Private Investigations (15 page)

Twenty-Four

I have to confess that I was at something of a loss when I arrived home from Edinburgh. I had passed a couple of gainful hours in my office, but my heart wasn’t in it, so I signed myself out. All I could think about was the wee girl in the car; she just wouldn’t leave me alone.

Seonaid and the boys were home from school when I got back to Gullane. I granted them some Playstation time, then took my daughter’s hand. ‘What would you like to do till Mum gets home?’ I asked her.

‘Story,’ she replied, without hesitation.

Trish, the children’s live-in carer, had a date to meet a friend at Ocean Terminal; I persuaded her to leave early so that it was just the two of us. I was very glad of that; I needed very badly to spend time with my youngest child.

We settled on
How the Grinch Stole Christmas
and went into the garden room, where she squeezed herself into an armchair beside me, her little face serious as I eased her into the classic yarn. She listened without a murmur, from start to finish, then looked up at me.

‘Have you ever seen a Grinch, Daddy?’ she asked me.

‘I’ve seen a few grumps,’ I told her, ‘and a few groaners, and even some people who looked pretty green, but no, I’ve never actually seen a Grinch.’

‘That’s because he’s not real, silly,’ she laughed.

For a moment my mind was overwhelmed by an image of another child, not too many miles from where Seonaid and I were sitting, probably playing out the same scene with her mother less than twenty-four hours earlier.

To fight it off, I picked up another book, A. A. Milne’s
Now We Are Six
. My daughter isn’t, but as soon as she turned five, she declared herself too old for the companion volume,
When We Were Very Young
.

‘Let me read you a story about someone who was real,’ I said, and launched into
King John’s Christmas
. It took me a little while, for I had to stop to explain what ‘supercilious’ means, and to explain why he might have signed his name ‘Johannes R’, but settled for ‘Jack’, and what India rubber was, and why Seonaid couldn’t have a pocketknife that really cuts.

‘Was King John really a bad man, Daddy?’ she asked when the poem was over.

‘That depends on who’s telling his story,’ I replied. ‘I doubt if any king was completely good in those days. But I suspect,’ I added, conspiratorially, ‘that he was a reasonably good man with bad PR.’

To deflect further discussion on the nature of public relations, I fast-forwarded to the tale of
The Knight Whose Armour Didn’t Squeak
, forgetting that it was about a medieval mugging. She laughed out loud at the tale. I’d only just finished convincing her that the cowardly knight Sir Thomas Tom really wasn’t a good man when Sarah arrived home and gave me the hug that I needed and the one that Seonaid took as her absolute right, which, of course, it is.

‘Bad day, uh?’ she murmured, as she held me close.

‘Bad start,’ I agreed, as we broke the clinch. ‘I thought I was done with things like that. I think I’m magnetic, love. Of all the cars that fu . . .’ Realising that our daughter was still within earshot I stopped myself short. ‘He chose mine; he had to choose mine. I think I must be a magnet for grief.’

‘Nonsense,’ she insisted. ‘To our daughter and me you’re a love machine. You were just unlucky, that’s all.’

‘Not as unlucky as that wee lass.’

Sarah glanced at Seonaid and put a finger to her lips, ending the discussion just as James Andrew exploded into the room with all the energy of a small tsunami. I guessed from his exuberance that he had beaten his brother yet again at whatever game they had played.

‘Where’s Mark?’ I asked.

‘Doing his homework,’ Jazz replied.

I gave him a look that was meant to be somewhere between curious and severe, but probably didn’t make it past amused. ‘Don’t you have any?’

‘Some,’ he admitted.

‘Then wouldn’t it be a good idea to do it before you’re too tired to do it than when you are but I still make you?’

He wrinkled his nose. ‘I suppose.’

If we were negotiating, it didn’t last long. Sarah pointed at the door. ‘Go do it while dinner’s being cooked,’ she ordered. ‘Now. And take your sister with you,’ she added. ‘I want to talk to Dad.’

‘What’s for dinner?’ my son, in the act of leaving, asked me. Since his mother and I got back together, more or less full-time, we take turns in the kitchen. It’s another part of my new life that I enjoy.

‘Tuna steaks on the Foreman grill, potato wedges in the dry fryer, beans and fried onions,’ I told him. ‘A special request by Mark,’ I explained to Sarah. ‘He’s trying to bulk himself up, and reckons that fish is the way to go.’

