Aileen put a hand on his. ‘Can I stop you there, just for a moment? The way I understand it, again from Alex, because I promise I haven’t been checking up on you, there was someone in Sarah’s student life too, someone she was in love with. For whatever reason, they broke up, and then, years later, they met up again in America, and she found that maybe she still was. But then he died.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘that pretty much sums it up. But through it all, I showed her no understanding, I showed her no compassion. I wouldn’t even let her go to his funeral. Do you see what I’m saying now?’
‘I understand it, but I don’t agree with your self-analysis. If you really want to know, I’d say that there was a lack of compassion on both sides. Maybe the two of you shouldn’t have married, but that’s not how you saw it at the time, and you’ve got three fine kids to show that there was some purpose to it.’ She drew his eyes to hers once more. ‘Now, do you feel better for getting all that off your chest, DCC Skinner?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘In that case, will you please promise that you’ll stop beating yourself over the head with it?’
He grinned, reproved. ‘I’ll do my best. But you do see what a lousy risk I am, don’t you?’
Aileen’s expression grew serious. ‘Why do you love me?’ she asked. ‘I warn you, though, if you say it’s because I remind you of Myra, I’ll knock you backwards out of that chair, big and all as you are.’
‘I believe you. It won’t stop me saying, though, that there’s a facial resemblance, in profile, no more. But that’s not the answer. I love you because you’re different, you’re special, beautiful, all that stuff. And there’s more: I love what’s on the inside, your goodness, your commitment, your courage. And here’s the clincher: every time I’ve been with a woman since Myra died, she’s been there with us. But not with you: when we’re together we’re unaccompanied. There’s nobody else in the room, or in the bed. You haven’t made me forget her, but with you, I’m finally able to put her behind me, and get on with the rest of my life. How’s that?’
‘It’s what I wanted to hear.’
‘I don’t scare you?’
She showed him a mock frown. ‘I don’t scare; when I have to I scare other people. And that’s just one of the many qualities that you and I have in common. You do know we could take over the world if we wanted, don’t you?’
‘Yeah. Just as well we’re happy with what we’ve got. You are happy, aren’t you?’ he asked her earnestly. ‘This isn’t just an interlude, is it?’
‘No, my big awkward love, it’s for keeps, I promise. You may think you’re hard to handle, but you’re in the process of learning otherwise.’
‘In that case,’ he murmured, ‘let’s ask John for la cuenta and get out of here. It may be time for my next lesson. Going back to something I said earlier, suddenly I’m feeling tremendously courageous.’
Ten
‘What have we got?’ asked Becky Stallings, as she draped her light jacket over the back of a chair in the mobile police station. The clock showed twenty-five minutes after eight a.m., but even that early in the day the confined space was stuffy, with the promise of more to come as the temperature neared the forecast high seventies. ‘Has the team finished calling the members?’
‘They’ve gone as far as they can go,’ McGurk told her. ‘Just under twenty per cent of them were no-response, as you would expect at this time of year. In a couple of weeks it would have been nearer fifty per cent.’
‘I thought this was the Edinburgh holiday fortnight.’
‘Yes, it’s the Trades, but that’s mostly manual workers; builders and the like. The professionals tend to take theirs later; as you’ll have noticed, this isn’t exactly an artisan golf club.’
‘If Lord Archibald’s typical, I see what you mean.’
‘Hey,’ McGurk exclaimed, ‘don’t let his title fool you. He doesn’t come from one of the legal families; he came up the hard way. My old boss, Dan Pringle, told me that in his first year as an advocate, when he was making his name and had little or no money coming in, he wasn’t too proud to do the odd shift behind the other sort of bar.’
‘They should make that compulsory for judges . . . at least for some of the English ones I’ve appeared before. They have no idea about the lives of ordinary people.’ She drew a breath. ‘I don’t suppose the call-round turned up anything?’
‘Surprise, it did. There’s a group of four retired members who play a couple of times a week, in the afternoon, when it tends to be quiet. Three of them said that they’d seen a dark-haired woman using that path.’
‘Regularly?’
