'Bob, you didn't say that. I could have you deported just for thinking it, never mind suggesting it to a federal civil servant. I'll call you.'
Skinner hung up. The coffee filter had completed its programme, and the jug lay steaming on the hotplate, but he had forgotten his task entirely.
'Honey?'
Sarah's voice from the kitchen doorway brought him back into contact with his surroundings. 'Yes, sorry.'
'Bob, are you al right? You didn't seem with it there, and it's not the first time it's happened since I've arrived. I'm getting worried about you.'
'I'm fine, honest. I just had a call from Joe, that's all; I got wrapped up in it. I'l bring the coffee through now.'
'Forget it,' she said, lightly. 'lan had to leave. We thought you'd gone to Colombia for the beans.' She walked across to the work surface and picked up a mug. 'I'l have one now, though. You?'
He shook his head; unusual y, he found that he had no taste for coffee.
'Did Joe speak to his agent?' asked Sarah.
Bob looked down at her. When they had been reconciled after their split, part of their deal had been that there were to be no secrets between them, none of any sort. Yet something held him back from answering, held him back from telling her the whole story of Arthur Wilkins' murder, on the heels of Kosinski's visit and Doherty's phone call. Instinct told him to protect her from that knowledge, to protect her from it all… yet he did not know why.
'Not yet,' he answered, and left it at that; better to be economical with the truth than to bend it.
Even as he spoke, he saw something on her face that told him that she had a preoccupation of her own. He said nothing, leaving her to spit it out in her own time. He had to wait for little more than a minute, 222 watching her as she sipped her coffee, holding the mug in both hands.
'Bob,' she began. 'Remember when I was over here with Jazz…'
'How could I forget?' he chuckled. 'Much as I'd like to.'
'Yeah, me too; but that won't happen. I'd just hoped that it would al stay in the past.'
His smile turned into a frown. 'Yes?'
'The guy,' she said quietly, 'the man I had an affair with when we were apart.'
'The guy you worked beside in the hospital?'
'I didn't work beside him, exactly. He was a visiting consultant in another department; one that had nothing to do with me. But yes, the guy you mean, the guy I told you about; Terry. The thing is, he wants to meet me.'
'Does he now,' Bob murmured, his face unreadable.
'He cal ed Ian when he read about the murders. He knew that he and Babs are the best friends I have in Buffalo, and he asked Ian to pass on his condolences. He said also that he'd like to express them in person, if I'd be prepared to meet him.'
'And do you want to?'
'No, I don't; I hoped I'd never see him again. But…'
He held up a hand. 'Listen, Sarah,' he said, firmly. 'You told me about you and him; you hit me over the head with it, in fact. Yes, you told me why you let it happen: you did it to put us on an equal footing in the infidelity stakes, you said, and I've always forced myself to see it that way. Yet when you boil it al down, that's just an elegant way of saying that you did it to get even with me. To be dead honest, I wish you'd put it that way from the start.'
She looked away from him. 'If that's the way you want to see it, fine,' she snapped.
'Okay, let's cut away the soft words and tell the truth of it. You wrecked our marriage because you were wrapped up in your job and your obsessions, and eventual y, wrapped up in screwing your lady detective sergeant. You didn't have the guts to tel me that at the time though; you just froze me out of your life.
'So I came over here; I missed you every moment, waking and sleeping, and worse, my self-esteem was in pieces. Then someone took an interest in me. He wasn't pushy, he wasn't devious, he saw me as an attractive, unattached woman and he told me so. Better than that, he made me feel attractive again. When I slept with him, I had decided, more or less, to go back to Scotland, but yes, you're right, I did feel that it evened the score between us, whether you want to put it bluntly, or gently, as I tried to.
'But if you want it straight, here it is. I also felt that I owed him, for being there when you weren't, and for picking me up after you had knocked me down. I felt that it was right to give him something of me, and, truth be told, I wanted to. I hadn't had any for a while, since way before I left you, as you'll recall, and I was missing it, so why the hell not!'
'Just the once, you said,' Bob murmured.
'Just the once, I said, last time I saw him. The fact is, I thought about spending the whole night with him, but I'd have had to cal and tell my mom where I was. I felt guilty when I left him, knowing that I wasn't going to see him again, and knowing that I'd used him for mostly the wrong reasons. I've always felt sorry that I didn't say goodbye properly.'
He gave a short fierce laugh. 'Seems to me you couldn't have said it better!'
Sarah shot him a quick glance. 'Why? Do you feel the same about Leona McGrath?' She bit her lip almost as soon as she had said the words. 'Sorry. Cheap shot.'
'Yes, but so was mine.' He reached out, put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. 'Anyway, so what? Al that's in our past and we've owned up to it, both of us. Look, love, I'm not going to jeopardise what we've rebuilt by getting uptight over this. ..' He grinned at her.
'… Even if I've got double standards, just like most blokes, and regardless of what I've done myself, my natural instincts are to kick the shit out of anyone I catch screwing my wife.
'If you feel you need to see this guy Terry to sign off, so to speak, that's up to you. I don't want to know, and I sure as hell don't want to see him.
'Don't call him direct; contact him through lan, and arrange to meet him. Just don't do it anywhere that could compromise you, and don't do it in too public a place either; nowhere you could be seen and talked about.' He grinned, grudgingly, but to her enormous relief. 'Oh yes, and don't go kissing him goodbye again, either.'
54
'You going to like it here, d'you think. Ray?' the Head ofCID asked his assistant as they sat in the office that had been Andy Martin's until the previous Friday.
'Headquarters, sir? It's a nicer building than Torphichen Place, I have to say that.'
'Actually, son, I meant are you going to like it in my office: is the job going to be exciting enough for you?'
'I'd have said "no thanks" when I was offered it if I'd thought that, sir.
It's always been a wee bit exciting around you; I don't see why it should change just because you're in this job.'
'Jesus,' said Dan Pringle, vehemently. 'You think that? And here's me hoping for a quiet couple of years up to retirement.'
'You've got a foot in every division now, boss. I don't see how that could happen. You were hardly in the job when we had that murder down in Leith.'
'Aye, but that could be our quota for a while. We might not have another major investigation this year.'
Rising to leave, Detective Sergeant Ray Wilding paused to throw the chief superintendent a sceptical look, implying that a flight of pigs was passing the window. As he did so, there was a soft knock on the door, and Maggie Rose came into the room, not waiting for a summons.
'Got a minute, sir?'
'Aye, sure, Mags.' Pringle nodded to Wilding. 'On you go. Ray. See you in the morning.' He waited as the visitor took the seat vacated by his assistant. 'What can I do for you?'
Rose laid a brown A4 envelope on his desk. 'Remember that flyer you sent me from Strathclyde?' she began. 'The missing priest? Well he's not missing any more.' As the head ofCID drew out the report, she took Charlie Johnston's Polaroid from her pocket and laid it alongside it.