won't quibble over what I'm going to ask you for.'
Martin explained the plan for a pass system, and all of the reasons for it.
'We're going to have to process a hell of a lot of people very quickly, so the sooner we can get started, the happier I'll be. My outfit is having the registration forms printed overnight, and the passes too. What I'd like you to do is to provide us with suitable staff to handle the accreditation at the Festival office venues, from tomorrow evening onwards. I could put police personnel in to do it, but your people are properly experienced in this sort of thing.
They'll handle it faster, and the performers won't get prickly the way some people do when they have to deal with us.
'What d'you say?'
'I say yes, if you'll pick up any overtime tab.' •Done.'
'Right. How many will you need?'
'Tomorrow, six good people. Two each at the Festival and Fringe offices, and one at each of the Jazz, and Film festivals. The television thing doesn't start for another week. After that, their job will be continuous at least up to the third weekend, with completely new companies and solo performers coming in all the time. But we'll drawn up a rota of registration times at all the offices. That'll let you run it with two people at the most – maybe only one.'
'That sounds fair. I'll line my people up. I'll use my tour escorts; they're smooth talkers. And my publicity section people; they do this sort of thing on royal visits. Where will you want them, and when?'
'Ask them all to report to Fettes at 2:30 tomorrow, and to ask for DI Brian Mackie. We'll brief them then, and allocate them around the offices.'
'You've got it.' There was a pause. 'Here, does this mean that we get to meet that glamour girl, her with the… If it does, I might come along myself!'
'Nice one, Michael, but I've put myself down for that painful task.'
'That sounds like corruption to me, Andy! See you.' The line clicked dead.
Martin grinned. Suddenly he thought again of Julia Shahor, her black hair, her pale, heart-stopping face and her dark brown eyes.
He snorted. 'Crystal Tipps, indeed! Shag Desert Orchid, indeed!
Ginseng and Vitamin E, indeed! Giving away your own secrets, Bob?'
13
Skinner raised a hand in farewell to Martin, as he dropped him at the Camngton Road entrance to police headquarters.
He pulled the BMW away from the kerb, its steel sunroof fully open. The day was beginning to cool, but the August evening sun still blazed from the west in a cloudless sky. Looking down as he reached for the on-button of the radiocassette, his eye was caught by the rip in the knee of his denims, and in the same instant his mind swept back to Charlotte Square, replaying the incident with the motorcyclist.
Analysing the incident as he drove the short distance home, several things struck Skinner in succession. The first was the sheer speed of his own reaction to the threat. He had known instinctively that the man was pulling a gun, even before he had seen its barrel. The second was that he had felt no fear. Twice in his life, now, he had been exposed to direct gunfire, and on neither occasion had he been afraid. Was it simply that there had been no time for the luxury of terror, or was the answer somewhere deeper inside him, more complex and more sinister? Was he a man who actually courted and enjoyed danger? Was there even in him a touch of the psychopath?
He cast his mind back through his career, recalling the many criminal psychopaths who had crossed his path over the years.
One in particular stood out from the crowd: a merciless killer whose most striking feature – apart from his total lack of concern for his victims, or his own safety – had been his absolute coolness. Catching him had been the toughest job of Skinner's career. Yet, as he thought of his own peril, and of the danger he had faced on another occasion. Skinner recognised something of that killer in the way he himself had reacted to each situation.
Cool, unflappable and, if he was totally honest, ready – if it came to it – to kill another human being without a scrap of remorse.
That was the reason why, when the firearms had been issued earlier, he had declined to take one himself. For Skinner did know fear, deep in his heart: fear of the easy confidence and skill with which he handled a lethal weapon, and of his readiness to use it.
The final thing to strike him in this self-analysis was that it was now far too late to dream up a good story for Sarah to explain away the rip in his jeans. He would have to handle it as best he could. That thought snapped him back to the present, just as he turned the BMW into the narrow driveway of his home. He pressed a remote signalling device and the door of the double garage swung up. Running the car inside, he parked alongside Sarah's Frontera Sport, then entered the bungalow by the back door, closing the garage doors with his signaller as he didso. That was one of the small, routine security precautions which had become a fact of his life.
The kitchen was empty, neat as usual save for five crumpled Safeway bags lying on one of the work-tops. Skinner checked the fridge and found that it had been re-stocked. He took out an opened carton of orange juice and took a swig, leaning his head back and pouring it into his open mouth, Spanish-style. As he replaced the carton and closed the door, two brown arms wound round his waist and a chin dug itself into the centre of his back.
From its position he could tell that Sarah was barefoot. And from the warmth flowing through to him he guessed that nakedness was her overall condition.
'Hi.' Her voice was muffled slightly by his shirt.
As she spoke, he felt her right hand at work. In a few seconds, she had loosened the buckle of his belt and unzipped his denims.
At the same time, with her other hand she unfastened, quickly and skilfully, the buttons of his shirt. When she had finished, he turned into her embrace, facing her, shrugging off his shirt in the same movement. She threw her left arm round his neck, pulling his mouth down to hers. As they kissed, her right hand moved lower down, quickly finding and releasing the object of its search.
He gripped the top of her thighs and lifted her clear of the floor, feeling both her strength and her softness as she wrapped her legs around him, not really needing her guiding hand as she lowered herself, to draw him deep into her. He found her mouth as she gyrated against him, tasting slight saltiness. Gradually her movement grew faster, her body bucking and heaving, her legs gripping him tighter than he would have believed possible.
She cried out aloud, once, twice, three times, and then suddenly, so did he, as he felt himself erupt inside her – coming and coming until he thought he would never stop. But at last Sarah's movements began to slow, until she settled gently against him, and he became aware for the first time of her weight, on his hands, arms and shoulders.
He whispered in her ear. 'See, if the window cleaner came now…'
Bob felt her laughter weU up, from inside her. She hugged him, gripping him tight once more with her thighs.
He walked them, still locked together, through to their bedroom and laid her on the bed. He settled on top of her but she rolled him over and sat up, keeping him still hard and inside her, as she reached down to strip off the rest of his clothes. Then, slowly, she began to move again, her eyes misty and her body glowing with a light sheen of sweat. Her fingers ploughed their way into the ban- on his chest until he drew her down close to him again and rolled her over, thrusting deeper and hearing her gasp with what he thought for a moment was pain, until it stretched into a long sigh of pleasure. She arched her back and swung her legs up, gripping him yet again, and pushing with her thighs in perfect time with his thrusts. Her head was flung back. her chin upturned, her neck as if offered to the wolf. Strands of her auburn hair clung to her damp face. She began to climax again, throwing back her arms, using only her legs to pull her centre tight to him, and once more they came together, gasping and crying, and finally laughing at the skill and energy of their love-making, and glorying in the sheer pleasure of being
