14 - Stay of Execution

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘Tell him I’ll do it in the afternoon.’

  ‘But Mario needs it done in the morning, because they’ve got someone locked up, and they need the PM report double quick or they’ll have to release him.’

  Sarah gave a quick frown and sipped her sherry.

  ‘Need I say more?’ Bob asked. ‘Listen, love, this is not about leisure time, or about my fucking golf handicap. I can only do my job one way, and that’s flat out. You might have a different working environment, as a home-based consultant, but when your phone rings you’re exactly the same as me. If either of us gets a 999 call we don’t think, we act. And . . . it’s . . . always . . . been . . . that . . . way.’ He prodded the arm of his chair with a finger, to emphasise every word. ‘It may have caused us a problem years ago, that time when you took Jazz back to the States, but we got over that and we lived happily with our respective lifestyles afterwards. What’s wrong with our marriage now is not our work, and it’s not my guilt over my brother . . . which I now accept was misplaced . . . it’s us, you and me.’

  ‘You can’t tell me how I feel about you,’ Sarah protested.

  ‘I think I can. This year, when we were in America, and I had my health thing and decided afterwards . . . wrongly, as you saw it . . . that I had to come back here to defend my job, you had a fling, an affair. It ended badly, and okay, I know we said we wouldn’t speak of it again, but I have to. We started the other night, and we have to finish.’ He looked into her eyes. ‘I need to be honest about this, Sarah: I can’t look at you in the same way I did before. I hoped I would, but I can’t. That doesn’t mean I don’t love you, because I do; it means that my perception of you has changed.’

  ‘If it has,’ she said grimly, ‘it’s an ego thing. Go on, deny that.’

  ‘I won’t even try to. The idea that the great Bob Skinner’s wife could ever be truly attracted by another man never entered my head. But you could, and you were, so that’s me put in my place. Sure, I could try to dismiss it by telling myself you were angry with me at the time so it was really my fault, but I’d be kidding myself. You fancied him and he fancied you, and you had each other. So now when I’m feeling black . . . you know, the shade beyond blue, where we all go sometimes . . . I find myself asking myself, how many more times?’

  ‘So why not ask me?’

  ‘Okay, since we’ve been married, how many lovers have you had?’

  ‘You know how many.’

  ‘Accepted. Now, suppose you met someone who got you as hot as the guy in Buffalo did, and it was mutual . . .’

  Dangerous ground. ‘Bob . . . that’s not going to happen,’ she exclaimed. She felt her cheeks flush and feared for a second that he had noticed, but he was looking away from her, up towards the ceiling.

  ‘You can’t say that,’ he murmured. ‘It’s happened once this year already. Look, I’m not going to ask you whether you would or you wouldn’t, one, because I think I can guess the truth, and two, much more important, because I think what you’re saying is that I don’t affect you like that any more, I don’t get you that hot. Be honest with me, I don’t, do I?’

  She sank back into her chair, as if she was trying to make herself smaller. ‘Honestly? No,’ she admitted finally. ‘But whose fault is that?’ she challenged him.

  ‘Oh, that really is mine, and I admit it. But it’s not because I’m not interested in you physically, or because when we do get it on we’re just going through the motions. It’s because where I’ve stood this year, you’ve stood before. We’ve matched each other in one respect, Sarah, and that’s in the number of affairs we’ve had since we’ve been married. You told me once that you had your first so that you wouldn’t be able to brandish my infidelity like a club to beat me with. I don’t think I believe that any more, but I do recognise this. If I can’t see you in the same way I did before, then you can’t see me as your ideal, faultless, untouchable lover either. And don’t try to tell me I’m wrong.’

  Sarah finished her Bloody Mary, and signalled to the cocktail waiter to bring her another. She sat in silence until it arrived, then turned back to look at her husband. ‘No,’ she said gravely. ‘I won’t try to tell you that. So what sort of a marriage does it leave us?’

  ‘One that’s probably still better than many others,’ he replied, ‘and one that I want to continue. Do you?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve never been in any real doubt about that. But is it possible?’

