Autographs in the Rain

by Quintin Jardine

  made him, believe me.

  'God,' she said suddenly. 'I don't know why I told you that... not that

  last bit, at any rate. I have never told anyone about it before. Don't ever say

  anything to Bob, please. He doesn't know the whole story; it scares me to

  think what he might do.'

  'Don't worry,' he assured her. 'I won't do that. But if Judd ever gives me

  half an excuse, I'll beat him bloody.'

  She took his hand and squeezed it. 'Don't waste your anger. I've never

  had any luck with men. For the last ten years, I've attracted nothing but

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  maggots.' She gave a short bitter laugh. 'When that effete little twerp Elliott

  Silver made a pass at me last year, that was it; that was when I decided to

  give up the species, for good!'

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  I

  59

  'Is this what it's going to be like from now on, Jack?' Mary McGurk

  complained, looking at her husband as he adjusted the knot of his tie and

  slipped the narrow end inside the retaining loop. 'Is it?'

  'It's my job, love.'

  'It's your job to have every weekend ruined?' she said, scornfully. 'It's

  your job to drop everything and go tearing off south even though we've

  had this party on the kitchen calendar for the last two months? It's your job

  to jump every time that man Pringle phones?'

  He nodded, feeling his patience run out. 'Yes. It won't always be, but for

  now it is.'

  She grabbed her jacket from the bed and began to put it on. 'Well sod

  that! I'll beat you to it; I'm going out. You'll just have to stay in with the

  baby.'

  'Fine,' he shouted at her. 'You do that. You just do that, you selfish wee

  bitch! Go on out and leave me with the kid. You know what I'll do? I'll

  have a uniformed woman constable here inside ten minutes and I'll be on

  my way. So yeah, go on, make your fucking gesture, and slam the door on

  the way out so the bloody neighbours know too.'

  She stripped the jacket off again and threw it at him; one of the steel

  buttons caught him just above the eye. He felt sharp pain, and then a warm

  trace as a thin line of blood began to run down the side of his face.

  'Thanks,' he said, coldly, ripping a tissue from the box on the dressing

  table and pressing it to the small wound.

  'Sorry,' his wife whispered. She sat on the bed, her eyes glassy with

  tears. 'Jack,' she murmured, 'it's just not fair.'

  He sat beside her. 'No love,' he agreed. 'It's not; but don't blame Mr

  Pringle, and don't blame me. If you want to, take it out on this man Raymond

  Anders. He's the guy who's in the frame for bashing that girl's head in on

  Thursday.

  'Now he's been arrested at his sister's house in Leeds, and Pringle and I

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  have to go and get him, then bring him up to Gala for questioning.'

  'But couldn't someone else go?'

  He shook his head, his mouth set tight. 'No. This is a murder investigation;

  it's down to us to pick this boy up. If you want to understand why, I'll bring

  home the photographs, and let you see them.'

  'No thanks,' she retorted. 'I don't want any of that coming into this

  house.'

  'But Mary, I'm part of that. It's what I do.'

  'You don't have to do that. You could ask for a transfer back to uniform,

  somewhere in Edinburgh, not down in the sticks.'

  Jack McGurk sighed. 'Are we back to that again? Love, we can't stay in

  Edinburgh. This is a case in point. Once we're living down there, things

  like this won't be nearly as big a hassle.'

  'Of course they will,' she snapped. 'It'll be worse, I don't know anyone

  down there. I'll have nothing to do down there. I'll be like one of your

  prisoners. Can you get this through your big thick head? I don't want to go

  to the Borders, however nice and twee and country bloody casual you try

  and paint it.

  'I want to stay here, Jack. I'm an Edinburgh girl, first and foremost.'

  He stood up from the bed, checking quickly in the mirrored wardrobe

  door that the cut above his eye had stopped bleeding. Then he picked up

  the blazer which, earlier, he had hung over the back of a chair, and slipped

  it on.

  'Funny,' he said, as he reached for the door handle. 'I thought we were a

  couple, first and foremost.'

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  60

  'I should be immersing myself in my part, you know,' she told him, with

  mock severity, as they headed down the A68. 'I should be in the process of

  turning myself into an Edinburgh criminal lawyer, as my craft demands.

