'You're joking!'
'My sense of humour isn't that black. I asked the chief super if she'd heard about it, but it was news to her.'
'That'll be great,' Regan exclaimed, ironically. 'Mr Bitter and Twisted himself, whispering in the ears of the First Minister and the Justice Minister.' He glanced at his colleague. 'Although my own personal rumour mill says that someone has been whispering in de Marco's ear before him.'
Steele frowned. 'Who's that?'
'I'll do you a favour and not tell you. If it's just unfounded gossip you're best not to know.'
Between them, a silence fell; and in it, Regan's grief, from which their conversation had been no more than a moment's respite, returned in full force. 'I've got to go, Stevie,' he said. 'It was a hell of a job persuading the wife not to come here; I have to get back to her now. I'll take a couple more days' leave, yes?'
'You'll take a couple of weeks more; you'll take as long as you and Jen need. Fuck the clear-up figures, George: there are more important things in this world.'
Twenty
'Pops, there's something I have to tell you,' said Alexis Skinner.
'You're getting married.'
'No. I'm not even seeing anyone just now.'
'So you're not pregnant either, then.'
'Don't be daft. I made that mistake once; it won't be repeated.'
'What is it, then?'
'I'm a bit scared.'
Bob looked at her across the dinner table, eyebrows raised in surprise. 'You're what? You've never been scared in your life. What's the problem? Are you in trouble at work? Are you ill?' He sat bolt upright as his mind ticked off a list of crisis scenarios and stopped at the worst case. 'You haven't found a lump, have you?'
'No, Pops, it's nothing like that, none of those things. I'm fine, but I'm scared for you.'
He picked up his glass and shook his head slowly. 'Is that all? Alex, my love, you're the oldest of my children, but you're not always the most sensible. Why the hell are you scared about me, any more than you have been for the last twenty years?' He rose from his dining chair. 'Come on, let's go through to the comfy seats and you can tell me all about it.'
'Okay, but go and say good night to the sibs first.'
He did as he was told, climbing the stairs to the children's rooms. They had been all over him when he had arrived home, even Seonaid, whom he had thought too young to have noticed his absence. He had given time, and presents, to each of them in turn, explaining as best he could to the two boys why their mother had decided to stay in America for a little longer.
To his surprise, Mark had been the most anxious of the three. James Andrew and Seonaid had accepted his promise that she would be back for Christmas, but his older son had needed more reassurance. 'She isn't ill, is she?' he had asked at one point.
'No,' he had replied. 'She's been very tired, but she's okay. Mum's been through a lot this year. She's in need of a good long rest, that's all.'
He stood in the doorway of Mark's room, looking at him; as he had expected, his younger son and daughter were sound asleep. He was sitting with his back to the door at his computer, as usual, but not at a document or website. He was on-line, in the midst of a video conversation, but he wore a headset so only he could hear the incoming sound. Bob moved silently behind him to see the face on the small square in the centre of the screen: it was Sarah, and from the background he could tell that she was in the internet cafe they had found near their hotel. He waved at the camera. A second or two later, Mark turned, surprised and looked up at him. 'Go on,' said Bob, quietly, ruffling the boy's hair. 'Don't mind me.' He leaned over to be close to the microphone. 'Hi, Sarah, sorry to butt in. I'll leave you to it; my big kid's downstairs.' He read her lips as she mouthed, 'Okay. Good night.'
'Good night,' he replied, 'to both of you.' He closed the door behind him and made his way back to Alex.
She was sitting in the big conservatory-style sitting room on the end of the house. 'All okay?' she asked.
'Yeah, fine.' He told her about the conversation he had interrupted, and about Mark's earlier concern.
'You know why he's anxious, don't you?' she asked.
'Tell me.'
'He's already lost one mother; he doesn't want it to happen again.'
'He sees that as a possibility, does he?'
'Of course he does. You parents either have unrealistic expectations or you underrate your children. Mark's a very gifted mathematician; you're aware of that, but you don't realise how emotionally mature he is. He picks up the same vibes I do. He reads things that the other two can't see.'
Alex pulled her legs up underneath her on the big armchair she had chosen. The curtains were open and the lights were dim; through the picture windows, the moon shone on the Firth of Forth, turning the eleven-mile wide estuary into a great silver ribbon.
'How was I with you?' Bob asked. 'Unrealistic or a putter-downer?'
'Father, you thought the sun shone out of my arse but, then, you thought the same about my mother too.'
'I don't deny either of those charges. I don't regret either… either. Fact is, I've never changed those opinions.'
She drew him a long look, arching her eyebrows. 'Even though you now know all about Mum's affairs? Even though I aborted my fianc?'s baby, without even telling him I was pregnant?'
'Even though. I'll support you in anything you do.'
'Even if it's illegal?'
'Even if. But that's semantics: you couldn't do anything illegal, unless it was for the most moral reasons.'
'What makes you so sure?'
He grunted. 'You're my daughter.'
'I'm also my mother's daughter. Does that mean you expect me to have affairs?'
'God help the guy who marries you. If genetic inheritance counts for anything, he's stuffed from both sides.'
Alex turned on him. 'You see? There you go, that's how you're scaring me. You've changed, you're not the man I've always known. You're different.'
'Nothing's changed. This is the man I've always been; if I seem different it's because I've shed my old skin. Maybe it happened when they put the pacemaker in. Maybe it was when I found out that my brother was dead. Maybe it's when I found out about Sarah and Ron bloody Neidholm.'
His daughter gasped. 'What? The man in Buffalo? The one who was killed? Sarah and he…'
'… were lovers? Yes.'
'God, Pops. I don't know what to say.'
'How about 'Not again'? Before that there was another guy in the States, called Terry Carter.'
'You haven't been perfect yourself,' she reminded him.
'Of course not. I'm obsessive, I have a wicked temper, and I have an occasional tendency to follow my dick where it leads me. I suppose that's why your mother and I were soul-mates.'
'You missed out 'cynical'.'
'Sorry, that too. But it's a fault I've acquired only recently.'
'Pops, what's brought all this on?'
'Like I said, I don't know. All I do know is that suddenly I've become completely self-aware, and with it self- critical. All my life, Alex, I've had a great big ego; I've believed in my own public image, and, I confess, I've even pandered to it from time to time. I just didn't recognise the fact until now. Maybe it was the heart scare; maybe
