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

Doctor Sarah Grace Skinner. I am wedded to you and no one else, and
from now on I will do what's best for us and not me. For all I might
chunter on to big Neil about being tied to a desk, I have never been as
happy with my life as I am right now. That's because of the rock it's
built on, namely you and the kids.'
'Mcllhenney, eh,' she mused. 'I'll bet you're giving him a hard
time just now. How's he doing? I haven't seen him for a few weeks.'
'I'm not giving him a hard time at all. Mind you, he has been a bit
quiet lately; probably feeling as desk-bound as me. I'll cure that,
though; I've got a job lined up for him.'
'What, out of your office?'
'No. Representing my office. It'll mean guaranteed nine-to-five
working for a while so Olive will like it too.'
'Sounds like a departure for Neil. You'll have him carrying a
briefcase next. What is it?'
'Just something I've cooked up with the other chiefs. It's a national
problem but it's been agreed that we'll co-ordinate it. I'm going to
talk to him and Andy about it today.' He squeezed her bottom, then
turned her towards the door. 'That's all I can tell you about it: it's
cloak and dagger stuff. So now, you'd better take your wee bag and get
off to certify Mackie's stiff.
'If Andy turns up at the scene, tell him I want to see him this
morning; ask him to tie up a time for a meeting with Gerry.'
'I'll do that,' she said, nodding as she spoke. 'Are you sure you're
okay to stay here until the nanny arrives?'
'Yeah, that's fine.'
'Good, because if the guys want a quick postmortem, I might just
go straight on into Edinburgh and do it myself.'
10
4
Even in the dark of the late autumn morning, Sarah reached Oldbams,
finding her way along the twisting country roads which she knew so
well, in only fifteen minutes. Nestling on the edge of a wood a mile
south of the hamlet ofWhitekirk, it was one of a number of previously
abandoned steadings throughout East Lothian which had been rescued
by private developers and returned to use as homes.
In its transformed existence, the occupants were no longer farm
workers; instead they tended to be city dwellers who had developed a
middle-aged hankering for country life.
She could see the blue lights of the ambulance and the police
vehicles ahead other as she steered her Preelander carefully along the
narrow, tree-lined approach way from the A 198. She came to a halt
next to a patrol car, its Day-glo flashes shining in her headlights until
she switched them off.
The death house was at the end of one of three rows of terraced
cottages, built of red stone blocks, with black slate roofs. Lights
shone in all but one of the dwellings, which formed three sides of a
rectangle, around an open green space. The fourth was a long barn,
which had been adapted to provide covered parking. As she glanced
around the small community, faces looked back at her from several