Quintin Jardine: Aftershock

‘How’s she doing?’ asked Neil McIlhenney.

‘Maggie?’ Mario McGuire’s heavy black eyebrows rose. ‘For a woman who’s just had her womb and ovaries removed because of cancer, and who’s in the middle of follow-up chemotherapy, she’s doing bloody well. But why are you asking me? Why haven’t you been to see her yourself?’

‘I haven’t been given the okay.’

‘Come again?’

‘Her sister said she would phone me when she was ready for visitors.’

‘Her sister?’ Mario snorted. ‘Look, Bet’s only just come back into her life after fifteen years or so. She doesn’t know who’s who. You’re not bloody “visitors”; you’re family, as near as damn it. Phone her first, just to make sure she’ll be in, then get your arse down to Gordon Terrace and pay her a visit.’

‘Will do. How’s the baby?’

A big smile creased McGuire’s swarthy features. ‘Stephanie Margaret is blooming. She’s up to six and a half pounds, and she’s absolutely drop-dead gorgeous.’

‘Who does she take after?’

‘Her mother, mostly; it looks like she’s going to have the same red hair. But if you look closely, around her eyes, you can see her dad in her: you can see Stevie.’

Neil frowned. ‘Will that be good for Maggie? It’s only a couple of months since he was killed.’

‘Wee Steph can’t be anything but good for her. She’s what her life’s all about now; she’s her reason to beat this damn disease. And she will, too.’

‘What if she doesn’t?’

Detective Chief Superintendent Mario McGuire’s face had always been his weakness as an interrogator. Invariably, his feelings were written across it. At his friend’s question, it darkened. ‘That’s not an option,’ he growled.

‘That’s what I said about my Olive, when she was in treatment. The trouble is, mate, sometimes strength of will isn’t enough. I know that the surgeon was optimistic after the operation, but you can never take anything for granted. So I’m asking you. What if she doesn’t make it? How will you feel?’

‘What do you mean, how will I feel? How the fuck do you think I’ll feel?’

‘Like you’re feeling now: guilty. Only ten times worse.’

Mario’s mouth opened, but the words of denial died in his throat. He shrugged his shoulders helplessly. ‘Wouldn’t you, in the same circumstances? Suppose you had walked out on Olive and the kids. . not that I’m saying you ever would have. . and then she’d taken ill.’

McIlhenney nodded. ‘Sure, if that had happened I’d have torn myself apart. . but I’d have done it anyway, for having been such an idiot. Chum, our circumstances, yours and mine, can’t ever be the same. Your marriage was over, yours and Maggie’s. Splitting up was the biggest favour you could have done each other. You let her enjoy the happiest time of her life with Stevie, and she let you and Paula get together as you should have done years before.’

‘Her happiness didn’t last long, though, did it?’

‘No, but what the hell has that to do with you? You didn’t set the booby-trap that Stevie walked into: you didn’t kill him. Dražen Boras did that, beyond a shadow of a doubt. If I’d been on duty at that time, it could just as easily have been me that went through the door and triggered the grenade. If you’d been nearest the scene, it would have been you. Suppose it had been, and Stevie was still alive, would Mags be going on a guilt trip right now? Would she hell!’

‘But that’s not what happened.’

‘Aw, for fu. . Look, Mario, before you give yourself any more grief, go back and see Maggie, and ask her whether she harbours the slightest grudge against you for leaving her. Know what she’ll do? First she’ll laugh, and then she’ll thank you for it.’

‘Maybe.’

‘No “maybe” about it. Know what you really should do?’

McGuire shrugged again; a small, slightly sheepish grin crossed his face. ‘Seems like you’re in the fucking Mastermind chair, so you’d better tell me.’

‘You should go home to Paula, give her a very large hug and thank your luckiest star that it wasn’t you went through that door.’

‘That’s advice I don’t mind taking.’ He checked his watch. ‘Or, I should say, I won’t in about seven hours. But for now, is this just a social call, or do you have something to tell me? Is Edinburgh ablaze with crime?’

Detective Superintendent McIlhenney looked at the head of CID, then rolled his eyes. ‘In the second week of the July Trades Holiday? You have to be kidding. If you didn’t insist on the two of us meeting at ten o’clock every Monday morning, then I wouldn’t be here. I’d have gone fishing,’ he paused, ‘or maybe I’d have gone out and pulled off a couple of robberies, just to give my people something to do.’

‘Are you telling me that we’re victims of our own success?’

‘That’s a nice way of putting it. I don’t have a single serious unsolved crime on my books. I’ve got detectives sitting on their hands in every office in the city. I can’t even send them out to do crime-prevention lectures, because the schools are on holiday, and just about every other bugger along with them.’

‘How are the burglary stats? Holidays mean empty houses, ready to be broken into.’

‘That’s become a problem for the uniforms, rather than us. Nowadays empty houses mean burglar alarms going off in the middle of the night, but nine times out of ten. . no, that’s not true, it’s more like nineteen out of twenty. . it’s been caused by a spider walking across a sensor.’

‘Tell me about it,’ McGuire grunted. ‘Ours went off the other night because Paula left a window open in the living room; the wind got up in the middle of the night and blew a door shut. The alarm company called it in but, thank Christ, the control room recognised the name and address, and called me to check it out before they despatched a car.’

‘That would have looked good in the Evening News . But no,’ McIlhenney continued, ‘even burglary’s going out of fashion. And street muggings are down too: Brian Mackie’s extra patrols in high-risk areas seem to be doing the job there.’

‘Good for the new ACC. A few more like him and we’ll be hearing the word “redundancy” around this building.’

‘It won’t come to that.’ The superintendent chuckled. ‘Our deputy chief constable will be back from his sabbatical soon; Bob Skinner attracts trouble like a magnet attracts pins.’

‘True. He’s got another fortnight off, hasn’t he?’

‘That’s right, but he’s thinking about coming back next week.’

‘Is he at home?’

‘No. His kids are off to spend the summer with their mum in the US and he’s at his place in Spain for a couple of weeks.’

‘Alone?’

‘No, the Scottish Parliament’s in recess, so Aileen’s gone with him.’

‘Do you think this new relationship will last?’

‘Bob and the First Minister? Yeah, I reckon it will. She’s been great for him, just when he’s needed it. I was really worried about him for a while, after that armed incident up in St Andrews. I even thought we might have lost him; with that and his marriage break-up coming so close together, I was afraid he might have walked away from the job. Thank God for Aileen de Marco, I tell you; she helped him through it, and got him refocused. Now, six months on, he’s as contented as I’ve ever seen him.’

McGuire made a small sound of agreement. ‘Identifying Boras as the man who killed Stevie,’ he said, ‘that helped him too, I reckon. You should have seen him interrogate the key witness. He even scared me shitless, and I was on his side of the table.’