in med school, but that was no barrier to their relationship, which had
all the intensity and vigour of youth. She had taken him home at an
early stage, and in turn she had met Crystal. All round, assumptions
had been made.
And then the moment of choice had come; Ron's graduation, and with it,
the prospect of a pro football career. Under a selection system that
would have been illegal in Europe and in most other first world
countries, he had been a first-round draft pick of the Seattle
Seahawks, who had traded him at once to Dallas. The process had come
as a bombshell to Sarah who, innocently, had believed that he would be
able simply to sign up with his home town team, the Bills.
She had been two years short of graduation when it had happened; he had
asked her to switch colleges and come with him, and she had countered
by suggesting that he have himself traded again to a New York team, or
forget football and practise law. She had given him no outright
ultimatum, but when he left she had made a choice, nonetheless; she
would not be anyone's camp follower.
When he returned in triumph at the end of his first pro season, she had
told him that she was too involved with her studies to become involved
in anything else, although in truth she had had two relationships over
the winter, one of which was still active. A year after that, she had
graduated herself and had moved to New York City as an intern, and to
begin postgraduate study in forensic pathology.
She had followed Ron's career with more than a touch of pride, but as
her own life had developed, professionally and personally, she had felt
no longing for him. Nor, after her marriage, had she ever felt the
need or the inclination to discuss him with her husband. Over the
years she had come to see him as no more than the prize name on her
sexual cv, not imagining that they would ever meet again, especially
when her mother had told her that Crystal had left Buffalo for
Hawaii.
And then Barbara Walker, her dear, devious friend Babs, had thrown them
back together, in the very moment of Sarah's vulnerability. She had
known damn well what would happen, and as usual she had been right; for
sure, an interrogation would follow. Unconsciously, Sarah's mouth
tightened as she thought about it.
"How you doing?" Ron called upstairs.
She slipped her feet into her shoes, and walked to the door. "Just
about there," she replied. "Crystal didn't leave a hair drier here,
did she?"
"Not that I know of; sorry."
"That's okay. I guess it's still warm outside; it'll be dry by the
time I get home." She picked up her bag and her reassembled but
inactive cellphone, checked that she had left nothing else behind and
walked downstairs, feeling a tenderness as she moved that took her back
to her college days. People had often wondered how a quarterback had
come to be nicknamed "Rhino'.
The percolator had run its cycle as she walked into the kitchen; she
sniffed. "Brazilian?"
"Colombian."
"I'll take that."
"Black?"
"No, with a little milk."
He chuckled. "You've been in England too long."
"Scotland, as my older son would be quick to tell you."
"Sorry, Mark; Scotland then."
"Maybe I have."
He handed her a mug. "From what I heard upstairs, you ain't going
back, though."
"Don't make assumptions," she snapped.
"Hey, I wasn't; but you sure put the shoe leather to old Bob there. You
didn't leave much room for doubt."
"Maybe not, but there are other things to think of; my career for a
start."
"What career?"
"Are you kidding? My medical career, that's what. I'm a practising
consultant pathologist, with a reputation as one of the best in the
business. I have a personal investment in Scotland that's quite
distinct from my marriage."
"Yeah," he said quietly, 'but they do pathology in the States, don't
they? And a hell of a lot more of it, I'd guess."
"But why should I come back to the States?"
He bowed his head and looked at her, from under his heavy eyebrows.
"Are you asking me something here, Ron?" she challenged.
"Maybe I am."
"Aren't you a couple of assumptions ahead of yourself?"
"Am I? After this afternoon?"
She sighed, loudly. "Ron, we just made love, that was all. I was
horny, so were you; I wanted you, you wanted me. So we had each other.
But that doesn't wipe out the last dozen years of my life."
"That's in the past."
"Not in mine it isn't; it's a current issue." She stared at him. "Ron,
why did you come back to Buffalo?"
"To attend your parents' funeral."
Sarah was taken by surprise. "You did?"
"Yes. I was there, among the crowd. It was hardly surprising that you
didn't see me given what happened."
"How did you find out about it?"
"I read about it in a newspaper in Maui, but Babs Walker called to tell
me too."
"Ah," she murmured. "And what made you decide to stick around
afterwards?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "After what happened with Bob, I just
thought you might need support."
"You just thought?"
He took a sip of coffee. "Yeah. Babs suggested it, and when she did,
I agreed."
"Good old Babs. Ron, do you think we might have been manipulated just
a little?"
"Eh?" He gasped in surprise. "How can that be?"
She laughed. "For such a smart guy you can be so innocent."
"Are you trying to say Babs set us up to get back together?"
"I'm saying that she's playing games with us, and that so far things
have gone in line with her plan."
"Why the hell would she do that?"
"I've told you why. She detests Bob. She's had a down on him since
our first separation, but it goes deeper than that. He terrifies her
because of everything he is, and isn't. Babs was brought up to believe
in the all-American hero. When we were kids you and I were the ideal
couple, in the world as she sees it. Bob, on the other hand, is as far
from the Pro-Bowl as you can get. He's from another planet as far as
she's concerned. He shares our values, but he plays by a completely
different set of rules. On top of all that, he has this ... charisma,
let's call it. It can radiate from him, and to Babs it expresses
itself as pure danger."
"And what is it to you?" Ron asked quietly.
"Excitement. There's something about him that's thrilled me, from the
moment I met him. I could say the same about you. With you it's sheer
sexual attraction, allied to your sheer unadulterated niceness. With
him it's ... everything."
"So why...?"
"Because," she said, cutting him off, 'there's a single mindedness
about him that can turn into remoteness, and that cannot be deflected.
can't even stand to be a passenger in an automobile. Anyone who
threatens that control, or
tries to interfere with his life, is in for
huge trouble. It's happened now, and it's pushed even me and the kids
into second place. I don't know if I can ever get over that."
"Don't I give you a reason not to want to?"
Sarah sighed then smiled at him. "I want you to pick up that knife
over there," she said, 'and make a cut in your left thumb."
"Uhh. Why?"
"Because if you're even going to start giving me that reason, it'll be
by putting me first. I want you to give me a written declaration that
you will not leave me behind to go off and play just one more season
for the Nashville Cats. And to make me believe it, I'm going to want
it signed in your own blood."
She walked over to the counter beside the sink, picked up the knife by
the handle and offered it to him. "Go on," she said. "But only if, in
your heart, you really mean it, and you know for certain that never in
your life will you blame me for making you miss out on the chance of
that one last great moment."
Ron took the knife from her and held it to his thumb. For a moment she
though that he really was going to cut himself open, but just as she
gasped, he laid it back down.
"No," he murmured. "I can't promise you all of that. Some of it,
maybe, but not the last part."
She patted his chest. "See? You guys, you're both the devils I know,
and you both say you want me, on your terms. So the way I see it, I've
got to figure out which devil I'm better off with, or whether I should
leave you both in your different underworlds."
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
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.