have another go at teaching eventually, but the medical advice was
against that."
"The Church of Scotland, eh. The Moderator and his wife were guests
yesterday, weren't they?"
"Aye, and the new archbishop, but I don't think that any of them are in
the frame, eh?"
Steele frowned. "Let's stay serious. George, okay?"
"Right, inspector, I'll get serious. Why are we sitting about here?
Why don't we just pick her up, then?"
"What for?" asked Rose. "The girl might have a genuine interest in
religious art. It isn't an offence to gate crash a private function.
No, George; since you're so keen for action, you can get back into
those tapes. Forget everyone else, just concentrate on Andrea
Strachan. Let's see whether we can catch her in the vicinity of the
Vargas Trinity at any time. Then let's see if we have a shot of her at
the moment of the detonation of the device. You never know; we might
get lucky and find a shot of her pulling the trigger."
"And if we don't?" the sergeant countered.
"Then we, that's to say you and DI Steele, will make further enquiries
tomorrow, at the Church of Scotland, to see if the girl might have been
there legitimately, through them, and at Candela and Finch, to check
whether they issued informal invitations to anyone else.
"We'll keep her under surveillance, but I'm only going to move against
this girl when all these avenues have been explored. She's a
schizophrenic arsonist, George. If they hadn't done the probation deal
over the church thing, she'd probably have gone to the state mental
hospital at Carstairs. If she did torch that painting, that's where
she's bound this time, for sure. She could wind up there for a good
chunk of the rest of her life, so we cannot afford to make any
mistakes."
Twenty-Four.
As it happened, Alice Bierhoff was in church, on the other side of the
central aisle, but not too far away for Sarah to catch her eye and
throw her a look that was meant to say, Spread gossip about me, lady,
and you "II wish you d never been born.
But Alice, a short dumpy woman .. . She probably can't remember the
last time she had any excitement in her life, thought Sarah as she
looked at her... was either tougher than she looked, or had forgotten
to put in her contacts, for she replied with a small wave and a sweet,
knowing smile.
Sarah let it go at that, for she had enough on her hands with Seonaid
and a restless, fidgety James Andrew. Jazz had not been best pleased
when his mother had told him that the trip to the lake had been
postponed, and he spent much of the service determinedly punching the
thigh of his adopted brother, Mark, who had been given the task of
trying to keep him under control.
Once or twice, as they rose for hymns, Sarah glanced around her,
looking for a familiar face, but there was no sign of him ... and he
was way too big to be concealing himself among the congregation.
Finally they reached the business end of the hour, Ian Walker's sermon.
It took Sarah a while to take a grip of what he was saying, but finally
she understood; his message was that while society had evolved in ways
that only God could have imagined during the two thousand years of
Christianity, the ten commandments still stood at the centre of the
faith, and still encapsulated the values by which Christians should
live their lives.
Sarah sat poker-faced when Babs caught her eye; she wondered whether
the preacher's wife had suggested the theme, or even if she had let him
in on Alice Bierhoff's chance discovery, and if this was his discreet
way of registering disapproval.
If it was, she found it more than a little rich; she remembered, among
other things, smoking a little grass with Ian in her freshman college
year. While there might not have been a commandment that referred to
that specifically, she was pretty sure that it was covered somewhere.
It was on the tip of her tongue to remind him of the occasion as he
bade his congregation farewell outside the church, but she decided to
keep it in reserve. By that time Jazz was virtually uncontrollable,
Mark was complaining that his leg was numb and even the obedient infant
Seonaid was becoming restless. '
"Are you going to behave?" she hissed at her younger son, as Babs
Walker came towards them.
"Want to go to the lake," James Andrew muttered.
"I have told you; Auntie Babs has invited us all for lunch."
"Want to go to the lake."
"Maybe later, then; maybe we'll go for a little while. Will that make
you happy?"
The child's expression softened, but only a little. He whispered
something that she could not hear. Gratefully she handed Seonaid over
to Babs, as she arrived beside her and crouched down beside him. "What
did you say?" she asked him, quietly. Still his whispered reply was
inaudible. "What?" she asked again.
