he laughed. ‘I mean, have you heard what we’ve got coming today? I bet you haven’t.’

Buchan answered with a blank stare.

‘You won’t know Rostan Illič. Croatian. Some say he’s a gangster, but his money’s in New York property. He’s like a gazillionaire. Apparently he once killed fifteen Bosniaks with his bare hands during the civil war, but I don’t know about that. What I do know is the guy’s the nicest bloke you could meet. And minted. I mean, seriously minted. And wait for this. He’s committed to buying an entire, and I mean whole kit and caboodle, an entire island in Indonesia. Right now, that sucker’s mainly planted for palm oil. We clear the palm, and we let the island rewild. Seriously, in the tropics, it’s like, boom! You can practically see the forest regrowing. And then we’re going to get in a population of orangutan. I mean, right? And like, this is a big fucking island, by the way. These fellas are not going to be fighting for territory. But at the same time, when it comes time for you-know-what, my friend, it ain’t going to be hard to find yourself a bit of,’ and he made a crude gesture, then he laughed.

‘When you were at university, you attended poetry slams,’ said Buchan, cutting across Hannigan’s enthusiasm.

Hannigan’s brow creased a little more, he swallowed.

‘Where...? I mean, where did that come from?’

‘Your decision to have a poet here at the conference, and the speed with which the dead poet was replaced, are both products of your time at university, when you were involved with poetry. Is that correct?’

Hannigan still looked confused.

‘I mean, sure. Poetry itself isn’t a crime, right? I mean, I love poetry. I got Bella on board, and that was one of the biggest coups we made right at the start. Then when she, I mean, I still find it hard to say, when she killed herself, we were lucky enough to get hold of Calum. He’s got that whole ethnic, Western Isles vibe. People love that. You know, if I’d known Bella was going to be so troubled, I’d’ve just asked Calum in the first place.’

‘Would you?’

‘Sure. I mean, did you hear his poem last night?’

He made an exaggerated sigh, and briefly touched his chest. It was absurdly affected, and Buchan chose to talk through it.

‘One of my constables found a blog from six months ago listing the hundred best living poets in Scotland. Even the poetry enthusiast writing the piece admitted he was scraping around to find a hundred, but he’d been determined to make a list of that length.’

‘Wow, I’d love to see that,’ said Hannigan.

‘Calum Cameron wasn’t on it.’

A pause, a vacant look in his eyes, like a glitch in the system.

‘What? Calum...?’

‘Now, it’s one man’s view of the best poets in the land, but that’s a long list of poets, and Calum Cameron wasn’t there. But then, why would he be, when other than on his own website, he hasn’t published a single line of poetry in his life.’

‘He’s a performative poet,’ said Hannigan. ‘His oeuvre is working with a live audience. It would be like castigating a stand-up comic for not having written down all his jokes.’

‘Between leaving university and appearing here, he’s performed at one festival in front of an audience of three.’

Hannigan looked uncomfortable as he tried to laugh it off.

‘Why are we even talking about this?’ he said, through the weak laughter.

Buchan took a step towards him, then another, so that he was in his face. Hannigan pushed himself back, and then, hands on the edge of the desk, leant back as Buchan jabbed a finger into his chest.

‘Because someone murdered Bella Favalli. And someone murdered the woman who committed that murder. And we need to know who would do that, and that starts with who benefits. And Calum Cameron benefits. So I need to know why you picked him, and if he could have known he was going to be selected.’

Hannigan leant back a little further, and then he suddenly ducked to the side, and moved away from Buchan.

‘Look, you’re not suggesting Calum murdered Bella to get the gig? And then murdered the... the what, the killer?’

‘Why did you give him the job?’

‘He was here. Jesus. He was here working for, I don’t know, it’s a reforestation programme.’

‘You knew he was here?’

‘We saw each other at the welcome drinks on Thursday evening. Do not, I mean, seriously, you’re not saying he saw me, he spoke to Bella, he thought, oh, here’s an idea, he got someone to kill Bella, then did for that person in a cover-up? That’s literally insane.’

Buchan continued to stare harshly at him. Hannigan looked at his watch, then immediately shook his head.

‘You know the name of the woman who died last night in the protest outside the pub?’ asked Buchan.

‘What? I thought it was a man.’

‘Her name was Lilith Ramsey.’

Hannigan hadn’t been moving, but somehow he still managed to stop in his tracks.

A long stare, a look of cold fear creeping across his face.

This from Hannigan, high on cocaine, his soul bared, seemed the most genuine reaction he’d got from anyone all weekend. You didn’t fake going pale where you stood.

‘Lilith?’

‘You knew Lilith Ramsey?’

‘The poet?’

‘Yes.’

He swallowed loudly, and then, mouth open, he let out a long sigh and leant forward a little, coming to terms with the news and almost forcibly ejecting his shock.

He turned away from Buchan, head shaking, making a throwaway gesture as though trying to expel the news.

‘That’s just... that’s horrible. She was protesting about the feminists, right?’

‘Apparently.’

‘Damn.’

He held Buchan’s look for a while, head still shaking.

‘When was the last time you spoke to Lilith?’

‘Oh, God, I don’t know. You know, like eight years ago, maybe. She was at Glasgow, I was at St Andrews. Met her a couple of times at poetry events, but that was it.’ He stared at the floor, eyes wide, nodding to himself. ‘That was it.’

He checked his watch. The recovery from the shock hadn’t taken long. In fact, given that she was someone he’d only met a couple of times eight years previously, his shock had seemed excessive.

‘Look, time’s up, buddy,’ he said. ‘Sorry, I really have to...’

He walked to the door, stopped, turned, took a deep breath. Sniffed.

‘Look, if you want to call this cronyism, then go ahead. Calum and I go back a long ways, that’s all. You want to tell me there are a hundred-and-fifty poets out there in Scotland pissed off they didn’t get the call? I know, they’ve all been on the phone.’ He paused again, he managed to hold Buchan’s stare, then he added, ‘And Bella wasn’t murdered.’

He turned quickly and left the room before Buchan could respond.

His phone pinged. He took a moment, then lifted it from his pocket. A message from Roth.

Didn’t take long. Had brevity on its side, but otherwise terrible. If some of it’s autobiographical, then that’s pretty interesting. x

Time for a coffee? he texted back, Sure, she replied.

The Feast Of The Unfathomable God

This much is true,

Names and places have been omitted.

It might seem there’s not a lot to tell,

But these are our stories and we tell

Them as we can...

Late night, the rich,

The high poets and the furious.

We gather in shades of alcohol.

This is where we are, and who we are

And where we go...

To the bedroom

Cries one, one for all, and those of us

Who stand our ground, and those who say no,

What of us, these women, what of us?

Nothing, that’s all...

Now comes the rape.

The word proscribed, for where will that go?

What will it bring, but the dishonour

Of the courtroom, the spite and the shame?

The acquittal...

And there, that was

University that was. The best

Days of all our lives. The battles fought

And lost. All the straws that broke our backs.

Such was the feast.

38

‘The Feast of the Unfathomable God?’

‘I looked that up,’ said Roth. ‘It’s taken from Danish art. I’m going to say it’s unrelated, but she just wanted to use the title.’

Buchan looked over the poem once more, then asked, ‘There’s much of this kind of thing?’

They’d retreated to the Stand Alone café, which was about halfway between the Grand Europa and the apartment. It was cool in here, though there didn’t seem to be air conditioning running. The Stand Alone had something about it that suggested it existed outside the regular norms of space-time, though Buchan found it hard to put his finger on exactly what made it so different.

‘It’s weird,’ said Roth. ‘There’s really not. In fact, I’d say it’s almost in the wrong collection, so I’m not sure why it’s here. The bulk of the book is terrible poetry about how terrible the world is. The usual tick-box of apocalypses. Palestine, Sudan, Ukraine – although since supporting Ukraine puts her on the same side as the British government she’s obviously equivocal about that one – poverty, freedom of speech, trans rights, welfare cuts, white colonial guilt, tax the rich, ban the bomb, ban pretty much everything. Weird that nothing’s been resolved, despite Lilith writing poetry about it. Anyway, in amongst all this outrage, here she is with what sounds like a biographical tale of being raped at university.’ She paused a moment, then added, ‘Perhaps this was the thing that radicalised her. Made her grow up, see the world, see the injustice. She was raped, nothing got done about it, and it opened her eyes to all the horrors of humanity. It might seem out of place, but then... perhaps it was the genesis of this life she chose for herself.’

Buchan took a drink of coffee and stared away across the café. There weren’t many people in. The Jigsaw Man was in position, nevertheless, nearing the end of a jigsaw of Caravaggio’s Supper at Emmaus. He looked up with a similar expression on his face to Buchan – as though he too was trying to sort out some quandary – and the two men nodded at each other, and then looked away.

‘What’s this format?’ he asked, turning back to Roth, indicating the poem.

She’d been watching him as he looked across at the Jigsaw Man.

‘I wonder if we should invite him to dinner sometime,’ she said, although she didn’t glance over at the Jigsaw Man’s table as she spoke.

‘Hmm,’ said Buchan. ‘I can’t explain it, but I’m not sure he exists outside of this café...’

Roth smiled.

‘Very Murakami. I like that idea.’

There were Haruki Murakami books lying around the apartment, now that Roth was there, but she’d never recommended he read any of them, and so he hadn’t bothered.

He thought of Janey, his ex-wife, and the characters who drank at the Winter Moon. Were any of them any different? They seemed to haunt the place. It was certainly the only time he ever saw any of them, in what had become his rare visits, and he couldn’t imagine them being anywhere else. Perhaps though, this was just him in his limited existence, there was nothing surreal or other-worldly about it.

‘This format,’ he said, indicating the poem, which was open on the iPad lying between them on the table. ‘Is it a specific thing?’

‘It’s a Japanese form known as Hidoi Uta. Four syllables in the first and last lines, nine in the middle ones. Like Haiku, but if you have more that needs to be said.’

‘And is the rest of the book similarly written?’

‘This is the only one.’

‘And the others?’

‘Mostly freeform, though there’s the occasional villanelle. There’s even a limerick. I think maybe it’s supposed to be satirical, or funny, or something, but that wasn’t her skill set.’

‘Is her skill set apparent from the rest of it?’ he asked, and Roth smiled, and lifted her drink.

‘The trouble is,’ said Buchan, ‘because we see a potential direction this could go in, we think this could be related. She’s dead, Favalli’s dead, the chairman and the new poet were part of the same community in university. This seems to reference that community, and there was an incident that could have radicalised her. One feels compelled to jump to the conclusion that either Hannigan or Cameron might be involved, but that could just be us, squeezing the square narrative into the round hole.’

‘It could be, but there has to be a reason she was protesting the conference. It would seem on the face of it like something she should agree with. They want to save the world by planting trees and protecting wild animals for goodness sake.’

He took a last look at the poem, then turned the iPad round and pushed it back across the table.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘What d’you think?’

‘What do I think you should do?’

‘Yes.’

‘The simmering resentment from university days,’ she said. ‘It’s not like we haven’t come across it before. And particularly when people involved become well known, or have their moment in the sun. Hannigan’s having his fifteen minutes here. Cameron, well maybe he’s having five minutes. Could be Lilith wasn’t intending getting involved, then she saw this guy who’d raped her back in her university days. She went on the attack, and she paid the penalty.’

‘That begins to sound contrived,’ said Buchan, ‘and it doesn’t explain the murder of Favalli.’

‘Except, she had even more connection to Lilith at uni. I don’t get it either, but maybe at this point you need to search out people from back in the day. You said Samantha spoke to the English tutor. There must be others. And maybe the editor of Lilith’s poetry collection. She might know a little more.’

Buchan sat back, staring across the table, his eyes on hers, but he was a hundred miles away, thinking through everything they’d learned so far, where it was all leading them, and how likely it was this path was the wrong one.

But that, after all, was the essence of every investigation. You had to follow all the paths, and given that only one of them would be the right one, almost by definition there would be far more wrong roads taken.

He lowered his eyes, leaning forward on the table, hand contemplatively rubbing his chin. By the following afternoon he would have all his team back, and they’d have the manpower to really get stuck into it. Yet, by then the conference would have sent hundreds of people, hundreds of potential witnesses, or indeed potential murderers, on their way. To train stations and airports, and on out into the world, never to return.

If this was university-related, then they had time on their hands. But that could be one of the many wrong paths, and while they wasted their time on it, the truth, and the culprit, would be getting further and further away.

He made a gesture towards the iPad.

‘The editor, is that mentioned in the book?’

‘It is. With poetry collections the editor might get a mention, might not. There are some editors of note, where their presence will help sell. Her name’s Julia Armstrong. I didn’t get the chance to look her up yet.’

‘OK, I’ll check her out, see if I can get hold of her.’

He was looking off to the side. The name rang a bell. Something from the last couple of days.

He tapped the table, he nodded to himself. The lightbulb.

‘I need to go,’ he said.

He lifted his coffee and downed it. From outside a low, dark rumble of thunder.

‘Glad I could be of help,’ said Roth, smiling. She didn’t need to know what had just occurred to him, but she always enjoyed seeing the instance of realisation.

He stood for a moment, as though he thought himself rude for just disappearing, then Roth, smiling at his haplessness, said, ‘Go,’ and he nodded, found himself looking at the Jigsaw Man, they exchanged a farewell across the café, and then he was gone.

39

The conference was in full session, as the chairman introduced Rostan Illič, the billionaire property magnate who was going to save the orangutans’ natural habitat, and by extension, the species itself. He was promising three-point-two-billion dollars over the next ten years, with investments to be made in perpetuity to ensure the island habitat survived. Money would be made available to any displaced persons to move to the main settlement on the northern shore of the island, and employment would be guaranteed for palm oil plantation workers in the new conservation and tourism sectors.

Some people heard all that and thought, those villagers don’t stand a chance, but the message seemed to be right one, the vision was strong, and the conference had scientists on hand to declare the plan workable, sustainable, and just what was required for the orangutan population of south-east Asia.

After the Great Wood in Scotland, and the Great Victorian Desert reforestation, this was another massive step up the ladder towards the regeneration of the natural world. The conference was euphoric. Some mutterings, perhaps, from African leaders that not for the first time the world’s second largest continent was being ignored, but they were generally persuaded by the raft of proposals and possibilities for Africa, once the required funding had been arranged.

There was a cloud over Rostan Illič of course, and no one needed to wait for stories to leak on the internet. His war record was grim, tales were legion, with more to come. There had been talk for a while of him being indicted by the ICC in the Hague, but that had never materialised. There were some who still pushed for it. Nevertheless, three-point-two-billion dollars spoke loudly, and like Auguste Spelling before him, Illič was hanging around to take his share of the limelight.

Buchan stood at the rear of the conference hall watching the orgy of self-congratulation. He was part impressed with the organisation and the planning, the commitment and the willingness to help change the course of civilisation, and part depressed by the hubris, the piety and the conceit.

He’d given one of the stewards a note to pass to the woman three rows from the back, sitting five or six seats from the aisle.

The steward stood at the end of the row, looking along until he was noticed, and then he indicated the note in his hand, pointed to the woman for whom it was intended, and then he passed it along the row.

She waited for it, then, oblivious to the words of the chairman making his fourth speech of the weekend, read it quickly. She glanced over her shoulder, and looked at Buchan. A moment, she looked back at the podium, and then she got to her feet and started apologising to all the people she was going to have to walk past.

THEY SAT AT A SMALL table in the lobby. No drinks, just business. She already looks stressed, thought Buchan. Early forties, dyed blonde hair, conference credentials around her neck.

‘It’s about Leyton, is it?’ she said, before Buchan had even sat down.

‘I don’t know who that is,’ said Buchan.

‘You don’t?’

‘No.’

‘My son.’

‘This isn’t about your son,’ said Buchan, and she instantly, visibly relaxed.

‘Oh, thank goodness.’

She let out a long sigh, head shaking.

‘He’s out there, in amongst an angry mob, enraged by his mother’s presence in here. Apparently none of this is real. It’s all a set-up by the rich to buy up more land and turn it into sweat shops, where immigrant four-year-olds will make Gucci and Louis Vuitton. Let no good deed go unconspiracy theoried. I don’t know whether to be more worried about him dying in a riot, or being struck by lightning. Has it started raining yet, by the way?’

‘It hadn’t five minutes ago, though it feels imminent. But I don’t think you have to worry too much. There’s something about the crowd that says...,’ and he searched for the word, then said, ‘It’s performative.’

She smiled ruefully, obviously reassured, then said, ‘What can I do for you?’

‘You’re a poetry editor at Greyfriar Books?’

‘I like the use of the indefinite article, as though we are blessed with a multitude of poetry editors. But yes, I’m at Greyfriar, and I’m the poetry editor.’

‘You edited a book by a woman named Lilith Ramsey.’

She replied with half of an eyeroll.

‘You’re not here to arrest me for that, are you?’

Buchan couldn’t help the dark smile, though given why he was here, he made sure the smile was quickly removed, and that he kept any lines about gladly arresting all poets and their editors to himself.

‘You might have heard about an attack on the King’s Head pub in town last night?’

