Lethal Intent (12 page)

'Absolutely no pressure, I promise; and if there was we'd resist it. The head of CID's as gutted as the rest of us, George, believe me.'

'Ach, I do. I've known Dan for years; he's a good bloke. It's just that we're all totally bloody driven by clear-up figures these days. See public accountability, Stevie; setting targets and all that stuff. It's great in principle, but when it affects the way we do our job, or stops us doing it altogether, I wish they'd just let us get on with it.'

'So do I, from time to time,' Steele admitted. 'It's here to stay, though, and I've got a hunch that it might get worse before it gets better. I just heard something on the grapevine that set me back on my heels. A pal of mine in St Andrews House told me that the security adviser's office there has a new occupant: Greg Jay.'

'You're joking!'

'My sense of humour isn't that black. I asked the chief super if she'd heard about it, but it was news to her.'

'That'll be great,' Regan exclaimed, ironically. 'Mr Bitter and Twisted himself, whispering in the ears of the First Minister and the Justice Minister.' He glanced at his colleague. 'Although my own personal rumour mill says that someone has been whispering in de Marco's ear before him.'

Steele frowned. 'Who's that?'

'I'll do you a favour and not tell you. If it's just unfounded gossip you're best not to know.'

Between them, a silence fell; and in it, Regan's grief, from which their conversation had been no more than a moment's respite, returned in full force. 'I've got to go, Stevie,' he said. 'It was a hell of a job persuading the wife not to come here; I have to get back to her now. I'll take a couple more days' leave, yes?'

'You'll take a couple of weeks more; you'll take as long as you and Jen need. Fuck the clear-up figures, George: there are more important things in this world.'

Twenty

'Pops, there's something I have to tell you,' said Alexis Skinner.

'You're getting married.'

'No. I'm not even seeing anyone just now.'

'So you're not pregnant either, then.'

'Don't be daft. I made that mistake once; it won't be repeated.'

'What is it, then?'

'I'm a bit scared.'

Bob looked at her across the dinner table, eyebrows raised in surprise. 'You're what? You've never been scared in your life. What's the problem? Are you in trouble at work? Are you ill?' He sat bolt upright as his mind ticked off a list of crisis scenarios and stopped at the worst case. 'You haven't found a lump, have you?'

'No, Pops, it's nothing like that, none of those things. I'm fine, but I'm scared for you.'

He picked up his glass and shook his head slowly. 'Is that all? Alex, my love, you're the oldest of my children, but you're not always the most sensible. Why the hell are you scared about me, any more than you have been for the last twenty years?' He rose from his dining chair. 'Come on, let's go through to the comfy seats and you can tell me all about it.'

'Okay, but go and say good night to the sibs first.'

He did as he was told, climbing the stairs to the children's rooms. They had been all over him when he had arrived home, even Seonaid, whom he had thought too young to have noticed his absence. He had given time, and presents, to each of them in turn, explaining as best he could to the two boys why their mother had decided to stay in America for a little longer.

To his surprise, Mark had been the most anxious of the three. James Andrew and Seonaid had accepted his promise that she would be back for Christmas, but his older son had needed more reassurance. 'She isn't ill, is she?' he had asked at one point.

'No,' he had replied. 'She's been very tired, but she's okay. Mum's been through a lot this year. She's in need of a good long rest, that's all.'

He stood in the doorway of Mark's room, looking at him; as he had expected, his younger son and daughter were sound asleep. He was sitting with his back to the door at his computer, as usual, but not at a document or website. He was on-line, in the midst of a video conversation, but he wore a headset so only he could hear the incoming sound. Bob moved silently behind him to see the face on the small square in the centre of the screen: it was Sarah, and from the background he could tell that she was in the internet cafe they had found near their hotel. He waved at the camera. A second or two later, Mark turned, surprised and looked up at him. 'Go on,' said Bob, quietly, ruffling the boy's hair. 'Don't mind me.' He leaned over to be close to the microphone. 'Hi, Sarah, sorry to butt in. I'll leave you to it; my big kid's downstairs.' He read her lips as she mouthed, 'Okay. Good night.'

