by Harper Fox
***
McBride put the kettle on. Amanda, who knew him too well to comment on the state of his kitchen, left him to it. Spooning instant coffee into mugs, he listened to her in the next room, talking quietly to Grace. He listened to his daughter’s eloquent silence.
He took the coffee through. “You’ve given a great deal of trouble to a very busy person this morning, young lady. I want you to apologise.”
Grace, who had been hunched in an armchair, arms wrapped round her knees, uncoiled like a spring. “She’s no’ busy anymore! You always say she’s got nothing to do since she retired. You always say she should never have gone and left you to deal with that yellow-haired bi—”
“Grace!”
McBride hadn’t meant it to be such a yell. The windows had rattled. That was all right for the likes of Andrew Barclay and other big coppers—not for his stressed-out little girl. Her eyes had opened, wide and scared. “Go to your room,” he said more quietly. Shit, though—her room, the one habitable place in the flat, was full of Christmas presents waiting to be wrapped. “On second thoughts just…go to a different part of this one. I need to talk to Amanda.”
She took herself off meekly. McBride waited till she had settled on a cushion on the floor and switched the TV on, volume low. “God,” he said. “What a wee plague. I’m so sorry, Chief.”
“She’s freaked-out, that’s all. Christmas with Da McBride is a big deal to her.”
“I know, but what can I do? I can’t fight Libby over this. And what’s this about her getting bullied at school?”
“Ah, you know. Some of the little pigs think it’s funny her mam lives in one house and her daddy in another.”
McBride snorted. “That’s rich, coming from a rabble that probably haven’t seen their fathers since the milkman left town. What do I need to do? Come in and kick their arses for them?”
“I wouldn’t. Just make things worse.” Tucking strands of long grey hair behind her ears, Amanda blew on her coffee. “This is scalding, Jim. Is it real milk or…”
“Powdered. Sorry.”
“She’d probably be dealing with it if things were all right at home. Not you and Lib in wedded bliss—she’s got the idea about that—but she doesn’t need custody tussles going on. It’s unsettling.”
“You think I don’t know? But how can I stop Libby—”
“You can’t. As a matter of fact I think Libby’s right. And your new superintendent too, though—” she hesitated, a faint mischief lighting her eyes, “—though I’m sorry to hear you have trouble with her.”
“She’s a copper-bottomed cow.” McBride frowned. “How do you know what Lila’s been up to?”
“Well, not from Grace. I do still have friends at Harle Street, you know. I heard she wants to take you off your undercover work. I’m very sorry. But if you’re off the streets, and hopefully in less hot water, Libby won’t have to fret about Grace coming to see you.”
“Jesus, Amanda. You hate Lila Stone. She’s one of the reasons you quit.”
“Retired. I’m not ready for transparency and politics any more than you are, but unlike you I had the bloody sense to get out. And…by the way, not that it’s any of your business, but Jennifer and I are finding plenty to do.”
“Oh God.” McBride rolled his eyes. “Spare me. All right, I’ll think about it. What’ll I do with madam, then?”
“I’ll drop her back off at her school. I’ll talk to her headmaster too.”
“Poor wee bugger. I’ve got a day off today if I want it—can I not keep her home?”
“That’s right. Reward her when she acts up. That’ll mean she’ll never do it again.”
McBride groaned. “Why don’t these things occur to me? Am I a rotten father, Chief?”
“No more than I’m your chief anymore. Come on, Jim. Try to work with things as they are now. She’s a good kid, and even that yellow-haired…person at HQ might actually have your best interests at heart.”
“She hasn’t got a heart. She’s got a—Oh, Gracie.” He turned. The child had come across the room like a shadow and inserted herself into the circle of his arm. She was nearly too big to be hauled onto his lap like a sack of potatoes, but he did so anyway, feeling her stiffen at first, then melt entirely, burrowing her face into his shoulder.
“You’re no’ a bad father, Da. Don’t go round saying that, or she’ll cut off the custody altogether.”
He stroked her hair. “Who’s she? The cat’s mother?”
