Funeral Note

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‘There is no wrong, there is no right; there’s only what happens. As a cop you deal with it, and leave the judgments to others. . to the lawyers, to the jury, and if the verdict goes that way, to the guy on the bench in the wig and the red jacket.’

Paula gave me a long look, from beneath raised eyebrows. ‘Be nice if that was true, wouldn’t it?’ she said, in that long, slow drawl of hers. She slid her long-stemmed goblet across the table. ‘Top me up, McGuire.’

I took the sparkling Highland Spring from the ice bucket and obeyed orders; seven months before (or was it eight by then?) it would have been claret, or maybe, if she’d been feeling particularly Italian, a nice Chianti or a Sangiovese. The glass was to preserve the illusion.

‘It is,’ I insisted as I poured. ‘We are objective.’

‘Come on,’ my beautiful wife laughed. She shook her head, in that deprecating woman’s way. A flash of light, reflected from a building across the water, was picked up by her hair, and made it shimmer. I was still getting used to Paula’s auburn incarnation. She had been almost jet black when she was younger, as I still am. . apart from the odd grey flecks that I regard as signs of distinction. . until some twist in the mother’s side of her genes had turned her silver before her thirtieth birthday.

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