"I want Dad," Jazz muttered, plaintively, on the edge of tears. "I
want my dad."
Sarah felt her heart melt inside her. "So did I, son," she said,
ruffling his hair as she stood. "So did I. But he's had to go away."
"Hi, guys," said Babs, brightly, holding Seonaid up in the sunshine.
"My, but you're a little beauty." The blonde-haired child gurgled and
smiled at the attention. "You ready for lunch?" she asked Sarah. "My
boys are looking forward to playing soccer in the yard with your
boys."
"Sure, but Mark might opt out of the soccer; the only kind he plays is
on a computer screen. As for James Andrew, Matthew might be able to
handle him, since he's seven, but Daniel might find him a little
rough."
"Rough? At soccer?"
"They play a slightly different game in Scotland; and James Andrew's
learned from his father. Speaking of whom .. ."
"It's all right," Babs broke in, forestalling her. "Like I promised,
there will be no extra lunch guest. I did call Ron, though. On
reflection I thought I'd better tell him about Alice ... before he
heard from someone else, you understand."
Sarah understood very clearly. "What did he say?"
"My dear, he used language quite inappropriate for the wife of a
Lutheran clergyman to repeat, and certainly not in front of the
children. Let's just say that his view of Alice is in line with your
own. Now come on; let's be going. Ian will be a little while, but the
rest of us can head on back to the house now."
Lunch at the Walkers proved to be a pleasant experience, even if the
soccer game did come to an abrupt end with Jazz, still dour and
fractious, punching Matthew, the older of his hosts' sons. "I'm sorry,
Babs," said Sarah, as her friend wiped the tears from his face and the
blood from his nose. "This one," she threw James Andrew a thunderous
look, 'who will, incidentally, be lucky to get within a hundred miles
of the lake after that, has been impossible lately."
"He's missing his dad," Mark explained, coming to his brother's defence
in a way that touched Sarah, even through her anger.
&nb
sp; "Be that as it may," she said, trying to stay severe, 'he has to
learn."
"He kicked me," Jazz muttered.
Once the peace treaty between the boys had been signed, they settled
down to a chicken lunch, American style, although Sarah kept tight rein
on the size of her children's portions.
"I enjoyed your sermon, Ian," Sarah ventured, finally, once the four
oldest children had been released to watch television.
The preacher smiled. "I give them traditional values every so often,"
he said. "Babs suggested it was time for another round."
"Indeed? What will it be next week? Keeping God with us on the
campus? Finding Him through a haze of marijuana smoke like we used to
do?"
Babs's jaw dropped. "Why Ian!" she exclaimed. "You never did, did
you?"
"It's all right," Sarah laughed. "He didn't inhale either."
Her friend read the sign correctly and kept the conversation on safe
ground, from then on, until Sarah announced that it was time to go.
"Mum," Jazz called from the back seat as they pulled out of the
Walkers' driveway.
She knew what was coming. "Okay," she answered. "Since you said you
were sorry, we'll go to the lake. We'll need to go back to the house
first, though. We're all still in our church clothes, and Seonaid
needs changing."
They were almost home when she saw him, driving towards her in his
Camaro. She had teased him about it, asking if he had a Burt Reynolds
fixation, but he had pointed out that he had trouble fitting into a
Porsche. He did not slow down, nor did he seem to notice her, until
the cars had almost reached each other. Then a broad easy smile
crossed his face; as they passed he took his left hand from the wheel
and waved. She thought that she caught a flash of something white on
his thumb.
"That was the man who picked you up yesterday, wasn't it?" said Mark.
"The man who was going to fly you to the cabin."
"That's right. He's Mr. Neidholm; an old college friend and a very
famous foot baller
"Rangers," Jazz announced.
"No," said Mark, severely. "American. He's too big to be one of our
foot ballers
Sarah smiled and wondered whether Ron would take that as a compliment.
Then she wondered why he had been there, and, if he had called to see
her, why he had driven away.
One more turn and they had reached the Grace mansion. She slid the
Jaguar into the long driveway, and, on impulse, stopped at her mailbox.
