Quintin Jardine - Hour Of Darkness

‘Why should I rush it?’ Pye asked, intrigued. ‘The investigation’s been going on for weeks.’

‘Maybe so,’ Karen said, ‘but I think you’ll find that a story is going to break very soon that’s going to blow it right off the front page.’

There was a time in my life when I’d have been as high as a kite walking out of that interview room, a time when I’d have thought that any result was a good result, regardless of the feelings of the innocent caught up in the backwash. After Myra died, I’d spent years making myself impervious to my own pain, and been so successful that the hurt of others had meant nothing to me.

I knew that my intensity could scare people; I’d even been proud of the fact and prepared to use it as a weapon. It’s still there, but not to the same extent. Too much has happened to me over the years, and too much has happened to others. I’ve hurt too many people close to me, most of all, Sarah.

It took my own wounding by Aileen, Sarah’s successor in my life, now gone to wreak, her havoc on English politics, to make me understand how much harm I’d caused Sarah. I’ve made both of us a promise that I’d never do so again.

That’s why I told her about Mia Watson, after Alex’s phone call, told her all about her, and why I’d hoped she’d stay away for good.

Sarah thought about it for a while, and then she asked, ‘If I’d been around at the time, would the outcome have been any different?’

‘I’d like to think so,’ I replied, honestly, ‘but given the man I was back then, I can’t be certain.’

She kissed me and said, ‘Well, I have faith in the man you are now, and that’s enough for me.’

How tragic it was, I thought as I drove, that David Mackenzie had never experienced such self-discovery. He had died, as I knew for sure by then, as he had lived, self-centred, uncaring and ultimately self-destructive. It was an even greater tragedy that he had destroyed three other people alongside himself.

Cheryl was bound for a life sentence. Their children, Alice and Zach, faced one that would be even longer, as they would discover. They would carry their parents’ story with them for life, and they might even be condemned to an institutional upbringing, unless the uncle that I knew they had was big-hearted enough to take them on. . always assuming he wasn’t a clone of the one who had blighted David’s life.

Yes, I was more than a little depressed as I drove west. I hadn’t gone in there with Wilding intending to unmask a murderess, although the information that Father Donnelly had finally got round to giving me had made that a highly possible scenario.

No, I’d gone in there hoping against hope that Cheryl would tell me that her volatile husband had pissed off to cool down in Benidorm and work off the jealousy that he harboured towards everyone he encountered in his professional life.

My optimism had faded when she said that she had withdrawn all that cash, not David. She hadn’t been trying to throw him off her scent; she’d been trying to fool us.

Even then, though, it wasn’t until I told her that I knew about her confession to Tom Donnelly, the secrets that he could not, rather than would not divulge, and I saw the look on her face, that the last doubt left me.

The Allans’ cottage wasn’t actually in Lanark, but in the surrounding countryside, near to Hyndford Bridge which crosses the River Clyde, near the old Winston Barracks, a place I’d heard my father mention. There was a car parked just along the road when I arrived, but I ignored it. Instead I turned into the short drive that led into Max’s place.

The old ex-ACC wasn’t surprised to see me when he answered the summons of the big brass knocker. ‘Come in, Bob,’ he said. ‘Julie told me you’d been to see her.’

He led me through the house and out into the back garden. Actually ‘garden’ was an understatement; it was more of a paddock, and there was an old building at the far end that might have been a stable.

‘Sit yourself down,’ he insisted, pointing to a green metal table, with a couple of folding seats. ‘Would you like a beer?’

At that moment I would have loved a beer, but something stopped me from accepting; it wouldn’t have tasted right. ‘No thanks, Max,’ I replied. ‘The tap water’s nice in this part of the world, though.’

He disappeared back indoors, returning with a jug and two tumblers, all blue plastic. ‘This’ll be about Mackenzie,’ he murmured, as he poured.

‘Yes, Max,’ I told him. ‘And don’t tell me you weren’t expecting me, even before your wife called you. I’m too good for that.’

‘I never made any secret of the fact that David was married to my niece,’ he said, anticipating my first accusation and denying it, all in one breath.

‘Come on, Max,’ I sighed, probably sounding as sad as I felt. ‘That’s exactly what you did. You never declared it, and you should have. I’ve asked around and I can’t find a single officer who knows about the relationship. In my book that’s secrecy. You could have volunteered it when Dan Provan came to see you in your local, but you held it back, even then.’

‘I didn’t think it was relevant,’ he said.

‘Aw, man,’ I protested, ‘please don’t insult me, or yourself for that matter. A police officer, a former colleague, and his wife had disappeared. There were clear signs that he might have harmed her, possibly even killed her. Everything you knew was bloody relevant.’

‘But how was I supposed to know all that had happened?’ he countered. ‘Wee Dan was very circumspect when we had our chat.’

‘Not that bloody circumspect. I know that he told you Mackenzie was missing, yet you virtually denied knowledge of the man.

‘Let me ask you something, Max. Your wife, and her sister-in-law, the two Julies, do they not get on? Do they never speak to each other? Sorry, chum, I believe that you knew from early on that Cheryl was missing too and that the worst was feared. When you heard you panicked.’

‘Why would I do that? Are you going to tell me that?’

‘Sure,’ I retorted, ‘and before you ask, yes, I can prove it. You were scared because you intercepted David’s application to join the police, with its accompanying document and the full disclosure that would have ruled him out, almost certainly in those days, as a candidate. In doing so you saddled the force with a guy who was emotionally unstable, and borderline psycho. That’s criminal, and I’m duty bound to report it to the fiscal.’

My old friend threw back his head and gave a short laugh. ‘Aye, fine,’ he exclaimed. ‘You do that. You’ll look like a clown at the trial, though.’ He peered at me, over the top of his reading glasses. ‘When you took him off my hands, Bob, one of his line managers was insisting that I refer him for psychological assessment. I had no grounds for refusing that, but you turned up and took the problem away. So yes, go ahead, report me to the Crown Office and see if you like the way you come out of it.’

I sensed relief in him, as if he’d just dodged a bullet. So I fired again.

‘I wouldn’t hesitate, Max, but I’m not really here about that. I’m here about Cheryl. We know, chum. She’s been charged.’

It happened in an instant. The light left his eyes, the colour left his face and his cheeks seemed to collapse as he turned into a very old man, far older than his years.

‘I’m sorry,’ I told him, sincerely. ‘There’s no triumph in this.’

‘I love that lass,’ he whispered. ‘All the more since our wee Rosina was taken so young. I warned her about David right at the very start. If you’ve found out about his past, you’ll know I was involved right at the very start.’ He looked at me again. ‘You do know all of it, I take it?’