He turned the corner onto Princes Street and joined the stream of the crowd. The vast thoroughfare was crowded even at this hour, five days before Christmas. Normally McBride loved Edinburgh on mornings like this. The fantastical architecture, granite and russet sandstone, appeared to best advantage under frosty northern light, solid and shimmering all at once, Gothic gossamer. On such mornings you could almost believe the city was the wealthy, bustling capital depicted in the brochures. Those vagabonds and Big Issue vendors as had survived the night had not yet reached their stations, and the boarded-up windows showing that not even the Empress of the North was proof against recession were not so obvious.
McBride slowed up to admire, as he always did, the elegant Georgian bulk of Templeton’s. No sale signs or concessions to straitened purses in these windows: the place sailed on, a lonely luxury cruise ship amidst the scrambling dinghies. Doomed, most probably, though McBride hoped not. He never shopped there himself, visiting only to give Grace a high-tea treat or to meet with Libby on neutral ground.
He stopped dead. An American tourist cannoned into him from behind and apologised profusely. “It’s all right,” McBride said absently and stepped aside into one of the sumptuous revolving-door foyers. Yes, Libby. Meetings here to discuss McBride’s child support or Grace’s erratic progress at school. McBride remembered a phone call he’d taken in the office the morning before. Libby seldom bothered him at work, but she’d been worried—about what, she wouldn’t say, only asking him to come for coffee at the store at…
He glanced at his watch. For once fate had worked to his advantage, putting him here at ten a.m. He’d certainly have forgotten otherwise, adding to Libby’s long list of his crimes. He smiled wryly, pushing through the oak doors into the heady mists of the perfume hall. For once in his life he’d be a little early.
* * *
Of course she was there and waiting, her slim form erect at a table in the baroque tea hall. As always on first sight of her, McBride remembered why she’d woken him from his years of shocked, cold impotence after Lowrie’s forcible expulsion from his life. A true flower of Scotland, his Libby, a green-eyed, sable-haired beauty. A nature as earthy and resilient as her exterior was frail. She was and always had been way too good for him. Picking a route through the elegant forest of gilded chairs, McBride saw her lift a hand in greeting. No matter what they came here to discuss, she usually managed to raise a smile for him.
Her expression changed. For a second McBride was puzzled. Then he recalled he’d been gathering similar looks all the way up from the ground floor, from security staff and the poor souls employed to squirt perfume samples onto unwilling passersby. The hospital had scrubbed and stitched him, but he supposed his bruising was coming on quite well.
“Jim!” Libby was somehow at his elbow. McBride hadn’t even seen her move. Her handbag was abandoned on the table. She seized his arm and marched him back the way she’d come: McBride realised, with a rumble of amusement, she was trying to shield him. “What the devil happened to you?” she hissed, tucking him as far back as he would go into the tea room’s shadows. “Did you get hit by a car on the way here? My God, Jimmy—are you drunk?”
“Of course not. I—”
“And just what do you think you’re looking at?”
McBride blinked. But that wasn’t aimed at him: Libby was glaring off over his shoulder, her green eyes gone cold as Medusa’s. Involuntarily glancing across the room, he saw he’d attracted the attention of a group of highly glossed Edinburgh ladies-who-lunch at a table behind them. That was Libby—reserved the right to tear her kid or her ex into shreds, but God help anyone else who tried. “Leave it, Libs,” he said uncomfortably. “It’s all right.”
“It’s damn well not. Aye, I do mean you Armani army cadets over there—just drink your skinny lattes and keep your eyes to yourself.”
“Libby, sit down.”
She obeyed, breathless, cheeks bright pink. McBride looked at her in admiration.
“Armani army cadets?”
“Well, the nosy old bints…”
“Cool down, you Glasgow street urchin. However did you get a visa to a civilised nation like Auld Reekie?”
“Shut up. Don’t you start on me, James McBride. You’re no’ funny, and—” she lowered her voice, “and you stink of booze. What’s going on?”
“It’s from last night. I haven’t been home.”
“Oh, that’ll be right. Well, at least you’re honest about it these days.”
“No, I mean…”
“Never mind what you mean.” The waitress who’d been approaching the table caught Libby’s look and veered off. “In a way this makes things easier. Amanda’s right—you are totally out of control.”
“Wait.” McBride leaned forward stiffly, resting his elbows on the spindly table. “You spoke to Amanda? My ex-boss Amanda?”
“Also our child’s godmother Amanda, and if you didn’t want her to take an interest, you shouldn’t have bloody asked her. And she spoke to me.”
“Libby—Amanda’s retired. She has no idea what’s going on at Harle these days.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised. Unlike you, she doesn’t alienate everybody she meets. People like to talk to her. She knows all about your nighttime jaunts, and your sleazeball friends, and the drinking, and going after that racketeer Sim—”
“Quiet!” McBride glared at her. “What are you on about? What’s easier?”
“Jim, I simply can’t have Gracie exposed to all this. I spoke to my solicitor yesterday, and he says the courts would have no problem agreeing to—” she ground to a halt, shoulders slumping, “—to reduced custody. I don’t want her staying overnight in your flat anymore. And I don’t want her there over Christmas.”
McBride shook his head. He felt as if she’d punched him or chucked her coffee into his lap. “Tell me you’re kidding.”
