'When his dad died, he left a lot of debts,' Alison continued, 'and Simon really had to take the first job he could to bail things out.'

323.

'He was very dedicated, then.'

'To his mother, yes. That was one of the few psychological weapons I was ever able to use to get the upper hand: he hated the thought of being in her bad books, so I'd threaten to tell her when he was being particularly loathsome.'

'You clipe.'

'I'm not talking about him leaving the toilet seat up, here.'

'I can imagine.'

'Can you?' Her tone was suddenly challenging, indignant. Don't presume to understand, she was saying.

'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-'

'No, I'm sorry. The thing is, I've never really spoken to anybody about a lot of these things. Not to anyone who would understand. I barely know you, but you probably know better than anybody what I'm talking about. Other people, I'd start telling them things but they'd end up cajoling me into defending him, even friends of mine who I know hated Simon. They didn't want to be disrespectful of the dead, I suppose, and certainly didn't want to be encouraging the bereaved to start pissing on his grave.'

Alison gave a hollow laugh. 'Christ, I'm saying bereaved because there's no courtesy term for the state I was left in. Is there such a thing as a common-law widow?'

'To be honest, I was surprised to learn Simon had settled down for so long.'

'I think laziness was as big a factor in that as anything else. It would have been too much bother to move out. Besides, Simon knew he could have his cake and eat it with me. I provided all the comforts and conveniences of home, but without the monogamy trade-off. I don't know whether he thought I was too stupid to suss or whether he knew I'd always be daft enough to forgive him, but he got 324.

around, let me tell you. It tended to be when he was feeling sorry for himself, like he was owed a casual shag as compensation for whatever he believed he was missing out on in life.'

'Sounds like the early onset of midlife crisis. I've had a fair dose of it myself since the wee one was born. Hasn't manifested itself the same way, right enough. I don't have the energy.'

'You're married, aren't you?'

'Aye. Kate, my wife's name is.' Ray feared he would fill up at the mere mention.

'Simon would never have married me. Not that it seemed a big loss by the end, but, well, there was a time when I thought... Stupid. I thought I could mellow him, or maybe just that time would if I hung on long enough. Eventually I realised Simon wasn't going to marry anybody. Marriage is for squares, daddy-o. We lived together all those years, but it was mainly out of habit. There was no trace of commitment, and I was either too blind or too desperate to see that. We were renting this place for more than three years until Simon died. Actually buying somewhere would have been a surrender, you know?'

'You've bought it now?'

'Yeah. The owners were oil people, uprooted to the Middle East. They'd told us the place was theoretically up for sale, but there was a price slump, so they were happy to have the rent cover the mortgage until things picked up. I bought it with compensation money. There was a fund; I think the airline and the Norwegian government were the main donors.'

'And Simon didn't have a hefty life insurance policy all paid up?'

Alison laughed. 'Yeah, that would have been him all the 325.

way. Actually, maybe he did, and there's a baffled insurance agent trying to track down a beneficiary called Morag.' She pronounced it with scorn, looking Ray in the eye to check whether he understood.

'Morag, was it? I was going to ask. I was Larry.'

'No point in asking . . .'

'None at all.'

She shook her head, both of them laughing. They were referring to Simon's initially irritating but ultimately rather disturbing habit of referring to people by names he had given them, instead of their own. They weren't nicknames, because nicknames had to have some kind of frame of reference, usually shared among a social group. Some of Ross's pals, for instance, called him Sneckie, due to his hometown being Inverness; while Div used to call Ray Apollo because he was always calling Houston. Simon's names had no such derivation. He just one day started calling Ray Larry and Ross Hamish. He neglected to rename Div, which was an early indication that he had been the first among them to achieve non-person status.

Ray tried steadfastly to ignore it and to refuse to respond, but Simon was dedicatedly persistent, and utterly deaf to protest, as though he couldn't see what Ray's (or indeed Larry's) problem was. He would even introduce Ray as Larry in company, and when challenged, offered no explanation other than 'you're just Larry - can't you see?'

'He thinks he's fuckin' Jesus, noo,' was Div's take on it. 'Changin' folk's names. "Simon, I will call you Peter."'

Ray's retrospective interpretation was that it was his way of defining people entirely on his own terms, in subservient relation to himself. It was as though Simon didn't see others as autonomous entities, but mere functionaries who existed only in the context in which he regarded them.

326.

'Did you guys have a nickname for him?' Alison asked.

'A few, yeah,' Ray replied, offering a conspiratorial grin. 'Mostly of Div's suggestion. The one that stuck, though, was the one he actually quite liked: the Dark Man. It came from Darcourt, obviously, and he revelled in that mysterious, brooding edge it suggested, but for the rest of us it was more a reference to his general state of mind. He didn't tend to have a song in his heart and a skip in his step, you know?'

'Only too well. And you saw him in his carefree youthful years, believe me. After his mother died ...' Alison sighed. 'It was like living with a one-man Zeitgeist.'

