Stay of Execution

54

‘How was she, then?’

‘Very professional, very sharp, very good; Mary’s going to do fine.’

Maggie smiled as she hung her uniform on one of the handles of his wardrobe. ‘So it’s “Mary” already, is it?’ she said.

‘We got off on the right foot; plus, as a person she’s not given to excessive formality. A bit like yourself, Chief Superintendent Rose.’ Stevie hugged her to him, grinning back at her.

‘It’s a bit hard to be formal when you’re standing in your bra and knickers.’ She wriggled free of his embrace and reached for her jeans. ‘If Sauce and Charlie Johnson could see us now, eh.’

He sat on the edge of the bed, looking up at her as she dressed. ‘That’s something we’re going to have to think about.’

‘I know,’ she agreed, ‘but in our own time, yes?’

‘Not necessarily. Mary’s an even better detective than you gave her credit for, and she’s got a knack of recognising people by their cars. She spotted yours turning in here yesterday evening.’

‘And she asked you about it?’ Maggie gasped.

‘Straight out.’

‘What did you tell her?’

‘I didn’t have to tell her anything. Like I said, she’s a very good detective; she wouldn’t have asked the question unless she’d been damn sure of the answer. It’s nothing to worry about, though. Mary Chambers of all people knows how to be discreet, and she’s not going to fall out with you.’

‘Let’s hope not, but what does it mean? For us, that is.’

‘Mary says,’ he began, ‘that is, her advice is, based on her personal experience, that we shouldn’t try to cover anything up.’

‘We could always walk away from it, of course.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘We could say to each other, “Thanks, that was nice, but let’s just stay friends,” and back off before it goes any further.’

‘Is that what you want?’ he asked her quietly.

She looked down at her hands, then up at him, into his eyes, and shook her head. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘What about you?’

‘No more than you do. I want the opposite.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that I’d like you to move in with me.’

She raised her eyebrows, then sat beside him on the bed. ‘Do you mean that?’

‘Am I a serious guy or am I not?’

‘You’re a serious guy.’

‘So?’

‘I’m a handful, you know.’

‘I can handle you.’

‘I reckon you can at that.’

‘So?’

‘This is happening awful fast, Stevie.’

‘No, it isn’t, we’ve been working up to it for months, and you know it.’

‘You were that sure of yourself all that time, were you?’ She chuckled.

‘Yup. Weren’t you?’

‘Scared shitless at the prospect, but yes, I do admit now to having fancied you something rotten for a while. I should be thankful to She Who Cannot Be Named for making me pluck up the courage to do something about it.’

‘So?’

‘So what?’

‘Oh Christ, Maggie, do you want me on one knee? Will you please come and live with me and be my partner, and let me love you and look after you?’

She looked at him, soberly, as they sat side by side. ‘What have you got planned for the next hour of your life?’ she asked him.

‘Nothing.’

‘Good.’ She jumped to her feet and took his hand, pulling him after her. ‘In that case you can come back to my house and help me start to pack.’ His heart leaped in his chest as he followed her downstairs, and out to her car.

‘You happy now?’ she asked, as she drove out of Gordon Terrace.

‘Happier than I can ever remember,’ he told her honestly.

‘Shop or no shop?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘We have to have a house rule; either we talk shop or we don’t. Which is it to be?’

‘I’ve never lived with another cop before. You tell me.’

She smiled, so brightly that it seemed to light up the car. ‘Thank you, darling, for reminding me that I’m still a married woman. But you’re right, experience counts and you have to learn from it. We talk shop. Mario and I had a no-shop rule, and at the end we’d bugger all to talk about. So what else have you been up to with Mary today?’

‘Quite a lot actually. We went to see young Mr Whetstone, and told him what his old man had been up to. He told us we were idiots for not knowing all about the manufacture of curling stones, that his father did and wouldn’t have set up a dummy company to do that.’

‘Would a detail like that matter, if he was planning to top himself as soon as the money was unreachable by the bank?’

‘Maybe not, but we went back to the bank anyway.’

‘What did Vernon say to that?’

‘Vernon wasn’t there; the boss had sent him home to prune his roses.’

‘No real surprise in that.’

‘No, but the absence of Ms Middlemass, that was.’

‘Really?’

‘Really. She’s done a runner. We went to her address, a nice townhouse out in Cramond, but there was no sign of her; the company car was there, but she wasn’t. The neighbours were little help. Those that we found said she and her husband never mixed socially; they were strangers to them. One of them thought that there had been coming and going at their house last night but he couldn’t be sure.’

‘What about the husband? The Spanish academic?’

‘Señor Jose-Maria Alsina, you mean? We went out to the Heriot-Watt campus to look for him. He wasn’t there either. Nobody there was bothered about that, though; technically he might be on the staff, but he’s actually doing a Ph.D. in chemistry. He takes some tutorials, and a wee bit of teaching, but that’s all. Otherwise he makes his own hours.’

‘So what’s the conclusion?’

‘It’s all pointing to them being off to parts unknown with the bank’s million. Tomorrow we start taking a serious look into her background.’

‘Hold on, though. Maybe they’ve just gone off for a long weekend without telling anyone,’ Maggie suggested.

‘Hah,’ Stevie exclaimed. ‘One day in the new job and you’re thinking like a plod already.’

‘Hey! That’s Chief Superintendent Plod, if you don’t mind.’ She grinned as she drove. ‘But you’re right; that’s where it points. So why did Ivor top himself, in that case?’

‘The cancer, I suppose. If he did top himself, that is. What if he found out about the fake company and was about to expose her?’

‘Indeed.’ She paused. ‘By the way, speaking of topping oneself, while you were out on the chase with Mary, I had a call from my ex, very upset. Remember his American visitor?’

‘The New Yorker? Yes.’

‘Well, last night he had supper at Paula’s, walked back to the Malmaison and into the docks, wrapped a heavy chain around his middle and jumped in.’

Stevie whistled in the darkened car. ‘Jesus,’ he whispered. ‘I don’t remember Paula’s cooking being that bad.’