by Harper Fox
“I bloody do, you know.”
“First of all she said she was lining me up for promotion. I’ve been waiting ages, James. And my mam needs private nursing now, not that shitty council place.”
“I know she does. I’ve been recommending you—not because of that. Because you deserve it.”
“Don’t,” Andrew said bitterly. “I don’t deserve anything. I fell for it. She told me you were going down, and you were likely to take me with you. That you were old-school police, and I was the new breed, part of an elite task force she’s putting together. Then she said I’d be doing you a favour by keeping an eye on you—saving your life, maybe.”
“Right. So last night you…”
“I followed you down to the Grassmarket. She’d told me not to interfere, just keep tabs on you. And when you got jumped by Maguire’s lot, I…”
“You let it happen.”
“Yeah. I thought—anything that scared you off or took you out of action for a bit had to be good for you. Then it looked like they were gonna kill you, so me and Janice scared them off.”
“Oh, great. Janice too.”
“Yes. Stone’s had us working together. She’s…”
“Another recruit for Team Lila. All right.” Wearily McBride stood. Against the wall there was another desk chair. He took some files and a dead plant off it and sat down, wheeling it a yard or so across the floor so he was face-to-face with his partner. Almost knee to knee. “I understand all this, Andy, just about. But what the fuck made you think it was a good idea for us to start shagging?” Andrew, who had gone through a few more shades of pale as McBride closed in, actually squirmed in his seat. “I assume that was under orders too. You poor bastard. It must have been killing you.”
“Oh God.” Andrew pressed a hand to his mouth and looked at McBride unhappily. “Lila—Superintendent Stone, I mean—she told me to get closer to you. I told her we were close. So she asked me what I really knew about you, and I realised there wasn’t all that much.”
“What? I’ve told you as much as—”
“As you ever tell anyone. Right. But I’ve been your partner, James. You do know the first I heard about your bloody divorce was when you asked me to pick you up at your new flat instead of in Corstophine? Anyway, Stone wanted to give the Sim Carlyle job to somebody else, and she reckoned you were holding back in your reports.”
“Bloody hell. Don’t tell me the pillow talk was her idea.”
“No. It was…it was mine. I remembered that story you told me about Lowrie and how much you missed having a friend like that, and…”
McBride froze. He felt blood drain from the surface of his skin. Fitz Maguire’s boot had not taken the air so thoroughly out of his lungs. “Lowrie?” he echoed after a few seconds. “What the hell do you know about Lowrie?”
“Oh Christ, James—what you told me! You were leathered, but not so bad I thought you wouldn’t remember. About how he came to your father’s Sunday Bible class, and the pair of you used to sneak off into the hills afterwards and—”
“Barclay. Shut up.”
“Sorry, sir. I just—”
“No. I really mean it. Shut up.” McBride pushed his chair back. That got him near to the door, near enough that he could reach to pull it open. That was good. He wasn’t sure he could stand. “Get out of here. Please.” From the corner of his eye he saw Andrew get to his feet. He didn’t look at him—remained where he was, one hand on the door, waiting.
Andrew came to a halt beside him. His hand twitched, as if he wanted to reach out to McBride’s shoulder. “It wasn’t killing me,” he said quietly. “What we did. It was fake, but…it was no bloody hardship.”
“Andrew, get out of this room now. Or something very bad is going to happen.”
Chapter Three
A life turned upside down, and a new world to go with it. Stepping into the brilliant December morning outside Harle Street, McBride tried to link himself with the flash, arrogant bastard who had swung his way out of the Red Bottle the night before. But he couldn’t make the connection. He skidded on the ice outside the HQ building. Same feet—same shoes and socks too, unfortunately—as had found such firm grip on the wynds.
