Bob Skiinner 21 Grievous Angel (11 page)

Once she’d had her fill, we headed back, down the southern side of the hill and along the Main Street. We were all hungry by the time we reached home, so Alex switched on the Foreman and set it to warm up while we attacked the starter, and the Sangre de Toro . . . at least Alison and I did; I allowed my daughter an occasional small taste of wine with dinner, but only white, so she was restricted to Shloer apple juice. She did a damn good job with the steaks . . . three medium, but not bloody . . . but she left the cleaning of the grill to me, as I’d told her to. She and Alison did most of the talking around the table, their chat ranging from school, to pop culture, to fashion, and to village life. I let them get on with it, for I felt a weight upon me that I hadn’t anticipated. As I looked at the two of them, and listened to them talk, I realised that it was the first time I’d ever heard my daughter in conversation with a woman who was old enough to be her mother, other than Daisy, and when I was around they never said much more to each other than ‘Hello’ and ‘Goodbye’. I was overcome by a wave of the sort of sadness that I’d thought was behind me, and, hard as I fought against it, I could not prevent myself from seeing Myra in Alison’s place.

When I couldn’t stand it any longer, I stood up, abruptly. ‘Alex,’ I said, ‘isn’t there something on TV that you wanted to watch?’ It was twenty-five to ten, and we both knew that there wasn’t, but she took the hint.

‘Oh yes,’ she exclaimed, maybe a wee bit theatrically. ‘I’ve missed the start. Good night, Alison. Good night, Pops.’

‘Night, kid. Remember you’re going to Daisy’s at nine tomorrow.’ I’d fixed it before she’d left.

‘Yes. I’ll be ready.’

‘You working tomorrow?’ Alison asked, as she left, and I set about wiping down the grill.

‘A couple of doors to kick open. Doesn’t mean you have to rush off though.’

She frowned. ‘Yes, it does. You’ve got a lovely kid, Bob, but I don’t want her to start making assumptions. That’s how you drift into places you might not really want to be.’

‘That’s a fair point. Honest truth, Ali, after eight years I still haven’t a fucking clue where I want to be.’

She put her hands on my chest, palms flat. ‘Right now,’ she said, firmly, ‘you want to be with your daughter; any woman would have a tough time wedging in alongside you. In four or five years’ time, once she’s off to university, it’ll be different, but until then, you have to finish what you had to start when her mother died.’

‘You reckon?’

‘I know so. Now, what about the story you were going to tell me? What about my transfer?’

I smiled. I’d forgotten about that. ‘You pour us some more wine,’ I told her, ‘take it into the sitting room, and I’ll join you when I’m squared up here.’

‘That sounds like a plan.’ She waited while I uncorked a second bottle of Sangre de Toro, picked it up and went off to find our glasses.

I was putting the last of the cutlery in the dishwasher when my mobile sounded. I took it out, flipped it open and looked at its small screen. No name, which meant that the caller wasn’t logged in, and the number meant nothing to me. I thought about rejecting it, until I realised that it might be Mackie or Steele, or any one of my new boys.

But it wasn’t a boy. ‘Is that Mr Skinner?’ the voice asked.

‘Yes. Enlighten me.’

‘This is Mia, Mia Watson.’

Out of the blue. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘I was doing that autograph for your daughter, and I thought it might be safer to send it to your home address rather than to the office.’

I didn’t hand that out to strangers, not even when they were drop-dead gorgeous, with a chest that got the most out of the word ‘Airburst!!!’ On the other hand, she was doing me a favour. I compromised. ‘Send it “Care of the Mallard Hotel, Gullane”. That’ll get to me.’

‘Okay, no problem.’ I was about to thank her and end the call, when she continued, a little less confidently. ‘Mr Skinner, when I saw you earlier on, I’m sorry, I wasn’t very helpful. To be honest I was still in shock; it still hadn’t sunk in. Maybe there are things I know that might help you without me even realising it. So, if you’d like to meet me again . . .’

‘If you think it would help,’ I replied; not too enthusiastically. If only I’d stayed that way.

‘Who knows? It might, it might not.’ She sounded vulnerable, alone.

‘Do you have a time in mind?’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘Okay. At the studios?’

‘No, I don’t go in there at weekends. Could we meet in town, somewhere discreet? How about the foyer of the Sheraton? I go there for coffee quite often. The sort of people who’ll be there on a Saturday aren’t going to recognise the likes of me.’

