Lethal Intent

Thirty-eight

Neil McIlhenney smiled as he stepped into All Bar One; for the first time in days he felt refreshed. The dream had not returned the night before, and he put it down to Lou's excellent consultation with her obstetrician, the Amanda Dennis lookalike, who had told her that all was well with her pregnancy and that she could look forward to delivering a healthy child in a few months' time, wiping away her last concerns about becoming a first-time mother at forty plus.

But there was more than that behind his grin. His lunch date had made him think about where he stood in his career, and he felt good about that too. In his early years as a policeman, his service had been solid but not spectacular. He had been like a stereotypical cop, overweight, a shade heavy-handed and more than a little cynical about the character of his fellow man.

It had taken Bob Skinner to look into him and see what else was there. Under his tutelage he had developed both as an officer and a man. At first he had wondered why he was being favoured, but as he had come to know the Big Man, he had come to realise also that he surrounded himself with people whose values reflected his own.

Now he was prepared to admit to himself, and to anyone else who asked, that in his early years he had been freewheeling, holding down a nice cushy job which, with his late wife Olive's teaching salary, had given them a comfortable if not opulent standard of living. It had taken Skinner, then head of CID, before his move to the Command Corridor, to draw out his best and largely untapped qualities, identifying him and his mate McGuire… known to most of their colleagues in those days as the Glimmer Twins, for their joint love of a bevvy and of the Rolling Stones… as two-under-performers with much more to offer the force.

Mario's special gift, apart from sheer innate ferocity when in a threatening situation, was a cool analytical brain, inherited from his mother and his grandfather, Papa Viareggio, who had founded the family's small business empire. His had been the ability to size people up and to know instinctively who was a straight-shooting, valued contact, and who was simply shooting the breeze.

His lunch companion had arrived before him. She was sitting at a table, away from the other diners, in the furthest corner of the restaurant; it was a converted banking hall, as were half of the other eating places in George Street. She was in her forties, plump, with shiny black hair that was swept back and held in a short pony-tail, and she wore a dark, heavy sweater and a long grey skirt. She glanced up as he approached. 'What happened?' she asked. 'You're ten minutes late. Couldn't you find a parking place?'

'As it happens you're right,' he told her. 'It's a real bugger in the Christmas period, even at lunchtime.'

'I thought you guys didn't have to worry about yellow lines.'

'Tell that to the Blue Meanies,' he retorted. 'We hate them just as much as you civvies do. One of them put a ticket on the chief constable's car a few weeks ago, even though he had left his uniform cap on the steering-wheel.'

'Did he pay it?'

McIlhenney nodded. 'The chief is like that.'

'Is the guy still in a job?'

'That I do not know, and I don't want to.' He settled into the seat facing her.

'I've ordered lunch like you asked,' she said. 'Soup of the day… it's minestrone… and a chicken salad. Are you sure you want salad? It's December, Neil.'

He patted his stomach. 'Why get fat just because it's winter?'

She shuddered. 'God, you self-control freaks! I remember you when you were a porker. You weren't sanctimonious then.'

It was true, he conceded to himself. He and Debbie Wrigley did go that far back, to the days when he had been a beat cop and she had been an assistant manager in the Clydesdale Bank. He had taken a statement from her after a bungled robbery… as most of them were… and they had struck up an instant friendship.

They had both moved on since then, he through the ranks and into the Special Branch office, she to the National Mutual, where she was a general manager with responsibility for the private-client division.

'Did you order us drinks?' he asked her.

She nodded. 'A glass of red wine for me, and a spritzer for you.' She pulled a face. 'A spritzer, for Christ's sake! What happened to the three or four pints of lager? Are you up yourself, or what? Is this what happens when you marry an actress?'

He grinned. 'No. It's what happens when you decide that you'd like to live to see your kids grow up, and maybe even your grandkids.'

As he spoke, their first courses and their drinks arrived at their table.

'So what's the honour?' Debbie asked, as she picked up her fork to attack her calamares Romana. 'It's got to be serious if you're paying.'

'It is,' he said, testing the temperature of his minestrone. 'I'm doing a heavy vetting job on one of your clients. I want to know everything about him without him or anyone else finding out.'

She whistled. 'You don't ask small favours, do you?'

He smiled at her, cheerfully. 'No, I only give them.'

She looked him dead in the eye. 'I take it this is in the national interest.'

'My colleagues and I think it is.'

'So who's the client?'

McIlhenney waited until she had forked a large piece of battered squid into her mouth. 'Tommy Murtagh,' he murmured, then smiled as her eyes bulged and her round face reddened.

'To…' she gasped. 'How did you know that he was a client of ours?'

'Your manager in Dundee was best man at his wedding; call it an educated guess. Will you do it?'

'Are you serious?'

'Never more so.'

'I'd be putting my arse on the line, never mind my career.'

'They'll both be in good hands.'

She looked at him, for a long time. 'Well, you make damn sure you don't drop them,' she said.