  'I should be spending the day talking to Bob's daughter, picking up hints

  and tips from her, rather than heading off for a day out in the country with

  aflatfootlikeyou.'

  'Is that so?' he drawled. 'Point one, it was your idea to head out of

  Craiglockhart so that Glenys and Clarence could indulge in whatever it is

  young couples like them are supposed to indulge in on Sundays. Personally,'

  he offered in an aside, 'I usually watch football on telly with my son.

  'Point two, brilliant and full of promise as Ms Alexis Skinner may be,

  she's a corporate lawyer. If you want to splash around or whatever in the

  realities of the Scottish crime scene, you're much better off with a career

  polisman like me.'

  Cold Saturday had continued through the night; there was snow all around

  as they climbed Sutra Hill, but the road was well gritted and wet, rather

  than icy.

  'So? Tell me about it.'

  'Tell me about your lady lawyer,' Neil countered.

  'She's a QC for a start. She's approached by a friend, whose husband

  has been arrested and charged with murder and she agrees to take the case.'

  Mcllhenney took a hand from the wheel. 'Hold on a minute. Who wrote

  the script?'

  'Elliott did; in collaboration with a Scottish crime novelist.'

  'They've dropped a clanger then . . . unless your lady lawyer's bent. Is

  she?'

  Louise shook her head. 'No. She's a heroine, a straight arrow.'

  'She's broken the rules nevertheless. She's not allowed to accept a brief

  directly from a client; she'd have to be instructed by a solicitor.'

  'Is that true?'

  AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN

  'Of course it's bloody true. If you want me to be your technical adviser,

  you've got to trust me.'

  She turned in her seat and looked at him, eagerly. 'Would you be? Our

  technical adviser, I mean, like for real?'

  He whistled. 'Not a chance; not officially. But from the sound of things

  you need one. Alex might not do criminal work herself, but she knows

  plenty of advocates. Give her a call and she'll introduce you to someone.'

  'But I don't know Alex. She doesn't know me.'

  The big policeman laughed. 'One of the things I like about you, Louise,

  is that most of the time you forget who and what you are. If it makes you

  feel more comfortable, ask the boss to ask her.' He pointed to his mobile,

  which was clipped into a car adapter. 'Call him now, if you like.'

  'No,' she said. 'You do it for me. I don't like to call Bob at home. Sarah

  was very good when we had dinner the week before last, but woman to

  woman, she won't want to hear
too much of me.'

  'You're too sensitive, but if you like, I'll call Alex myself and ask her

  for a couple of introductions. They'll be on the payroll, yes?'

  'Sure. Elliott and the writer can pay for her, since they've screwed up.'

  'Hard woman, you.'

  'You better believe it,' she chuckled. 'Whatever crap we talk at Oscar

  time, our business is money-driven. I'm working with Warren because I

  know that, together, we'll bring the project in on time and within budget.'

  'So what happens to the lady lawyer?'

  'It's a complicated script; she's intrigued by her client; she falls for him

  in fact. As she speaks to the witnesses she becomes more and more

  convinced that he's been set up. She decides to do some freelance

  investigation of her own .. .'

  'Stop!' he cried out. 'Don't tell me any more. You really need that

  technical adviser. I suppose that all the coppers are bastards too.'

  'Absolutely.'

  'Ah well,' he laughed, 'that's accurate enough.'

  He took the Kelso turn-off at Carfraemill, driving more slowly since the

  road had been used less heavily than the main trunk route and, consequently,

  the surface was less certain. Eventually, he took another turning, and headed

  up a twisting hillside track; a few miles on it seemed to peter out.

  He drew up in a deserted parking area. 'Okay,' he said. 'Let's see how

  good those walking boots are.'

  They changed into their heavy country footwear, and into thick windproof

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  I

  jackets and gloves. 'What is this place?' Louise asked, looking at a fingerpost

  on the edge of the parking area.

  'Part of the Southern Upland Way. It's a walkers' route that links the

  east and west coasts. Normally it would be busier than this, but the snow

  overnight must have kept folk away.'

  'That's good,' she murmured.

  He led her up the track, heading east, with the sun shining over their

  shoulders. Patches of gnarled grass and brown, twisted heather showed

  through the covering of snow, and the walkers' pathway was still well

  defined. They reached the crest of the first hill after a few minutes and

  looked around the moorland.

