Pray for the Dying

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘Brilliant,’ he offered. ‘Pure dead brilliant.’

  ‘You’re getting there, kid.’

  ‘Who was that big man alongside you?’

  ‘That was Mr Skinner. He’s from Edinburgh, but he’s going to be our chief constable for a while.’

  ‘Is that right?’ a voice from the doorway asked.

  Lottie turned, and frowned. ‘Hey,’ she exclaimed, ‘the Kraken’s awake.’

  ‘The Kraken of dawn,’ Scott Mann moaned, as he shambled barefoot into the kitchen, in T-shirt and shorts.

  ‘Dawn? It’s half past eight, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘Aye, and you didnae get in till midnight.’

  ‘Sorry, but you saw what happened. Didn’t you?’

  ‘Not really. The telly didn’t show much. They just said the chief constable was deid, that was all, even though you and the guy Skinner wouldnae say so.’ He looked at her as he lifted the kettle to check that it was full, then switched it on. ‘Izzat right?’

  She frowned. ‘It’s right.’

  ‘How?’

  She nodded towards their son. ‘Pas devant l’enfant.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘It means “Not in front of the child”, Dad,’ Jake volunteered. ‘Mum’s always saying it so I looked it up on the internet.’

  ‘That’s your mother all over, Jakey. She got an O grade in French at the high school, and she thinks she’s Vanessa Paradis.’

  ‘Hah, and you’d just love it if I was, sunshine. I’m closer to being her than you are tae Johnny Depp, that’s for sure.’ She paused. ‘He’s nearer my height and all.’ Her husband was stocky in build but he stood no more than five feet eight. ‘Yes, that’s a deal, you can have Vanessa and I’ll have Johnny.’

  ‘Naw!’ Jake protested.

  Lottie laughed. ‘Chance would be a fine thing, wee man. On you go if you’re finished; see what’s on CBeebies.’

  Their son needed no second invitation to watch television. He grabbed a slice of buttered toast and sprinted from the room.

  ‘So?’ Scott asked, as the door closed. ‘What did happen?’

  ‘Three bullets in the head from a professional. The thing was very well planned. They blew the power as soon as they’d fired. They shot two cops on the way out . . . Sandy Sproule and Billy Auger . . .’

  ‘Aw, Jesus,’ her husband exclaimed. ‘I ken Sandy. Is he . . .’

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid so. He died instantly. Billy Auger will live, but they’re not sure he’ll walk again. Spinal damage.’

  ‘Bastards.’

  ‘Ye can say that again. They’d have got away too, had not Skinner and another bloke arrived just seconds after they’d shot them. I’ve seen the video. The other guy did for one of them straight away. His buddy ran for it, but Skinner picked up Sandy’s carbine and put two rounds through him. Never batted a fucking eyelid either, either on the tape or later, inside the hall. The only thing he was sorry about was that if he’d just wounded the guy he might have given us a clue tae who sent him. But he said that from that range all he could do was aim for the central body mass, as per the training manual. That is one fucking hard man. I couldn’t have done that, I’ll tell you.’

  Scott squeezed her hand. ‘You know what, love? I’m glad about that.’ The kettle boiled. ‘Want another?’ he asked.

  She handed him her mug. ‘Quick one. I’ve got to be out again. I’ve had crime scene people workin’ all night up at the hall and in Killermont Street. I’ve set up a temporary murder room, I have to get up there to pull everything together. Killermont Street’s still closed to traffic and there’s another event due in the hall tonight. Some golden oldie rocker; it’s a sell-out and they’re desperate not to cancel, so time is, as they say, of the essence.’

  Her husband stared at her. ‘Can they do that? Just open the place the night as if nothin’s happened?’

  ‘As long as they put a patch in the carpet,’ she said. ‘They won’t get the blood and the brain tissue out with bloody Vanish, that’s for sure. And they’ll have to get joiners in to fix the boards in front of the stage. They had to dig a couple of flattened bullets out of there. They’ll maybe keep the lights low all the time, that’ll help.’

  His eyes widened. ‘Imagine. Somebody’s goin’ to be occupying a seat tonight, and last night a woman was . . . Wow.’

