She confidently expected to be by far the most capable in the room. It was not, of course, a competition. But Hanlon, innately driven, couldn’t help but make it so.
McCleod, a decade younger than Hanlon, was keeping up with her. Hanlon was impressed. Impressed and annoyed. The other woman hadn’t got Hanlon’s upper-body strength; she was far better than her at push-ups, dumb-bell shoulder raises and triceps dips, but even at these, the detective did well. She saw McCleod glance at her sharply defined triceps with rueful envy.
On and on it went, punishing, muscle-searing effort and pain. The two of them led the field and, to Hanlon’s fury, the younger woman kept pace with her. The last set of exercises was timed against the clock. Hanlon dug deep and managed to finish about thirty seconds before McCleod.
‘My, you’re awfie fit,’ McCleod gasped. They looked at each other, McCleod leaning forward, hands on her knees, clothes glued to her body with sweat, and grinned.
‘I walk to the shops regularly,’ Hanlon said. Her hair hung like dank rats’ tails, the veins stood out in her toned biceps, her body radiating heat.
‘You look great,’ said McCleod. They were innocuous words but when their eyes met it was as if a tacit agreement had been reached.
‘Thanks,’ said Hanlon and smiled.
After the class, the two of them climbed into McCleod’s Volvo. Wemyss leapt around excitedly in the back.
‘He really does like you,’ McCleod said. Hanlon made a non-committal noise. Although she was not a dog person, not an animal person, Wemyss was beginning to grow on her. Perhaps it was his obvious delight at her company, not something that too many others felt.
McCleod pulled up near the hotel.
‘Well, thank you for tonight,’ Hanlon said. The inside of the car smelled of their sweat and McCleod’s residual perfume.
McCleod’s eyes met hers.
‘Thank you, you were fantastic.’
Hanlon smiled. ‘I’ve got—’
McCleod spoke at the same time. ‘Would you like a drink?’
Hanlon had been going to say, finishing her sentence, ‘—something I need to tell you.’ The prelude to her confession. A drink sounded a much better idea and she gave in to temptation. McCleod was smiling at her encouragingly. Hanlon hooked a finger in the sodden, sweat-stained neck of her top.
‘I think I’m a bit smelly for the bar.’
‘I meant at my place.’ McCleod’s voice was low, serious. There was no mistaking the meaning in the words.
‘Now?’ Hanlon half turned towards her in her seat. The air in the car seemed suddenly charged with electricity and possibility. Hanlon felt slightly faint, light-headed. She hadn’t been expecting anything like this, but she thought of McCleod’s Lycra-clad body, she thought of her fist thudding into Big Jim’s body… she thought…
McCleod put her hand over Hanlon’s. It was very warm. Hanlon opened her fingers slowly and turned her wrist, so their fingers interlocked.
‘Now,’ McCleod said. Their eyes met. McCleod stared into Hanlon’s very grey eyes. Inscrutable. She inclined her head towards Hanlon’s.
Their mouths met.
‘Yes…’ breathed Hanlon.
17
Hanlon and McCleod lay side by side in the DS’s large, comfortable bed.
‘What are you thinking?’ asked McCleod, rolling onto her stomach and looking at Hanlon’s imperious face, slightly sinister in the shadows. She ran a finger gently over Hanlon’s high cheekbones. Hanlon had a fantastic face, she thought, as changeable as the light on the loch – tender, passionate, angry, right now beautiful, but slightly frightening.
‘I’ve got something to tell you,’ Hanlon said.
‘That sounds ominous,’ said McCleod. ‘Will I need a drink?’
‘Quite possibly.’ Hanlon put her hands behind her head and watched as a naked McCleod swung her legs out of bed, walked across the bedroom, through the open door into the kitchen and Hanlon heard the fridge door open and close. McCleod came back with two glasses of white wine. She saw Hanlon looking at her and she exaggerated her walk, swaying her hips before bending down and kissing Hanlon slowly, voluptuously.
She got back into bed. Hanlon took a sip of her wine and told McCleod about the attempt to drug her, the sex party at the hotel. Then she moved on to her seeing Kai with Franca and the conversation with Harriet.
‘So, drugging a hotel guest, use of premises for undeclared monetary gain involving sexual activity, supplying drugs… anything else?’ said McCleod sarcastically.
‘Yeah,’ said Hanlon, ‘I’m afraid so.’
‘Oh, God, there’s more,’ groaned McCleod.
‘I’d had a run-in with Franca earlier that evening. It was in the ladies’ bathroom…’
‘Well, thank God you didn’t hit her,’ McCleod said, once Hanlon had finished.
Hanlon sat up. She rather wished she hadn’t. Sitting up gave her a better view of McCleod’s bedroom. It was not an attractive sight. The room was as untidy as her car. Clothes lay strewn around; you could barely see the floor. She drank some wine. The place needed Marie Kondo. Earlier, on their way to bed, there had been a nasty crunching sound as Hanlon had trodden on a laptop that had been concealed by a denim jacket. The only touch of order in the room was Hanlon’s gym wear, which she had neatly folded when she’d got out of bed earlier.
The curtains were drawn but, although it was half past nine, it was still light outside. Hanlon could see the alarm and concern clearly expressed on McCleod’s face. Remorselessly she ploughed on. It felt so good to be able to pour out these secrets that she had been concealing to someone who would be able to do something constructive with the information.
The discovery that Campbell’s car had been there at the party that night. The trip to Paisley, the fact that the woman who co-owned the restaurant in Glasgow that Kai had come from was Murdo Campell’s sister. Ishbel’s purchase of The Sleeket Mouse with an unexplained windfall, Kai’s history of drug dealing and violence to women.
McCleod tried to remain unimpressed.
‘None of us are our brother’s keeper. Murdo doesn’t control Ishbel’s finances, and so what if Murdo had been involved in
