Thursday legends - Skinner 10 (3 page)

'In
that new car of yours? Yes, please.' The anonymous Mondeo had gone as part of
his personal make-over, to be replaced by a sleek red MGF.

He
ended the call feeling vaguely uncomfortable, as if he had boxed himself into
something, slipped the small telephone into the pocket of his shirt, picked up
that afternoon's
Evening News
and wandered out on to his second-storey balcony.
The summer sunshine hit the river side of the house in the late afternoon and
evening; next door, in the garden below, Rhian, in tee-shirt and shorts, was
sprawled in a chair, reading. His appearance through the patio door caught the
corner of her eye. She looked up and smiled at him. 'Hello, Andy,' she called
up. 'Nice night, isn't it.'

'Sure
is.'

She
put down her book and stood up, long tanned legs unfolding. 'Social life let
you down?' she asked. He laughed. 'That's perceptive of you.'

'Mine
too. Take me for a pint then; a walk up to Rutland Place would be nice.'

Andy
Martin was rarely caught off guard. 'I suppose it would,' he said, cagily.
'Ahh, what the hell, you're on. See you outside.'

The
girl ran indoors and he was turning too, when a figure appeared on the next
balcony. It was Juliet Lewis, Rhian's mother, dark-haired, shorter than her
daughter, but trim nonetheless; he was quietly relieved to see that she was
smiling. 'I should apologise for my forward daughter,' she said. 'She didn't
give you much chance to say "no", did she?'

The
burly, fair-haired policeman grinned back. 'She's right; it's a nice evening
for a walk.'

'She's
in safe hands, at least.'

That's
all you know, lady,
Martin
thought.

'Let
me be as forward as Rhian now,' she went on. 'It's Margot's eighteenth
tomorrow, and I'm having a party for her. If the weather holds we're going to
have a barbecue; if not, I'm cooking indoors. If you're free would you like to
join us, rather than sit up there exposed to the cooking smells and annoyed by
the music?'

Jesus,
he thought once more,
when you least expect it
...

'That's
very thoughtful of you, Juliet,' he said. 'Yes, thank you, I'd like that.'

'Good.
Around seven, then.'

Rhian
was waiting when he stepped outside into the street. She had changed from her
shorts into black jeans, but was still in the loose-fitting tee-shirt which she
had worn in the garden. 'Hi,' she said, brightly. 'We could always run to the
pub, I suppose, but we'd hum a bit when we got there.'

'No,'
he said, looking at her and reminding himself again just how young she was.
'Let's just stick to walking pace.' They set off out along the narrow street
which led out of their part of Dean Village and on up towards the city's West
End.

'You're
a police officer, aren't you?' the girl asked, as they crested the rise into
Belford Road.

'That's
right.'

'So
my mum was right. She thought that's what you were.' 'She's well informed. I
try to keep home and work separated.'

'Mum's
usually in the know about the police; it's part of her job. What do you do?
You're not in Special Branch, are you?'

He
laughed; her brightness was infectious, just like Alex. 'If I was, I couldn't
tell you.'

'Or
if you did, you'd have to kill me?'

'It's
not that cloak and dagger, honest. But no, I'm not in SB; not any more.'

'So
what are you? An Inspector, like that man in the TV series?'

'No.
Actually I'm a Chief Superintendent. Detective.'

She
looked at him, apparently impressed. 'God. You must be older than you look.
That's next to Chief Constable, isn't it?'

It
was his turn to laugh. 'Not quite. I'm Head of CID. There are three people
between me and Sir James.'

'Sir
James? I thought that man Skinner was the Chief Constable.'

'Bob?
He hates even the notion that he might be one day. No, he's the Deputy Chief. I
report to him.'

'I
see.' She looked him in the eye. 'So how old are you, then?'

'What
do you think?' 'Thirty-five.' She was only a year out. 'That's near enough. How
about you?' 'What do you think?'

'Looking
at your mother, you can't be much older than Margot.'

'Thank
you, sir, on her behalf. I'm twenty-one; Mum's forty-four.'

'As
if I'd ask you that.'

'You
just did, Mr Detective, by implication.'

'So
what about your father?' Martin asked.

'Gone
to the other side,' she answered.

'Ahh,
I'm sorry to hear that. What was it?'

'Latent
homosexuality - he's living in Brighton with a chiropractor. He's a
gynaecologist; I think it got to him eventually'

Andy
gasped, stopped in his tracks and looked at the girl. 'Christ,' he murmured,
slowly, 'what age were you when you were born?'

'About
fifteen, my mother says.'

Which
makes us the same age,
he
thought.

'And
you're going to be a doctor, like your father?'

'Yes,
but not quite like him. I think I'll specialise in proctology. Better career
prospects, I reckon; after all, everyone's got one of them.'

'You're
quite a girl,' he said, once he had stopped laughing. 'Do you always go on like
that to guys you've just met?'

'Only
if I think they're up for it. Besides, we haven't just met. We've been
neighbours for months, and we're jogging companions.'

'Running,
my dear,' he corrected her. 'That might have been jogging for you, but it was
running for me.'

'Don't
kid me, Mr Andy. You might be a bit of a bufry, but you're as fit as a fiddle;
you were scarcely breathing hard that day you caught me up. And I saw you out
cutting your grass last week. There's not an ounce of fat on you.'

