Page 196 of Playing By Ear

“You can always come and work for me,” Victor Coyle said with a gloating snicker. “If you can lower yourself to do it.”

Jamie turned to Belinda, whose face wore a thousand overlapping emotions. “We did it,” he said in a low voice so Stuart couldn’t hear over the rising din. “We got through to Dad.”

“You got through to him.” She gripped his arm. “You should probably bolt before everyone figures that out. I’ll phone you later.”

As recriminations flew across the chapel like stones from trebuchets, Jamie quietly slipped out the back of the church.

Blinking back tears, he made it almost to the corner when Norma called his name.

Of course he stopped. He’d never disobey an auntie.

“Sorry,” he told her as she caught up to him, her sensible black heels clacking on the pavement. “I didn’t want to be around when the punches started flying.”

“Just one thing.” She slipped a hand into her suit pocket and pulled out a shiny gold object. “He wanted you to have this.”

Norma placed Martin’s signet ring, still on its chain, in Jamie’s hand, then closed his fingers over it.

“What am I…” Jamie wiped his cheeks, though the wind had already dried them.

“Do what you want with it, lad. Wear it, hide it, chuck it in the Clyde.” A single dark curl blew into her eyes, and she brushed it back. “It’s yours now.”

Jamie gave her a silent embrace, then turned again for the bus stop. The walk would help him think.

The new arrangement Martin had left behind would let Jamie stay part of the family. He’d keep most of them at arm’s length, of course, as nothing could undo their crimes. But arm’s length at least kept them within reach. There’d be no more goodbyes.

Jamie also wouldn’t keep the homes and the car, which had been bought with dirty money. He’d sell them and use the proceeds to…what, exactly? How could he begin to make things right?

As he waited at the bus stop, he examined the small abandoned community hall across the street, the one that had sheltered him after his mum’s accident. Scattered chairs were visible through the dusty glass. Many were tipped over, legs pointed up like those of dead bugs.

He examined the building’s facade. It appeared in good shape, every brick in place and unchipped. Only the sign looked disreputable, spelling PROVANPARK OMM NITY CE RE, the C, U, N, and T gone missing.

What would it take to bring a place like this back to a state of grace? A few hundred thousand quid—or however much he could sell two houses and a BMW for? Surely not that amount alone, but perhaps a donation that size could attract investment from other sources. A resurrected community hub wouldn’t bring back the lives his family’s crimes had ended, but for those it helped…well, it would matter to them.

One question still gnawed at him, and he had a prime suspect in mind.

He phoned Perry, who answered immediately.

“Hi! How did it go?”

“Well enough,” Jamie said. “I’m dying to know: Did you tell Stuart about Operation Respectability?”

“Sorry?”

“Belinda’s plans to take the firm legit. Did I forget to mention it was a secret?”

There was a pause, long enough that Jamie looked at the screen to check they were still connected.

Then Perry said, “Oh, dear.”

Jamie threw back his head and laughed, long and hard, into the deep blue sky.

“Martin MacKray was larger than life,” said the man at the cathedral lectern. “I think we all expected him to be larger than death.”

The funeral congregation chuckled. Perry couldn’t decide whether the play on words was pitiful or profound. Perhaps a bit of both.

Dissecting the lengthy eulogies’ literary quality helped pass the time. By the middle of the fourth tribute, Perry wished an awards show–style orchestra would play the speakers off.

Finally it was Jamie’s turn. With a last squeeze of Perry’s hand, he rose and went up into the sanctuary. There was a low, wooden dong as he picked up Wendy, the sound echoing in the cavernous but crowded cathedral.