She grinned. ‘Poor kid. For girls or boys, puberty’s a bastard, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah,’ I agreed. ‘For lads, it brings a whole new set of personal targets. I still haven’t hit all of mine yet.’

We headed for the kitchen. For some reason Sarah likes to watch me cook; when I’m in my apron she calls me ‘Masterchef’. The wedges were waiting in the dry fryer. I set it for forty minutes and began to slice the onions.

‘What about Seonaid?’ she asked.

‘I’ve got a smaller steak for her. Not that much smaller, though; I think she’s in a growing phase.’

She smiled, and fetched me a Corona from the fridge. I looked at her as she handed it to me. ‘You not having one?’

‘No thanks. I’m on call, and anyway, I don’t fancy beer just now,’ she replied.

‘Wine?’

She shook her head. ‘No. I’ve . . .’ she paused. ‘What’s that Scots saying? I’ve taken a schooner to alcohol.’

I laughed out loud. ‘That would be “scunner”, my darling. And most unlike you.’ A thought came to me. ‘Hey, what is this? This morning you had an uncontrollable desire for lemon drizzle cake. Tonight you have a booze intolerance. Are you sure there’s nothing you want to tell me?’

‘Absolutely,’ she replied, but I wasn’t letting it go. I snapped into interrogation mode, looking her in the eye.

‘Okay, there’s nothing you want,’ I stressed the word, ‘to tell me. But is there something that you should?’

‘Fucking cops,’ she murmured, then took the kitchen knife from my hand and laid it on the work surface. She slid an arm round my waist. ‘I’m late,’ she said.

It didn’t exactly hit me like a ton of bricks. Sarah’s mum made a prize-winning lemon drizzle cake, and since her death she’d never mentioned the damn confection, not once, until that morning.

‘How late?’ I asked, not even trying to suppress my grin.

‘Only a week. Too early to be taking it as fact, but you know I’m pretty regular; always have been.’

‘Have you done a test?’

‘No, not yet.’

‘Aw Jesus,’ I chuckled. ‘Even I know it isn’t too early for that. Buy a kit, pee on the stick and that’s it.’

‘Maybe I don’t want to know.’

I paused the fryer. ‘Let’s say you are pregnant. How did we get to this?’

‘When we got back together,’ she said, ‘I was off the pill. I went back on it sharpish, and that was okay, but my body didn’t take to it like before. So I switched to what they call the mini-pill; it has only one hormone, progesterone. The problem may be that I didn’t read the advice, that for the first couple of days, you should use a back-up method.’

‘Johnnies?’

She nodded. ‘We could also have abstained, of course.’

I threw her a mock frown. ‘Sure we could.’

She allowed me a hint of a smile. ‘But we didn’t, and so there may have been a very small window of opportunity.’

‘Wow! As marksmanship goes . . .’

‘Yeah, we may have shot the arrow right through it.’

‘Do the test tomorrow. Otherwise you’ll fret for another week.’

‘Okay,’ she conceded. ‘I will.’

‘Good,’ I said, restarting the fryer. ‘Now let me get on with feeding the kids that we have already.’

She fell silent, watching me as I loaded the grill, set the beans to heat, then went to work on the onions in a big frying pan. They were turning a satisfactory golden colour when she spoke again.

‘Bob,’ she ventured, ‘if the test is positive, as I’m sure it will be, how will you feel?’

I glanced across at her. ‘Once I get over being gobsmacked, I’ll be delighted . . . as long as you are too. How do you feel about it?’

‘Honestly? I can’t get my head round it. Apart from anything else, the timing’s terrible; Joe’s about to retire, and I’m about to assume the chair of forensic pathology. I’ll have a department to run, undergraduates and postgrads to mentor, people’s careers in my hands. It’s a huge responsibility, but it’s something I’ve looked forward to as a challenge. And what do I do? As soon as that moment arrives, I go off on maternity leave? That doesn’t sit comfortably with me.’

I’d known from the outset she’d feel that way, but I needed her to articulate it.

‘Understood. But it’s not your fault, accidents happen. You of all people must know that; you’ve built a career out of examining their consequences.’

‘In this case,’ she countered, ‘there is clear contributory negligence. Mine, not yours,’ she added.

I worked the onions even harder, throwing in some Worcester sauce as they started to brown. ‘You could have a termination,’ I murmured, without looking at her.

‘How would you feel about that?’

‘I will support whatever decision you make.’