‘Sure,’ she said. ‘What’s that got to do with Lilith’s poetry?’ Something in the way she said poetry, as though whatever Ramsey wrote didn’t quite warrant use of the word.

‘Lilith was one of the protestors who attacked the pub. I’m sorry, but she was the one who was killed.’

‘I’m sorry, what? Lilith was killed? Lilith wasn’t killed.’

‘There were a lot of bricks being thrown around, and one of them hit Lilith in the head. She toppled back, and took another head knock in the fall.’

Julia Armstrong’s mouth hung open a little, eyes wide, the shock of the news. Nevertheless, Buchan saw something exaggerated in it, and he didn’t expect much from his next question.

‘When was the last time you spoke to Lilith?’

Her mouth closed. He could see the rapid withdrawal, as the thought process quickly played out. Lilith was dead. The police knew she knew Lilith. She was in the city when Lilith died. Is it possible she knows something about what happened?

Mild consternation, followed by as much distancing as possible.

‘Really, not since the book came out. So, what’s that, a year and a half almost.’

‘Sixteen months.’

‘I mean, how did you even find that out? I got my name removed from that.’ She winced slightly at the admission. ‘I mean, there was only one print run, so my name was never in print.’

‘I was looking at the digital edition,’ said Buchan, and she looked slightly aghast.

‘Oh my God, I never checked that. All that time with my name on that nonsense.’ Followed quickly by a head shake, and a hand gesture, and, ‘I  shouldn’t speak ill of the dead. But really, Lilith’s dead? I just can’t...’

‘Why did you publish her book if you thought it so bad?’

She made a small gesture to indicate the triviality of the subject.

‘I do hate the perception people have of publishing that it’s about who you know, and who you are, rather than the quality of the work. Nevertheless... sadly, it’s not wrong. Wanting to get a book published, poetry or otherwise? A) are you on television? B) are you the chief executive’s best friend from school? No and no? Then C), let’s look to see if your book’s any good, but I should warn you ninety-eight percent of our output is taken up by categories A and B, or variations thereof.’

‘And Lilith wasn’t on television.’

‘No, she knew someone in senior editorial. You know what, I don’t even know who, or where from. You might even find out it was her parents gently giving their daughter’s career a nudge. The poor girl possibly didn’t even realise. She might’ve thought she was being picked up because of her genius.’ She laughed ruefully, then said, ‘I remember, we even got another writer to blurb something saying she was a Scottish Maya Angelou, for God’s sake. Who knows how much coercion went into getting that quote out of them. Anyway, I was stuck with the job of trying to make a silk purse out of a pig’s arse, so there we go. You’ve read it, obviously.’

‘One of my team read it so I didn’t have to,’ he said, and she laughed. ‘But I read one piece which seemed to be autobiographical. About –’

‘Yes, I remember. The Unfathomable God.’ She sighed. ‘Well, I didn’t hate that one, I admit, though it was a little heavy-handed. She’d been raped at university. You might not be familiar with the notion of university poetry slams, dreadfully dull, really, but they’re a thing, and she was part of that at... Glasgow, right, she was at Glasgow. Oh, and so was Bella Favalli...’

Her brow furrowed.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Oh dear. You think...’

‘Lilith had been raped?’ said Buchan, not wanting to linger on the coincidence or otherwise of the two of them dying over the same weekend.

‘Yes, yes. She never said by whom, and of course, there was no point in going to... well, the police. Frankly, it’s barely worth the effort if it happened last night, you have video evidence and fifty witnesses. Your life will still be hell, and there will still be plenty of people who thought you were asking for it if you weren’t wearing a full hazmat suit.

‘Look, I’ll get off my high horse. Obviously it was in the past, but she quoted it as a bit of an epiphany. An awakening. The world wasn’t all sweetness and light and mummy and daddy’s credit card. They say trauma often produces great art, although in this case perhaps it produced just mediocre art.’

Buchan nodded, impressed with Roth’s reading of the book. Ultimately, though, it meant he wasn’t hearing anything new, just confirmation of what Roth had surmised.

‘The rest of the book, sadly,’ said Armstrong, ‘student politics.’ A long pause, and then, ‘We get a lot of that these days, unfortunately. There is very little intellectual depth. In poetry, in writing, in commentary, in politics. C’est la vie.’

‘I need to know as much as you can remember about the incident that led to her writing The Unfathomable God.’

She held his eyes for a moment, and then looked away. Behind her there was a bustle of noise, as the doors to the main auditorium opened, and the conference started spilling out at the end of the latest session. There would be one more session to go that evening, before the closing dinner.

‘I kind of need to speak to some people,’ said Armstrong.

‘We’re not done,’ replied Buchan, firmly. He wanted to ask why she was even here, the pass on her lanyard being suitably vague, but it wasn’t important, and he didn’t want to waste time on it. ‘I need to know as much as you can remember about the incident that led her to write The Unfathomable God,’ he repeated. ‘It’s important.’

‘I mean, really, we’re going back here, and to a book that was more of an irritation to me than –’

‘I don’t care how much you resented doing it,’ said Buchan, also leaning into the conversation. ‘Just tell me what you know about what led to her writing the thing, and we’re done.’

‘All right, all right. God. It was...’ She looked away across the growing throng as she searched her past, spotted someone, waved and held up a finger to indicate she’d be one minute, then returned to Buchan. ‘It was in St Andrews. I remember that because it’s got such a reputation, you know. Everyone loves St Andrews. They’ve got the bloody golf, William and Kate, that whole east coast romance of the sea nonsense. Everyone loves it, but of course, it can be just as much of a hellscape as everywhere else in Scotland, and most of the year there are a lot of students. And that means sex and drugs and who knows what else.’ She hesitated, she seemed to realise she’d been rambling, and she nodded to herself as she refocused. ‘When she and I were working together, there was some tournament being played in St Andrews at the time. Wasn’t the Open. Some people were talking about it, and Lilith automatically looked traumatised by its very mention. I mean, I don’t mean to diminish her trauma. She’d been raped there, and that was what St Andrews meant to her. Rape. Fear. Abuse.’

‘Did she say who it was who’d abused her?’

Her head was shaking before he’d finished asking the question.

‘Money. She was raped by entitlement and money, and given that she herself came from entitlement and money, that teaches us an important lesson. It allows men to do what they like, and offers women no protection whatsoever.’

‘Did she ever mention Bella Favalli?’ asked Buchan.

‘In relation to...?’

‘Anything at all. She was part of the same poetry team.’

‘Yes, you’re right. Yes.’

Leading the witness, he thought. Keep your mouth shut.

‘She didn’t talk about her with much affection. I think maybe they fell out at some point, but she didn’t go into that.’

‘OK, thanks,’ said Buchan, abruptly. ‘You can go.’

She looked slightly surprised, and said, ‘Sorry, what?’

‘You can go.’

‘That’s it?’

‘You’re not under suspicion of anything, unless there’s something else you’d like to tell me.’

‘No.’

‘OK, good, we’re done.’

He nodded a thank you, and then turned and walked quickly away from the table, leaving her still a little surprised.

40

The rain was coming down in tropical sheets as Buchan and Kane drove to the west end, and the faculty room at the university.

Buchan wasn’t sure about this path, yet it seemed to be bringing so many things together. The first victim, the third victim, the replacement poet, the chairman of the conference around which all the murders had coalesced. As for Laurie Foyle, she seemed shoe-horned into the mix, a hired killer, who had always been going to be expendable.

Individual parts of the narrative might have made sense, yet they couldn’t think of anything that tied it all up.

‘This is because we don’t yet know everything,’ Kane had observed prosaically.

They parked in the carpark outside the Critical Studies building. There was no one else about, all pedestrians forced indoors by the rain, drivers with any sense also staying out of it. The water was already running in rivers down the hills around the campus. They got out of the Facel, doors closing hurriedly in unison.

The main door to the building was unlocked. They’d called ahead after all, and as they dashed into the building, and the entrance hall, closing the door behind them, a man who’d been sitting to the side of the hall on a bench, got to his feet, folded over the stapled papers he’d been reading, then walked towards them with a curious smile.

‘You must be keen,’ he said. ‘This time on a Sunday, in this.’

‘Dr Lemons?’ asked Kane.

The man smiled again. He had too much hair, and a thick moustache, and as a result something of the nineteen-seventies stuck to him like a cheap plaster.

He shook them both by the hand, then turned towards the steps, and practically skipped up them.

‘First floor,’ he said over his shoulder.

HIS OFFICE COULD NOT have been less like the office of an English language academic than they would’ve imagined. The floor was pale linoleum. There were no cupboards, no bookshelves, no drawers, no storage of any sort. There were no books anywhere, except one stack in the corner, a neat pile of around twenty copies of the same book. The walls were all painted white. There was one artwork in white and red and blue – it could have been an original Rothko worth several million pounds, or it could have been an Ikea print that looked like a Rothko, worth thirty-nine pounds ninety-nine – the other two solid walls bare. Behind the white desk, which looked more like an Ikea dining table, there were two large windows looking out onto the street behind. The desk was clear bar a closed MacBook. There were three plain dining chairs. Lemons sat down behind his desk. The other two chairs were arranged on the other side, as though he was used to hosting two detectives at a time.

Despite the sparsity of objects in the room, it didn’t look like an office into which someone had just moved, awaiting the arrival of all their things. It looked like perfectly staged minimalism.

‘So, what’s the story?’ he asked. ‘I presume this is about Bella again. Terrible news. I’m not sure...’

‘We have reason to believe,’ said Buchan, deciding it was time to cast aside the disingenuousness, ‘that Bella might have been murdered. There’s little to point to anything having happened specifically at the conference that would have led to that,’ he continued, now talking through the look of horror on Lemons’ face, ‘so naturally we have to look at Bella’s life as a whole, to examine if there are factors outside the conference, or from some other aspect of her life, that might have led to her death.’

‘I can’t... you’re joking, right?’

‘Of course I’m not joking,’ snapped Buchan. ‘A woman’s dead, possibly murdered, and no one’s joking. You spoke to Sgt Kane about –’

‘Wait, they’re covering this up? Bella’s been murdered, and they’re lying about the suicide in case it gets in the way of some rich Yank splaffing his money up the wall in aid of saving some random moth in the Amazon rainforest? I am –’

‘We don’t know if Bella’s been murdered,’ said Buchan, and he sat forward, ‘we’re investigating the possibility. How the conference, and the government, handle the news is not my concern, so it sure as hell isn’t yours. If we come to the conclusion that others may have been involved in her death, it will be announced in due course. In the first instance, now, we just need you to answer some questions about Bella’s time at university.’

Lemons sat back, his eyes finally narrowing after the shock, arms folded, and stared across the desk at the two of them.

‘You’re complicit in this?’ he said to Kane, making a dismissive gesture at Buchan.

‘We’re conducting an interview,’ said Kane, ‘and we’d be grateful if you could answer the DI’s questions.’

Lemons laughed.

‘Right. On message, of course.’

Buchan brought his hand sharply down on the desk.

‘Enough. You can judge the police and the system and everyone you damn well please when we’re done. We’ve got an investigation to be getting on with, and right now, we’d appreciate your cooperation.’

Lemons lifted his hands to the side in mock capitulation.

‘You’re the boss, boss,’ he said. ‘Woe betide he who stands in the way of jack-booted authority.’

‘Do you recall an incident at St Andrews involving Lilith Ramsey?’ said Buchan, his voice still with a harsh edge.

Lemons swallowed. He looked at Buchan, he looked at Kane, he wilted beneath their collective gaze.

‘I thought this was about Bella,’ he said.

‘It’s about both Bella and Lilith Ramsey. Tell me about Lilith Ramsey.’

‘What makes you think there’s anything to tell?’

Buchan didn’t answer.

They stared at each other across the desk, and as he watched him, Buchan could see the defensiveness slowly vanish, replaced by consideration. Trying to work out what the police might already know, trying to work out where they were going with this.

‘OK,’ he said finally. ‘Wait, this isn’t about Calum, is it? Calum Cameron, he was at St Andrews. The poet mysteriously dies, the organisers need another poet, and there’s pointless, aimless, just plain not very good Calum conveniently waiting on the sidelines. Could it be possible Calum’s responsible for Bella’s death? Hmm...’

‘You don’t seem very upset about Bella’s death,’ said Kane, unable to stop herself, becoming annoyed by Lemons’ apparent amusement with the line of questioning. ‘You maybe don’t like the suggestion of a cover-up, but the death itself you don’t seem so concerned about.’

‘Look, I haven’t seen Bella in years. You know how many students I’ve had through the door since then? I mean, even I don’t. Bella was good, don’t get me wrong, but she wasn’t... that good. She wasn’t national poet good, you know?’

‘You used the expression ‘shining star’ when we spoke earlier.’

‘Well, of that grouping, certainly. Of that, you know, cohort. Every year has its stars, some years just don’t shine so brightly, that’s all. Bella’s year... well, you know.’

‘How’d she become the National Poet?’

He laughed.

‘She played the game. She may even have...,’ and he lowered his voice, affected a look of conspiracy and said, ‘slept with the right people.’

‘St Andrews,’ said Buchan. ‘Lilith Ramsey. Tell us.’

Lemons let out a long sigh, an air of congenial defeat about him.

‘Fine. There was a thing. To be honest... look, Lilith never spoke to me about it. If you want the whole story, you’re going to have to speak to Lilith herself. I got the tale second, maybe even third or fourth hand. But she said she was raped. You know, those are fun evenings. The poetry’s always top drawer, it can be pretty funny sometimes. Of course, there’s a lot of alcohol. I mean, we’re poets for crying out loud. We’re hedonistic. We’re, I don’t know, full on, hundred miles an hour party people.’

Buchan stared grimly across the table.

‘And of course there was sex. Look, these are young people. I mean, you think young people can recognise boundaries? You’re police officers, you must see this all the time. Like, what age are men before they realise that no means no? Forty? Forty-five? And anyway, does no actually mean no? Different strokes for different folks, right?’

He looked at Kane.

‘Tell us what happened in St Andrews,’ she said, coldly.

‘Sure. There was a thing afterwards at the first-year dorm. Lilith went, got a little drunk, she got nailed by a couple of guys. Students In Sex Shock! I don’t think so. Even now, when the young are turning their back on fun like it’s criminal or something, there’s still plenty of sex.’

‘Lilith didn’t want to have sex, which changes the narrative,’ said Buchan.

Lemons shrugged with annoying casualness.

‘Is that what she said at the time, though? Who knows? Well, the guys she slept with certainly didn’t think so.’

‘And who was that?’ asked Buchan, and Lemons laughed.

‘Nuh-uh,’ he said. ‘I’m just not going there.’

‘Lilith never went to the police?’

‘Of course not. I mean seriously, the amount of these young women like that. They get drunk, they fuck around, they sober up, and suddenly they’re embarrassed that people might think they’re a bit slutty, and out of nowhere the r-word starts getting banded about. Did Lilith Ramsey go to the police? Of course she bloody didn’t.’

‘Well, you can give us names right now, Dr Lemons,’ said Buchan, ‘or else this becomes a major cold case police investigation. Everyone from those days interviewed, the culture of these things opened up and spewed out into the public eye, and people like you, staff members who go along to them, will also come under the spotlight. Just how often do you get involved in the compliant sex?’

Lemons stared darkly, silently across the table.

‘I’m not sure why we’re even talking about Lilith,’ he said, giving himself a little more time.

‘She was killed last night, protesting,’ said Buchan.

Lemons’ look didn’t change. A blank stare across the desk, shifting after a moment to Kane, then back to Buchan.

‘Lilith?’

‘Dead,’ said Buchan.

‘Another poet,’ said Lemons. ‘Oh my God.’

‘So who was it Lilith accused of rape that night in St Andrews?’ asked Buchan, not letting Lemons linger in what he perceived as disingenuous shock.

‘I can’t believe she’s dead,’ said Lemons. ‘The protests outside the climate conference hotel?’

‘An unrelated protest outside a pub on the other side of the river,’ said Buchan. ‘Tell me the names.’

Lemons let out a long sigh, with accompanying head shake.

‘I don’t want to say,’ he said, quickly followed by, ‘I can’t believe we’ve lost another poet.’

‘Calum Cameron?’ asked Kane, deciding to cut to it.

‘What?’

‘Cameron was there that night. Was he one of the two men who Lilith accused of rape?’

Lemons looked a little confused, and then finally shook his head, waving away the question.

‘No, no. Calum was as much of a pink-haired pussy back then as he is now. I mean, he’s gay, isn’t he?’

‘You need to give us a name,’ said Buchan.

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really.’

‘OK, OK, Jesus,’ said Lemons, finally capitulating, as Buchan and Kane had recognised he would. ‘So, there was Fergus... Fergus something.’ He looked up at the ceiling as he tried to recall the name, or tried to look like he really had to think about it. ‘But, like, he wasn’t one of ours, you know? It’s not like there’s a slam alumni group. We have our people, I remember most of them, but some random from St Andrews? Come on. So that’s all you’re getting, Fergus something.’

‘Who else?’ asked Buchan.

Lemons shook his head, staring at the table.

‘This is the one I don’t want to say, because I know what you people are like. You’ll pick it up and you’ll run with it, and you’ll draw every damn conclusion under the sun, and before you know it...’

