Fatal Last Words

Sixty-five

‘I like your hair,’ said Alex quietly to her table companion, in the exclusive restaurant on Gullane’s main street.

‘Thanks,’ said Maggie Rose Steele, an addition to the party, at Skinner’s request. She touched her short red locks. ‘It’s curlier than it used to be, before I had the chemotherapy.’ She smiled. ‘There aren’t too many bonuses from having cancer, but. .’

‘You’re looking great.’

‘I’m feeling great too,’ she admitted. ‘Perverse as I am, sometimes I’m scared by how well I’ve recovered. I’m over the surgery, I’m off all medication, my weight’s back to what it was before I became pregnant. . maybe not quite, but that’s no bad thing. . I’m in the gym three times a week, and I’m ready for action as soon as my maternity leave’s over.’

‘How’s the baby doing?’

‘Stephanie Margaret is doing even better than me, thanks. She’s a handful already; I just hope my sister can cope with her tonight.’ She looked sideways at Alex. ‘This is the first time I’ve been out on my own since she was born.’ And then she frowned. ‘Come to think of it, this is the first time I’ve been out on my own since. . do you know, I can’t remember when. As a divorcee I found that I wasn’t invited to many hen nights. . not that I’d have gone. As a senior cop, I wasn’t asked out on too many dates. As a widow: I’ll have to find out.’

‘Next time I’m on a girlie night,’ Alex promised, ‘I’ll make sure you’re invited.’ A dark look crossed her face. ‘There won’t be any of the other kind for a while, that’s for sure. You know what happened, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Maggie murmured. ‘Your dad told me. . better I heard it from him than through the rumour mill; that was how he put it.’

‘I still can’t believe how stupid I was, in every way. He’s been great about it.’

‘Death to the man who harms his little girl.’ She looked around. ‘I wasn’t going to comment, but I see one notable absentee tonight.’

‘That’s broken beyond repair, I’m afraid. Hell no, I’m not afraid at all. I plan to steer well clear of Andy from now on; for good. And not just him either. It turns out that Mr Montell next door, my Mr Reliable, has a past that he didn’t choose to share with me, so he’s definitely off the escort list. Then there was that disaster I had not so long ago; the one who’s in jail now. No,’ her jaw set firm as she spoke, ‘I’m firmly back on the list of Edinburgh’s eligible singles.’

‘Want a tip from an older woman?’

‘If that older woman is you, sure.’

‘Don’t go looking. Be the person you are and trust to your luck. Don’t put yourself in the market for a man. I suppose I did, long ago; I felt that single was not how you’re supposed to be. Then I got together with Mario. It was OK for a while, I admit; I was never anything like a housewife, and we socialised quite a lot. But if I’d really considered both pros and cons before marrying him, I wouldn’t have. When Stevie happened, it was out of the blue.’

‘He came looking for you?’

‘That’s just it, he didn’t. It just clicked between us. Listen, Stevie was a babe magnet, we both know that. I bet you fancied him yourself, just a bit.’ Alex smiled, and looked into her wine glass. ‘Go on, admit it,’ Maggie teased.

‘Well,’ she giggled, ‘maybe just a wee bit.’

‘Of course; no shame, everybody did, all the girls. And he got into scrapes too, just like you. There was Paula Viareggio, for example; she used him to send out signals to Mario.’

‘Paula’s not that devious.’

‘Not consciously, granted, but that’s what her and Stevie were about. Mind you, that was minor league. There was somebody else made a pitch for him, and that would have been big trouble, huge trouble.’

‘I think I can guess who that was,’ Alex whispered. ‘My former stepmother? Not that she ever said, but I saw her look at him once, and that told me plenty.’

‘See you lawyers?’ Maggie rolled her eyes. ‘I’m saying nothing. No names, no pack drill, even though the lady in question has gone from among us. Anyway, then Stevie and I clicked. . and that’s what happened. We were friends, away from the job. That was first, and then one night I just realised, God, I am so horny with this man. And he was gazing at me, thinking the same thing. So we screwed each other’s brains out; I’d never had sex like that in my life before. Afterwards. . I’ll never forget it. . I had this great surge, and I felt, “I’m safe. At last I’m safe.” As I was thinking it, Stevie said just that, out loud. That was it, the beginning of what should have been Happy Ever After. .’ she paused ‘. . only there’s no such thing. There can’t be; it’s a nonsense saying.’ She looked along the table at six people, heads bowed in conversation. ‘There you see three couples who are together for life. But that’s all it is, for life; there is no “for ever”. Some day three of those people will be in the front row at a funeral, the principal mourner. Come to think of it, three of us at this table have been there already: me, your dad and Neil.’ She reached across the table and squeezed Alex’s hand. ‘This might sound like a weird thing to say, but I really hope that one day in the dim and distant, you’re sat there too, in the worst seat in the house, and that like the three of us, what you’ve had in between makes the hurt of the moment bearable. The Queen, God bless her, once wrote that grief is the price we pay for love.’ She smiled, and simultaneously her eyes filled with tears. ‘And you know what?’ she said. ‘It’s a price worth paying.’