‘That’s not an answer.’

‘It’s the best you’re going to get,’ I told her. ‘I love you, and your happiness is paramount.’

‘Even if it means killing your child?’

She had me there. Instantly, I was back in Fort Kinnaird; but I steeled myself and answered as best I could. ‘It would be as if this discussion never happened, and we’d never mention it again.’

She stepped beside me and hugged me, awkwardly. ‘You’re a doll. But that’s not what we do, you and I, is it?’

‘No,’ I agreed, ‘it’s not.’ Then I laughed again. ‘Hell, we could have Ignacio back here around that time. What’s another kid? We’ll give Trish a pay rise for the extra workload. We’ll make the house bigger, if we have to. Now, you go on and fetch the bears; this masterpiece is just about ready for them.’

We ate round the kitchen table, all five of us. Twelve months before, I could not have imagined that ever happening again, but it has. As I reflected on my own good fortune it brought me back to the ill luck of others, and made me sombre once more. To hide my feelings from the kids I went back to work as soon as I had finished the last of my perfectly grilled tuna, chopping a pineapple and a honeydew melon into cubes, then sharing them out in bowls, each one topped with a scoop of butterscotch ice cream.

We had barely finished dessert when the doorbell rang. I have a discreet security camera that’s a holdover from my former career and that I’ve kept. It lets me see who’s calling, just in case whoever it is might have an axe to grind, or might be carrying one. I checked the monitor and saw a uniformed cop, a motorcycle officer, with his helmet in one hand and a package in the other.

‘Evening, sir,’ he said, as I opened the door. I recognised him from many encounters.

‘Craig,’ I greeted him. ‘This is a blast from the recent past.’

‘A welcome one nonetheless, sir. It’s good to see you looking so well.’

Fuck
, I thought,
did I look so bad before?

‘You have something for me?’

He held out the package. ‘This was sent through from Glasgow, sir, by DCC McGuire, with your name on it, marked “urgent”. Fettes reckoned that meant tonight.’

‘Tomorrow would have done,’ I told him, ‘but I appreciate it. Will you come in for a mug of something?’

Craig, PC Charlton, to give him his proper handle, shook his head. ‘Thanks, Mr Skinner, but I’d better get straight back. I heard some chatter in my ear about a major incident, so it might be all hands to the pumps.’

I wished him well, and took the bundle from him. I’d expected it to be much bulkier than it was. That simple fact told me why Mario had a down on the former Detective Inspector McGarry. I took the file into the garden room, tossed it on to the couch, then went back to the kitchen, but it was deserted. I guessed that Sarah had taken Seonaid off to supervise her night-time ablutions and that the boys had vanished to fight over what to watch in their last hour of permitted television.

I fetched myself another beer, and returned to the parcel. I opened it and removed its contents, and found myself looking at a familiar Strathclyde Police folder, just like the hundreds that had clogged my in tray during my few months as its last chief constable. I was about to open it when Sarah returned.

‘What’s that?’ she asked. ‘I thought we’d seen the last of biker cops dropping off parcels.’

‘Yes, me too,’ I agreed.

‘So what is it? An old investigation you were involved in?’

‘Half right. Old investigation, yes; one of mine, not really. This came completely out of the blue. Remember I told you I was having lunch today with Eden Higgins?’

‘How could I forget?’ she said. ‘Your late ex-girlfriend’s tycoon brother; the man who wrote to you about his “situation”. What was it?’

I told her about the theft of the
Princess Alison
, and the abortive police investigation that I had been retained to review.

She frowned, as she sat beside me. ‘Should you be doing that?’

‘I asked myself that question before I accepted,’ I admitted, ‘and I couldn’t think of a single reason why not. Neither could Andy or Mario; that’s why I’ve got this folder.’

‘Won’t it be embarrassing for them if you find that the investigation was flawed?’

I laughed. ‘It’ll be far more embarrassing for me. When this thing kicked off I was chief constable. By any standards this was a major theft, and yet I never heard about it. I should be doing this for free.’

‘Then why aren’t you, my dear?’ she countered, reasonably. I’d been asking myself that question.

‘I will, if I find very quickly that the CID investigation was competent and covered all lines of inquiry. I will if I wind up making my own inquiries but don’t trace the
Princess Alison
. If she is recovered, and the insurance company cough up as promised, I might take a fee but tell them to give the bonus money to charities of Andy Martin’s choice.’