‘It’s good to see you looking so well, Rhona,’ Edward was saying.

‘What do you want, Edward?’ Rhona finished off the wine in her glass.

He made a troubled face, as though they were the best of friends and yet she’d chosen to fall out with him over some unknown trifle.

‘Our son, of course,’ he said.

‘We don’t have a son. As I recall, you wanted him aborted and I gave him up for adoption.’

The smile never faltered.

‘We were young and stupid.’

‘I was certainly stupid having anything to do with you.’

Rhona’s voice had risen and she noted that Richie was looking over at her with a worried expression on his face. She forced herself to stay calm.

‘What is it you want?’ she tried again.

‘I want to get in touch with Liam,’ Edward said.

‘But why?’ Rhona was genuinely perplexed. ‘You’ve never wanted to before. In fact, when you were running for parliament, you asked me – no, warned me – that Liam’s existence should never be revealed.’

‘That was then. Now is now. I want to make contact with him.’

‘How is your own son, Jonathan?’ Rhona changed tack.

‘Oh, you know. Living the life of an art student.’ Edward managed to make it sound as though Jonathan had joined a religious cult.

‘Has he come out as gay yet?’ Rhona said.

Edward’s face became like stone. ‘As I said, Jonathan is fine. I’ll send him your regards. Back to Liam. I understand he’s back in the UK and looking for a job?’

Now that was news to Rhona, so how did Edward know? Rhona tried to remember when she’d last had a communication from Liam. Had he mentioned coming home and getting a job here? Unsure, she simply waited, knowing Edward didn’t require an answer. In fact he never required an answer.

‘I may have an opening for him, but I need his contact details.’

If Edward knew Liam was coming home and wanted work, how was it he didn’t know how to contact him?

At that moment her mobile rang. Rhona made a point of answering it, only then noticing that Richie was missing from his seat.

‘Emergency call,’ Richie’s voice said. ‘If you need to escape, meet me at the front gate.’

‘Of course, DS McNab,’ Rhona said. ‘I’ll be right there.’ Ringing off, she apologized to the table, but sadly she was required at a crime scene.

Ignoring Edward’s furious expression, she rose and made her way swiftly through the tables just as the first course was arriving. Wherever she and Richie went now, she decided, it had to offer food, because she was starving.

25

Janice had refused to phone Professor Pirie to tell him they were bringing in McLaughlin for questioning, so McNab had had to do it himself. He’d finally made the call from the jazz club, after Rhona had left on her date with the blue-eyed pathologist and Chrissy had departed to tell her son a bedtime story.