I cried for my father then, the only time I ever did, and that’s when I put him into context: an Old Testament guy at heart. I took the holy book with me, and I have it to this day. I hadn’t read much from it until recently, but I’m pretty familiar with most of it now.
Later on, once I was home and ready to talk, Myra asked me how it had been. I told her, moment by moment, scene by scene, and finally word for word.
‘What did he mean?’ she asked, curious.
‘I haven’t a fucking clue,’ I told her, frankly.
I do now.
One
‘What’s up, Sauce?’
‘Nothing,’ he replied, a little too quickly, and with an edge to his voice.
‘Hey,’ she protested. ‘Don’t bite my head off.’
‘I didn’t. At least, I didn’t mean to. Why should anything be up?’
‘Because you’ve been home for three hours, we’re on to our second bottle of red, and you haven’t cracked a smile all evening. This is our first week of living together. You’re supposed to be overjoyed, happy, bubbly. Or is this the real Sauce Haddock I’m seeing? Is this what you’re usually like at home?’
‘Aargh!!!’ he shouted, suddenly, then rolled sideways along the sofa, burying his face in her lap and rubbing his head from side to side against her tight-fitting woollen onesie.
‘Stop it,’ she giggled. ‘We’ve only just had supper; you can’t still be hungry.’ She grabbed a handful of his hair and tugged him upwards until he was left with no choice but to look directly at her.
‘Who says I can’t?’ he whispered.
‘Well, that’s not on the menu, ’cos I’ve got my period. Go and get another Magnum out the freezer; that’ll cool you down.’
‘No it won’t,’ he said, firmly. ‘You may trust me on that, Ms Cheeky McCullough.’
She let him go, and he swung himself round to sit beside her, wrapping an arm around her and drawing her to him.
She laid her head on his shoulder. ‘Well, are you gonna tell me? What gave you the faraway eyes? Did you have to bollock somebody at work? Or did you get on the wrong side of your new DI?’
‘Neither of those: I’m still easing myself in as a detective sergeant, not ruffling feathers, and Sammy Pye isn’t the bollocking type. Yes, I’ve had better days, but don’t worry about it. We have our deal, remember? I’m not going to bring work home.’
‘But you will, love,’ she countered, gently. ‘You have tonight, whether you wanted to or not. You can’t help it.’ She squeezed his arm. ‘Listen to me,’ she said. ‘When we were out with the McGurks on Sunday night, after they helped us move in, Lisanne and I had a heart-to-heart when you and Jack were up at the bar. She marked my card about living with a cop. And she should know; her first husband was a plod as well. “Faraway eyes,” that was how she put it. “When you see those, you know that what’s going on behind them isn’t very nice, and shouldn’t be allowed to fester. A CID cop’s wife’s job,” she told me, “involves a lot of therapy. It involves knowing when something’s hurting in there,” she tapped his forehead, “and getting it out and blowing it away.” So, lover boy, I might not be Mrs Cop officially, but I’m still taking the job seriously.’
‘It was a call-out,’ he admitted, almost before she had finished. ‘Luke and me.’
‘Luke?’
‘The DI; it’s his nickname. They call him Luke Skywalker. . I’m not quite sure why, probably something about the Force being with him, like in Star Wars.’ He frowned. ‘Here, did you know that there are about six times as many Jedi Knights as there are atheists in this country? Official figures, from the Census, no kidding.’
Cheeky nodded. ‘Of course I know. I’m one of them. And didn’t you tell me that the wee pathologist bloke’s called Master Yoda?’
‘Aye, but never to his face. Who are you then? Princess Thingy, I suppose. Just don’t copy that bloody awful hairstyle, okay?’
She grinned. ‘That’s a promise I’ll make and keep, worry not. So. .’ she paused, ‘. . this call-out; why’s it getting to you?’
‘You don’t want to know.’
‘I do. We’re a couple. We share.’
He gave up the struggle. ‘It was a woman,’ he said. ‘She’d been in the water. Her body was washed up on Cramond Island: well, most of it was. She was missing her head, her right arm and shoulder, and part of her left arm from just below the elbow down. Dr Grace said. .’
‘Who’s he?’
‘She,’ he corrected her. ‘Sarah Grace; she’s the other top pathologist. She’ll take over from Master Yoda. . Professor Hutchinson, to give him his proper name. . when he retires in a few months. She’s also the chief constable’s. . sorry, the ex-chief constable’s ex-wife, but from some whispers I’ve heard, they’re pretty friendly again.’
‘You mean Mr Skinner? Hold on, I’m getting confused here, I thought his ex-wife was that politician, Aileen de Marco, the one who got caught by the tabloids having an affair with an actor.’
‘She was Mrs Skinner number three. Sarah Grace was number two.’
‘That explains lots of things,’ she murmured. ‘Now that man, he has serious faraway eyes. I’m not sure I’d want to know what’s behind them. Right,’ she declared, coming back to the moment. ‘I’m up to speed on the Skinner marital history. So what did ex-wife number two say?’
‘That she’d been hit by a ship’s propeller; there’s a lot of marine traffic goes past the island, tankers and such bound for the oil terminal. She reckoned that she’d been in the water for at least a couple of weeks.’
‘Oh, my poor darlin’ boy,’ Cheeky murmured. ‘That must have been awful for you.’
‘One for the Chamber of Horrors, that’s for sure. And maybe the Chamber of Secrets as well.’
‘How come?’
‘Because she was naked. No clothes, no jewellery, no head, no hands, all adds up to no means of identification. We haven’t a clue who she was and we have no obvious way of finding out.’
‘What age was she? Young, old, in between?’
‘Not young, but Dr Grace won’t be able to give us an age range until she’s done the autopsy.’
‘Christ, you won’t have to go to that, will you?’
His smile was grim. ‘Oh aye, love. Part of the job. She did it this afternoon.’
She stood, topped up his glass from the bottle of Washington State Merlot that stood on the coffee table, and handed it to him. ‘Therapeutic,’ she said. ‘Once you’ve finished it, you can look at another body to take your mind off it. I was kidding about my period, by the way.’
She winked at him, then rejoined him on the sofa. ‘Hold on,’ she exclaimed, as she settled herself against him. ‘How come this is your job at all? People do decide to end it all, and quite often they do it in the river. A few of them jump off the Forth Bridge.’
‘Naked?’
‘Sure. Why not? But it needn’t have been a suicide. She could have been skinny-dipping and got into trouble. So why isn’t uniform handling this? How come it’s a CID job?’
‘Because, my love,’ he sighed, ‘the propeller might have mangled the poor dearie, but it didn’t stab her six times in the chest.’
Two
‘Sir Robert Skinner,’ she murmured. ‘Yes, it has a ring to it, a nice melodic sound.’
‘In that case, honey child,’ I couldn’t stop myself chuckling, ‘it’s as well that I’m tone deaf, because I’ve turned it down. I’m sorry if it disappoints you that you’ll never get to be a Lady, but it’s the way I feel.’
She raised an eyebrow; it’s one of her trademark gestures, and it always makes me smile. ‘I’d only have got to be Lady Skinner if we remarried, Bob, and we agreed that isn’t going to happen, remember.’
‘I remember,’ I conceded, ‘but the truth is, anything Sarah wants Sarah gets, so if I had accepted and you’d wanted to be a titled lady, us getting re-hitched would have been fine by me.’