Stay of Execution

3

Deputy Chief Constable Robert Morgan Skinner peered into the goblet that he held cupped in his big hands, swirling the sweet sticky Amaretto around the sides, then watching as it settled back at the foot. Finally, he took a sip, nodded and smiled at his hostess.

‘I like this stuff,’ he said. ‘I’m not a great one for liqueurs: your VSOP and your Armagnac would be wasted on me, and I positively dislike whisky, but I do like this.’

Louise McIlhenney, née Bankier, laughed. ‘You could have fooled me. You didn’t have any aversion to the hard stuff when I knew you at university. Whisky and dry ginger ale as I remember it.’

‘I was young then, though,’ he countered. ‘My dad took a nip now and again, so I did too, till it came to me that it didn’t make me a better person. When I realised that, I stopped.’

She looked across the space between them, her mind transporting them back twenty years and more. ‘You used to talk about your father all the time. You don’t any more. What happened?’

Bob sighed and let his head fall against the high back of the armchair. ‘He died,’ he said softly. ‘And I haven’t passed a day since then without missing him. It hurts too much to talk about him.’

‘It shouldn’t. You were so obviously proud of him.’

‘Still am. I’ll talk about him when it’s right, don’t worry. James Andrew and Seonaid. . and Mark; even though he’s adopted and has a living granddad of his own. . should know about him, about who he was and what he was. It concerns me when I hear of sections of family history dying with successive generations. Did I ever tell you I had an ancestor who was press-ganged to fight against Napoleon? That story was given to me by an aunt, but she never wrote it down, so now even if I was inclined to try to trace him, I would have trouble.’

‘Come on, man,’ Neil McIlhenney chuckled. ‘You’re a detective.’

‘Maybe so, but you know as well as I do. . or you bloody should, Inspector. . that every investigation has to start somewhere. I don’t even have a name I can be sure of, never mind a place and year of birth.’ He grinned, laugh-lines crinkling round his eyes. ‘I might still write a book about him one day, though.’

‘How can you, if you can’t trace him?’

‘I might do what a few unscrupulous coppers have done before now: falsify the evidence.’

‘Eh?’

‘Make it up. I’m talking about fiction, Neil. It’s a long way off, though; writing’s one of my retirement dreams.’

McIlhenney frowned. ‘You’re not thinking about writing your memoirs, are you?’

‘No way! I’d have to leave too much out.’

‘How’s Sarah?’ Louise asked suddenly. ‘You haven’t mentioned her all evening.’

‘Fine,’ Bob replied absently. ‘She’s fine. So are the kids; the bold boy Jazz has started school now, God help them.’

‘Fine she may seem,’ his hostess interrupted, ‘but she must still be feeling the loss of her parents.’

‘Of course. It’s been a lousy year for her: for both of us, for that matter, with my health scare as well. We’ll be glad to see the back of it.’

She smiled. ‘Well, here’s something that might cheer you up. This old lady’s pregnant.’

Bob sat bolt upright in his chair. He stared at her, mouth agape, then at Neil. ‘You what?’ he exclaimed. ‘Congratulations. Nah, that doesn’t go far enough, at. .’ He stopped abruptly.

‘At my age, were you going to say?’ Louise teased.

‘No, of course not!’

‘Of course yes, but it doesn’t matter. We’ve taken medical advice, I’ve had every physical you could imagine and we’ve been assured that everything’s fine. I’ve been told not to run any marathons this winter, but that wasn’t on my game plan anyway.’

‘Well, that’s just great. What do Lauren and Spence think of it?’ Neil’s children from his first marriage were watching television in the room that Lauren insisted on calling ‘the study’.

‘I suspect that my daughter thinks it’s disgusting,’ said her father. ‘Kids her age think that people our age are supposed to stop all that stuff, but they’re both acting pleased.’

‘Too right. Does anyone else know?’

Louise shook her head. ‘You’re the first other than them through the wall. We’re going to tell Mario once he gets back from his New York trip.’

‘I hope you ask him to be godfather. He’ll be great.’

‘He is,’ Neil reminded him. ‘He’s Spencer’s god-dad. But if he’s to do it again, we might need to put a word in for him with Jim Gainer. I don’t imagine he’s his Church’s favourite son at the moment, being separated and everything else.’

Bob shrugged. ‘That’s between him and his conscience. . and Maggie to an extent, although I’ve spoken to both of them and their separation does seem amicable.’ He looked his friend in the eye. ‘Between you and me, is she involved with anyone else?’

McIlhenney hesitated. ‘She’s been out with Stevie Steele a couple of times, but just for dinner; no afters. They’re friends, and that’s all. Stevie’s got a girlfriend on the go just now, anyway.’

Skinner gave a snorting laugh. ‘Steele’s always got a girlfriend on the go: and I doubt if that would stop him.’

‘It won’t arise in this case.’

‘What won’t?’ Bob’s right eyebrow rose.

His friend caught his meaning. ‘Not that or anything else. Like I said, they’re pals, and that’s as far as it’ll go.’

‘You seem sure.’

‘I am. I know the whole story behind the split.’

‘Is it something I should know?’

McIlhenney smiled ‘No. It won’t be a problem for you. Maggie isn’t into men right now, and that’s all there is to it. She’s fully focused on her career.’

‘Okay,’ said Skinner. ‘That’s good enough for me.’ He finished his Amaretto, pushed himself out of his chair and peered through the curtains into the impenetrable murk. ‘Ouch!’ he murmured. ‘What a night. Thanks again, you two, for giving me a bed.’

‘That’s all right,’ Louise replied. ‘You have an important meeting tomorrow, I’m told. It would never do if you got lost in the fog on the way there!’