“Well, amusing as it was, reading of all the times Conall’s cousin decided to put his foot down, that’s hardly the point, James,” Anderson chided him gently. “And you know perfectly well that he’s not about to say anything to us about any of it. I didn’t pop in here today to waste my time playing at that game.” He crossed his legs and folded his hands in his lap. “Are you particularly fond of Edinburgh, Mr Keane?”
“It’s alright, as cities go,” Shay allowed, caught a little off guard by the strange but harmless question. “Nice architecture, but a bit too busy for my taste. I don’t go out much.”
“Mmm. The reason I ask is that the Minister happened to express a clear opinion that he didn’t see why you couldn’t live anywhere in Scotland that you chose to. As far as he could tell, the only work you couldn’t do from anywhere with a decent internet connection was the work you did with your cousin. The head of the department you consult for found that he reluctantly had to agree with that assessment of the situation.”
“Oh?” Shay cocked an interested eyebrow. “He did, did he? That’s a bit of a change in tune.”
“I imagine it is. The Minister can have that effect on people. Especially when he’s quite cross. Apparently, nobody had thought to bring your situation to his attention before. He gave them a good earful about how thoroughly disgusted he was by the way they’ve been treating such a ‘good citizen,’ unlawfully inhibiting your freedom to live wherever you liked. London can splutter all they like, but he might start asking some uncomfortable questions in Parliament if they don’t behave and they wouldn’t like that at all.” My heart thudded in my chest. Had he just said what I thought he’d said? Had they really cut my cousin’s leash? Leaving Shay to think all that over, Anderson turned his attention to me.
“As for you Conall, let me make one thing perfectly clear. You weren’t promoted because of the cases we now know your cousin helped you with. You were promoted because we’re not all idiots and we know how smart you really are, and how good you are at your job. We don’t get enough people of your calibre joining the force.” He sighed, feelingly, “The pay isn’t good enough, for one thing. That being said, I believe we’ve been wasting your time a little here. And that’s become even more true, now that we’ve been made aware of an invaluable resource that you alone have any access to.”
I sighed myself at that, but only inwardly. Another transfer? I liked it here, I liked my team, and the job could get a bit dull anywhere when things were quiet. I certainly didn’t miss Glasgow, which had been a lot livelier, most of the time.
“I’m not going to move you or let anyone poach you out from under me,” Anderson went on, “but I am going to call you in, sometimes, when I want you to help out on a case in one of my other areas.” Peterson had five more Area Commanders, besides McKinnon, under his jurisdiction. “I think James would like you to take more of the serious stuff off his hands from now on too. Is that going to be a problem?”
I let out a relieved breath. “Not at all, Sir.”
“Excellent.” Anderson glanced at McKinnon, who was all but rubbing his hands together with anticipatory glee. “One word of caution, though. We’re going to catch bloody hell if anything happens to either of you, so please, do think of your poor old Chief and poor old James here before you go diving off any more cliffs.” Shay mumbled something unintelligible.
“Sir!” I acknowledged the request neutrally, but really, it wasn’t as if anyone could control that kind of thing, and they both knew it. McKinnon snorted, eyes twinkling, and Anderson contented himself with a resigned little frown.
“You are on sick leave for the rest of the day Inspector Keane,” he told me, “Do not ‘pop in’ at the office, do not even check your emails. Rest up. That’s an order. Now clear off before I change my mind and decide to put you on permanent desk duty.”
“I wouldn’t advise that at all, Sir.” McKinnon put in unhelpfully, “You’d only get a reluctant transfer request or even worse, God forbid, his resignation. London wouldn’t like that either.” Anderson looked at James’ cheerful, innocent face and then back at us.
“Still here? Go on, hop it, the pair of you.” I didn’t hop, exactly, but we got out of there at my speediest pace to a muttered comment about ‘overtalented, lunatic, mule-headed Keanes.’ There was a reassuringly amused tone to it though.