‘More than once, anyway. One of them told the officer who interviewed him that she annoyed them by not standing still while they were playing.’
‘Do you reckon that’s grounds for murder?’
‘I’ve known flimsier,’ Haddock muttered, in the corner.
‘When they saw her, in what direction was she heading?’
‘Always south; that’s from the green to the tee,’ said McGurk.
‘The green’s where the flag is?’
‘I see you’re learning the game, ma’am.’
Stallings laughed lightly. ‘I’ll leave it to you boys.’
‘Don’t count me among them,’ the sergeant advised her. ‘I’m too tall. They don’t make clubs for people who are six feet eight.’
She turned to Haddock. ‘How about you, Sauce?’
The young DC nodded. ‘I play at Newbattle.’
‘Are you any good?’
‘Mmm,’ he mumbled.
‘What does that mean?’ said McGurk. ‘What’s your handicap? Twenty-eight?’
‘Actually, it’s two, Sarge. By the way, it wouldn’t be difficult to get clubs to suit your size. I’m sure if you asked the pro here he’d fix you up.’
‘But before then . . .’ Stallings interrupted.
‘Yes, ma’am.’ Haddock seemed to come to attention in his chair. ‘I spent all yesterday evening working through my list of artists and art teachers, checking them all out. I’ve eliminated most of them, but there are four I still haven’t been able to contact by phone. Their names are Maeve O’Farrell, Ghita Patel, Josie Smout and Sugar Dean.’
‘Sugar?’
‘That’s the name I was given by the secretary of the Merchant Company. She’s on the art staff at the Mary Erskine school.’
‘I reckon you can take Ghita Patel off the list,’ McGurk told him. ‘The dead woman wasn’t Asian.’
‘Do we have addresses for the other three?’ Stallings asked.
‘Yes. O’Farrell stays in North Berwick, Smout’s in Pennywell Medway, and Sugar Dean lives in Meriadoc Crescent.’
‘Where?’ The sergeant’s voice was suddenly sharp.
‘Meriadoc Crescent, number eight.’
‘That’s just on the other side of the hill.’
Haddock was out of his chair in a flash. ‘I’ll get round there.’
‘I’m coming with you,’ said Stallings. She led the way out of the office. ‘My car.’
‘You know the way there, ma’am?’ The inspector stared at him. ‘I’m sorry,’ he stammered. ‘It’s just that, you being new to the city . . .’
‘Ever heard of satellite navigation, Sauce?’
She programmed the address into her TomTom, and let its voice guide her out of the car park, and down towards Queensferry Road, then left on to Clermiston Road. Less than five minutes later she drew up outside number eight Meriadoc Crescent, a semi-detached bungalow that stood on a steep incline. As the two detectives stepped out into the quiet street, they saw, between two houses on the crest of the hill, a lane that seemed to lead straight into the woods.
Stallings was frowning as she walked up the path to the front door of number eight, and pressed the buzzer. She waited for thirty seconds, then pressed it again. ‘Bugger,’ she swore quietly.
‘Excuse me.’
The voice came from the doorway of
number six, the other half of the semi. It belonged to a lady of mature years, and fixed habits; even at ten to nine she was dressed for the day, in tweed skirt and cardigan. Her grey hair showed all the signs of being regularly permed. She gazed at them severely. ‘Are you looking for the Deans?’ She barked on without waiting for a reply: ‘You won’t find them in, you know. They’re on holiday, up at their cottage in Appin.’
‘Actually,’ said the inspector, firmly, to break her flow, ‘we’re looking for Miss Dean.’
‘Sugar?’ Her forehead seemed to acquire an extra ridge. ‘And you are?’
‘We’re police officers, Mrs . . .’
‘Holmes.’ No forename was offered. ‘Police officers, indeed.’ She stopped short of a sniff of disapproval, but favoured them with a look of distaste. ‘We’re not used to having police at the doors in this street. What’s Sugar been up to?’
‘Nothing at all. We simply want to establish her whereabouts.’
‘Well, she’s not here,’ Mrs Holmes snapped, as if she was anxious to move them on before other residents observed the encounter.
