Gallery Whispers

81

Andy looked at her across the kitchen. 'Let me sum up what you've just told me,' he said. He was wearing glasses, rather than his tinted contacts, but still she could see the hurt in his eyes.

'You've been having it off behind my back, with some kid who's just about young enough to be my son. Now, through some sort of Murphy's Law, that fact has become an important piece of evidence in a criminal investigation, and three detectives under my command know all about it.

'That's what you're saying, is it?'

Alex nodded, watching the ice cubes swirl round in her gin and tonic. 'I'd say that was a fair summary of it. Andy, I'm sorry it had to come out this way, I really am. As I said, I may have done it because of you in a way, but I never meant to hurt you by it. Ray didn't mean anything to me.'

'Maybe not, but he sure means something to me. Most men would feel very serious about someone fucking their fiancee, you know.

You're not saying that he didn't know you were engaged, are you?'

'No. I told him I was.'

'Jesus! The boy must think I'm a right inadequate prat; he must be laughing all over his face. I'll be the talk of the Aberdeen University Union bar right now, and so will you.'

'He's not that sort of guy,' she protested.

'Crap! He's eighteen, and he's a little toerag. Listen, you go on about not wanting to hurt me. Did you ever think about how badly I could hurt him?'

'Andy, you wouldn't! You could break him in two.'

His laugh was cruel; a sound she had never heard before. 'I wouldn't need to lay a finger on him. Clan Pringle told me, just before he forgot to mention Weston's horizontal alibi, that he and the Thin Man caught the kid with a parcel ofcannabis and a bottle of pills that he'd nicked from his old man. Your Ray smokes grass and barters stolen drugs for beer with his student pals; bet you didn't know that.

'Dan's getting soft; he let him off the possession thing with an informal caution. I have the power to overrule that decision and have the boy prosecuted for theft and dealing. Minor stuff, I'll grant you, but enough to end his University career and give him a record that he'd carry for the rest of his life.'

Alex's Marbella tan paled as he spoke. 'Oh Andy,' she moaned, 'you wouldn't do that to him.'

'Tell me why not,' he barked. 'If he was some punk from Pilton and you were a tart off a street corner Pringle would have sent him down the road without a second thought. Why should I give him preferential treatment? It's as if I was rewarding him for letting you work off your frustrations on his dick.'

She winced at his expression; then her eyes narrowed. 'And what if he stood up in the dock, or went to the papers, and said that he was only being prosecuted because of me?'

He stared back at her. 'People stand in the dock and slag off the police all the time, love. Does the thought worry you because it might hurt me, embarrass you, or damage your career prospects?'

She nodded, more to herself than him. 'This discussion's run its course, I think.' As she spoke she pulled the engagement ring from her finger and laid it on the kitchen work-surface. 'Better luck next time,' she said. 'Sorry to have spoiled your Sunday.'

She started for the door, but he caught her arm. 'Alex, no,' he said.

'I went too far; I'm sorry.' For a moment she tried to pull free, then stopped and let him turn her to face him. 'I'm sorry,' he repeated. 'I went over the top there. I am not going to overrule Pringle or do anything else to the boy. You just gave me a serious kick in the ego, that was all.

'Look, you told me often enough, but I guess I wasn't listening. I had no idea that I was being as possessive and as constricting as that, but I suppose I have to take some of the blame for what's happened.

Remember that daft thing I said ten days ago in the pub, about not sharing you with you? Well forget it, please. Of course you've got to have your own space — up to a point. By that I mean that you can sleep anywhere you like as long as I'm the only person you sleep with. Can you handle that small restriction?'

She looked up at him with a curious, soft smile. 'Are you saying that you'll forgive me, if I promise not to do it again?'

He drew a deep breath, let it out in a sigh, and grinned. 'I suppose I am.'

Well,' she said, 'since you're in a forgiving mood, let me try you with something else.

'Over the last few months, I've had a hard time sorting out my ambitions. You made your agenda perfectly clear, and that meant that I had to think about mine, before I was anything like ready to do so.

For a very little while, earlier on this year, I thought "Yes, let's put the career on hold. Let's have our family and get it over with." So for a month I stopped taking my pill.

'After a very short time, I realised that that was not what I wanted.

However, it only takes a second as they say. I fell pregnant, Andy. At the very time when you were going on about wanting kids now, while you were still young enough to play hide and seek with them, and I was just working out what I felt about the whole thing, I was stupid enough to get myself knocked up.

'I thought long and hard about it. Should I tell you, should I keep the baby, should I talk to Sarah, should I…' As she paused for a second or two, he felt the tension build up within him once more.

'Are you going to tell me…' he began.

'In the end I decided not to talk to anyone, since I knew quite well what I had to do. I had a termination, Andy. On the day after I moved out of here, I went into the Eastern General and had it done.'

He felt the rage well up within him; far different in intensity to the anger he had felt when she had confessed her indiscretion a quarter of an hour earlier. His eyes were blurred as he looked at her; he felt his muscles tense. He wanted to hit her, not just once, but many times; he wanted to beat her insensible, then go on beating her until his strength was gone. His mouth opened, then closed, trying to form words.

He turned away from her, and held on to the work surface, tight, struggling with his wrath, until he had it under control.

'You are telling me,' he whispered, when he could, 'that you were pregnant with our child, and you had it killed.'

'I had conceived and I had a termination,' she murmured in reply.

'Don't bandy words with me, girl. You were carrying my baby and you had it snuffed.' He turned back towards her. 'You didn't even tell me about it. You didn't involve me in the decision. Why in God's name not?'

'Because I knew what would happen. I knew the argument we would have. I knew that your beliefs wouldn't let you listen to me, and that you would forbid it, or try to. I guessed that if I had told you about it, then made my own decision, we'd be finished. So I went ahead, with the intention that you would never find out.

'But yesterday afternoon, when I was speaking to Pops, I realised that I had to tell you about it. I saw that if we were going to have a life together… and I really did want that… then everything had to be out in the open.'

'But you didn't tell me when it mattered,' he repeated, desperately.

'You kept our kid a secret because you knew that what you wanted to do ran contrary to my upbringing and to my belief.'

'It's my body we're talking about here, Andy,' she countered. 'I am sorry, truly, but no one, be he husband, lover or anyone else has the right to tell me what I will do with it. I will only ever have a child when I want, and with whom I want. I always wanted to have a family with you, my love: but… not… yet.

'When I had my termination, it was with us in mind, long-term.'

'Don't give me that,' he spat back at her, bitterly. 'You had my baby killed because it was in your way.

'That investigation that Brian and Clan are working on: they're looking for someone who's been helping people to kill themselves.

When they find him, he'll be charged with murder, and found guilty; quite right too, because that's what it is. From where I stand, I can't see much difference between you and him.

'I could forgive your fling with the boy: that's easy. But not this, no way.'

Alex picked up the ring from the worktop, and slipped it into the breast pocket of his shirt. 'I came here for confession, my dear, not forgiveness. It's the fact that you think you have the right to forgive that's persuaded me, finally, that we have no future together.'