I stopped to have a word with Caitlin on the way out. “Good for them! She said approvingly when she heard I’d been sent home, “Not to worry Conall, I can handle things for today. I’ll take Walker with me to the Ramsays when I’m done here, fill them in on what they need to know. There’s plenty of paperwork to catch up on and keep the boys occupied while we’re out.”
Back in the car, Shay settled himself thoughtfully. “New property search, then?” he asked as he turned the key in the ignition.
“Oh, yes,” I breathed fervently. “Definitely a new property search. I think I might sell my place down by Dunbar too, when the current tenants move out. It doesn’t seem likely I’ll ever live there again myself.”
He nodded as he reversed out. “Think your Da will do the same?”
“Like a shot!” I told him. “He was only hanging around in Haddington because you were stuck. One of us needed to keep close.”
Shay grunted unhappily, acknowledging a known fact, but he soon brightened up again as it all began to sink in. The one concession he’d never been able to win, handed to him on a ministerial platter. Bless James McKinnon for his curiosity, and his interference.
“That’ll be a bit disappointing for the good ladies of Haddington,” Shay remarked casually after a long, considering pause. “But your Caitlin should be pleased. Tomcats will be tomcats wherever they go.” My head turned so quickly I almost cricked my neck.
“What?” I spat, disbelievingly. “He wouldn’t!”
“Don’t be daft! Of course, he would,” Shay told me, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I bet she’ll trip him up within two months, tops, once he’s settled in. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed all those admiring looks she keeps sending him?”
I’d been trying really hard not to, as a matter of fact.
“Cheer up,” Shay said cheerfully. “It’s not like she’s going to end up as your stepmother or anything.” No, I’d be spared that at least, knowing what they were both like. With any luck they’d have the decency to be so discreet I’d never be sure it was even happening.
“It’ll be lovely to all get to live in a real home again,” my cousin admitted a few minutes later, as he allowed a safety valve to inch open and let years of bottled misery begin to bleed away. A warming glow spread out to envelop me as I thought about it.
“Yes, it will,” I agreed, doing the same.
Epilogue
The rain had stopped long before Conall finished relating his tale to his spellbound audience, and a third bottle of wine had been consumed by then too. Shay seemed to have dozed off in his chair, but his cousin knew he’d been awake and listening, ready to make some small noise to warn him if he was saying too much. Marie sighed contentedly as Conall leaned back, his story completed, a thoroughly satisfied sound.
“Nobody spins a yarn like you do,” she told him. “Well, except your da, of course. You really had me going with all those red herrings too. When you threw in that bit about Iain digging up the stone, I really thought it was going to end up being him, or maybe his partner Charles, for a while there.”
“I kept changing my mind, most of the way too.” Liam grinned, snuggling her in close as they too finally leant back again. “Is that what it’s like for you Conall? When you’re in the middle of it all? Constant revisions of opinion?”
Conall shrugged, his handsome face relaxing into its natural, easy expression and his hands resting, stilled, on the arms of his chair, now that he was no longer using either as tools with which to accentuate his narrative.
“Not quite the same, no,” he told them. “If I allowed myself to indulge in pr
emature conclusions and focus on the wrong suspect, I could miss something vital. You just have to keep reminding yourself how often a promising lead ends up going nowhere, no matter how strongly you might feel that you’re on the right track.” Behind him, his cousin made a noise.
“Go on then, Shay,” Marie prompted, smiling. “Spit it out, whatever it is.”
“He cheats,” the half shadowed figure declared disapprovingly. “Exaggerates little things to get you thinking exactly what he wants you to think, pulling your strings like a master puppeteer.”
“But that’s what good storytellers are supposed to do, Shaydie,” Liam jumped enthusiastically to Conall’s defence. “Get us really invested, pull us in. And that was probably a lot more engrossing than the film we were planning to watch too. I could see it all happening in my mind, as clearly as anything.”
Dana nodded. “When he went over the cliff!” she agreed. “That was such a strong series of images. I could certainly see that happening.”
Conall smiled, pleased by the compliment. He’d relived those moments enough times to do a good job of describing exactly what that desperate descent had really been like. Shay’s presence there that day had been easily explained away, too, with a little inventive thinking.