  ‘As long as it’s what we both want, and as long as our family unit is strong and our kids are happy, yes, it is.’

  ‘Can we maintain that?’

  ‘I believe we can, if we try. But if we decide that it would be impossible in the long run, should we chuck it now, take the hurt and get it over with?’

  She looked at him. ‘I don’t think I could take the hurt,’ she confessed.

  ‘Then we settle for what we’ve got right now. Agreed?’

  She nodded. ‘Agreed.’ She stirred her drink, rattling the ice cubes. ‘Are you still hungry?’ she asked him.

  ‘Christ, yes!’ Bob replied. ‘We’ve played fourteen holes of golf, remember; I’m bloody starving.’

  ‘Okay, let’s go through to the dining room.’ He made to rise, but she put a hand on his sleeve. ‘Bob, you may have found out things about me that you didn’t know, but maybe I’ve found them out too. I promise you, as long as we are married, I’ll never again . . .’

  He stopped her in mid-pledge. ‘Don’t say it. If you do then I’ll have to make myself believe you.’

  ‘Would that be so difficult?’ she hissed at him.

  ‘I’d rather leave it the way it is. I didn’t ask you to promise anything, and I didn’t expect it. In all my career,’ he said, ‘I have never solved a crime that nobody knew had been committed. Likewise in all the recorded history of the western world, I can’t recall a case of a marriage that’s ended purely because one partner slept with someone else on the side. Criminals and adulterers are no different; they’re only ever caught because they let someone else find out what they’ve done.’

  30

  Colonel Malou was impressed. The sight of the reception that had awaited the Bastogne Drummers in Haddington had taken him by surprise, and had made him think for the first time since Hull of something other than the death of Philippe Hanno. He had not been told of it in advance, and in other circumstances the sight of it would have gladdened his heart.

  When their bus had pulled into the centre of the old county town, they had found an official welcoming party, headed by the chairman of East Lothian Council, and by the president of the area council of the Royal British Legion. There was another there too; a young priest, in a dark suit, looking sombre amongst the jovial councillors and their boisterous ex-service hosts. ‘Colonel Malou,’ he said, in French, when it was his turn to greet him, ‘I am Father Angelo Collins, private secretary to His Holiness. He has asked me to give you his personal welcome to Scotland, and to tell you how pleased he is that you have been able to come to play for him.’

  The old soldier was deeply moved. ‘It’s an honour beyond the dreams of any of us.’

  ‘His Holiness has heard of the accident in Hull,’ Father Collins continued, ‘through the priest who attended. He sends his sympathy on your loss, and his prayers for the soul of Corporal Hanno.’

  Malou simply nodded his thanks, for he could not speak them.

  A civic buffet awaited the Belgians in the Corn Exchange and a marching route had been laid out for the afternoon. After Hanno’s tragic death . . . the police in Hull had called Malou that morning in Newcastle, but only to tell him that they had had no success in tracing the drunken driver who had knocked him down . . . Malou had surprised many of the bandsmen by declaring that for the rest of the tour there would be no drinking before parades and that the Stella would be strictly rationed afterwards.

  Some of the senior men had suggested that their fallen colleague would have wanted the opposite form of tribute, but the colonel had rebuffed th
em. ‘This was always my intention,’ he had told them, ‘and Philippe knew it. We are on our way to play for His Holiness. When we do, every one of us will be at his sharpest.’

  And so the crates of beer in the Corn Exchange had been untouched by the visitors . . . although not by the official representatives . . . and an extra supply of soft drinks had been fetched from the nearby supermarket. To the surprise of the Royal British Legionnaires, at least, Malou and his company had remained clear-eyed throughout the lunch.

  At three o’clock sharp, they lined up outside the Sheriff Court building. The colonel was at the head of the parade, leading the twenty-three bandsmen in their blue uniforms, with the squad of twelve musketeers bringing up the rear.

  Although they were known officially as the Bastogne Drummers, half of the instruments were brass, with six trombones, two tenor horns, two baritone horns and two tubas. Normally there would have been two bass drums flanking the ten side-drummers, but as Malou marched them out into Court Street, there was only one. They had left without reserves, and Hanno’s place remained vacant.

