As usual, my dear, you read me right." She reached into the back pocket of her jeans and took out a folded white envelope. "This came in today's post."
Mario took it from her. He looked at it and frowned when he saw that it was addressed to Mrs. Margaret McGuire, a name his wife had never adopted. He flipped it open and took out the letter inside. The heading was the first thing that caught his eye.
"Redway Chatham, Solicitors, Guildford," he read aloud. "What the fuck's this?"
He looked at Maggie and saw that her earlier tension was back. "It's all in legal language," she said, 'and English law at that. I'll save you the trouble of wading through it. I've done that often enough now;
I understand exactly what it says. Redway Chatham are acting for Rufus's great-uncle, Mr. Franklin Chamberlain, of Alton, Hampshire, and his wife Lydia.
"They are asking us, very politely so far, to hand him over to them. If we refuse, they say they'll instruct solicitors up here, and counsel if necessary, to petition for custody in the Scottish court. They say that it will be up to me to defend that if I choose, and to prove my claim to a blood relationship with Rufus. If I do, it'll be for the court to decide between us, as potential parents."
"Jesus!" Mario exclaimed. "Who is this guy Chamberlain, do we know?
What is he? His sister, Rufus's grandmother, has a shady background; that we do know. What if he's from the same school? No, no, bugger that for a game."
"The man is Rufus's mother's godfather," she told him, 'as well as being her uncle. And he's legit.; very much so. I've had him checked out already. He's forty years old, he's deputy chief executive of a major insurance company, and his wife is a county councillor. They have two children themselves, one only a year older than Rufus."
"So what?" He waved the letter in the air in anger. "Are we poor people? Are we, hell. Do they think we can't bring him up? Too bloody right we can. Who the fuck do they think they are? What makes them think the sheriff will find for them… or the Court of Session, if it goes that far? Like I said, Alex's firm don't handle this sort of stuff, but they'll recommend someone, the best. I'll call her now."
He started for the house, but she caught his arm and held him back.
"Wait," she said, softly. He looked at her and saw that she was on the edge of tears.
"I can't, Mario. I can't go to court over this. If I did, I'd have to prove that my father and his were one and the same man. DNA would do that beyond doubt, but what if Chamberlain's counsel wouldn't leave it at that? What if he asked me questions about our estrangement, about why he left and why I never tried to find him, even though I was better placed to than most, as a police officer? And I'd be under oath; I would have to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Can you imagine the press coverage? I can, and I know that I could not take it. I'm having enough trouble holding myself together as it is. If we fought this, and if that happened, as it would.. "
She shook her head slowly, from side to side. "Everything would be over; my career, me, everything. Love, if that can of worms gets open, there's no telling where they'll burrow."
He stood there, white-faced where before he had been red with anger, knowing that everything she had said was true.
"The Chamberlains sound like responsible people," she went on. "They can only be doing this because they care about Rufus. We have to give him to them."
Mario's shoulders slumped. "And where does that leave us, Mags? What does it leave us?"
"It leaves us each other," she answered. "For as long as you want, that is."
He pulled her to him and hugged her, but she stiffened in his embrace, and he released it, at once. They stood there, awkwardly, listening to
Rufus chattering to his toys, in the playhouse they had built for him.
And then a phone rang; the song of a mobile. He strained to hear it.
"Yours or mine?" he asked.
"Mine." She left him and trotted back into the kitchen.
She returned a minute later, her cellphone still in her hand. "I've got to go. There's a fire in the Royal Scottish Academy in Princes Street, and they're saying it's arson."
Maggie looked at her half-brother, who had emerged from his hut and was smiling up at them both. "You take him to the seaside," she told her husband. "It'll probably be the last chance you get."
Six
The medical examiner was not best pleased; his putting stroke had never been better and he had been looking forward for weeks to the summer meeting at Rosemount Golf Club.
He looked up at the two men who stood in the doorway of Miss Bonney's kitchen. "What can I tell you?" he exclaimed. "I can tell you he's bloody dead. That's self-evident. Did you really have to drag me down to this morass to tell you that?"
"I'm sorry, Doctor Duck," said Detective Chief Superintendent Rod Greatorix, the Tayside head of CID. "You know it's the form in a situation like this."
It was untypical for the even-tempered Andy Martin to be irked by the doctor's attitude, but he was. The man had moaned from the moment he had come splashing awkwardly down the stairs. "I've got fifty officers in this street," he snapped at him, suddenly, 'shovelling all sorts of shit. They're getting paid a hell of a lot less than you, so please, spare us your troubles."
The doctor rose to his feet and turned belligerently towards him. "And just who the hell are you, sir?" he demanded. "And who do you think you're talking to?"
"My shoulder-flashes are covered by this scene-of-crime tunic," Martin replied, 'but if you could see them you'd know that I'm the new deputy chief constable. Now I don't care, frankly, whether I get off to a good start with you, but you'd be well advised to start impressing me.
I expect the highest standard of professionalism at crime scenes, and I will not tolerate anything less… from anyone."
"Are you questioning my professional competence?" the man shot back.
Even in the murky cellar, Martin's green eyes seemed to flash, dangerously. "No," he said, evenly and quietly. "I'm telling you to get on with your job."
Dr. Duck looked at him for a few seconds longer, as if he was weighing him up, then he squatted down beside the body once again. The deputy chief and DCS Greatorix backed off and left him to his work.
"Is his name really Duck?" Martin whispered.
"Yes; first name Howard."
"Mmm. In that case I can see why he was golfing today, rather than shooting."
"Gentlemen," the doctor called from the corridor. "I've done as much as I can here; it would be helpful if the body could be moved."
The head of CID looked at Martin, as if for approval. "I know I made the call that this is a suspicious death, but this is your show, Rod," the DCC assured him, answering the unspoken question. "It was wrong of me to go for the ME, but he got under my skin. I won't interfere again."
Greatorix nodded, then spoke quietly to the police photographer, white-clothed like the rest of them. "Okay, doc," he answered, eventually. "We'll lift him out for you." He moved towards the hall, waving to a detective constable to join him.
"Careful," the doctor warned.
"Why?" the DCS asked, warily. "He's not going to fall apart, is he?"
"No, no; not yet, at any rate. But he's waterlogged and so are his clothes. He'll be heavy."
"I'll help," Martin volunteered. "You two take a leg each, I'll manage his shoulders." The detective constable looked at him, doubtfully.
"What's up?" he laughed. "Have you never seen a chief officer lift anything heavier than a pen before?"
"I've never seen one offer to do it, sir," the man replied.
"Well, you have now. I'll take the top end; you guys take the feet."
He considered the massive kitchen table, which looked as if it had been there since the house was built. "We'll plonk him on that."