Glancing along the table at that moment, Bob Skinner felt a pang of anxiety, but then Maggie laughed, and washed it away. He picked up his coffee spoon and tapped his wine glass, to attract attention. ‘I promised,’ he began, ‘that there would be no speeches tonight, and this isn’t one. It’s only a few words of thanks, to Maggie, Neil and Brian, for your part in shoving me into my new office. . we are a team, and you three, along with our big Irish-Italian chum, and others who can’t be here tonight for different reasons, have been among its most valuable players. . to my lovely Aileen, who bribed me into it with the promise of eventual matrimony, and not least to Our Kid, who, although she doesn’t realise it, has been my constant, my foundation stone throughout my police career, apart from the first year or so when she wasn’t born. . although maybe even then. . and without whom the sun would cease to shine on my world.’ He raised his glass and took a sip. ‘A toast to you all.’

‘You forgot all the bad guys,’ Alex called out.

‘Eh?’

‘It’s true,’ she said. ‘You should be toasting all the people you put away, all the Jackie Charleses, all the Big Lennies. If it wasn’t for the likes of them, you wouldn’t have had a career.’

‘And maybe you should switch from corporate law to criminal defence. Then the Skinner family would cover both ends of the business.’

As the laughter subsided, he switched places with Aileen, to be next to Neil McIlhenney. ‘Speaking of bad guys,’ he murmured, ‘did we get Crown Office clearance for the use of those images of Hugo Playfair?’

‘Yes,’ the superintendent replied. ‘And the artist did a good job of removing his beard and most of his hair. He even did a third version, sans beard but with sunglasses. They’re all in place, with every newspaper and TV station in the country.’ He checked his watch. ‘The early editions will be on the streets pretty soon. They’ll be well used; the papers love this sort of thing.’

‘Good luck, then. You never know, we may get a result.’

‘You don’t sound too optimistic, Chief.’

Skinner winced. ‘The King is dead, eh. I wonder how long it’ll take me to get used to being called that.’

‘Could be worse, could be Guv.’

‘Not on our force. My first decree: the terms “Guv’nor” and “Neighbour”. . worse still, “Neebur”, the Taggart version. . banned. Optimistic? I’m hopeful, but the way this guy disappeared, and the fact that he’s left not a trace of himself behind, tells me that he’s going to be bloody difficult to find, if not impossible. On top of that. .’ He stopped abruptly.

McIlhenney persisted. ‘On top of what?’

‘I don’t want to put a damper on George Regan’s first major investigation as a DI, but I don’t honestly believe that finding Playfair would wrap it up.’

‘Come on. He’s the last guy the victim spoke to; their conversation ended in a public argument. Playfair’s the clear suspect. He had time to go back to his van, get a weapon, his hammer, then lie in wait for Mustafic.’

‘Granted. But if he’d bashed his head in, why did he hang around till morning, waiting until the body was found, before he buggered off?’

‘There’s a counter to that. Why didn’t he hang around to help Regan with his inquiries?’

‘Not necessarily because he was guilty.’

‘But he may have assumed he’d be our main suspect, and realised that he’d have trouble proving his innocence.’

‘Did Dorward’s team find any trace of Mustafic’s blood in his caravan? You told me it was all over the bushes round the body.’

‘No, I’ll grant you that. . but he could have gone for a swim in the sea straight after the killing.’

Skinner laughed softly. ‘You are good, Neil,’ he admitted. ‘When I think of the big DC that I first took on the team, and I listen to you now, I’m proud of us both, me for picking you out, but mostly of you, the way you’ve grown as a detective. I’ll give you that one. He could have. But. . Playfair is a barrack-room lawyer; he’s the sort of guy who will know very well that it’s about us proving his guilt, not the other way round. Let’s go back to that argument in the bar. What language were they speaking?’

‘I don’t know. But not English, according to Regan’s report.’

‘That’s what I thought. And that brings me back to the great unknown. What was the nature of the relationship between these two men? From the little we’ve found out about how they came to join the group, it seems to me that they were partners of some sort. Partners in crime? Maybe, but partners in hiding. If you ask me, these guys were on the run, and when Playfair found that Mustafic was dead, he did the obvious. . he kept on running, for his life. No, my friend, he’s not going to be easy to find.’

‘Who’s not?’ Aileen demanded. ‘Are you two talking shop?’

‘Comparing notes, that’s all,’ Bob replied defensively.

‘Well, stop it,’ she ordered. ‘Back to our place for coffee and a nightcap. The shop is closed for today.’

McIlhenney laughed. ‘It reopens pretty soon, though, Aileen. . in Australia.’