  The route was a short one; for traffic had to be held up for the march, and Haddington was always busy on a Saturday afternoon. Malou the bandmaster led them, playing as they went, from Court Street into Market Street; the pavements were not exactly lined, but many shoppers stopped to watch them pass through the wider area of the old marketplace, past Kesley’s bookshop on the right, and the East Lothian Courier office on the left, before they moved into the bottleneck that led to Hardgate.

  Malou had not been given an opportunity to rehearse the parade, but he found no difficulty as there was a strong police presence and officers were lined on either side of the marchers, showing them the way. He speeded the march as they took the right turn into the narrow section of Hardgate that led them towards, then past, the old George Hotel and into High Street. There the roadway widened out once more, and the colonel was able to slow the march again. The music was loud and martial, but tight and disciplined, as were his troops. A lump came to the old soldier’s throat as he glanced to either side of him and saw genuine admiration in the eyes of many of the onlookers, where these days in Belgium he usually saw only amusement and ridicule.

  If this was to be the Drummers’ last tour, they would go out in style, he promised himself as he led his proud column past the Town House.

  The march ended where it had begun, in front of the Sheriff Court and the old council buildings. As the colonel led the squad into the assembly area he turned them, so that the musket platoon was in front.

  ‘Raise your weapons!’ he called out; the command was in English, for the benefit of his audience. The ancient, heavy muskets, shouldered during the march, were pointed in the air.

  ‘Prepare salute!’ A dozen thumbs drew back hammers, and the side-drummers began a long roll.

  Malou counted to ten. ‘Fire!’ he yelled, making himself heard above the bandsmen.

  The noise was deafening. Several members of the official party were seen to jump backwards, and even across the street, the colonel saw that the crowds were startled. Good, he thought, as he always did at such a moment. They should know, they should know.

  31

  Bob had always liked the smoking room in the Gullane golf clubhouse, the big front lounge with its oak panelling, and the gold-inscribed boards high on the wall, listing the club champions and past captains. Once he had entertained hopes of seeing his own name on the former, but his erratic putting stroke had thwarted him in each of the three or four years when he had come close.

  He had told McGuire to be there for eight o’clock, but he and Sarah had arrived a good fifteen minutes early, to be on the safe side. He had chosen a bottle of Chablis from the list; it sat on their table in an ice bucket, as they waited, sipping the gentle white wine and making small-talk, sitting close together to make themselves heard above the conversation of the other dining parties.

  The Gleneagles weekend had been a good move, Bob had told himself on the way back. The surroundings had encouraged them both to say things that had needed saying, and as a result there was a degree of restored warmth between them, where before the atmosphere had been chilly and unpredictable. Their marriage was not out of the woods, but at least there was light shining through the trees.

  If the clock above the fireplace had had a chimer, it would have struck eight at the precise moment that McGuire’s bulky form appeared in the doorway. The big superintendent wore a navy blue blazer and slacks, but even in a white suit he would still have managed to cast a dark figure, Skinner thought. His hair, his complexion and his eyes worked together to create that impression, and also to radiate considerable menace to those who did not know him, although he was by nature the most amiable of men.

  Skinner rose to greet his guests, making for Paula Viareggio first. They had met before at a few social events around Edinburgh; he had always found her as striking a figure as her cousin, although in a different way. She was as typically Italian as he could imagine, save for her silver hair, long and sleek and shining, which made her olive skin seem even richer. Heads at every table turned in her direction as she walked into the room.

  ‘Hello,’ he said warmly, leaning forward to kiss her cheek, bending only slightly, for she was tall. ‘Good to see you.’

  He turned to the American; the two shook hands. ‘Inspector, welcome to Gullane. How’s your day been so far?’

  Both Mawhinney and McGuire smiled. ‘Interesting,’ the Scot replied, as they all took seats at Skinner’s table. ‘Colin’s been learning some of the finer points of Scottish tribalism,’ he continued, as their host poured each of them a glass of wine. ‘We did the blue-rinse tour in the morning . . . Jenners, Harvey Nicks, Frasers . . . then we had a pint and a bridie at the Diggers’ for lunch and finished up at Tynecastle. It was a draw, by the way, if you haven’t heard.’

