Both Mawhinney and McGuire smiled. ‘Interesting,’ the Scot replied, as they all took seats at Skinner’s table. ‘Colin’s been learning some of the finer points of Scottish tribalism,’ he continued, as their host poured each of them a glass of wine. ‘We did the blue-rinse tour in the morning. . Jenners, Harvey Nicks, Frasers. . then we had a pint and a bridie at the Diggers’ for lunch and finished up at Tynecastle. It was a draw, by the way, if you haven’t heard.’
‘That’s good,’ said the DCC happily. ‘They’ve taken two points off each other; that suits me. What did you think of the game?’ he asked the visitor. ‘Are you a football man?’
‘Neither ours nor yours, sir, I’m a baseball fan. But I enjoyed the match very much. A different atmosphere, I gotta say. Those songs! We hear nothing like that in Yankee Stadium, I promise you. And maybe just as well, because some of them would probably be in breach of our public-order laws.’
‘Some of them might be against ours,’ said Skinner, ‘and we enforce them where we can, but how are you going to arrest a whole football crowd?’
‘That’s complacent!’ Sarah protested. He turned, surprised by his wife’s intervention. ‘What if they all started chanting racial abuse?’
Bob frowned. ‘You think that never happens? Maybe not in Edinburgh, but it does elsewhere. It’s easy to say, “Arrest them,” but sometimes it’s impossible to do it. Not even NYPD would have enough officers to lift five thousand people.’
‘So you’d let it go on?’
‘No. If it was down to me, and it became intolerable, I’d change the law so that clubs could be fined for the behaviour of their crowds. . and not just the home clubs either. . and grounds closed if necessary. If there was serious racial abuse going on at a stadium on my patch, and the home support was clearly responsible, I’d like to give them one warning, and on a repeat offence, close the place for three months.’
‘Sounds good to me,’ Mawhinney concurred.
‘Mmm,’ said Paula, as the lady-steward handed out the dinner menu, in blue leather folders. ‘You two guys, and Mario, you give the word “draconian” a whole new depth of meaning.’
‘That’s cops for you, the world over,’ Skinner countered cheerfully. ‘But you can relax. For a start the problem isn’t that bad, and if it was, the politicians would take years to pluck up the courage to tackle it.’
‘Speaking of politicians,’ the American intervened, ‘I read that you have a new Justice Minister.’
‘Yes, we have. I have hopes for this one. Not many of them have what it takes to make a real difference; this lady might just be one of the exceptions.’
‘If the men around her give her a chance.’ Sarah snorted.
‘They might not have the option.’ He looked across the table to McGuire. ‘By the way, how did Manny’s do go last night?’ he asked.
The superintendent laughed. ‘He surprised everyone by getting rat-arsed. He wanted to take everyone on to Ryrie’s for more, but we wound up sticking him in a patrol car and sending him home for the rest of his life.’
‘I thought the chief was a bit liberal with the Laphroaig in the afternoon. I’m sorry I had to miss it, but we had other places to be.’
‘Nice places?’ Paula asked Sarah.
‘Gleneagles.’
‘Mmm. That qualifies. When did you get back?’
‘Early afternoon. I can only escape the humdrum for so long. Saturday tends to be Tesco day, for the kids have to be fed.’ She turned to Bob. ‘Speaking of which, honey, I saw the strangest thing in Haddington this afternoon. It was a parade, by a marching band, in uniforms, with a squadron of guys following behind with muskets. They were very good, but at the end they lined up and they fired their old blunder-busses up in the air. What a hell of a noise they made. I had Seonaid with me, and she almost jumped out of her skin. For a moment I thought they’d really frightened her, until she started to laugh.’
Her husband grinned. ‘Those must have been the Belgians,’ he said.
‘Who?’ asked Paula.
‘The Bastogne Drummers; they’re a group from Belgium and they’re over to play at the Pope’s Murrayfield rally next week.’
‘What a strange choice,’ Sarah remarked. ‘Whose idea was that?’
‘Pope John the Twenty-fifth’s idea; he asked for them. Monsignor de Matteo told me he’d heard them on a visit to Belgium.’
‘He could have been on a trip to Holland and he’d still have heard them. They go off with quite a bang.’ She glanced up at the waitress who had come to take their dinner orders. ‘I’ll start with the smoked fillet of beef, please.’
They placed their orders and talked quietly, the two women and the three men developing their own conversations, until they were called upstairs to the dining room. They were in the hallway when Sarah put a hand to her side, to the pocket of her cream-coloured jacket. ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘that’s my phone, trembling away. I know it’s anti-social, but I always like to be contactable for Trish. You all go up, I’ll take it in the ladies’ lounge.’
She walked through to another part of the building, while Bob led the way to their table, and seated the three guests. Sarah rejoined them in less than two minutes. He looked at her, a question in his eyes.
‘The kids are fine,’ she told him quickly. ‘That was business. The police in Haddington want me to do an autopsy tomorrow in Roodlands Hospital.’ McGuire’s head turned towards her also. ‘No, it’s not suspicious. The doctor’s certified it as a heart-attack, but it was unattended, so they need a post mortem. Ironically, it’s one of those Belgians. I wouldn’t be surprised if those muskets scared him to death!’
32
‘Are you pleased to be handing an empty pending tray to Mary Chambers?’
‘I thought we said no job talk. Come on, bring your glass next door. We’re finished here.’ Maggie stood up from the table; it was past ten o’clock and the last of the coffee with which they had finished dinner was cold in the cups.
‘Let me help you clear up first,’ he offered, but she shook her head firmly.
‘Later. You’re a tidiness freak, DI Steele, that’s your problem. Anyway, I never use anything I can’t shove straight into the dishwasher.’
He followed her through to her living room. ‘Is it too warm in here?’ she asked. The coal-effect gas fire was lit and the curtains were drawn against the cold night outside.
Stevie plucked at his shirtsleeve. ‘Not for me. I’m fine.’
‘That’s nice,’ she said. ‘What’s that wee logo? Ralph Lauren?’
‘Yeah. Polo. I’m a sucker for designer labels.’
‘You and me both.’ She looked down at the dark sheen of her blouse and skirt. ‘DKNY, this is.’ She sat on the sofa, which faced the silent television. Her companion headed towards the armchair, until she stopped him. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Put some music on, and come and sit beside me.’
He moved over to the music centre on a shelving unit and looked at the CDs racked beside it. ‘What do you like?’
‘You choose.’
They were neatly filed, the artists listed in alphabetical order. He scanned through them almost to the end until he found Fulfillingness First Finale by Stevie Wonder, and put it on. ‘Do you know,’ he asked her, as he joined her on the settee, ‘that album is thirty years old? It’s been around for most of our lives and yet it still sounds better than most of the stuff that’s churned out today.’
‘The seventies was a pretty good decade,’ Maggie replied. ‘I mean, look at us; we’re both its products. . more or less.’ She settled back into the lush upholstery, warming her short-stemmed wine glass between her breasts. She had drunk more with their meal than was her norm, but Stevie had reasoned that she was at home, and that it was, after all, a celebration of sorts. He had not stinted himself either; he had come by taxi and planned to go home the same way.
She smiled up at him. ‘Thanks, Stevie,’ she said quietly.