to yet another article on the lines of ‘What are our police doing about the use of guns in our midst?’ It had at least replaced the sniping at the lack of further discoveries about The Mystery Woman. There was little Mayo could say to this and Sheering knew it, but his impotent fury with the paper added to Mayo’s own. This latest case was fizzling out like a damp squib. He didn’t need this, he told himself, grinding his teeth. If anything was needed to make him even more edgy than he already was, it was being told, if not in so many words, to get his finger out.
Back in his own office, he worked off his soreness and frustration
on routine stuff all morning. Delia at least would be pleased with him. At twelve thirty, he decided to skive off, for once, and take advantage of that unprecedented free hour, and to kill two birds with one stone. For a start, it wasn’t often he had the chance to enjoy a proper, uninterrupted midday meal these days; formal working lunches were more likely to be his lot, or sandwiches and coffee snatched at his desk. And for another, it would save him cooking when he got home tonight – he didn’t think he could face the thought of another frozen Cordon Bleu meal.
He’d initially had the notion that Alex’s enforced absence would be an ideal opportunity to take a couple of weeks’ leave for a walking holiday, but the backlash of the Fermanagh case had put paid to that and somehow, the idea of going alone, without Alex, didn’t appeal. Maybe, then, he’d take himself off to a few concerts, or listen in the evenings to the sort of music that was his personal idea of heaven (the sort mostly without tunes, Alex said) but there was a dearth of decent concerts on at the moment, and at home he found his attention wandering from the music he switched on. He had a clock or three that needed tinkering with, but no patience. Moreover, Alex’s weekend break had not turned out to be the unalloyed bliss he had hoped, but had been tetchy and unsatisfactory, for no obvious reason. She was there, but not in spirit, and had left yesterday morning to go back to her course, full of smiles. What did she have to be so cheerful about?
Miraculously, he escaped from the office without being waylaid and took himself across to the Saracen’s Head. Once outside, the sharply cold air acted as a tonic to a brain jaded with the stuffy, recycled air he’d been breathing all morning. Dolly, the flower-seller on the corner of Milford Road, was selling golden mimosa. For a moment he hesitated, thinking of buying some for Alex on the way back, before remembering how fragile and transient it was, that its essence of spring would be over long before the weekend.
He walked on, but still thinking of Alex. He was having to admit that he might have been mistaken in his original doubts about the wisdom of what she was doing, this new career she was set on. No one likes to admit they’ve been wrong, least of all Mayo, but there was no denying the results: a distinct return to the person she’d been before she left the police service. Cheerful,
dynamic, with a sparkle in her eyes that said she was happy once more in her own skin. She’d had a tough time of it one way and another over the past few years but, amazingly to him, what he thought of as the boring routine of the CPS offices seemed to be giving her back the energy and vitality that were essentially hers. The work, learning a new discipline, was keeping her on her toes, she said, sharpening her wits, unlike the undemanding last few years, when she’d worked with her sister in her interior decorating business. Mayo considered that had been very demanding. He wouldn’t have lasted five minutes with Lois French, nor she with him. But then, he wasn’t her sister, thank God. He could only suppose their entirely opposite natures complemented each other.
Lois hadn’t been pleased with Alex’s decision to pull out of the business, not least because it was simply
Back in his own office, he worked off his soreness and frustration
on routine stuff all morning. Delia at least would be pleased with him. At twelve thirty, he decided to skive off, for once, and take advantage of that unprecedented free hour, and to kill two birds with one stone. For a start, it wasn’t often he had the chance to enjoy a proper, uninterrupted midday meal these days; formal working lunches were more likely to be his lot, or sandwiches and coffee snatched at his desk. And for another, it would save him cooking when he got home tonight – he didn’t think he could face the thought of another frozen Cordon Bleu meal.
He’d initially had the notion that Alex’s enforced absence would be an ideal opportunity to take a couple of weeks’ leave for a walking holiday, but the backlash of the Fermanagh case had put paid to that and somehow, the idea of going alone, without Alex, didn’t appeal. Maybe, then, he’d take himself off to a few concerts, or listen in the evenings to the sort of music that was his personal idea of heaven (the sort mostly without tunes, Alex said) but there was a dearth of decent concerts on at the moment, and at home he found his attention wandering from the music he switched on. He had a clock or three that needed tinkering with, but no patience. Moreover, Alex’s weekend break had not turned out to be the unalloyed bliss he had hoped, but had been tetchy and unsatisfactory, for no obvious reason. She was there, but not in spirit, and had left yesterday morning to go back to her course, full of smiles. What did she have to be so cheerful about?
Miraculously, he escaped from the office without being waylaid and took himself across to the Saracen’s Head. Once outside, the sharply cold air acted as a tonic to a brain jaded with the stuffy, recycled air he’d been breathing all morning. Dolly, the flower-seller on the corner of Milford Road, was selling golden mimosa. For a moment he hesitated, thinking of buying some for Alex on the way back, before remembering how fragile and transient it was, that its essence of spring would be over long before the weekend.
He walked on, but still thinking of Alex. He was having to admit that he might have been mistaken in his original doubts about the wisdom of what she was doing, this new career she was set on. No one likes to admit they’ve been wrong, least of all Mayo, but there was no denying the results: a distinct return to the person she’d been before she left the police service. Cheerful,
dynamic, with a sparkle in her eyes that said she was happy once more in her own skin. She’d had a tough time of it one way and another over the past few years but, amazingly to him, what he thought of as the boring routine of the CPS offices seemed to be giving her back the energy and vitality that were essentially hers. The work, learning a new discipline, was keeping her on her toes, she said, sharpening her wits, unlike the undemanding last few years, when she’d worked with her sister in her interior decorating business. Mayo considered that had been very demanding. He wouldn’t have lasted five minutes with Lois French, nor she with him. But then, he wasn’t her sister, thank God. He could only suppose their entirely opposite natures complemented each other.
Lois hadn’t been pleased with Alex’s decision to pull out of the business, not least because it was simply
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