Maggie

The woman leaned in. ‘I’ll get straight to the point. I think my husband is trying to kill me.’

Wow! Maggie jolted upright. That’s a first!

She struggled to maintain eye contact whilst her mind worked overtime. If their initial telephone conversation was anything to go by, this Mrs Struthers promised to be a profitable new client for the agency. But a threat on her life? That was a whole new ball game.

Maggie re-lived the dressing-down she’d had from DI Chisolm earlier that year when she got herself involved in an active murder investigation. What on earth was she going to do now?

‘Mrs Laird?’

‘Yes?’

‘Did you hear what I said?’

‘Oh, yes.’ She drew a steadying breath. ‘I did.’

Maggie took another squint at Sheena Struthers. Small-boned. Short hair. Good skin. Not much make-up. Pretty in an old-fashioned sort of way. And ages with herself, she reckoned, or thereabouts. In short, the realisation hit home, like Maggie in another life.

Poor woman looked a bag of nerves: eyes staring, fingers picking relentlessly at her cuticles. Almost as fraught as Maggie had been when she’d first picked up the reins of her husband’s private investigation business. Still, the woman would be frightened, wouldn’t she, if someone really was trying to top her?

‘That’s a very serious allegation, Mrs Struthers,’ Maggie continued.

‘Sheena, please.’ The woman opposite pushed her cappuccino to one side.

They’d met in Patisserie Valerie in Union Square. Maggie had passed it often enough but never been inside. In her straitened position, she couldn’t afford to stump up nearly three pounds for a cup of something and the same again for a pastry. But the easy parking suited both her and her prospective client, and the cafe was low-key, more private than Costa Coffee or Starbucks.

‘Sheena.’ Maggie started to smile, then, remembering the subject matter, hastily rearranged her face. ‘On what grounds, might I ask, is this allegation based?’

Lord, would you listen to yourself? Since becoming a PI, Maggie had schooled herself to think like a detective. Now she was beginning to talk like one.

‘Just a feeling, really. It’s hard to explain, but…’

‘It’s this time of year.’ She cut the woman off mid-flow. ‘The run-up to Christmas puts a strain on the most solid of marriages.’ What she wouldn’t give, now, to have a man at her side, strain or no.

‘You’re so wrong.’ Sheena Struthers looked her straight in the eye. ‘But before we go any further…’ She rummaged in what looked, to Maggie, like a designer handbag, drew out a snakeskin-covered notebook and slender silver pen. ‘May I put a few questions to you?’

‘Of course.’ Relief flooded through Maggie’s veins. That would buy her time to devise an exit. She took a judicious sip of her tea.

‘I understand you haven’t been a private investigator for long. Am I right in saying that your husband…?’

Is dead, Maggie finished the sentence in her head. Then, ‘Let me stop you there.’ She put down her cup. This was going nowhere. ‘I’m afraid…’ Frantically, she framed excuses in her head: inexperience, pressure of work, conflict of interest. No matter they weren’t entirely true, they’d do the job.

Sheena Struthers ignored this. ‘I’ve done my homework, Mrs Laird. Looked into other agencies, in Aberdeen and further afield. For one thing they’re much too big. You’ll appreciate that in my situation…’ She cast a furtive glance around the cafe. ‘Discretion is paramount. With companies that size, one can never be sure.’

‘But the police,’ Maggie interjected. ‘Shouldn’t you…?’

‘My dear…’ Keen brown eyes gazed into Maggie’s own. ‘One gets the impression they’re stretched enough, don’t you agree?’

Maggie offered a non-committal, ‘Mmm.’ No way was she going down that road.

‘And besides,’ Mrs Struthers insisted, ‘you must realise that any police involvement could endanger my marriage.’

For the second time that afternoon Maggie was caught on the back foot. Make your mind up, woman: your marriage or your life? ‘Oh, yes,’ she murmured, ‘I see what you mean,’ though she was at a loss to follow this line of reasoning.

‘Nor could I take the matter to a solicitor,’ Sheena Struthers continued. She leaned in close, dropped her voice. ‘My husband is an accountant, you see. Moves in rather a closed circle. And Aberdeen, it’s small enough, still. Word gets around,’ she looked to Maggie for reassurance. ‘Doesn’t it?’

‘It certainly does.’ Maggie buried her nose in her cup. She knew only too well what the woman was alluding to. The police were as much a closed circle as any other professional body. Because of one man’s perjured testimony and another’s breach of interview protocol her detective husband had been forced out of a career to which he had devoted his life.

‘From what I’ve read in the papers, your late husband was an experienced detective.’

Maggie abandoned the tepid tea. ‘That is correct.’

‘So I assume the business has some standing. And you, from what I’ve heard, are a person of some integrity. And operate outwith,’ she raised a questioning eyebrow, ‘what one might loosely call “the establishment”. In short, Mrs Laird, your firm seems the perfect fit.’

Oh, to Hell! Maggie had intended to bring the meeting to a close. Now she’d let this Struthers woman take control.

She straightened in her seat. ‘It’s kind of you to say so, but I really don’t think I’m the right person.’ Her mouth turned down. Wasn’t that how she’d reacted when Wilma Harcus had urged her to take on George’s business? A daft idea, she’d called the proposal from her gallus new neighbour. And it was. But Maggie had yielded in the end, in part as a conduit to clear her mounting debts, but primarily as a means to clearing her husband’s sullied name, a quest for justice that was still ongoing.

‘You will help me, won’t you?’ Sheena reached across the table, clutched at her arm. ‘Please?’

Maggie played for time. ‘Well, I…’ She asked herself why she was still sitting here. Wilma wouldn’t give this woman the time of day.

Sheena Struthers’ eyes brimmed with tears. ‘You’re going to say no. I can tell.’

Here we go! Maggie couldn’t count how often she’d had to harden herself to situations like this. But it had to be done.

‘I’m sorry to disappoint you.’ She assumed an expression of sincere regret. ‘But I’m afraid I must.’