Fallen Gods

Twenty-One

"I'd have come to you, you know," Christina McGuire assured her daughter-in-law, as she opened the door of the Northumberland Street flat which she was soon to leave behind her, along with the rest of her Edinburgh life.

"Not at all," said Maggie, 'you've got enough on your plate, packing up for the move to Italy. No second thoughts about giving up the recruitment business?"

Christina laughed. She was a tall, imposing woman; she looked to be in her early fifties, although she was in truth a few years older. "My son wouldn't allow it, even if I did show any signs of changing my mind. I shocked him at first when I told him what I was planning, but now he's really taken to the idea of me living in Tuscany.

"He came to see me earlier on," she said, leading the way into a big rectangular drawing room. "He just happened to drop in around lunch-time, with Rufus, and with a damn great pizza. I don't know why he's so keen on the things. They were never on my table when he was a child."

She frowned for a second. "He told me what's happened about the wee boy. I'm really sorry, Maggie."

"Thanks, but it's for the best. He'll be very well looked after, and he'll be among other children too. I'm reconciled to it; in fact, Mario's taking it worse than I am."

"Is it for the best, though? What about you two? Will you be all right?"

"We'll be fine. When you leave everything else aside, Mario and I are the best of friends. There's no one I'd rather live with, and I know he feels the same way." She was not sure that her mother-in-law understood completely what she meant; if she did, Christina gave no sign.

"That's good," she murmured. "As you know I've never been an interferer, but I'll leave happier for hearing you say that."

Suddenly her expression became businesslike. "Now," she exclaimed.

"What, or who, do you have for me?"

Maggie sat down on a big soft couch in the middle of the room, took a file from her document case, which she dropped on the floor at her feet. Her mother-in-law sat beside her as she opened the brown folder.

"Not too much," she said. "There are only five faces on the video we're stuck with. I've had them transferred to photo-files and printed out."

Christina reached out and drew a heavy coffee table across the carpet towards them. "Spread them out there and I'll have a look."

Maggie did as she was told. The faces of three women and two men looked up from the table. One was smiling, but the others looked as if they had been taken off guard… as indeed they had, for none had been aware that they were being filmed. One of the men looked particularly fierce. Christina picked up the A4 likeness, peered at it, and then laughed. "That is undoubtedly the worst photograph I have ever seen," she said, 'but maybe he looks like that on the Bench. That's Henry Corrigan QC; Lord Corrigan, the Court of Session judge."

"Is it?" Maggie exclaimed, taking the sheet and peering at it. "God, you're right. I've given evidence in his court, too, but I'd never have known him from that. Mind you," she added, 'he was in his robes in the mug-shot the Scotsman gave us. I've never seen him without his wig. He's an ugly bugger, isn't he?"

"In every way. Not a nice man." Christina picked up another photograph, one of the three women. "This is his unfortunate wife, Madeline, or Maidie, Lady Corrigan."

She laid it aside and picked up the other man's likeness. "Now this is …" She stopped, thinking. "James Woodstein," she exclaimed with satisfaction. "He's a marketing consultant, with a smallish client list. As I remember it includes David Candela's firm. We did a headhunting job for him once. We found him two excellent candidates, but he turned them both down, saying they were too expensive, and then he refused to pay us. Twerp."

She picked up the photo on the left of the five. "Sadie Grierson," she announced. "She's a relatively rare bird, a female corporate accountant. She was with one of the big players in London, until she was moved to Edinburgh to head up their Scottish office. She's so new in town that she's obviously not in the Scotsman photo library yet, but she's a client of my firm. I met her at a reception they had to announce her appointment."

Maggie picked up the last of the five head shots. It showed a woman, not old, of indeterminate age, with a severe hair arrangement, sharp eyes and an even sharper frown. "What about her?" she asked.

"One doesn't like to be unkind, but what about her, indeed. Who stole her scone, do you think?"

"I don't know," Maggie muttered. "But I wouldn't like to be him when she finds him. Do you know her?"

"Would her own mother know her from that likeness? No, I don't think I can help you with her." She laid the photograph back on the table, and looked at it again. "And yet…" She took a pen from the pocket of her cardigan and laid it across the woman's eyes. "There's a girl about the town, an odd lass. They say she's very bright; to my knowledge she has a first in chemistry. She did a teacher training course, but that ended when she assaulted a girl who was rude to her.

After that, she worked for a while for one of the children's charities, as a clerk, until they got rid of her for sending an offensive letter to one of the patrons. Then she went to work in the office of a New

Town hotel, but she was moved on from that; a resident swore in her hearing and she emptied a vase of flowers over his head. After that her father brought her to me, in the vain hope that I could find her a job. That could be her, only…"

She picked up the photograph again, took the pen and drew a pair of spectacles, roughly over the eyes. "Only when I met her she was wearing big thick glasses. That's the girl; I'm sure of it. Her name's Andrea Strachan, and her father's a lecturer in religious studies at Napier."

"Where can we find her?"

"If I hadn't seen that photograph, I'd have said you could have found her in the Royal Edinburgh Hospital. Last I heard, she was sectioned after she tried to set fire to a church."