I thought about my plans for the morning. A couple of calls. How long would they take? ‘Twelve thirty?’

‘That’ll be fine. I’ll see you there.’

I closed the phone and went to join Alison. ‘Trouble?’ she asked. ‘You’re frowning.’

‘No. Someone I have to interview for the Marlon investigation, that’s all.’ I don’t know why I didn’t tell her that it was his sister, unless it was because I didn’t want any questions that I couldn’t answer.

She didn’t follow it up. ‘So,’ she said, instead, ‘my surprise transfer. If you weren’t behind it, who was?’

‘Indirectly, Greg Jay.’

She sat up straight, her mouth falling open. ‘You mean he had me bumped!’

I shook my head. ‘You’re not listening. “Indirectly”, I said.’ I told her the story of Greg Jay’s visit to the head of CID, of his litany of complaints about me and of his accusation of an improper relationship between the two of us. I left out the part about his early morning drive-by. If either of us chose to make that a disciplinary matter, Jay might have found himself wearing sergeant’s stripes again. Alf didn’t want it to go that far, but I couldn’t be sure that Alison wouldn’t insist on it if she knew.

As it was she was angry enough. ‘The swine,’ she hissed. ‘Next time I see him . . .’

I turned her face towards me. ‘You’ll say nothing, and you’ll think how lucky you are not to be working for the son-of-a-bitch any more.’

‘Are you going to let it lie?’

‘What did a friend say once? “All rights reserved, all wrongs revenged.” A nice turn of phrase, but it’s not necessary in this case. The boss has dealt with it, Alison. He threw Jay out of his office and he got you out of his reach. What more should I do?’

She sighed, pouting a little. ‘I suppose . . .’

‘Listen,’ I said, ‘I’ve been told that I have a few virtues to counterbalance my faults, but patience is the one I’ve had to work hardest at. I’m getting there, though. There may come a time when Mr Jay’s career is in my hands. And then . . .’

She pulled me towards her, and kissed me, for quite a long time. ‘You’ll do nothing,’ she whispered, as we surfaced. ‘I see you with your daughter and I know that as hard as you are on the outside, you’re a softie at heart. You won’t do anything in cold blood.’

‘No?’

We kissed again. ‘No,’ she repeated, after we’d paused for breath once more. ‘On the other hand, my dear, I am as ambitious as you, and if the day should ever come when his career is in my hands . . . I’ll rip his balls off and enjoy listening to him squeal.’

I grinned. ‘You’re quite a scary lady, aren’t you?’

‘Mmm. Just as well you’re not in love with me.’

‘That isn’t everything. Close and comfortable’s good too. I know plenty of couples who’ve built a life around that.’

‘You’ll never be among them, though. You have to be in love, Bob. You still are, even after eight years; I could see that in your eyes tonight. That’s why we’re safe with each other. I want sex, not love, and sex is all you have to give.’

I drained my glass. ‘In that case,’ I murmured, ‘let me be generous.’

Nine

I
t was good, no denying that. Sex with Alison was energetic, enthusiastic, strenuous, and a whole lot of other adjectives, with the exception of acrobatic. We tired each other out after a while and fell asleep, with a window left open slightly to let us breathe.

I don’t know how long I’d have slept if my bed-mate hadn’t been wakened by the sound of the milk truck skidding round Goose Green, just after half past seven: in those days we had the fastest milkman in the east. I came to with my hand on her breast, my thumb massaging her nipple, very gently. ‘Bob,’ she murmured, ‘it’s morning.’

‘And?’ I mumbled. ‘Since when did you only do it in the dark?’

We were out of bed by eight, though, at least I was, having insisted on first go in the shower so that I could get breakfast under way. By the time Alison emerged at eight fifteen, her short, blonde-tinted hair still in damp disarray, Alex was up too, scrambling eggs and grilling bacon and tomatoes, while I made tea and toast. ‘Not for me, please,’ Ali said. ‘I’m a cereal only girl.’

She relented, though. My kid has always done very good scrambled eggs. It’s an undocumented fact: one-parent families do not have room for a bad cook.

Breakfast over, we got on with our weekends. Alex left first, to walk to Daisy’s place. She told me they were going food shopping in Haddington so I gave her forty quid and a list and told her to pick up some stuff for us. At thirteen I’d have trusted her with a debit card on my account, but legally she was too young to sign the slips. After she’d gone, I tidied in the kitchen, while Alison dried her hair, and packed her bag.

