Page 20 of Fixing a Broken Heart at the Highland Repair Shop

‘There’s about five-hundred-thousand-odd-folk to police there. You’re no’ kidding; it’s very different. Not that they let me do much policing here in Cairn Dhu, mind.’

‘What do you mean?’ Ally wondered if it had anything to do with that snotty officer from yesterday, the one who’d been rude about Jamie at the station, telling her she was welcome to take him since he wasn’t doing anything useful anyway. She remembered the other officer smirking too.

She didn’t know what they had to smirk about.

They were the Mason brothers: one from the year below her at school, the other from the year above; and both as daft and acned as the other, back in the day.

If they thought they were any better at their jobs than Jamie, they’d better have another look at themselves.

Jamie hesitated once more, before folding like he’d held this in for too long. ‘I don’t like to complain, not when I’m an infiltrator at the station.’

‘Infiltrator? You mean volunteer? There to help out? Lighten the load?’

‘ Pfft ! You need to tell that to some of the team. One of them said I was a hobby bobby. It’s OK, I’m not bothered, it’s just frustrating.’

Ally watched him, fighting the urge to reach for his hand where it rested on his knee.

‘Sometimes I feel a bit… undervalued,’ he went on.

‘I mean, Chief Inspector Edwyn’s all right, when he’s around.

He’s my supervisor, the one who’ll write my recommendation when I apply to be a full officer.

He teaches me stuff, shows me how the systems work, that sort of thing.

He’s decent like that. But some of the team don’t want to make use of me. ’

‘But why?’

‘It’s hard to explain, but being a Special, some Regulars can find it hard to trust someone they might only see coming in to volunteer two or three times a week, depending on shift patterns, and they’re not all going to welcome everyone with open arms, especially an outsider from a Lowlands constabulary.

I get it. They can’t trust me fully. It’s hard to trust outsiders when you’re a cop.

The ones here stick close to their own.’

‘You wouldn’t act like that though, would you? In their position?’

‘One day I will be in their position, hopefully. You never know, maybe I will?’

Ally scrunched her nose. ‘Naw, I can’t see it. You’d include everyone.’

‘You don’t want some volunteer coming in and messing up a big case, though. Especially the investigating officers.’

Ally nodded. ‘Like the ones looking into the jewellery robbers, you mean?’

Jamie didn’t respond.

‘Can’t talk about it with a civilian, right?’ she said, nodding in acceptance.

‘I used to dream about being an investigator in Edinburgh,’ he said, dodging the topic.

Ally went with it. Anything to make it easier for Jamie. ‘Like something in an Ian Rankin novel?’ she said, smiling.

‘Aye! That’ll be me.’ He mimed turning up a shirt collar and lowered his chin, scowling.

‘Is that your John Rebus face?’

‘Like it?’ He broke into a smile again.

‘You’ve got the job!’ Ally said, and in their laughter it felt like a good idea to stick out her hand for him to shake.

‘Cheers very much,’ he said, shaking hers, his cheeks pinker than before.

It took a second for either of them to realise they were still clasping hands. Ally’s eyes fell to where he held her.

Decidedly, he didn’t let go. A squeeze of his fingers told her he wanted to stay linked like this. When she looked at him again, he asked, ‘This OK?’

A nod from her, a smile, possibly slightly dazed, and Ally relaxed her arm, letting him hold her hand, her wrist resting over his knee.

‘Back there,’ Jamie cleared his throat, gesturing with his head towards the club. ‘Was that guy your ex, by any chance?’

Ally drew her neck back. ‘You saw?’

‘I’m good at observing things, kind of goes with the badge and radio.’

‘Got it.’ They were still holding hands. His thumb rubbed in ticklish circles over the soft root of her thumb. Electricity seemed to spark there and it made it hard to think straight. ‘It, uh, it was my ex, yeah. With his girlfriend.’

‘Ah. Sorry about that.’ He seemed to think about this for a moment. ‘I mean, I’m not super sorry that he’s out of the picture, but I’m sorry if it hurt.’

Why was he able to make her feel nineteen and giddy like this? And where did he get his confidence? He just said what he meant. It was lovely.

‘Actually,’ she said, shifting her body to face him better, their eyes locking.

‘I wasn’t hurt at all.’ She stroked her thumbnail around the inside of his curled palm, hoping it sent Jamie into a dizzy butterfly-filled state too.

‘I thought I would be sad if I bumped into him, but actually I was happy.’ His pupils pinpointed down to tiny dots. She was doing that to him.

‘You were?’ His voice was breathy. His eyes sank to her lips. He swallowed.

‘I think I thought he was as good as it was ever going to get for me.’

His eyes were back on hers. ‘God no, you deserve the best of everything.’

‘I’m coming to agree with you,’ she said, her lips curling, showing the tips of her teeth. It was enough to weaken him completely and, seeing the way his eyes swooned shut, her whole body answered his and she leaned in, almost closing the space between their mouths.

In the danger zone before their lips touched, she asked if this was OK? And before he could finish telling her it was more than OK, they were together. It wasn’t gentle or tentative, but a needy, urgent kiss that turned Ally’s brain blank.

Something breathy escaped Jamie’s lips, halfway between a sigh and a moan.

Lips warm, palms now gripping shoulders and arms, drawing each other nearer.

She was probably supposed to break away at some point, act cool and demure, lower her eyes, blush or something, but that would have taken more strength than she had, so she kissed him deeper, on and on, as the constellations crept across the sky getting slowly consumed by the horizon.

After untold breathless minutes, Jamie laughed lightly against her mouth, but didn’t pull away. ‘I can’t stop,’ he told her, before trailing his parted lips devastatingly slowly over hers from one corner of her mouth to the other, slowing the whole world right down to just this one sensation.