‘Could she be with her parents?’
‘She might be. More likely off with that boyfriend of hers.’ The woman’s lips pursed. ‘She’s asking for trouble, that lass: the lad’s barely out of short trousers, and her a teacher too. I thought there were laws against that sort of thing.’
‘There might be,’ said Haddock. ‘What age is he?’
‘He can’t be any more than eighteen. He’s only left school last month.’
‘It’s all legal and above board in that case,’ the DC told her cheerfully. She replied with a glare that reminded him of the Sunday when his Free Presbyterian grandmother caught him listening to Radio Forth.
‘But she does live with her parents?’ asked Stallings, distracting her from her prey.
‘Yes, she does. She moved back in with them last year when she got the job at Mary Erskine. I must say, it surprised me that she was taken on there. My granddaughter’s at George Watson’s; they don’t have types like her there.’
‘Can you describe Sugar for us, Mrs Holmes? We’ve never met her.’
‘Describe her? There’s her hair, for a start, pure black; I’m sure she dyes it. She’s a pretty girl, I suppose, but the way she dresses, the miniskirts these girls wear nowadays . . .’
‘She wears a mini-skirt to work?’
‘Oh, no. She wouldn’t get away with that at Mary Erskine.’
‘Do you know how she goes to work? Does she drive?’
‘In the winter John, her dad, takes her. But in the summer, I think she’s been walking. I’ve seen her going up the lane there in the morning, and coming back in the evening.’ In that moment, Mrs Holmes’s expression began to change; her eyes went somewhere else for a few seconds, then focused again on Stallings. ‘There was a body found yesterday, wasn’t there?’ she said, in a different, softer voice. ‘You don’t think that was Sugar, do you?’
‘We don’t think anything at the moment,’ the inspector replied. ‘Right now, we’re trying to identify her, which is why we need to establish where Sugar is, and that she’s all right. Do you have a telephone number for Mr and Mrs Dean’s cottage? Or an address, even?’
‘I’ve got both. Just you wait there a minute.’ She turned and went back indoors.
As they stood on the path, Stallings looked up at Haddock. ‘Bloody hell, Sauce,’ she murmured. ‘I fear, I really do . . .’
‘Me too, ma’am.’
‘Here you are!’ Mrs Holmes re-emerged, brandishing a slip of paper. She made her way across a small lawn to the low wall that divided the two properties and reached out to hand it across. Haddock stretched a long arm and took it from her.
‘Thanks, Mrs Holmes,’ said Stallings. ‘I’m sure she’ll be up there with them, but we need to make sure.’
‘Let’s hope so.’ It was as if she had become a different woman. ‘The poor lass. She’s not that bad, you know. She’s always got a cheerful smile about her, at least.’
‘When did you see her last? Can you remember?’
‘Just before the schools broke up; in fact, it was that very day, yes, the Friday before last. She was heading up the hill to the lane, as usual.’
Eleven
There were occasions when Mario McGuire regretted not having chosen the other career paths that had been open to him, not only as a youth but through most of his adult life. His mother had been of Italian stock, the daughter of one of Edinburgh’s most successful businessmen, and he had been the only boy among three grand-children.
Before diversifying into the delicatessen and importing business, his grandfather’s fortune had been built up through a chain of fish-and-chip shops. His mother’s attitude to the young Mario’s career choice may have been coloured by her own childhood memories of the smell of cooking fat, as she had fought a protracted battle with her father over her son’s future.
In the event, Papa Viareggio had died when Mario was sixteen, and the running of the business had passed to his uncle, Beppe, who had no desire to take a young protégé on board, especially as he had the ambition that at least one of his daughters would join him.
That did not mean that all opportunity had been ripped from the teenager’s grasp. His father, big Eamon McGuire, had been a modestly successful building contractor, while his mother, Christina, had set up a recruitment consultancy, and had shown her Viareggio genes by building it into one of the most successful in Edinburgh. Neither parent had put any pressure on him to join them, but each had made the offer.
