bladed knife, which he handed to Rose. Carefully the chief inspector
slit the envelope along the top, shook out the letter within, and handed
it to Raymond.
As the young man went into the kitchen, Avril Weston pushed
herself from her chair and came over to join her husband. The four
stood silently, watching the door. Eventually, the sobbing began,
growing louder, heart-rending. Avril started for the kitchen; at first
Nolan held her back, but eventually he released her hand and allowed
her to go to her stepson.
She returned a minute later, maybe two, with the letter, which she
handed to her husband. He held it up and began to read:
'My lovely Ray,
When you receive this, you'll know. Dad will have explained
everything, and although he did not know that I was going to do
what I've done, I know that he'll understand and that he'll support
my decision.
I watched you grandmother die of cancer when I was your age. It
all but destroyed me, and I will not put you through the same
experience. I'm not afraid of what I would have faced, and I am not
doing this thing for me, but for you and for your father, because I
love you both so very much.'
84
Nolan Weston's voice faltered for a moment, but he gathered himself
and read on.
'I want you to live the rest of your life for me, and to be all you can
be for my sake. Of all the good things in my life, and there have
been many, you and Dad have been absolutely the best.
Live well for me.
With all my love
Mum'
He looked up as he finished and saw that Ray had come back into the
room. They embraced, father and son, as if they were welding their
grief together. Mackie nodded towards the conservatory, and the two
women followed him, leaving them together.
Eventually, the two tall Westons rejoined them. 'Do you need the
letter as well?' asked Raymond.
'No,' said Mackie. 'Not just now anyway. I don't think for a moment
that there'll be any prints on that other than your mum's. The envelope's
all we need.'
'But,' the young man demanded, 'if Mum didn't post it herself,
then who did? Did she give it to her secretary?'
The detectives looked at each other. Almost imperceptibly, Mackie
nodded. 'No,' said Rose. 'We know that your mother wrote the letter
only a few hours before she died. We believe that it was posted next
day, by the person who helped her end her life.'
'That's what all this is about?' Raymond Weston exclaimed.
'Someone killed my mum?'
Rose replied simply. 'Yes.'
'But that's not right!' the young man shouted. 'It should have been
me. Or Dad. Dad, why didn't you help her?'
'Believe me son,' said Nolan, quietly. 'If she had asked me to, I
would have. But she loved both of us too much ever to have involved
us.'
'Ray,' asked Mackie, briskly, 'does the name Deacey - that's
D-E-A-C-E-Y - mean anything to you?'
'Deacey? Never heard of him? Why? Was it him?'
'We don't know that. We just need to find him, that's all. Professor,
does the name mean anything to you?
Weston dropped his eyes and shook his head. 'The third arrow, I
guess,' he murmured, sadly, Avril's presence forgotten completely.
85
25
'What the hell brought this on anyway?' Bob Skinner asked his
daughter. 'You just turn up out of the blue. I can't remember the last
time you wanted to go out for a run with your old man.'
'I can't remember the last time I wanted to go for a run with
anyone,' Alex panted. They were jogging eastward along the shore of
the Forth estuary, away from Gullane, in the direction ofFidra Island
which stood guard, with its lighthouse, over Yellowcraigs beach. Bob
was taking it easy, but still maintaining a respectable pace, making
her work to keep up.
'I've let myself get really out of shape,' she gasped, 'since I started
with the firm. From now on, I'm going to do more of this, and go to
the gym twice a week instead of once a month. You're twice my age,
and twice as fit.'
'Christ, you'll be joining the girls' rugby team next.'
'No fear, Pops. Bad for the boobs, I've always thought.'
He stopped abruptly, beneath the isolated house which was the
only sign of civilisation along that stretch of coastline. 'Why is it,' he
said, breathing only slightly hard, 'that people always seems to pussyfoot
around these days when they want to tell me something? Am I
that much of a bear? Come on, kid. Out with it.'
'What do you mean?' gasped Alex.
'I mean that you could have done three laps ofHolyrood Park just
to burn off energy. You didn't need to come down here. You're working
up to telling me something. Let me guess: it's about you and Andy.'
She looked up at him, screwing up her eyes against the watery
winter sun. 'Has he been talking?'
'We did have a chat, but it didn't amount to much. I told him that
Sarah and I wouldn't get involved. So I'm right, then.'
Alex shifted her footing on the shingle on which they stood, and
gazed across the calm water towards the Fidra light. 'Yes, you're
right. I'm moving out this afternoon.'
'Bugger.' He frowned, his mouth tightening. 'What is it about our
family these days, that we can never manage to all be happy at the
same time?'
86
'Look, Pops,' she said, in an attempt at reassurance, 'it's not that
bad. We're not breaking off the engagement; just stopping living
together for a while. It'll do us good in the long run.'
