circus.'
'Yet you asked him to quit too?'
'Not in so many words, but I suppose I did.'
'You know that I won't, not as long as I'm fit to do the job?'
'Yeah.' She sighed. 'I know.'
'So don't force me to a choice.'
'I won't, if it's between me and the job. If it's between me and Aileen de Marco… well, that's another matter.'
'Let's just say it isn't'
'In that case I'm the one who has to make the choice.'
'Whether you love me enough to stay?'
She looked at him. 'Do you love me enough to ask me?'
'I'm not going to do that. You have to want me, warts and all, short-tempered, obsessive bastard that I am.'
'And the kids?'
'The kids will have the education we've planned, whatever way it goes. Let's agree that much right now.'
Sarah nodded; she reached out and squeezed his arm.
'I have to go back,' he told her.
'I know.'
'Tomorrow.'
'Yes.'
'And you?'
'If it's okay with you, I'll take another few days out here. I'm calm now. I was a mess when I ran away from Edinburgh; I was on the edge of making an ass of myself, but now I feel better. If nothing else, our shouting match tonight has finally got a lot of stuff out of my system. Now I can think about the future with a clear mind.'
Bob smiled and ran his fingers through his sticky hair. 'I'm glad about that. You take all the time you need. I'll tell the kids you've got some stuff to sort out over here.'
'Mark might not believe you.'
'I can be persuasive, even with him.'
'I promise you that I'll come back in plenty of time to make sure that they all have a great Christmas. We can talk about everything then. You okay with that?'
'Deal.' He finished his beer and glanced down at the ice-bucket; it was empty. 'Dinner?' he asked.
'Yes. Have a shower, and then we'll go out. Let's eat lobster at Alonzo's… and I promise not to throw any over you.'
Seven
Detective Chief Inspector Neil McIlhenney made a point of being first to arrive each morning in the Special Branch suite. So he was surprised, when he reached the door of the outer office, to see light shining through the glass panel.
He turned the handle and stepped inside, expecting to find DC Alice Cowan behind her desk; instead he saw the dark-suited stocky figure of Assistant Chief Constable Willie Haggerty. 'Morning, sir,' he said. 'How did you get in here? This is supposed to be a secure area.'
'I'm an ACC, for fuck's sake,' the gruff Glaswegian replied. 'I'm supposed to be able to go anywhere in this building.'
'Not into my room, though,' said McIlhenney, walking across to his private office and holding a key in the air. 'I put my own lock in it when I took over from Mario McGuire, and there's only one other guy has one of these.'
'Aye,' Haggerty grunted, as he followed him into the modest room, 'and I can guess who that is. Where is he, by the way?'
'How should I know?'
'Because you're his best mate in this building.'
'He doesn't tell me everything, though.'
'And even if he did, I don't suppose you'd tell me.'
'Not if he didn't specifically ask me to.'
The assistant chief glowered at him. 'Maybe you've been in this job too long, Neil. You SB guys can get too comfortable with secrets.'
'That's the whole point of us SB guys, isn't it?' McIlhenney countered cheerfully. He walked over to a small fridge in the furthest corner of the office and took out a bottle of water. He did not drink tea or coffee, and very little alcohol. 'Want one?' he offered. 'Or a Pepsi?'
Haggerty shuddered and shook his head. 'Did you know about the terrorists?' he asked. 'The ones you lot lifted last month.'
'What about them?'
'They're off to the cages in Cuba.'
'Eventually, you mean?'
'No. Now, I mean. They were handed over to the Sherman Tanks last night and flown straight out. The Chief Constable just told me; the First Minister's private secretary only told him after it had happened, and he's not best pleased about that. The Solicitor General will advise the court this morning that all charges against them have been deserted; he'll say that it's
'Neither will anyone else,' McIlhenney murmured. 'I knew that a couple of them would go sooner or later, but I heard that everybody had agreed they'd be tried here first.'
'Not everybody, the Americans didn't. The Lord Advocate signed the release papers yesterday.'
'It gets them out of our hair, I suppose, but I know somebody who will not be at all happy about it.'
Haggerty glanced at him. 'Naw, he won't. In fact, he'll go ballistic when he finds out.' He took a breath. 'There's other things he's missing out on as well. What do you know about Greg Jay?'
'Between you and me?'
'Of course.'
'I know that he's unpopular with his men, and that the general view is 'Don't take your eyes off him.' I've never served under him, but I have seen him in action and I didn't like what I saw. He was good in his time, though, and he got where he is, divisional CID commander, on the basis of results. Why are you asking?'
'Because he's gone.'
'Gone?'
'Taken early retirement. Big Bob didn't say anything to you about it, did he?'
The DCI shook his head. 'Not a word.'
'Is that so? Big McGurk, his assistant, had heard nothing about it either, and I think Bob would have told him if he'd known, even if he didn't say anything to you.'
'What happened?'
Haggerty gave him a shrug and a blank 'don't know' look. 'Nothing. He saw the chief last Monday morning, and told him he wanted to go by the end of the week. He said he didn't want any fuss made: no announcement, retirement piss-up or anything like that. He wanted to leave very quietly.'
'He probably figured that if they'd passed the hat round for him, it'd have come back empty.'
'Maybe that's all it was,' the ACC conceded. 'Still,' he mused, 'it intrigues me when a guy does something like that. It usually means he's dodging the bullet, or he's been made a good offer somewhere else.'
'Do you want me to find out?'
'Naw, leave it. He's no' worth your time.'
'As you wish.' McIlhenney smiled. 'You're full of surprises this morning, sir.'
