‘Married?’
‘Yes, but we’re separated. It’s amicable and all that; we’re just sitting out the two-year period, before we can apply for a simple divorce.’
‘You’ll still have lawyers’ bills, though, I’ll bet.’
‘You’d lose. Where there are no kids involved, you can do it all yourselves: and we will.’
‘That sounds like a good system you have in Scotland. It can be anything but simple here.’
‘It is, and I’m thankful. The last thing either Maggie or I would want would be to set out the breakdown of our relationship in open court.’ He shrugged. ‘Not that there’s anything scandalous about it, but with us both being senior police off icers . . .’ He saw the inspector’s eyebrows rise. ‘She’s a detective too,’ he explained. ‘Superintendent like me, CID divisional commander, like me, only she’s in the city and I’m in Borders.’
‘Borders?’
‘Yeah. It’s a rural area; bit of a fucking backwater, if truth be told, but it’s okay for a first command posting. I don’t think I’ll be there much longer, though. There’s changes in the wind, and they could blow me somewhere else. Things could be happening right now, for all I know.’
‘Does that mean you can’t wait to get back?’ asked Mawhinney.
‘You’re kidding!’ McGuire exclaimed. ‘I love your city, man. I hope you like mine half as much when we all go back next week on your half of the exchange visit.’
‘I’m sure I will. I’ve always wanted to visit Edinburgh.’ The American frowned. ‘But what did you mean, “we all”? Is there another cop coming with us, or were you just trying to talk like a Southern Gentleman?’
His guest grinned. ‘Neither of those things. Sorry again, I should have told you earlier, but I’m not here on my own. Since Maggie and I split I’m in a new relationship, and Paula came with me on the trip.’
‘Will you remarry when you can?’
The Scot shook his head. ‘No.’
‘That sounds very definite.’
‘It is. Paula’s my cousin.’
‘Is that a bar to marriage in your country? It isn’t in New York.’
‘No, but . . . there’s the Italian thing, the family, and of course the Church; not that I could remarry there anyway, but you know what I mean. On top of that, neither of us wants to get hitched. We don’t even live together: close to, but not in the same house. We’ve just fallen into this thing, it suits us, and we’re both happy with the way it’s working.’
‘She isn’t a cop too, is she?’
‘Hell no. She runs the family enterprises; that’s one reason why she’s here with me, to do some research into the deli business, New York style. I’m a trustee too, but most of my involvement is through a lawyer with power to act, to keep things square with the day job.’
‘Is it a big company?’
‘Big enough, and bigger since Paulie took over.’ He stopped abruptly. ‘But how about you, Colin?’ he asked. ‘Do you have a working wife?’
There was a pause. ‘I did.’
‘Don’t tell me. She’s a cop and you’re divorced.’
‘No,’ said Mawhinney, quietly. ‘She wasn’t a cop, and she’s dead.’
McGuire threw his head back. ‘Ah, shit. Me and my mouth. I’m sorry. When did it happen?’
‘September eleven, two thousand and one.’
The Scot gasped. ‘She . . .’
‘Margery was an account manager with an investment house called Garamond and Stretch. She worked in the second tower to be hit, just at the point of impact. I had decided to go in early that morning. I like to let all my officers see the boss,’ he said in explanation, ‘round the clock, not just during the day shift. She usually started at eight o’clock, and so that morning we arranged that we would meet for breakfast at nine. That’s how I came to be here. I had just started the walk from my office . . . I don’t like using cars for private appointments . . . when the first plane hit. I called in on my cell phone and ordered all available officers to the scene, then I ran the rest of the way, to take command, but first to find my wife and get her out of there. I called her on her cell phone as I was running, to find out where she was. She was still in her office: she told me they had been advised to stay put, so as not to hamper the evacuation from the other tower. I told her that as soon as I got to the scene, as ranking police officer I would order complete evacuation of the area, and would she please get the hell out of there. She said she would talk to her boss and tell him what I had said. A few minutes later I was there, giving that very order and hoping to find her coming out of the entrance door. But she never did. And then the second plane hit.’
He reached out his right foot, in its brightly shining shoe, and touched the ground: it was as if he was caressing it. ‘They never found her body, Mario,’ he murmured. ‘In a sense, we’re standing on her grave.’
‘Man, why didn’t you say?’ exclaimed McGuire. ‘I’d never have . . .’ He stopped, abruptly. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here.’
‘No, no,’ Mawhinney retorted. ‘Really, it’s all right. I come here often, and not just in uniform. Sometimes, like a lot of people, like those we saw earlier, I bring flowers. Maybe it’ll change in time, but right now, like many of the bereaved, I just don’t have anywhere else to go.’
2
They assembled in the centre of Brussels, all thirty-seven of them. All of the squad were men; even in the twenty-first century there were no women allowed among the ranks. Whenever they were challenged about this their stock excuse was that the uniforms just did not fit women properly. As they lined up for the photographers they stood smartly at attention, twelve of them with heavy ancient weapons shouldered.
The troop carrier, as they called it, stood ready and waiting, its engine running in the evening chill to charge the heating system. There was only one bus, for on this special journey there would be no camp followers; no wives, no lovers, and especially, no children. After all, as the colonel put it, they were setting out on a symbolic invasion.
‘They won’t know what hit them,’ said the commander, confidently, to the newspaper, radio and television reporters gathered in a group, looking across at his company, displaying them with pride in his eyes, and an outstretched arm.
‘How many stops will you make?’ asked a young woman, holding a microphone.
‘Five,’ replied the officer, a short man with white hair, a clipped moustache, and a slight paunch that pressed against the buttons of his heavily braided blue tunic, on each shoulder of which three crowns and a bar shone. ‘First in Hull, where we land tomorrow. Then we are on to Manchester, then Newcastle. But those are just training runs, you might say. The real invasion will begin at a town called Haddington. We complete our preparation there. And then,’ he paused, eyebrow raised dramatically, as if he had seen Robert Newton’s Long John Silver . . . and he looked almost old enough to have been at its premiere, ‘the final assault: Edinburgh itself. It’s an honour, a great honour.’
‘Indeed, Colonel. I imagine it’s the greatest honour you’ve ever had,’ the reporter ventured.
The other eyebrow rose, the forehead ridged, and the nose seemed to go a deeper shade of red. ‘I meant, young lady,’ the colonel boomed, theatrically, ‘that it is a great honour for the Scots. It’s time those brigands were taught a few lessons in the finer military arts.’
He turned his back on her, dismissed his troops and waved them towards the waiting bus.
The reporters watched, as the various implements were cased and loaded into the cavernous luggage space beneath the cabins of the long coaches. ‘He really means it, doesn’t he?’ the woman murmured to the man next to her.
‘Oh yes. He means it.’ The other reporter, old enough still to be using a notebook rather than a tape, scratched his chin with the end of his pen. He looked at his colleague. ‘You think he’s as mad as a wasp, don’t you?’
‘As a nestful,’ she said agreeably.
‘Maybe he is now, but he wasn’t always. Auguste Malou was a real soldier once, in the Royal Belgian Army.’