'Maybe it will; and maybe I should even be pleased. I can still be
old-fashioned from time to time; the concept of living together before
marriage is not one I was brought up to believe in. Nonetheless, in my
experience when you take one step back in a relationship, it's very
difficult not to take another; before you know it there's a gap which
can be very difficult to close.'
'We'll be all right,' Alex insisted. 'We just need some breathing
space, that's all.'
'No, my lovely daughter,' he said firmly, 'that's not true. Andy
doesn't need breathing space; you do. So don't go pinning the blame
on him; not in that way anyway. Right now, you're finding this
relationship stifling - okay, maybe that's his fault - but you're the one
who's making all the decisions.'
'Do you think I'm right?'
'That's irrelevant, because I'd support you even if I thought you
were wrong.'
'No it's not. It's important to me. Do you think I'm right?'
'As it happens, I do. Secretly, when you got engaged, then moved
in with Andy, I thought that you were giving away too much of your
life too soon. Now that you've decided to claim at least some of it
back, I can only be pleased - not that I want you to tell Andy that,
mind.'
'Why didn't you say?'
'I said plenty when your relationship began, remember, and caused
mayhem. For a while, I lost my daughter and my best friend. I don't
want that to happen again. Anyway, you're a big girl now; you've got
the right to make your own mistakes. And, hopefully, to learn from
them.'
He smiled, suddenly, his face lighting up. 'Now,' he said, giving her
sweat-slicked pony-tail a quick tug, 'you're going to learn the folly of
buggering up my Saturday morning. We're nowhere near halfway
through this run, so let's get back to it ... and at a decent pace too.
You want to get fit, kid? Okay, just follow me and find out what it
takes.'
87
26
'You want some time off, Andy?'
'You think I need it?'
'I don't know, pal. But if you feel you do, I'll accommodate you.'
Andy Martin smiled across the chief constable's low table. 'With
all that we've got on our plate at the moment, you're offering me
leave? Bob, what you're really doing is asking whether I can keep my
eye on the ball, with Alex moving out and all. Given the example of
Neil Mcllhenney, I'd be no man at all if I couldn't. Anyway, I respect
what she's doing, and our long-term plans haven't changed; she's still
wearing the ring.
'Now, can we get on with our Monday briefing, as usual?'
Skinner nodded. He was in uniform, in preparation for a meeting
of the police board, and shifted uncomfortably in his seat as he sipped
his coffee. 'Okay, let's do that. What do I need to know?'
'The main item is the Weston investigation. The son received a
letter from his mother on Saturday morning. It was posted in
Edinburgh on the day after her death.'
'Was it indeed? Prints?'
'Covered in them: at least five different thumbs, for a start. Some
of them will be Post Office staff, and one is Gaynor's.'
'Are you trying to trace the postmen, to eliminate them?'
Martin shook his head. 'No. Their union hates that; they'd probably
strike if we suggested printing them all. Anyway, it's not necessary;
when we find the person we're after, and his dabs match one on the
envelope, that's fine, it'll be another piece of evidence. If they don't'
'It could help the defence,' Skinner suggested.
'True, but I'm not going to start sweating about it till we catch the
man.'
'Could Mrs Weston have given the letter to anyone else to post for
her? Have we established whether she had any visitors during the
day?'
'As far as we can. Joan Ball, her neighbour, looked in on her in the
morning. Then, in the afternoon, she made a few phone calls to her
office. With hindsight, it's clear she was putting her affairs in order.
88
However there's no evidence that she had any visitors other than Miss
Ball, and the person who helped her die. So it's unlikely that she gave
the letter to someone else to post.'
Martin paused. 'However, all that aside, we've got a new name to
go on. Maggie and Steele found it on her computer diary. A man,
called Deacey.'
'What are they doing to trace him?'
'The usual. Step one: check whether he's known to us. He isn't;
according to our intelligence unit there are no Deaceys - first or
second name - known to the police in Scotland. Step two: look up the
telephone directory. They've done that already, and come up empty.
No "Deacey" listed in Edinburgh, the Lothians, Greater Glasgow, Fife
or Tayside. So this morning they'll check with the Department of
Social Security, the Registrar General, the Passport Office and the
Driving Licence Agency.'
'Is he a serious contender, d'you think?'
'Right now, Bob, he's our only contender.'
'Well, let's just find him and hope. I'd really like to get a clear-up
on this one. Too many unresolved possibilities if we don't; too many
whispers, too many fingers left pointing, at Professor Weston, or at
his son.'
'Fine, but just how much of our resources do we commit to this?'