“No. My mother. Sorry, Da. I’m sorry, Aunt Manda.”
“That’s all right.” McBride kissed the top of her head. Over it he looked at his former boss, who returned his gaze gravely, as if he were a case whose outcome she could not predict. “It’ll be okay,” he said, to which of them he wasn’t sure. “It’ll be different now. You’ll see.”
***
Staying at home had been a bad idea. McBride knew, as the four-o’clock twilight came down, he should either have gone back to the office to wrestle the dragons there or taken charge of his daughter himself. Why had he automatically let Amanda step into the breach for him, escorting the child back to school, seeing the headmaster? Because he was so used to accepting Chief Campbell’s word as law, he thought—and then, more honestly, No. Because that’s women’s work.
McBride, sitting at his kitchen table, shook his head. He stared into the golden circle of his whisky tumbler. He tried his best but remained pretty much—what was the word?—unreconstructed. Did he resent Stone more because she was female? No, that was ridiculous. He’d worked happily for Amanda for most of his career.
But Amanda was different. Even her sexuality had set her apart. Except as a colleague and a friend, she was out of bounds, out of the question.
And if McBride thought about it, he had been out of the question for the straight female staff in the office. Not because he’d been married, although that had been the shield he’d raised when faced with the occasional attack. Because Andrew had pulled his memories of Lowrie to the surface, and McBride knew they’d never been very far down. Because he was…
He stopped short of the word. He wasn’t even sure which one he’d have used if he’d got there. His father’s cold, clinical homosexual, when the old man had finally deigned to speak to him again? “Do you believe you are a homosexual, James?” Not by the time the pastor had finished with him, no. By then McBride hadn’t believed he was anything sexual at all. And there was a universe, a sexual revolution, between that old hill-farmer world and the brave young things of Edinburgh who proudly called themselves gay.
McBride got up restlessly and carried his drink to the window. Across the street, in the elegant housefronts that mirrored his, lights were appearing, women and kids returning from school. Whatever word he used, how grotesquely unfair to Libby his life with her had been! How stupidly cruel to himself…
He downed the scotch in one, unthinking. “Damn,” he whispered and poured another from the bottle on the sill. Unless Grace was visiting, there was always a selection within reach. He’d only meant to hold the first one, as a prop, an object of contemplation. He’d packed in smoking on the day he’d heard Grace’s fresh baby lungs open wide in their first newborn wail, and his hands still missed their occupation. Yes, he should have gone back to Harle Street. Taking time to think was almost always a mistake with him.
He glanced at his watch. It wasn’t too late. He could take a graveyard shift. Sort through his paperwork, make sure the officers who’d been given Carlyle’s case had everything they needed. Briefly he imagined how it would be if he accepted Lila’s decree—dropped his undercover work, went to counselling, cleaned up his act. Libby wasn’t a hard-liner. Far from it: she wanted Grace to have a father, if McBride didn’t keep making it impossible. It could all be pretty easy, he thought, absently knocking back his second double. He’d have equal custody back in no time.
And wouldn’t it be grand too, to round off his career with the capture of Sim Carlyle? Sure, he’d b
lown his cover at the Red Bottle, but Sim had plenty of other hangouts. Just standing here, watching his city’s lights begin to shine, feeling them somehow in his veins, McBride had a dozen ideas of how to go about it. A bit of disguise, a new angle…
He refilled his glass. Excitement shot through him, hard and sweet. Lila wouldn’t like it, but why should she know? He’d trot in obediently and do his day job, but the city nights would be his own, just as they always had been. He could smell the frost in the air: feel, as if they were laid out through the streets like a pattern of veins, bright red and pulsing, the lines he could follow to find Sim. He could start straightaway—a little reconnaissance, a prowl around the edges of the night. Shrugging into his coat, forgetting his kid and his good intentions as if they had never been, McBride set off into the streets.