'When was that?'

'Nearly five years now. Couple of years before Simon. Pancreatic cancer, poor thing.'

'He must have been devastated.'

'He was. He was with her right at the end, and . . .'

'What?'

'I don't know. There was something, definitely something he wouldn't talk about. He wasn't so much depressed as consumed with this black, black simmering rage.'

'So would I be if I'd lost both parents.'

'Oh no, absolutely. But there was something more, I was sure. And whatever it was, it was so preoccupying, he hardly talked about his mother until after it had lifted.'

'God. How long did that take?'

'Couple of months. When it did pass, it was sudden, like he'd just snapped out of it. I suspected it was because he'd started an affair. He went away on business for a few days and came back with a smile on his face. There were a lot of business trips after that, usually at weekends, which I thought was a dead giveaway. Simon giving up his weekends for the betterment of Sintek Energy just didn't compute. Mind you, what also didn't compute was that he 327.

was horny as a goat whenever he returned from one of these jaunts. Not that I was often up for entertaining him, but the cheating partner traditionally doesn't want anything to do with her indoors, does he?'

'So I'm led to believe.'

'That's why I could never be sure. Plus, an affair wasn't exactly Simon's style. Affairs take commitment, especially given the logistics. I don't know, I gave up trying to figure him out a long time ago. I mean, the last couple of weeks before he died, he seemed really kind of energised, as opposed to Mr Existential Gloom, and I thought we might be turning a corner. But there's nothing to say he wouldn't have been back to his cornered-wolverine persona by the end of the month.'

'Did you see anyone at the memorial service that looked a likely candidate?'

'For a secret lover? I don't remember seeing anyone looking particularly distraught at his loss, including myself. If it wasn't for all the official hoo-ha, I fear it might have been a sorry wee affair. There were a lot of people from Sintek, and my friends there to offer me moral support, but it wasn't wall-to-wall with folk offering heartfelt testimonials. I was about the nearest thing left to a next of kin, apart from some distant relatives on his dad's side, in France. That's why the service was up here in Aberdeen.'

'Stuck in Aberdeen forever. That wouldn't have pleased him much.'

'He'd be spinning in his grave if it wasn't that . . . well, he isn't in his grave. The service and the headstone were just ceremonial. Simon's body wasn't recovered from the crash.'

Ray felt something lurch as she said this. His common sense was telling his imagination to behave, but as his common sense wasn't exactly having a blinder this week, 328.his imagination was telling it to fuck off. He hoped his reaction wasn't obvious, and pretended to be distracted by the TV in order to evade inquiry. It was on to the Scottish news by now, footage of a picket line giving way to the newsreader back in the studio.

'What do you tell the wee yin about him?' Ray asked, trying to get her talking again while he calmed the whirrings in his brain.

'He's too young to ask much. He knows he doesn't have a daddy like the other kids, but he's not really curious. Yet. I suspect Simon's reputation will have to be rehabilitated when that happens.'

'Quite right. He should count his blessings. Mine will be able to see for himself what a shambles his old man is. Still, I suppose I can always tell him about my wee place in the great rock'n'roll-' Another glance at the TV sharply truncated Ray's musings. The screen showed a reporter standing outside Burnbrae Academy. The sound was off, so Alison wasn't going to hear his name mentioned, but Ray guessed his own face would be staring back at him any second.

'Eh, sorry, do you mind if I put the TV off? I keep looking at it and I feel very rude.'

'No bother,' Alison said. She patted around herself on the settee. 'Sorry, I've no idea where Connor's put the remote.'

Ray surveyed the floor, the carpet barely visible under the spread of discarded toys. On screen, the report cut to a police press conference at which two pairs of distraught parents sat behind an array of microphones and tape recorders.

Ray stood up to switch it off manually, but when he pressed the button, it merely sank into the set.

329.

'That's why I need the remote. Connor's knackered the Off switch. He likes seeing the wee light change from red to green, so he pressed it on and off until it broke.'

Photographs of the two boys filled the screen, the same ones as had appeared in the paper. His would be next, any second. He looked balefully again at the pile of assorted plastic on the floor, before being saved literally by the bell.

'That'll be Connor back, or maybe Lindsey wants a word. Excuse me a second.'

Alison turned her back to walk out of the door just as Ray's face filled the screen. It was the same crappy shot as in the paper, but sitting in the same room, it would have been difficult for Alison not to notice a resemblance. The bulletin returned to the school, where the reporter gave his soundless, straight-to-camera summing up.

After that, it was back to the studio and over to the sports desk. Ray exhaled at length and flopped back in his seat as he heard Alison in muffled conversation at the front door. It was getting on for time to make his excuses, though the thought that he didn't know where he would be going next made the settee all the more comfortable. The downside was that, while Alison had been content to entertain him as a uniquely qualified confessor, she was overdue to start asking some questions of her own.

