What Maggie did know was that Allan Chisolm had inherited something of a poisoned chalice

The doorbell chimed. Maggie started in fright. She still hadn’t recovered from that last occasion, when the squad car arrived at her door. She took a judicious peek down the hallway. A dark-suited figure was visible though the glazed panel. Not a uniform again? Her heart sank. She’d be mortified to have the police at her door a second time. In full view of the neighbours too.

Not to mention Wilma. Maggie could still see the shocked expression on her friend’s face. Ding-dong. It chimed again.

Maggie took another look. It wasn’t a uniform. Definitely. And it wouldn’t be one of Gilruth’s enforcers. Wilma was insistent Maggie had seen the last of them. And nobody would mess with Wilma. Of that Maggie was now quite sure.

Oh, well. What was it her mother used to say? Better be hung for a sheep than a lamb? She tiptoed down the hall. Ever so slowly, she opened the door.

Detective Inspector Allan Chisolm stood on the doorstep. Over his customary dark suit, he wore a gabardine raincoat, the collar turned up against the driving rain.

Small sigh

Maggie could hear a rush of water from somewhere close at hand. She looked up. The gutter was overflowing at the corner of the house, something else she’d have to get seen to. She uttered a small sigh. What next?

“Mrs Laird?” His eyes travelled back and forth between Maggie’s own and settled on the bridge of her nose.

“Yes?” she struggled to hide her surprise.

“DI Chisolm.” He threw her a curt nod. “What do you want?”

“We met…”

“I’d hardly be likely to forget.” The sensation of George’s body lying stiff and cold beneath her own sent an icy shiver down her spine.

“The reason I’m calling is…” The question hung in the air.

“If it’s about…” Maggie started, then abruptly stopped. The rumour mill in Queen Street worked overtime, she knew.

What if Chisolm had got wind of some of the stuff she and Wilma had been up to?

Grim face. “It might be better if we spoke inside.” She eyed the detective. “I’m sure it’s nothing that can’t be said right here.” Bad enough that the bastard had intruded on her last intimate moments with George without invading her home. The inspector looked to the right, then to the left of him. “Mrs Laird, I must insist.”

“If it’s my neighbours you’re worried about…” Allan Chisolm looked down. “No.”

For a few moments the two stood in silence, then, “May I come in?”

“I suppose.” Maggie stood to one side. She didn’t offer to take his coat.

The inspector stepped into the hallway. He was an inch or two taller than George, but Chisolm was carrying less weight than her husband. Maybe he didn’t have a good woman to look after him, Maggie speculated.

There were a few grey flecks in the dark hair, a deadness in the blue eyes. Something of the dark about the man, Maggie couldn’t quite put her finger on what.

Phenomenal

She’d already been filled in on the new DI’s background, what little had filtered down on the grapevine: that Allan Chisolm’s success rate at Strathclyde had been phenomenal, that he’d won many commendations, that he was a hard taskmaster – impatient, demanding, didn’t suffer fools.

But not much was known, apparently, of the man’s private life. What Maggie did know for sure was that Inspector Allan Chisolm had inherited something of a poisoned chalice. She smiled bitterly. She hoped he was up to the job.

The pair stood, awkward, in the narrow hallway. “I’ll get straight to the point. I’ve received information concerning a minor involved in drug dealing in Seaton.”

Well, Maggie thought, there’s a turn-up. So Brian decided to take her seriously after all.

“I understand you have some involvement there.” She brightened. “I work in Seaton, if that’s what you mean.”

“In what capacity, may I ask?”

“As a Pupil Support Assistant at Seaton School.” “You’ll know a lot of the children, then?”

“I work with the pupils who need learning support.” “Only those?”

“On a one-to-one basis, but I come into contact with most of the kids when I’m giving support in the classroom.”

“I see. So you talk to the children on a regular basis?”

“Yes. Though I was off for a few weeks. I’m sure you’ll appreciate I’ve had other things to occupy my attention this past while.”

“May I ask whether you are on particularly close terms with any of these children?”

She felt a flush creep up the back of her neck. “A few.”

“Mrs Laird, it is beholden on me to advise you that we have received a formal complaint from a member of the public.”

“A complaint?” Maggie’s mind raced. “What about?”

“Suspected paedophile activity.”

She had a sudden urge to evacuate her bowels. “But that’s…ridiculous!” she finished, lamely.

“So you haven’t been sitting in your car taking covert photographs of small children?”

“Well, I…” Maggie studied her shoes.

“Can I take it that’s a yes?”

For a moment her eyes flickered, then she turned her head away.

“Mrs Laird, you can’t go around photographing children nowadays, not without parental permission.” The DI’s lips set in a grim line.

“And while we’re at it, skulking around in Seaton like you’ve been doing, you risk getting in the way of a police inquiry. And not just any inquiry – a full-blown investigation.”

Different

He paused for breath. One that was going nowhere fast, he was tempted to add. Allan Chisolm wondered, and not for the first time, whether he’d been wise putting in for the transfer to Aberdeen, for the cultural divide wasn’t confined to Glasgow and Edinburgh, he’d discovered.

North-east folk were a different breed from what he was used to: civil enough to your face, but holding themselves close, not open like people in the west of Scotland.

A bit like that granite the place was awash with: all glitter on the face of it, but just as murky underneath as any other city on the planet. And if ever there was an Aberdonian who typified that dichotomy it was the Laird woman.

“I was only trying to help,” she shot back. “Prevent some of these poor, neglected kids get into even more trouble.”

“Spare me the justification,” he brushed her off. “There’s a Community Police Office in Seaton for precisely that purpose.”

Pompous b ***** d! Why did this man make her feel like a kid out of school?

“We’ll leave that for now.”

More tomorrow.

Cross Purpose (£8.99) is the first in Claire MacLeary’s Harcus & Laird crime trilogy, featuring an unlikely pair of middle aged female private investigators. The second, Burn Out, and the third, Runaway, are available now. All published by Saraband Publishing https:// saraband.net