lovers. That’s an old story.”
“Or?” prompted Isabel.
“Or Minty was genuinely concerned about Paul Hogg’s department getting into the mire and wanted to give it a boost because Paul Hogg was part of her overall plan to penetrate the heart of the Edinburgh establishment. It was not in her interests as the future Mrs. Paul Hogg to have hitched her star to a has-been.”
Isabel mulled over what she had been told. “So what you’re telling me, then, is that there may well have been insider trading, but that we’re never going to be able to prove it? Is that it?”
Johnny nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That’s about it. You could try to take a closer look at Minty’s financial situation and see if there are any unexplained windfalls, but I don’t see how you’ll get that information. She’ll bank at Adam & Company, I suspect, and they are very discreet and you’d never get round any of their staff—they’re very correct. So what do you do?”
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A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h
“Shrug the whole thing off ?”
Johnny sighed. “I suspect that’s all we can do. I don’t like it, but I don’t think that we’ll be able to do anything more.”
Isabel lifted her glass and took a sip of her whisky. She had not wanted to mention her real suspicions to Johnny, but she felt grateful to him for the enquiries that he had made and she wanted to confide in somebody other than Jamie. If Johnny thought that her theory about what had happened in the Usher Hall was far-fetched, then perhaps she should abandon it.
She put her glass down on the table. “Would you mind if I tell you something?” she asked.
Johnny gestured airily. “Anything you wish. I know how to be discreet.”
“A little while ago,” said Isabel, “a young man fell to his death from the gods in the Usher Hall. You probably read about it.”
Johnny thought for a moment before he replied. “I think I remember something like that. Horrible.”
“Yes,” Isabel went on. “It was very distressing. I happened to be there at the time—not that that’s relevant— but what is interesting is that he worked at McDowell’s. He would have gone there after you had left, but he was in Paul Hogg’s department.”
Johnny had raised his glass to his lips and was watching Isabel over the rim. “I see.”
He’s not interested, thought Isabel. “I became involved,” she went on. “I happened to be told by somebody who knew him well that he had discovered something very awkward for somebody in the firm.” She paused. Johnny was looking away, watching Charlie Maclean.
“And so he was pushed over that balcony,” she said quietly.
“Pushed.”
Johnny turned round to face her. She could not make out his T H E S U N D A Y P H I L O S O P H Y C L U B
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expression; he was interested now but the interest was tinged with incredulity, she thought.
“Very unlikely,” he said after a while. “People don’t do that sort of thing. They just don’t.”
Isabel sighed. “I believe that they might,” she said. “And that’s why I wanted to find out about Minty and this insider trading. It could all add up.”
Johnny shook his head. “No,” he said. “I think that you should let go of it. I really don’t think this is going to get you anywhere.”
“I’ll think about it. But I’m very grateful to you, anyway.”
Johnny acknowledged her thanks with a lowering of his eyes.
“And if you want to get in touch with me, here’s my mobile number. Give me a call anytime. I’m up and about until midnight every day.”
He handed her a card on which a number had been scrawled, and Isabel tucked it into her bag.
“Let’s go and hear what Charlie Maclean has to say,” said Johnny, rising to his feet.
“Wet straw,” said Charlie at the other end of the room, putting his nose into the mouth of the glass. “Smell this dram, everyone.
Wet straw, which means a Borders distillery in my book. Wet straw.”
C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - T W O
E
OF COURSE JOHNNY was right, Isabel thought—and she had decided accordingly by the following morning. That was the end of it; she would never be able to prove insider trading by Minty Auchterlonie, and even if she did, it would still be necessary to link this with Mark’s death. Johnny knew these people much better than she did, and he had been incredulous of her theory. She should accept that, and let the whole matter rest.
She had reached this conclusion sometime during the night of the whisky tasting, when she had woken up, stared at the shadows on the ceiling for a few minutes, and finally made her decision. Sleep followed shortly afterwards, and the next morning—a brilliant morning on the cusp of spring and summer—she felt an extraordinary freedom, as one does at the end of an examination, when the pen and pencil are put away and nothing more remains to be done. Her time was her own now; she could devote herself to the review and to the pile of books that was stacked invitingly in her study; she could treat herself to morning coffee in Jenners, and watch the well-heeled Edinburgh ladies engage in their gossip, a world which she might so easily have slipped into and which she had avoided by a deliberate act of self-determining T H E S U N D A Y P H I L O S O P H Y C L U B