Blankness, goodness, everything perfect in its rightness.

Jamie must have asked if he could kiss her neck, because she’d definitely said yes to some whispered thing and his lips were pressing all along her cheekbone, then pinching around her ear. Ally’s core softened meltingly.

When he paused, holding his mouth by her earlobe, his breath upon her, the sound of him setting off sparks in every neural and nervous pathway within her, her breath hitched, waiting.

When at last he pulled her lobe between his lips, consuming the spot where the metal bar and butterfly of her earring penetrated her flesh, her inner muscles glowed hot with wanting.

This guy knew exactly what he was doing, and it didn’t feel like it was from practice, but from instinct, because together their chemicals were combining and reacting in the best way possible.

If this kiss was an experiment to see if Ally could really like this guy, all her findings so far pointed towards its success.

As he kissed into her neck, hard then softer, alternating the pressure, shifting between sucks and soft pillowed kisses, she let herself lean into him, her eyes opening drowsily.

They were making out like teens on the steps of a nightclub while the sleepers dreamed in their beds. She should go home. Soon, the birds would begin their morning song. But as Jamie brought his lips to the soft dip under her jaw, nothing was going to pierce the bubble forming around them.

Except, Ally’s eyes caught movement in the distance.

She blinked softly, letting it come into focus.

A figure, alone, wrapped in a long coat, arms folded.

Jamie drew his lips to the soft pulse of her temple.

She could barely see straight, let alone think, but something troubling made its way to her as the woman approached.

She was wearing high-heeled boots but had the heels lifted off the pavement, silencing her steps. The woman hadn’t spotted them yet.

Ally tapped both hands at Jamie’s shoulders, waking him from the kiss too. She cleared her throat, finding she had no voice, just a croak.

‘Someone coming?’ Jamie said, dopily, turning his head, his eyes heavy-lidded.

They watched as the woman turned down a passageway between the low-rise blocks of seventies flats set amongst the birch trees, lawns and scattered wheelie bins on the other side of the road. The woman had a black eye.

Ally peered harder before she disappeared from their sight. ‘That was her!’ she hissed.

Jamie was alert again too, rubbing his fingers over his eyelids. ‘Who?’

‘That was her, the woman who brought the stolen jewellery in!’

Jamie sprang to his feet. ‘You’re sure?’

‘Sure I’m sure. Same coat, straggly blonde hair, everything.’

‘Stay here.’ He stepped off the pavement, crossing the road in her direction.

‘What are you doing?’ she hissed back, but he didn’t hear. He was skirting after her, just as quietly as she’d been moving through the dewy dawn light.

Ally sat, just like he’d told her. Hugging her knees, she was suddenly cold.

Torn between alarm that Jamie was possibly on his way to apprehend a suspect all by himself, and her sneaking amusement and delight that they’d kissed until morning.

A shudder rippled through her as her body remembered the sensations.

Absolute silence descended. She pulled out her phone.

No messages, no missed calls, nothing since she’d texted her parents at half eleven to say she’d be staying out late, she was still with Jamie.

A thumbs up from her mum with a reply of ‘have fun, stay safe’ sent in acknowledgement that she was the cool one of the parenting pair, or she was at least trying to be.

Ally’s thumb hovered over the keypad.

Should she ring the station? There was no sign of him coming back. He’d told her to stay here, but should she have followed?

Then footsteps, and she dropped her shoulders in relief. He was running back over the street towards her.

‘I lost her. She disappeared somewhere among the flats,’ he was saying, already unlocking his phone screen. ‘You OK?’ he checked, before he dialled and held the phone to his ear.

‘I’m fine. Did you notice she had a black eye?’

He nodded, eyes widening. ‘I did.’ The call went through. ‘Hello? It’s Special Constable Beaton reporting potentially suspicious activity in the Ptarmigan flats area of town.’

Silence as he listened to his colleague down the line. Ally watched him stifle an eyeroll at something he’d heard, but he pressed on. ‘A woman, white, mid-forties maybe, long coat with fur collar and trim…’

‘My mum called it an Afghan coat,’ Ally told him, wanting to be helpful.

‘An Afghan coat. One black eye. Out alone and passing between blocks one and two, possibly going inside one of the buildings. That’s where I lost her. Positively ID’d as the suspect handling stolen jewellery in the repair shop case.’

More silence. Jamie shifted his weight from foot to foot, holding a hand to his brow, growing agitated.

‘The ID was from Allyson McIntyre,’ he said, having been prompted. ‘We were outside the Ptarmigan…’ He was interrupted. ‘About five minutes ago.’

Something that sounded like tinny, crow-like laughter came over the speaker.

Even Ally heard it from a few feet away.

Jamie brought the phone back to his ear.

‘Are you sending a team…’ Again, he was interrupted.

He listened, his face falling. ‘Right. I won’t.

Yes. I said I won’t.’ He let his hand fall to his side as whoever it was hung up the call. ‘Shit.’

‘What is it?’ Ally staggered to her feet, not sure if she should put a hand to his arm to calm him. They’d kissed, but what were they now?

‘That was Robert Mason. He called me “Taggart” and told me to leave the stakeouts to the big boys.’

‘Uh? So, they’re not coming to search for her?’

Jamie’s face told her everything she needed to know.

‘Come on. Walk you home?’ he said, turning, hands stuffed back in his pockets.

Ally could do nothing but follow him.

Pink bands of morning light, blushing at the memory of the night before, streaked the navy blue horizon as the pair made their way silently through the slowly waking town.

‘Who’s Taggart?’ Ally asked.

It was enough to make Jamie, who’d been lost in his ruminations, break into a wry smile. ‘No idea,’ he said, jutting out his elbow, hand still in his pocket, and she gripped on to him as he saw her to her door in the cool of the Sunday sunrise.