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‘You know,’ he continued, ‘there have been times lately when my memory has let me down. In fact, it’s happened again; blow me, but I’ve forgotten every word you two have just said to me. Apart from “What happens now?” The answer to that is that, with your agreement, I will take both of you to L’Escala in my Hertz car, and Annabelle will be reunited with her daughter. How does that sound?’

As he looked at Annabelle Gentle, he saw her eyes fill, and overflow, not contradicting the smile on her face, but somehow enhancing it. ‘It sounds,’ she said, ‘like something I should have done fifty years ago.’

‘Good,’ Proud declared. ‘Let’s get on with it.’ He placed a ten-euro note on the table and waved to Josep. As he rose from his seat, he realised that, throughout a long career, he had never felt as good about anything he had done as he did at that moment.

As they turned to leave the sun-washed plaça, Montserrat Rivera linked her arm through his. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘you really are a most remarkable detective.’

Ninety-seven

With her head on his shoulder, she gazed up at the bedroom’s corniced ceiling, dimly lit by the lights of St Colme Street. ‘Do you think the official residence is meant to be used for love trysts?’ she murmured.

‘This one’s entirely legitimate. . by twenty-first-century Western standards, at least.’

‘I suppose so. It’s a new year, you’re divorced, and you’re on your own with the kids and the nanny.’

‘Yes, First Minister,’ he replied, ‘all of that is the case. And on Saturday, as agreed, you’re coming to meet them.’

‘God, maybe I should find that frightening. Until now we’ve only been contemplating a relationship; now we’ve got to make it work.’

He laid his hand on the flatness of her firm belly, feeling her warmth, feeling the velvet smoothness of her skin. ‘We’ve made a pretty good start,’ he said. ‘You survived dinner with Alex this evening. How did you find her?’

‘Terrifying at first, until we broke the ice; I’m glad she’s a lawyer, not a politician.’

‘She takes after her dad, so don’t be so sure of that.’

‘I’m sure of you, and that’s enough.’

‘You could still walk away, you know.’

‘If I did, would it make your life easier?’

‘Far from it: it would make me wish that I was back in Titus Armstead’s cellar in Dover, Delaware, and that Miles Hassett was waiting for me upstairs, with an assault rifle.’

She propped herself up on both elbows, staring at him. ‘You mean that you’d want to be dead?’

‘Hell, no; I mean that I’d want an excuse to take it out on some fucker, in a big way.’

She laughed wickedly. ‘Now that’s the Bob Skinner I’ve come to know and love.’

‘You and everybody else. I had a call from your friend in Downing Street this afternoon, on my secure line. He offered me a job.’

Aileen sat bolt upright, twisting, staring down at him. ‘He did what?’ she exclaimed.

‘He offered me a job,’ Bob repeated. ‘He asked me to become director general of MI5.’

‘And what did you say?’ she asked.

‘There was a moment when he almost got the answer I told Jimmy Proud that I’d give in such circumstances.’ He reached up and drew her back down beside him. ‘But when I’d thought about it, I contented myself with thanking him, then telling him there are things I have to do in Scotland which are much more important that that.’