least.
'I know you've said in the past that your officers' sex lives are their business, as long as it's legal, but you're no ordinary copper.
You're going to be accused of abuse of your position, and maybe even sexual harassment, by at least two female members of the Police Board that I could name, and the Chief is going to have some bloody job defending you.'
Skinner sighed. 'You saying I should resign, Andy?' he asked, sombrely.
'Like hell! If the Board asks for your resignation they'll have mine too, not to mention the Chief's and those of half a dozen senior officers. No, you'l ride it out. Your real worry should be Pamela.'
The big DCC frowned. 'Tell me why'
'Think about it. Is this relationship going to last for ever, or will it come to an end? Any way you size it up, she has no future in our force. Working in my office, she's just about okay as the DCC's girlfriend, as long as you keep your private lives miles away from Fettes. But she can't stay there for ever. How would she survive in a division? Who among her colleagues would trust her with a confidence?
'Suppose in the future you were to marry? No, Pam's position would be completely untenable.'
Martin paused. 'On the other hand, what wil happen if it comes to an end? How do you expect the girl to survive as the Deputy Chief's cast-off mistress?'
'Jesus,' said Skinner loudly enough to draw a frown from a golfer on the seventh tee, thirty yards away. 'I really have made a nonsense of things, haven't I? So what do we do to protect her?'
'You know the options as well as I do,' said Martin. 'If you and Pam decide to marry, I expect she'd want to resign. If that doesn't happen, if you carry on as you are, informally shall we say, and she wants to stay in the police, we should offer her a transfer to another force – Central, maybe, so she could still live in Edinburgh. Should you split up, the same would apply.'
There was a renewed silence at the other end of the bench. 'Let's not discuss the first option, Andy,' the DCC responded finally, this time in a quiet voice. 'Put feelers out regarding the second, once this Spotlight business has blown over. I'l talk to Pam about it, in due course.
'Meantime, I'd be grateful if you'd give her a week's leave, as of now. I'll take her back to her place in Leith tomorrow. It'll be easier for the watchers, and more discreet.'
'Do you want to take some time off yourself?'
'Do I bloody hell! The media would say I'd been sent on gardening leave. Anyway, I'm going nowhere til we've nailed down the bastard who killed Leona McGrath, and till we've got wee Mark back safely.'
Skinner stood up, looking down at his friend. 'You know, son,' he chuckled. 'I'm general y reckoned to be quite a smart guy, ace detective and all that; but over the last few months of my life, I've been made to realise that when it comes to women, I just haven't a bloody clue!'
21
Ruth McConnell was at her desk when Skinner arrived at 8.20 a.m. on Monday, for his first morning in the office since the Spotlight story had broken.
'Good morning, sir,' she said, with exactly the same friendly smile to which he had become accustomed.
The DCC glanced at his watch. 'Jeez, but you're early, Ruthie,' he said.
'I thought it might be a good idea,' she replied, standing up from her typist's swivel chair, elegant as ever, the slimness of her long legs accentuated by her tight skirt and her high heels. She picked up a pile of newspapers from her side table. 'There's fresh coffee in your filter machine.'
'I'll need it, when I go through those. Come in and have some with me. I should talk to you anyway.'
'Have you seen any of the papers yet?' asked his secretary, as they crossed the corridor to his office.
The big policeman shook his head. 'No. We left Gullane before mine arrived.' His expression changed for a second as a thought struck him. 'That reminds me. Would you cal my newsagent, please, and cancel them till further notice. He's in the book.
Surname's Hector.'
He took off the jacket of his dark blue suit and draped it round the back of his chair, while Ruth poured coffee into two mugs.
'So,' said Skinner as she sat down, facing him across the rosewood desk. 'What do you think of my new- found notoriety?'
'I think it's absolutely disgraceful, sir,' the woman exploded, her ful lips pouting in her anger. 'I think it's offensive, intrusive, and damned unfair. Even if I've never said it to you, I'm as sorry as everyone else in here about your marriage breaking up, but that's your business.
'To have your private life poked into like that… Well, it's intolerable!'
'I have to tolerate it, Ruthie. No choice. I can roar on about what I'm going to do to the so-and-so who put that wee swine Salmon on my trail, but I just have to bear it.'
'Yes,' she said, 'but it's the double standards that get me. I mean, 79 if it had been Neil Mcllhenney having an affair with Sergeant Masters, he wouldn't have been al over the front page.'
Skinner surprised her, with his sudden laughter. 'Oh yes he would!' he said. 'Because Olive would have kil ed him, stone dead.'
His smile faded as quickly as it had appeared. 'No, you're right.
But that's the way it is. Sergeant and Sergeant; so what? Deputy Chief and Sergeant, and the press eat it up. I'm a daft bastard. I should have known better.'
He looked across the desk. 'Tell me something, Ruthie, had you guessed that something was going on?' To his surprise, she gasped as a mixture of shock and fear flooded her eyes.
'Sir you don't think I…' she began.
He threw up his hands instantly, in horror which matched hers.
'No, no, no!' he insisted. 'Not for one second have I thought that. I trust you absolutely. No, I just want to know how stupid I've been.
Alex guessed, and so did Mcl henney, I think. Did you?'
She dropped her gaze from him. Her long hair fell over the shoulders of her blue business jacket as she nodded. 'As soon as you transferred Pamela out of here, I knew exactly why you were doing it. I remembered those late nights when you were chasing Jackie Charles; that time you were snowed in. I could tell from then that something was cooking.'
'And you never said anything.'
'Of course not. I'm your secretary, not your chaperone.'
The policeman grinned at her once more. 'Maybe that's what you should have been. Seriously, though, I'm sorry I kept you in the dark along with everyone else. You have my confidence in every other area; I should have trusted you with that too. Come to think of it, if I had asked your advice, I probably wouldn't be in this mess now.'
Ruth shook her head. 'You have too much faith, Mr Skinner. I've been living with a separated man for the last month. Mine's a doctor, a country GP. We're the talk of the community too, although on a smaller scale than you.'
He looked at her in surprise. Ruth was in her late twenties, and when it came to men, she had always led him to believe that she sought safety in numbers. 'I wondered why you'd changed your contact number,' he murmured.
'And I didn't tell you,' she countered. 'Which, if you want to look at it that way, puts us both at fault.
'Now, are you ready for what the papers say?'
The Deputy Chief Constable nodded. 'As much as I ever wil be.'
'I've been through them already. I've marked the pages you should look at. The red numbers are the stories about you. The blue ones are about the McGrath investigation.'
Skinner picked up the paper on top of the pile. As always in 80
