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He paused again. ‘Oh, yes,’ he added. ‘And confirming your attraction to the oppressed and the under-privileged, you’re a Partick Thistle supporter.’ He looked at her. ‘You couldn’t kill anyone, and you couldn’t even threaten it. If you saw someone threatened with death, you would say, “Kill me instead.” And you know what? They probably would, because people who are capable of killing usually do it when they’re challenged to.’

She sat in silence as he finished. ‘That’s me taught, isn’t it?’ she whispered eventually. ‘Does it say on my file that I couldn’t kill anyone?’

He smiled. ‘No, Aileen, I said that. My wife made a forceful point to me a few days ago. There are no angels, she told me.’ He flashed her a quick, wicked glance. ‘But there are some who can call up the Devil when we need him.’

‘And I should be grateful you’re on our side?’

He nodded, and his grin widened. ‘Very.’

She gave a snort of laughter. ‘God!’ she exclaimed. ‘You’re up front, aren’t you?’

‘Very rarely. You’d be surprised if you knew how few people I’d talk to like I’ve talked to you this evening.’

She shook her head. ‘No, I wouldn’t. You might be surprised too; the normal everyday Aileen de Marco’s as private a person as you are. I guess that having read each other’s files has given us a sort of intimacy.’

‘I suppose.’ He swung round in his chair, then suddenly looked her in the eye. ‘Tell me something. That rebel, the one in Surinam: he didn’t rape you, did he? Not forcibly, that is.’

He saw her cheeks redden. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I think that was the deal. It was the price you had to pay to save the people you were looking after. Am I right?’

She nodded, eyes downward. ‘How did you know that?’ she asked quietly.

‘If he’d raped you, taken you by force, I mean, it would have been a violent act. He’d have killed you afterwards and his men would have slaughtered everyone in your camp. You took a chance that he would keep his word.’

‘I couldn’t do anything else.’

‘Of course not. You were lucky that the guy had some sort of honour.’

‘They killed him, you know,’ she murmured. ‘The government troops caught him and shot him, in front of his men. Then they shot the rest of them.’

Skinner shrugged his shoulders. ‘Fair enough, in your man’s case. You might pretend to yourself that there was a sort of treaty between you at the time, but in truth he did rape you, as sure as if he’d held a gun to your head.’

‘I suppose you’d have shot him too,’ she challenged.

He looked her in the eye, smiling cheerfully. ‘Only if he was very lucky,’ he replied.

‘God,’ she exclaimed, ‘you mean that too, don’t you? Stop it. Turn off that magnetism.’

‘Hey!’ He touched his chest, just below his left shoulder, where his pacemaker had been implanted. ‘A magnet could do me some serious harm. I’m computer-driven, remember.’

She laughed. ‘You mean that’s your equivalent of a krypton necklace, Superman? That’s a powerful hold you’ve given me over you.’

‘I’ll bear that in mind when they’re putting you through the metal detector. “Look out for magnets!” I’ll warn them.’

‘Me too?’

‘You too.’

‘I don’t think I’ll bother going in that case.’

‘Some chance. Atheist or not, you won’t pass up the chance to meet Gilbert White. Oops, sorry,’ he exclaimed, ‘His Holiness. I haven’t got used to giving him his title yet.’

‘Are you an atheist, Bob?’

He grinned. ‘Are you still trying to find my soul?’

‘Maybe. Are you?’

‘I thought I was, twenty years ago. Now I’ve seen some stuff, and I’d say I’ve slid into agnosticism. Talking with Jim Gainer, and with other clergymen, has given me a new slant on spiritual matters. It’s made me realise that the older I get, I seem to be moving towards defining some sort of belief. Consider this. The New Testament portrays War, Famine, Pestilence and Death as anthropomorphic entities: the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. They’re all too real in today’s world, the whole fucking quartet, and you and I have no trouble accepting their existence. God’s portrayed as an anthropomorphic entity, too, so why do we have trouble accepting its existence?’

‘We’re shown proof of the existence of the Horsemen every day. Where’s the evidence for God?’

‘By definition, that’s where faith comes in: steadfast belief, in the absence of evidence. That’s my problem, you see. I’m a copper and so I’m trained to require evidence. I’m still searching, though. . and I am searching, believe me. I think I see a little every time I look at my daughters and my sons.’

‘Mmm.’ She mused. ‘Maybe I should too. It can’t do any harm, can it?’

‘Not that I can see, as long as you don’t become a zealot. Converts have a reputation as extremists.’

She smiled. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not that good.’

‘Oh, no? Should I caution you, then?’

‘Maybe you should.’ She hesitated and then looked up at him. ‘You haven’t always gone home to your wife, have you?’

‘Ahh. Back to my file, are we?’

‘Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.’

‘No, you shouldn’t.’

‘But since I did. .’ They met each other half-way, not pulling back. She opened her mouth and flicked his tongue with hers, pressing her body, her small, firm, hard-nippled breasts, against him. ‘If you said, “Yes, Minister,” ’ she whispered as they broke off, ‘I wouldn’t laugh this time.’

He leaned back and looked at her. ‘Aileen, when you said you liked danger, you weren’t kidding.’

She bit her lip and looked down, suddenly chastened. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what made me do that.’

‘I thought we both did it,’ he said. ‘And in my case, I know why. You are a very attractive woman, and I’m flawed and lustful, just like most on my side of the sexual divide. Listen to me! One minute I’m talking of searching for God, and the next I’m wondering whether I might find Him up your skirt.’

Aileen’s chuckle was low and throaty. ‘I’m not that complicated. I’m a single woman who’s just realised it’s been an absolute age since she’s had any. I know, you’re married, and I should be ashamed of myself. Crazy, isn’t it? I now feel ashamed because I don’t feel ashamed. I’m nuts, really.’

Bob shook his head. ‘You’re the most together woman a guy could encounter in a long day’s march. But would you move you brain back up to your head for a minute, please, and consider this? If you and I got involved, and it leaked out. . as you can bet it would. . the tabloids would feed on us like maggots on a corpse. It would finish my rocky marriage, make me a louse in the eyes of my kids, and damage my career. But as bad as all that would be for me, so would the consequences you’d face. You have places to go: you will become First Minister, as everyone is forecasting. That would all be blown out of the water. You’d be lucky to keep your seat in the parliament.’

‘I know.’ She smiled: it was soft, sweet, with an odd mixture of shyness and seduction. ‘But who said anything about getting involved? You’ve lived for years in a world that’s populated by secrets, and now, so do I. So what’s one more between us?’

75

There were so many officers required for the briefing that it had to be held in the gymnasium at the police headquarters building. They were all there as ordered, at eight thirty sharp, when the chief constable, ACC Willie Haggerty and Chief Superintendent Brian Mackie strode in, followed by a silver-haired man in a sharp suit.

Heads turned and a few eyebrows rose at the sight of Sir James: usually he was content to let his deputy or assistants run such affairs. Even more rose when DCC Bob Skinner brought up the rear, with a slender, attractive blonde woman by his side. While the first four stepped on to the dais at the front of the gym and took seats, they slipped quietly into the far corner.