Thursday legends

The paintings seemed to gaze back at him; he grinned as he wondered if they might be trying to tell him that they needed a wider audience. There was the girl next door for a start. Rhian Lewis, the older of the civil servant's two daughters, was a medical student at Edinburgh University; she was tall, blonde and athletic, and she had that look in her eye. He had seen her running at weekends; once, indeed, he had overtaken her on the Water of Leith Walkway, and they had jogged back to Dean Village together.

Yes, Rhian would like the collection, he was sure; and the paintings would like her. But… the girl next door? Fraught with problems, he told himself at once. And she was so young; younger even than Alex. He'd be a real idiot to make the same mistake twice, would he not?

'Yes,' he said aloud. 'A real idiot. No more twenty-anythings for you, Martin. You'll play in your own age group from now on. Starting this weekend.' He pushed himself up from the chair, picked up his cordless phone from the coffee table, and dialled a number, plucked from his memory. 'Hi, Janey,' he began, as the call was answered. 'Andy. You doing anything tomorrow night?'

'Washing my hair,' the woman on the other end of the line said, tersely.

'On a Saturday night? That sounds like the bum's rush to me.'

'You could be right there, Mr Martin. Tell you what, why don't you ask that Sindy Doll I saw you with in George Street last weekend?' The line went dead.

'Ouch,' he said, staring at his handset. 'You get away with nothing in this bloody city, do you?' he complained to the paintings. He started to dial Sally's number, but paused. Two weeks on the trot could lead to a third, and so on; these things could come about almost by default. He and Sal had been live-ins a few years before and, nice as she was, he didn't fancy going there again.

'Bugger,' he swore, and began to whistle tunelessly, an old Sinatra song about lonely Saturday nights. And then he had a brainwave. He picked up his Filofax and flicked through its telephone listings, until he got to the 'Macs' section. He found the number at once; scrawled in over the one which it had replaced, and dialled it up.

The ringing tone sounded four times, before it was replaced by a honey voice. 'Yes?' she said, cautiously; the tone of a woman living alone. 'Ruthie?' he asked, although he knew that it was her. Ruth McConnell, Bob Skinner's secretary, a Kim Basinger lookalike with legs which went all the way up to her bum; gorgeous and currently single.

'Yes?'

'It's Andy Martin. Listen, this is a bit of a cheek, so don't worry about blowing me out, but I'm at a bit of a loose end tomorrow night. I wondered if you fancied dinner.'

Only three or four seconds, but seeming twice as much. 'Andy, I'd love to,' she answered. He could tell from her tone that she meant it; he could tell also what she would say next. 'But I can't. I'm going through to Ayr tomorrow to visit my Mum. She's just come out of hospital.'

This is not your day, son, he thought. 'Ahh, too bad,' he said. Still, there had been that hint. 'How about next weekend?'

'That would be great.'

'Okay then. I'll see you sometime and you can give me directions for picking you up.'

'In that new car of yours? Yes, please.' The anonymous Mondeo had gone as part of his personal make-over, to be replaced by a sleek red MGF.

He ended the call feeling vaguely uncomfortable, as if he had boxed himself into something, slipped the small telephone into the pocket of his shirt, picked up that afternoon's Evening News and wandered out on to his second-storey balcony. The summer sunshine hit the river side of the house in the late afternoon and evening; next door, in the garden below, Rhian, in tee-shirt and shorts, was sprawled in a chair, reading. His appearance through the patio door caught the corner of her eye. She looked up and smiled at him. 'Hello, Andy,' she called up. 'Nice night, isn't it.'

'Sure is.'

She put down her book and stood up, long tanned legs unfolding. 'Social life let you down?' she asked. He laughed. 'That's perceptive of you.'

'Mine too. Take me for a pint then; a walk up to Rutland Place would be nice.'

Andy Martin was rarely caught off guard. 'I suppose it would,' he said, cagily. 'Ahh, what the hell, you're on. See you outside.'

The girl ran indoors and he was turning too, when a figure appeared on the next balcony. It was Juliet Lewis, Rhian's mother, dark-haired, shorter than her daughter, but trim nonetheless; he was quietly relieved to see that she was smiling. 'I should apologise for my forward daughter,' she said. 'She didn't give you much chance to say "no", did she?'

The burly, fair-haired policeman grinned back. 'She's right; it's a nice evening for a walk.'

'She's in safe hands, at least.'

That's all you know, lady, Martin thought.

'Let me be as forward as Rhian now,' she went on. 'It's Margot's eighteenth tomorrow, and I'm having a party for her. If the weather holds we're going to have a barbecue; if not, I'm cooking indoors. If you're free would you like to join us, rather than sit up there exposed to the cooking smells and annoyed by the music?'

Jesus, he thought once more, when you least expect it…

'That's very thoughtful of you, Juliet,' he said. 'Yes, thank you, I'd like that.'

'Good. Around seven, then.'

Rhian was waiting when he stepped outside into the street. She had changed from her shorts into black jeans, but was still in the loose-fitting tee-shirt which she had worn in the garden. 'Hi,' she said, brightly. 'We could always run to the pub, I suppose, but we'd hum a bit when we got there.'

'No,' he said, looking at her and reminding himself again just how young she was. 'Let's just stick to walking pace.' They set off out along the narrow street which led out of their part of Dean Village and on up towards the city's West End.

'You're a police officer, aren't you?' the girl asked, as they crested the rise into Belford Road.

'That's right.'

'So my mum was right. She thought that's what you were.' 'She's well informed. I try to keep home and work separated.'

'Mum's usually in the know about the police; it's part of her job. What do you do? You're not in Special Branch, are you?'

He laughed; her brightness was infectious, just like Alex. 'If I was, I couldn't tell you.'

'Or if you did, you'd have to kill me?'

'It's not that cloak and dagger, honest. But no, I'm not in SB; not any more.'

'So what are you? An Inspector, like that man in the TV series?'

'No. Actually I'm a Chief Superintendent. Detective.'

She looked at him, apparently impressed. 'God. You must be older than you look. That's next to Chief Constable, isn't it?'

It was his turn to laugh. 'Not quite. I'm Head of CID. There are three people between me and Sir James.'

'Sir James? I thought that man Skinner was the Chief Constable.'

'Bob? He hates even the notion that he might be one day. No, he's the Deputy Chief. I report to him.'

'I see.' She looked him in the eye. 'So how old are you, then?'

'What do you think?' 'Thirty-five.' She was only a year out. 'That's near enough. How about you?' 'What do you think?'

'Looking at your mother, you can't be much older than Margot.'

'Thank you, sir, on her behalf. I'm twenty-one; Mum's forty-four.'

'As if I'd ask you that.'

'You just did, Mr Detective, by implication.'

'So what about your father?' Martin asked.

'Gone to the other side,' she answered.

'Ahh, I'm sorry to hear that. What was it?'

'Latent homosexuality — he's living in Brighton with a chiropractor. He's a gynaecologist; I think it got to him eventually'