‘Then why climb?’
‘He hadn’t wanted to climb that building. Pointless, he said, but the programme’s ratings were plummeting and Tricia, she was desperate to hang on to her job. Her job was on the line, and he did it as a favour for her.’
‘Does she know this?’
‘Maybe, maybe not. You’d have to ask her.’
‘Tricia told us there was a plan afoot to get rid of one of the programme’s hosts, to run with just the one. If he had succeeded in bringing the focus onto him, he would have taken the job, not her.’
‘Or if the ratings improved, they would have kept the two.’
‘And now, the ratings will be through the roof, and there’s no contest as to who is to be the host. A motive?’ Isaac conjectured.
‘Angus intended to leave next year anyway, bigger fish to fry.’
‘Another programme?’
‘A few more mountains to climb, a book to write, politics if he could get an endorsement. He only did it for Tricia, no one else.’
‘Does Tricia know this?’
‘It’s unlikely. Too dumb to figure it out.’
‘Then why do it?’
‘That’s Angus, loyal to those he respects, those he trusts.’
‘Misplaced?’
‘No. Angus could see goodness in her. I couldn’t, but then, he was a better judge of character than I am.’
‘We judge you to be decent,’ Wendy said. ‘Are we wrong, as dumb as Tricia?’
‘Another five or six years, when the surgeons can’t maintain my figure or my face, then Maddox Timberley will fade away. And as I wither, possibly write a racy book on life in the fast lane, men I’ve known, kinks and all.’
‘Married to Angus?’
‘We had talked about it, but not with him.’
‘Why?’ Isaac asked.
‘I want children, and with Angus, that wasn’t possible. He didn’t want to be responsible for bringing a child into the world. He felt that the world was in turmoil, and the future was bleak. Not that he was morbid about it, saw himself as a realist. Even if I could have talked him around, it wasn’t my right to do.’
***
At the murder scene, the usual traffic flow had resumed, the only signs the crime scene tape, a couple of uniforms and no parking down the side of the street where Simmons had fallen.
Gordon Windsor’s report showed where Angus Simmons had lost his grip, the chalk marks with his fingerprints visible, smudged when the bullet had struck. And as one of those who had ascended the building commented afterwards, apart from the spectacle of someone climbing free, it was not as dangerous as it looked.
Two days had passed since the incident. Two days of conjecture, discussion, meetings with Maddox and Tricia and the production crew, attending the autopsy, ensuring the next of kin were informed: a mother in Scotland, a father in London, neither of whom had been surprised at their son’s death.
‘He was always going to die young,’ Angus’s mother said. ‘As a child, climbing a tree or scurrying around. Even in the middle of winter, swimming in the loch, getting a cold, the flu, pneumonia once. We nearly lost him that time.’
‘How old was he?’ Wendy asked the woman on Zoom, a video call without the need to travel.
‘Pneumonia, ten years of age.’
Thankfully, Wendy hadn’t had to inform the woman of her son’s death; a police inspector, close to where she lived, had been assigned the job. The mother, an avid reader with no interest in television and only a small radio in her cottage, hadn’t received the news from the media.
She had taken it well, stoically, according to DI Cameron.
And now, on the video conference, Angus’s mother sat upright, looked straight into her iPhone. She spoke with a Scottish accent.
‘When was the last time you saw him?’ Wendy asked.
‘Three months ago. He was up here for a week, his usual self.’
‘Swimming in the loch?’
‘Every day. Angus never failed to challenge himself, always one accident or another. It was always a broken leg, a broken arm, a twisted ankle, and then he fell while climbing once, an outcrop not far from here. He fell twenty feet, landed in a swampy marsh, in hospital for a couple of weeks.’
‘Schooling?’
‘He never had much time for it, not that he was dumb, far from it, but it bored him. He was a difficult child, unlike me, unlike his father.’
‘His father?’
‘A decent man, more suited to the city than me. We met at university, lived together for a few years, and then when Angus was on the way, we got married, did the right thing by the child, attempted to make a go of a flagging relationship, more for Angus than us. I took Angus, went back to the house I had grown up in as a child, and we lived there. I still do, even after Angus took off.’
‘Took off? Were you in agreement?’
‘Angus had things to do. I was exceptionally proud of what he achieved, but he was a star that shone too bright. His death, tragic as it is, was not unexpected.’
‘He didn’t fall of his own accord,’ Wendy said.
‘Angus upsets people.’
‘How and why?’
‘I don’t mean maliciously, but he created envy and jealously. People were intimidated by his optimism, his willingness to tackle challenges that others deemed impossible. People lost face because of him, and Mike Hampton ended up blaming him for what happened in South America.’
‘I’ve heard of the name,’ Wendy said.
‘Not that I give it much credence, but Hampton hated Angus because of what had happened.’
‘Enough for Hampton to take revenge?’
‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘When was this?’
‘I suggest you talk to Mike Hampton. I only know Angus’s version, even
