Quintin Jardine - Dead And Buried

He studied their faces as his invitation was conveyed, taking in their surprise, returning their glances with a smile and a nod, rising to his feet as they came to join him. ‘Good morning,’ he greeted them. ‘I’m very pleased you can join me.’

‘You’re Scottish,’ the taller woman observed.

‘I am, from Edinburgh, as it happens.’ He stood until they had taken seats, then resumed his own as Josep, unbidden, returned with two cortados , strong coffee with milk, served in small glasses. He smiled. ‘My name is James Proud,’ he began. ‘Forty-two years ago, I was a reasonably good athlete. I won a trophy at my school sports, and you, Señora, presented it to me. I’ve never forgotten you; I think I’d have recognised you anywhere.’

Montserrat Rivera gasped; her mouth opened slightly and her face seemed to pale very slightly under her tan.

‘What do you do in Edinburgh, Mr Proud?’ Annabelle Gentle asked; her tone was more suspicious than curious.

‘Actually, it’s Sir James,’ he said, almost shyly. ‘I’m the chief constable.’ Their eyes narrowed slightly. ‘I can’t tell you how pleased I am to have found you. I promised someone that I would.’

‘And who is that?’

‘Your daughter, Miss Gentle.’

‘My. .’

‘Her name is Trudi Friend. She wants to find you because your granddaughter is getting married, and also, I believe, although she hasn’t said as much, because she thinks it’s time. She’s waiting in L’Escala, at my friend’s house, with my wife.’

Montserrat Rivera gazed at him coolly. ‘If you’ve found us,’ she murmured, ‘you’ve found Bothwell. It was I. I killed him, not Annabelle. It was what he planned to do to me, I know it.’

‘So do I,’ Proud told her. ‘He’d already killed two wives.’

Her eyes creased as she winced. ‘Why does that not surprise me? He was an evil man. Charming and handsome on the outside, but when you saw what was within him you knew that it was rotten. He beat me.’

‘I know.’

‘He stole from me; all the money my father gave me when we married.’

‘I guessed that.’

‘He seduced Annabelle. He told her I was a monster and that he was leaving me, after the school year was over. And then Annabelle and I met. She sought me out, because she wanted to see for herself how wicked I was. She bumped into me, as if by accident, in Patrick Thomson’s, the department store. We got to talking; we met again, and eventually she told me the truth. I was no fool. He had bought a new hut for the garden.’ Her eyebrows rose. ‘Imagine!’ She snorted. ‘A man is leaving, yet he does that, and buys cement to make concrete to stand it on. I saw him dig in the garden, and I feared what he was digging. So when he tried to kill me, in the kitchen, with a hammer, I was ready for him, and I killed him.’

‘No.’ Proud was startled by Annabelle’s forceful whisper. ‘That’s not what happened. We both killed him. I came to the house and we confronted him. He went berserk, flew into the most horrible rage I’ve ever seen, and he attacked us both with the hammer. I grabbed his arm and Montsy stabbed him. That’s how it was. When it was dark we rolled him in a rug, we buried him in the hole he had made, and then, next day, Montsy mixed the concrete and covered him. When it was hard, we moved the shed on to it. When we were finished we left, made a run for it in his car and came here, to Spain, where there was no extradition.’

‘You’ve lived here ever since?’

‘Yes,’ Montserrat replied. ‘We went to work in my father’s hotel, and when he retired, we took it over. We sold it five years ago; we’re retired now.’

‘What about Bothwell’s money?’

‘I found a bank-book for an account in the Channel Islands. I took back what was mine and left the rest. I still have the book.’ She looked at him. ‘So. . Sir James. . what happens now? You will have us arrested here, I suppose, and taken back to Scotland. There is extradition now.’

‘And what the hell would I do that for, Señora?’ Proud replied, with a chuckle. ‘I’d be a laughing stock, prosecuting two lovely senior citizens for defending themselves from a double murderer. Even the very worst advocate in the country would be sure to get you acquitted, and your defence would be handled by the best.

‘You know,’ he continued, ‘there have been times lately when my memory has let me down. In fact, it’s happened again; blow me, but I’ve forgotten every word you two have just said to me. Apart from “What happens now?” The answer to that is that, with your agreement, I will take both of you to L’Escala in my Hertz car, and Annabelle will be reunited with her daughter. How does that sound?’

As he looked at Annabelle Gentle, he saw her eyes fill, and overflow, not contradicting the smile on her face, but somehow enhancing it. ‘It sounds,’ she said, ‘like something I should have done fifty years ago.’

‘Good,’ Proud declared. ‘Let’s get on with it.’ He placed a ten-euro note on the table and waved to Josep. As he rose from his seat, he realised that, throughout a long career, he had never felt as good about anything he had done as he did at that moment.

As they turned to leave the sun-washed plaça , Montserrat Rivera linked her arm through his. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘you really are a most remarkable detective.’

With her head on his shoulder, she gazed up at the bedroom’s corniced ceiling, dimly lit by the lights of St Colme Street. ‘Do you think the official residence is meant to be used for love trysts?’ she murmured.

‘This one’s entirely legitimate. . by twenty-first-century Western standards, at least.’

‘I suppose so. It’s a new year, you’re divorced, and you’re on your own with the kids and the nanny.’

‘Yes, First Minister,’ he replied, ‘all of that is the case. And on Saturday, as agreed, you’re coming to meet them.’

‘God, maybe I should find that frightening. Until now we’ve only been contemplating a relationship; now we’ve got to make it work.’

He laid his hand on the flatness of her firm belly, feeling her warmth, feeling the velvet smoothness of her skin. ‘We’ve made a pretty good start,’ he said. ‘You survived dinner with Alex this evening. How did you find her?’

‘Terrifying at first, until we broke the ice; I’m glad she’s a lawyer, not a politician.’

‘She takes after her dad, so don’t be so sure of that.’

‘I’m sure of you, and that’s enough.’

‘You could still walk away, you know.’

‘If I did, would it make your life easier?’

‘Far from it: it would make me wish that I was back in Titus Armstead’s cellar in Dover, Delaware, and that Miles Hassett was waiting for me upstairs, with an assault rifle.’

She propped herself up on both elbows, staring at him. ‘You mean that you’d want to be dead?’

‘Hell, no; I mean that I’d want an excuse to take it out on some fucker, in a big way.’

She laughed wickedly. ‘Now that’s the Bob Skinner I’ve come to know and love.’

‘You and everybody else. I had a call from your friend in Downing Street this afternoon, on my secure line. He offered me a job.’

Aileen sat bolt upright, twisting, staring down at him. ‘He did what?’ she exclaimed.

‘He offered me a job,’ Bob repeated. ‘He asked me to become director general of MI5.’

‘And what did you say?’ she asked.

‘There was a moment when he almost got the answer I told Jimmy Proud that I’d give in such circumstances.’ He reached up and drew her back down beside him. ‘But when I’d thought about it, I contented myself with thanking him, then telling him there are things I have to do in Scotland which are much more important that that.’