  ‘Ah know,’ she agreed. ‘It’s a bit ghoulish. Listen, Scott, if I could, I would close the hall tonight as a mark of respect. Any polis would. But the hall manager says that people will be coming from all over Scotland to hear this guy. Some’ll have left already.’

  ‘Not any polis,’ he said.

  She looked at him, surprised. ‘Come again?’

  ‘Ah still have pals in the job,’ he replied, ‘even though I’ve been out for five years. From what they tell me, Antonia Field won’t be missed by too many people. A lot of people, me included in my time, liked Angus Theakston, the deputy chief, and I know you did too. It’s an open secret that she more or less sacked him. A guy Ah know worked in his office. He says they had a screamin’ match one day that folk in Pitt Street could have heard, and that Mr Theakston put his papers in next morning, and was never seen in the office again. She treated old Max Allan like shit too, my pal said. The only one she had any time for was Michael Thomas.’

  ‘He’s a fucking weasel,’ Lottie muttered. She sipped her tea. ‘You never told me any of this before.’

  ‘Ah was told on the QT. You’re a senior officer; Ah didn’t want to get my pal intae bother.’

  ‘Eh?’ she exclaimed. ‘Do you actually think that I would come down on a guy because of something you told me?’

  ‘Come on, hen,’ he protested, ‘you’re a stickler and you know it. We used tae work thegither, Ah’ve seen you in action, remember; been on the receiving end too.’

  ‘Aye,’ she retorted, ‘and had your own back too. Let’s not go there, Scott. Just don’t keep anything else from me. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Good, now I’ve got to go.’

  ‘When’ll you be back?’

  ‘Soon as I can.’

  ‘You’ve forgotten, haven’t you?’

  ‘Forgotten what?’

  ‘We promised Jakey we’d take him to Largs.’

  ‘Bugger!’ she swore. ‘I’m sorry, Scott.’

  ‘Don’t say sorry tae me. Save it for the wee man.’

  ‘Aw, don’t be like that. You know what it’s like. Look, when I say as soon as I can, I mean it. But I will have to put a report on Skinner’s desk first thing tomorrow, ready to go to the fiscal. And I will have to work out where the hell we go from here, given that our new acting chief’s gone and killed the only possible bloody witness.’

  His expression softened. ‘Ah know, love, Ah know.’

  She picked up her purse from the work surface and extracted three ten-pound notes. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘Take him wherever he wants to go with that.’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re takin’ a chance, aren’t you?’

  She frowned. ‘I’d better not be.’ She headed for the door. ‘Have fun, the pair of you. See you.’

  Six

  The bedroom door creaked as she opened it, jerking him from a dream that he was happy to leave. ‘Are the kids awake yet?’ Bob mumbled, into the pillow.

  ‘Are you joking?’ Sarah laughed. ‘It’s five past nine.’

  Their reconciliation, which had come after a burst of truth-talking only a day and a half before, had taken them both by surprise, but the next morning neither of them had felt any guilt, only pleasure, and possibly even relief.

  Their separation and divorce had not been acrimonious. No, it had been down to a lack of communication and each one of them had concluded, independently, that if they had sat down in the right place at the right time and had talked their problems through in the right spirit, it might not have happened at all.

  ‘You what?’ Bob rolled over and sat up in a single movement. He was about to swing a
leg out of bed, but she sat on the edge, blocking him off.

  ‘Easy does it,’ she said. ‘They don’t know you’re here.’

  ‘They’ll see my car.’

  ‘No they won’t. You parked it a little way along the road, remember.’

  ‘Alex and Andy?’

  ‘They left after you crashed. That was quite an entrance; five minutes to midnight. Your first words, “Gimme a drink,” then you polished off six beers inside half an hour.’ She paused, then murmured, ‘I can always tell, Bob, the more you drink, the worse it’s been.’

  ‘I know,’ he admitted. ‘And the bugger is, the older I get, the less the bevvy helps.’

  ‘So I gather. You did some shouting through the night. It’s just as well this house is stone, with thick walls. How do you feel now?’

  ‘My love, I do not know.’ He reached out and tugged at the cord of her dressing gown. She slipped out of it, and eased herself alongside him.

