I nodded. ‘That’s okay by me. If he’s got anything to tell you that can’t wait, I can pass it on to the chief over the phone.’
‘From Oban?’
I laughed. ‘From Oban, if that’s how you want it.’
She smiled at me once again, any worry gone from those sensational eyes. ‘We’d better skip the nightclub after dinner,’ she said. ‘We’ll have an early start. We should turn in.’
I grinned back at her. ‘See you,’ I murmured, ‘you’ll be my downfall.’
Andy Martin
‘I’m worried about my dad.’
In the fifteen years or so I’ve known Alex, she’s never said anything to me that’s surprised me more than that. They’ve had occasional differences, the pair of them, but she has never displayed anything other than a total belief in him, and an inbuilt certainty that whatever happens he will come through, that whatever obstacles are put in his way he will prevail. She has reason to feel that way, for she’s had some dark times herself, one very dark, when she was kidnapped. He was there, with a metaphorically flaming sword in hand, to lay her abductors low and pluck her from danger. If it wasn’t for him, she’d be an atheist: she worships him, and him alone.
So, when she said that, it was as if a temple lay in ruins, in some unseen place.
We were sitting on what the builder described as a balcony in my house beside the Water of Leith. I suppose that’s a fair description; it’s big enough for two people and a very small table, it’s angled to provide privacy, and when the weather’s okay, it’s a very pleasant place to sit, taking in the evening sun and listening to the river flow by, as we were. There’s woodland on the other side; another plus point in that it means the neighbours opposite have feathers rather than annoying personal habits.
I could have sold the place when I landed the Tayside deputy chief job and Karen and I moved to Perth, but the market wasn’t great at the time and the rental income was way in excess of the mortgage over-head, so I hung on to it, maybe with half an eye on the possibility that I might move back to the Edinburgh force one day as Bob’s number two, a role that I’d filled, officially and otherwise, for much of my career.
I put my beer on the table. These days I tend to drink Mexican, complete with wedge of lime or lemon. If I still hung around the rugby club, they’d call me a poser, or something worse, but my laddish days are long behind me.
‘Run that past me again,’ I said, quietly.
‘I mean it, Andy.’ She turned her head and looked at me, displaying that deep chasm that appears between her eyebrows when she frowns.
‘I’m worried about him, seriously. I’d hoped that finally, all the pieces in his complicated world were in place and that he could look as far down the road as his contract as chief constable extends, and then beyond, to nice happy years getting older and watching another generation of kids grow up. I’d made myself believe that Aileen was the right woman for him. Politicians seem to have a short shelf life these days, so I’d assumed that when hers came to an end she’d be there alongside him. I certainly didn’t expect her to put herself on a collision course with him.’
I peered at her through my glasses. . I don’t wear my contacts around the house any more. . and made my ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ face.
‘You mean he hasn’t told you?’ she exclaimed, her voice rising. ‘I was sure he would have.’
I put a finger to my lips; my neighbours and I don’t overlook each other but they’re not that far away. ‘Told me what?’
‘You know this talk of police unification?’ she asked, more quietly.
‘Of course I do. We discussed it at ACPOS yesterday, and voted against it.’
‘It looks as if you were wasting your time. The government’s determined to force it through before the next election, to take it out of the political arena, so they say, and my dear stepmother’s party is backing them.’
I picked my beer up, and killed it, then went to the kitchen for another couple to give myself some thinking time. The first half of Alex’s revelation hadn’t surprised me, given the choice of venue for our meeting and given the evangelistic support for the idea that we’d seen from what Bob and I had taken to calling the Toni Field Tendency; but the second part had.
‘Labour’s going to line up with the Nats on this?’ I said as I handed her a fresh Corona.
‘Yes, and Aileen wants Dad to back off from public opposition to the bill when it’s published. He’s told her he’ll resign if a single Scottish force is created, but that doesn’t seem to make any difference to her.’
‘Do you think he would?’
She shot me a ‘silly boy’ smile. ‘Andy,’ she murmured.
Yes, rhetorical; of course he would.
‘Do you know,’ she continued, ‘Aileen actually had the nerve to call me today. The woman was working up to asking me to try to talk him round. .’
I put my hand over my eyes. ‘Oh dear,’ I murmured, for I knew what was coming.
‘Exactly!’ she hissed. ‘I didn’t let her get that far. I told her what I thought of her. I blew up at her, I’m afraid. Honestly, I never thought that would happen with Aileen and me. Now it has, and I don’t know whether there’s any way back from it.’
I reached across and tugged her hair, gently. ‘Hey,’ I said, ‘there’s always a way back. Look at you and me.’
‘One marriage and two kids later?’ she muttered. I must have winced, for she bit her lip and exclaimed, ‘Oh I’m sorry, love, I didn’t mean that.’
‘It’s true, though.’
‘On the face of it, but it’s not the same; we’re not going back to where we were. Whatever the rest of the world believes, I didn’t break up your marriage, not by myself. No, the thing about Aileen, she seems to want unconditional love, yet she applies conditions to her own. I didn’t expect that of her. I don’t think I can ever respect her again.’
‘But isn’t Bob the same?’ I asked her.
‘No.’ She didn’t take a second to consider the question. ‘You’re sat beside living proof of that. I’ve done some silly things in my life, but never once has he wavered in his love for me. And even you; the two of you have had your differences over the years, your fallings out over me, yet he’s always seen you as the brother he should have had rather than the one he did.’
‘Surely there’s a solution, though, for him and Aileen?’
She pressed the cold beer to her forehead for a second or two. ‘You mean like parking their differences in the street outside?’
I nodded. ‘Something like that.’
‘I don’t know about Aileen, not for certain, although present evidence says “no”. But as far as he’s concerned. .’ She hesitated.
‘Andy,’ she continued, slowly, ‘I barely remember my mum, that’s how young I was when she died in that accident, but I can tell you this. If she’d told him to swim the ten, fifteen miles, whatever it is, across the Forth from Gullane to Anstruther for fish and chips and bring them back, he’d have done it with boots on. They’d have been a bit soggy, but they’d have been as good as on the table. And for all that she wasn’t perfect, Mum would have done the same for him. If they’d faced a fundamental issue like this, they’d have realised that they, together, were far more important than it was and they’d simply have left it for others to sort out.’
‘Couldn’t he and Aileen do that?’ I ventured.
‘Put it this way. If she asked Dad to swim to Anstruther, his trunks would never be wet. If he asked her to walk to the Gullane chippie and bring back a couple of suppers, she’d probably phone for home delivery. And that’s why I’m worried about him, Andy. I’m afraid that things between the two of them are past fixing, and I don’t know that he could stand another broken marriage.’
‘And what about Aileen?’