‘You guys are bound to be wondering why I didn’t react when I saw the photo of Zrinka Boras. The answer is that I’ve never met her, as such. When Alex bought me that picture from her stall at the market, I was busy elsewhere.
In fact, I was trying to free my younger daughter from a faceful of candy floss, a job and a half, if you’ve never had to do it. When I opened the parcel at home, I found that Zrinka had put one of her business cards in with it. That’s how I came to have her e-mail address.’
‘I’d worked that out, sir,’ said Steele. ‘I took a couple of those cards from her flat.’
‘Maybe so, Stevie, but you should have bloody asked me about it, for the book.’
‘Sorry, boss.’
‘Forgiven. Now, what else should you have asked me?’
‘Whether you knew Stacey Gavin as well, since you and Alex each have one of her paintings.’
‘Exactly. For the moment, we’ll leave the question of how Montell came to recognise a picture hanging in my daughter’s bedroom, then shoot his mouth off about it in the office. That’s for me to raise with him on another occasion,’ his eyes gleamed, ‘although you can feel free to tell him that I plan to do just that.
‘The fact is, I didn’t know Stacey, nor did I make the connection until Alex told me about the good detective constable spotting it. I bought both of those works from a gallery; the signature she used was “Gavin”; that was all. The day that she was murdered, I flew out of Edinburgh for the start of a ten-day trip to Barcelona so I missed the press coverage. I saw references to the investigation in the papers after I got back, but by that time all the detail about her had been worked through.
‘That’s it; that’s all I know. Now, what you must do is get that into the record and make fucking sure that the fiscal is aware of it. You’re doing a first-class professional job, Inspector, but there must be nothing swept under the carpet in this investigation, or laughed off as ridiculous. Be absolutely clear about that.’
‘Don’t be hard on Stevie, boss,’ said McGuire. ‘He knew damn fine that if you had anything to add to the pool of knowledge you’d have got in touch with us. He’s running this show in the absence of Mackenzie and Neil.’
‘True,’ Skinner conceded. ‘I didn’t take that into account. Plus he’s got his pregnant wife to worry about, who is, let’s not forget, the reason why we’re all here. Okay, Inspector, I’ll stop blaming you for my own sins of omission. Speaking of the centre of attraction, Brian Mackie’s throwing us meaningful looks. I think he wants to get on with the formalities.’
They joined the crowd of officers of all ranks gathered in the centre of the room, where Maggie, looking a little nervous, stood beside Sir James Proud. The chief constable made a short speech, one of good luck, rather than goodbye. There was no presentation, since Maggie had expressly forbidden a collection within the office.
When Sir James yielded the floor, she gazed around her audience slowly. ‘Chief, ladies and gentlemen, thank you,’ she began, ‘for coming along to wave me off on the road to maternity. If some of you are surprised by this development, I promise you that you ain’t half as bloody astonished as Stevie and I were when we found out what we had done.’ She paused until the laughter quietened.
‘God willing, next time I see many of you, I’ll be bringing our baby daughter into the office for inspection and approval, and for the pleasure of seeing hard-bitten. . and in some extreme cases, like Charlie Johnston over there, thoroughly chewed. . police officers acting like big soft nellies. But when I do, it’ll be for old times’ sake.’ She paused again, taking in the puzzled expressions on several faces, particularly those of Stevie, Mario and Bob Skinner.
‘Until this very moment,’ she continued, ‘and this is the truth, I had no intention of saying what I’m about to say today, in this room, but standing among my friends and colleagues I can see very clearly that, knowing what I do, it would be unfair and probably just a bit immoral if I didn’t. I’m not going to do a Bilbo Baggins, put on a magic ring and vanish in a puff of smoke but, friends, this is the last day of my police career.
‘Chief, Bob, Brian, but most of all Stevie, I’m not going to hang around on cushy leave for a year before giving you the news; I’m telling you now what I’ve decided already. My firm intention from now on is to pursue a career as a full-time wife and mother.’
Fifty-five
‘I hope that my wife is getting on all right with your cousin’s wife,’ said Stevie Steele, as he and Ray Wilding stepped off the Heathrow Express at Paddington Station and headed for the taxi rank.
‘I’ve told you, it isn’t possible not to get on with Margot: she doesn’t allow it.’ The sergeant shook his head. ‘I still can’t get over Maggie’s bombshell.’ He laughed. ‘The faces in that room must have been a picture.’
‘They were, and I suspect that my jaw dropped furthest of all when she came out with it.’
‘You had no idea?’
‘Not that she was going to announce it there and then, I hadn’t. I knew that she had it in mind, but I thought she was still thinking it over, and that she was going to wait till the baby was safely delivered to make a decision.’
‘How long will it take you to stop thinking of her as a chief superintendent?’
‘God,’ Steele exclaimed, in disbelief. ‘You’re some machine. Do you see me as a common man version of Prince Philip, walking three paces behind his wife? Maggie stopped being a senior officer as soon as she walked in the front door. I haven’t thought of her that way from the day we started living together. . and since before that, if you really want to know.’ He flagged down a taxi. ‘Charing Cross police station,’ he told the driver.
‘It’ll take me a while,’ Wilding continued. ‘I’ve known her for a while too, and I’ve never been able to imagine her as anything other than a police officer. It’s one thing talking idly about giving up; I can imagine her doing that, in her condition. But for her actually to go through with it, to me that’s incredible.’
Steele sat silent for a while, as the black cab pulled out into the Saturday-morning traffic. ‘When I think about it, Ray, I have to confess that I find it remarkable too. Not that long ago we were talking about when the time would be right for her to move up to assistant chief, and whether she should move force to achieve it. Then all of a sudden there’s this sea change in her, leading up to her announcement last night.
‘I thought I knew her, better than I’ve ever known anyone in my whole life. I thought she’d never be able to surprise me again, and then she went and proved me wrong. I told her as much last night. She was sorry, you know, guilty that she hadn’t told me what she’d decided in advance, but when she said that she did what she did on the spur of the moment, she wasn’t kidding.’
‘Did anybody try to talk her out of it afterwards?’
‘Brian Mackie did. He pleaded with her to take longer to think about it, and not hand in her resignation straight away. He told her that replacing her permanently would be a big problem for him, one that he’d rather put off for the moment. He even said he’d been thinking about letting Neil McIlhenney gain a year’s seniority, but the DCC told him to forget that, pronto. He said that he wasn’t pulling Neil out of CID.’
‘The DCC,’ Wilding exclaimed. ‘Was he there?’
‘Of course. Mags used to be his exec, remember.’
‘How did he take it?’
‘He was great. He was the only one of us that didn’t bat an eyelid. He told her that she hadn’t made a wrong move in all the time he’d known her, and that if that was what she’d decided, she’d leave with his blessing. They’ve always been close, those two.’
‘You don’t mean. .’
‘Don’t be stupid; of course I don’t. They’ve seen a lot of action together. It’s the same with her and Mario, and big Neil too. There’s some serious history there, and I’m not just talking about her first marriage. I don’t think I know all of it, but if she doesn’t choose to tell me, that’s fine.’