  She held his wrist, with two fingers pressed below the base of his thumb. ‘Your heart rate is a little fast.’

  ‘Probably the dream. It was a bastard.’

  ‘Are you ready to tell me what happened?’

  He slipped his right arm around her shoulders. ‘I told you last night. Toni Field is dead, and somehow I let Clive Graham talk me into taking her place for three months. Three months only, mind, even though Aileen and Andy both say once I’m there they’ll never get me out.’

  ‘Hey,’ Sarah murmured. ‘Maybe the witch knows you better than I thought.’

  ‘You think so too?’ He shook his head, and a slight grin turned up the corners of his mouth. ‘And here was me thinking you and I were making a new start.’

  ‘Then let me put it another way. Sometimes you don’t know where your duty lies until it’s brought home to you. You’ve been frustrated since you became chief in Edinburgh; I can see that. You were never really keen on the job, without really knowing why. When you were talked into taking it, you found out. It was more or less what you’d been doing before, but it made you more remote from your people and more authoritarian.

  ‘But Strathclyde’s different. You’ve always known why you didn’t want that job; you grew up there in a different time and you feel that force is too big, and as such too impersonal. Now that you’ve been forced into the hot seat by circumstances in which, in all conscience, you couldn’t decline, you might find the challenge you’ve been needing is to change that. You get what I’m saying?’

  ‘Yes.’ He paused. ‘But I’m a crime-fighter.’

  ‘I know,’ she agreed, ‘but even Strathclyde CID’s remote, isn’t it? If you can bring that closer to the people in every one of the hundreds of communities within the force’s area, then won’t they feel safer as a result, and won’t that be an achievement?’

  ‘Okay,’ he nodded, ‘I can see your argument. Maybe you’re right . . . and maybe if this new unified force does happen it’ll be even more important to have someone in charge who thinks like I do. But probably you’re wrong. The chances are I’ll be back in Edinburgh by November. The chances are also that the unification will happen and I’ll walk away from it.’ He hesitated, and his forehead twisted into a frown. ‘That’s the way I feel right now.’

  ‘So tell me why,’ she whispered. ‘Although I think I can guess, having seen this before.’

  ‘I killed someone,’ he whispered, ‘one of the South Africans. His name was Gerry Botha. He probably didn’t murder Toni Field, not personally, but he was part of the team that did: not just her, but three other people in the last forty-eight hours, and God knows how many more in other places, before that. I’ve shot people before in the line of duty . . .’ He sighed. ‘Christ, darlin’, most cops never handle a firearm, but I’m always in the firing line. At the time it’s a decision you have to make in a split second. I’ve never been wrong, or doubted myself afterwards, but there comes a time when you have to think that however evil the life you’ve just snuffed out, someone brought it into being.

  ‘Gerry Botha and his sidekick Francois Smit, they probably have mothers and fathers still alive, and maybe wives and maybe kids who see completely different men at home and who’re not going to have them to take them to rugby and cricket or the movies or to the beach any more, like I did yesterday with ours before all this shit happened, and when I start to play with all that in my head I start to think, “Oh God, perhaps that man wasn’t all that different from me, just another guy doing the best he can for those he loves.” And that’s when it gets very difficult.’ He leaned back against the headboard, and she could see that his eyes were moist.

  She kissed his chest. ‘Yeah, I know, love. That’s why you, of all people, understand why I prefer to be a pathologist, rather than to work with people with a pulse. But,’ she said, ‘if I was a psychologist, I’d be telling you to take that thought and apply it to Botha’s victims and to imagine how their nearest and dearest are feeling today, then to ask yourself how they’d feel about you if you’d funked your duty? Toni Field, for example; did she have a family?’

  ‘No, she’s never been married,’ he told her. ‘According to the Human Resources director, her next of kin was her mother, name of Sofia Deschamps. He was able to get the mother’s details from her file; he accessed it from home. I’m not too happy about that, but it’s an issue for later.

  ‘Mother lives in Muswell Hill; a couple of community support officers broke the news to her last night. Apparently there was no mention of a father on her file. The mother was a single parent, Mauritian. Antonia must have Anglicised the name at some point, or maybe the mother did, for she graduated as Field.’