‘Just tell us the name without the predictions of what we’ll do with it, please,’ said Buchan.

‘Your man at the convention there. Lucas Hannigan. Wasn’t part of the slam, but he was around. Mouthy, entitled, little prick, far as I recall.’

‘And this was who Lilith said she’d been raped by?’

‘Way I remember it, she never named names. But everyone knew she’d gone off with Hannigan and that Fergus guy. Far as anyone could tell it was all consensual, you know? I mean, sure, she was blind drunk, who wasn’t? And when people are blind drunk, they do dumb shit. They make poor decisions. I mean, that’s the way things go.’

‘Can you tell us anything else about either Hannigan or Cameron?’ said Buchan, a snap in his voice.

‘I mean, seriously, it was one night a hundred years ago. If Lilith hadn’t made a thing of it, if it hadn’t been the talk of the group for the rest of the year, I wouldn’t remember anything about it. You’re lucky I’ve said what I have.’

‘Privileged,’ said Buchan, then he quickly got to his feet. ‘Thanks for your help,’ he said, though his tone did not suggest much gratitude.

‘Right,’ said Lemons, surprised they were leaving so soon, as Kane got to her feet to join Buchan.

‘And you stay schtum about this interview,’ said Buchan. ‘If you don’t, you’ll get a team of fifteen officers down here investigating the hedonism, as you put it, at the heart of the Scottish student poetry community.’

Lemons laughed nervously.

A moment, and then Buchan and Kane turned and left the office. They jogged quickly back downstairs, and then they were into the main reception area. The rain was still hammering down.

Buchan looked like he was going to say something, but instead he marched straight outside, around the car and into the driver’s seat.

Less than five seconds in the rain, and quickly damp.

‘You thinking what I’m thinking?’ said Kane, as Buchan started up the Facel, checked the mirrors – there was no other moving traffic in sight – and headed back towards University Avenue.

‘Cameron used blackmail to get his position? Sounds plausible.’

‘Though if that’s the case, why not just do it in the first place? I mean, before Favalli even got the job. It would’ve saved him getting her murdered.’

‘Maybe he didn’t know anything about it. Cameron’s sitting in his little house one day, wallowing in his failed life as a poet, then he sees news about the upcoming conference. He sees it’s being organised by Lucas Hannigan, a man about whom he’s long kept a secret. He sees the National Poet’s got the job, and he hatches a plan. He gets himself along there, he makes himself known, he’s nowhere near Favalli when she gets killed, so there’s no suggestion of his involvement, then later on he himself takes out the paid assassin, who’s now alcohol-riddled and easy prey.’

They drove in the silence of heavy rain, splashing puddles and the low growl of the Facel’s V8. Red lights, short stretches of road, barely seeing another moving car. Rain bouncing off tarmac. Two guys with their tops off at the corner of Kelvin Way and Argyle Street, one with a can of Tennent’s, the other a bottle of wine, singing Singing In The Rain, hugging a lamppost. A man giving up on a black umbrella, accepting he was getting soaked. A woman with a small child, the kid’s face a picture of agony, the mother’s face a picture of grim defeat.

‘It feels too convenient,’ said Buchan. ‘Like we’re taking everything and working it into a useable solution.’

‘This is what we do,’ said Kane. ‘It’s always the same, but ultimately, the thing, the actual reason for murder, will be quite simple and straightforward. It always is.’

Silence returned for a short while. The hotel got closer. They knew already that the protests outside would largely have dispersed, and those who stayed would be like the two topless guys singing. If you didn’t try to get out of rain like this, you embraced it.

‘And once you see how straightforward it is,’ she added eventually, ‘then it seems convenient. Because ultimately, it will be.’

41

The large dining room was full to bursting. The conference had been wrapped up, the communiqué had been issued, all the promises of funding had been revealed, the plans had been announced, the call had gone out to all the billionaires in all the world that now was the time to save the earth. Not to go into space, not to establish a colony on a dead planet one hundred and forty million miles away, but to save this one. Its oceans and its forests, its wetlands and grasslands and mangrove swamps, its air and the creatures who breathe it. Do your bit. Write your name into the future. Be the hero.

And now everyone could eat and drink, laugh and dance and sing, take drugs, and sleep with the Asian delegate they met at the bar the previous night, before all retreating to the airports the following morning, and jetting off back to the far-off islands and capitals to proclaim their part in securing the future of humanity.

Constables Cherry and Dawkins were standing at the back of the large dining hall, looking out over the noisy, gabbing, gobbling horde. There was a five-piece jazz band on a low stage in the far corner, though only those tables closest to them would have been able to pick out a tune. From where Cherry and Dawkins were standing, the music was nothing more than a bass drum and the whine of a trumpet in amongst the rabble.

‘It’s kind of grotesque, right?’ said Cherry.

Dawkins was watching a fat man eat oysters, one after the other, mouth wide, tipping them down his throat.

She nodded, feeling vaguely nauseous.

EVERY TIME THEY’D WALKED through the hotel lobby, there’d been a scatter of journalists. Occasionally a cluster. There was the press section over to the left, where the TV analysts would do their pieces to camera, while grabbing whoever they could to interview. Buchan and Kane had noticed that the current and two most recent former first ministers of Scotland seemed to be the most eager to get their opinions out there, all three of them keen to take some credit in saving the world.

On the first day, one desperate newspaper had put a picture of the three of them in superhero outfits on the front page, beneath the headline Avengers Assemble. It might have missed the zeitgeist, but it had certainly caught what was happening inside their heads.

Now that the conference was effectively over, the press corps had begun to thin out. Articles had to be written for the following day, reports had already been recorded for that night’s news, but none of the journalists were getting expenses for another overnight if they didn’t have to be there, so once they’d done what needed doing, they were shipping out.

Consequently, when Buchan and Kane walked back into the lobby, on their way to grab Calum Cameron out of the closing dinner, rather than a great gaggle of press corps approaching them, they were greeted by only four. Two men, two women, one with a microphone held out towards Buchan, the other three holding their phones forward. Two filming, one recording.

‘Chief Inspector!’ said the first woman, getting her facts wrong from the start, ‘can you confirm reports you’re treating Bella Favalli’s death as murder?’

Buchan scowled, muttered something under his breath.

‘We can’t talk about that,’ said Kane, ‘If you don’t mind...’

They pushed on. The questions rained down upon them.

‘Was the National Poet murdered?’

‘Is this an active police investigation?’

‘Why are you here?’

‘Is Calum Cameron under investigation?’

‘Is there a cover-up?’

‘Are the police complicit in a cover-up?’

‘Have there been any other murders?’

‘Chief Inspector!’

They flashed their passes at the entrance to the dining room, the doors opened, they entered quickly, and then the doors were closed on the media.

‘Dammit,’ muttered Buchan.

They looked around the room, taking in the scene, pleased at least to note that no one had paid any attention to their arrival. They located the top table in amongst the throng of people and the rumble and cackle of noise, and Buchan made a small gesture in its direction.

There was someone, an aide they did not recognise, standing beside Lucas Hannigan, speaking into his ear. From where they stood it was hard to see Hannigan’s expression.

‘I hate getting ambushed by the bloody press,’ said Buchan.

‘I’m sure you’ll look great on TV muttering fuck at the first question,’ said Kane, unable to stop herself smiling.

‘Yes, I muttered,’ said Buchan grudgingly, ‘no one heard anything.’

‘You were on camera,’ said Kane. ‘A blind man could lip read that.’

‘Funny.’

‘You think Lemons was straight on the phone?’ asked Kane, managing to remove the smile from her face.

‘I don’t know,’ he said, head shaking. ‘It looks like cause and effect, but really, there’ve been a lot of people who’ve known about it, and it’s amazing a lid’s been kept on it so long.’

‘Yeah,’ said Kane, looking over the crowd.

The man who’d been talking to Hannigan had gone already, and Hannigan had not gone with him. He was already eating and drinking and talking. Buchan didn’t recognise the men either side of him.

‘If they’ve had any sense,’ said Buchan, ‘they’ll have been ready for the story of the murder investigation to leak. The statement already written.’

‘Yeah,’ said Kane. ‘I suspect outright denial from them, and the ball will firmly be in our court.’

They nodded together at how this was likely playing out, and then looked once more around the hall.

‘You know that painting in the Musée d’Orsay?’ said Kane. ‘The Romans In Their Decadence. I might’ve mentioned it before.’

‘I always switch off when you talk about art,’ said Buchan, and she gave him an eyeroll. ‘What about it?’

‘It’s a great painting. This reminds me of that, that’s all.’

‘The debauchery of the privileged,’ said Buchan, his voice low, looking over the feast.

‘Worse,’ said Kane. ‘They all think they’ve achieved something, and they trough in their self-congratulation.’

Buchan straightened a little, aware they were sliding into morose reflection when there was work to be done, as Cherry and Dawkins arrived.

‘How’s the evening going?’ asked Buchan.

‘Well, you missed the poet reading his closing whatever that was,’ said Cherry. ‘All The Dead Poets 2.’

‘He did not call it that,’ said Kane.

‘Oh, yes, he did, for all the world like the first one was a blockbuster demanding a follow-up.’

‘Jesus,’ muttered Kane, softly.

‘Nope, didn’t get a mention,’ said Cherry. ‘Anyway, how are we doing. Making progress?’

‘The press have wind of us investigating Favalli’s murder, so there’s that,’ said Kane.

Cherry shrugged, Dawkins said, ‘About time. Wondered what was taking them so long.’

Buchan made a gesture in the direction of the poet.

‘We’ve put together a scenario,’ he said, ‘where Poundshop poet boy there with his ridiculous green hair, basically bribed his way in. It might require him having Favalli killed to make sure there was a vacancy, and killing Foyle to cover his tracks. We certainly have good reason to suggest he would have blackmailed Hannigan Junior into giving him the job, using something he knew about him from their university days.’

‘Which was?’

‘That he raped Lilith Ramsey.’

‘And did he?’ said Dawkins.

‘Looks like it.’

‘Why kill Lilith then, because someone must have killed Lilith?’ asked Cherry. ‘Or was that just an accident?’

Buchan rubbed his chin. Kane gave him a glance, could see his mind working. They hadn’t talked about this.

‘I don’t think it was an accident,’ said Buchan. ‘Perhaps Cameron talked to Lilith last night. I mean, he managed to look shocked when I told him what had happened to her, but if he really has bribed his way in here, it seems too convenient that she’d be protesting outside a pub where he and Hannigan were drinking.’

‘I can see it,’ said Cherry. ‘There’s something innocuous about Cameron, yet he’s utterly self-possessed, convinced of his own talent.’ He stared across the crowded room, and they gave him the space. An unusually contemplative moment from Cherry. ‘When people are so wrapped up in their own self-belief, it makes them do bad things,’ he added.

They stood in their own silence for another few moments, the hubbub enveloping them, then Buchan made a small gesture in the direction of Cameron.

‘Ellie, would you mind going to tell him that I want to speak to him, right now. If he says no, or sounds reluctant in any way, tell him that all four of us are going to come up there, and very publicly arrest him for murder.’

‘Yep,’ said Dawkins.

She walked quickly into the midst of the crowd, heading straight for Cameron at a table on the other side of the room. Buchan and Cherry stood with their arms folded. Kane, slightly to the side, found herself amused by them. The intimidating stance of the male police officer.

She had no doubt, however, that it would work.

42

The poet was invoking the modern day right to be offended. The police weren’t just wrong, they were being hurtful. They were impacting his mental health. This was the highlight of his career – so far – and they’d trampled very publicly all over it. ‘No one noticed you leaving the room,’ Buchan had said. ‘I noticed!’ he’d cried in response.

Buchan and Kane in the small office they’d used all weekend, the two of them sitting opposite Cameron. There was no desk between them.

‘You know you’re not under arrest,’ said Buchan. ‘Yet.’

‘What does that even mean?’

‘It means you can walk out of here any time you like. You’re here because we asked you to come. If you don’t want to be here, off you go.’

‘And what happens then?’

‘We likely arrest you at some point in the next day or two.’

‘I mean, why are you arresting me? My poetry’s not even that bad.’

It was a joke, though naturally neither Kane nor Buchan cracked a smile. If nothing else, Cameron’s poetry was that bad.

‘For conspiracy to murder Bella Favalli, and for the murders of Laurie Foyle and Lilith Ramsey.’

Cameron swallowed loudly in the quiet of the room.

‘The fuck?’

‘Where were you at around nine p.m. on Friday evening?’

Another fearful look. A traditional whirlwind approach from Buchan, throwing multiple things at him, hoping to catch him off guard.

‘I don’t know,’ Cameron finally managed.

‘It was less than forty-eight hours ago,’ said Buchan. ‘Think about it. Friday evening, nine p.m. The dinner was taking place. CCTV says you weren’t in attendance, which seems odd. Here you are, getting to scoff from the same trough as the climate science elite. You’re a minion masquerading as a mediocrity, and you chose to skip dinner. I don’t believe you.’

‘This is...’

He looked at Kane, as though she might rescue him, then turned back to Buchan.

‘I don’t know what you want me to say.’

‘I want you to tell me what you were doing.’

‘It’s none of your business,’ he said, though there was no force in it.

‘We need to know what you were doing at that time, Mr Cameron. If you refuse to answer, the implication is clear. You don’t want us to know, because you’re complicit in the crimes of which you’re accused.’

‘I don’t even know what that is? I mean... the what? Like, the what, what crime? You said Bella died not long after going back to her hotel room. That must’ve been like, I don’t know, half-four, five? And what am I supposed to have done at nine o’clock?’

‘Murder Laurie Foyle.’

His eyes widened again. Buchan had already stated the accusation, but Cameron had obviously managed to block it out.

‘Do I even know who that is?’

‘Do you know the name Laurie Q?’

‘What? What the... I mean, is like she a singer or something? Or a poet? Is that what this is? Because I know tonnes of poets, but I mean, I can’t name them all. I don’t know Laurie Q.’

‘Where were you at nine p.m. on Friday?’ asked Kane darkly. ‘You can take your time, but don’t lie.’

He swallowed, he looked less troubled by Kane, but still he didn’t want to be here talking about this. And there was something about Kane’s quiet insistence, rather than the bludgeoning of Buchan, that seemed to weigh more heavily upon him.

He stared darkly at the carpet. Caught out in a lie, thought Buchan, they could see it in his face. The weasel trapped.

But then, perhaps he was just caught out in an omission, nothing more. There was something he wanted to hide, but it didn’t have to be murder.

Buchan rose from his seat, and took a pace or two to the side. Cameron automatically flinched. Buchan looked at him contemptuously, then turned away, embarrassed that this was how he came across. A classical thug police officer who’d punch the answer out of you.

That wasn’t him, but what was he doing here? Where was this routine of his going, if Cameron refused to talk?

Kane held forward her phone, having brought up the image of Laurie Foyle.

‘Have you ever seen this woman before?’ she asked.

Cameron stared strangely at Kane, then at the photograph. He took his time over it, he looked back at the sergeant, head shaking.

‘Look again,’ said Kane.

She was coming to the same conclusion as Buchan. Cameron was hiding something, but it didn’t necessarily have to be the tale of how he’d murdered Laurie Foyle.

He did as he was told, he lifted his head.

‘I don’t know who that is,’ he said.

‘Tell us about Lilith Ramsey,’ said Buchan.

‘I mean, what d’you want me to say? I never spoke to her last night. I hadn’t spoken to her in forever.’

Buchan could feel his enthusiasm for the interview beginning to fade. This is what he got for shoehorning what he knew into a solution, no matter how small the window.

Cameron looked at Buchan and Kane, a new concern on his face.

‘Wait, this thing, Bella dying, then Lilith. You don’t think they’re going after poets, do you? I mean, what the fuck?’

‘They’re not going after poets,’ said Buchan, ‘so don’t worry. You’re safe.’

‘How d’you know?’

‘Because Laurie Foyle wasn’t a poet.’

‘Why did she have a nom de plume then?’

Buchan shook his head, muttering nom de plume to himself.

‘How did you find out Lucas Hannigan wanted you to replace Bella Favalli?’ he asked.

‘How did I find out?’

‘Yes. Did he send you a text, an email? Did he come and find you in the conference? Was he telling you about what had happened to Bella, wondering how they were going to replace her, then he suddenly looked at you, and said, hang on a second, aren’t you a brilliant poet?’

Unsurprisingly, Cameron missed the sarcasm.

‘Yep, pretty much that,’ he said. ‘I know he wasn’t telling people Bella was dead, but obviously he needed someone to really talk to, you know. We go way back, and he knew he could confide in me, and I’d keep schtum. Which I have, by the way.’

‘That at least I believe,’ said Buchan, then he made a dismissive gesture for him to continue.

‘What?’

‘So, how did you come to be asked to be conference poet? His suggestion or yours?’

‘Seriously?’ He laughed, looked at Kane as though trying to bring her in on his side, then he looked back at Buchan with a small shrug. ‘I mean, I was not suggesting it for a second. Like, never even crossed my mind, you know?’

‘Never crossed your mind?’

‘Nope.’

‘So, you didn’t think of saying to Hannigan that you might, for example, reveal details of his rape of Lilith Ramsey, if he didn’t give you the job?’

