She smiled weakly. ‘That’s a palliative. This time we’re attacking the root cause of the problem.’
‘Well, it’s not you,’ he told her firmly. ‘We haven’t been talking to each other enough, that’s for sure, and maybe we have been sweeping some marriage problems under the carpet, but that’s not what’s been eating me.’ He got up from the dining-table, walked through to the kitchen and returned a minute later with another bottle of Marques de Grinon, from which he topped up his glass.
‘I’ve always laughed at the thought of mid-life crises,’ he continued. ‘I’ve seen them as post-yuppie status symbols. But not any more, not now I’m having one myself. I’ve suddenly started to look at myself objectively, and that can be a terrible thing. I realise now that for much of my adult life I’ve been intolerant, unforgiving, arrogant. I’ve made decisions about the lives of people close to me, as if I was God Almighty.’
‘Are you talking about your brother?’
‘Yes, I mean Michael. His death has been the trigger for all of this. My pacemaker incident, you losing your parents, our personal difficulties, I admit they may all have been contributory factors, but that lies at the very heart of it all. It’s made me look at myself, and at the way I behaved towards him, and I do not like what I see.’ He picked up his glass in both hands and took a sip, leaning forward, elbows on the table, shoulders hunched, peering into the dark wine as if the truth was written there.
‘I hated him when he was alive,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I really did. For all his faults, his weaknesses, and his cruelty towards me when I was a kid, still he was my only brother, and yet I could find no forgiveness towards him in my heart. As it turned out he was a victim himself, but I was never interested in that. I was his jury, his judge, and I might even have been his executioner, but for my father. I told Jim Gainer all about it this afternoon. He patted me on the head, sort of; he told me that as it worked out I’d done right by him, but I can’t buy that. I left him living as an outcast for years, when I could have brought him back into the family. You know, Big Lenny Plenderleith might get out quite soon, on a form of early parole, training for freedom. There was no parole for Michael, though; not in my heart. I left him to rot.’
He frowned savagely, knitting his eyebrows together. ‘What sort of a man does that make me? What sort of a policeman does that make me? I’ve made some momentous decisions, Sarah, when I’ve had to. I’m looking back on them now, and I’m looking for compassion within me when those things happened. I don’t see any. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve always known that I’m a hard guy when I have to be and that there’s a merciless streak in me; it’s kept me alive a few times. But I thought that I was fully aware of it, and that I could control it. I never appreciated until now just how much a part of me it is.’
‘You’re exaggerating, Bob. There’s compassion in you: look at how you handled Jazz tonight.’
‘Jazz is a five-year-old in his first playground fight. I’m talking about judgement at a whole different level, and honestly I’m not certain any more that mine is up to the job that I have. Sarah, I made a promise to Alex a while back that the moment I feel that I’m burned out in the police, then I’ll pack it in and do something else. I wonder if that moment’s here.’
‘Wow!’ She whistled. ‘That’s something I never expected to hear from you.’
‘How would you feel if I retired?’ he asked.
‘Not so long ago I’d have said, “Roll on the day,” but now I think I’d dread it. You’re right about your mid-life crisis. You’re racked with self-doubt and for the first time ever you’re questioning yourself. For the moment you’re unsure and indecisive, and yet here you are, talking about making a career decision. You cannot do that in your present state of mind. If you quit now, there’s a fifty per cent chance you’d spend the rest of your life hanging about the house regretting it, and I do not think I could stand that. Tell me something. On a day-to-day basis do you still feel functional in your job?’
‘I suppose I do,’ he conceded.
‘You don’t feel insecure about the preparations for next week’s visit, for example?’
‘Not at all. That’s routine; top-end stuff, but still routine.’
‘Any other command decisions you’re having to take just now?’
‘There’s a personnel thing; a senior CID post.’
‘Any doubts about that?’
‘No. I’ve known the people involved for years.’
‘So?’
‘That’s all peripheral stuff, decisions based on training and experience. It’s what’s at the heart of me that concerns me.’
‘Bob, you’re on a guilt trip: don’t take it out on the rest of us.’
‘I’m trying not to, but it’s no trip. As far as Michael’s concerned, I am fucking guilty.’
‘Man,’ Sarah exclaimed, ‘get it through your head. You are no closer to infallibility than the rest of us. You are no angel. I’m no angel. There are no angels. Let me ask you one last thing. Are you proud of James Andrew?’
‘More than I can say,’ he answered.
‘Me too. Now let me tell you one last thing. As I said earlier, he is you, everything you are, in miniature; if you could stand back and see the two of you together you’d understand exactly what I mean. My rough-and-tumble son is a lovely guy; you can see his soul through his eyes, and every time I look at him I thank you from the bottom of my heart for making him, and the others, the way they are. They’re the most important achievements of your life, and in their light you can make allowances for everything else.’
He closed his eyes for several long seconds, as if he was trying to find words. When he opened them and looked across at her, they were filled with tears. ‘That’s another thing,’ he said, as a smile broke through. ‘I never used to get emotional either.’
‘That’s nothing to be ashamed of,’ she told him, although, in truth, she found that more disturbing than anything else.
‘I’ll keep it under control, don’t worry.’ He grinned. ‘Let’s get back to firmer ground. What have you got in your professional diary?’
‘I’m working for you tomorrow,’ she told him.
‘Uh?’ He stared at her, surprised.
‘Well, for Maggie Rose, really. I’m doing a post-mortem examination on a man who was found hanging from a tree in the Meadows this morning. The early CID view is that he may possibly have had some help, from person or persons unknown.’
Bob’s expressive eyebrows knitted together once more, and the fragile link they had woven between them was snapped. ‘It’s the first I’ve heard of it,’ he growled. ‘I tell you, Chief Superintendent Pringle’s in for a kicking tomorrow!’
17
There was one thing about England that the drummer loved, and it was the same thing he loved about Belgium.
Once he had revelled in the universal dream of youth, of seeing the world, of following a martial life in glamorous, interesting and preferably sunny surroundings. It had been his ambition to go into private security work, not the kind that involved wearing drab uniforms and crash helmets but the upmarket type that would take him to Hollywood riding in the front seat of limos with movie stars in the back. He had made some early enquiries about possibilities, and had even registered with an agency that had promised him the sort of life he was after within a couple of years, once he had acquired the sort of experience they required.
But somewhere along the line . . . not very far along either . . . it had all gone wrong. It had been nothing of his making. He had simply been the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time. A finger had been pointed at him, an order had been given, and he had obeyed. He would not have volunteered, and while he had been unsure of the consequences of refusal he had been smart enough not to invite them.
That was all it had taken: a couple of minutes out of a hot day long ago, and his life had been changed irrevocably, his dream snuffed out, his imaginary CV of ten years on crumpled metaphorically and thrown in the waste bucket. He had called himself ‘Idiot!’ many times since, but unfairly, he knew. He had been given no choice.
Since then, his life had known no more dramas. He had been looked after and he had nothing really to complain about. His existence had been comfortable, almost pampered, and the envy of many of his friends. But it