  ‘I guess now they can confirm that she’s the victim.’

  ‘Yeah. The press office is going to issue a statement at twelve thirty, after the Police Authority’s emergency meeting. That will ratify my . . . temporary . . . appointment, and I’ll be paraded at another media briefing at one.’

  ‘What about your own Police Authority?’

  ‘Good question. The chairperson’s a Nationalist, one of the First Minister’s cronies. He was going to talk to her last night, but I’ll have to give her a call as well, to ask for her blessing, and to get her to nod through Maggie as my stand-in and Mario’s move up to ACC Crime.’ He took a breath.

  ‘And I’ll have to talk to Maggie myself; I can go and see her, since she doesn’t live far away. Then I’ll need to call in on Mario . . . not to tell him about his promotion, he knows about that . . . but to see how Paula is the day after. And I suppose I’ll have to go to Fettes and change into my fucking uniform . . .’

  Sarah rolled out of bed and grabbed her dressing gown from the floor. ‘Then what the hell are you still doing lying there? Get yourself showered . . . but don’t you dare put my Venus leg shaver anywhere near your chin . . . then dress and come downstairs to surprise our children. I’ll make you breakfast and then you can get on the road.’

  ‘Yes, boss.’ He grinned.

  ‘You’ll see,’ she added, ‘it’ll be good for you, this new challenge.’

  ‘If I’m up to it.’

  ‘That’s bullshit. You do not do self-doubt, my love.’

  Bob frowned. ‘No, you’re right, not when it comes to work. In everything else though,’ he sighed, ‘I’m a complete fuck-up. Three marriages; soon to be two divorces. Are you sure you want to get close to me again?’

  She put her hands on his shoulders, and drew him to her. ‘Even in our darkest moments,’ she whispered, ‘even across an ocean, I was never not close to you. You see us? We’re each other’s weakness and strength all rolled into one. This time, strength comes out on top.’

  He nodded, stood, took hold of her robe, and kissed her. ‘Sounds good to me.’

  He headed towards the bathroom, then stopped. ‘Will you keep the kids here tonight?’

  ‘Yes. Will you come back here?’

  ‘Mmm. What do you think? Do you want me to, I mean? What will the kids be thinking? This has all hap
pened pretty quick; Aileen being gone, you and me . . .’

  ‘What do I think?’ she replied. ‘To be brutally honest, I think that Mark won’t bat an eyelid, that James Andrew will be pleased . . . he didn’t like her and, believe me, I never said a word against her to him . . . and that Seonaid will barely notice she’s gone.’

  He nodded. ‘Okay then. I’ll see you later.’

  He was stepping into the en-suite when she called after him. ‘Hey, Bob?’

  He looked over his shoulder. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘If you did walk away from the job,’ she asked, ‘do you have the faintest idea what you’d do?’

  ‘Sure. I could collect non-executive directorships, get paid for sitting on my arse and play a lot of golf, but that wouldn’t be my scene. No, if I do that I’ll become a consulting detective; I’ll become bloody Sherlock.’

  Seven

  He looks tired and tense, Paula Viareggio thought. But he also looks more alive than I’ve seen him in a couple of years.

  ‘I am perfectly fine, Bob,’ she assured him. ‘Honestly. The police doctor checked me out last night and he said exactly that. He checked both of us out in fact. The baby’s good too. For a while afterwards I did wonder if he’d stick his head out to find out what all the fuss was about, but it seems he’s keeping to his timetable.’

  ‘You’re some woman, Paula,’ Skinner chuckled. They were sitting around a table on the deck of the prospective parents’ duplex. The sun was high enough to catch the highlights in his steel-grey hair.

  ‘No, I’m just like all the rest. I had my few moments of sheer terror, and I know I’m never going to lose the memory, of the noise more than anything else, the sound of the bullets hitting the poor woman.’

  ‘Hey, enough,’ her husband said quietly.

  ‘No, Mario, it’s all right; I yelled my head off at the time, because I was afraid . . . I was scared for two, as well. But once something’s happened, it’s happened. You can’t go back, you can’t change it, but the danger’s over and talking about what happened won’t bring it back. So no worries, big fella; I won’t be waking up screaming in the night.’