'Good night,' he replied, 'to both of you.' He closed the door behind him and made his way back to Alex.

She was sitting in the big conservatory-style sitting room on the end of the house. 'All okay?' she asked.

'Yeah, fine.' He told her about the conversation he had interrupted, and about Mark's earlier concern.

'You know why he's anxious, don't you?' she asked.

'Tell me.'

'He's already lost one mother; he doesn't want it to happen again.'

'He sees that as a possibility, does he?'

'Of course he does. You parents either have unrealistic expectations or you underrate your children. Mark's a very gifted mathematician; you're aware of that, but you don't realise how emotionally mature he is. He picks up the same vibes I do. He reads things that the other two can't see.'

Alex pulled her legs up underneath her on the big armchair she had chosen. The curtains were open and the lights were dim; through the picture windows, the moon shone on the Firth of Forth, turning the eleven-mile wide estuary into a great silver ribbon.

'How was I with you?' Bob asked. 'Unrealistic or a putter-downer?'

'Father, you thought the sun shone out of my arse but, then, you thought the same about my mother too.'

'I don't deny either of those charges. I don't regret either… either. Fact is, I've never changed those opinions.'

She drew him a long look, arching her eyebrows. 'Even though you now know all about Mum's affairs? Even though I aborted my fianc�'s baby, without even telling him I was pregnant?'

'Even though. I'll support you in anything you do.'

'Even if it's illegal?'

'Even if. But that's semantics: you couldn't do anything illegal, unless it was for the most moral reasons.'

'What makes you so sure?'

He grunted. 'You're my daughter.'

'I'm also my mother's daughter. Does that mean you expect me to have affairs?'

'God help the guy who marries you. If genetic inheritance counts for anything, he's stuffed from both sides.'

Alex turned on him. 'You see? There you go, that's how you're scaring me. You've changed, you're not the man I've always known. You're different.'

'Nothing's changed. This is the man I've always been; if I seem different it's because I've shed my old skin. Maybe it happened when they put the pacemaker in. Maybe it was when I found out that my brother was dead. Maybe it's when I found out about Sarah and Ron bloody Neidholm.'

His daughter gasped. 'What? The man in Buffalo? The one who was killed? Sarah and he…'

'… were lovers? Yes.'

'God, Pops. I don't know what to say.'

'How about "Not again"? Before that there was another guy in the States, called Terry Carter.'

'You haven't been perfect yourself,' she reminded him.

'Of course not. I'm obsessive, I have a wicked temper, and I have an occasional tendency to follow my dick where it leads me. I suppose that's why your mother and I were soul-mates.'

'You missed out "cynical".'

'Sorry, that too. But it's a fault I've acquired only recently.'

'Pops, what's brought all this on?'

'Like I said, I don't know. All I do know is that suddenly I've become completely self-aware, and with it self-critical. All my life, Alex, I've had a great big ego; I've believed in my own public image, and, I confess, I've even pandered to it from time to time. I just didn't recognise the fact until now. Maybe it was the heart scare; maybe when it stopped, then started to beat again, I came round as a different guy. Certainly, from around that time I've seen things, and myself, completely differently.'

'Are you saying you've lost your self-belief?'

'I don't think so. Truth be told, when I'm not with you, and them upstairs, I'm happiest doing my job. That's why I fought so hard when it was under threat. That's the main reason why Sarah and I are in the trouble we're in right now.' He looked at her, suddenly, sharply. 'Who's the most important person in your life?'

'You are.' Her reply was instant.

'Good. Next.'

'James Andrew, because he's special; he's my blood and he's you, scaled down.'

'Then if anything happens to me, you raise him, and make him different. Instil some humility in him; my dad tried it with me, but he failed… possibly because he wasn't very good at it himself,' he added.

'Nothing's going to happen to you for a very long time,' she said, 'so let's not even go there. What's the point of your question?'

'My point is that if I made the same list, totally honestly, the names on it, in order, would be you, the Jazzer and Seonaid, my blood children, first equal, then Mark and then me. Sarah would follow on somewhere.'

'I see. Not a good basis for a sustainable marriage, is that what you're saying?'

