He stood up straight. ‘Detective Chief Inspector?’ Actually looked as if he was going to salute. ‘Ma’am!’
Wait a minute...
‘Detective Chief Inspector?’ Roberta turned the warrant card around, and lo and behold, the wee loon was right. According to the card she was still a DCI. Before the big demotion. Suppose, sometimes, honesty was more-or-less the best policy. ‘Ah, right, no, it’s an old—’
A booming voice cut across the bar.‘Hoy, Mikey!’
An older man followed it in. Greying, mid-fifties, black-framed glasses. A kilt tight enough to make his belly bulge over the thick leather belt. Like he’d gone to seed a little, but there was still a hint of the man he used to be in the way he moved and held himself. Someone powerful. Hadn’t he been on the top table? Yeah: father-of-the-groom, wasn’t it?
The new bloke slapped PC Mikey on the back. ‘You crushing the grapes for that wine yourself, or what? Taking forever.’
This time the PC’s smile was genuine. ‘Sarge, this is DCI Steel, she’s like some sort of Sherlock Holmes genius!’
The newcomer gave her a once-over. ‘You’re in the job?’
‘Oh aye.’
‘Sergeant Sandy Moore.’ He stuck out his hand for shaking, a grin splitting his face. ‘This calls for a celebration! Mikey, you take them drinks back to the table and I’ll keep our senior officer here company. If that’s all right, ma’am?’
She backed off a pace, curling her lip. ‘You’re no’ aTory, are you?’
The grin got wider. ‘Oh I can see we’re going to get on fine!’
You know, Sergeant Sandy Moore was actually OK. For a man. He and Roberta took up positions at the end of the bar, like police-issue gargoyles. Obviously, in Roberta’s case, it wasa sexy gargoyle, but Sandy fit the bill to a tee. He had a sort of granity cragginess to him. And not just the lines in his face. Like he’d been carved out of sturdy rock for the purpose of locking up wrong ’uns.
Mind you, he was getting kinda pickled.
Couldn’t hold his drink as well as she could.
That was men for you.
Roberta’s stool was a bit shoogly, so that’s why she was wobbling a bit. Nothing to do with the eight or nine or twelve large whiskies they’d had.
Sandy took off his tie and rolled up his sleeves, revealing a thistle tattoo with ‘THEY’LLNEVERTAKEOURFREEDOM!’ wrapped around it, as they looked out through the open doorway to the ballroom.
The bride and groom were on display, snog-waltzing their way around the dance floor to a string-quartet version of a Simply Red song. Which just went to show that no amount of money could buy good taste.
Sandy gestured at the groom with his glass. ‘Course I wanted the boy to go into policing, but they never listen, do they? Went into local government instead.’
Roberta shook her head. ‘Terrible shame.’
‘I mean, what’s wrong with being a policeman... Officer I mean. No offence, ma’am.’
‘They don’t know they’re born.’
‘Now he tells me he’s been selected for Aberdeen South – going to be their next Conservative MP if they can beat the SNP.’
‘Tragedy.’
Sandy sighed and took a sip of Glen Garioch. ‘Don’t get me wrong, he’s my son and I love him – well, you’ve got to, don’t you? – but aTory...?’ He shook his head. ‘Do you know they met at the Conservative Party conference? How do you live that down?’
‘My heartfelt sympathies.’ She patted him on the back. ‘You know what’ll help? More whisky!’
PC... McKinnon? Think it was McKinnon. Unless it was Mackenzie? No, definitely McKinnon. Anyway, whoever he was, the lad had a nasty habit of going out of focus from time to time, which, let’s face it, was just a bit rude.
But he, Sandy, and Roberta all had a Sambuca lined up in front of them, each one topped with flickering purple-and-blue flames. So, she’d overlook it this time.
Roberta slapped a hand down on the bar. ‘A toast!’