Cameron’s eyes widened, his bottom lip dropped a little. They could see a line of spittle from his tongue to the top of his mouth.

He swallowed.

‘What?’

‘Answer the question, please.’

Another pause, and then, ‘I’m trying to remember what the question was.’

‘Did you blackmail Lucas Hannigan into giving you the job?’

‘Jesus! No, of course not. I mean, like, what? Blackmail him? I didn’t even think there was anything to blackmail him for.’ He looked bemused for a moment, while Buchan stared harshly at him in silence, waiting to see how his mind worked, which way the wind would blow.

‘Wait,’ said Cameron. ‘Is this what this is about? I wondered if you might be going there the last time we talked, but I thought, he’s not that stupid, he’s not actually going to say it. But really, are you asking me if I killed Bella to create the vacancy? I mean, is that what you’re saying?’

‘I’m asking you if you had someone else kill Bella, and blackmailed Lucas Hannigan into giving you the job.’

The smile of curiosity returned, and then quickly dissolved into ridiculous, disingenuous laughter.

They watched him silently, waiting for the performance to end. The sound filled the room. He bent forward, laughing in his chair, staring at the carpet. Neither Buchan nor Kane moved, nor took their eyes from him.

Eventually he coughed on a particularly raucous fake laugh, and then he finally straightened up, swallowed, coughed a little more, and stared at Buchan, still amused.

‘Wow,’ he said.

‘You can go,’ said Buchan.

‘What?’

The smile vanished, replaced by another look of confusion.

‘You can go.’

‘Really?’

‘Five minutes ago you were complaining about the highlight of your career being ruined. On you go, get back to it. Live the dream.’

‘Oh...’

Cameron got to his feet, but still didn’t seem certain, then Kane nodded in the direction of the door, and at last he accepted he’d been dismissed, went to the door, walked quickly out into the short corridor and closed the door behind him.

They waited to hear him laughing again outside, but it never came.

Silence for a few moments, while they accepted the way the interview had played out.

‘I wasn’t sure we were finished,’ said Kane, eventually.

‘It was a waste of time,’ said Buchan. ‘I think we’ll find he’s guilty of nothing more than sleeping with someone who doesn’t want him talking about it, at approximately nine p.m. on Friday evening.’

He looked at her, his expression asking if she agreed, and she nodded.

‘Guess so.’

Kane’s phone pinged, and then again another couple of times, and she opened the message and looked at the attached photographs. Buchan watched her for a moment, and then sat down, leant forward, elbows on his knees, and stared at the floor, wondering what was coming next.

Against the window, the sound of rain, which hadn’t stopped since they drove to see Lemons. The intensity had dropped, that was all, but still it poured.

He felt Kane looking at him, and he lifted his head and asked the question with raised eyebrows.

‘Someone’s come forward from last night. I remember the kid. One of the group of twenty-year-olds.’ Buchan nodded. He thought he knew who she’d be talking about. ‘He threw the brick that hit Lilith, but he’d kept quiet, and all his mates kept quiet at the time. Apparently one of the group had filmed the whole thing, and had footage of him. He got straight down to blackmail. The kid goes to his dad for help, the dad’s like, you have to face up to what you’ve done. Hand yourself in. And when this is all over, you’ll know who your friends are.’

‘Well,’ said Buchan, ‘some dad.’

‘Ex-military, according to Ellie.’

Buchan looked at the door as it was the last place they’d seen Cameron.

‘We really have nothing on that guy,’ said Buchan. ‘We’ll need to speak to this kid, but it feels like Lilith Ramsey’s death was a complete outlier.’

‘Genuine coincidence.’

He nodded.

‘So, someone killed the poet, and then killed the assassin. I don’t get what’s going on there.’

‘Maybe it was an attempt to disrupt the conference. Pick a random person to murder, throw the thing into disarray.’

‘Why then keep it under wraps?’

‘Perhaps whoever’s behind it all didn’t realise it would be kept under wraps. They thought they’d get this done, and boom, day one, big news, conference in tatters. But they reckoned without the tight-lipped, well-drilled Scottish establishment. Then maybe they try telling a journalist or two, maybe they have someone in their pocket, and the journalist goes to his editor, or the editor goes to the publisher, and somewhere along the way, the establishment door slams shut in their face. Even when the story leaks, it has its own impotence, like there’s this determination to keep it low-key, allowing them to have a perfect, uninterrupted, uplifting weekend...’

The door opened with attitude, and Chief Inspector Gilmour entered. She was smartly dressed – a teal Roberto Cavalli blazer, a diamond sitting at the top of her chest – and Buchan wondered if she’d been summoned from elsewhere, or whether she’d been in attendance here and they hadn’t noticed her.

‘Sergeant,’ she said, indicating the door.

Kane gave Buchan a quick parting glance, then got to her feet, left the room and closed the door behind her.

‘You know everyone’s out there talking about the murdered poet?’ said Gilmour, as soon as they were alone. She wasn’t going to be here long.

‘Yes,’ said Buchan. ‘We got asked about it when we returned this evening.’

‘There’d been a tight lid on that information. Given the size of the conference, and the number of staff on duty, it was an impressively low number of people who knew we were involved.’

‘Yes,’ said Buchan, his voice in neutral.

She stared at him, as though it was an interrogation and she was waiting for him to crack. Buchan, nevertheless, could have sat there for the rest of the evening in silence. He already knew how this conversation was going to end.

‘Someone blabbed,’ she said.

Silence.

‘Was that someone you?’

‘No.’

‘How many people have you interviewed over the course of the weekend?’

‘Between Sam and me, probably about twenty.’

‘And to how many of them, not already aware of the circumstances, did you say that it was likely Bella had been murdered?’

‘One.’

Having been expecting the answer none, she looked pleased instead to have been given something to work with.

‘Who was that?’

‘Her old poetry tutor at the university.’

She folded her arms as she stared down at him.

‘When was this?’

Buchan held the stare, then looked at his watch.

‘We left him about an hour ago. Maybe a little less.’

‘Oh, really.’

She continued to make the accusation with silence, something which Buchan found particularly annoying, especially with it coming off the back of Cameron’s ridiculous laughter.

‘It wasn’t him,’ he said.

‘How d’you know?’

‘We were back here ten minutes after we left him, and the press were already queuing up to ask about the murder. Nothing works that quickly in Scotland.’

‘Well, I don’t suppose I can argue that,’ she said. ‘So perhaps you just cut out the middle man and called someone yourself, earlier in the day.’

‘Well, it’s not like I can prove I didn’t, is it? But I didn’t.’

‘Yet you happily told the poetry tutor.’

‘It wasn’t him.’

‘How do you know that?’ she asked, sharply. ‘You threatened him, and you think some lefty academic would be cowed by that?’

‘We’re not getting anywhere,’ he said, irritatedly. ‘We have to –’

‘Maybe that’s because there’s nowhere to go,’ she snapped back. ‘The poet killed herself, this body in the skip is just a whole other story, and the girl killed last night outside the pub... well, I believe someone’s already come forward, and that’s now a dead end.’ She rubbed her hands together, as though dusting off flour. ‘We’re done. You are done. You and your team are done. Go home. I know some of the others are still on duty here, but you and Samantha are finished on this case. Get out, go home, take tomorrow off if you like, because I do not want you turning up here at nine a.m. trying to put pressure on people before they leave. I don’t know what your agenda is, inspector, but do not bring it to the table at this conference again. This, by all accounts, has been a triumph, an unexpected triumph, despite someone’s attempts at sabotage, and despite your best efforts to ruin it. Those efforts end now. Go home. Do not speak to any media outlets on the way out.’

She held the door open, then looked back at him in what was supposed to be a significant manner.

‘Good night, inspector.’

Buchan stopped himself walking out without a word, took the time to catch her eye and say, ‘I’ll see you in the office tomorrow,’ and then he was quickly gone.

43

There were three of them around the small kitchen table. Buchan, Kane and Roth, with tapas and a bottle of white wine. Oscar Peterson was playing, a live album – The Oscar Peterson Trio In Tokyo 1964 – that Buchan wasn’t sure he’d ever listened to before. Edelman was sitting at the window, keeping watch on the river. The rain was still falling, the tide was high, but the water was not yet close to breaching the banks.

‘With every day you get a little more ammunition,’ said Kane to Roth, popping an olive into her mouth, loading some salami and Pecorino Romano onto her plate.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Roth, smiling.

‘You’re trying to lure the boss away from the police to study history at St Andrews, and this sort of nonsense from higher up’ll just encourage him.’

Roth smiled at Buchan this time.

‘Is that what you said to Samantha? That I’m trying to lure you away?’

‘Exactly how I put it,’ said Buchan. ‘Using your feminine wiles.’

‘Sure,’ said Roth, laughing.

Strike Up The Band was playing. Edelman glanced over his shoulder, catching the aroma of something in the air, then turned back to the window.

‘You know we’re just going to ignore Gilmour anyway,’ Buchan said to Kane. ‘The only reason I’m not going back there right now, is because we don’t have just cause. If I thought it was worthwhile, I’d go.’

‘Let’s find something then,’ said Kane.

Buchan picked up a cut of roasted pepper, and put it on his plate.

‘What have you got?’ he said.

Kane looked at him, and then looked at Roth.

‘Go ahead,’ said Roth, ‘I won’t try to distract him with talk of the Peloponnesian War.’

‘I know you won’t,’ said Kane, ‘because that’s not history in academic terms, that’s the classics.’

‘I talk as an English literature scholar,’ said Roth, enjoying the conversation. ‘What have you got?’

Kane took a drink, and then leant into the table a little. She’d obviously been thinking it over, yet at the same time, didn’t have anything strong to go on.

‘Maybe we’d have got closer today if it hadn’t been for Lilith Ramsey,’ she said.

‘She was a distraction,’ agreed Buchan. ‘And I don’t believe an intentional one. That was a random brick thrown at a random person. I mean, the kid’s still in trouble. You throw a brick in the direction of people, good chance someone’s going to get hurt. But it’s taken us off on a goose chase today, and we need to get back to where we were last night.’

‘So where was that?’ asked Roth.

‘Someone wanted to spike the conference,’ said Kane. ‘They hire Laurie Foyle. Laurie does as she’s bid, but maybe she complicates things with her chosen method of murder. Or perhaps whoever’s wanting to negatively impact the conference, is happy for things to be unclear. Did she kill herself, or was she murdered? That’s an extra layer of drama.’

‘Perhaps Laurie gets a stab of conscience,’ said Buchan. ‘Sgt Morrison said she had a code. She harmed people who had it coming. She needs the money, she has to take this job, but when it comes to it, she’s having to a) kill a woman who’s guilty of nothing other than poetry, and b) she’s helping to put a spanner in the works of a genuine attempt to reverse planetary-wide cataclysm. So she finagles it. She meets her brief. She kills the poet. But at the same time, she’s done her research, and she fakes a believable suicide. Thereafter, she walks. Whoever employs her arranges a meet-up and says, what was that? Get back there, and create havoc. Laurie says no, Laurie dies.’

Kane was nodding along.

‘I like that,’ she said. ‘Currently unproveable, however, but it makes sense.’

‘It also doesn’t help us get near the big question. Who wanted the conference thrown into disarray?’

‘Big Oil?’ suggested Roth.

‘I’m not sure,’ said Buchan, ‘because that’s not the point of this. It’s being billed as this thing that says, let’s not pretend we’re going to recycle one hundred percent of plastic, and stop burning hydrocarbons. It’s not pitting itself against Big Oil. It’s not pitting itself against anything.’

He looked between the two women, his shoulders lifting a little.

‘Then it’s personal,’ said Roth, and Kane nodded.

‘Hmm. Personal against the poet? Or personal...’

‘Against the whole event,’ said Roth. ‘You’ve already argued this. Why choose a high security event when you could kill Favalli in her sleepy apartment some Tuesday morning when no one’s looking? It’s not completely unlikely, but that it was done at the height of the event on the first full day, says that it was aimed at the conference, not her.’

‘Then why the poet?’ asked Buchan. ‘Why not a politician? Why not one of the billionaires? I mean, the latter’s going to cause a much bigger stink globally.’

‘Good point,’ said Kane, leaning back into the discussion, feeling enthused. ‘This says to me it was aimed at Scotland, don’t you think? I mean, it’s been apparent from the off. She might not be much of a name, but the National Poet is as establishment as you can get. This is saying to the establishment, here’s what we think of your conference.’ She ran her fingers across her throat.

‘And yet the establishment still seems to be coming out on top,’ said Buchan.

‘It’s playing OK for them,’ said Roth. ‘I’ve looked at all the major news sites. The potential murder is news, but it’s not as big news as the orangutans. I mean, people love orangutans. When they picked their final day headline, they chose wisely.’

‘OK, so let’s say this is someone who doesn’t like the conference, and doesn’t like the Scottish establishment,’ said Kane, and she looked between the two of them and shrugged. ‘I’m not sure this helps us a great deal. The trouble is, there’ve been six hundred people in and out of this thing, and we’ve spoken to a fraction of them. It could be any one of them, not to mention, it could be none of them. It doesn’t have to be someone in attendance. They hire Laurie to do the job on site, then when she leaves, they hire someone else to take care of Laurie. Job done, and they themselves haven’t had to go anywhere near the place.’

‘I don’t think it’s that,’ said Roth.

‘Go on.’

‘It’s going to be someone closer to the mix,’ she said. ‘I mean, you guys are good, so we’ll start with that. And, if I can just come at this from an English literature perspective for a second, you can’t have a crime novel, or any kind of mystery or suspense novel, where the answer to the mystery comes down to a deus ex machina. You can’t introduce a factor or a person out of the blue at the end, and say, the thing happened because of this, or this person killed the guy. It’s cheating. Right?’

‘I’m seeing a problem with this argument,’ said Kane.

‘But like I said, you guys are good. You know to look in the right places,’ said Roth. ‘How often in all your cases does the killer or the kidnapper or the perpetrator of the rape or the assault, how often does this person turn out to be the totally random person over here?’ and she tapped the far corner of the table. ‘How often are you completely surprised? How often do you spend days and weeks working various angles, only for the solution to ultimately be unrelated to any of it? Sure, this could be some random agent operating from anywhere on earth. After all, the whole point of this is that it’s a global event. But really, if this had been a covert op run by the FSB or Beijing or Langley, it would have been far more brutal, and far more effective. This is a Scottish event, and sabotaging ourselves is pretty much our main superpower. Though even here, someone’s done something, and it looks like it hasn’t gone to plan. It’s got Scotland written all over it. I think you need to look within.’

Kane glanced at Buchan, who nodded in agreement.

‘It sounds reasonable,’ he said. ‘I think maybe you underestimate the amount of times the perpetrator turns out to be random, but for the most part you’re right. The closer you get to the centre of the action, the more likely you are to find the culprit.’

‘OK,’ said Kane, ‘let’s do this old school. You got a notepad and pen?’

LUCAS HANNIGAN, EVENT chairman. Sir John Hannigan, influence and money. Calum Cameron, the Poundshop poet. Miranda Proust, head of event security. Alan McLaughlin, hotel manager. Randy Ackerman, generous billionaire. Auguste Spelling, generous billionaire. Rostan Illič, generous billionaire.

These were the names that had jumped out at them over the weekend. The players, such as they were, with the addition of McLaughlin and Proust, who weren’t really players as such. And, of course, neither was Cameron actually a player, but he undoubtedly had a stake in the game. And regardless of how uninspired their last interview with him had left them, his name wouldn’t be getting removed from the list until the case had been wrapped up, and someone else pinned down for the double murder.

‘Given that we’re talking about hiring a contract killer here,’ said Roth, after the three of them had sat looking at the list for a while, ‘you should be following the money. For all the poet is a bit of a joke, he’s also a broke joke, and regardless of how much Laurie’s price had dopped because of her romance and alcohol issues, seems unlikely they’d dropped that much. I feel the same thing applies to the hotel manager and the head of security. I mean, they’ll be getting well-paid, presumably, but hiring assassins seems to me to be on another level.’

‘The Hannigans, and the billionaires,’ said Buchan. ‘The billionaires don’t actually meet the brief of us Scots sabotaging ourselves, but they’re certainly integral to the weekend.’

He was sitting with his chin resting lightly on his hand, a glass of wine in the other. He was taking a long time with the first glass, as he didn’t intend having any more. It was after ten p.m. but he had a feeling the night’s work wasn’t done.

The rain was falling, the hotel would still be buzzing with an end of season fervour, and the night seemed to create its own narrative drive.

‘Why would the Hannigans spike their own event?’ asked Kane. ‘I mean, I’m not saying that’d be the weirdest thing that ever happened, but we’d have to come up with a damned good reason before we took that to them.’

Buchan stared at the page, with names written and then crossed out, small notes against each of the names who’d been left in place.

‘I don’t know,’ said Buchan. ‘I’m not sure we really understand the dynamic between the two, that’s the problem. Maybe the son gets him on board because he can’t handle the pressure, and the dad is contemptuous. He spikes the thing. Or the kid hates that his dad muscled in on the organisation. Behind the scenes he’s started taking the credit, so junior intentionally torpedoes the event.’

