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"I don't believe you're that cynical," she said. "I know you, Mr.

Neidholm. You did it because you're nice, and for no other reason. Not everyone's as devious as our Babs." She hesitated. "You were going to say something about her when that man appeared. What was it?"

"Nothing. Or something that's probably best left unsaid."

"Too late now, big boy. Go on."

He sighed. "If you insist. I was going to say that she made a point of showing me a photograph of you and a guy she said you had a thing with, when you and your husband had marriage problems a while back."

"Cow!" she hissed. "I told her to get rid of that."

"So that was true?"

"Yes, it's true. Bob and I did break up at one point; I came back over here to the States and I did have a relationship with someone. But it's history, and so, very definitely, is he. God," she gasped. "Babs really does hate Bob, doesn't she? Even now, she won't let go."

"Forget her," he said, firmly. "She was always like that, even years ago. You're right; for a minister's wife, she's something of a bitch."

He picked up the empty bottle of San Pellegrino that lay on the table and glanced idly at the label.

"Did they ever pin down what happened to him?" he asked.

She shuddered. "His heart stopped, just like that. Makes you think, doesn't it. There is no Superman; there is no Planet Krypton. Not even the great Deputy Chief Constable Bob Skinner was invulnerable. Now let's talk about something else."

"Okay, but why are you so bitter?"

"Because he's gone," she snapped. "That's why I'm bitter. I'm angry with him, and I'm angry with the whole fucking world. Ron, I'm trying to come to the terms with the fact that my peaceful, lovely parents have been robbed and murdered in their peaceful, lovely lakeside cabin.

Even now, with them both in the ground, I can barely make myself believe it. I needed Bob beside me more than I ever did before, and yet he's gone, and left me here in Goddamned Buffalo New York, with my three children, and the aftermath of all that horror."

"But come on, Sarah. It was hardly his choice."

Tears welled in her eyes. "Yes it was! He's gone because of his career, his fucking career!"

"Okay, okay, okay, calm down."

She took a deep breath and dabbed her eyes, briefly, with her napkin.

"I will if we talk about something else."

"Sure, let's do that. Do you still have much to do to get your parents' estate through probate?"

"Not about that either," she said. "Let's talk about you. Will you play another season, like that man asked you?"

Ron Neidholm, Sarah Grace's college lover, looked at her across the table, in an hotel dining room which seemed, suddenly, to be empty apart from them. "Honey," he said, in the soft drawl he had acquired in his Texas days, "I have three Superbowl rings, and I have been

All-American or Pro-bowl quarterback more times than I can even remember. That doesn't stop me wanting more glory, or more trophy jewellery, and the Nashville Cats are offering me an unbelievable amount of money to throw that damn ball for another season.

"If that guy had asked me a month ago whether I'd take it, I'd have said "Too damn right!" But now, I'm not quite so sure."

She frowned; she had always showed her surprise that way. "What's making you hesitate all of a sudden?"

"You are, Dr. Sarah Grace Skinner. You are."

Three

Paula Viareggio looked to her left and saw herself in the big mirror that stretched across the width of the dressing table. She saw him too, although he was lost somewhere in a dream. She slid out from underneath his muscular arm, rolled out of the huge sleigh bed and stood up.

Still looking in the mirror, she touched herself between her breasts with a fingertip, then traced it slowly down to her navel. Not bad, she thought, appraising her body in the morning light. She did not think of herself as being vain; no, she was simply proud of her olive skin with its velvet feel, of her long supple limbs, and of her classic high-cheekboned face. Most of all she was proud of her long cascading hair, turned silver from black in her mid twenties, helped on its way, if truth be told, by some judicious colouring by Charlie Kettles, her hairdresser. "Yes, not bad for thirty-something," she murmured.

She heard a muffled grunt behind her, as Mario McGuire came back to wakefulness.

"Where you gone?" he whispered.

"Nowhere," she answered.

"Come back in here then."

"Let me guess," she laughed. "You're going to tell me you're at your best in the mornings."

"Something like that," he agreed, cheerfully.

"As if I didn't know that already." She turned towards him, facing the bed. "This can't go on, you know."

He propped himself up on an elbow. "Bloody hell," he exclaimed. "You spend all those years trying to get me into your bed, and now you're giving me a hard time over it."

"You know what I mean, Mario," she said, heavily. "This situation can't go on. What did you tell your wife this time? Are you working late in Galashiels again?"

"I didn't tell her anything. Things are bad enough between Maggie and me, without burdening them with unnecessary lies."

Her mouth dropped open for a second or two, until she loosed a short, sarcastic laugh. "Hah! Are you going to tell her where you've been, then… presuming you deign to go home at some point today?"

"No. I'm not going to tell her anything, and she's not going to ask. I promise you that. She won't."

"You're kidding yourself!"

"Maggie will not rock the boat."

"If it was my bloody boat, I'd tip you over the side. In fact I think

I'll do just that." She reached out, grabbed a corner of the duvet and yanked it away, uncovering him. "Go on," she said. "Get up, get dressed and go on home to your wife, and your new family, where you belong!"

He smiled up at her. "If you really mean that, I will." He rolled out of bed in a single easy movement and headed for the bathroom.

Involuntarily, she reached out and caught his wrist, before he was halfway there; he turned and pulled her towards him, enveloping her in his arms, pressing her body against his, burying his face in her hair.

"No," he whispered, "I didn't think so."

They moved back to the bed, leaving the duvet on the floor. "Listen to me," Mario said softly, stroking her belly with the flat of his right hand. "A few months ago, on any given Saturday morning in Edinburgh, it would have been Maggie and me lying like this. I loved her, no mistake, and I wouldn't have looked at another woman. I still wouldn't, if it weren't for you. But that's all gone; Mags has changed, and changed for good."

"But why?" she asked. "And why so suddenly? That's what I don't understand."

He kissed her on the forehead. "I don't think I can find the words to tell you… no, not even you… exactly why, or how, it happened.

Let's just say that all her life, she's been fighting this battle with herself, about how she relates to men; now, finally, she's lost it." He hesitated. "Paulie," he asked, 'can I trust you to keep a secret?"

"Don't be daft. You know you can."

"Okay." He fixed her with his eyes. "Maggie was raped," he told her, firing the words at her, watching her hands go to her mouth in horror, waiting as she took it in. "The man who did it killed himself," he went on, when she was ready, 'and it was all covered up, but that's what her emotional breakdown, the one we pretended was flu, was about: not all, but that was a big part of it. Now, in the aftermath, even though she's back in control of herself, she just can't bear me to touch her. She can live with me around the house, okay. We're pleasant to each other. We still care for each other. But physically, our marriage is over."