“Spenser was sharp as one of those pins they hide in the tails of new shirts

Spenser looked up. “Can I offer you a lift?” McLean looked up the empty road, then back the way he had come. Half an hour of concentrated walking had failed to throw off his guilt and selfpity. Or his frustration. “I wasn’t really going anywhere.” “Then perhaps you’d join me for coffee. It’s not far.” Why the hell not? He wasn’t exactly doing anything else. McLean climbed into the car, nodding at the huge hulk of a driver squashed in behind the wheel, and sank into the soft leather armchair next to Spenser.

Nothing as sordid as a bench seat in the back of this car. They moved off with barely a whisper from the engine, no noise at all from the street outside. How the other half live.

“Nice car.” It was all McLean could think of to say. “I can’t drive any more, so I favour comfort over power.” Spenser nodded at the back of the chauffeur’s shaven head.

“I dare say Jethro takes her out and canes her from time to time.”

Viewed in the mirror, McLean saw the chauffeur’s mouth twitch at the edge in the most minimal of smiles.

No glass screen for privacy, so Spenser obviously trusted his man.

“The last time I saw your grandmother she was driving about in that dreadful Italian thing. What was it?”

“The Alfa Romeo?”

Unused

McLean hadn’t thought about it for a long time. Chances were it was still laid up at the back of the garage, unused since his gran had finally decided she was too old and blind to drive any more.

She’d never sell it and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been to look.

“That was my father’s car. Gran spent a fortune keeping it going. New engine, resprays, the number of body panels that got replaced down the years, it was a bit like George Washington’s axe.”

“Ah yes, the famous McLean thrift. She was a canny woman, was Esther. Ah, here we are.”

The Bentley pulled through a stone gateway and up a short drive to one of those surprisingly large mansions that lurk in unexpected corners of Edinburgh.

It was surrounded by land a property developer would kill for; at least enough to build 20 executive homes and all given over to mature trees, beautifully tended gardens.

The house itself was Edwardian, large but wellproportioned, and set high enough up to have stunning views across the city, taking in the castle, Arthur’s Seat and the sea of spires and rooftops between them.

Jethro was unbelted, out of his seat and opening Spenser’s door before McLean had even registered they had stopped.

The old man climbed out with an agility that was at odds with his appearance.

No creaking joints and difficulty straightening out here.

McLean felt almost jealous as he hauled himself out, feet crunching on deep gravel, and popped a few vertebrae in his own spine.

“Come,” Spenser said. “It’s a bit more sheltered round the back.”

They walked around the house, Spenser pointing out interesting features as they went. At the back, a large orangery grew out from the house, surrounded by a raised patio that had to have been a 1970s addition.

The crazy paving was immaculately maintained, however naff it might appear, and in the middle of it a table and chairs awaited.

All that was missing was a swimming pool, but no, there it was, nestling between a tennis court and a croquet lawn of perfect flatness.

Effort

A lot of effort had gone into maintaining this place, but then Spenser wasn’t short of a bob or two.

A taciturn butler brought them coffee in silence. McLean watched it being poured, declined milk and sugar, sipped the finest brew he’d tasted in a very long time, breathed in the delicious aroma of perfectly roasted Arabica beans. How the other half live.

“You said you knew my grandmother when she was at university. No offence meant, but that must have been a while back.”

“Nineteen thirty-eight, I think it was.” Spenser scrunched up his face as if trying to recall, the creases of his scars turning livid red and yellowy white.

“Could have been thirty-seven. The memory goes, after a while.”

McLean very much doubted that. Spenser was sharp as one of those pins they hide in the tails of new shirts.

“Did she... ? Were you... ?” Why was it so hard to ask the question?

“An item, as I believe you youngsters have it?” Spenser frowned, and a whole new set of shapes fought across his ruined flesh.

“If only. We were good friends. Close. But Esther wasn’t one for playing around, and she had to work twice as hard as the rest of us.”

“Oh? I always thought she was bright.”

“She was. Quite the most brilliant mind I’ve ever encountered. Razor-sharp, could learn anything easily. But she had one huge handicap: she was a woman.”

“They had women doctors in the thirties.”

“Oh yes. A few intrepid souls. But it wasn’t easy getting there.

“It wasn’t enough to be as good as the men, you had to be better.

“Esther, well, she relished that kind of challenge, but it did make her quite single-minded. I’m afraid that for all my charms, I just couldn’t compete.”

“It must have been very galling then, when my grandfather came along.”

Shrugged

“Bill?” Spenser shrugged. “He was always there. But he was a med student too, so he got to spend more time with Esther than the rest of us.”

“Rest of us?”

“Are you interrogating me, inspector?” Spenser smiled. “Or may I call you Tony?”

“Of course. Sorry. For both. I should have said. And it’s a habit, I’m afraid. All part of being a detective.” “That surprised me, when I heard.” Spenser drained his coffee and put the cup down on the table.

“Me being a detective? Why?”

“It’s an odd choice. I mean, your grandmother was a doctor, Bill too. Your dad was a lawyer.

“Would’ve been a good one if he’d had the chance. Why did you decide to join the police?”

“Well, I never had the brains to be a doctor for one thing.”

McLean could picture his grandmother’s resigned disappointment each time he came home with yet more poor results in his science subjects.

“As to being a lawyer, it never really occurred to me. My father wasn’t exactly a great influence on my life.”