‘We need to get to the bottom of their relationship,’ said Kane, and Buchan nodded.

‘OK, the three billionaires,’ he said. ‘Do we know enough about them?’

‘To be honest, they’ve largely escaped our attention,’ said Kane. ‘But then, it seems a little bit of a stretch, doesn’t it? If you think something’s a really good idea, why commit to it, and then sabotage it?’

‘Quality bit of virtue signalling,’ said Roth. ‘They look like the good guy, but then ultimately, they don’t actually have to put up any money, because the whole thing founders.’

‘That’s not bad,’ said Kane. ‘Particularly since it appears they all have skeletons in the closet. This could be a chance to green-wash a reputation, without ultimately having to pay up.’

‘Yep,’ said Buchan.

‘How’d you find Ackerman when you spoke to him?’ asked Roth.

‘Rich. A bit smug. In his way, he was entirely bland, as he was exactly as you think you’re going to find a wealthy American. Based on it, though, I have nothing to give the discussion on whether or not he might be the one who hired Laurie.’

‘We should check.’

‘Yes, we should.’

‘The other two are still here, so maybe we should go in and have a word.’

‘The Australian guy didn’t just jump on a plane?’ asked Roth.

‘Nope,’ said Kane. ‘He’s been here the entire weekend. In his element. He’s got a veneer of Trump about him in relation to scandal. Whether or not he’s Teflon-coated I don’t know, but he certainly acts like it. And he loves the attention.’

‘OK, we need to check these three people out,’ said Buchan.

He looked at his watch. Ten-thirty-seven on a Sunday evening.

He looked up, staring across the table in the direction of Kane, mind whirring.

‘What are you thinking?’ asked Kane.

‘DI Idlewild did say I could call her if I needed anything,’ said Buchan.

‘Bold,’ said Kane. ‘Well, come on, take her up on it.’

‘Yep,’ said Buchan, nodding, and he immediately pushed his chair back and rose from the table. ‘Would you mind, in the meantime, can you split these three billionaires between you and run up a bit of a biography. Let’s see how much of a true reflection the stench around them really is.’

Roth saluted, happy to be dragged back into her old world, however briefly, and Kane nodded, and as Buchan turned away and walked to the window, they started discussing the split in duties.

He stood over Edelman, who paid him no attention, and looked out on the water. The rain was coming from the left, so the window wasn’t badly smeared, and he and the cat had a good view out over the uneasy river, and the moving jumble of light reflection from the Science Centre and the BBC’s Pacific Quay.

He lifted his phone, then called Idlewild’s number. One ring and she answered.

‘Hey,’ she said.

‘Sorry,’ said Buchan, recognising in the single syllable that she wasn’t in the least surprised by his call.

‘No problem. I wondered if you’d call back while the conference was still on, and I saw that news had leaked about the poet. Watched a five-second clip of you and your sergeant studiously not answering questions.’ He could hear the smile in her voice as she spoke. ‘Anyway, inspector, I’m just sitting here watching American women’s golf for no reason that I can possibly explain, so whatever you need.’

‘You said you had some knowledge of the kind of work Laurie was doing, and the kinds of people she worked for. We’re not going on much here other than gut instinct, but we’ve been wondering if the attempt to sabotage the conference has come from within...’

‘Where d’you want me to begin?’

‘Seems logical to start with the money,’ said Buchan. ‘Do you know any of the names of the three billionaires putting up the cash, or are you aware of either of the Hannigans, the father and son behind the event? And is it possible any of them previously had cause to employ Laurie Foyle?’

‘Start with the money,’ she repeated, and he could picture her nodding to herself. ‘That makes sense. Well, I’ve seen those names mentioned this weekend, but I’ve never heard of any of them. Let me call a couple of people,’ and she paused, and he imagined her checking the time and thinking it through, then she continued, ‘yeah, I’ll make some calls, take a look at our files on Laurie. None of it should take too long. I might not get anywhere, but I’ll give you a quick nil return if that’s what it is, so you’re not waiting around.’

‘That’s great, thanks,’ said Buchan, and she said, ‘So, it’s Ackerman and Spelling and... the Balkan guy, what was his name?’ and Buchan said, ‘Illič,’ and Idlewild said, ‘Right, Illič. Oakie doakie, I’m on it, inspector,’ and Buchan said, ‘Thanks,’ and they hung up.

Buchan checked his phone, slipped it into his pocket, looked out on the view, exchanged a glance with Edelman, which Edelman’s sagacious look invested with far more significance than it actually warranted.

‘She won’t be long,’ said Buchan, sitting back at the table. He looked at his wine glass, which wasn’t yet done, and pushed it slightly to the side. ‘OK, who shall I take?’

44

Auguste Spelling quickly emerged as the favourite. Of course, since none of them had spoken to Spelling, and he hadn’t featured in their investigation at all so far, he barely fitted Roth’s narrative for suspects. He was an outlier, regardless of the fact that his name had been prominent over the course of the weekend.

Ackerman, like many men before him, was known to be violent with women with whom he was intimate. Perhaps this implicated him, had he been intimate with Favalli or Foyle, but there was no hint of that. Illič had potentially committed war crimes, but since then he’d made another life for himself.

They were businessmen, and money had come their way, and sure, neither of them had ever paid much tax, and there was some talk of that, but then, what wealthy person ever paid much tax, anywhere in the world? The list was short.

Auguste Spelling, on the other hand, had links with major crime in Australia, and it was more than just the stench of corruption that had followed him around throughout his career. There were stories of bullying, there were stories of violence, and there were stories of him making his way by ensuring his opponents were destroyed. He treated employees badly, he treated his enemies worse. In business, in court, at home, it didn’t really matter. People who came up against Auguste Spelling came off badly, that was just how it had been.

Half an hour later, Buchan, Kane and Roth had ditched checking up on Ackerman and Illič, and were all focussing on Spelling.

Roth winced a little, then started speaking, without looking up from her phone.

‘The more you read, the more it feels like... I don’t know, like we’re getting into just too convenient territory. This guy is a piece of work.’

‘Yeah,’ said Kane. ‘I wonder if the Hannigans know who they’re getting into bed with.’

‘He’s the kind of man who puts out spurious press releases about how great he is, and all the wonderful things he’s doing,’ said Buchan. ‘Nevertheless...’

He let the sentence go.

‘Nevertheless?’ asked Kane.

‘You know, I think he’s a bit above the likes of Laurie Foyle, given what we know about her. If this guy’s hiring an assassin, he’s not going with some washed-up, alcoholic who’s given up plying her trade on the streets of London.’

‘Yeah,’ said Kane, nodding. ‘I agree. You think we should speak to him, though?’

Buchan didn’t answer. He didn’t think it was worth it, but then was he avoiding it because this guy was likely to create a massive stink?

His phone rang. Idlewild.

He placed the phone on the table, and put it on speaker.

‘Inspector,’ he said. ‘Thanks for calling back so quickly.’

‘That’s OK. Laurie’s a pretty easy girl to check up on.’

‘I’ve got you on speaker, by the way,’ said Buchan, then he glanced at Roth. ‘I’m with a couple of colleagues.’

‘I like the energy,’ said Idlewild. ‘But I’m afraid I don’t really have anything for you. Honestly, Laurie did all her work with the street gangs down here. Or, like we discussed earlier, the small, private security operations. She was good, certainly, but there’s nothing that speaks of, you know, big international contracts. I just don’t think any of these three people would have known anything about her. She would’ve been findable, but why would they bother?’

‘How about the Hannigans?’ asked Kane, then she quickly added, ‘DS Kane, sorry.’

‘That’s OK, sergeant. That might seem more likely, but those guys, far as I can see from a quick check, don’t have any whiff of the bad stuff about them. They’ve never crossed our path, and not knowingly the paths of anyone we’ve had to deal with. If they used Laurie previously, well we don’t know about it. Of all the people you’re talking about here, they seem the most likely, but at the same time, it doesn’t seem very likely at all.’

‘Aye,’ said Buchan, and he ran his hand across his face as he sighed, sitting back in his chair.

‘I really don’t have anything for you tonight,’ said Idlewild, ‘but I’ll get back into it first thing. Some people just don’t answer their phones at eleven on a Sunday evening.’

‘Thanks, Erin,’ said Buchan, ‘appreciate the time you’ve taken.’

‘That’s OK. Hey, look, if you’ve got any other names, just toss them out. Really, it’s getting a bit late now, but I’ll add them to the list for tomorrow.’

‘If you’re sure...’

‘Course. Give them to me now, means I can get started soon as I get up, save calling you at seven in the morning or whatever.’

Buchan glanced at Kane, as the name of the hotel manager escaped him, and Kane said, ‘This is a stretch, but we have the hotel manager, whose name is Alan McLaughlin...’

‘Yeah, hotel manager sounds a little bit of a stretch, but sure, we’ll cover the bases. Anyone else?’

‘Head of security at the event. Her name’s Miranda Proust.’

There was a moment, and in the silence, Buchan suddenly felt the hairs stand on the back of his neck.

‘Yeah, I know that name,’ said Idlewild. ‘I saw it earlier today. Just give me a moment...’

They looked at each other a little curiously, Buchan and Kane and Roth, though Roth felt the detachment of it. This wasn’t her game anymore, even though she’d been invited temporarily to join.

‘Yeah... OK, OK. I mean, I’ve no idea if we’re talking about the same Miranda Proust, but how many Miranda Prousts are there? Security consultant. She does events, low-key get-togethers. I mean, she’s a little on the fringes, but every now and again she’ll play with the big boys. I don’t know her, but I know the type of person she is, and who she deals with. The only reason she’d get the gig for the kind of thing you’ve got up there, is because she’s cheap by their standards. Big, international business standards, I mean.’

‘What’s the relationship between her and Laurie Foyle?’ asked Buchan.

‘It’s tenuous, but someone said they’d heard she’d hired her for a job. I’m not even sure...’ and she broke off, and they could hear the rustle of a notebook, and then there was silence, then the paper moved again, and she continued, ‘yeah, it was vague. This kind of thing, there’s always a lot of vague, you know what I mean? Miranda Proust is herself for hire, but she’s on the legit side of the security business. She may well also operate on the other side of the fence, but I’ve got nothing definite on that in my notes here. I’ll add it to the list for tomorrow.’

‘OK, thanks, Erin, that’s great.’

‘I’ll give you a shout in the morning.’

Buchan clicked the phone off, then looked at the others.

‘Damn,’ said Kane.

‘Aye.’

‘Did you mention the name Laurie Foyle when you were speaking to Proust?’

‘And Laurie Q, and she didn’t bat an eyelid. In fact, thinking about the conversation, she completely played me.’

‘Damn,’ said Kane again. ‘We should get over there.’

Buchan pushed his chair back, nodding as he stood up.

Kane was up on her feet, making a goodbye gesture towards Roth.

‘I’ll let you know how it’s going,’ said Buchan.

‘Fly, you fools,’ said Roth with a smile, and he lifted his hand and then turned, and then he and Kane were quickly gone.

The closing of the door echoed through the apartment, replaced by the still of a woman sitting alone at a dinner table. Oscar was still playing, of course, now Hoagy’s Old Rockin’ Chair.

Roth leant on the table, her chin in her hand, looking towards the window, feeling the silence, and the end of the short burst of what had once been her life.

She lifted an olive and popped it into her mouth, poured a little more wine into her glass, then decided to tip the remainder of the bottle in, and then she got up and walked to the window, and stood beside Edelman looking out on the world.

Glass of wine in her left hand, she let her right hand settle on Edelman’s head, and he leant into the touch.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she said. ‘You’re thinking I really enjoyed that, and I wish I was going back out with them.’ She took a drink of wine, she watched the movement of the lights reflected in the water. ‘Nope,’ she continued. ‘Not one bit. I’ve got me some Banana Yoshimoto to read, and that’ll do nicely, thank you very much.’

Edelman pushed a little harder against her hand. A sudden gust of wind made the rain sweep across the window. The tune ended, and Blues Etude began. Roth took another drink of wine.

45

It was late, but still there was a buzz about the place as they entered the hotel reception. While the trough remained full, the animals were not voluntarily going to remove themselves.

On Randolph Street at the front of the building, the demonstrators had long since departed, though the police presence remained large. There were some signs of damage, and a lot of rubbish strewn around the sodden streets. Water lying, a river running down one side. The order had gone out to begin the clear-up when the torrential rain had stopped, which was scheduled to be at around one a.m. They needed the roads to look good for the morning, when the delegates would start to depart after breakfast.

Buchan flashed his ID at the second line of security, and walked quickly past them across the lobby.

‘You know which office is hers?’ asked Kane.

‘Aye,’ said Buchan.

He noticed Cherry away to his left, and changed course.

‘Boss,’ said Cherry, ‘didn’t expect you back.’

‘Unfinished business,’ said Buchan.

‘The chief told me to notify her if I saw you this evening,’ he said, with a raised eyebrow to indicate the absurdity of that.

‘Too bad we missed each other then,’ said Buchan. ‘Have you seen Miranda Proust?’

Cherry shook his head. ‘Nope, but then I haven’t seen her much all weekend. It’s been her deputy,’ and he glanced around the lobby to see if he could spot him, then when he couldn’t, he continued, ‘Ravenwood, not sure where he is. He’s largely been the security front of house.’

‘OK. We’re going to her office. If you see her before you see the sergeant or me, detain her, please.’

‘Sure. On what grounds?’

‘Just make sure she doesn’t leave. You can rugby tackle her, if you feel you have to.’

Cherry smiled, and nodded.

‘On it,’ he said.

‘Thanks, Danny,’ said Buchan.

As he walked off, Kane said to Cherry, ‘He didn’t mean it about the rugby tackle,’ and Cherry laughed and said, ‘I don’t know, I heard rugby tackle,’ and Kane rolled her eyes and walked quickly after Buchan.

THE OFFICE WAS AS QUIET, and uncluttered as he remembered it. It was certainly uncontaminated by anything to do with Miranda Proust. She was gone, as was everything she’d brought with her, bottle of Highland Park included. The coat stand was bare, the desk was clear, there had been nothing of hers on the walls in the first place.

Buchan, wearing nitrile gloves, closed the large drawer at the side of the desk, and sat back looking at Kane.

‘You think she left when it was revealed to the media Favalli had been murdered?’ asked Kane.

‘I’m not sure that works,’ said Buchan. ‘Let’s say it was Miranda Proust who commissioned Laurie to kill Favalli. It must surely have been done with the intention of the news getting out, in which case, Proust would have been here throughout. I mean, if she is involved, she happily spoke to me about it.’

‘You know what she was doing at nine o’clock on Friday evening?’

‘Hmm,’ said Buchan, ‘good question.’

He took his notebook from his inside pocket, and flicked through.

‘Damn, would you look at that. Friday evening was one of the times I tried to see her, but she was unavailable.’

He put the notebook down, and slipped it back into his pocket, then stared at Kane across the desk, thinking through their next move.

‘Shall we get Ruth and her team in?’ asked Kane. ‘We could leave it until tomorrow morning.’

‘I’ll call her,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to leave it in case this place is cleaned by the time we get back. And not the full team. Low key as possible, insomuch as a SOCO investigation can be low key.’

‘Best if you tell her not to turn up in a full-body suit,’ said Kane, and Buchan smiled wryly.

He stared off to the side, thinking it through, then got to his feet.

‘In fact, can you call her? I’m going to find Hannigan Junior and speak to him about Proust.’

‘Seems unlikely that this starts and ends with her,’ said Kane.

Buchan nodded in agreement, as he walked to the door.

‘Can you stay in here until Ruth arrives?’

‘Yep.’

‘And, you know, if Ruth is, I don’t know, doing something that she’d really rather not be disturbed about, I don’t mind if she sends one of her team.’

‘How about I check the duty roster before making the call,’ said Kane.

‘I never think in terms of duty roster, do I?’

‘One of your failings as a leader,’ said Kane, with a smile.

He turned, he opened the door, and then was gone, heading back towards the lobby as he took off the gloves and thrust them into his pocket.

46

‘Mr Ravenwood,’ said Buchan, approaching the man in his forties, now standing in the lobby. He was at the side, observing. There wasn’t, at this point, much observing to be done. Though there were a few people about, most of them were not lingering. They were either heading to their rooms for the night, or heading from one bar to the next, from one last-minute, self-important conversation in the margins to another.

‘Inspector,’ said Ravenwood, deputy head of conference security.

He was six feet maybe, with an air of competence and authority.

‘Quiet night?’ asked Buchan.

‘The end of the affair,’ said Ravenwood. ‘If there’s anything untoward tonight, it’ll likely be a drug overdose.’

Buchan turned away, looking around the foyer. ‘How’s the weekend been?’

‘Largely uneventful. I wondered if all that crap outside was going to develop into something nasty, but the rain saw them off, and given the police presence, it was always unlikely to find its way inside. Other than that, no major incidents. Well, apart from the poet. Which, if she was indeed murdered, is something of a blot in the copybook, I’ll admit.’ He caught Buchan’s eye, and added, ‘I doubt this event will be getting added to my CV, as a result. To be honest, of all the people we had to protect, the poet seemed near the bottom of the list.’

