Why not? Why didn’t I do that? After all, and you can trust me on this, I knew that I had no chance of winning the war I’d declared. I have power, sure, but not Clive Graham’s kind, not Aileen’s kind. Yes, I could have faced the facts, accepted the inevitable and tried to live with it.
And lived with myself at the same time? Not a chance, because I believed then, as I believe now, that what they were planning to do was not in the best interests of the people that I was appointed to serve. Not a chance, because a man can’t preach about values and principles to his children when he’s abandoned his own.
‘Bugger!’ I growled, then turned to my computer, opened a new document and started to type, to draft the letter of resignation that I would submit on the day that the unification legislation was passed.
I was still considering whether to begin ‘It is with great regret. .’ when my personal mobile trilled again, on my desk beside the keyboard. I assumed it was the bell for round two. I’d have stayed in my corner had I not glanced at the readout. Wrong wife.
‘Hello, Sarah,’ I answered.
‘You sound beat,’ she said.
‘Do I? I’m sorry. Tough twenty-four hours, and I’m still in the office. I shouldn’t let it get under my skin.’
‘Trouble in Harmony Row? Or am I not allowed to ask?’
‘You are very definitely not,’ I warned her. ‘What’s up anyway?’
‘Nothing specific. I was worried about you, that’s all.’
‘Why, for heaven’s sake?’ I exclaimed.
‘I dunno. Last night at the crime scene, you didn’t seem yourself.’
‘How do you know what my self is any more?’
‘Hey,’ she protested, ‘how many years were we married?’
‘More than enough,’ I chuckled.
She sniggered too. ‘Probably, but in the time we were you don’t think I got to know you? I can tell when you’re not focused and last night you weren’t. You’re okay, aren’t you, physically? Your pacemaker hasn’t been playing up, has it?’
‘What pacemaker? I barely remember that it’s there. I have my annual check-up and each year they tell me that the battery’s going to last a little longer than they expected.’
‘That’s a good sign,’ she said. ‘It means your heartbeat needs very little regulation.’
‘You wouldn’t say that if you’d heard it. .’ I stopped, but by then I’d said too much.
‘I see. I won’t pry, honest. Actually there was a work reason for me calling you. I wondered if you had any feedback from the autopsy on our client from last night.’
‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘I’m completely up to speed. I don’t just know what he had for dinner, I know where he had it. I know also that he was with two other men, and I’m assuming that when he died they were the ones who buried him and called us.’
‘Hey,’ Sarah exclaimed, ‘young Sauce is on the ball, isn’t he?’
‘More than you know,’ I told her. ‘Things happen to Sauce. He’s a magnet for them.’
‘You should be careful. You sound paternal when you talk about him; if you let other people in the force hear that tone they’ll get to resent him pretty quickly.’
She had a point. That woman always could read me like a Kindle.
‘I’m aware of it,’ I said. ‘But the people he works with rate him just as highly as I do. He’s about to be promoted, on his DI’s recommendation, but he doesn’t know yet.’
‘Thank God you’ll be retired,’ she murmured, ‘by the time our kids are old enough to join the force.’
‘As they will over my ancient body!’ I retorted. ‘Speaking of our kids, Mark’s just asked me if he can have a mobile. I didn’t think he was interested in one, but it’s okay with me if you’re onside.’
I heard a gasp. ‘The cunning little. .’ she exclaimed. ‘Mark isn’t interested, not really; he’s been played by his brother. Jazz nagged me about that very thing this afternoon. I told him no way was he having one before Mark, and that I would talk to you about it.’
I had to laugh at that one. ‘What a player! Hey, maybe I should encourage him to be a cop after all. If he’s as manipulative as that now. . I may have to head him off from being a politician.’
Fortunately, Sarah didn’t latch on to that one. Instead, after a few seconds’ silence, she asked, ‘Are you really still at work?’
‘Yup, ’fraid so. I’m waiting for a couple of things, then I have to make a call. No rush, though. Aileen’s going to Glasgow and Trish is looking after the kids.’
‘In that case,’ she hesitated, then. . I could almost hear the splash as she took the plunge, ‘would you like to eat with me?’
‘Are you kidding?’ I exclaimed.
‘No, I’m not. We have matters of common interest, three of them. Surely it’s not unreasonable for us to meet to talk about their future.’
‘When you put it that way, no it isn’t.’ I stretched in my chair, feeling, all of a sudden, as tired as Sarah had claimed I sounded. ‘Ah, what the hell! Where? Nowhere too crowded.’
‘Everywhere’s crowded on a Friday night, Bob. Come to my place. I’ll burn you a steak. .’
I smiled, and finished the quote for her. ‘. . and smother it in onions.’
She’d taken that line from an old Paul Newman movie she’d seen as a kid, and made it real many times when we were together. Sarah can burn a steak to perfection, and as for the onions. .
‘Okay, I’m sold,’ I said. ‘I’ll bring a bottle of something decent, but you’ll have to drink it.’
‘Not me, hon. I don’t partake these days.’
‘Eh?’ How many surprises in one day? Sarah loved fine wine.
‘It’s too easy for a single woman to sit at home and sink a bottle a night,’ she explained. ‘I’ve looked at too many diseased livers to want anyone looking at mine one day and wincing. But I do like Vichy Catalan, that mineral we used to drink in Spain, if you can find any of that.’
‘Okay, I’ll try to be with you by eight,’ I promised. ‘But don’t cook anything till I call to tell you I’m on the way.’
‘As if I would!’
She hung up and I turned back to my computer. I aborted my draft letter to be resumed at a later date, then opened my intranet mail box. Young Sauce had moved fast. The images and the report he had attached told me that the banknotes had been dusted and had yielded only eight prints in total, but four of them were common to each note. There was a thumb in the corner, index finger in the centre, same side, where someone might leave them when peeling them from a roll, and two others, fainter, one on the front of the fifties and the other on the back. Sauce guessed that these might have been Solomon’s as he took the money from his customer.
The lad had been smart enough to have the notes scanned, and sent four images, with the serial numbers showing clearly. ‘Good boy,’ I murmured, then reached for the phone, not a mobile, but a secure line on my desk.
It’s good to have friends, but it’s great when they have influence. I’ve known Amanda Dennis professionally for years, and whenever I’m in London I try to meet her socially as well. She’s one of those people who keep a low profile. Indeed there was a time not so long ago when she didn’t even exist, officially. Her business is national security, and on occasion it overlaps with mine. She’s the deputy director of MI5, although there was a period when she ran the whole damn show, on an acting basis.
‘Bob,’ she said, ‘this is a surprise. Does it mean you’re coming to the capital?’
‘Hey,’ I laughed. ‘I’m in the capital.’
‘Oh, you bloody Scots. You know what I mean.’
‘Yes, but I don’t have a trip south in my diary at the moment. There’s something I want to run past you, to see if you can help. I’ve got an odd situation in Edinburgh and it’s getting odder by the minute.’ I ran through the story from the beginning, from the anonymous call and the discovery of the body, though to Haddock’s trip to Glasgow and what he had found there.
‘You can’t help it, can you?’ she murmured, when I was finished. ‘You’re a chief constable, supposed to be a pen-pusher, yet here you are on a Friday evening, up to your elbows in an investigation when you should be in your club with your cronies. Does the phrase “get a life” mean anything to you?’