He
tapped his head. 'It's accumulating up here, though. Come on, enough about me.
How long till you graduate?'

Rhian's
stories of Edinburgh University School of Medicine lasted the rest of the way
up to their destination. As they approached the two-storey pub in Rutland
Place, across the street from the Caledonian Hotel's grand main entrance* they
could see that the usual Friday night throng had developed inside. There seemed
to be space available, but the doors were guarded by squat men in dark blazers.
'Damn,' Rhian muttered. 'Do you think we're going to get in?'

'Stick
with me, kid.' Martin led her towards the main door; one of the bouncers
stepped across his path.

'Full
up, pal,' said the man, with the air of one who did not expect debate.

Andy
looked him in the eye. 'Police.'

The
bouncer stood his ground. 'Aye, that'll be right.'

'Aye,
it will,' the detective agreed, speaking barely above a whisper. 'I can see in
there well enough. They can take two more, so do it the easy way. Believe me,
you don't want to try the other.'

The
man considered his options for a few seconds, then stepped aside.

'Can
you talk your way in anywhere?' Rhian asked.

'Not
the New Club. In the bomber jacket and the chinos that would be a bit
difficult; but pubs, sure. The guy on the door just fancied himself a bit; on
an authority trip, that was all. Now what'll you have?'

Indeed,
the bar was not quite as busy as it had appeared from the street; they found a
couple of high stools by a shelf along the back wall and perched themselves
there. 'Right,' said the girl briskly, after a first sip at her pint of lager.
'You've had my story, now let's have the rest of yours. What happened to Mrs
Martin?'

He
wrinkled his nose. 'That role is currently vacant.'

'Indeed?
Then you're holding regular auditions, from what I've seen on Sunday mornings.
But you don't seem like the playboy type.'

'I
like to think I am; don't shatter my illusions, please.'

She
hesitated. 'Ahh, I see. "Shut up, Rhian, and mind your own business."
Okay. Sorry.'

He
shook his head. 'No, no. I didn't mean to cut you off. The fact is I lived with
someone until about nine months ago. She was going to be Mrs Martin, but it
didn't work out.'

'What
happened?'

He
shrugged his shoulders. 'She caught me screwing someone else,' he said,
quickly.

Rhian
gazed at him. 'If you'd looked me in the eye when you said that, I'd have
believed you. It's just as well you're a copper, not a crook, for you're a
really lousy liar. Let me guess. It was the other way around?'

His
vivid green eyes fixed on hers. 'Nothing to do with it,' he murmured. 'There
were things we couldn't reconcile, that's all.'

'And
you've been blaming yourself ever since?'

His
gaze did not waver. 'No. I'm not that much of a romantic. I've been blaming her
ever since, and I always will.' He drank deeply from his beer. 'It's time to
move on, though. I know that.'

She
drained her glass and looked at him. 'Fine. Let's go to Mather's.'

'You're
a bit of a girl, aren't you?' he chuckled.

'No,'
she shot back. 'I'm a lot of a girl. Just what you need, officer; you've been
brooding for long enough.'

They
eased their way out of No 1 Rutland Place and crossed Shandwick Place to
Mather's, different surroundings altogether, more of a traditional man's pub.
Initially, he felt uneasy about taking her in there, but he had learned enough
about his enticing neighbour to know that the alternative was to let her go in
alone.

The
two fair-haired newcomers drew a few looks as they stepped into the dull,
high-ceilinged bar, and a few smirks too. As they walked up to the bar, Andy
looked around slowly and deliberately, and recognised half a dozen faces;
men-about-town of a certain sort whose paths had crossed his, over the years.
Two of them nodded in his direction, the others looked away, arousing his
suspicions at once. He made a mental note to pass their names on to Dan
Pringle, the divisional CID Commander for the area.

'Eighty
shilling?' Rhian's question reclaimed his attention. She had a five-pound note
in her hand.

'Yes,'
he answered, glancing across at the barman, 'but you can put that away. I don't
accept drinks from members of the public
...
and certainly not from students.'

'Hey,
I'm a liberated lady.'

'Maybe,
among your generation; to me you're just a kid.' As he passed his own fiver
across the bar, she frowned and looked away from him; the first crack in the shell
of her self-confidence. 'Hey, I'm sorry,' he offered at once. 'I didn't mean to
put you down.'

That
look in her eye came back at once. 'Don't flatter yourself. You haven't picked
me up yet.'

They
stood at the bar in Mather's while they drank and talked. Rhian tried to prise
police stories from him, but he steered her gently on to other topics. For all
her assurance, she was too young for many of the tales that he could have told
her. Fleetingly, the thought came to him that if he did, the temptation which
she represented would go away at once, but he rejected it.

Instead
he talked all the usual small-talk, music and movies, all the harmless stuff
which he used to build a screen between his companion of that and other
evenings, and the real Andy Martin. Only Alex knew him, and she had rejected
him; it would be a long time before that man came back. Better casual affairs
and loneliness than experience that pain again.

'Am
I starting to bore you?'

He
blinked and smiled at her. 'Far from it. I was somewhere else for a minute,
that's all.'

'No,
you weren't. You were in Bert's Bar all along, and my glass is empty
...
but it's okay, I think it's time to go.
A pint and two halves is enough for me.'