Skinner stood, impassive, listening; he wanted to ask the next question, but he knew that he could not let her hear his accent. Even
Alice would make four out of that.
"But apart from Mrs. Walker," Madigan went on. "Did you tell anyone else?"
Alice frowned; the wrinkling of her forehead seemed to age her five years in an instant. "No, I don't think so." She paused. "I told
Mary Maggs, my cleaning lady, but she doesn't know anyone around here, plus she's seventy-one years old. And I told Candy Brew at the library, but Candy's discretion personified. And that's it; honest injun."
Brady nodded, put his hands on his knees and pushed himself to his feet. Madigan took the cue and rose also. "In that case," said the chief, 'we won't occupy any more of your time."
"A pleasure," Alice answered, vacuously. She glanced at her watch.
"My, it's almost time for me to go pick up Byron." She showed them to the door, smiling briefly at Skinner on the way out. He gave her a blank, expressionless stare in return. Her eyes flickered uncertainly, but she said nothing, holding the door open for them and waving a quick goodbye as she closed it on them.
"Well?" Bob asked as they walked down the drive to Brady's car.
"Walker? I don't think so for a minute."
"There you go assuming again, Eddie," the Scot snapped. "It's a new line of enquiry. Will you follow it up, or will I?"
"Okay, okay. We'll look at it."
"And what about this Candy Brew? Did Neidholm have any history with her?"
Both detectives laughed. "You can forget that, sir," said Madigan.
"Candy is short for Candrace. He's a guy."
Fifty-One
Maggie glanced at her watch as the living-room door opened and he came in; it showed a minute or two after seven-thirty. "Straight home or via Leith?" she asked.
He frowned. "I thought you weren't going to ask questions like that any more."
"Yes, I know you did, but the thing is, in spite of everything I'm still a woman. And you know us girlies, Mario. We can be fickle."
"As it happens, straight home," he told her, brusquely. "I had a late briefing with the team."
"You mean you took them for a pint?"
"Something like that. I had an unexpected visitor earlier on; that knocked my schedule for the rest of the day."
"Poor you. Well, now you're here, grab yourself a beer and sit down.
I've got something to tell you."
He looked at her, his curiosity aroused; almost for the first time, he noticed that she was wearing her pale blue silk dressing gown and that the hair at the back of her neck was wet from the shower. He threw his jacket across a chair and headed for the kitchen, only to pause at the door. "Can I get you something?" he asked.
She picked up an empty glass from the floor and held it out for him.
"You can get me another g and t, if you like. And remember, no lemon."
"I know you don't take lemon."
Maggie smiled cheerfully. "Sorry. I said it just in case you got me confused with someone else." The thought crossed his mind that she might be having more than her second drink, but he took the heavy tumbler from her without comment.
He was back in less than a minute, a tin of Stella Artois in one hand and his wife's gin and tonic in the other. He handed it to her and settled on to the couch beside her. "Okay," he said. "What have you got to tell me?"
"A few things, but first things first. I had a call late this afternoon from our very efficient solicitor. The deal is done with the
Chamberlains. We've agreed to surrender custody, and they've agreed without prompting that Rufus can spend four weeks out of every year, outside the school terms of course, with his big sister and brother-in-law."
In spite of himself, Mario let the pang of regret that shot through him show on his face. "That was quick," he muttered.
"No point in hanging about; it wouldn't have been fair to keep the child in limbo."
"When?"
"They're driving up on Saturday. They'll come to pick him up on Sunday morning and go straight back to Hampshire. That means you can still take him out this weekend."
"No," he countered, 'it means we can. We'll both take him somewhere; give him a treat."
"Work permitting."
"Fuck work. Some things are more important."
Maggie drained a third of her gin and tonic. "Bloody hell!" she exclaimed. "Was that Mario McGuire who just said that? The next head ofCID?"
"What's got into you, tonight?" he asked, smiling for the first time since he had come in. "Apart from half a bottle of gin, that is. Hope you put the wee fella to bed the right way up."
Maggie chuckled. "He's fine, don't you worry. Sound asleep."
"So I guess I'm making the dinner."
Somehow, without him noticing, the distance between them on the couch had closed. What he did notice was that her robe had loosened, and that her right breast had slipped loose. "Maybe I've got other plans," she whispered. Holding her glass steady she stood up; the sash of her dressing gown untangled and the garment fell open. "Someone I like very much gave me a pep-talk today; and some very sound advice too.
I've decided to follow it."
"And have you got to get drunk to do it?" he asked, as he looked up at her.
"If that's what it takes, won't it be worth it? Come on." She turned and walked, steadily and purposefully, towards the door. Mario rose and followed her.
When he reached what had become her bedroom, the silk gown was on the floor, and the glass was on the bedside cabinet, empty. She stood there naked, as full-bodied and surprisingly provocative as ever she had been. As he gazed at her, she moved towards him and began to unbutton his shirt. He saw that her hand was trembling; the drink had not dulled her fear of what they were about to do. He held it and stilled it, then ripped off his tie with one hand.
And then their eyes met.
"You don't really want this, do you?" she asked, with the hint of a sob in her voice.
He shook his head. "No. And neither do you. Even if the thing itself was nothing to you, you wouldn't really want to; not with me. Isn't that true?"
She nodded. "It is," she exclaimed, with a great sadness. "It's got nothing to do with Paula, either. It's you, Mario. It's in your eyes when you look at me. You know all there is to know about me, and what happened to me, and because of it, you can't keep distaste from showing in your eyes. You'll try if I really ask you, because you care for me and you're a good man, but it'll always be there, and you'll never be able to help it. I'm not the same person I was to you before, and I never can be again."
He looked at her, saying nothing, but admitting with his eyes the truth of what she said.
"But it's me too," she went on, 'for exactly the same reason. Because you know, you can't ever be the same person to me again either."
"No," he muttered at last. "I can't. We're done, Mags."
He stepped over to what had been their bed, and sat on it, heavily. "I had a pep-talk myself today," he said. "Neil was the unexpected visitor I mentioned. He came to see me about something he's working on, but then he got ripped into me, about the way I've been behaving, about the way people have seen me treat you. He made me realise that I was fooling myself, thinking we could go on as we were."
"Not you alone," she told him, 'but us. I thought I'd be fine with the way it was. I was even going to send Paula flowers and a thank you note."
"Hah! She'd have loved that. No, Mags, if I was a bit short when I came in tonight, it was because I'd worked myself up to tell you that
I'm leaving, as soon as Rufus goes. For a moment there, I thought there was a glimmer, but you're right; it's gone too far for us both.
What I really wanted you to believe, though, and I still do, is that I'm doing it for the reason Neil more or less battered into me; I'm doing it for your sake, and for the sake of your career."