‘Possibly why she was selected,’ said Buchan, then he added, ‘when was the last time you saw your boss?’

‘You mean, Mr Hannigan, or Ms Proust?’

‘The latter.’

Ravenwood looked at his watch.

‘Been a while. Maybe a couple of hours. Maybe three.’ He paused, then added, ‘Four, four and a half. To be honest, not sure.’

‘Would you not expect the head of security to be a little more visible?’

‘This is where we are,’ he said. ‘The head of anything gets to pick and choose, don’t they? Just how much delegating are they going to do. The way I see Ms Proust’s approach here, she set everything up, she took on her staff, and then she delegated.’

‘Would you say you’ve basically been running the show?’

He took his time before answering. The noise in the lobby increased, as the door to the Paris-Dakar Bar opened, and three men emerged, arms around each other, singing Back In The USSR. The door closed again, the men forgot the words before they reached the end of the first verse, and they collapsed into laughter as they came to the bank of elevators, and normal service in the large space was resumed.

‘Not a great boast, given the poet, but yes,’ he said, ‘I’ve been running the show.’

‘Have you worked with Ms Proust before?’ asked Buchan, and Ravenwood shook his head.

‘She works in London. I work here, and Edinburgh, with an occasional gig at Gleneagles. Our paths never crossed before.’

‘What did you think?’

‘What did I think?’

‘Aye,’ said Buchan. ‘When you got this job. Would you have expected to be made head of security? What did you think of Ms Proust being brought up from London?’

Buchan gave him the time. They stood, side by side, watching the late evening in the lobby unfold, like two men on a terrace, watching fourth-tier Scottish football.

‘I was made head of security,’ he said. ‘And then Ms Proust was brought in. I wasn’t told that I had done anything wrong, just that she was getting brought on board.’

‘When was this?’

‘Six weeks ago.’ He paused, and Buchan gave him the space. ‘There are three or four people in Scotland I wouldn’t have minded backing up, you know. Safe hands. And yet... And yet they got her from London.’

‘And?’ said Buchan, pushing for the subtext behind his tone.

‘It felt like they were getting someone from the big city for the sake of it, regardless of whether or not they were any good. And she’s not.’

‘Have you looked her up to see what she’s got in her resumé that might have attracted them to her?’

‘Decided to leave that until this is all over,’ he said. ‘Didn’t want to be any more pissed off about it than I already am.’

‘How’d it go when you saw her last?’

‘You mean, like four hours ago?’

‘Aye.

‘It didn’t. I mean, I literally saw her. I was in here, and she was walking across the lobby, on her own. Heading in the direction of her office, or heading in the direction of the whisky more like. Don’t know where she’d been.’

‘When was the last time you actually spoke to her?’

He took a moment to think about it, then said, ‘Last night. Didn’t speak today at all. To be honest, I’d kind of had enough of her, and I’d stopped running everything by her by this morning. Her impact on events has been zero.’

Not entirely zero, thought Buchan.

‘She’s gone,’ he said.

Ravenwood glanced at him for the first time in a while.

‘What d’you mean?’

‘Her office has been cleared out. I know there wasn’t much there in the first place, but it looks like she’s left the building.’

He held Buchan’s look for a short time, and then lifted his eyes, head shaking.

‘Why am I not surprised?’ he said. ‘Fuck me. Well, for all the difference she made.’

‘Can you do me a favour?’

His hands went into his pockets now, and he regarded Buchan warily.

‘Not sure,’ he said. ‘There’ve been mutterings about you, overstepping the mark, ‘n all, that kind of thing.’

‘That’ll be because I’ve been attempting to investigate a murder, and there are people here who don’t want to hear the word mentioned. I’ve not been overstepping the mark. I’ve been trying to see through the haze of everyone else’s bullshit.’

Ravenwood laughed, nodding.

‘That sounds about right. There’ve been a lot of people shitting themselves to death at the thought of murder. OK, what would you like me to do?’

‘Just speak to your staff, establish the last time anyone saw Proust, if anyone had any interaction with her today. If you could take the time to check CCTV to see if you have eyes on her leaving the building, a briefcase and a bottle of Scotch under her arm, that would be terrific. Give me a shout if there’s anything concrete.’

Ravenwood nodded as Buchan talked, then he said, ‘Will do. You going to be around the hotel for the foreseeable?’

‘I’ll be here,’ said Buchan. ‘I’ll find you before I head. Thanks.’

‘See what I can do.’

And Buchan left him to it, standing amongst the dregs of the conference as the delegates drifted off into the night at the end of the party.

47

Buchan knocked at the office door.

A moment, and then ‘Just a second!’ came from the other side.

He really wanted to barge in, but managed to stop himself. It would be good if he could get through the rest of the evening without Gilmour turning up, firing from the hip. And there was also the possibility the next interview was going to be the one that led to him arresting Lucas Hannigan for sabotaging his own conference, and he had to be as above board as possible.

He waited. Sounds from inside the office. Hurried conversation, but something about it that didn’t sound stressed. Amused maybe.

Buchan turned his back to the door and looked along the corridor. The office suite on the second floor. Three doors open, a low murmur of conversation coming from one of them, light from the other two. He’d walked past an office with a woman sitting at a desk, staring blankly across the room. An empty stare into nothing. A look of desolate hopelessness, he’d thought. A snapshot of a life, no more than that, and he’d walked on.

‘OK,’ came from the door behind him, and Buchan turned away from the corridor, and entered the office.

Hannigan was sitting at his desk, which showed signs of having been a mess, hurriedly tidied. There was a glass of whisky. To the side of the desk there was a young woman, mid-twenties perhaps, Hispanic, long dark hair, short skirt, maroon blouse, top three buttons undone. She was, possibly, the most attractive woman Buchan had ever seen in his life.

The perks of the being the chairman, he thought.

‘Chief Inspector!’ said Hannigan, enthusiastically. He was high enough, thought Buchan, that he could likely be enthusiastic about absolutely anything at this moment.

‘I haven’t been promoted since the last time we spoke,’ said Buchan, and Hannigan looked a little curiously at him, and didn’t seem to understand what he meant, so decided to ignore it.

‘What’s up?’ he asked.

‘I need to ask you about Miranda Proust,’ said Buchan.

Hannigan gave him an unknowing stare in reply. The woman might as well not have been there. Buchan wasn’t going to make any assumptions about her. She could’ve been prime minster or president of her own country, for all he knew, just as she could’ve been a Glaswegian escort. It didn’t matter. This didn’t involve her at all, though he didn’t care if she got to listen to any of it. If she was a woman of any substance, she would excuse herself. If she was being paid to be here, she would wait.

‘Nope,’ said Hannigan. ‘Mind’s a blank. A little too much...,’ and he nodded at the whisky, smiling apologetically.

‘Your head of security,’ said Buchan.

‘Miranda, of course. Sorry.’ He looked at the girl, shrugging, and she smiled in return.

‘I should go,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry to get in your way, inspector.’

‘No, no, no,’ said Hannigan. ‘He’s just leaving.’

She hesitated, but only out of some sort of respect for Hannigan. She was as good as gone.

‘I’m not just leaving,’ said Buchan. ‘Thank you.’

She nodded at Buchan, got to her feet, blew a kiss towards Hannigan, said, ‘Adiós,’ and left, Hannigan with little other than a rather pathetic look of disappointment at her departure.

The door closed.

‘Thanks a bunch,’ he said.

‘You can find her later,’ said Buchan. ‘You really want to have sex on the desk with someone who looks like that? Take her to bed, for crying out loud.’

Hannigan seemed a little taken aback, then said, ‘Sex advice from the police. Didn’t have that on my bingo card. But I like the way you think. She’s hot, right? Maria. Works for a Spanish NGO in Costa Rica. Something to do with dinosaurs.’ He laughed.

‘We need to talk about Miranda Proust,’ said Buchan, drily, to remove the amusement from the conversation.

‘OK, Miranda.’ He lifted the whisky, and drank about half of it. ‘She’s good. Seems switched on. I mean, maybe she likes the hard stuff a little too much,’ and he made a gesture towards his own glass. ‘But you know the type. There’s something old-fashioned about her. Drinks hard, works hard. She’s run a tight ship.’

‘Someone got murdered,’ said Buchan.

‘We still don’t know that,’ said Hannigan, holding up a pair of defensive hands.

‘Bella Favalli was killed by Laurie Foyle. Someone then killed Laurie Foyle. More than likely, that same person had paid Laurie to kill Bella in the first place.’

Hannigan laughed.

‘Man, that is some story you’re constructing. I suppose the death outside the pub last night fits perfectly into your little movie plot here?’

‘Completely unrelated,’ said Buchan sharply. ‘Laurie Foyle was paid to carry out assassinations and other criminal work, and we’ve learned that Miranda Proust had previously paid Laurie for such work. Consequently, Miranda Proust has become a person of interest in this enquiry.’

‘What? That’s nuts? Why would the head of security...?’

‘We don’t know, that’s why we need to speak to her.’

‘Well, go and speak to her, then. Her office is...,’ and he waved a hand randomly because he obviously couldn’t recall in that moment where her office was. He had not, thought Buchan, had much to do with Miranda Proust. Or, possibly, he knew everything about her, and was covering it up with the high and drunk act.

‘She’s gone.’

‘What?’

‘She’s gone,’ repeated Buchan.

‘I don’t think so. I mean, sure, the official stuff’s all over, but technically we’re not done and dusted until after the breakfast tomorrow. Working breakfast, eight o’clock. I mean, like the final communiqué’s gone out ‘n all, but we’re still aiming to make a breakthrough or two. Miranda’s not done here until like Tuesday or something. She has to see this through. That was her contract. And how do I know this? That’s everyone’s contract.’

‘She’s gone,’ said Buchan. ‘Her office has been cleared.’

Hannigan shrugged.

‘Maybe she moved office.’

‘Is that likely in the middle of a conference?’

‘There’s weirder shit than that, that’s what I always say. Always something stranger out there in the world than the strange thing you’re standing looking at.’

‘Her phone’s dead, her office has been cleaned out. She hasn’t moved, she’s gone.’

Hannigan swallowed, finally lowering his eyes, staring into space, concerned at last.

‘She’s gone,’ he said quietly to himself, as though needing to hear it in his own voice for it to have any validity. ‘Who’s head of security? What’s that fellow’s name?’

‘Ravenwood.’

‘Yeah, yeah, Thom. He’s a good man, it’s fine.’

‘What’s happened to Proust?’

‘The fuck should I know?’ he said, laughing. ‘You’re the one saying she’s left.’

‘Why did you employ her?’

‘What?’

‘Why did you employ her?’

‘She’s, you know... she’s... this kind of event, you know, you need a head of security.’

‘Why her?’

‘You know other people? I mean, what are you getting at?’

‘Where did you get her name? She’s based in London, why go there for your head of security, when there would be plenty of people capable of doing the job in Scotland?’

‘That’s just... I mean... You know, you have to fill positions, and you speak to people, and you do the thing, you know, and everything comes together.’

‘You do the thing? What are you talking about?’

‘This has been monumental, and we’ve pulled it together in what, five months? You get people on board. Have I been involved with every single hiring? Of course not.’

Buchan leant forward, stabbing his fingers into the desk.

‘Head of security, when you have actual heads of state attending, is a pretty damn important single hiring. Who made it if you didn’t?’

‘I did.’

‘She was your choice?’

‘What the fuck, man? I mean, I hired a head of security. What d’you want from me?’

‘How did you find her?’

‘I did my due diligence.’

Buchan straightened up, glowering down at Hannigan. Hannigan lifted the whisky, and drained the glass.

‘Half a minute ago you said you couldn’t be involved in every hiring, as though this wasn’t one you could comment on. Now, apparently, you did your due diligence. Which was it?’

‘Due diligence,’ said Hannigan.

‘That’s good,’ said Buchan, dropping the intensity a little. ‘It seems appropriate for the position of head of security. Now, could you tell me what due diligence you did?’

Hannigan swallowed loudly. There was a raucous shout somewhere down below, out on the street. He looked at the glass, and decided the dregs weren’t worth lifting it for.

‘I’ll need to check the paperwork,’ he said.

Buchan stared harshly at him, letting the silence return. Hannigan wasn’t coping so well with the silence.

‘I’ll need to check the paperwork,’ he repeated.

‘You said.’

‘So,’ said Hannigan, and he gestured randomly, ‘I’ll take a look at that, and get back to you. I can do it now, if you... I can see you’re in a hurry, so I can do it now, and if you’re still at the hotel... I know it’s late, but if you’re still here, I’ll come and find you.’

Buchan held his gaze for a few moments, thinking it through, although his face showed nothing but contempt.

In the silence, his next move, and the obviousness of how this would play out, came to him.

He took a step back. He nodded, he turned away.

‘I’ll leave you to it,’ he said.

He opened the door, he stopped halfway out of the room and said, ‘I’ll be waiting,’ and then was gone, closing the door behind him.

48

He called Ravenwood, as he walked quickly back along the corridor.

‘Buchan,’ he said, cutting off Ravenwood’s greeting. ‘I need you to shut down the lifts. Right now.’

A pause, he heard a slightly muffled, ‘Shut down the lifts,’ then he said, ‘We’re on it. Can I ask...’

‘I’ll be there shortly,’ said Buchan.

Then he walked quickly down the stairs, and headed straight to the main security hub on the lower ground floor.

There were three seats aligned along a triple row of wall-mounted screens, twenty-one in all, showing a variety of rooms, corridors and entry/exit points around the hotel.

There were two security staff sat by the monitors, Thom Ravenwood standing to the side, the three of them waiting for Buchan’s arrival.

‘Is there an issue with the lifts?’ asked Ravenwood.

‘Is there anyone stuck in them?’ asked Buchan.

‘It’s OK, they’re currently clear.’

‘I need to look at the live feed of the main corridor through the office suite on two,’ said Buchan, his eyes running over the screens, a succession of bland, black and white images, the corridors all looking the same.

The older security guard glanced at Ravenwood, who nodded, then she turned back to the monitors, searched a menu, and changed one of the screens on the top row.

‘Screen Three,’ she said, with a small gesture.

They all looked at Screen Three. The corridor was empty.

Buchan had been quick, and he hoped he hadn’t missed him.

‘If someone leaves one of these offices,’ said Buchan, ‘can you line up the screens for all exit points from this corridor, so we can track?’

Again the guard glanced at Ravenwood, and again he nodded, and the guard turned back to the bank of screens and changed a couple to views of the stairwells.

‘With the elevators down,’ she said, ‘the only way off the floor are the stairs at either end.’

‘Who are we looking for?’ asked Ravenwood.

Buchan didn’t immediately answer. He liked the cut of Ravenwood, but there was going to be a limit on how much help he was willing to offer when it came to tracking the movements of the man who was paying his wages.

The door opened to Hannigan’s office on the second floor, and he walked out, straightening the collar of his jacket.

Buchan made a small gesture in Hannigan’s direction.

Ravenwood studied the screen.

The guard glanced once more at Ravenwood. This seemed like an escalation. Ravenwood nodded.

Hannigan stood at the elevator doors and pressed the call button. Nothing happened. He pressed it again, then again, and then jabbed it a couple of times. Then he looked up and around, and headed towards the stairs.

‘You didn’t want him vanishing in the time it took you to get down here,’ said Ravenwood, and Buchan nodded. ‘We could’ve reactivated the lifts once you got in here,’ he added, and Buchan smiled grimly.

‘It’s always good to slow down your opponent when you’re carrying our surveillance.’

‘Bringing up the stairs on two,’ said the guard, and she indicated a screen to the left on the top row.

Once on the stairs, Hannigan, full of ill-gotten adrenaline, climbed quickly, two at a time. They watched him ascend, the camera changing on every flight, the guard making sure they could keep watching the same screen.

‘You have any idea where he’s likely to stop?’ she asked.

‘Money’s on fourteen,’ said Buchan.

‘He’ll never keep that rate all the way up there,’ said Ravenwood, with a small gesture at the screen, and as if he’d heard him, Hannigan abruptly stopped on the seventh floor, bending over, hands on his thighs, gasping for air.

He stood like that for a few moments, and then straightened up, shoulders back, opening out his chest, taking great lungfuls of air. His hand drifted to his chest, and he stood still for a while, letting his breathing and his heart recover.

‘I’ll feel bad shutting down the lift if he dies on the stairs,’ said Buchan darkly, as though he were amongst friends, and Ravenwood laughed.

Hannigan made a gesture to himself to slow down, and then he started walking up the stairs.

‘Still got a way to go,’ said the younger guard.

‘Aye,’ said one of the others, the sound quickly lost.

They watched him climb the second half of the stairs at a third of the pace of the first half. Eventually he reached the fourteenth floor, and the guard pointed to a screen directly in front and just a little above her head and said, ‘He’ll come out on screen ten here.’

The door opened on the main corridor on the fourteenth floor, and Lucas Hannigan stepped out. He took another moment to collect himself, and then he walked quickly along to his right.

Recognising where he was going, Ravenwood smiled darkly and looked at Buchan.

‘What does that tell you?’

Buchan didn’t answer.

Hannigan stopped at a door, composed himself, wiped his nose again, and then knocked.