  'No trees,' Louise commented, surprised.

  'No. This is the western edge of the Lammermuirs. If we walked far

  enough this road would take us to Longformacus, then to the coast.'

  She looked around the rolling land. 'What's that over there?' she called

  to him, pointing to her right into the distance.

  Neil followed the direction of her finger. 'I've never noticed it before,

  but it looks like a trout farm.'

  'Won't the water freeze in weather like this?'

  'Nah, they keep it circulating.' He took a small pair of binoculars from

  his pocket. 'It's beside a small river, a tributary of the Tweed, I'd guess.

  They'll pump water out of that and through the tanks. That looks like quite

  a big operation.'

  He paused and squinted through his field-glasses again. 'The boys down

  here have had a lot of trouble with these places just lately,' he said as he

  spoke. 'Thefts, but the most recent one turned very nasty.

  'That place looks pretty secure, though. Floodlights, high-mounted video

  cameras; all they need's a guard on a tower with a machine gun. Who

  knows,' he joked, 'they might have one of them inside that Portakabin.'

  He put the glasses away and they set off again, up the next hill. As they

  stood together at the top, Louise took his arm.

  'Can I ask you something, Neil?' she said. 'How do you manage to stay

  as... what's the word... controlled, I suppose? Don't you ever feel bitter?

  Don't you ever feel angry about what's happened to you and the kids?'

  She was standing slightly above him on the slope; on his eye-level as he

  looked at her.

  'I tried, at first,' he answered. 'Somehow, I felt I should. I thought about

  joining a mass action against the tobacco companies, until I realised how

  silly and vindictive that would have been. Olive smoked when she was a

  kid because everyone else did, including her mother. Okay, the bloody things

  were advertised, but so's beer, so's chocolate, so are saturated fats, so's

  sex. So what would I have got into there, suing companies whose shares

  are probably helping to grow my life insurance policies, my ISAs, and my

  pension fund, because my wife exercised her right to choose?

  'Don't misread me, Lou. I told you yesterday about my nightmare; the

  one about me pegging out while the kids are still young. I have others,

  though; dark dreams, dreams with no conclusion.

  ",'But it's the daymares; they're the hardest to cope with. There isn't a

  day in my life goes by without me being back in that consulting room,

  listening to a man who was trying to keep the grief out of his voice as he

  gave my wife what he knew was a death sentence. There isn't a day when

  I'm not back in that wee room in the Western, at the end, listening to the

  click of the diamorphine pump.

  'I overcome them by focusing on the positive side of her illness. On her

  determination, her cheerfulness, the way she never let fear get to the kids,

  not ever, on the things we did together, on the laughs we had together, in

  the early weeks and months of it at least. On her sheer courage, Lou; her

  sheer unbeatable courage.'

  She saw the tears that he was unable to keep from his eyes.

  'Afterwards,' he continued, not caring about them, 'at first it's

  indescribable; what it feels like, the numbness where a part of you's been

  ripped out.

  'You wait for the pain to stop; eventually, the immediacy of it does lessen,

  but you come to terms with the fact that it will always be there, as long as

  you live. You come to understand other things too, very clearly; most of

  all, that two souls became one at the instant you and she met, and that

  although now they may be disjointed, that is only a temporary condition,

  only for a while.

  'All of us, all of the bereft, we find our own truth in the midst of our

  tragedies. That's mine; I know that one day, our two souls will be one again,

  as they were when we were both alive. I have nightmares, yes, but I have a

  constant vision too, one in which Olive and I cruise the cosmos, together.'

  'Do you believe in God, then?'

  'I believe that we are all God, or at least that we are all part of something

  which for want of a better word we've come to call God, or Allah, or

  Jehovah, or that big shiny thing in the sky, or whatever

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  AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN

  'And until that day comes, until you're reunited? How do you live your

  life?'

  'As best I can, as happily as I can, enjoying my own body while I'm

  living in it, enjoying my kids as they become adults, enjoying their kids ...

  however it pans out.

  'I'm not afraid of another relationship. I get as horny as the next single

  man; but anyone who becomes involved with me has to understand that