‘You don’t have to go,’ I pointed out, once more. ‘You could just chill out here, and wait for me.’

‘No, I can’t. Apart from anything else, I was air-dropped into a new office yesterday, and unlike you, I had no warning. I’m going in this morning as well. I need to read up on our current investigations. We’ve got a couple of pub break-ins on our hands, and one serious assault that might turn into murder. That’s a break from the norm. Two young male victims, stabbed, last Saturday: one’s unconscious, on life support, but the other’s wounds were superficial. At first he said they were attacked, but the story kept changing. Eventually he admitted that he and his mate tried to mug a gay bloke, but got it badly wrong.’

‘In Grove Street?’

‘Yes. The witness thought he was a dead man, but someone turned into the street and the guy ran off.’

‘I read about that in the
Saltire
,’ I recalled. ‘There was no mention of the poofter aspect, though.’

‘Poofter?’ she repeated, raising an eyebrow. ‘Are you homophobic, Bob?’

‘Do I have a fear of homosexuals?’

‘You know what the word means.’

‘Alison,’ I told her, deadpan. ‘I treat everyone the same, regardless of creed, colour, gender or sexual orientation.’

‘Good,’ she said. ‘Just for a second, I thought you sounded really bitter. No,’ she continued. ‘Mr Grant held that back from the media. He’s got officers out tonight going round the gay pubs and discos. The two would-be muggers said they saw their prey coming out of one in Morrison Street and followed him.’

‘Have you got a description?’ I asked.

‘Orange hair and heavy eye make-up, that’s all.’

I laughed. ‘You may take it that by now the hair will be a different colour and the kohl will be gone.’

‘That’s what I thought,’ she agreed, ‘but I’m the new girl, so I kept it to myself.’

I considered the situation. ‘Between you and me, I’d have given the press everything.’

‘Why?’

‘Because all kidding aside, this man sounds dangerous. Your two victims probably intended no more than to rough him up a wee bit and nick his wallet, but what they got in return . . . Gay man out on a Saturday night tooled up? That’s hardly typical of our pink community.’ I paused. ‘You’re not part of the pub trawl, are you?’

‘No, it’s boys only, Superintendent Grant said.’

‘So you could come back here tonight?’

She shook her head. ‘No. I’ve got something on. I’m going to my friend Leona’s for dinner. She’s married to an MP, he’s away to South America on some parliamentary jaunt or other, she’s pregnant, and we’re having a girlie night.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Roland McGrath. He’s a real prick; I can’t stand him.’

I sensed bitterness. ‘Let me guess: he tried it on with you.’

Her eyes turned grim. ‘A week before their wedding. The stag and the hen nights merged into one later on. Everybody was a bit pissed and Roland caught me in a quiet corridor of the hotel and offered me what Leona was going to be getting for the rest of her life; that was how he put it. He wouldn’t take no for an answer, so . . .’

‘So? So what?’

She laughed, suddenly, beautifully. ‘So I threatened to arrest him. He didn’t believe me until I cautioned and cuffed him.’

‘You took your handcuffs to a hen night?’ I gasped.

‘I surely did. We’d been going to have a rag with Leona, but we thought better of it. Yes, I cuffed him and it was only then that he said he’d been joking all along.’

‘How did it turn out?’

‘Eventually it was me that made the joke of it. I left the cuffs on him for the rest of the night and told everyone I was showing him what marriage was all about. I’ve never told anyone the real story until now.’

‘Not even Leona?’

‘Especially not Leona. She thinks that the sun shines out of his fundamental orifice.’

‘Will you tell her about you and me?’ I asked her.

‘I have done, a while back, when we first started . . . seeing each other.’

‘What did she say?’

‘Well,’ she began, ‘she wanted to know if you were a good shag, and I said you are, then she wanted to know if I was in love with you, and I said that I wasn’t. She said that was a shame, because you were probably looking for someone just like me. And I told her that was absolute bollocks, because you were looking to make chief constable, just like me, and that we both know that any relationship that competes with that ambition in either of us will be doomed to failure.’

I wasn’t sure I’d wanted to hear myself summed up so bluntly, or so accurately. Oh yes, she was right, but still, there was one difference between us that she’d overlooked. Elvis had never sung about her. She’d never woken crying in the night, from a dream of grievous loss, to the realisation that it had all been true. She’d carried her ambition from the start, untarnished. Mine was a substitute, even if it did burn bright in those days.