The giant smiled down at her, gently. "While you're doing that, are you going to carry on seeing this horny devil?"
"I don't know whether I should. I doubt if it would help me think objectively."
"I tell you what," he said. "Mom wants me to sell this house for her, so I'm going to stick around for a while." He reached into his pocket, and brought something out. "I don't think it would be right for me to be around your kids too much, so here's a key to the front door. If you feel you want to be with me, don't even call; just come. If I'm not here, the alarm code's eleven ninety-one. Deal?"
She took the key from his hand. "No promises, but okay. If I find I can't resist you any longer, I'll come. But that won't necessarily imply anything, understood? It might just mean that… Hell, you know what it might just mean."
He chuckled. "Sure. Understood."
"Right. Now get me back to my kids."
Seventeen
Skinner and Martin were heading for the stairs when Rod Greatorix stuck his head out of the door of the main CID office. "Mr. Skinner," he called. "Can I have a word before you go?"
The two stopped and went back to join him in the private room. "There's a couple of things I need to deal with," he began. "First and foremost we'll need to announce the identification. As soon as we've got the post-mortem findings I want to issue a public appeal for information about your brother's movements in the period leading up to his death.
We need to get a handle on where he was when he went into the river, or we can't even start a proper investigation."
"Of course, "Skinner agreed.
"How do you want us to handle it? I mean I don't have to say that Michael was your brother."
"You don't, Rod, that's true. But it'll get out, as sure as God made wee sour apples. You need the press working for you on this. If they start to dig into the story of the black sheep of my family, they might come up with useful information faster than you. By and large, journalists are better than detectives at asking questions. I'll talk to them about my estrangement from my brother if they want." He frowned. "There's just one thing, though. I want to speak to a couple of people before this hits the press. There's my daughter, for one; she has to hear it from me. Then there's Neil Mcllhenney; after Andy here, he's my closest friend."
"How much time do you need?"
"If you brief the press at midday tomorrow, that'll be okay. Alex is flying up from London tomorrow morning for a business meeting on Monday. I'm picking her up at the airport at eleven-thirty. I'll see Neil before that; there's something else I want to talk to him about, anyway."
"Okay, sir. You've got that; the press won't be awake much before noon on a Sunday anyway."
"Thanks. Now what else did you want?"
"I'd like the name and address of the hostel where your brother lived, and the name of the manager. He'll have to be interviewed, and possibly some of the other residents as well."
"It's called Oak Lodge, it's in Gourock like I said, and it's run by the Jesuits. That's as much as I can tell you. I'm going to want to talk to them myself, though."
"Bob…" Martin began.
"It's for my own peace of mind, Andy. I have to find out how he was."
"You won't go running your own investigation now, will you?"
Skinner looked at him, wide-eyed. "Who? Me? Listen, a complaint from your chief constable to my police authority about my conduct is just what I don't need right now."
Eighteen
Maggie Rose found the divisional CID office in Torphichen Place depressing at the best of times; on a Sunday morning, with the normal buzz of the rest of the building reduced to a murmur, it seemed to drop to a new level of drabness.
The faces around her were keen, though, and in the main, fresh. Stevie Steele, on her right, was as sharp as the razor that had shaved him.
Opposite her across the table, Detective Constable Alice Cowan sat straight-backed, disturbingly young, but in no way overawed. On either side of her, Ray Wilding and George Regan, detective sergeants both, leaned back in their chairs, exchanging glances behind the girl's back.
And in the doorway, carrying a tray with six mugs, PC Sauce Haddock looked at least three years older in plain clothes than he did in his baggy uniform.
"Okay," the detective superintendent began, as Haddock found a place on the table, and began handing round mugs, 'let's get on with it. I'm sorry to pull everyone in on a Sunday, but this one can't wait till tomorrow. It's already taken on a high profile, and we can't be seen to be holding back on it.
"I'm giving it priority, and so, I have to tell you is the head of CID.
Mr. Pringle would have taken this meeting himself, but he had an engagement last night, so he's sent Ray Wilding, his exec, both as a member of the team and to report back to him." The irreverent George Regan, who had served directly under Dan Pringle in the past and knew his Saturday night habits, grinned broadly, but she let it pass.
"There's another in-house consideration we'd all do well to remember," she continued. "The chief constable was on the invitation list for yesterday's event; as it happened, he couldn't go, but that doesn't mean that he won't be taking a keener interest than usual in our progress.
"Right; you all know the gist of what happened yesterday, but the forensic people, ours and the fire specialists, have taken it a bit further. Detective Inspector Steele will bring you up to date."
She leaned back from the table and picked up her mug, looking sidelong at Steele. Since his promotion he seemed to have grown in authority every day; she knew that Bob Skinner had marked him out, and that the DCC was rarely wrong… on a professional level at any rate. Quickly, but comprehensively, the DI set out the results of the forensic investigation. He explained that while there was a possibility of the device having been triggered from outside the gallery, the thickness of the Royal Scottish Academy's walls and the timing of the detonation made it, in his view, unlikely.
"Too risky; the device was an expert job, and I don't believe that whoever planted it would have taken any chance that it might not have gone off. So, what we're left with, potentially," he concluded, 'is a room full of blue chip suspects. But before we get there, before we start digging into everyone's background and interviewing people who might try to make very big waves about it, we have to make sure that the perpetrator isn't right before our eyes, thanks to the Academy's security cameras.
"So all of us," he glanced at Haddock, 'and that means you too, young Sauce… you're not just here as the gopher… are in for the job we love to hate, identifying people from poor quality security videos, and looking for someone who shouldn't be there."
Steele paused and smiled. "I know, I know. You're going to tell me that you don't know everybody there, so how can you identify them. But we do know everyone who's signed in, and thanks to the very discreet cooperation of DI Mcllhenney's friend, the Scotsman picture editor, who's in charge of the biggest photo library in town, George and I have come up with a list of mug-shots to match most of the people on the guest list… not just the signed-in list, because we have to allow for the possibility of people just walking past the reception table.
There are those who expect everyone to know them, and who won't wear badges for that very reason.
"Those whose photos we don't have will be mostly the partners of guests, but quite a few of them are on that list as well." He stopped as DS Wilding raised a hand. "Ray; question?"
"Yes, Stevie; why don't we bring in the organisers to help us spot all the legit, guests?"