The sergeant nodded. ‘Exactly.’
‘How do we know all this detail?’
‘The Andorran lawyer coughed,’ Payne replied. ‘He didn’t fancy the Spanish police turning up on his doorstep.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘So where are we? We’ve got Welsh owning an offshore company holding funds that don’t relate to any legitimate taxed income that we know of.’
‘Or that the Revenue knows of,’ McDermid volunteered. ‘DI Regan’s checked that.’
‘Thanks. That gives us cause to pull Welsh in. Going on from that, Mrs Varley’s account gives us reason to lift her. However it still doesn’t let us lay a finger on Jock, and based on what he tried to do to Alice, he isn’t likely to lay down his life to save his wife’s.’
‘No,’ Lisa ventured. She doesn’t smile a lot does DS McDermid, so when she did I had a feeling a nice one was coming. ‘But there is the conservatory.’
I grinned back at her. ‘Tell me more,’ I invited.
‘About ten years ago,’ she began, ‘the Varleys added a big extension on to their house in Livingston. Alice says it’s enormous, and must have cost a packet, but that can’t be verified. It was built by Freddy Welsh, but there’s no record of the job in his firm’s records, and there’s no record of the Varleys ever having paid a penny for it.’
‘Whose name’s the house in?’
‘Joint.’
‘Lisa,’ I laughed. ‘You win the major prize. Time we paid another call on Inspector Varley.’
Sarah Grace
I didn’t invite him for anything more than dinner, I promise. Enticing him into my bed was not on my agenda.
It was supposed to be a discussion about the kids, until I asked him what was troubling him and it turned into something else. Cards were laid on the table, by both of us. I told him what I thought about the witch and how she’d operated, how I believed she’d sensed his needs and manipulated him. He didn’t deny any of it. Looking back, I realised just how easily and smoothly she’d done it, and when I did, I saw, for the first time, that she’d been even cleverer than I’d thought. She’d manipulated me as well.
I’d been persuaded that the gulf between Bob and me was too big and that the most important thing for us to do was whatever would be best for the children. He said the words, but I’m sure she put most of them in his head. I went along with it with nary a murmur. I decided to make myself scarce, to accept a no-fault divorce and go back to the USA, seeing the kids in the holidays, with their father having custody during term time. For the only time in my life, I gave up without a struggle. Yes, it may have worked to my advantage financially, but if I’d believed that the children would have been better off in America, that wouldn’t have mattered.
When I told Bob to get me a glass and pour me some of the wine he’d brought, what I was really saying was, ‘To hell with that! Let battle commence.’ And when I fight, there are no rules.
Just before that I’d made a crack about indifferent sex, and I reckon it was right on the button. I’ve never known him hungrier. After I’d kissed him. . I’m not certain who made the first move, but I suspect it was me. . the only thing I said to him, for the rest of the night, was ‘Phone Trish.’ He did; I heard him tell her he’d be very late and that she should lock up. By the time he’d finished, I was waiting for him, in the bedroom where only Seonaid and I had slept since I moved into the house.
I have no idea when I finally nodded off, but I do know it wasn’t for long. I have difficulty describing how I felt when I woke and saw him there, his grey-stubbled face half-buried in the pillow, eyes closed, mouth slightly open. It took my mind a second or two to adjust, to reassemble the pieces of the night before, and as it did a feeling washed through me like a great cleansing wave, leaving behind it a sense of. . What?
Not deja vu, for this was no vague feeling, it was reality.
Not triumph, for Bob could never be a trophy, another notch on my bedhead.
Not guilt, hell no, for we hadn’t done anything that was going to trouble my conscience.
Homecoming. A sense of homecoming; that’s the phrase that fits it best, the way you feel at the end of a long journey, when you’re back where you belong, in the place you love.
His right arm lay across my hip. It moved, very slightly, then he farted, quietly. That made me smile; it was just like old times. His eyelid lifted slightly and I caught a glimpse of confusion, then it widened and he was awake.
He rolled on to his side, facing me, then pushed himself up on his left elbow. I looked at him properly, in daylight, for the first time. His body hadn’t changed much, since the last time I’d seen it. If anything it was leaner, and his muscles were firmer; to most eyes, that would seem good, but not to mine. When Bob’s content, he tends to put on a little weight. ‘Where is it?’ he murmured, drowsily.
‘What?’ I was still grinning.
‘The fuel can.’ He yawned. ‘Christ, talk about pouring petrol on a fire.’
‘Are you going to blame me for that?’ I asked.
‘No, not for a second.’
‘Are you going to blame yourself?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘For what?’
‘I think it’s called adultery. There are cultures where it’s still a capital crime.’
I reached up and grasped a clump of chest hair; that’s still dark, unlike his beard and his scalp. ‘And you’re very good at it. And you’ve got form. You’ve got a rap sheet as long as your arm.’
A corner of his mouth flickered. ‘Pot. Kettle. Black.’
‘Yeah. So?’
‘Are you going to grass me up?’
I shook my head. ‘Never. I will never compromise you in any way, not ever again.’
‘Why not? You’ve got cause.’
‘Because I love you, fool.’
‘Honey,’ he began.
‘That doesn’t mean I want you back,’ I added, very quickly. ‘I’m settled here. I don’t want to uproot myself again; hell, I won’t. Also, the kids are used to us now, the way we are, and they’re happy with it. Change that and we’d only confuse them. No, lover. Whatever happens to your domestic situation, I’m happy with mine. If this is a one-off,’ I flashed my eyes at him, ‘or rather a three-off, so be it.’
He sighed. ‘You’re some woman, you know that.’
‘Yes, I do know.’
‘Maybe too much for me.’
‘Don’t bullshit me,’ I told him, ‘or lie to yourself.’
‘In that case,’ he said, his smile widening as he slid down beside me once more, ‘remember that quirk of mine when we went out for a drink?’
I got his drift. ‘Oh yes,’ I edged closer to him. ‘You never finished on an odd number.’
Later, I made him breakfast, while he showered. I know, without asking him, that he checked the cabinets in my bathroom for razors, shaving cream and all the other guy stuff. . you can take the man out of CID, etc. . but there’s never been any for him to find. If I’d known that our encounter was going to happen I might have bought some, out of pure bitchiness, but on reflection I’m glad that I didn’t.
Just watching him eat, up at the kitchen bar, unshaven and still drowsy, gave me the wobbles again. ‘What are we going to do, babe?’ he asked, after he’d washed the last of his toast down with the orange juice that I’d made him take, instead of coffee. He drinks way too much of that stuff.
‘We?’ I began. ‘I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. Once you’re gone I’m going to lie in a warm bath and soothe some parts that haven’t seen any action for a while. Then I’m going to do some housework and prepare some lectures for next week. That’s the short term. After that, I plan to carry on as before. How about you?’
‘Honestly?’ he said.
‘There can be no other way between us from now on.’
He nodded. ‘I’ll buy into that. In which case. . I haven’t a fucking clue. I don’t know anything any more. I’m not sure why I married Aileen, I’m not sure why you and I divorced, I’m not even sure why we married in the first place.’