‘Thanks for your help,’ Buchan said to the room.

‘We’ll reactivate the lifts for you,’ said Ravenwood, and Buchan smiled and nodded, then he was out of the door, and walking along the corridor.

‘Is Ruth with you yet?’ he asked, quickly on the phone to Kane.

‘Yep.’

‘Can you meet me at the lifts?’

‘I’ll be there in thirty seconds,’ said Kane.

They hung up, meeting up shortly afterwards.

49

They knocked, they waited to be invited in, then they were summoned, and they opened the door and entered the large, top-floor office.

Sir John Hannigan was sitting at his desk, while his son was standing at the bank of windows, looking out on the city at night, a glass of whisky already in hand. He glanced over his shoulder at Buchan and Kane, held the look for a short while, then turned away again, the glass moving to his mouth.

They closed the door behind them, then walked into the middle of the room.

It was silent up here, as though the entire room was soundproofed. No sounds from the hotel, certainly nothing from out in the street. A perfect quiet.

Hannigan stared dully at them, over the top of an open MacBook. He held them there in stillness and contempt, then looked back at the screen, pressed a few keys to save what he’d been doing, then logged out and shut down the computer. He closed the lid and pushed the device a little away from him. He leant forward, elbows on the desk, fingers entwined.

‘What d’you want?’

‘We need to talk about Miranda Proust,’ said Buchan.

Another look over his shoulder from Hannigan Junior, he watched them for a few moments, then finally he turned to face them. He took another drink. There was little about him as a man, but Buchan noticed that in the company of his father, he was diminished even more.

Silence settled upon them. Buchan regularly used silence when interviewing, of course, but it depended on the interviewee finally caving in at some point.

Kane was deferring to Buchan, and Hannigan Junior was an irrelevance, albeit one that Buchan intended utilising at some point. This was about Buchan and Sir John Hannigan, and they stared darkly at each other. Two grim men in silence. Hannigan may well have been trying to read Buchan. Buchan was just waiting for him to start talking.

‘Are you going to ask me a question?’ said Hannigan, finally.

‘Tell me about Miranda Proust.’

‘I know who she is, but beyond that, I’m not sure what you want me to tell you.’

‘Did you hire her?’

Hannigan’s brow creased, and even that somehow managed to look condescending.

‘Lucas is in charge, Lucas took care of all the major hires. If you have any questions regarding Ms. Proust, I think I can say Lucas will be happy to answer them.’

‘He can’t.’

‘I’m sure he can.’

‘I’m in the damn room,’ said Hannigan Junior, though there was little conviction in it, and neither man looked at him. He took another drink. However much he’d poured in the first place, it was now nearly finished.

‘Lucas,’ said Buchan, without taking his eyes off the father, ‘can you tell me how you found Miranda Proust? What was it about her that made you hire her?’

‘I told you I’d check it out, and get back to you. That was, what, barely five minutes ago. What d’you want from me?’

‘I want to know how you found Miranda Proust,’ said Buchan. ‘I asked you to find it out, and you came straight to see daddy. Why did you do that, Lucas? Is it because it was daddy who hired Miranda Proust?’

He drained the glass of whisky. He didn’t answer. He looked at his father.

‘My son has run a tight ship here, inspector,’ said Hannigan. ‘I won’t hear otherwise. You can only make hires on the basis of the recommendations of others, and clearly Miranda came highly recommended. I’m not sure why anything more than that is required. I’m not, in fact, entirely clear why you’re interested in Miranda, and why you’re not just speaking to her.’

‘You know she’s gone already,’ said Buchan.

‘Do I?’

‘It would’ve been the first thing Lucas said to you when he walked into your office. But you already knew anyway.’

Hannigan didn’t respond. He was still leaning slightly forward, elbows on the desk, back straight, completely still. His composure and absolute assurance in his own invulnerability reminded Buchan of Jan Baltazar and his kind. The criminal mastermind, all his activities done behind a façade of respectability, a thick wall placed between him and the people on the front line doing his work.

‘The poet was killed by Laurie Foyle,’ said Buchan. ‘Someone then killed Laurie Foyle. That person left DNA behind on the corpse, so we’ll be able to identify them. We’ve now collected DNA from Miranda Proust’s office. If Proust hired Foyle, and then killed her, which is what we believe happened, then suspicion falls on who hired Proust, given she had no great reputation, and apparent alcohol issues. She was hired for a reason, and that included, or was entirely for, the murder of the poet in an attempt to undermine the conference.’

The cold stare from the other side of the desk continued. Buchan, his eyes on Hannigan, was aware of the confused look his son was giving him. He really ought to have got to this point himself much more quickly, but he was drunk, and still a little bit high, and not thinking straight. Plus, the thing that was now staring him in the face didn’t make sense.

‘You might want to ask your father how he found Ms Proust, and why he chose to employ her. As soon as we get these DNA results back, the chances are she’s going to be wanted for murder, and wouldn’t you like to know why she was brought on board as head of security, and what part she played in sabotaging the conference.’

Hannigan Junior wasn’t looking at Buchan, but he’d certainly heard him.

‘Dad?’

‘What?’ snapped Hannigan. He looked harshly at his son.

He stared hopelessly at his dad, swallowing loudly in the silence.

‘Why did you hire Miranda Proust?’ he asked, weakly.

‘You hired her,’ said Hannigan, coldly. ‘Remember? You don’t want the officers to think you’re incapable of even the most basic administrative function. You hired her.’

‘Yes,’ said Lucas, unable to hold the look, and he lowered his eyes for a moment, then allowed himself a quick glance at Buchan.

‘Son,’ said Buchan, ‘you can have this whatever it is with your father, all your like. Hard to tell from here whether he’s trying to gaslight you, or whether you both know fine well that he hired Ms Proust, and he’s making sure the story doesn’t change under the noses of the police. But you, Lucas, you know your dad hired her. Therefore, that makes your dad complicit in the murder of Bella Favalli. And that makes him complicit in the very obvious attempts all weekend to undermine the conference.’

Hannigan finally sat back, gave his son a disdainful glance, not rising to the growing look of confusion and horror on his face, then looked at Buchan.

There was something coming, so Buchan let him chew it over in his head, another silence lingering and then disappearing again.

‘That makes your dad complicit in the murder of Bella Favalli,’ said Hannigan. ‘Very bold for a detective who imagines he’ll still have a career in the morning. If I can give you some words of advice, Detective Inspector Buchan... do not utter that outside of this room.’ He held Buchan’s cold stare for a moment, then leant back into the desk. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, Lucas and I need to talk in private. You’re free to go.’

Buchan stared at him for a few moments, then looked at Hannigan Junior.

‘You told me your dad came on board to help a couple of months ago. Did you invite him, or did he suggest it?’

‘I mean, what...? What d’you want me to say to that?’

‘I don’t want you to answer, I want you to think about it. You never asked for his help, did you? He volunteered it, so he could be on the inside. Because the best place from which to attack, is behind enemy lines. It allowed him to see what you were doing, what you were arranging, the people you were inviting, and he could lay his plans of sabotage well in advance.’

A loud scoff from behind the desk. Hannigan Junior had finally managed to take the look of confusion from his face, and was now regarding his father more warily.

‘Those billionaires you had on the sidelines?’ said Buchan. ‘It was obvious there was someone on the inside, ready to disrupt the announcements. Research had been done, interviews conducted, a campaign to run interference already in hand.’

Hannigan gave the boy a quick glance, a withering look that said Buchan was an idiot. Don’t listen to him.

‘It’s been obvious you’ve had a fifth columnist in your midst, and he’s right there.’

Hannigan Junior lifted his shoulders, his hands parted in question.

‘A fifth what? I don’t even know what that means.’

‘You have a traitor, son, and he’s far closer to home than you thought.’

‘You need to get the fuck out of my office,’ said Hannigan, getting to his feet. ‘Get out. Go home and sleep well, detective, because you are going to be out of a job in the morning. This can be a squalid little country sometimes, but at least there are still some people of quality operating north of the border, and unfortunately for you, I know all of them. Good night.’

‘Listen to him, son,’ said Buchan. ‘A squalid little country. That’s what he thinks of Scotland. That’s what he thinks of you trying to organise this conference. Someone somewhere doesn’t want Scotland to look remotely efficient. And while we usually manage to shoot ourselves in the foot, this time your father, and whoever he represents here, wanted to make sure we got shot in the foot.’

Buchan took a step closer, and now looked at Hannigan Senior, standing up to him from a foot across the other side of the desk.

‘Saving the planet, the politics around this weekend, all the billions of dollars you people talk about, not my remit. Solving murder, however, I can do. In the morning, we’ll have evidence to connect Miranda Proust to the murder of Laurie Foyle, and by extension, the murder of Bella Favalli. We know it was you who brought Miranda Proust on board, and I will spend as long as it takes to make sure we get the evidence to prove it.’

‘You think there’s going to be evidence that I instructed Miranda to have the poet killed?’ He laughed. ‘What evidence d’you think there’s going to be? A handwritten letter? An email? A voicemail? Jesus, you think you’re dealing with an idiot?’

Buchan stared silently across the desk.

Hannigan wasn’t wrong. They were going to have to find Miranda Proust, and if she had the likes of Hannigan behind her, she was going to be hard to find.

‘But you did it,’ said Hannigan Junior. He’d laid the glass on the edge of the desk, and taken a step back. Out of reach, thought Buchan. Scared his dad might lash out at him.

‘Did what?’

‘All this? All this crap? The protests, and the leaks, and the murder of the poet... you had someone killed? You had someone killed? Who even are you?’

Hannigan angrily thumped his closed fist onto the desk, his son jumping another step back.

‘Don’t you listen to him!’ he shouted. ‘Don’t you listen to that fucking...,’ and he stood in front of his son, hand outstretched to the side, pointing at Buchan. ‘Don’t you listen to him, you hear me. This is over. It’s over. You did your best, you tried to make a difference, it hasn’t worked out. You go back to the drawing board, that’s what you do. You don’t look around for people to blame.’ He took a step closer. ‘You don’t blame your own... fucking... father!’

Fury unleashed, the room fell into silence, bar the sound of Hannigan breathing loudly through his nose, trying to bring himself under control. Lucas Hannigan held his ground, jaw tensing, trying to muster the strength to stand up to him.

Finally he took his eyes away from his dad, and looked at Buchan. Another loud swallow in the quiet of the room. And then he lowered his eyes, and quickly walked past Buchan and Kane, out of the office, closing the door behind him.

‘Jesus,’ said Hannigan, as he sat down again. Then he thumped his hand three times quickly on the desk, loud, painful blows, though he did not wince. His head twitched, he cricked his neck, his face briefly contorted as though he’d bitten into a lemon.

He sat still, head down, getting himself under control. Slowly he lifted his eyes, though not his head. The Kubrik stare. Intended to intimidate, thought Buchan, or maybe this was just who he was. Someone who expected to get his way. A man of rage.

‘You two can leave,’ he said, coldly.

‘Who was it?’ asked Buchan. ‘The Westminster government, jealous of Scotland showing any signs of autonomous thought? Some energy conglomerate, making sure no climate initiative went unchallenged? Or did it all come from within, and you just hated the idea that your son might make a difference in the world, when all you’ve ever done is make money off gambling addiction?’

‘Get out,’ he said, darkly. A pause, and then, ‘Just, get out.’

‘We’ll be back in the morning with paperwork,’ said Buchan. ‘We’ll be investigating you, and we’ll have the court’s permission to make a thorough search of your home and you workpl –’

‘Get out!’

Buchan held his look for another moment or two, and then turned away, Kane following behind, and then they were out of the door, and heading along the corridor.

50

‘Wow,’ said Kane, a few moments later, an unusual lightness in her tone, given the force of what had gone before.

Standing in the elevator, heading down.

Buchan glanced at her, aware she wasn’t necessarily referencing how the scene had played out between the Hannigans.

‘Wow?’

‘I mean, I know we have our routine, boss. One of us interviews, while the other stands silently on the side taking it all in, forming an impression.’

‘Yes.’

‘That just felt... you know, it was like a nineteen-forties movie. The big, dramatic final scene, the three chaps having it out, while the glamorous gal stands on the sidelines, wondering what the heck all their high-falutin words mean.’

Buchan laughed out loud, which didn’t often happen, and Kane couldn’t help laughing with him.

The elevator descended. Past ten, nine, down past eight. Buchan said, ‘That’s funny. You could’ve said something anytime you wanted.’

‘Wasn’t in the script,’ she said, and Buchan smiled again, head shaking.

A floor or two later he said, ‘Glamorous gal, eh?’

‘Careful.’

The elevator slowed, and then stopped at level minus one, the doors opening onto a short corridor that led to the offices beneath the lobby.

‘What did you think?’ asked Buchan, as they headed in the direction of Miranda Proust’s office.

‘Oh, he’s guilty,’ said Kane. ‘Written on every line on his face, clear as day in every syllable he spoke. And he’s right, the chances of us finding anything to connect him to Proust are next to zero. But we can try.’

‘We need to find her, and she needs to be promised enough to make her talk.’

‘Hmm,’ said Kane.

They walked into Proust’s office, which at first appeared empty, and then Sgt Meyers stood up from behind the desk, a small pair of tweezers in one hand, a specimen tube in the other.

‘We’re good,’ she said. ‘We have hair, we have fingerprints. We’ll be able to get the DNA, and you’ll know if it was Proust who Laurie Foyle took a chunk out of.’

‘You think you can have it back sharp tomorrow morning?’ asked Buchan, unconsciously checking the time as he did so.

‘I shall make some calls,’ she said. ‘Someone somewhere might be on the lookout for that after what happened with the Foyle tests, but I’ll try to be... discreet.’

‘Anyone stop by?’

‘Nope. No visitors, no calls. Been quite restful actually, if it wasn’t for the fact it’s midnight on a Sunday.’

She smiled.

‘You’ve got what we need,’ said Buchan. ‘You should go.’

‘Another couple of minutes, and I’ll be done.’

‘OK, thanks.’

And Buchan and Kane turned away, walking to the stairs this time, to go up the single floor to the lobby.

‘Just happened again,’ said Kane. ‘I’m standing there, while you get all the lines.’

‘I was talking to a woman!’ said Buchan, and Kane laughed.

THOM RAVENWOOD WAS where Buchan had found him previously, standing in the lobby, watching over the end of the evening. Things had thinned out considerably, and when the door to the Paris-Dakar opened as Buchan and Kane entered from the other side of the lobby, the sound level from inside was much lower.

‘Inspector, sergeant,’ said Ravenwood, nodding at them.

‘I’m not even sure I am a sergeant, anymore,’ said Kane. ‘I think maybe I should go and change into a low-cut dress and a pair of stilettos.’

Buchan couldn’t help the small eye roll, and Ravenwood smiled.

‘Not sure what I missed,’ he said, ‘but I think maybe I’m glad I did.’

‘Nothing doing?’ asked Buchan.

Ravenwood let out a sigh, gesturing lightly towards the door.

‘Things are thinning out pretty fast now,’ he said. ‘There’ll be a few stragglers at the bar, there always are, but for the most part I think we’re done. No more drama to speak of. I don’t have many on duty now, but if it’s OK with you – and really, I’m not sure why I’m checking, because this isn’t your thing...’

‘I appreciate it, nevertheless,’ said Buchan. ‘You’re good.’

‘OK, I’m just going to let everyone go for the evening. I’ll maybe stick around another hour or two, and then call it a night... Did you find what you were looking for?’

‘Yes, thanks,’ said Buchan. ‘Any sign of Lucas Hannigan down here?’

‘Sure. He just walked out through the front door about two minutes ago. Thought he’d be the last to fall over. He was high as a damned kite all weekend.’

‘The event leaves him with a bitter taste in his mouth,’ said Buchan. ‘Couldn’t get away quickly enough.’

The three of them stood staring at the main doors at the front of the lobby, the last place Lucas Hannigan had been seen, then Buchan turned back to Ravenwood, and said, ‘Thanks for your help,’ and Ravenwood said, ‘No problem, inspector. Anything else, just give us a shout.’

‘I’ll speak to you in the morning,’ said Buchan.

They left him, and walked into the centre of the lobby. Two people cut in front of them, looking at a video clip on a phone, one of them a Scottish politician that Buchan had recognised for years, whose name he’d never known.

‘What else d’you want to achieve tonight?’ asked Kane.

Buchan put his hands in his pockets, and looked around the large reception area.

‘We’re done, I think. Nothing else here for us. I’m going into the office to put out the alert for Miranda Proust. I know we don’t have confirmation yet...’

‘Nope, good call,’ said Kane. ‘You want me to do it?’

‘No, it’s OK. Go home, get some sleep. I’d like you to try to grab Lucas as early as possible tomorrow. He’ll sleep on it, and God knows which way his mind’ll go. If we can get him to incriminate his father, it’d be useful.’

‘Why don’t we go and grab him now?’

‘He’s drunk. He’s high. I want him clean, or we can neither trust, nor use anything he says.’

‘Yep,’ said Kane, nodding. ‘I’ll get in here before seven, find him, or grab him as soon as he arrives. What about the dad?’

‘I wasn’t lying to him. We’ll need to get paperwork, and then we can come down on him like a tonne of bricks. Except, we’re going to need the judge on our side.’