McBride would have said he hadn’t thought about Lowrie in years. Lowrie was a flicker of sunlight, a bright stretch of barley-field freedom in a childhood otherwise narrow and dark. He’d appeared in Pastor McBride’s congregation, a pair of defiant blue eyes, dragged there in the wake of his devout family. He and James had got away with edifying nature walks in the hills on those Sunday afternoons, almost a half year’s worth, until the pastor’s gamekeeping neighbour had caught them through the sights of his rifle, rolling naked together on the banks of Loch Beithe. The pastor didn’t believe in corporal punishment, but his son had wished fervently, in the silent months of ostracism that had followed, that the old man would just lash the hide off him and get it out of his system.
Why the hell would McBride have wanted to get pissed and spill his guts to Andrew about that?
Carefully he picked his way down the long slope that led from Harle Street into the city centre. Stone had suggested—by internal email, as if seeing him again would have killed her—he take the day off. McBride had no intention of doing that, but he’d be glad to go home long enough to shower and change. One benefit of his new life was being able to walk to and from work, though he’d scarcely thought about that when he’d left the house in Corstophine, just answering the first accommodation ad he’d seen in the Lothian Gazette. No, he wasn’t about to sit around his three-room flat and contemplate the shadow that remained of the man he’d been the night before. Or think about Lowrie, for that matter, or Andrew Barclay or an alcohol habit that had escalated to fits of amnesia. And he wasn’t about to give up the Sim Carlyle case. Washed, dressed and with a pint of coffee inside him, he would not be such a pushover for Lila Stone.
He turned the corner onto Princes Street and joined the stream of the crowd. The vast thoroughfare was crowded even at this hour, five days before Christmas. Normally McBride loved Edinburgh on mornings like this. The fantastical architecture, granite and russet sandstone, appeared to best advantage under frosty northern light, solid and shimmering all at once, Gothic gossamer. On such mornings you could almost believe the city was the wealthy, bustling capital depicted in the brochures. Those vagabonds and Big Issue vendors as had survived the night had not yet reached their stations, and the boarded-up windows showing that not even the Empress of the North was proof against recession were not so obvious.
McBride slowed up to admire, as he always did, the elegant Georgian bulk of Templeton’s. No sale signs or concessions to straitened purses in these windows: the place sailed on, a lonely luxury cruise ship amidst the scrambling dinghies. Doomed, most probably, though McBride hoped not. He never shopped there himself, visiting only to give Grace a high-tea treat or to meet with Libby on neutral ground.
He stopped dead. An American tourist cannoned into him from behind and apologised profusely. “It’s all right,” McBride said absently and stepped aside into one of the sumptuous revolving-door foyers. Yes, Libby. Meetings here to discuss McBride’s child support or Grace’s erratic progress at school. McBride remembered a phone call he’d taken in the office the morning before. Libby seldom bothered him at work, but she’d been worried—about what, she wouldn’t say, only asking him to come for coffee at the store at…
He glanced at his watch. For once fate had worked to his advantage, putting him here at ten a.m. He’d certainly have forgotten otherwise, adding to Libby’s long list of his crimes. He smiled wryly, pushing through the oak doors into the heady mists of the perfume hall. For once in his life he’d be a little early.
***
Of course she was there and waiting, her slim form erect at a table in the baroque tea hall. As always on first sight of her, McBride remembered why she’d woken him from his years of shocked, cold impotence after Lowrie’s forcible expulsion from his life. A true flowe
r of Scotland, his Libby, a green-eyed, sable-haired beauty. A nature as earthy and resilient as her exterior was frail. She was and always had been way too good for him. Picking a route through the elegant forest of gilded chairs, McBride saw her lift a hand in greeting. No matter what they came here to discuss, she usually managed to raise a smile for him.
Her expression changed. For a second McBride was puzzled. Then he recalled he’d been gathering similar looks all the way up from the ground floor, from security staff and the poor souls employed to squirt perfume samples onto unwilling passersby. The hospital had scrubbed and stitched him, but he supposed his bruising was coming on quite well.
“Jim!” Libby was somehow at his elbow. McBride hadn’t even seen her move. Her handbag was abandoned on the table. She seized his arm and marched him back the way she’d come: McBride realised, with a rumble of amusement, she was trying to shield him. “What the devil happened to you?” she hissed, tucking him as far back as he would go into the tea room’s shadows. “Did you get hit by a car on the way here? My God, Jimmy—are you drunk?”