'Unless you both think the same way, and you realise it and accept it'

'And what if that special person comes along?'

'I think Ron Neidholm may have been that special person for Sarah.'

'And what about you?'

His mouth fell open slightly with surprise as he looked at her. 'God, don't you know that? I met her long ago. She died long ago.'

'Mum.'

'Of course.' He felt his eyes mist over, and turned his head away so that she would not see. 'I have never got over your mother's death, Alexis. I've put it away in a box inside me, like that box of hers I hid in the attic in the old cottage, but the hurt has always been there. It always will be. You have no idea how much I miss her.'

'Maybe I do,' she whispered, with a catch in her voice, but he did not notice.

'There is no day goes by without me thinking of her and feeling the pain of her loss. Tell me, did you assume that if I had found out about her infidelities when she was alive I'd have divorced her?'

'I suppose I did.'

'Well, you're wrong. I could never have done that because I loved her with all my being, and she loved me in the same way. Okay, I was arrogant and driven and consumed by ambition, and she was manipulative, immoral and ruthless. Those guys of hers: they thought they were using her, and all the time it was the other way round.' He laughed. 'There we were, the two of us, the
Guardian
couple of the month, Gullane edition, all of it a front. And yet behind the secrets and lies, when it came to it we were like twins, conjoined at the heart and at the very soul.'

'Pops, you've had twenty years to think about this. If you'd found out at the time…'

'I'd have felt the same. I'd have forgiven her, like she forgave me once.'

'Jesus, this is confession time! When was that?'

'When we were engaged: I had a heavy thing for a while with someone else.'

'Someone she knew?'

'No.'

'And is she still around, this person?'

'Very much so, but keep it to yourself. It was Lou Bankier; we were at university at the same time. At the end of the day, I chucked her and went back to Myra; told her about it.' He chuckled. 'At the time I thought she took it very well. Eventually I found out why: she'd been doing the same with my best pal!'

He turned to face his daughter once again. 'Am I making sense?'

'Yes. I'm just astounded by it all.' She looked at him, her eyes big and earnest. 'Pops, you and Sarah: you've both got all this baggage. Couldn't you just put it down and get on with your life together?'

'Settle for what we've got, you mean? That's the decision we have to make.'

'It's not that difficult, is it? With trust and honesty on both sides, couldn't you give it a try?'

'If there were no other issues, we could.'

The big eyes narrowed. 'What sort of issues?'

'Female.'

'Oh, shit. Are you seeing someone else?'

'I wouldn't put it like that, certainly not in the sense you mean, but there's someone I like very much.'

'It's not Lou again, is it?'

'Wash your mouth out, girl!' he said, indignantly. 'She's married, and to my friend at that; I've got a scrap of personal morality left! Does the name Aileen de Marco mean anything to you?'

'Sure does. I should be shocked. Why am I not?'

'Because she's a very compelling and charismatic woman.'

'That's certainly how she comes across on television,' Alex conceded. She picked up her wine-glass from the floor. 'Bloody hell. Pops. What are you going to do?'

'What I always do… until Sarah comes home, at least. Get my head down and lose myself in my job. God knows, right now it needs my full attention.'

Twenty-one

'Can I ask you something, Neil?' said Bandit Mackenzie.

'You already did.'

'Eh?'

'You asked if you could ask me something. That, of itself, constitutes a question. The answer is "yes". However, there is no guarantee that you will get a reply.'

'I'll take my chances. Do you always look this knackered in the morning?'

McIlhenney grunted. 'It shows, does it? My wife's pregnant; it's like sleeping with a chorus line.'

'Ah, I know that one. Commiserations, pal. How long does she have to go?'

'Quite some time yet; about four months.' He was glad that Mackenzie had bought the lie. The dream had recurred the night before, even more vividly: it was not something he wanted to be drawn into discussing. For all Lou's reassurance, he had found it profoundly disturbing.

Their conversation was interrupted as the door of the conference room swung open, and Amanda Dennis entered, followed by Bob Skinner, Willie Haggerty and Sean Green. She was carrying a bulky folder, which she laid on the table.