In reply, the two officers displayed their warrant cards. ‘Oh,’ the woman exclaimed. ‘You’ve got somewhere at last, have you? Just wait here.’
She left her post and turned into a corridor behind her. Within a minute she returned. ‘Gloria’s available,’ she said, pointing behind her. ‘Along there, second door on the right.’
They followed her finger, to find the door ajar; they stepped into a square surgery, with a frosted-glass window behind a desk and an examination bench against the wall on the left. Gloria Mackail stood beside it, in uniform, eyeing them with a frown on her face.
‘Gentlemen,’ she began, ‘this is a surprise. I honestly thought the police had given up on me.’
‘Oh no, Sister Mackail,’ Pye replied. ‘We never give up.’
‘Does that mean you’ve caught him?’
The DCI felt his eyebrows rise. ‘Pardon?’ he exclaimed. ‘Caught who?’
‘Caught the man who knocked down Hector, of course!’ she snapped, then paused. ‘Are you telling me you don’t know that my husband was the victim of a hit-and-run? That you don’t know he’s dead?’
I’ll fucking kill Dickson, Pye thought.
I’ll fucking kill Dickson, Haddock thought.
‘I’m sorry, madam,’ the senior detective replied, deadpan. ‘We’re involved in another investigation altogether. I’m the senior CID officer in Edinburgh, not East Lothian, but of course, if you wish, I’ll make it my business to find out about the inquiry into your husband’s death.’
‘I’d be grateful if you would,’ she said stiffly. ‘Nonetheless, I’d have expected you to know about it before you turned up here.’
‘I can only apologise.’
‘No matter. What is this other investigation?’
‘In the circumstances,’ Pye said, waiting for the ground to open beneath him, and half hoping that it would, ‘we’ll be quite happy to postpone this.’
Gloria Mackail shook her head. ‘That won’t make it go away. You’re here, so out with it.’
‘To be honest, I’m not sure whether you can help us. It relates to your husband’s former business, and to a claim against it by a woman named Grete Regal, a graphic designer who did some work for the company, then missed out on payment when it went into liquidation. You may not even be aware of it.’
‘Oh yes,’ the woman declared, bristling in her blue uniform, ‘I’m only too well aware of it. Ms Regal was late with her invoice, or rather her bloody aunt was. By the time it was received by the liquidator of the business, he had already closed his list of creditors and they had all agreed a payment schedule, to be met from the sale of the company’s assets. They were all going to get around fifteen pence in the pound, that’s all.’
She fell silent, sniffed, and for a few moments the detectives thought she might break down. ‘It wasn’t Hector’s fault,’ she murmured. ‘He was let down too, as badly as everyone else was. Those bloody bankers,’ she hissed, bitterly. ‘That bloody company. That bloody man.’
Composing herself, she carried on. ‘Anyway, Grete Regal didn’t take it lying down . . . or rather, her harridan of an aunt didn’t.’
‘What did the aunt have to do with it?’ Haddock asked.
‘She manages her business. Grete Regal couldn’t run a raffle; she’s a brilliant designer, but as a businesswoman she’s all over the place. Her work is excellent, her costs aren’t excessive and she never missed a deadline for Hector, but if she didn’t have the Rainey woman behind her she’d be lost. Grete’s a lovely girl; Ingrid Rainey is not. Have you met her?’
Pye nodded. ‘Yes, but I can’t comment on that.’
‘I suppose not. But I will tell you that the woman pursued Hector through the civil courts, on the advice of a lawyer who should be ashamed of himself. The bloody sheriff found in their favour of course, with costs. He found that Hector had acted irresponsibly in commissioning the design work when he should have known that the business wasn’t viable any longer. He even banned him from acting as a director. It wasn’t fair; he had this idea that rebranding would help him turn the corner. If his biggest customer had paid him, and the bloody bank had given him another few weeks, that would have seen him all right.’
She paused, to dab at her eyes with a tissue. ‘It would have meant our house going on the market,’ she continued, ‘not the one in Gilmerton, that was long gone; no, the house here, although we didn’t have nearly enough equity in it to meet the claim. Our car too; Ingrid Rainey would have taken