Quintin Jardine - Funeral Note

‘There is no wrong, there is no right; there’s only what happens. As a cop you deal with it, and leave the judgments to others. . to the lawyers, to the jury, and if the verdict goes that way, to the guy on the bench in the wig and the red jacket.’

Paula gave me a long look, from beneath raised eyebrows. ‘Be nice if that was true, wouldn’t it?’ she said, in that long, slow drawl of hers. She slid her long-stemmed goblet across the table. ‘Top me up, McGuire.’

I took the sparkling Highland Spring from the ice bucket and obeyed orders; seven months before (or was it eight by then?) it would have been claret, or maybe, if she’d been feeling particularly Italian, a nice Chianti or a Sangiovese. The glass was to preserve the illusion.

‘It is,’ I insisted as I poured. ‘We are objective.’

‘Come on,’ my beautiful wife laughed. She shook her head, in that deprecating woman’s way. A flash of light, reflected from a building across the water, was picked up by her hair, and made it shimmer. I was still getting used to Paula’s auburn incarnation. She had been almost jet black when she was younger, as I still am. . apart from the odd grey flecks that I regard as signs of distinction. . until some twist in the mother’s side of her genes had turned her silver before her thirtieth birthday.

She’d let it stay that colour. Most people who’ve come to know her only in the last few years thought that she was ash blonde, and she didn’t make them any the wiser. But then she’d fallen pregnant: great news for us, and a nice one for Charlie Kettles, her hairdresser. His profits took an instant hike when she decided that it made her look too old to be a first-time mum.

She wasn’t done with our discussion. ‘Remember that guy,’ she persisted, ‘the one who slashed Maggie a few years back, when she tried to arrest him? He cut her arm right to the bone, so I heard. Were you objective with him when they had him locked up in the cells at St Leonards?’

‘Absolutely,’ I insisted. . perhaps a little too insistently. Was she guessing, I wondered, or had someone been talking out of school?

‘Aye, that’ll be right,’ she scoffed. ‘I’ll bet you even made sure he was tucked in at night, and had a full Scottish breakfast in the morning.’

I nodded. ‘Complete with a slice of fried dumpling.’

‘That’s if he had teeth left to chew it.’

‘He had, I promise you.’ That much was true; I hadn’t left a mark, for all the pain I’d visited on him.

‘Okay, okay, okay.’ She held up a hand, as if she was conceding the point. ‘So you’ve always been purer than the driven slush. I assume that explains why you’re being so hard on these naughty cops of yours.’

‘I’m not,’ I protested. ‘It’s the chief constable who’s chucked the book at them.’

‘Not quite, Mario,’ she argued. ‘All that Bob Skinner’s done is hand you the book and told you to clobber them with it.’

‘No. .’ I was going to contradict her, but I didn’t. I’d have been wasting my time.

I never win arguments with Paula, even when I’m right and she’s wrong. She’s the most single-minded woman I’ve ever met in my life; when she sets herself a goal, or takes a position, be it a business decision, a major life issue or in a simple debate, she always scores. Ally that to her determination. . some might call her obdurate, or obstinate, but there isn’t really a word strong enough to define her. . and you have an exceptional person.

Her pregnancy’s a classic example. When I was married to my first wife, we had a phase when we tried to start a family. No, I’ll be honest with you: I was always more keen than Maggie was. She went along with the idea for my sake, not from any great desire of her own. We never told anyone about it. That was just as well, for after a year of earnest by-the-book effort, cycle-watching and all that stuff, and Mags never being as much as a day late, we consulted a fertility specialist. He examined us both, gave us the full range of tests. She passed with flying colours. I failed. The cock-doctor, as Neil McIlhenney, who is and always will be my best friend on the planet, christened him when I finally got round to confessing all, pronounced that my baby-juice was entirely unfit for purpose.

I suppose that was the beginning of the end for Maggie Rose Steele and me. In truth, she had sexual hang-ups that went back to her childhood, and I always suspected that marital relations. . with me, at any rate. . always did require a certain amount of thinking of Scotland on her part. When I found that I was thinking of Italy at the same time, I knew we were done.

There were no hard feelings on either side when we split, and Paula and I began, those two events being simultaneous. No, any difficulty there was lay within my circle of friends and family, or rather, ours. You see, Paula and I are first cousins.

There’s no reason why anyone should think twice about that, but people did. My mother was one of them, for a while, and sure as hell Uncle Beppe, Paula’s dad, would have disapproved as loudly as he could, if he’d still been alive to continue his unspoken feud with me.

Fact is, I was in the ‘anti’ lobby myself for a while. I’m a few years older than Paula, so our paths crossed very little as kids. It was only as young adults that I became properly aware of her, when she started hanging out in the same pubs and clubs as my crew. She claims that she was after me even then; if that was true, and I still doubt it, the guys she pulled made a pretty good smokescreen. And in those days, I was as constrained in my thinking as most people. Sure, she used to flirt with me, but when she came to me for help dealing with a bloke who was showing signs of not taking ‘No!’ for an answer, I decided that she saw me as Big Brother, and that was it.

Yes, that was it: until there came a morning, after a party we’d both been at and where I’d really tied one on, when I woke up to find the other side of the bed crumpled and heard someone in the en suite , brushing teeth. When Paula walked out, wearing a short-sleeved Hibs football outfit, minus the shorts and socks, I stared at her like someone, she said at the time, and still does, who’s realising he’s been stitched up by the News of the World .

‘Tell me nothing happened,’ I croaked: yes, I had been that drunk. She wouldn’t, though; her only reply was a wink and a broad smile. (It took me years to make her confess that she hadn’t been able to rouse me, in any way.) When I sobered up, I was shaken up by the incident, confused, and not a little alarmed by the fact that the sight of her in that green and white shirt had made me, instantly, as stiff as a chocolate frog. In the aftermath, I was careful to keep distance between us, even when I was married and she was going through a series of short-term relationships with guys, including Maggie’s future second husband, the ill-fated Stevie Steele.

I made myself think of her as just another family member, and even imagined rivalry between us when it came to the future destiny of the Viareggio family businesses, although I’d never had any real interest in running them. Uncle Beppe had taken over after my grandfather’s death, and he and I never got on. When I told him that I’d decided to join the police force rather than work with him, he couldn’t keep the smile from his face.