‘And we’ll need to see which way the chief rolls,’ said Kane, and Buchan nodded.

‘Hmm.’

He turned away, and looked around the lobby. There was only one journalist left, currently packing up his stuff, and he wondered for the first time in a while how the story of Bella Favalli’s death was playing out. The fact that the journalist had likely noticed Buchan long before Buchan had noticed him probably meant the story had died quickly, the fire successfully extinguished.

‘OK,’ said Buchan, ‘I’m done.’

And together they headed towards the exit.

ROTH WAS LYING IN BED beneath a light sheet, in the half-light of Pacific Quay. Buchan stood and looked down at her for a few moments, and then walked through to the bathroom, took a pee, washed his face, cleaned his teeth, then removed his clothes and placed them in a half-neat pile on the floor, then walked back into the bedroom and climbed into bed.

Roth stirred a little beside him, and he winced at disturbing her, and as he lay down, she reached over and placed her hand across his stomach.

‘You’re naked,’ she said, sleepily.

‘Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.’

‘That’s OK,’ she said. And then, ‘You ahead of the curve?’

‘We know why the poet died. We know who killed her. We know why her killer died. We know who killed her as well. So there’s that.’

She was dozing already, and he wasn’t sure if she’d heard. Then she said, ‘Job done,’ and Buchan smiled to himself.

He could tell her the full story in the morning.

He affectionately touched her hair, and then lay back, hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling.

51

‘Sit down, please,’ said Gilmour. ‘I hate it when you stand at the window. Keep thinking you’re going to throw yourself into the river to avoid some awkward question or other.’

Buchan glanced between her and the window. There’s a street down there, and ten yards of river bank, he thought. Who does she think I am?

He pulled the seat away from the desk and sat down, watching her as she reread the report he’d sent fifteen minutes previously on the current status of the investigation.

Late Monday afternoon, and he’d avoided her all day. He’d barely been into the office. She’d called him once, and he’d ignored it. That she hadn’t tried again, made him think she was no more wanting the conversation than he was.

‘God, this is a bloody... clusterfuck.’

She was leaning on the desk, elbow on the table.

‘OK, OK,’ she said. ‘This is all... it’s all circumstantial at this stage, yes?’

‘Yes,’ said Buchan. He wasn’t going to argue otherwise.

They had the DNA tests back that confirmed Miranda Proust had been in close contact with Laurie Foyle. Added to the fact they knew Foyle had worked for Proust in the past, it quite clearly pointed to Proust hiring Foyle to murder Favalli, followed a few hours later, by Proust murdering Foyle to close the loop. They had no witnesses, they had no video evidence of the crime being committed, but in Buchan and his team’s opinion they already had enough to take to the procurator fiscal, and once they had the warrant to search all of Proust and Foyle’s communications, he was quite sure the case would become even more watertight.

The trouble for them, and for Miranda Proust, was that the loop hadn’t been closed with the murder of Laurie Foyle.

Buchan had received the call from DI Idlewild an hour earlier. Two-fifty-three on a cool July Monday afternoon, the abrasive, sapping heat of the weekend washed and blown away. The Met had tracked down Miranda Proust. Dead in a bed in a cheap hotel in Hackney, surrounded by empty bottles of alcohol. Too early to say whether there’d been any pills involved. Dead, that was all, with the set-up intended to leave the viewer in no doubt that alcohol had been the principal invited guest to Proust’s demise.

Neither Idlewild nor Buchan thought for a second Miranda Proust would have drunk herself to death. Not intentionally, not accidentally.

They knew they would get access to all Laurie Foyle’s communications, and all of Miranda Proust’s. Those weren’t the issue. What they needed now was to find out who’d engaged Proust in the first place. And they knew that information wouldn’t be there to be discovered. Miranda Proust might not have kept her tracks completely hidden, but whoever had hired her for this weekend would have made sure that keeping the secret wasn’t up to her.

Finally Gilmour sat back, fingers tapping lightly on the desk, and looked at Buchan.

‘Tell me what you think,’ she said.

‘What I think?’

‘What are you thinking that you didn’t put in here.’

‘Seems obvious.’

‘Say it out loud. I’m not recording you.’

Buchan took a moment to assess her position, and where she might be coming from. Nevertheless, he didn’t think this was a trap. Possibly she was just looking for an honest conversation, after a weekend when they’d been at such odds with each other.

‘Lucas Hannigan has an idea. Not a terrible one, though perhaps a bit of a longshot. He uses his connections, he pitches his idea around, he starts to get buy-in. Crucially, he gets buy-in from the Scottish government. They get behind him. Momentum builds, the conference is set up, they’re able to bring money to the table. It starts to grow. Suddenly there’s real money there, and when there’s money, they start to get politicians. Now world leaders are coming to this event. Westminster is not in the loop. This is something the Scottish government are doing for themselves. Dining at the grown-ups’ table. Someone somewhere decides they don’t want Scotland dining with the grown-ups. Maybe it’s London, thinking, if they show they can pull this off, then momentum for independence starts to grow.

‘But, who knows? Maybe it’s Big Oil, for all the conference claims to not actually be against Big Oil. Maybe it’s MAGA, maybe it’s the UN thinking they’re being usurped, maybe it’s all sorts of people. Could be a coalition of the jealous and the threatened. They need an insider. They recruit Sir John Hannigan. Junior can’t say no to his dad, and brings him on board. The dad, I suspect, gaslit his kid into thinking he was incapable of organising this thing on his own.

‘Now the coalition have an insider. They know what’s coming, so they can put plans in place. And one of those plans is the murder of the poet. Might be that Laurie Foyle was recruited to do some more killing, but it also sounds like she had a conscience. She tells Proust she wants out, Proust removes her from the game. Later, someone removes Proust from the game. Following the murder, and the revelations, both criminal and salacious, about many of the parties involved, the conference turns into a damp squib. At least that’s the intent. Too early to say how it plays out in the long run. Meanwhile, we’re left with suspicions and doubts which we will quite possibly never get answers to. And the higher up our organisation we go, looking for back-up, the harder it will be for them, and the more intense the infighting. Which master do they serve? Once again, Scotland’s left looking like it can’t organise the proverbial piss-up. Maybe we can’t. There’s plenty of evidence. But like many a thing, back into the depths of history, there were people making sure it failed. And this is where we are.’

‘There were a lot of maybes in there,’ said Gilmour.

‘There’s a lot we don’t know. Nevertheless, the basic set-up of what happened here is clear. But in order to get to the heart of the darkness, we’re going to need buy-in from senior officers in our force, and even then, I doubt that’ll be enough. This feels like...’ He hesitated because he knew he was going to sound melodramatic, and she held his look, demanding he say it anyway. ‘We had that thing here last year with Baltazar. It was big, and it involved God knows how many people, and who knows how many from within our own organisation, including, obviously, the boss. We did our jobs, but it felt at times intimidating. We were a small cog, working against the machine. But we had our place, and we kept going, and we got there. Took a few months, but we got some sort of resolution, even if at the end of it Baltazar walked away and got on a plane.

‘This, though? We’re not a cog. We’re whatever the hell’s smaller than a cog. We’re the, what d’you call them, the ridge on a cog, and it’s the smallest damned cog in the machine. This feels like it was a battle played on the global stage, and we’re left clearing up this tiny little piece of it here in the corner. And yes, we have our jobs to do, and we need to make sure they’re done properly. But I doubt we’re ever going to know why any of this happened. We have two murders on our patch, and I’m ninety-nine percent certain we know who did them both. And now both those killers are dead. On the face of it, looks like an easy win.’

‘But hard not to think we’ve been toyed with,’ said Gilmour, nodding, staring at the desk.

‘I’m not even sure we’ve been toyed with. We’re an irrelevance. Perhaps they haven’t been able to squish us like a bug, but they’ve tolerated us, and little more than that.’

She glanced at him, then looked away again, out at the grey afternoon.

Glasgow in July. Fifteen degrees and cloudy. The world had gone home, and everything was back to normal.

‘Maybe we’ll be able to make a case against Sir John,’ she said, something wistful in her voice.

‘The name says it all,’ said Buchan. ‘Sir John. He’s the establishment, and the establishment will close ranks. And perhaps there’s a different level of establishment up here, but they’ve just had their arses whipped, and they’ll know it. There’s nothing they can do. Nothing we can do. We will huff and puff, and I’m going to try, but...’

He was boring himself. All they could do was as good a job as they could, and hope the brick wall they came up against wasn’t as high as they expected it to be.

She gave him another glance, and then rose from her seat, and walked to the window. He waited for some words of wisdom, or defeat, or acceptance, but she stood in silence, at his position, looking down on the river. A street, and ten yards of riverbank away.

He rose, and went and stood beside her. They were done here, however this was going to play out.

‘What’s that effect called?’ she said. ‘The one where, if you jump off something, the fall takes you away from the building, or the cliff face?’

‘I didn’t know that was a thing.’

Silence.

‘Maybe it’s only if you’re wearing a flying squirrel suit,’ she said.

He glanced at her, then looked back out on the river.

He got the sense of her own feelings of inadequacy. She was in no more of a position to do anything than Buchan, and she possibly felt even more emasculated by it than he did.

‘You couldn’t jump in the river from here,’ she said after a while.

‘I REMEMBER THAT LOOK from when he blamed mum for him having an affair.’

Buchan was sitting in Lucas Hannigan’s office at the Grand Europa.

The party was over, all the guests had gone home, some of them had had nice things to say, but all those things had been coloured by a hint of sympathy. He’d tried, it hadn’t really worked out.

‘It’s not my fault I’m a deceitful bastard, you made me be a deceitful bastard,’ he continued.

‘Why did you bring him on board?’ asked Buchan.

Hannigan shook his head, though the gesture was aimed at himself. He was sober at least. Clean for a day. Or an afternoon. Buchan doubted it would last.

‘He persuaded me it wasn’t going to work without him. I needed his input, his connections. He could make things happen, and get people into the room that I didn’t even know existed.’ He made a throwaway gesture to indicate the endless false promises.

‘And did he?’ asked Buchan.

Hannigan laughed lightly. He’s a lot more likeable sober and deflated, thought Buchan.

‘Sure. I definitely didn’t know they existed.’ He laughed again. ‘God knows how many people he put in rooms to throw spanners in the works.’

He shook his head, his gaze hopelessly away to the side, staring into the far-off oblivion. Then he brought himself back, folded his arms, and stared across the desk at Buchan.

‘So much for making something of myself,’ he said.

‘It wasn’t about you,’ Buchan couldn’t stop himself saying. ‘You were saving the earth.’

‘So much for saving the earth,’ he said, without skipping a beat.

‘Have you spoken to him today?’

He shook his head.

‘Didn’t want to. What’s the point. And...,’ and he sighed, and once again let his eyes drift away to the side, ‘it’s not like I need confirmation of how much he detests me. It’s all there, laid out before us. Getting people murdered, for Christ’s sake. Jesus, who even is he?’

‘He’s not interested in anyone who isn’t part of his, whatever, his cabal of rich entitlement. Maybe it’s worse for you as his son, but he doesn’t detest you. You’re just someone to be dealt with, that’s all.’

‘He doesn’t care enough to even dislike me,’ said Hannigan nodding. ‘Nice. Ha. Makes me feel a whole lot better.’

‘His PA told me he’d left the country,’ said Buchan.

‘Really? Well, I’m shocked.’

‘You any idea where he’ll have gone?’

Hannigan stared at the floor, eyes slightly wider than before, lost for a few moments.

‘Like all of his sort, he likes Switzerland. What am I saying? I fucking love Switzerland. Anyway, he goes there a lot. Got a regular hotel in St Moritz. But then, more likely he’ll have gone to the Caribbean. He has a place on St Kitts. You might find him there.’ A pause, and then he added, ‘And Florida. Never understood that, but he’s got some condo in a development in Boca Rotan. And, of course, he’s loaded, so he can go anywhere he damn well pleases. Mind you, he likes Scotland. Likes it here. He won’t put himself in exile. He’ll just be taking himself off the playing field, while the whole thing calms down.’ He was nodding by the time he’d finished. ‘Yes, he’ll be back. You can wait him out. If you’re allowed to. But good luck getting him extradited, wherever he’s gone.’

No one thought that was going to happen.

Hannigan glanced at Buchan, then rubbed his hands vigorously across his face, before turning and looking out of the window.

Buchan watched him for a while, and then followed his gaze.

The tops of buildings across the street, not so much of Glasgow, and then an endless grey sky, stretching to the far beyond.

52

‘What d’you think?’ asked Roth.

They were at the Winter Moon, first time in a while.

Everything was as it was. Sinatra was singing I Get Along Without You Very Well. Janey was behind the bar, while the latest young recruit to the staff had handed in her notice the previous week. Roth was sitting at the counter, in between Buchan and Duncan the Pakistani priest. Herschel and the other guy were in position, talking about the weather. Leanne the Butcher’s wife was in the corner, reading Grand Hotel Europa by Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer.

‘Apparent Horizon 35?’ asked Duncan, tapping his pencil on the counter, as he studied a killer sudoku puzzle.

‘Hmm,’ said Roth.

‘Nope,’ said Duncan. ‘You’ve got to admire the effort, but it won’t work.’

‘How come?’

‘People.’

Duncan glanced at her and smiled.

‘That’s just the way it is,’ he said, and Roth nodded.

‘Guess so,’ she said.

‘I think you’d need a supergroup,’ said Janey, unexpectedly joining the conversation. ‘Like the Traveling Wilburys.’

Roth laughed, and held up her glass of wine in question.

‘When you get the little guy trying to bring in the big guy, the big guy doesn’t have much buy-in. They’re really not going to care. So what you need is the supergroup. You need the big dogs at the top, setting the whole thing up. You need Musk, Gates, Bezos and Zuckerberg forming a supergroup of planet-saving heroes. And to cut down on the in-fighting and the squabbling, even before they make their announcement, they need to divvy up the, you know, who’s going to be who. Who’s going to perform the Mangrove Miracle? Who’s going to be the Wetlands Warrior? And then they all put on their superhero outfits, and get to work.’

Buchan smiled to himself, as he took a sip of Monkey 47. He was done for the day, and didn’t feel like talking. In fact, in suggesting they came here for a drink, he was aware he was outsourcing conversation with Roth to the others. He could’ve suggested she went out without him, but she likely wouldn’t have gone. So here they were, and Buchan was tired and wondering how much longer he wanted to work for the police, and quite happy to sit in silence listening to the others put the world to rights.

‘Won’t work,’ said Duncan.

‘People?’ said Janey.

‘Exactly. The Lord said, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. There’s literally nothing stopping the rich from doing this kind of thing, except... they don’t want to. Why save all the fishes in the sea, when there’s money to be made?’

Janey let out a sigh, nodding along with him.

‘Suppose you’re right,’ she said.

She looked around, made a decision, then reached behind, took the Monkey 47 from the freezer, got herself a small glass, and poured a shot. Then she offered the bottle to Buchan, and he pushed his unfinished glass towards her with a nod, and she added another shot.

He lifted his glass, and then held it there, looking at the others.

‘Here’s to the end of the world,’ he said.

Roth clinked his glass, with a rueful, ‘Hear, hear,’ and Janey nodded, and Duncan said, ‘And I feel fine,’ and Roth nodded, and said, ‘Nice.’

The music played on, and soon enough Sinatra was singing I’m A Fool To Want You, and on into the night.

By Douglas Lindsay

DI BUCHAN

Buchan

Painted In Blood

The Lonely And The Dead

A Long Day’s Journey Into Death

We Were Not Innocent

The Last Great Detective

I Wanted To Murder For My Own Satisfaction

All The Dead Poets

THE VIKSTRÖM PAPERS

Restoration Man

Jacob’s Point

Shadow Tide

Leviathan

DS HUTTON

The Unburied Dead

A Plague Of Crows

The Blood That Stains Your Hands

See That My Grave Is Kept Clean

In My Time Of Dying

Implements Of The Model Maker

Let Me Die In My Footsteps

Blood In My Eyes

The Deer’s Cry

A Winter Night

I Am Multitudes

BARNEY THOMSON

The Long Midnight of Barney Thomson

The Cutting Edge of Barney Thomson

A Prayer For Barney Thomson

The King Was In His Counting House

The Last Fish Supper

The Haunting of Barney Thomson

The Final Cut

Aye, Barney

Curse Of The Clown

OTHER BARNEY THOMSON

The Face of Death

The End of Days

Barney Thomson: Zombie Slayer

The Curse of Barney Thomson & Other Stories

Scenes From The Barbershop Floor Vol 1

Scenes From The Barbershop Floor Vol 2

DCI JERICHO

We Are The Hanged Man

We Are Death

We Are The Fool

DI WESTPHALL

Song of the Dead

Boy In the Well

The Art of Dying

PEREIRA & BAIN

Cold Cuts

The Judas Flower

STAND ALONE NOVELS

Lost in Juarez

Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite!

A Room With No Natural Light

Ballad In Blue

These Are The Stories We Tell

Alice On The Shore

The Arlington Revenant

Song To The Moon

OTHER

Santa’s Christmas Eve Blues

Cold September