never done: this gal has way too much pride for that. Besides he was right about the nub of it, our relationship was a mess and was finally broken beyond repair: probably.
I’ve always been good at loving Bob. I was crap at being married to him, that was all. Yes, I gave him a hard time when I came back to Edinburgh to my new job, but that doesn’t mean that I’m incapable of wishing him well, or that I never worry about him any more.
As an example, I was concerned about the way he had been at the grave site the night before: there had been something not quite right about it. I hadn’t expected him to turn up, but he must have known that there was a fair chance I’d be the attending pathologist, so I couldn’t put it down to shock at my presence, or even mild surprise.
Embarrassment? Hardly, for two of the people there didn’t know me from Eve, and he and I are an open book as far as Mario and Jack McGurk are concerned.
Professional difficulties? Not a chance. Bob has supreme confidence in his ability to do his job. I’ve seen him in the most stressful conditions that the most gifted crime fiction writer could imagine, and I’ve never known him to be rattled.
Trouble at home? No, that couldn’t be. Bob was never one for silent huffing and if there had been a barney between him and Aileen, surely I’d have picked up a whiff of it from Mark, a sensitive kid who’d have been upset by it. But hold on, the kids were with me, so. .
‘No, couldn’t be,’ I murmured. ‘It’s paradise in Gullane these days, Sarah, remember.’ But something had unsettled him: I was sure of that.
I set the thought aside and looked at the lab results from my morning autopsy. I scanned though all the tests and analyses, looking for anything that might have been a contributory factor to the fatal collapse, but there was nothing.
I’d left the stomach contents till last. It’s the only part of a postmortem examination that makes me feel at all squeamish. I do not read the entrails if I can avoid it; instead I leave it to the lab to analyse the deceased’s last meal. I glanced at it, saw ‘chicken’ and almost set it aside; then I had a second look and reached for the phone.
I dug out the card that I’d made DC Haddock give me and dialled the direct number of the Torphichen Place CID suite. It was he who answered.
‘Sauce,’ I began, ‘this is Sarah Grace. Have you identified your man yet?’
‘No, Doctor,’ he admitted, ‘not yet; we’re exploring possibilities but we haven’t had a result. Are you going to tell me you’ve found that bar code after all? If you have, I hate to think where it was.’
I laughed: I was getting to like the kid. There was a self-confidence about him, but it stopped well short of the arrogance I’ve seen in quite a few cops. ‘No,’ I told him, ‘I can’t put a name to him, but I might let you focus your search a little more tightly.’
‘How?’
‘Circumcision,’ I said. ‘How much do you know about it?’
‘I know I don’t fancy it, not at my age,’ he replied, cheerfully. ‘Aside from that, it means you’re Jewish, doesn’t it?’
‘That’s the stereotypical UK gentile image,’ I conceded, ‘but actually, those boys don’t hold the copyright by any means. Nobody lines them up and counts them but I’ve seen figures that suggest that about half of the American male population is circumcised. In the Jewish faith, the practice is regarded as a command from God, but it’s also widespread in Islamic peoples. Among the rest it’s seen as precautionary, or even therapeutic; there’s evidence that it lessens your chances of contracting sexually transmitted diseases. The World Health Organisation estimates that worldwide around one in three men are circumcised and that two-thirds of those are Muslim.’
‘I stand corrected,’ Haddock chuckled. ‘So, are you saying that worldwide we can eliminate two out of every three men from our investigation?’
‘I’m saying more than that. All I was doing was putting it in context, saying that you cannot look at a man who’s had the procedure and say he’s Jewish, which is why I didn’t do that. But look at a man who’s been trimmed, and whose last meal, consumed a couple of hours before he died, was matzoh ball soup followed by geffilte fish, then that, Detective Constable, is the way to bet.’
Detective Inspector George Regan
It was a Thursday morning, and I was on duty in Dalkeith when the call came. I was asked to report to the chief constable’s office, twelve noon sharp, with no reason given, not even when I asked the man Crossley point blank what the hell it was about.
I ran through all sorts of possibilities in my mind. I wasn’t in any trouble that I knew of, I didn’t know anyone who was and I’m not the sort of man you’d ask to organise the force Christmas dinner dance, so I ruled all of them out. That left redundancy at the top of the list.
The country’s gone crazy over public spending cuts these days. Apart from the sacred cow that is our Notional Health Service, nobody seems to be exempt, not even the police force. Who would they pick first for the push? I asked myself. How about an emotionally damaged officer with twenty years in the job, but young enough to find a new career outside it? Oh, he’d be well up the pecking order.
Yes, I do consider myself emotionally damaged. I still haven’t got over my young son’s death. But I can function normally, as I like to think I’ve proved; my promotion to detective inspector a couple of years ago wasn’t out of sympathy. I earned it by performance, and by passing exams. Nevertheless, when I stepped into Crossley’s small room that morning, en route to the chief’s, I was fairly sure that I was going to be offered a package and shown the door.
I had half expected the Human Resources manager to be waiting with the boss, but he was alone. However in the current climate it was possible that HR was being phased out too, so her absence didn’t raise my hopes.
When we sat down at his meeting table and Mr Skinner got down to it, I was even more convinced about the outcome.
‘George,’ he said, ‘you’re a good officer, one hundred per cent reliable, you have no skeletons in your closet and I rate you very highly. I want to say that up front. Now, I want to ask you how you’d feel about stepping out of the front line; right out of it.’
That was it then; he was making the blow as soft as he could, but it was coming. I know a guy who left the force five years ago and became security manager for the Co-op.
‘If it’s in the public interest,’ I began.
He laughed. ‘It’s in the very private interest, DI Regan. I want you to consider taking charge of Special Branch.’
I wish he’d had CCTV in his room, for I’d love to see a video. My expression must have told him everything I’d been thinking. He read it right and laughed even louder. ‘You thought I was giving you the push, didn’t you? Jesus Christ, George, when the force starts laying off guys like you, the dark side will have won well and truly.’
I think I stopped breathing for a couple of seconds, because I found myself taking in air in a big gulp. ‘Special Branch,’ I repeated.
He nodded. ‘Yes. I’m not saying it’ll be a springboard but it’s a key position within the force, even more so in the modern era. Back in the old Cold War days it was relatively simple; there was one potential threat and even that was more imaginary than real, they say now. Even into the sixties, our predecessors checked on who went to Communist Party meetings and that was all, more or less. Then Ireland happened and since then it’s all been much more complicated. Tell me what you know about the Branch, George.’
I’d never been asked that question before, nor even put it to myself, but I did my best to answer. ‘It’s a unit within each police force,’ I began, ‘that deals with national security, terrorism, etc. Its main job is gathering intelligence on potential threats, but it can investigate too. It can also get involved with serious organised crime as well as subversion. Every force has a Special Branch, but they’re independent of each other.’
The chief smiled. ‘Dictionary definition,’ he said. ‘It also keeps contact with the security services, but it isn’t