'As much as is necessary. We cannot be seen to have backed off
from this investigation in any way, whatever our personal feelings
might be.' Skinner paused. 'For what it's worth, my very private belief
is that, given her circumstances, Mrs Weston had every moral right to
do what she did, and if she needed someone to help her, so be it.'
'Would you apply that belief to Olive Mcllhenney?' asked Martin,
solemnly.
'You know about that?'
'Yes. Brian called me on Saturday. He had it from Maggie, via
Mario.'
'Well, God forbid that it should come to that, but if it does, then
yes, I believe that Olive should be able to choose her moment... and
that Neil should be free to be part of it, should he choose. What about
you?'
The Head ofCID took a sip from his cup, and slowly replaced it in
its saucer. 'I had this conversation last week with Mackie,' he began,
'in a roundabout way, but mostly I hid my views behind the law then.
The fact is ...
'Bob, as you know, I was brought up as a Catholic. As I've grown
older, I've come to differ with my Church on a number of issues.
For example, no bloody celibate is going to dictate to me about
contraception or about interpersonal relationships. However the one
thing that's ingrained in me is my belief in the sanctity of life.'
Skinner's eyebrows rose. 'Even after all these years, you surprise
me, Andy,' he said, quietly. 'Especially given the things that you've
had to do in this job. I don't have to remind you of them.'
'How could I forget? That once I had the choice between killing
someone or letting you die. Afterwards, when I had done it, I discussed
it with my confessor and I was absolved. The priest agreed with my
choice. But that wasn't enough for me. I went to confession in four
more churches, and in three of those I was absolved again. The fourth
priest, an Irishman and old by the sound of him, told me that what had
been about to happen was God's will and that I had committed a
mortal sin. He refused me absolution.
'Right there in the box, through the grille, I told him to go and fuck
himself. I haven't been to Church from that day; I suppose I have to
recognise that I've withdrawn from it. And yet its teachings still will
not allow me to accept that life is something that we can switch off as
a matter of course. Look at it this way. If a state will not take the life
of a murderer, how can it sanction the killing of the innocent?'
'I take that point,' Skinner conceded, 'and I'll think hard on it. But
to come back to you. Given your belief, how can you bring yourself to
carry a firearm on duty?'
'Because I accept that there are circumstances when a gun can be
used to preserve life - yours, for example. But I can never be
dispassionate about it, like you and Brian, say.'
The big DCC grunted. 'Huh. I can't speak for Mackie, but there's
nothing dispassionate about me, Andy. When I've had to shoot people
they've bloody deserved it, and I've been positive about it.
'Take this Hawkins man, for example. When he's traced, he'll be
arrested if he doesn't offer resistance. Depending on who ca
tches
him, he might be delivered to the CIA, but somewhere along the line,
someone will put a bullet behind his ear and the South African press
will be told that a well-known local businessman has been killed in a
car crash or whatever. That's the way this one will be played out, make
no mistake. If that troubles your conscience, maybe you'd better have
no more to do with the search for the man. If you'd prefer it I'll take
you out of the chain of command altogether.'
Martin shifted in his seat once more and grunted. 'No, don't do
that. This man's a fucking head-hunter, for God's sake, and he could
be after our Head of Government. My responsibility is to the innocent,
and I'll fulfil it. I've already made that choice, remember, even if that
old Irish bastard did damn me to Hell for it!
'So what's the latest on the Hawkins front?' he asked.
90
Skinner glanced at his watch. 'Mcllhenney should be ready to
report by now. Let's call him in.' He reached across to the console on
his desk and pressed a button. Less than a minute later the side door
of the office opened and the bulky sergeant stepped into the room,
carrying a thick folder. To Martin, he seemed tired and drawn. There
was none of the usual joviality in his eyes; in its place, the chief
superintendent saw a steely determination.
'Sit down, big fella,' said the DCC. 'Want a coffee?'
Mcllhenney laid his folder on the low table. 'No thanks, boss. I've
decided to cut that out. I went to the doctor on Saturday morning and
had myself checked out. The last thing we need right now is for
anything to be wrong with me.'
'There isn't, though?'
'Naw. He just told me to give up coffee and lose a few pounds. I've
to get more exercise, he said, but the fact is I've lost five pounds in the
last week without doing a bloody thing.'
'How's Olive doing?' asked Skinner.
'She's fantastic. She told the kids last night that she had a wee
problem, and she'd be off work for a while, but that it was nothing to
worry about. Incidentally, boss, I talked to her about your offer to
look after Lauren and Spencer next weekend. It's very kind of you and
Sarah, and we'd like to take you up on it.'
'That's good. When does the treatment begin?'
'She goes in on Wednesday afternoon for assessment, then they
begin on Thursday. She gets out about five on Friday.'