Vengeance in Death (In Death #6)(82)

“You had a good one,” Brian admitted. “But I remember a night. Oh, it was after you’d sold off a shipment of a fine French bordeaux you’d smuggled in from Calais — begging your pardon, Lieutenant darling. Are you remembering that, Roarke?”

Roarke’s lips moved into a smirk, and his hand brushed its way down Eve’s hair. “I smuggled more than one shipment of French wine in my career.”

“Oh, no doubt, no doubt, but this night in particular, you kept a half dozen bottles out, and were in a light and sharing frame of mind. You pulled together a game — a friendly one for a change — and we sat and drank every drop. You and me and Jack Bodine and that bloody fool Mick Connelly who got himself killed in a knife fight in Liverpool a few years back. Let me tell you, Lieutenant darling, this man of yours got drunk as six sailors in port and still won all our money.”

Roarke picked up his glass now and savored a sip. “I recall being a bit light in the pocket the next morning when I woke up.”

“Well.” Brian grinned hugely. “Get drunk with thieves and what does it get you? But it was good wine, Roarke. It was damn good wine. I’ll have them play one of the old tunes. ‘Black Velvet Band.’ You’ll sing?”

“No.”

“Sing?” Eve sat up. “He sings?”

“No,” Roarke said again, definitely, while Brian laughed.

“Prod him enough, and keep his glass full, and you’d get a tune out of him.”

“He hardly even sings in the shower.” She stared thoughtfully at Roarke. “You sing?”

Struggling between amusement and embarrassment, he shook his head and lifted his glass. “No,” he said again. “And I don’t plan to get drunk enough to prove myself a liar.”

“Well, we’ll work on that some.” Brian winked and rose. “For now then I’m going to have them play a reel. Will you dance with me, Eve?”

“I might.” She watched him walk off to liven up the music. “Getting drunk, singing in pubs, and tickling barmaids in the back room. Hmmm.” She shot a long, speculative look at the man she married. “This is very interesting.”

“You do the first, the others come easy.”

“I might like to see you drunk.” She put a hand on his cheek, glad to see the sadness had faded from his eyes. Wherever he had gone that afternoon was his secret, and she was satisfied that it had done him good.

He leaned forward to touch his lips to hers. “So I could tickle you in the back room? There’s your reel,” he added when the music brightened.

Eve glanced over, saw Brian coming back her way with neat, bouncing little steps. “I like him.”

“So do I. I’d forgotten how much.”

Sunshine and rain fell together and turned the light into a pearl. In the churchyard stood ancient stone crosses, pitted from age and wind. The dead rested close to each other, intimates of fate. The sound of the sea rose up from beyond rocky cliffs in a constant muted roar that proved time continued, even here.

There wasn’t a single airbike or tram to spoil the sky where clouds layered over the blue like folded gray blankets. And the grass that covered the hills that rose up toward that sky was the deep emerald of hopes and dreams.

It made Eve think of an old video, or a hologram program.

The priest wore long traditional robes and spoke in Gaelic. The burying of the dead was a ritual only the rich could afford. It was a rare sight, and a crowd gathered outside the gates, respectively silent as the casket was lowered into its fresh pit.

Roarke rested his cheek on the top of Eve’s head, gathering comfort as the mourners made the sign of the cross. He was putting more than a friend into the ground, and knew it. He was putting part of himself, a part he’d already thought long buried.

“I need to speak with the priest a moment.”

She lifted a hand to the one he’d laid on her shoulder. “I’ll wait here.”

As he moved off, Brian stepped up to her. “He’s done well by Jennie. She’ll rest here — have the shade of the ash in the summer.” With his hands comfortably at his sides, he looked out over the churchyard. “And they still ring the bells in the belfry of a Sunday morning. Not a recording, but the bells themselves. It’s a fine sound.”

“He loved her.”

“There’s nothing quite so sweet as the first love of the young and the lonely. You remember your childhood sweetheart?”

“I didn’t have one. But I understand it.”

Brian laid a hand on her shoulder, gave it a quick squeeze. “He couldn’t have done better than you, even if you did make the unfortunate mistake of becoming a cop. Are you a good one, Lieutenant darling?”

“Yeah.” Something in the way he’d asked had her looking over, into his face. “It’s what I’m best at.”

He nodded, and his thoughts seemed to drift as he shifted his gaze. “Christ knows how much money Roarke’s passing the priest in that envelope.”

“Do you resent that? His money?”

“No indeed.” And he laughed a little. “Not that I don’t wish I had it as well. He earned it. Always was the next game, the next deal with our lad Roarke. All I wanted was the pub, and since I have my heart’s desire, I suppose I’m rich as well.”