She smiled. ‘Bob, I’ve left the force.’
‘You’re a police officer’s widow, and you’ll have all the help we can give you. But, Maggie,’ he said earnestly, ‘I urge you to put that on hold. Everything is changed now. You may very well think differently in a while.’
‘I’ve still got cancer, Bob. I can’t put that on hold.’
He winced at her use of the word, for the first time, as he reached out and took her hand. ‘Love, you’re going to get through this, you and your daughter. I can work out why you’re refusing treatment, but you must strike a balance.
Ensure her safe delivery, but listen to medical advice on that.’
‘She’s too small, Bob.’
‘But she’s growing. When they’re sure she’ll be safe, let them induce labour, and then start to look after yourself. Promise me you’ll do what’s best for both of you. That kid’s going to need you more than ever.’
‘I’ve been reading up on it,’ she told him. ‘The odds are not good.’
‘Fuck the odds. The Maggie factor’s at work here, and more. Do you know what I did this morning? I went to church with Aileen. She’s Catholic; we went to mass at the cathedral at Picardy Place. I prayed for you, and so did she. Lass, you have no idea how many people are praying for you today, each in their own way.’
‘I didn’t realise that you were religious, Bob.’
‘I don’t shout about them, but I have my firm beliefs. They’ve been there since the time I was widowed. You talk to Neil McIlhenney, and he’ll tell you much the same. You belong to the same club as us now. Nobody ever wants to join it, but eventually, one half of lifelong couples do; there is no happy ever after. For you and Stevie, and Olive and Neil, and Myra and me, that time came far too soon, but I tell you this, you’ll find your own truths through it.’
She stood before him, laid the palms of her hands on his chest, feeling the hard muscle under his white T- shirt, and smiled up at him. ‘Thanks, Bob,’ she said, ‘for caring so much. Far be it from me to reject your prayers. I will do everything I can to beat this thing, I promise you. When I’ve done that, I’ll consider the future.
‘By the way,’ she added, ‘you’re not alone in knowing about this any more. I told Mario and Paula this morning; there was no reason not to, not any more. They both said the same as you. At this rate I’ll have every priest in Edinburgh saying Hail Marys for me.’
She looked up at the clock once more. ‘When’s your press briefing? I wasn’t really listening last night.’
‘Midday.’ He glanced down at the T-shirt and jeans, fresh from his overnight bag. ‘Don’t think I’ll be dressed like this, though. I’ll be in full dress uniform, and so will the chief.’
Maggie chuckled. ‘Hardly anyone will know you.’
‘They’d better. It’s an occasion for formality, a time to show every respect for the service for which men and women give their lives.’ He realised that, once again, he was on the verge of losing control of his emotions, and forced a smile on to his face. ‘I’d better head off, though. It’ll take me half an hour at least to shake all the mothballs out of the thing.’
‘Afterwards,’ she asked, as she walked him to the door once again, ‘what have you planned for the rest of the day?’
‘Afterwards, my dear, I’m going to do what I always do at times like these. I’m going to join Aileen out at Gullane and yield to a desperate need to be with my kids.’
Sixty-five
The chief constable, flanked by the stone-faced, uniformed figures of Bob Skinner and Mario McGuire, made the formal announcement to a respectfully hushed gathering. The journalists knew from the English force that an officer had gone down in an incident in Northumberland the day before, but no word of his identity had leaked, and so when Sir James Proud told them that Detective Inspector Steven Stuart Steele had been killed in the line of duty, there were several gasps of undisguised horror from Edinburgh men and women who had known him well.
He paused, then added that Detective Inspector Steele had gone to the scene with Northumbrian colleagues to arrest a man named Daniel Ballester, also known as Dominic Padstow, wanted for questioning in connection with several recent homicides in the Edinburgh area, and that he had been found dead there.
He closed by extending condolences to DI Steele’s widow, Chief Superintendent Margaret Rose, and to the other members of his family, then sat back to allow his colleagues to take questions.
They came thick and fast, and were answered clearly, and as fully as legally possible, by Skinner and McGuire. Stevie Steele was thirty-four years old when he died, the victim, it appeared, of a trap set by Daniel Ballester before he committed suicide.
Yes, Ballester had left a note, on his laptop computer, confessing unequivocally to the four murders, and to rigging the grenade that had killed Steele. This had been given added authority by the discovery that morning of a weapon, a silenced pistol, and a quantity of soft-nosed bullets, hidden in a shed in the garden of Hathaway House. Other items had been found, including Stacey Gavin’s sketch pad, three paintings by Zrinka Boras, and a brassiere that they believed had belonged to Amy Noone.
‘What sort of grenade was it?’ a man from the
‘We’re told by munitions experts,’ Skinner replied, ‘that it was probably an Austrian-made fragmentation grenade, used by NATO and other military customers around the world, absolutely lethal at close range.’
‘How was it triggered?’
‘It was fixed to the ceiling. The pin was pulled by a wire attached to the inside door handle and led to the weapon through two eyelets. From the accounts of officers at the scene, it exploded within two or three seconds of Stevie stepping into the kitchen. He died immediately.’
‘How easy would it have been for Ballester to get hold of one of these things?’
‘Probably as easy as it was for him to get hold of a precision Sig Sauer handgun, and ammunition that’s illegal in most countries. Regrettably, there have been so many armed conflicts in recent years that items like these are now falling into the wrong hands all too easily. Ballester was a journalist, with a record of going undercover. Who knows what contacts he had? Maybe, when we have a chance to go through his computer files, they’ll lead us to his supplier, but then again . . .’
‘Are you saying that we need tighter firearms control?’ the
‘Firearms control is already very tight,’ the DCC replied. ‘Unfortunately there’s a snag. Fine, we made handguns illegal ten years ago, but criminals do not obey the law. All the legislation in the world isn’t going to change that.’ He glanced at the journalist. ‘I’m sorry, Peter; I’m pontificating. My answer is a simple no.’
‘Do you and the First Minister disagree about that?’
‘The First Minister and I disagree about a number of matters; happily we agree about many more. And, ladies and gentlemen, that’s the last time I will ever discuss her on this or any other platform, apart from telling you that she’s as gutted by this as the rest of us. Now, is there one last question?’
Grace Pretty raised her hand. ‘What about the million-pound reward that Mr Boras offered last week?’
‘I’m glad you asked that, Grace,’ McGuire replied. ‘The three of us have been discussing that, and we’re all agreed that it would be an excellent idea for Mr Boras to donate that money to the Police Dependants’ Trust. We hope he shares that view.’ There had been no such discussion, but the chief constable and his deputy nodded in confirmation.
‘A nice closer, Mario,’ Skinner murmured, as the three police officers made their way out of the briefing room. ‘Stevie would have loved it. Let’s see how the man wriggles out of that.’
Sixty-six
James Andrew Skinner had become used to his new lifestyle, and had adapted well to it. There were three other children from one-parent families in his primary-school class. Two of them never saw their fathers, and he knew that the third hated the weekends that he was forced to spend with his and his new girlfriend, who insisted on being called ‘Auntie’.
Jazz, for all that he had just turned six, knew that he had the best of both worlds. He loved both of his
