Quintin Jardine - Dead And Buried

‘What about your children? I assume they’ll be going with their mother.’

‘Then you’re assuming wrong. We’re sharing custody; Mark, James Andrew, and Seonaid will live with me during the school term and spend their holidays with Sarah.’

‘How do you feel about this?’

Skinner shrugged his shoulders, an awkward movement since he was seated. ‘I feel as well as can be expected: that would sum it up. I hate failure in any form, but failing at marriage is just about the worst. We’re both being very civilised about it, though. A confrontational divorce wouldn’t help anyone.’

‘You mean it wouldn’t help your career?’

‘Do me a favour, mate! That hasn’t occurred to me at all. Since you ask, I don’t think it would harm it, but that’s not an issue. Neither is the fact that Sarah’s a hell of a lot wealthier than I am since her parents died. If we do a conventional property split, I’d be the winner, but we won’t. No, the kids come first and that’s it.’

‘You’re quite sure this has nothing to do with the areas we’ve been discussing?’

‘I said so, didn’t I?’ the DCC snapped irritably. ‘Things have happened between us.’

‘There’s been a third party?’

‘Over the years? Third parties, on both sides, to be honest: mine even made the lower end of the tabloid market, remember.’

‘I was trying not to. Okay, you haven’t been a paragon. Is that why Sarah’s going?’

The big man shook his grey-maned head. ‘No, she’s much better at forgiving than I am. I suppose that’s it. She had an affair in the States a while back. I’ve had trouble dealing with that.’

‘Why?’

‘Why have I had trouble?’ Skinner’s voice had an air of incredulity.

‘No, no. That’s a male ego thing, typical behaviour, nothing unusual about that. Why did Sarah have an affair?’

‘Ask her. Ask her about the other times as well.’

‘How many?’

‘Okay, just one other. . that I know of. It happened that first time we were separated, and I was, I was. . Let’s just say I don’t blame her too much for that. This one? Why? I don’t know why. She found the other fellow attractive, and they were far from strangers to each other. They’d been close at college, then gone their separate ways. Maybe she’d been carrying an Ever Ready for him all along. Or maybe it was just like she said, that I’d left her out there on her own when she needed me.’

‘Or maybe she just found him safe,’ said O’Malley, quietly.

‘Safe?’

‘Yes, Bob, safe. I’ve interviewed more than a few police officers’ wives in my time. Their stories all have the same thread running through them. “When he goes out the door in the morning in that uniform, I can never be one hundred per cent sure that he’s coming back.” That’s what they all wind up saying, one way or another. Okay, there may be little or no statistical basis for their anxiety, but that doesn’t make it any the less real.’

‘If she was after safety, she got it wrong, big-time. He’s dead.’

‘That’s too bad, but it doesn’t affect what I’m saying.’ He paused again. ‘Bob, the women I’m talking about, they’re the wives of ordinary officers, people on the beat, in office jobs, even. You are not one of those people. Look at the things that have happened to you; man, you’re a lightning rod for trouble, and still you go charging out into the worst thunderstorms. But the irony of it is that you don’t have to. You’re a deputy chief constable, for God’s sake. You’re in the Command Corridor; you have a desk job, yet you still go out there, whenever you can from what I gather, into the line of fire. You go on about how much you care for your family, and I believe you, but did you ever stop to consider how much the professional choices you’ve been taking might be harming Sarah?’ The psychiatrist let out a long sigh. ‘I wasn’t going to bring this up, but you did. She left you once before, as you’ve just said. Didn’t you get the message then? Not at all?’

Skinner started out of his chair. For a moment, it seemed that he would explode in anger, but he settled back down, with a calm, sad look in his eyes.

‘If not me, who?’ he asked.

‘Pardon?’

‘Don’t go dumb on me, Kevin. The operation I’ve just been on: how much do you know about it?’

‘I know as much as was in my brief for these interviews, and what I’ve read in the papers. Why? Was there more to it than that?’

‘That’s irrelevant. My question is, if I hadn’t been there to lead it, who else could have done it and seen it through to success?’

‘The army?’

‘No time: it all happened too fast.’

‘Andy Martin?’

‘He wasn’t there.’

‘McIlhenney?’

‘Close, but no; there was only me, Kevin. And if I hadn’t stood up, then and on all those other times you mentioned, what would the consequences have been? Innocent lives would have been lost for a start, lives that I’ve sworn an oath to protect. You’re telling me that’s had an effect on my wife? Of course it bloody has: it’s had an effect on me too. But it’s my job. Yes, I do it my way, but it’s the only way I know how to, and I cannot run away from it before my time is up. As I said, if I do have a nightmare, it’s about not living to see my kids grow up. But if I turn my back on my duty. . that’s what it is, Kevin, my duty, not just another job. . who’s going to protect them, and others like them?’

‘Come on, man, you’re part of a team.’

‘No, I’m the leader of a team, a very special team, and I do my best to lead by example; always have, always will.’

‘You’re addicted to it, to the danger.’

‘Maybe I am, but if so, that’s what makes me so fucking good at it.’

The unexpected grin made O’Malley blink. ‘Maybe you’re thinking,’ Skinner chuckled, ‘that you could save my marriage by declaring me off the wall, by giving me a psychological red card. If so, forget it; if Sarah can’t live with me in the job, then without it I couldn’t live with her, for a bit of me. . no, all of me. . would always blame her for forcing me out of it while there was still work for me to do. Anyway, she doesn’t love me any more.’

‘You’re not the man she married, you mean?’

‘Ah, but I am, that’s the problem.’

‘Do you love her?’

‘No, not the way I should. Kevin, we’ve had this discussion, Sarah and me; we know where each other stands, and we’re content with that and with what we’ve agreed. I understand your professional interest, and I appreciate your concern as a friend, but there’ll be no going back.’

‘Okay,’ O’Malley conceded. ‘If that’s the way it is, so be it, and good luck to you both.’ He frowned again. ‘This session is over, but there is one other thing. Earlier you asked me about my interviews with McIlhenney and Mackenzie.’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll let you have my reports on them, which are fine, but you won’t find what I’m going to say in McIlhenney’s. You’re very close to the man, Bob, I know that, almost as close as you are to Andy Martin. Just don’t try to mould him in your image, that’s all.’

‘Who says I am? Neil?’

‘No, I do. That’s how it seems to me, and I’m usually right about these things. He’s an exceptional officer, and a strong man, but there’s something in him that isn’t in you, and vice versa. You have a quality he hasn’t.’

‘What’s that?’

‘To boil it all down, he won’t always pull the trigger in time.’

It was Skinner’s turn to frown.

‘I believe that you’re going to London soon, on special assignment, and you’re taking him with you.’

‘Yes, but it’s very far from common knowledge. Did Neil tell you that?’