There were two photographs on the head of CID’s desk. One was of Paula, the silver-haired cousin he had loved for years; they had been inseparable as children, and had come to realise, eventually, in the wake of the collapse of Mario’s marriage to Maggie Rose, that there was no reason, legal or moral, why they should be separated as adults either. He smiled as he looked at her image, and blew it a kiss.
The other frame enclosed his parents. He reached out and picked it up; the picture had been taken at a wedding, when they were both in their mid-forties, his mother slim, dark and beautiful, his father massive and unforgettable in a white dinner jacket. They had both gone from his life, although Christina was not too far away, having sold her business a few years before and retired to Italy. Eamon, though, had gone on a longer journey, having died of cancer in his early fifties. Mario tried not to think about him too often although, in fact, a day never passed when he did not. He had loved his father, and had looked forward to his companionship well into his own middle age. He was a big man in every respect, with a personality to match his physique. While he had more or less grown up on building sites and, they said, was not a man to cross in business, he had left that side of his life behind him the moment he had taken off his work boots. His son, grown hard as nails himself, regarded him, and always would, as the gentlest man he had ever known. More than ten years after his death his memory could bring a lump to his throat.
He replaced the frame and turned to the item at the top of the pile in his in-tray, the final paperwork covering the transfer of Becky Stallings from the Met, sent up by Human Resources. He was about to pick it up when there was a soft knock on his office door. He looked up, expecting it to open, but nothing happened. After a few seconds, the knock was repeated.
‘Come in,’ he called out.
The door opened and a strikingly blonde woman stepped into the room. She wore baggy red denims and a T-shirt with a big rocking-horse symbol on the chest. She carried a bag, slung over her shoulder.
‘Yes,’ he began, frowning, ‘what can I do . . .’ and then he saw the smile spread slowly across her face. ‘Maggie, for fuck’s sake!’
‘How long were we married?’ she exclaimed, as she took a seat. ‘How many years was it? You used to say you could recognise me in the dark. Now all I have to do is put on a blonde wig and I could be just another young detective constable making a nuisance of herself.’
‘And
a very nice blonde wig it is. When did you decide to go for it?’
‘Yesterday, not long after Mr Ronald finally put his reputation on the line by telling me that I’m not going to die any time soon.’ She reached up and touched her new coiffure. ‘Not bad, is it? I thought I’d have to be measured for it, and have to wait for a while before it was ready, but no, they fixed me up right there and then; this is an Irish jig straight off the peg. I went in there virtually baldy, and came out a foxy blonde babe.’
‘You’ll be beating the men off with a club.’
‘Damn right I will,’ she agreed, ‘if any of them are insensitive enough to come near me. Neil said I can expect that.’
‘He’s been to see you?’
‘Yes. He called in last night, with a present for the baby and flowers for me. I asked him what it’s like being a widow. It’s something I haven’t considered until now. I’ve been fully focused on staying alive. He told me that people will be falling over themselves to be kind to me, and that if quite a few of them are men, I shouldn’t be surprised.’
‘Don’t be offended either. Maybe I didn’t tell you this as often as I should have, but you’re a very attractive woman.’
‘Maybe I didn’t need you to tell me,’ she said archly. ‘But you can add another adjective: a very attractive, menopausal woman.’
‘Menopausal? But you’re still well shy of forty.’
‘That matters not: I’ve stopped ovulating, on account of having no ovaries any more. I’ve had my first hot flush already.’
‘What can you do about it?’
‘Grin and bear it. After what’s happened to me, do you think I care?’
Mario shook his head solemnly. ‘No, love, I don’t suppose you do.’ He looked across the desk. ‘Want a coffee?’ he asked.
‘No, thanks.’ She delved into her bag and produced a bottle of water. ‘I’ll stick to this; I have to drink plenty just now, with the chemo.’
‘How did you get here? You’re not cleared to drive yet, are you?’
‘Not quite; I’ll give that another week or so. No, I came by taxi; a real one this time. I’ve been taking Bob Skinner and Brian Mackie up on their offer of using police transport, but I caught a cab from the hair studio along here.’
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