Chapter Four
The Freemason’s Hall was beautiful. McBride’s father had been admitted to the Scottish Rite, and McBride had childhood memories of being shown around the vast oak-panelled space, with its stained-glass depictions of Old Testament stories and its scent of beeswax and books. McBride wasn’t sure why the pastor had brought him here, unless it was in some vague hope his boy would absorb Masonic tendencies, the desire for social responsibility, secrecy and ritual, from the air. The visits had stopped after Lowrie.
Yes, a lovely place. And about as unsuitable for a high-security conference as any building in Edinburgh McBride could imagine. There were a hundred windows, shadowed galleries, staircases that wound mysteriously from one set of reading niches to the next. It was practically indefensible, unless you had a small army. McBride paced the top-level gallery, assessing where on its parquet-floored length he would position the men in the tiny team he’d been assigned. All right, he had gone out on his clandestine hunt last night, but he was doing his best to take this new day job seriously too. His head ached almost as much as his injured leg. If he thought too hard, he would drop back into the rainy Livingstone wasteland where another of his snitches had shown him a pair of shallow graves. That was where Carlyle had got rid of his last Romanian girl, one who’d made the mistake of trying to break out of his sex-trade operation. Not just the girl. The second grave held her kid, the snitch had said.
McBride leaned his elbows on the polished balustrade. Blindly he looked down into the light-bannered space before him. There were two Edinburghs, he thought, and he was poised awkwardly between them. A foot in each camp, and as likely to plunge into the abyss as find his place on either side. He wanted to be good—for Libby, for Grace—but how the hell could he abandon the night? He needed to be sure about the graves before he went to Lila Stone with his evidence. He just needed more time.
“Morning, boss.”
McBride jumped. He had to pull himself together. If Andrew Barclay, with his big feet and lack of talent for concealment, could appear at his elbow like this, a hostile gunman would have no trouble. “Morning,” he said cautiously. He had no idea what terms he and his partner were on. If Andrew was even his partner anymore—he hadn’t been assigned to the Zvi op, as far as McBride knew. “Wasn’t expecting to see you here. Has Lila got no elite-task-force stuff for you today?”
The instant the sarcasm was out, he was ashamed. Andrew blushed hard. “She might have done,” he said, leaning on the balustrade too. “Only I lost my rag with her a bit yesterday after you left. I didn’t have to do the things she told me, but…she didn’t have to play me like that either, the manipulative cow.”
McBride gave a low whistle. “Is that what you told her?”
“Not exactly. She’d be wearing my bollocks for earrings. As it was, I said enough to get myself busted down to this gig. I’m sorry, James.”
McBride wasn’t sure what he was apologising for. Turning up here, maybe, and obliging McBride to work with him, which he couldn’t imagine doing—not the way they used to, side by side, shoulder to shoulder. Maybe it was for picking up a drunken confession of McBride’s and using it to bait his honey trap. McBride almost smiled. Although handsome as ever, Andrew this morning looked so ordinary, so…straight, McBride couldn’t imagine how for one minute he could have been deceived.
He didn’t know if he forgave him. And there was room for forgiveness on Andrew’s part too. Uncomfortably McBride thought about all the times he’d asked—no, ordered—the lad to cover for him. The undone paperwork, the loans… He shook himself. Best to lay it aside if he could. “Forget it,” he said. “What are we gonna do about this place, then? Zvi’s gonna be like a goldfish in a barrel.”
Andrew glanced at him, evidently relieved to have the conversation turn back to work. “Aye. I did try to tell her, but she wasn’t having any.”
“What—Lila chose this place? What’s wrong with the International Conference Centre?”
“Doesn’t show off her nation’s full historical glories, does it? She’s convinced this place is safe. You know, I heard…”
“What?”
“That she was one. A Mason, I mean.”
McBride pressed his lips together. Surely you mean a Masonette, he wanted to say. But he was beginning to see why every female in his life, apart from a ten-year-old and a lesbian, was at odds with him. He settled for, “Wouldn’t surprise me,” in a tone as neutral as he could manage.
“No, me neither. She has the look of a grand mufti.”
