Even the birth of Master James Andrew Skinner six months before had taken less out of her than their dreadful day.
His first inclination had been to detail a Constable to take her car back to Edinburgh, but she had been adamant to the point of fury that she would drive herself. He had given in, but he had followed her watching all the way. Where normally she was a swift, assertive driver, instead she had been slow and deliberate and the thirty-five-mile journey to Fairyhouse Avenue had taken over an hour, even in minimal traffic.
Late in the afternoon, Bob had called his daughter in Glasgow, and had asked her to drive through to Edinburgh to relieve Tracey, the Nanny. He knew that he could have phoned the girl, and that she would have cancelled her night out, but his sensitivity to his wife's mood made him realise that it should be Alex who was there for them when they made it home, and not a relative stranger, however bright she was and eager to please.
There she had been, their daughter, hard at work in the kitchen, with a pasta sauce bubbling on the hob, and a bottle of Rioja ready to uncork. Alex was famous for her verbosity, but lately she h had learned that there were times when nothing at all was the best thing to say. She had taken one look at her father's tired, drawn face when it appeared round the kitchen door, then, without a word, she had opened the fridge, taken out a bottle of Datum Estrella beer, uncapped it, and handed it to him. Next, she had mixed an outrageously large Bacardi and tonic, dropped in two ice cubes and a slice of lemon, and had taken it through to her step-mother in the sitting room, where she had collapsed on the sofa.
`Thanks, kid,' Sarah had said. 'Tough day at the University of Life, I'm afraid.' The tears had come then, floods of them, and great, wracking sobs which had shaken her body from top to toe. All the while, as her exhaustion worked itself out, Bob had stood in the doorway, watching Alex cradling her in her arms, woman to woman, knowing that there was nothing he could do to help her and feeling all the more desperate because of it.
Eventually, when Sarah had cried herself dry, they had settled down to supper. But still barely a word had been said. Bob had done his best, asking Alex the same question twice over about the difference between her final degree years and her diploma studies, but eventually he had abandoned the fruitless effort. The cork had stayed in the Rioja as he concentrated on his third, and then his fourth bottle of Estrella.
They sat in silence over supper.
Eventually Alex, having cleared away the last of the dishes, said: 'Look, you two, it's ten o'clock and baby brother Jazz looks settled for the night. I'm going to stay at Andy's. It's Friday night, so there's no need for me to rush back to Glasgow. Unless you'd rather I stayed here, of course, but somehow..
`No, love,' said Bob. 'You've been magic, as ever, but I guess we're better left on our own from now on. So you just head on down to Haymarket. Andy should be home by now, I guess.'
She looked at him in surprise. 'But I didn't expect him back until tomorrow afternoon.'
`Change of plan. I'll leave it to him to tell you about it. It isn't something I want to go into now. You can save me a phone call, though. Tell Andy I want him in my office at eight-thirty tomorrow morning, for a briefing. And tell him to bring the bacon rolls!' His face cracked in a half-smile.
Okay. I'll even grill the rashers myself! Now, good night, Pops. Good night, Sarah.' She leaned over and kissed her stepmother on the cheek. Sarah looked up, wanly, and waved her fingers in a weak farewell.
Bob escorted Alex out to her car and waved her off on the short journey to Andy Martin's flat in Haymarket.
When he returned to their sitting room, he found Sarah sitting once more in tears, quietly, but it seemed to him, remorselessly. He went back into the kitchen and mixed her another drink, and took one more for himself, checking that there were still two or three bottles left in the drinks section of the fridge. The Estrella was as strong as it was golden, and normally three or four would have brought on a warm buzz, but on this dark night he could feel not the slightest effect.
He pressed the tall glass into Sarah's hands, sat down beside her and slipped an arm around her shoulders.
`Hey,' he whispered in her ear, 'I should have said this before. You were magnificent. I'm sorry I behaved so stupidly when you showed up. I don't know what got into me.
Whatever it was, it wasn't rational. I've never been prouder of you than I was today.'
She shot him a sideways look, a strange furtive glance, from sharp mascara-smudged eyes that it seemed to him he had never seen before. 'Why?' she said, and took a long swallow from her Bacardi. 'What did I do? I just racked up the body-bags in a row, ready for collection.'
She picked up the TV remote-control unit and pressed the button. The big screen lit up, and suddenly Skinner saw himself, filmed from an illegally intruding helicopter, as he, Legge and Arrow and the rest had moved among the carnage in the gully. It occurred to him that the craft must have been close, yet he could not recall hearing it.
Then the scene switched to the main crash-site, showing soldiers carrying laden, covered stretchers toward the mortuary tent, in the late afternoon. As they watched, Sarah appeared in the doorway, waiting for the bearers with a clipboard in her hand.
`There I go,' she said grimly. 'I counted them in… and I laid them out!' She rested her head on his shoulder. 'Just bags, Bob. That's all. Lots and lots of bags, with things inside. I can't let myself think of them as people. I mustn't.'
He took the remote from her and switched off the TV. 'You can't avoid it,' he said.
'Because that's what they were, and you have to grant them that dignity. You're trained to deal with death, and you've seen things as bad as that and worse. Those killings in the Royal Mile, for example. The bomb at the Festival.'
Her head bowed. 'But so many, Bob. So many. That's what I can't get over. All those black bags!' Her shoulders shook again.
`The numbers don't matter. They're irrelevant. Within every mass killing, every death is a private truth for the individual. Everyone on that plane died the same solitary death. It is the most personal moment that any being will know, and the most lonely. There can be no other human experience like it. Birth is a team effort, or a partnership at least. Then the newly hatched person becomes a part of humanity, from that point on, and as such is never truly alone… until the very end. Living is a sharing experience, but dying can't be. We all go alone into that good night. Some of us go gentle, some raging.
`Sooner or later, you or some other doctor would have performed your final service for all of the people who went today, declaring them dead so that their passing can be recorded.
You have to see this as having been a busy day at the office, because that is what it was. It may take strength of will to do that, but you have that strength. What you need now is sleep, so come on, my girl. Let's finish these nightcaps and head for bed.'
TWENTY-FOUR
‘Poor Mr Old! He was such a nice man, too.'
Alex shook her head sadly. 'I've known him for years. Long ago, when I was a kid, Dad would take me into the office sometimes, when Roy Old was his boss. He always made a fuss of me, and he always gave me things to do. Tidying up the paper clips, making tea and coffee, clearing up the dirty cups; things like that. He used to call me his wee policewoman.' She smiled at the memory. Ahh; she sighed. 'It's such a shame.'
`Lightning strikes, love,' said Andy Martin, and knew, even before the shadow of a recent horror crossed her face, that he had said the wrong thing. 'Oh dammit,' he moaned. 'I'm sorry!'