“Of course not. I—”
“And just what do you think you’re looking at?”
McBride blinked. But that wasn’t aimed at him: Libby was glaring off over his shoulder, her green eyes gone cold as Medusa’s. Involuntarily glancing across the room, he saw he’d attracted the attention of a group of highly glossed Edinburgh ladies-who-lunch at a table behind them. That was Libby—reserved the right to tear her kid or her ex into shreds, but God help anyone else who tried. “Leave it, Libs,” he said uncomfortably. “It’s all right.”
“It’s damn well not. Aye, I do mean you Armani army cadets over there—just drink your skinny lattes and keep your eyes to yourself.”
“Libby, sit down.”
She obeyed, breathless, cheeks bright pink. McBride looked at her in admiration. “Armani army cadets?”
“Well, the nosy old bints…”
“Cool down, you Glasgow street urchin. However did you get a visa to a civilised nation like Auld Reekie?”
“Shut up. Don’t you start on me, James McBride. You’re no’ funny, and—” she lowered her voice, “and you stink of booze. What’s going on?”
“It’s from last night. I haven’t been home.”
“Oh, that’ll be right. Well, at least you’re honest about it these days.”
“No, I mean…”
“Never mind what you mean.” The waitress who’d been approaching the table caught Libby’s look and veered off. “In a way this makes things easier. Amanda’s right—you are totally out of control.”
“Wait.” McBride leaned forward stiffly, resting his elbows on the spindly table. “You spoke to Amanda? My ex-boss Amanda?”
“Also our child’s godmother Amanda, and if you didn’t want her to take an interest, you shouldn’t have bloody asked her. And she spoke to me.”
“Libby—Amanda’s retired. She has no idea what’s going on at Harle these days.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised. Unlike you, she doesn’t alienate everybody she meets. People like to talk to her. She knows all about your nighttime jaunts, and your sleazeball friends, and the drinking, and going after that racketeer Sim—”
“Quiet!” McBride glared at her. “What are you on about? What’s easier?”
“Jim, I simply can’t have Gracie exposed to all this. I spoke to my solicitor yesterday, and he says the courts would have no problem agreeing to—” she ground to a halt, shoulders slumping, “—to reduced custody. I don’t want her staying overnight in your flat anymore. And I don’t want her there over Christmas.”
McBride shook his head. He felt as if she’d punched him or chucked her coffee into his lap. “Tell me you’re kidding.”
“No. I’m dead serious. She’s ten years old, and…for some reason she still thinks the sun shines out of your arse. Whatever you say or do, that’s gospel law to her. That’s what she’s gonna do.”
“Jesus, Lib. Are you saying I ever did anything in front of her to—”
“No, not deliberately! But it’s only a matter of time. I don’t want to go to the courts with this, Jimmy. Please just agree. It’ll be easier for all of us.”
Not for me. Not for me. McBride tried to rest his pounding head in his hands. But the swelling round his eye and cheek made him flinch from his own touch. Suddenly he saw himself from the outside—a filthy, beaten-up tramp. Suddenly he remembered how a crackhead snitch from his last case had somehow found out his address and waited for him on the step outside his flat one morning last month. “Oh God. At least let her stay on Christmas night.”
“Why?” It was an anguished whisper. McBride knew it well: the sound of a good woman at the end of her rope, fighting tears. “So you can blind her with some cheap, flash present like that…bloody crystal necklace she wants? You of all people should know not to make a wee tart of her, not at her age. And then she comes home and hates me because I have to take it off her.”
The presents might be flash, Libs, McBride briefly wanted to say, but they’re far from bloody cheap. He swallowed the words along with the lump in his throat. He knew exactly what she meant. He didn’t have a shred of denial to offer her. Grace had been in the flat having breakfast on the day the junkie snitch had turned up. Often she left before McBride did, letting herself out and trotting off to catch her bus. “All right,” he said hoarsely. “All right.”