  ‘That’s good,’ said the DCC happily. ‘They’ve taken two points off each other; that suits me. What did you think of the game?’ he asked the visitor. ‘Are you a football man?’

  ‘Neither ours nor yours, sir, I’m a baseball fan. But I enjoyed the match very much. A different atmosphere, I gotta say. Those songs! We hear nothing like that in Yankee Stadium, I promise you. And maybe just as well, because some of them would probably be in breach of our public-order laws.’

  ‘Some of them might be against ours,’ said Skinner, ‘and we enforce them where we can, but how are you going to arrest a whole football crowd?’

  ‘That’s complacent!’ Sarah protested. He turned, surprised by his wife’s intervention. ‘What if they all started chanting racial abuse?’

  Bob frowned. ‘You think that never happens? Maybe not in Edinburgh, but it does elsewhere. It’s easy to say, “Arrest them,” but sometimes it’s impossible to do it. Not even NYPD would have enough officers to lift five thousand people.’

  ‘So you’d let it go on?’

  ‘No. If it was down to me, and it became intolerable, I’d change the law so that clubs could be fined for the behaviour of their crowds . . . and not just the home clubs either . . . and grounds closed if necessary. If there was serious racial abuse going on at a stadium on my patch, and the home support was clearly responsible, I’d like to give them one warning, and on a repeat offence, close the place for three months.’

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ Mawhinney concurred.

  ‘Mmm,’ said Paula, as the lady-steward handed out the dinner menu, in blue leather folders. ‘You two guys, and Mario, you give the word “draconian” a whole new depth of meaning.’

  ‘That’s cops for you, the world over,’ Skinner countered cheerfully. ‘But you can relax. For a start the problem isn’t that bad, and if it was, the politicians would take years to pluck up the courage to tackle it.’

  ‘Speaking of politicians,’ the American intervened, ‘I read that you have a new Justice Minister.’

  ‘Yes, we have. I have hopes for this one. Not many of them have what it takes to mak
e a real difference; this lady might just be one of the exceptions.’

  ‘If the men around her give her a chance.’ Sarah snorted.

  ‘They might not have the option.’ He looked across the table to McGuire. ‘By the way, how did Manny’s do go last night?’ he asked.

  The superintendent laughed. ‘He surprised everyone by getting rat-arsed. He wanted to take everyone on to Ryrie’s for more, but we wound up sticking him in a patrol car and sending him home for the rest of his life.’

  ‘I thought the chief was a bit liberal with the Laphroaig in the afternoon. I’m sorry I had to miss it, but we had other places to be.’

  ‘Nice places?’ Paula asked Sarah.

  ‘Gleneagles.’

  ‘Mmm. That qualifies. When did you get back?’

  ‘Early afternoon. I can only escape the humdrum for so long. Saturday tends to be Tesco day, for the kids have to be fed.’ She turned to Bob. ‘Speaking of which, honey, I saw the strangest thing in Haddington this afternoon. It was a parade, by a marching band, in uniforms, with a squadron of guys following behind with muskets. They were very good, but at the end they lined up and they fired their old blunder-busses up in the air. What a hell of a noise they made. I had Seonaid with me, and she almost jumped out of her skin. For a moment I thought they’d really frightened her, until she started to laugh.’

  Her husband grinned. ‘Those must have been the Belgians,’ he said.

  ‘Who?’ asked Paula.

  ‘The Bastogne Drummers; they’re a group from Belgium and they’re over to play at the Pope’s Murrayfield rally next week.’

  ‘What a strange choice,’ Sarah remarked. ‘Whose idea was that?’

  ‘Pope John the Twenty-fifth’s idea; he asked for them. Monsignor de Matteo told me he’d heard them on a visit to Belgium.’

  ‘He could have been on a trip to Holland and he’d still have heard them. They go off with quite a bang.’ She glanced up at the waitress who had come to take their dinner orders. ‘I’ll start with the smoked fillet of beef, please.’