Quintin Jardine - Hour Of Darkness

‘Were there any glitches at all?’ she asked.

‘No. She gave us it all without any pressure. They had a fight, over the way he’d reacted to an argument he and I had, and he hit her. He went crazy, she said. She thought he was insane, and maybe he was.

‘However, she may not be too attached to reality herself, because she’s decided it was a mercy killing. She talked us all the way through it, repeating for the tape all of the stuff that Bob uncovered in the first interview.’

‘Her lawyer was happy?’

‘As happy as you can be when your client’s confessing to murder, but yes; he didn’t raise any objections.’

‘I’m glad about that, for I was worried,’ Maggie confessed. ‘I thought Bob might have gone too far with her earlier.’

‘Me too,’ Mario murmured, ‘and that’s interesting. In all the years we worked under Bob, you and I never questioned the way he did things, never doubted his judgement. Yet now, even though he’s barely out the door, here we are second-guessing him.’

‘Welcome to command rank,’ she told him. ‘We are him, now. Back then he was responsible for everybody else’s mistakes, along with his own. Now we’re in that position, carrying the can for everything that’s done in our territory, by everyone. . including him when he goes on one of his solo missions.’

McGuire laughed. ‘He’ll never stop doing that; doesn’t matter which office he’s in. That reminds me, is everything done and dusted on his patch?’

‘Yes, they’ve begun recovering Mackenzie’s body, and Max Allan’s been taken into custody. He’s being held in Pitt Street over the weekend, for court on Monday.’

‘Will they be tried jointly or separately, him and Cheryl? What do you think?’

‘That,’ Maggie said, ‘is the Lord Advocate’s problem, not mine or Bob’s. I’d guess they’ll be in court together, but the way things are just now, a trial looks unlikely. Max has a separate charge to answer, though, if the fiscal in Glasgow decides to go ahead with it.’

‘Poor old bastard. He’ll spend the first part of his retirement under lock and key.’

‘Maybe not,’ she suggested. ‘He wasn’t a party to the killing, only the concealment, and from what Bob said, Cheryl was like a daughter to him. With a good advocate, and a sympathetic judge, maybe one of the ladies on the Bench, he could get a suspended sentence.’

‘Yes, sure.’ Mario’s voice was smeared with sarcasm. ‘And maybe I’ll apply for the top job in Police Scotland and you’ll all be working for me in a few weeks. There’s no chance of any of that happening. He was a cop, Mags. I can’t think of a single judge who’d brave the media storm that not jailing him would cause.’

She was about to concede his point when she noticed Stephanie’s face going red, and rushed to pick her up. ‘Steph,’ she cried out, ‘you’re supposed to tell me when you need to poo. Get used to this, Mario, it’s coming your way.’

‘News for you, it’s here already.’

As he spoke, the door chime sounded. ‘Get that, please,’ Maggie asked. ‘I’ve no idea who it might be.’

‘Sure.’ He went down the few steps from the hall, wondering what casual caller would choose an early Saturday evening, and threw the door open.

A red-haired man stood on the threshold, confusion stamped on his face.

‘Arthur?’ McGuire exclaimed.

‘Mario?’ Dorward countered.

‘I’m here on business,’ the ACC said quickly, ‘before you get any ideas.’

‘Me too, before you do. But it’s maybe as well you are.’

‘You’d better come in, then. Maggie’s attending to some paperwork, you might say.’

He led the way up and across to the sitting room. ‘It’s Arthur Dorward,’ he called, ‘and I don’t think he’s come to sell you tickets for the Forensic Service dance.’

‘Minute,’ a voice replied from the nursery.

One stretched into two before Maggie appeared, carrying her refreshed child on her hip. ‘Mr Dorward,’ she said, ‘to what do we owe?’ Then she looked at his expression and her smile vanished.

‘Something’s come up in our analysis of the samples from one forty-two Caledonian Crescent,’ he began. ‘You’ll recall we found a trace of grandfamilial DNA, and established that it wasn’t from the lad you thought it was. Well, to try to identify it more clearly, we followed standard practice and ran it through the entire male database looking for a match.’

He stopped, and took a brown manila envelope from under his arm. ‘Most things I do over the phone. Some I send by email. But this one, this has to be done in person; it’s for your eyes only, and it’s bloody dynamite.’

Mia was right; I could get there and I did. I went online as soon as I got home, and found a flight that evening from Edinburgh to Barcelona. I booked it with about half an hour to spare, and also a room for the night in the gastronomic hotel in Placa Reial that Sarah and I had enjoyed on our homeward journey.

Naturally I told her, about Mia’s phone call and her strange insistence. When I was finished, she looked up at me and said, ‘This woman meant something to you, Bob, didn’t she?’

‘I can’t deny that,’ I replied, ‘but it wasn’t for long. Sure, I had the hots for her, but I was glad when she left.’

‘No secret longings afterwards?’

‘None at all. Then or now. I wanted her gone, and I hoped she’d stay gone.’

‘Was she right about Clive Graham?’ she asked. ‘Would he like you out of the picture?’

‘Probably,’ I told her. I’d been asking myself the same question. ‘But that won’t be his decision. He set this Police Scotland thing up, against the wishes of most objective senior cops. Now he has to live with the consequences; if he doesn’t like them, fuck him.’

‘What do you think this secret of Mia’s is?’

‘I have no idea. Maybe she bought a lottery ticket in my name and it came up.’

She frowned. ‘Bob, don’t be flip. I’m worried about this.’

‘Then come with me,’ I offered, even though I was standing in the hall with my travel bag in my hand, ready to leave. ‘I’ll book another seat.’

‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘I’ve got three autopsies booked for Monday. Sweetheart, what if this is a set-up?’

‘If I thought that for a millisecond, would I have asked you to come with me just now? Mia wants to meet on my turf. If she had bad intentions, she wouldn’t be doing that.’

‘If anyone calls and asks where you are, what do I say?’

‘Nothing. Whoever it is, tell them I’m going away for a couple of days, and can’t be contacted. I’ll do my best to get back on Monday.’

I kissed her, said goodbye to the kids and hit the road. I was on my way to Spain, but my preparations weren’t complete. One phone call from the car took care of the rest. It was to Sammy Pye; I asked him to have an overview of the Bella Watson murder investigation emailed to me the following morning.

I knew he was surprised by my request, and wondering whether he should comply. ‘I may be able to contribute something, Sammy,’ I told him, ‘so I’d like to see what’s been happening. But I may be wrong, so I’d rather this stayed confidential between us for now. There’ll be no flak over it, I promise.’

He agreed. Pye and I go back to his earliest days in the force. He was efficient even then, and so conscientious that he once tried to deny me entry to a crime scene.

I had no bags to check in when I arrived at the airport, and so I went straight to the gate. I was on the steps up to the airport and on the point of switching my phone to flight mode when it sounded, in my hand. I looked at the screen and saw that Maggie Steele was calling me from her home number.