The Ardmore Inheritance, Rob Wyllie [best novels for students TXT] 📗

At least the awkwardness between them, the result of that horrible occasion several months ago when she'd had to turn down his invitation to dinner, seemed to have softened noticeably in recent weeks, and now she entertained hopes that one of these Thursdays he'd ask her again. Or maybe if he didn't, she might ask him instead.

'Do you know the Loch More area then?' she asked him.

'Nah, I don't but he does,' he said, nodding in the direction of his brother who was approaching with the drinks. 'And listening to him go on about it, I don't think he likes the place much.'

'I gathered that.'

'What did you gather?' Jimmy asked as he laid their drinks on the table.

'Nothing mate, nothing,' Frank said unconvincingly.

'I was just telling Frank about the Macallan case,' Maggie said, 'and how complicated it is.'

'Aye, it sounds messy right enough. I've seen these lassies on You Tube by the way. Pretty girls, the pair of them.'

'What, Frank Stewart's been on You Tube?' Jimmy said, giving a laugh. 'What's the world coming to. You'll be sending emails next.'

'I was watching some old Scottish football clips,' he said, returning his brother a friendly one-finger salute. 'Ally's tartan army from way back in the seventies, that magic game against Holland. The Macallan girls came on before it, advertising some wee electric Toyota.'

'Yeah that's what they do,' Maggie said. 'They call them brand influencers, or brand ambassadors, I'm not sure what the difference is. But it seems to make them a lot of money whatever it is.'

'Aye, but it doesn't seem to have stopped them getting in to a punch-up over the Ardmore estate, does it?' Jimmy said. 'You'd have thought they already had plenty of money.'

Maggie was glad to see him something more like his old self. Now she wasn't sure whether to raise the question that had been intriguing her, but finally decided that it might be easier in this more convivial setting, and with Frank present to lighten the mood, as he invariably did.

'I hoped you don't mind me asking Jimmy,' she said uncertainly, 'but do you know the twins?'

He shrugged. 'Well I wouldn't say I know them exactly. I only met them once, at a do up in Lochmorehead a few years ago. It was a weekend when I had a seventy-two hour leave from Helmand I think. It was Flora's dad's sixtieth birthday bash and they were there. As I told you, they were at school together, my Flora and the twins. There was only about half a dozen girls in the wee village school and they were all pretty close as you can imagine. And there was that other girl, Morag Robertson, the woman who was murdered by her husband. She was there too and I met her just to say hello to. It was just a couple of months later that she was killed.'

Frank shot his brother a look of astonishment.

'Bloody hell, did you say Morag Robertson? This is just bloody ridiculous, so it is.'

'What do you mean?' Maggie asked, perplexed.

'Look, I can't really tell you too much right now,' Frank said. 'It's just something that's come into the department in the last day or two. I don't know if there's any connection to what you guys are working on, but it would be nuts if there was, let's just say that.'

'And you're not going to tell us anything else?' Jimmy asked, smiling. 'Us, your bestest mates in the whole wide world?'

This is more like it, Maggie thought, relieved. It seemed as if his sense of humour hadn't completely deserted him.

'Sorry, can't,' Frank said with an apologetic expression. 'It's not that I don't want to, honestly. It's just that I've not even opened the bloody file yet, let alone looked at it in any detail. And not just that, I've still not come up with a name.'

Maggie smiled to herself. She'd come to learn of the importance Frank gave to christening his investigations, and not with just any old name, it had to be the right one. Operation Shark, the Leonardo Murders, the Aphrodite Suicides. They'd all been huge cases that had started with nothing more than a snappy sobriquet. But once it had a name it seemed to galvanise him, the matter rapidly snowballing until he felt he was able to take it to his boss DCI Jill Smart, and ask for that official seal of approval that came with the allocation of a case number.

'Anyway, enough of all that, we're all here to have a bit of a laugh, are we not? So here's something that'll amuse you and I guarantee it,' he said, wearing a wicked expression. 'Obviously I'm not supposed to tell anyone, but this is an absolute cracker. Something else me and wee Eleanor have been working on. I can't name any names mind you, and you'll soon understand why that is, believe you me.'

Maggie gave him a fond smile. He was a good person, Frank Stewart, and he would have been only too aware how talking about his estranged wife caused his brother pain. So it was all credit to him for introducing a change of subject.

'What, handcuffs?' she laughed after she'd heard the tale. 'And do you think they were official police issue?'

'Oh aye, they were that alright,' Frank said, 'def-in-itely. Even the top brass like her get issued with a pair. Hers were probably gold-plated too.'

'What about the other woman?' Jimmy asked. 'Is she a cop as well? Maybe the other pair of cuffs belonged to her?’

'Can't tell,' Frank said sardonically. 'We can only see her arse in the photo.'

'So how come it's landed with you?' Maggie asked, still smirking at the image Frank had painted in her mind. An image which, much to her consternation, left her moderately aroused too.

'Good question. It turns out our reputation goes before us and we're now attracting stinky manure from every force in the land.' His manner was matter-of-fact,