Bob, despite being in his mid-forties, had evolved sexually, too.
He often thought of himself in the fifteen years between Myra's death and Sarah's arrival in his life: a quiet, private, thoughtful man, a loner; good qualities for a high-achieving detective but barriers on the road to happiness. For all of those years he had been wounded inwardly, like Sarah, but more severely. His few brief sexual encounters with available women – never at his home, and always when Alex was away with her grandparents or at school camps – had been deeply unsatisfying and had left him grieving afresh for his daughter's dead mother. So when he had first met Sarah, in the line of duty, and had felt immediately drawn to her, it had been in spite of himself, and his nature, that he had followed his instincts. And now he was, he knew, a far better man for it. He had still only a very few close friends, Andy Martin and James Proud top of the list, but he had become more approachable, more ready to laugh with others, and to share his thoughts with them. He perceived, too, that he was now more active in his support of those in trouble, where before he might have offered no more than sympathy. At first he had worried whether the new Skinner might be too soft as a commander, but he had realised quickly that the qualities which he had felt himself developing were strengths rather than weaknesses.
He had now lapsed into a reverie, from which Sarah recalled him abruptly, by propping herself up on an elbow and tweaking his nose.
Hey! I'm still here, you know.' She glanced down towards his right leg. 'Going to tell me about that now?'
Bob glanced down to see the red raw scrape on his knee. He looked at Sarah and grinned.
All right. I'm in Charlotte Square, and I'm watching this motorcyclist outside Alan Ballantyne's place, you know Number 6.1 think he looks a bit iffy, so I decide to check him out.
I'm on my way over to talk to him when he reaches inside his jacket. That bomb must have got to me more than I thought, because I decide he's going for a gun, and I dive for cover. In fact, what's he got in his hand is nothing but a mobile phone. Did I feel like a prat? Yes I did. Worst of all, big Denis from the Scotsman saw it all. Ask him.'
He said it all with a smile, thinking: That last part was a clever touch. Hope it does the trick.
Sarah's eyes narrowed as she weighed up the plausibility of his story. 'What did the biker do?'
'He got the fright of his life. Imagine. He hears what he must have thought was a nutter shouting and running at him, then sees him diving about in the street. He revved up his bike and bombed off. What else would you expect?' Bob kept smiling, his fingers mentally crossed, as she looked at him for a few long seconds.
Well, if that's all. Lie there and I'll clean up that knee.' She swung herself off the bed and walked on tip-toes into their shower-room. A few seconds later she reappeared, leaning on the doorjamb with an uncapped bottle of Dettol and a wad of cottonwool in her hand.
As always, the sudden sight of his wife naked gave Bob a rush of pleasure, even although he had seen her thus only a few seconds before. He smiled as his eyes took in her long legs, her smooth belly with the dark heart of mystery at its base, her high, proud, full breasts.
In her turn she looked at him, stretched out on the bed with the special relaxation that only follows great sex: grey-maned but still vibrant with the spirit of youth, long, lean and muscular. He smiled at her again, but she kept her face straight.
'Think it's funny, huh. Spread 'em, boy, and take your medicine.'
He did as he was told, rolling on to his back, his legs forming a V. She knelt alongside him and padded the scrape on his knee with the cotton wool, now well soaked in the antiseptic. She held the bottle of Dettol upright in her left hand as she worked.
He winced as the antiseptic stung, smiling a stage smile through clenched teeth.
'That's a brave soldier,' she cooed.
Then, suddenly, she straddled him again, sitting on his legs, immobilising him. She switched the Dettol bottle to her right hand, holding it, not upright this time, but almost horizontally with her thumb over the top. It hovered menacingly above his lower midsection.
'This stuff stings. Don't it just?' she said.
Bob laughed involuntarily, taken by surprise. He looked at the bottle, unsure of what would happen next.
'Was that really how you scraped your leg, big boy?' she said, mock menace in her tone.
The grin stayed on his face. 'Well, no. The truth is, I was at the zoo, and I got too close to the alligator. Naw, that's not it, I was crossing Princes Street, and I was run over by a bus. Or maybe it was when I tried to jump the food queue in Marks and Spencer.'
'Ok, ok, ok! I give up already.' She jumped to her feet and put the bottle on the bedside table.
'Now, for God's sake, get a move on. It's almost seven and we have to be at the theatre for eight.'
His grin grew wider. 'Exactly. So what's the rush.'
He reached up and drew her to him.
14
They arrived at the Pleasance theatre complex with only three minutes to spare.
For eleven months of the year, the Pleasance is used by Edinburgh University and its graduates as a leisure and recreational facility, and thus makes little or no impact on the life of the city. But during August it is transformed into a cosmopolitan centre for the performing arts, throbbing with activity eighteen hours a day. Bars, cafeterias and two theatres are set around a central courtyard filled with benches, chairs, and tables. Around one corner of the cobbled yard, rows of canvas seats are set out, making the area into a third and impromptu theatre, used by the ragbag of idealists and solo performers who, unable to find or fund a venue, flock to the Fringe regardless, ready to make use of even the crudest stage to further their dreams of glory.
Bob and Sarah saw Alex before she spotted them. Wearing her stage make-up, she stood at the top of the stairway which led into Pleasance Theatre 2. Her eyes scanned the crowd; her arms were folded tight across her chest and her brow was knitted with impatience – and gathering disappointment. Even caught off guard, the girl still looked stunning: tall and slim, with big, round blue eyes and a jumble of long dark hair, shining with natural highlights, which fell around her wide shoulders like a shawl.
As they approached. Bob and Sarah saw her rise on her toes, stretching up to peer as far into the crowd as she could. Then, with a shrug of frustration, she dropped back on to her heels and made as if to turn away. •Alex!'
At Sarah's cry, she turned and caught sight of them at last, as they reached the end of a snaking queue of around forty people leading towards and then up the stairway entrance.
'Where have you two been?' she called down to them. 'I was beginning to feel like I'd been stood up. Listen, when you get in, do me a favour and sit well to the back. I don't want to be able to see either of you, or catch your eye during the show, in case it makes me freeze. Wish me luck!'
Bob smiled up at her. 'Break a leg, kid, or whatever!' he shouted. Sarah blew her a kiss. Alex waved to them and disappeared into the theatre.
There were only a few of the steeply tiered seats left when they entered, but they found two in the third row from the back, close to a spotlight. None of the cast would look in that direction for fear of being blinded.
Alexis Skinner was five weeks short of her twenty-first birthday.
She was the only child of Bob's youthful first marriage, which had been cut tragically short by the death of his wife in a simple car accident when Alex was only three years old. She had no clear memory of her mother, and Bob had brought her up virtually alone – with the occasional help of his parents – in the cottage in Gullane, the East Lothian golfing village, where he and Sarah now shared their off-duty time. Myra, Alex's dead mother, had left a sizable endowment policy to provide for her education at one of the Merchant Company schools in Edinburgh. However, the young Alex had demanded that she be allowed to stay with her friends in East Lothian, stamping her tiny foot to emphasise the point. Eventually, Bob had let her have her way. Gullane Primary and North Berwick High it had been, and both schools had done well by her. University had been a different matter, as she had chosen to read Law at Glasgow. Now, three years on, she was about to enter her Honours year, on track for a First, with a string of commendations and prizes to her name. She intended eventually to pursue a career at the Scottish Bar. To her father's private delight, recently she had been awarded a Faculty of Advocates' Scholarship, to help her through her period of pupillage and over the first months of her career in advocacy, where traditionally a newcomer had little or no earning capacity.