‘Let’s interview some of the women who work there,’ McGuire proposed, ‘and find out what they say.’
Skinner nodded. ‘Do that for sure, but there’s another card we can play. This man who nearly killed Mary Chambers. He’s looking at an attempted murder charge. With a police officer involved? That’s a potential life sentence with a high tariff. It might make him more inclined to cooperate.’
It was McIlhenney’s turn to glare. ‘You’re not thinking about doing a deal with him, are you?’
The chief constable shrugged. ‘Needs must. Let him sleep on his predicament, Neil. I’ll have a word with him in the morning. Just the two of us; a quiet wee chat.’
Forty-two
‘There’s no possibility of Alex being in danger, is there?’ Aileen asked.
‘No,’ Bob replied, perched on his stool at the breakfast bar, with a glass of dark red wine in his hand, ‘I don’t believe so, or by now I’d have done two things: I’d have insisted that she move out here with us, and I’d have called Mitch Laidlaw and asked him to get her out of it. Neil was right; if these two deaths are linked to Zaliukas’s business life then it’s to those massage parlours. Still,’ he murmured, ‘Mitch is a shrewd guy, and he values the reputation of his firm more than anything else. Sooner or later the press are going to start digging into Tomas’s entire career, and without the law of defamation to restrain them, since you can’t libel the dead, they’re going to print some garish stuff. It’s going to leave a bad smell around town, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he resigns the account, legitimate or not, and tells the widow Regine to find another administrator.’
‘That’ll disappoint Alex. When I spoke to her earlier she was quite taken by her new role.’
‘Oh, I know she is. But I also know that she was shaken when I told her that Gerulaitis and his wife were dead. . not because she felt at risk herself, simply because she’d met them both a few hours before, and then to think of them like. .’ He shuddered.
Aileen reached out and touched his arm. ‘Bad, was it?’
He nodded. ‘There are aspects of our job that can be pretty hard to take, but when you see the things that the fire and rescue people. . women as well as men now. . have to deal with.’
‘You don’t need to be doing that sort of stuff now, you know,’ she pointed out.
Bob chuckled. ‘You mean I could lead from the back? No, I don’t think so. When you persuaded me to go for the chief’s job, or when I persuaded myself. . to be honest I can’t remember which it was now. . it was on the basis that nothing was going to change. My dear friend and soon to be near neighbour Sir James did things his way. Jimmy would have parted with his lunch on the spot if he’d seen what Mario and I had to look at earlier on, but he was a great chief constable nonetheless, the best this city’s ever had. I’ll handle it the way I think I can do it best, and if I can be half as good as he was, that’ll still be pretty damn good.’
‘Love, you’re not getting any younger. You look knackered. That last birthday, the one you wouldn’t let anyone mention. .’
‘What your birth certificate says and what your body says do not always coincide. Given the day I’ve had I’m entitled to look beat up, but I don’t look any worse than any of my officers, least of all Mary Chambers, who almost lost her life tonight.’
‘Yes, how is she? Do you know?’
‘I looked in at Torphichen Place on the way home,’ he replied. ‘She says she’s OK, and she looks it. . but she hasn’t had the night-mares yet.’
‘Does she have anyone to hold her hand in the dark?’
‘I don’t think so, not right now. There’s someone new, I believe, but not in residence, not a bidey-in.’ He refilled both of their glasses, killing the bottle of Shiraz, pushed himself off his stool and slid an arm round her shoulder. ‘Come on,’ he said, and led her through into the garden room. ‘Speaking of holding hands in the dark,’ he murmured, as they settled into the sofa that faced the moonlit Firth of Forth, ‘my mind goes back to something that somebody said to me yesterday.’
‘About what?’
‘About you. About us.’
Aileen pressed herself against him. ‘Sounds intriguing.’
‘Maybe. Or maybe you’ll pour that Aussie red over my head. You and me, my love, have we ever really sat down and talked about having a family of our own?’
He heard her sudden intake of breath. ‘We’ve discussed it,’ she whispered.
‘In a roundabout way, I agree, and what you’ve said is that we’ve both got high-pressure jobs, and I’ve made some joke about having loads of kids as it is. But have you ever said to me, “I don’t want to have a baby, ever?” Have you?’
‘No. I’ve never put it as directly as that.’
‘Well, do it now. As who-the-hell-was-it said, tell me what you want, what you really. .’
‘. . really want?’ She finished the line, then sat up straight and turned to look him in the eye. ‘You know what they say about politicians?’ she asked, then continued without giving him the chance to reply. ‘That we’re all devious and deceitful, and that’s on our good days. I try not to be, Bob, honestly I do, and I believe that in my public life I succeed. But at home, a new wife, a new stepmum with a new family, sometimes that’s not so easy. The fact is, I’ve been meaning to start this conversation myself for a while, and it’s my fault that it’s taken Maggie Steele. . I’m sure that’s who you meant. . for it to happen. I should have raised the subject about three months ago, in fact, for that’s how long I’ve been off the pill.’
He laid his head back and gazed at the ceiling, silently, his face impassive.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, quietly. ‘It was rotten of me, totally irresponsible; it’s just that. . the first time I saw Maggie’s baby, I got incredibly broody. Until then I didn’t appreciate what the word meant. I’ll go back on it,’ she declared. ‘Right now, I’ll go back on it.’
He looked back towards her, cupped her face in his left hand, and kissed her. ‘No,’ he whispered, ‘no, you will not. I love you like crazy, my purpose in life is to make you happy, and if that’s what you want, I can only do my feeble best to make it happen.’ He grinned. ‘As you pointed out, I am getting on a bit.’
They sat in silence for a while looking out on the great river. ‘Bob,’ she whispered, eventually, ‘leading from the front is good. I suppose that’s what I do in my job. But I don’t take physical risks like you’ve done in the past. Will you promise me at least that those days are gone?’
‘As much as I can. I won’t charge any more barricades, I promise.’
‘That’s as much as I can expect out of you, I suppose. I don’t know why, but I find myself thinking of that woman you mentioned, Regine, the Lithuanian man’s widow, and how she must feel.’
‘Yes,’ said Bob, ‘I’ve been thinking about her too, strangely enough. I’m not entirely sure how she is feeling, and that’s what I find intriguing. She told Alex that she’d been about ready to come back to Edinburgh. Yet now he’s dead, she doesn’t seem to want to come near the place.’
‘But when Alex spoke to her, it was to break the news of her husband’s death. The woman would be in shock, in no state to make decisions.’
‘She was in a fit state to decide on the spot to keep her husband’s businesses out of cousin Valdas’s hands, and to appoint her lawyer to run them in her stead. . a young lawyer she’s never even met. I’ve met Regine myself a few times over the years; in Indigo, and once at a business dinner she attended with Tomas. She’s a very together lady. . and there’s something else. She loved that club more than any of their other places, yet she doesn’t want to come back to make sure it’s OK. She doesn’t even seem to want to come back to bury her husband.’
‘She will, Bob, she will. Give her a couple of days. Right now. .’ she took his hand and stood, drawing him with her, ‘. . how about we find out how feeble your best really is?’ She winked at him, provocatively. ‘Or are you too tired?’