She stepped out of the car and swung it open. There was a white
envelope inside. She took it out, slipped it into the pocket of her
jacket, and got back into the car.
"Okay, boys," she exclaimed as she cancelled the alarm and let them
into the house. "Lakeside clothes, please. Shorts, shirts and
sandals. I'll take care of us girls and see you down here in ten
minutes."
She carried Seonaid upstairs into her own bedroom and laid her on the
bed, then took the envelope from her pocket and ripped it open. It
contained a single white A4 sheet, a printed letter.
She whispered the words as she read it.
My darling Sarah
I'm not going to be a fool again. You mean more to me than all the
Superbowl rings in the world, and all the nonsense that goes with
them.
This is my pledge. If you will have me, I will finish with the game,
in every aspect, here and now. I will practice law, as you practice
your pathology, until it's time for us to sail off into the sunset
together.
I love you. Will you marry me?
She looked at the signature. "Ron." It was scrawled, roughly, in a
colour unlike any ink she had ever seen. She knew what it was, all
right; she'd have known even without seeing the white flash of surgical
tape on his left thumb.
"Oh damn," she whispered, feeling her knees go weak as a sudden wave of
panic surged through her. "Sarah, it's choosing time."
twenty-Five.
Of all the excellent restaurants in which she ate regularly, Alex had
to admit that the Roseberry was her favourite. It was an emotional as
much as a culinary thing. She had studied in Glasgow. Her
professional life had begun in Edinburgh and had then taken her to
London, for a period yet to be determined. For all that, there was
something about the bay-windowed bistro on Gullane's main street that
reminded her where her home really was.
She still owned her flat in Leith, although it was rented to a Curie,
Anthony and Jarvis colleague during her London secondment. There, she
had been found a very pleasant apartment in bustling Spitalfields. Yet
she knew within herself that one day she would return to the village in
which she had been raised. She even knew the house that she would like
to buy, should the opportunity arise.
"Will you be selecting the wine tonight, Mr. Skinner?" asked Ronald,
the Roseberry's front-of-house partner.
"Not a chance," Alex answered him cheerfully. "I will, and we'll have
a bottle of that nice Chablis, thanks." She looked at her father as
the waiter headed off towards the kitchen. "You'd better not have
anything too heavy tonight, if you're having your big medical tomorrow.
Did you get it set up?"
"Yup. I called a cardiologist Sarah knows and told him the story. He
and another consultant are going to give me a total going-over at the
Murrayfield Hospital at five tomorrow evening. I've told Mitch what
I'm doing; he agrees it's sensible. We'd probably have had to do it
anyway, if the committee's doctors had refused to examine me."
"How do the family solicitors feel about you using our firm for this
one?"
"I haven't even told them; it's none of their business. If your firm
had a private client department, I'd probably be on its books by now,
given your connection. You don't, but this is a litigation matter.
It's like golf. Who would you choose to hole a ten-foot putt to save
your life?"
"Not you," Alex laughed, 'that's for sure."
"Right. You'd go for Tiger Woods. In a sense my life's at stake, but
the game here is litigation. So by the same token, I'm going for
Mitchell Laidlaw."
"Then you'll win. You're The Man, Mitch," she exclaimed,
gallery-style, then paused. "But Pops, just suppose the consultants
find an underlying abnormality. Suppose they decide they can't pass
you fit to go back to work. What would you do?"
"That's not going to happen."
"Answer the question."
Bob looked down at the menu on the table, as if he was studying it. "I
don't know," he murmured. "I've never contemplated retirement; I've
never imagined a life outside the police. I've got a professional
future that's mapped out for, oh, the next fifteen years anyway, and
I've never given any thought to the idea of it being taken away."
"Come on, Pops. You must plan on living beyond sixty-five. What will
you do then?"
He looked up and shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe I'll write. Maybe I'll
just join the seniors' section and play golf e
very day, till eventually
they carry me off the course." He frowned. "Or maybe .. . and this is
something that has floated through my mind on occasion ... I could find
a visiting chair in criminology at some university or other."
"Pops, you could do that now, without any difficulty, in Britain, and
probably in the States as well. And maybe, just maybe, you understand,
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