He heard two lots of footsteps. A visit from the neighbour would make a good moment to leave. Ought not to intrude, best leave you ladies to it. That sort of thing.

The door opened, Alison leading a petite and very serious-looking Asian woman into the room.

'Mr Ash,' she said. 'Thought I'd find you here. Angelique de Xavia. We spoke on the phone this morning. I think it's time we had a wee chat about that chap at the airport.'

330.target acquired.Angelique hadn't believed in any kind of deity since she saw Clash of the Titans at a kids' matinee and made a revelatory deduction about the comparative value of one load of hoary old Bronze Age myths over another. However, she sure knew what the God-botherers meant when they said He giveth and He taketh away.

She was standing in a corridor outside the interview suite at Grampian Police HQ, her mobile still warm in her hand from her conversations with McIntosh and then the Chief, Murray. It was good news, she knew. Great news. Vindication, validation and relief, all of which should have been as welcome as they were satisfying. So why did she feel like throwing the phone against the wall and then smashing every window in the building?

He giveth: thanks to her persistence, hard work, deduction and a spot of sheer ingenuity, it now sounded very much like they had the Black Spirit by the balls.

He taketh away: after all of the above, it still wouldn't be her hand that got to do the squeezing.

While she had been driving north to Aberdeen, they had found the derelict farmhouse and gone in with full ARU back-up, by which time not only was the show over, but the circus had packed up and left town. There was still plenty of evidence of what had gone on there, though. They discovered the chair Ash had been tied to, complete with piss-puddle beneath, as well as the kitchen pantry 331.

and his subterranean escape route. Outside there were tyre tracks from a number of vehicles, plus sufficient food refuse to indicate that the place had been occupied for a few days; either that or it was the site of a very large picnic lunch. Ash's black Polo was found less than a mile from the site, burnt out to erase any forensic traces. The car he had escaped in turned out to have been stolen more than a month ago, but had been decked out with fake plates. Boasting a typical Black Spirit flourish, the registration borne by the fakes was traced to a car once belonging to Doctor Harold Shipman, the current holder of a British record Simon Darcourt presumably had his sights on.

The terrorists' evacuation had happened fast, presumably very shortly after discovering that their prisoner had absconded and their location was therefore compromised. They had cut their losses and split in a hurry; so much of a hurry, in fact, that they forgot to pick up all of their goods and chattels, and that was going to be their undoing.

'They've dropped the ball, bigtime,' was how the Chief put it, fond as he was of imported American cliches. "They left some photocopies in a drawer under the kitchen table. Detailed schematics. We know what he's going to hit, and we'll be ready for the bastard this time. Got to hand it to him, though, he's got some balls.'

'Why, what's the target?'

She almost had to sit down when he told her.

'The Stadium of Light.'

'Isn't that in Lisbon?' Angelique asked. She knew fine where it was, but she needed a moment to stop her head spinning. It didn't sound like Maclaren and Wallace would be getting any whisky.

'Sunderland, woman.'

332.

'Begging the question of what they were doing around Crieff?'

'Lying low, I'd say. If you're planning something like this, better to be hanging out a few hours' drive away from the police force covering your intended target, wouldn't you agree?'

'Planning something like what?'

'I shudder to think,' Murray said, by way of confessing ignorance. 'But the where and the when are in no doubt.'

Angelique swallowed. 'Is there a match tomorrow?' she asked, knowing with a low dread that the answer would be in the affirmative.

'An international, no less. Sold out. It's a friendly: England versus Denmark. They're playing all over the shop these days while Wembley gets rebuilt. And one of the local MPs will, of course, be in attendance, the stadium being close to his constituency.'

'One of ... The Prime Minister.'

'Of Great Britain, on Sonzolan independence day. Kick- off at three.'

'Christ,' she breathed, the enormity starting to truly hit home. Never mind the PM, he was just one guy; but a football stadium full of tens of thousands of people was as close to the ultimate terrorist nightmare scenario as you were likely to get, nuclear weapons aside.

'It's Black Spirit style and Black Spirit scale, all right,' she agreed. 'But will he hit it now, considering . . .?'

'We've still done our job if he doesn't. Chances are they'll remember about those photocopies at some point, but they might not, or they might remember too late. They might just risk it, because they don't know for sure whether we've found the plans or even the farmhouse. Whatever happens, our people will be ready. Low-profile, but ready. And 333.

thanks to you, they'll all finally have a picture of the man they're looking for.'

They? Our people? What happened to us? We the people?'

'Sorry, Angelique. Lexington's come in over the top. You know how it is. This is huge, big as it gets, and he's got jurisdiction. It's between London and the Geordies now.'

'Mackems,' she corrected, hearing Millburn's voice in her head.

'What?'

'They're not Geordies, they're Mackems. And none of them did a fucking thing to track this bastard down, but they're just going to waltz in and take the collar?'

'We're all on the same team, Angelique. Besides, you're up in sheep land and it's after dark already.'