Autographs In The Rain Part 46

'I just laughed it off; I was big, sure, but I wasn't that unfit. I could still chase the bad guys. And, like everyone else, I had this notion that I was immortal, that the two of us were. Then Olive fell ill, and we knew that we weren't.

'I didn't entertain the idea that she would die; right up to the very last second in that wee side ward, I didn't believe that she would. But the mere

thought that she could, that was enough.

'One of my nightmares is that anything might happen to me while those two are still kids, while they still need me. So I do everything I can to make sure it doesn't. I'm thirty pounds lighter than I was back then. I go to the gym, run a bit, and play football with the boss's crowd once a week. I drink very little alcohol any more, and I'm careful about what I eat.

'Plus I have a job that takes me out of the line of fire.'

She looked at him, surprised. 'Then what are you doing with me?'

He scratched his chin. 'That's a good question. I asked it of myself and I asked it of Olive ... I talk to her a lot, you know; all the time, in fact. The answer is that I'm doing what she would want me to do.' He gave her a confessional smile. 'She likes you, you know.'

'I'm honoured,' Louise whispered, sincerely.

'So?' he asked her, suddenly, ending that moment. 'Warren Judd?'

'My last big mistake,' she sa'id. 'And he will be. I thought I knew everything there was to know about men; I thought I was always in control.

I thought that he was safe, but he was anything but.

'I made it clear ... or I thought I had . . . that I wasn't interested in marrying again. I believe I'm jinxed in that department. But Warren started on about it, and he wouldn't let go. I told him to forget it, but he kept bringing it up.

'Finally, we had a big argument and I told him to get out of my house and out of my life. He did . . .' Her voice dropped to a whisper, '. . . but before he did, he beat me up, and he raped me.'

When she was able to look at him again, she saw him as she had never seen him before. His face was dark with anger. 'The little b.a.s.t.a.r.d,' he growled.

She laid a hand on his arm. 'No, Neil, no. It's in the past; let it stay there.

I've dealt with it, and with him. He crawled to get me to do this movie; I made him, believe me.

'G.o.d,' she said suddenly. 'I don't know why I told you that... not that last bit, at any rate. I have never told anyone about it before. Don't ever say anything to Bob, please. He doesn't know the whole story; it scares me to think what he might do.'

'Don't worry,' he a.s.sured her. 'I won't do that. But if Judd ever gives me half an excuse, I'll beat him b.l.o.o.d.y.'

She took his hand and squeezed it. 'Don't waste your anger. I've never had any luck with men. For the last ten years, I've attracted nothing but200.

maggots.' She gave a short bitter laugh. 'When that effete little twerp Elliott Silver made a pa.s.s at me last year, that was it; that was when I decided to give up the species, for good!'V.I.59.'Is this what it's going to be like from now on, Jack?' Mary McGurk complained, looking at her husband as he adjusted the knot of his tie and slipped the narrow end inside the retaining loop. 'Is it?'

'It's my job, love.'

'It's your job to have every weekend ruined?' she said, scornfully. 'It's your job to drop everything and go tearing off south even though we've had this party on the kitchen calendar for the last two months? It's your job to jump every time that man Pringle phones?'

He nodded, feeling his patience run out. 'Yes. It won't always be, but for now it is.'

She grabbed her jacket from the bed and began to put it on. 'Well sod that! I'll beat you to it; I'm going out. You'll just have to stay in with the baby.'

'Fine,' he shouted at her. 'You do that. You just do that, you selfish wee b.i.t.c.h! Go on out and leave me with the kid. You know what I'll do? I'll have a uniformed woman constable here inside ten minutes and I'll be on my way. So yeah, go on, make your f.u.c.king gesture, and slam the door on the way out so the b.l.o.o.d.y neighbours know too.'

She stripped the jacket off again and threw it at him; one of the steel b.u.t.tons caught him just above the eye. He felt sharp pain, and then a warm trace as a thin line of blood began to run down the side of his face.

'Thanks,' he said, coldly, ripping a tissue from the box on the dressing table and pressing it to the small wound.

'Sorry,' his wife whispered. She sat on the bed, her eyes gla.s.sy with tears. 'Jack,' she murmured, 'it's just not fair.'

He sat beside her. 'No love,' he agreed. 'It's not; but don't blame Mr Pringle, and don't blame me. If you want to, take it out on this man Raymond Anders. He's the guy who's in the frame for bas.h.i.+ng that girl's head in on Thursday.

'Now he's been arrested at his sister's house in Leeds, and Pringle and I202.have to go and get him, then bring him up to Gala for questioning.'

'But couldn't someone else go?'

He shook his head, his mouth set tight. 'No. This is a murder investigation; it's down to us to pick this boy up. If you want to understand why, I'll bring home the photographs, and let you see them.'

'No thanks,' she retorted. 'I don't want any of that coming into this house.'

'But Mary, I'm part of that. It's what I do.'

'You don't have to do that. You could ask for a transfer back to uniform, somewhere in Edinburgh, not down in the sticks.'

Jack McGurk sighed. 'Are we back to that again? Love, we can't stay in Edinburgh. This is a case in point. Once we're living down there, things like this won't be nearly as big a ha.s.sle.'

'Of course they will,' she snapped. 'It'll be worse, I don't know anyone down there. I'll have nothing to do down there. I'll be like one of your prisoners. Can you get this through your big thick head? I don't want to go to the Borders, however nice and twee and country b.l.o.o.d.y casual you try and paint it.

'I want to stay here, Jack. I'm an Edinburgh girl, first and foremost.'

He stood up from the bed, checking quickly in the mirrored wardrobe door that the cut above his eye had stopped bleeding. Then he picked up the blazer which, earlier, he had hung over the back of a chair, and slipped it on.

'Funny,' he said, as he reached for the door handle. 'I thought we were a couple, first and foremost.'204.60.'I should be immersing myself in my part, you know,' she told him, with mock severity, as they headed down the A68. 'I should be in the process of turning myself into an Edinburgh criminal lawyer, as my craft demands.

'I should be spending the day talking to Bob's daughter, picking up hints and tips from her, rather than heading off for a day out in the country with aflatfootlikeyou.'

'Is that so?' he drawled. 'Point one, it was your idea to head out of Craiglockhart so that Glenys and Clarence could indulge in whatever it is young couples like them are supposed to indulge in on Sundays. Personally,'

he offered in an aside, 'I usually watch football on telly with my son.

'Point two, brilliant and full of promise as Ms Alexis Skinner may be, she's a corporate lawyer. If you want to splash around or whatever in the realities of the Scottish crime scene, you're much better off with a career polisman like me.'

Cold Sat.u.r.day had continued through the night; there was snow all around as they climbed Sutra Hill, but the road was well gritted and wet, rather than icy.

'So? Tell me about it.'

'Tell me about your lady lawyer,' Neil countered.

'She's a QC for a start. She's approached by a friend, whose husband has been arrested and charged with murder and she agrees to take the case.'

Mcllhenney took a hand from the wheel. 'Hold on a minute. Who wrote the script?'

'Elliott did; in collaboration with a Scottish crime novelist.'

'They've dropped a clanger then . . . unless your lady lawyer's bent. Is she?'

Louise shook her head. 'No. She's a heroine, a straight arrow.'