“Thank you.” Libby got up. McBride was peripherally aware of her blowing her nose on a napkin. In a minute, once she was gone, he would need to do the same thing. “Look at the big pile of snot you turn me into!” she declared unsteadily. She put out a hand and pushed back his fringe. “And look at the state of you… Ah, Jim. Are you all right?”
McBride took her wrist, very gently. For a moment the need flashed over him for someone he could hold like that as hard as he wanted, someone he could grasp with all his strength and never hurt. He remembered Lowrie. They had only been sixteen, but both built like young bullocks, tough as the heather and the earth where they lay. “I’ll be fine,” he said. “Best you just go now. Go on, love.”
***
His flat was on Fettes Row. Quite grand, and more than his salary would have afforded, except he’d taken it more or less derelict and proudly kept it that way. It was a place to lay his head, that was all; a sanctuary.
A badly needed one this morning. Having made the safety of the top step, McBride put his key into the lock and paused for a second, head down. Inside the communal hallway were stairs and a whole range of neighbours he might have to talk to. He needed a moment to gather his strength.
“James?”
He turned round, so fast his bandaged knee almost went out from under him. His heart sank. There on the pavement stood former Superintendent Amanda Campbell, holding his child by the hand. Normally McBride would be delighted to see either—but together and at this time of the morning? Nothing but trouble…
Grace detached her hand from Campbell’s and pattered up the stone steps of McBride’s building, stopping one down from her father. She looked up at him, examining his face. For an instant McBride thought she might react like a normal child and set up a wail, but he need not have worried. Her chin steadied. “Och, McBride. You look like a bulldog that’s swallowed a wasp.”
He studied her. She was in her school uniform, and if she wasn’t crying, she had been at some point that morning. “Och, McBride?” he echoed, raising his eyebrows. “You’re spending too much time with your mother. You sound pure Glaswegian.”
“And you sound like an old Embra copper.”
“Embra, eh? Weegie.” A tiny smile flickered at the corner of her mouth. “Glasgae girl,” McBride pursued. “Skinny wee Weegie.”
“Bulldog.”
“Ginger.”
She was going to break any second. McBride watched with pleasure her struggle to keep a straight face. Then Amanda Campbell came quietly up the steps. “Much as I hate to end this touching family
scene, James, Grace was picked up for truancy in the St. James Shopping Centre. The officer recognised her and called me. She’s talking like that because it makes her sound tougher at school and means she gets bullied less.”
The child wheeled on her godmother, paling with mortification. “Aunt Manda! I am no’ getting—”
“Button your lip, miss.” McBride waited until Grace registered the growl in his voice that meant he was serious. “Amanda, I’m so sorry you were bothered. Why the hell was she playing truant?”
“I spoke to Libby last night. Grace is upset about some changes in your custody access.”
“Aye, but he’s not gonna do them!” Both McBride and Amanda turned on the girl, who looked frantically between them. “You’re not gonna do them, are you, Da? I told her you wouldn’t. I want to have Christmas here, and my weekends, and…”
“Gracie. Hush, please.” McBride closed his eyes. No way Embra’s granite bedrock was going to open and swallow him up, but he could pray. Then he looked at his daughter and braced. The one thing that screwed him over with her worse than horrible truths was trying to conceal them. “Listen. I spoke to your mother this morning. She’s right. Things have to change.”
“You…you agreed?”
“I’m sorry, love.”
She shoved past him, a white-faced little fury. She was just about big enough to reach the top lock, and McBride watched helplessly while she twisted the keys round, pushed her way inside and slammed the door behind her.
Amanda Campbell regarded the woodwork in silence for a moment. Then she folded her arms and turned to McBride. Her lean, kindly face and wry smile had seen him through plenty of dark days. Libby too. And, these days, the child: Amanda took her role as godmother in deadly earnest. “Well,” she said. “At least this time she left you the keys.”
