father’s looming and ominous presence, despite the fact that he had gone down to the Mallard for most of the evening, that would have been unthinkable; even if there had been a candidate around.
But there had been her dreams, her lusting and a certain amount of fumbling in the cinema. She thought back also to some of her conversations with her school intimates, and wondered how different these had been from her mother’s discussions with herself in her diary.
Calm again, she opened the diary and read on. As she discovered, Myra’s campaign to deflower Bob Skinner reached a successful climax after only seven days.
31
The morning air was fresh and not too cold as he ran past Fenton Barns, down the curving dip in the road, then, his stride shortening, up the climb towards Dirleton Toll.
He glanced quickly through the iron gate as he passed the cemetery, catching a quick glimpse of his wife’s gravestone, but as always he ran on without stopping. The wind was strong from the west and the hardest part of the run lay before him as he began to pound out the two miles westward, back to Gullane. Cars rushed past him on the main road in both directions, some heading for North Berwick, most at that hour of the morning bound for Edinburgh.
He ran even harder as he took the curve at Archerfield and the village came into sight, punishing himself, forcing himself back towards the sort of pace he had been able to achieve before his stabbing, taking pleasure from the realisation that he was almost there.
Sweat was pouring from him as at last he turned off the Main Street, past the bakery, and ran up and across Goose Green, to finish his run as always by vaulting his garden gate.
He cooled down in the back garden for a few minutes, then unlocked the back door and stepped straight into the small shower. He had installed it when Alex was a child, for use when she returned from the beach. A full ten minutes later, naked and towelling himself off vigorously, he stepped out, and into the kitchen. Eventually he wrapped the towel around his middle, poured himself a large glass of orange juice from a container in the fridge, and walked through to the dining room.
The big brown envelope lay on the table, untouched since the night before. Suddenly, as he looked at it, steeling himself to open it, a memory burst unbidden into his mind.
Myra’s sixteenth birthday party, in her parents’ big house in Orchard Street.
His own sixteenth, a few days earlier, had been marked quietly and within the family, like any other. The Graham girl had treated hers as a milestone, and had summoned around twenty of her friends to its celebration, making the point in her telephone invitations that her parents would be absent on the night. He had known Myra since the early years of primary school. They had played together as small children but had become mere nodding acquaintances as the boys and the girls had been diverted into their separate pursuits. Now as adulthood beckoned the groups were being drawn back to shared pastimes.
He had gone to the party with Alice McCready, a neighbour, with whom, once a week, he shared the back row of the Rex Cinema. Myra’s date for the night, he remembered, had been one Campbell Weston, a self-styled Romeo with a cultivated hard-man image but a soft centre. Campbell had been grinning and preening himself like a peacock as Bob and Alice had arrived, but as the evening went on, Myra had paid less and less attention to the spotty boy and more and more to Alice, and thus to him.
She had played her hand beautifully, he remembered with a smile, chatting to them both in the big breakfasting kitchen, frowning in disapproval as cigarettes were smoked, and beer was drunk. Gradually, the Beatles and Herman’s Hermits had given way on the Dansette to Tony Bennett, and Nat King Cole. Gradually, the lights in the lounge had gone out. At last Myra had made her move.
‘Alice, can I have a dance with Bob? For my birthday.’
Refusal had not been an option. Even before the hapless Alice had nodded he had been whisked through to the lounge, where the sofa and chairs had been pushed back to the wall to clear a space for dancing. He closed his eyes, and it all came back. The glow of the coal fire, the musky smell as youngsters groped and fumbled in the dark: and Myra, as they stepped out to dance, to become adults, to fall in love.
Nat Cole was singing ‘There’s a Lull in My Life’ - in Bob’s head, he was singing still - but the tempo of the music was unimportant. She had simply pressed herself against him and moved. He was tall, almost full-grown, and so was she. He remembered her fingers running though his hair, the lushness of her kiss, her tongue in his mouth, the firmness of her breasts, their warmth through his shirt, her right hand roaming, his sudden erection, her murmur.
And then the realisation as the music stopped that everyone in the room was staring at them. All at once Campbell Weston was there, his face contorted, tugging at Myra’s shoulder, pulling them apart. He had pushed him away, but Campbell had lunged back towards him, swinging a wild, vicious punch.
Until that moment Bob Skinner had never hit anyone in his life, or even thought of it. All the way through school, there had always been something about him which had made him immune to bullying or victimisation. But his attacker had lost face before his crowd, and was in a corner.
He remembered how naturally it had come to him; swaying sideways to avoid the blow, countering in the same movement by slamming his right fist wrist-deep into the youth’s midriff, driving the air from his lungs and the beer from his belly. He remembered his calmness in the heat of the brief encounter. He remembered the surge of unexpected, surprising pleasure as his attacker had collapsed, puking, to the floor. One of Campbell’s cronies, a bruiser known for no obvious reason as Big Zed, had taken a threatening step towards him. He had simply smiled at him, nodding invitingly, only to see, to his secret disappointment, the thug back off.
Naturally, that had been the end of the party. The fallen Campbell, unable to walk unaided, had been carried off by his crew. Bob had offered to help clean up the carpet, but Myra had told him that she could manage. ‘You take Alice home,’ she had said, both of them knowing that she was telling him to tie off a loose end, so that matters between them could be put on an official and proper footing.
On that April evening thirty years before, the course of Bob Skinner’s adult life had been set. Now he looked at the parcel on the table, whose contents told how, twelve years later, it had been shattered.
He picked up the envelope, tore it open and drew out the report inside. It was enclosed in a stiff green folder, bearing the two-line heading ‘Procurator Fiscal’s Office. Fatal Accident Report’. Written on it in heavy blue, he saw a number, a date, and the words ‘Mrs Myra Skinner’.
He opened the folder. The first document to meet his eye was a letter, to the Procurator Fiscal. He read aloud.
Sir
The enclosed is a report into the death of Mrs Myra Skinner in a road accident on the date noted.
No other vehicle was involved in the incident, and there were no eye-witnesses. It is the view of the attending officers that the accident was caused by a combination of excessive speed and freak road conditions.
Mrs Skinner was the wife of a serving police officer. Detective Sergeant Skinner arrived by chance at the scene before his wife’s body had been removed from the vehicle and this has added to the natural shock of bereavement. It would cause him further suffering if he were forced to give evidence at, or even to attend, a Fatal Accident Inquiry, and if the full report was led publicly in evidence. It is my view that the circumstances of this death are so clear that an FAI is unnecessary.
I would be grateful if you would so determine and instruct accordingly.
Yours faithfully
James Proud
Asst Chief Constable
Skinner turned the page. The second document in the file was a report by the first attending officer. He scanned it, silently.
‘Constable David Orr and myself were on patrol near Ballencrieff in our traffic car when we were summoned to the incident by a call made by a passing motorist from the AA box nearby. We arrived within three minutes of
