She shivered. ‘Spooky.’
‘Listen,’ he said, suddenly serious. ‘However liberal a society may be, if it is to be safe, there have to be dark areas. All countries operate that way. Because of who I am and what I do, there are few doors if any that are locked to me in Britain. But this morning, in another European country, one was slammed right in my face.’
Aileen de Marco’s eyes widened. ‘Do tell!’ she exclaimed.
‘I might. . since you’ve been vetted. . but I thought you mentioned something about dinner. I had about a quarter of a fairly inedible salad eight hours ago; I am seriously hungry.’
She glanced at her watch. ‘God, you’re right; we should be upstairs.’ She stood, smoothing her grey skirt, picked up its matching jacket, and led him once more, this time up a flight of stairs to the club’s dining room. ‘I’ve kept the menu plain and simple. Tomato soup, grilled sole, and ice cream.’
A waiter showed them to their table, left for a few moments, then reappeared with their ice bucket and glasses. Skinner glanced across the room; there was a party of two couples at a table in the furthest corner. He recognised both men: one was an actuary and the other was chief executive of an insurance company.
‘When I changed the booking I was told we’d have company,’ Aileen said. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’
‘Not at all,’ he replied, giving the group a nod of acknowledgement. ‘If they were lawyers it would be all over town in twenty-four hours, but the only things actuaries ever tell people have numbers in them.’
They sat in silence as the waiter served their first course; home-made, he noted. ‘So,’ the minister whispered as soon as he had left, ‘what was your sudden trip all about?’
‘Dead Belgians. I wanted some information, and I thought their government would be helpful.’
‘But they weren’t?’
‘They treated my colleague and me to dinner in the best hotel in town. Then this morning they gave us the bum’s rush.’
‘I can’t imagine anybody giving you the bum’s rush.’
‘It isn’t over. I will find out what they’re covering up.’
‘Who’s going to tell you?’
‘That I can’t say, not at this stage, anyway.’ He picked up his spoon.
They did justice to dinner for the next half-hour, talking trivia about movies and music, discovering that they were both Lord of the Rings devotees, and Skinner admitting that his off-duty reading consisted mostly of crime fiction.
‘Can’t get away from it?’ Aileen asked.
‘What did you read last?’ he asked her.
‘First Among Equals,’ she confessed. ‘Okay, I know it’s about politics, and I know it was written by a Tory, but it’s still a first-class read.’
The coffee was poured and cooling before the minister steered the discussion back to business. ‘The First Minister came by my office this morning,’ she said. ‘He asked me if I’d heard anything about that poor American policeman.’
Skinner frowned. ‘Aileen,’ he murmured, ‘I’m happy to talk to you all night about policing, but I’m uncomfortable when you get into active investigations. . especially when Tommy Murtagh’s name’s mentioned.’
‘You really don’t like the First Minister, do you?’
‘Not a lot. I told you, when it comes to my view of politicians, you’re one of the few exceptions to the rule. I don’t trust them, and you should learn to do the same. Do you think Murtagh knew you were seeing me tonight?’
‘It never occurred to me.’
‘Well, it’s the first bloody thing that occurred to me. As it happens we’ve got a strong lead in that investigation, but I don’t want you telling him so. If he wants to know anything of that nature, he should be asking the Lord Advocate, not you, and he’s well aware of that fact. He’s testing you, just to see how compliant you are; watch him.’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘I’d certainly never be compliant for him,’ she murmured, with a smile. There was a movement in the doorway behind her. ‘Bob,’ she said, ‘I think they want to close up.’
He looked round and saw that the other table was deserted. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I didn’t realise how the time had gone.’ He glanced at her. ‘Aileen, taxis can be hard to find at this hour. Can I run you home?’
She paused, for maybe half a second. ‘Well, since it’s on your way. .’ She stood up and slipped on her jacket. ‘Wait for me downstairs, while I sign the bill and pay a visit.’
‘Where are we going?’ he asked her, as she eased herself into the passenger seat.
‘We’re heading towards Portobello. Lena’s place is just off King’s Road.’
‘Fine.’
Skinner was not given to mixing conversation and driving: he found it too easy to concentrate on neither. As they drew away he switched on his CD player, and let Maria Callas fill the car. Aileen de Marco sighed. ‘Ohhh! I just love her.’
‘Unfortunately Onassis didn’t. So she got fat and died. Silly woman.’
‘Are you always such a cynic?’ she asked.
‘No, I just find it astonishing that someone who gave the world so much more than he ever did should have wound up pining away after he dumped her.’
‘Thank God!’ she exclaimed.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Thank God that you don’t understand everything.’
He let the music take over and drove east. Lena McElhone’s flat was in a modern block in a quiet side-street. He pulled up at the front door and turned down the volume on the great diva. ‘Thanks for dinner,’ he said.
‘Thank you,’ she replied, ‘for making me realise how much I’ve got to learn, and for helping me shed my political blinkers.’
‘Hah! That’s what I’m doing, is it?’
‘Absolutely. You’re contributing to the better governance of Scotland.’
He shuddered. ‘That’s a horrible Harold Wilson word; you’re from another era. I prefer “administration” myself. It implies more regard for the people.’
‘Why, you’re a closet socialist, Mr Skinner!’
‘Aren’t we all, if we care about people?’
She looked at him. ‘Bob, the coffee was lousy back at the club. Would you like another?’
He glanced at the car clock. It showed ten thirty-six, and he always kept it fast. ‘Yeah, okay. If Lena’s not in her curlers, that is.’
‘Lena’s on a management course in Sunningdale.’
She jumped out of the car and opened the block’s main entrance door with a key. The flat was on the ground floor, to the right; the heating had been on, for it was warm and comfortable. ‘Living room’s there,’ said Aileen, pointing to a door off the hall. ‘Make yourself at home, and I’ll brew up.’
Skinner settled on to the larger of the two couches and leaned back, gazing up at the ceiling, feeling tired, and wondering vaguely what he was doing there. From nowhere, he thought of his children and felt a pang of longing, for peace, quiet and a life undisturbed.
‘Hey,’ her voice came quietly. He realised that he had been dozing.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I was meditating.’
‘Do you always meditate with your mouth hanging very slightly open?’ she asked as she laid a mug before him on the glass coffee-table, and settled down beside him on the couch.
‘That means I’m really getting into it.’
‘You don’t let much out, do you, Bob?’
‘Not as a rule,’ he admitted. ‘Discussing my politics with a politician is a real first. Even my wife thinks I could go into the polling station, close my eyes, and my hand would still put the cross in the Tory box.’
‘If we’re into confessions, I’ll give you one. I voted Tory once myself. It didn’t count, mind you. It was in a mock election at school in ’eighty-three.’
‘Everybody voted Tory in ’eighty-three. Would you like to confess something else now?’
She peered at him, over the top of her mug. ‘What?’
‘How did you know that this was on my way home?’
A faint pink flush came to her cheeks. ‘I told you I had access to the secrets,’ she murmured. ‘My department has a file on you; I read it. I know that you live in Gullane, East Lothian, your middle name’s Morgan, you’ve a two-one arts degree in philosophy and politics from Glasgow University, and you hold the Queen’s Police Medal. You had a cardiac incident earlier this year in America. You had a pacemaker implanted as a precaution against a recurrence and you are now one hundred per cent fit. You’ve been married twice; your first wife was killed when you were twenty-eight, your second wife is American, a consultant pathologist. You have one daughter by your first marriage, one of each by your second, and an adopted son. Your adult daughter is an associate with Curle, Anthony and Jarvis, Mitchell Laidlaw’s firm. . but he told me that, it’s not on your file.’