“No. I’m dead serious. She’s ten years old, and…for some reason she still thinks the sun shines out of your arse. Whatever you say or do, that’s gospel law to her. That’s what she’s gonna do.”
“Jesus, Lib. Are you saying I ever did anything in front of her to—”
“No, not deliberately! But it’s only a matter of time. I don’t want to go to the courts with this, Jimmy. Please just agree. It’ll be easier for all of us.”
Not for me. Not for me. McBride tried to rest his pounding head in his hands. But the swelling round his eye and cheek made him flinch from his own touch. Suddenly he saw himself from the outside—a filthy, beaten-up tramp. Suddenly he remembered how a crackhead snitch from his last case had somehow found out his address and waited for him on the step outside his flat one morning last month. “Oh God. At least let her stay on Christmas night.”
“Why?” It was an anguished whisper. McBride knew it well: the sound of a good woman at the end of her rope, fighting tears. “So you can blind her with some cheap, flash present like that…bloody crystal necklace she wants? You of all people should know not to make a wee tart of her, not at her age. And then she comes home and hates me because I have to take it off her.”
The presents might be flash, Libs, McBride briefly wanted to say, but they’re far from bloody cheap. He swallowed the words along with the lump in his throat. He knew exactly what she meant. He didn’t have a shred of denial to offer her. Grace had been in the flat having breakfast on the day the junkie snitch had turned up. Often she left before McBride did, letting herself out and trotting off to catch her bus. “All right,” he said hoarsely. “All right.”
“Thank you.” Libby got up. McBride was peripherally aware of her blowing her nose on a napkin. In a minute, once she was gone, he would need to do the same thing. “Look at the big pile of snot you turn me into!” she declared unsteadily. She put out a hand and pushed back his fringe. “And look at the state of you… Ah, Jim. Are you all right?”
McBride took her wrist, very gently. For a moment the need flashed over him for someone he could hold like that as
hard as he wanted, someone he could grasp with all his strength and never hurt. He remembered Lowrie. They had only been sixteen, but both built like young bullocks, tough as the heather and the earth where they lay. “I’ll be fine,” he said. “Best you just go now. Go on, love.”
* * *
His flat was on Fettes Row. Quite grand, and more than his salary would have afforded, except he’d taken it more or less derelict and proudly kept it that way. It was a place to lay his head, that was all; a sanctuary.
A badly needed one this morning. Having made the safety of the top step, McBride put his key into the lock and paused for a second, head down. Inside the communal hallway were stairs and a whole range of neighbours he might have to talk to. He needed a moment to gather his strength.
“James?”
He turned round, so fast his bandaged knee almost went out from under him. His heart sank. There on the pavement stood former Superintendent Amanda Campbell, holding his child by the hand. Normally McBride would be delighted to see either—but together and at this time of the morning? Nothing but trouble…
Grace detached her hand from Campbell’s and pattered up the stone steps of McBride’s building, stopping one down from her father. She looked up at him, examining his face. For an instant McBride thought she might react like a normal child and set up a wail, but he need not have worried. Her chin steadied. “Och, McBride. You look like a bulldog that’s swallowed a wasp.”
He studied her. She was in her school uniform, and if she wasn’t crying, she had been at some point that morning. “Och, McBride?” he echoed, raising his eyebrows. “You’re spending too much time with your mother. You sound pure Glaswegian.”
“And you sound like an old Embra copper.”
“Embra, eh? Weegie.” A tiny smile flickered at the corner of her mouth. “Glasgae girl,” McBride pursued. “Skinny wee Weegie.”
“Bulldog.”
“Ginger.”
She was going to break any second. McBride watched with pleasure her struggle to keep a straight face. Then Amanda Campbell came quietly up the steps. “Much as I hate to end this touching family scene, James, Grace was picked up for truancy in the St. James Shopping Centre. The officer recognised her and called me. She’s talking like that because it makes her sound tougher at school and means she gets bullied less.”
The child wheeled on her godmother, paling with mortification. “Aunt Manda! I am no’ getting—”
“Button your lip, miss.” McBride waited until Grace registered the growl in his voice that meant he was serious. “Amanda, I’m so sorry you were bothered. Why the hell was she playing truant?”
“I spoke to Libby last night. Grace is upset about some changes in your custody access.”
“Aye, but he’s not gonna do them!” Both McBride and Amanda turned on the girl, who looked frantically between them. “You’re not gonna do them, are you, Da? I told her you wouldn’t. I want to have Christmas here, and my weekends, and…”
“Gracie. Hush, please.” McBride closed his eyes. No way Embra’s granite bedrock was going to open and swallow him up, but he could pray. Then he looked at his daughter and braced. The one thing that screwed him over with her worse than horrible truths was trying to conceal them. “Listen. I spoke to your mother this morning. She’s right. Things have to change.”
“You…you agreed?”
“I’m sorry, love.”
She shoved past him, a white-faced little fury. She was just about big enough to reach the top lock, and McBride watched helplessly while she twisted the keys round, pushed her way inside and slammed the door behind her.
Amanda Campbell regarded the woodwork in silence for a moment. Then she folded her arms and turned to McBride. Her lean, kindly face and wry smile had seen him through plenty of dark days. Libby too. And, these days, the child: Amanda took her role as godmother in deadly earnest. “Well,” she said. “At least this time she left you the keys.”
* * *
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.
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