“These lamps are getting a bit low, is it worth topping them up or is everyone about ready to call it a night?” he asked. As if answering a summons, there was a buzzing flicker, a second one, and then the lights came back on, sure and steady, accompanied by the resumption of a low humming sound from the kitchen as the fridge freezer was recalled to its duty.
“Good timing.” Shay uncurled, blinking behind his curtain of hair in the sudden brightness. “That was great atmospheric lighting while Conall was yapping away, but now, we won’t have to throw half our shopping away tomorrow. Saved from Zeus’s thunderous spite by the gifts of crafty Prometheus, patron of all our inventions.” The thought clearly pleased him. “Yeah, Ithas, you keep telling the Olympians they can go fuck themselves, they’re not having my saganaki.” Conall snorted softly. His cousin didn’t like Zeus at all, tyrant, warmonger, torturer, serial rapist… what was there to like?
“That storm’s probably blacking out the Cyclades by now,” Shay decided, “and I’m definitely heading for bed. I’ve been up since before five, because someone booked us a ghastly, early flight, didn’t they Con? ‘Night everyone.”
Michelle’s face fell a little as he left them to an answering chorus of ‘night, Shay’ from the group. She couldn’t say she hadn’t been warned. His cousin didn’t like being stared at, and Conall had noticed how often her attention had wandered that way as he spun his tale.
“Us too,” Liam declared, rising and pulling Marie up after him. The top of her head barely brushed his shoulder, beanpole that he was. He looked to Conall. “Are you two lunatics still planning to drive to the Samaria gorge first thing?” He got an affirming grin and a nod. “Christ! Wake me up in good time then. I want to film the climb… as long as you plan to be done by lunchtime?”
“Easily,” Conall assured him. “Then it’s the beach and the water again all afternoon.”
“Sounds good. ‘Night guys.” Marie echoed him and then giggled as he swept her up to carry her away.
“Stop it, you great lummox!” A shriek as he tickled her. “Not fair!”
“Mwahahahaha. All mine, at last!” His gloating voice faded as he carried her triumphantly off.
Conall shook his head. Those two! He wondered if the ‘honeymoon phase’ would just keep going on and on forever. It was certainly starting to look like it. Michelle emptied her glass, said her own goodnight and left them too. Dana started gathering up the snack dishes and glasses to take through to the kitchen. Conall stirred himself and grabbed the rest, to dump by the sink with her batch.
“Thanks.” She turned on the tap. “Easier if it doesn’t dry on. Not tired yet?”
“Bloody knackered, actually. I’ll go out like a light when my head hits the pillow.”
“Pity,” she said, putting the first glass in the rack to dry and reaching for the next one. “I was hoping you might like to show me that scar again…” Her interest was flattering, but he liked to get to know a girl a little before acting on the impulse.
“Some other time perhaps… early start tomorrow.”
“Mmm. Well, do try not to break anything, won’t you? You might change your mind while we’re all here and it would be a shame if you were incapacitated when that happened.”
“Yes, it would,” he agreed amiably, with an appreciative look. “Good night, Dana.”
“Good night, Inspector Keane.” She really did have a lovely smile. And lots of other tempting bits too. He stifled that thought, or tried to, and made his way up to his room on the second floor. Bother! Now it was going to take him ages to nod off.
It didn’t though. By the time he’d finished in the bathroom and slipped between the sheets, he’d forgotten all about that little exchange. His mind was already engaged with weightier matters. Whatever Shay had been up to last month that had upset him so deeply, a challenge, or a series of challenges, that required total and absolute physical and mental focus was always the best way to snap him out of it again. A radical, ‘kill or cure’ therapy technique, perhaps, but the only thing that had ever proved effective.
Whatever it took, Conall decided, rather looking forward to it himself, truth be told. It would do them both good. He certainly didn’t want any more of Shay’s current mess leaking over into his half of their conjoined soul, or whatever else you chose to call the unbreakable bond between them.
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Dark of Night Page 29