Quintin Jardine - Stay of Execution

‘Ah, but I do too. I go armed with the word of the Lord Jesus Christ.’

‘How big a magazine does He have? I’ve been using a compensated Glock Twenty-two pistol on the range, with a seventeen-shot capacity.’

‘Jesus couldn’t hit a barn door, I’m afraid. Nor, I doubt, would He approve of such weapons being used in His name.’

‘We’re allowed ethical choices,’ Skinner pointed out. ‘No police officer is compelled to do firearms training.’

‘I know, and for that at least I’m thankful.’ Gainer paused. ‘You mentioned your mother back then, Bob. You may not be aware, but in the years I’ve known you, that’s the first time I can recall hearing you speak of your parents.’

‘That may well be so, Jim. I’ve always kept my private life very much to myself. . as someone made me realise last night, in fact. I’ve never talked family around the office. . or at least that part of my family. . and I suppose that as the years have gone on, I’ve stopped talking about them anywhere.’ He held up a hand, in a gesture that could have been unconscious self-defence. ‘That doesn’t mean that I’m not proud of them; of my parents, that is. My dad was a quiet, self-deprecating man. He was a war hero, but he never talked about it, nor did he encourage me to ask him. I didn’t learn the whole story until after his death. If I’m a private man, as I’ve acknowledged I can be, I suspect it’s a tendency I’ve inherited from him.’

‘And your mother,’ the Archbishop asked, ‘what of her?’

‘She was the life and soul of our house when I was a kid. My father was quiet, but she was always singing about the place; she was a great one for television-ad jingles. . hands that do dishes being as soft as your face, that sort of stuff. She had a big circle of friends, too; they were bridge players and they used to take our front room over every six weeks or so. You could hardly see through the smoke when they were in there.’

‘She’s dead too?’

Skinner nodded. ‘Has been for years. She passed away when Alex was a baby.’

‘That must have been like a light going out of your life.’

‘I suppose that losing your mother always is, but in truth that light started to fade a few years before.’

‘Why was that? Was she ill for a long time?’

‘No, she died suddenly. The fact was, she had a drink problem in her middle years, Jim. I don’t mean she was scrabbling around in the garden shed for the last bottle of Red Biddy or anything like that, but she started in on the gin-and-tonics around lunchtime, and was quietly hazed for the rest of the day. With that, she stopped going around, and her friends, other than the one or two closest, stopped coming around. The singing stopped too; latterly, the house was like a mausoleum.’

‘How did your father deal with that?’

‘It broke his heart, but there was nothing he could do about it. I remember him once trying to persuade her to see the doctor about it: she bit his head off, and he never mentioned it again.’

‘The mausoleum, Bob,’ Gainer asked, quietly. ‘Who was entombed there?’

‘My brother.’

The Archbishop’s eyebrows rose. ‘You had another brother? When I read of Michael’s death earlier this year, there was no mention of a third.’

‘There was none, only Michael. She was mourning his memory.’

‘Ah. There was a schism, then.’

‘That’s a fine Presbyterian way of putting it, Jim,’ Skinner murmured. ‘There was a fucking big bust-up, not to put too fine a point on it. My brother was no saint, but he was sinned against too, even though I didn’t know it or appreciate it at the time. If you read of his death, you’ll maybe recall that he spent the second half of his life in a Jesuit hostel in Greenock.’

Gainer smiled. ‘In the care of Brother Aidan, the Irish leprechaun monk?’

‘That’s the guy. Michael went to live there after relations between the two of us broke down completely. Initially, it followed a period of treatment for alcoholism, but later, and for most of his time there, it was entirely voluntary.’

‘There was more to it than that, surely.’

‘Maybe, but that was at the heart of it. My father never came right out and told me, but I reckon now he was protecting both of us from ourselves when he arranged for him to take shelter there. Michael would have drunk himself to death, or into prison, eventually.’

‘And you?’

The policeman frowned. ‘And me? Let me put it this way, Jim. I’ve had to defend myself on many occasions in my life, but my brother Michael is the only person I’ve ever physically attacked in a blind, murderous rage.’

‘Why?’ The question was whispered.

‘I was protecting my mother. . or that’s what I told myself. In truth, I could have called my dad. He was in the house at the time, and he’d have dealt with it in his own way. But I didn’t, I just went berserk, and filled him in until the old man heard my mother screaming and hauled me off. Do you know the really shameful thing? Until recently, it didn’t bother me. I felt no remorse, no guilt.’

‘And what brought you to feel it?’

‘Michael’s death did; that and the discovery that he did feel remorse. He’d changed, as I learned from old Aidan, yet I never saw him again from that day on, nor did my mother. The schism, as you put it, was the end of her happiness. One son was gone, and she could never look at the other in the same way. No wonder she went on the piss.’ He looked at the ceiling. ‘I drove her to it, Jim. I led her to break my dad’s heart.’

‘I see,’ murmured the Archbishop. ‘This is a hell of a guilt trip, isn’t it?’

‘Justified, the way I see it.’

‘It’s gone far enough, though. From what you’re telling me of Michael, you had plenty of help in breaking your mother’s heart. The other side of the coin is that you helped rescue him. I know the story, man; when I read about it in the press I called Aidan. He told me the truth, at least as much of it as he knew. Whatever his weaknesses of the flesh, your brother died in a state of grace, with his soul cleansed, and you were the catalyst that triggered the process. Like it or not, my unbelieving friend, you were God’s agent.’

‘I doubt if He’d think so.’

‘I’m one of His vicars on earth and I’m telling you He does. He’s forgiven me, so why not you?’

‘What does He have to forgive you for?’

‘All my little everyday sins, my son, and some big ones too. Back then, not long after you were having your confrontation with your brother, you know how I spent my free weekends?’

‘Selling the War Cry round the pubs?’

‘Would that I had. No, my hobby was beating the shite out of Rangers supporters, and getting across their women when I had the chance. I was a gang leader in Glasgow. The Dublin Reds, we used to call ourselves, and we were feared. I was a tough boy, and nobody crossed me.’

‘So what happened to save you?’

‘Much the same as happened to your brother. In my case God’s agent was a priest called Brendan McCarthy. He ran a youth club, and one night, there being no Proddies handy to bash, my crowd went in there for a ruck. Father McCarthy told us to behave ourselves; I, being an idiot at the time, squared up to him. Did he whop me? Did he ever. He’d been army light-heavyweight champion or some such; he kept on knocking me down, and I kept on getting up. The rest of the Dublin Reds were long gone, but I wasn’t going to run. Finally, he really nailed me. I came to with him leaning over me, saying, “Do you realise, boy, that this is what’s going to happen to you for the rest of your fucking life, unless you come over to the side of the righteous?” He was persuasive, that fellow: I left my gang and joined his. He taught me how to box properly, and he made me doorman at the club. But he also taught me the ways of the Lord, and left me wanting nothing but to be like him.’