"Quintin, Jardine - Gallery Whispers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Quintin Jardine)

Bob sat at the kitchen table, nursing his first coffee of the day,
watching his wife as she fed frozen bread into the four-slice toaster.
He grinned at her. 'I never fail to be impressed by the way you can eat
breakfast before you go out to look at a body.'
She turned towards him, returning his smile. 'Ah, but it doesn't
always stay down,' she countered. 'Remember that one in Advocates'
Close, before we were married?'
Skinner shuddered as the vision of that wet November morning
reprinted itself in his mind's eye, for the thousandth time. 'How could
I ever forget it? I was perfectly okay at murder scenes up until then,
but from that moment on I haven't looked at a victim without feeling
queasy.' ''
'Think yourself lucky then. Now you're Deputy Chief Constable
. . . acting Chief, even .. . you don't have to do that any more.'
He knew that her remark was bait, but he rose to it nonetheless.
'Not so. I'll always lead from the front as long as I'm in this job, you
know that. I might be past my sell-by date when it comes to looking
at people who've been burned to a crisp or had their brains blown all
over the walls, but it doesn't mean I'll run away from the duty if I
think that it's required of me.
'It doesn't matter what office I'm in, if I think it'll help the effort or
if I feel that it's expected of me, I'll be there.'
Her eyes narrowed, very slightly. 'What? "It doesn't matter what
office I'm in",' she threw back at him. 'Hey, what happened to all that
stuff about you not wanting to be a Chief Constable? Are you getting
to enjoy sitting in Jimmy's chair?'
He smiled again, this time at her sharpness in leading him onto her

hook. He accepted the slice of buttered toast which she offered him,
and took a bite. 'I'll never enjoy sitting in Jimmy's chair,' he said
finally. 'Precisely because it is his chair. I want to see him make a full
recovery from this heart scare, and come back to work. Then I want
him to stay in post ... health permitting .-.. right up to retirement
age.
'When it is time for him to go, I'll think seriously about my own
ambitions; and my obligations even, to my force and my family. But
just between you and me, over the last couple of weeks, I've been
asking myself how I'd feel about someone else doing the job.'
'And how would you?' Sarah asked.
'Well,' he answered. 'I've been thinking through the likely candidates.
There's not one of them couldn't get both feet into one of Sir
James's shoes, far from filling them both. It would be very difficult
for me to work with anyone else, apart maybe, from Willie Haggerty
in Strathclyde .. . and there isn't a cat's chance of him getting it.'
'So you will go for the job when Jimmy retires?'
'Unless I decide to quit at the same time as him.'
She was rarely surprised by him, not any more, but as she looked at
him astonishment shone in her big hazel eyes. 'You wouldn't do that.
You're wedded to the force.'
He stood up, laughing lightly and took her in his arms. 'Wrong,