'Latent homosexuality — he's living in Brighton with a chiropractor. He's a gynaecologist; I think it got to him eventually'
Andy gasped, stopped in his tracks and looked at the girl. 'Christ,' he murmured, slowly, 'what age were you when you were born?'
'About fifteen, my mother says.'
Which makes us the same age, he thought.
'And you're going to be a doctor, like your father?'
'Yes, but not quite like him. I think I'll specialise in proctology. Better career prospects, I reckon; after all, everyone's got one of them.'
'You're quite a girl,' he said, once he had stopped laughing. 'Do you always go on like that to guys you've just met?'
'Only if I think they're up for it. Besides, we haven't just met. We've been neighbours for months, and we're jogging companions.'
'Running, my dear,' he corrected her. 'That might have been jogging for you, but it was running for me.'
'Don't kid me, Mr Andy. You might be a bit of a bufry, but you're as fit as a fiddle; you were scarcely breathing hard that day you caught me up. And I saw you out cutting your grass last week. There's not an ounce of fat on you.'
He tapped his head. 'It's accumulating up here, though. Come on, enough about me. How long till you graduate?'
Rhian's stories of Edinburgh University School of Medicine lasted the rest of the way up to their destination. As they approached the two-storey pub in Rutland Place, across the street from the Caledonian Hotel's grand main entrance* they could see that the usual Friday night throng had developed inside. There seemed to be space available, but the doors were guarded by squat men in dark blazers. 'Damn,' Rhian muttered. 'Do you think we're going to get in?'
'Stick with me, kid.' Martin led her towards the main door; one of the bouncers stepped across his path.
'Full up, pal,' said the man, with the air of one who did not expect debate.
Andy looked him in the eye. 'Police.'
The bouncer stood his ground. 'Aye, that'll be right.'
'Aye, it will,' the detective agreed, speaking barely above a whisper. 'I can see in there well enough. They can take two more, so do it the easy way. Believe me, you don't want to try the other.'
The man considered his options for a few seconds, then stepped aside.
'Can you talk your way in anywhere?' Rhian asked.
'Not the New Club. In the bomber jacket and the chinos that would be a bit difficult; but pubs, sure. The guy on the door just fancied himself a bit; on an authority trip, that was all. Now what'll you have?'
Indeed, the bar was not quite as busy as it had appeared from the street; they found a couple of high stools by a shelf along the back wall and perched themselves there. 'Right,' said the girl briskly, after a first sip at her pint of lager. 'You've had my story, now let's have the rest of yours. What happened to Mrs Martin?'
He wrinkled his nose. 'That role is currently vacant.'
'Indeed? Then you're holding regular auditions, from what I've seen on Sunday mornings. But you don't seem like the playboy type.'
'I like to think I am; don't shatter my illusions, please.'
She hesitated. 'Ahh, I see. 'Shut up, Rhian, and mind your own business.' Okay. Sorry.'
He shook his head. 'No, no. I didn't mean to cut you off. The fact is I lived with someone until about nine months ago. She was going to be Mrs Martin, but it didn't work out.'
'What happened?'
He shrugged his shoulders. 'She caught me screwing someone else,' he said, quickly.
Rhian gazed at him. 'If you'd looked me in the eye when you said that, I'd have believed you. It's just as well you're a copper, not a crook, for you're a really lousy liar. Let me guess. It was the other way around?'
His vivid green eyes fixed on hers. 'Nothing to do with it,' he murmured. 'There were things we couldn't reconcile, that's all.'
'And you've been blaming yourself ever since?'
His gaze did not waver. 'No. I'm not that much of a romantic. I've been blaming her ever since, and I always will.' He drank deeply from his beer. 'It's time to move on, though. I know that.'
She drained her glass and looked at him. 'Fine. Let's go to Mather's.'
'You're a bit of a girl, aren't you?' he chuckled.
'No,' she shot back. 'I'm a lot of a girl. Just what you need, officer; you've been brooding for long enough.'
They eased their way out of № 1 Rutland Place and crossed Shandwick Place to Mather's, different surroundings altogether, more of a traditional man's pub. Initially, he felt uneasy about taking her in there, but he had learned enough about his enticing neighbour to know that the alternative was to let her go in alone.
The two fair-haired newcomers drew a few looks as they stepped into the dull, high-ceilinged bar, and a few smirks too. As they walked up to the bar, Andy looked around slowly and deliberately, and recognised half a dozen faces; men-about-town of a certain sort whose paths had crossed his, over the years. Two of them nodded in his direction, the others looked away, arousing his suspicions at once. He made a mental note to pass their names on to Dan Pringle, the divisional CID Commander for the area.
'Eighty shilling?' Rhian's question reclaimed his attention. She had a five-pound note in her hand.
'Yes,' he answered, glancing across at the barman, 'but you can put that away. I don't accept drinks from members of the public… and certainly not from students.'
'Hey, I'm a liberated lady.'
'Maybe, among your generation; to me you're just a kid.' As he passed his own fiver across the bar, she frowned and looked away from him; the first crack in the shell of her self-confidence. 'Hey, I'm sorry,' he offered at once. 'I didn't mean to put you down.'
That look in her eye came back at once. 'Don't flatter yourself. You haven't picked me up yet.'
They stood at the bar in Mather's while they drank and talked. Rhian tried to prise police stories from him, but he steered her gently on to other topics. For all her assurance, she was too young for many of the tales that he could have told her. Fleetingly, the thought came to him that if he did, the temptation which she represented would go away at once, but he rejected it.
Instead he talked all the usual small-talk, music and movies, all the harmless stuff which he used to build a screen between his companion of that and other evenings, and the real Andy Martin. Only Alex knew him, and she had rejected him; it would be a long time before that man came back. Better casual affairs and loneliness than experience that pain again.
'Am I starting to bore you?'
He blinked and smiled at her. 'Far from it. I was somewhere else for a minute, that's all.'
'No, you weren't. You were in Bert's Bar all along, and my glass is empty… but it's okay, I think it's time to go. A pint and two halves is enough for me.'
He finished his third and last pint of the evening, and they left their third and last port of call, walking out into William Street, into the still, mild summer evening. She took his arm as they turned into Walker Street, quiet at ten-thirty, even on a Friday night. She was silent on the walk home, along Rothesay Terrace and down the hill towards the Village.
'Thanks, Andy,' she said at last, as they arrived at their neighbouring homes. 'This has been nice… even though you have been blocking me out all night.'
'I haven't,' he lied; she was perceptive, this girl-woman.
'Oh no? Ask me in for a coffee, then.'
He looked at her, temptation on legs, in the gloaming of the June Scottish night, lit by the blue glow of the northern sky. And then he thought of the paintings. 'Do it,' they seemed to whisper to him.
'Okay,' he said. 'Would you like a coffee?'
She seemed to twinkle at him. 'Well, just the one…'
He unlocked the door and stood aside for her; the houses in the terrace were identical in lay-out, so she headed straight upstairs to the first-floor living area, above the garage, laundry and store rooms. He flicked a light