McBride snorted helplessly. “Jesus, Andy. You’re meant to be the new breed. You’ll never get back into Stone’s Scottish SWAT with cracks like that.” He straightened. “Come on. Let’s scope out this goldfish bowl and see if we can’t keep Lila’s ambassador alive for her.”
***
They did their survey efficiently, but it took longer than McBride had expected. He wound up at their start point sooner than Andrew, aware that at every stage where he had expected to see him—across the hall on the same gallery level, checking out the mirroring pattern of staircases—he had not been there. It wasn’t Andrew’s fault. Not McBride’s either, for being always a few steps ahead or behind. They just couldn’t read each other anymore.
It didn’t take a lot, McBride knew, to destroy a partnership’s rapport. Andrew didn’t meet his eyes, coming to join him by the balustrade again, and the silence between them was heavy. “It doesn’t look too bad,” McBride offered. “I don’t have enough men really, but with you here too, and Zvi’s people…”
The outer doors of the hallway rattled and flew open. Instinctively McBride spun in the direction of the noise. Here came the ambassador’s security cortege, as if summoned by his words, in full parade order: six of them, sweeping in pairs into the hall. McBride watched, partly in admiration, partly amusement, as they took up positions around the room, so precisely you could have measured equal distance between them from the tip of one polished leather toe to the next. They were quietly and immaculately suited. All toned, neat, dark, they looked like a band of brother princes. He wondered what they’d make of his team, his motley Celts and Vikings.
A seventh man entered. Unlike the rest, his head was down. He crossed the floor slowly, as if lost in thought. Roughly in the centre of the hall, where the stained glass turned the light sapphire, he stopped and looked up.
His gaze locked to McBride’s. There was no drama in the moment. In fact it felt quite ordinary. As if he had got up that morning, come to the Freemason’s Hall and carried out his duties, purely for the purpose of ending up in this gallery in time to meet a pair of brown eyes.
They were warm and full of questions. McBride felt his lips part as if he would answer—his heart, which despite his abuses normally thudded along stolidly about its business, lurch to a faster tempo. His palms dampened on the gallery rail. And still it didn’t feel awkward to be staring at a stranger. He said softly to Andrew, “Who the hell’s that?”
It took Andrew a moment to answer, as if somehow he could be unsure who McBride meant or had somehow failed to notice him. “Who, the guy on his own there? That’s Zvi’s security chief. Leitner, I think he’s calle
d. He’s Mossad.”
“Mossad?” McBride echoed. The man in the hall had pushed his hands into his pockets, tipped his head to one side. The blue light falling on his aristocratic face brought out his skin’s warm olive tone. His hair and his eyelashes caught and split the weird radiance, black as raven’s feathers blowing in the wind on Holyrood’s hills. McBride drew a deep breath. He had no idea what was making his head spin. Carefully he smoothed a tremor from his voice. “What’s a Mossad agent doing on a milk run like this?”
Andrew had come to lean close beside him. McBride felt him shrug and suppressed a flinch. He didn’t want to be touched or distracted. “Maybe the same thing we are,” Andrew said. “I heard he was involved in some god-awful fuckup in the West Bank. Some kind of hostage rescue that backfired. His partner was killed.”
“What—so he got busted down to a gig like this, as you’d put it?”
“Aye, maybe. I heard they wanted him out of the way for a bit while the investigation went on.”
McBride stopped listening. The Mossad agent—Leitner, McBride said to himself, his mind trying out the delicate, exotic name—had begun to smile. It was very faint, but undeniable. McBride’s pulse geared up another notch. A strange heat sprang up in him, beginning in his gut, an inch or so under his navel, spreading to his solar plexus and a point behind his breastbone. His throat. Oh God, a sweet spot just up and back from his balls, halfway to his…
“James? Are you all right?”
“What? Yeah.” McBride drew a deep breath and glanced at Andrew. When he looked down again, Leitner had turned away. Just as well. He would have to stay here, pressed safely against the balustrade, until he was sure this stranger’s bizarre effect on him hadn’t culminated in a noticeable erection. “I’m fine.”
“Doesn’t look like he’s any happier with this place than we are.”