Fallen Gods

Nineteen

Bob Skinner felt his spirits rise as he saw his daughter walk through the domestic arrivals gateway of the Edinburgh Airport terminal building, towing her cabin luggage behind her on its small wheels. She had that effect on him every time he saw her; she was a beacon of light within him, and had been since the moment of her birth, around a quarter of a century before.

Every time they were reunited after a separation, he saw something new about her; on this occasion he thought of the movie Lord of the Rings, and of Liv Tyler. Yes, put some bounce into the actress's hair and she definitely had a look of his Alexis. Maybe that was why he had seen the film three times. Quickly he wondered whether that made him look like Ms Tyler's father, but decided that there was no way he would pass for a seventies rock star.

Alex ran up to him and hugged him, letting the small suitcase find its feet beside her. "Oh, I am so glad to see you," she exclaimed. "I know we had that net meeting chat from the States, but I still didn't know how you'd be." She stood back and gave him an appraising, up-and-down look. "And you're great. Is this pacemaker nuclear-powered or what?"

He laughed. "If it is, it's like your tongue. Shut up, girl and let me look at you."

"But I mean it," she insisted. "You're glowing with health."

"I've been working on it," he admitted. "I'd been getting sloppy before the incident, but I'm back in top shape now."

"So what do these idiots mean, saying that you can't go back to work?"

"That's what your boss is going to ask the court, if they persist in it."

"They'd better not then; Councillor Maley and her pals don't want to mess with the might of Curie, Anthony and Jarvis, and especially not with Mr. Laidlaw."

"They especially don't want to mess with me, but that's tomorrow's agenda. In the meantime, let's go over there and have a coffee. There's something I have to talk to you about. Have you got any other luggage?"

Alex shook her head, making her shoulder-length hair ripple and shimmer in the neon light of the arrivals hall. "No. I've got the power suit packed in here. I'm only up for a couple of days, remember."

"Yeah. Sorry it's so brief. How are you liking London anyway?" He picked up her bag by its handle and walked her towards the escalator.

The cafeteria space on the first floor was always less crowded, even on a Sunday morning.

"I like the professional atmosphere, and the people I'm with, but I'm not so keen on the city. You spoiled me, Pops, bringing me up in the country. How's Andy?" she asked, abruptly. "And the baby?"

"And Karen," he reminded her. "They're tip-top, all three of them.

Andy's looking at home in Tayside already, and Karen's enjoying being a mum. You know, I still don't think you were very clever the way you went about it, but I reckon that breaking off your engagement has turned out to be the best thing you could have done for him."

"I think I should be offended by that," said his daughter they walked towards a table by the window.

"Don't be. It was the making of you too. It was all fine at the time, but really, you were infatuated, and long-term, Andy was looking for something you weren't ready to give him."

She reached up and patted his cheek as he laid down her bag. "You're a fine one to be lecturing me about relationships, Pops."

He gave a half-snort, half-laugh. "You could be right. Cappuccino?"

"No, latte."

"Okay." He wandered off to the coffee booth and returned with a cafe latte and a tall beaker of Coke for himself.

"So," said Alex heavily. "What gives with you and my stepmother? I called her last night, you know, to ask after my various small siblings. She sounded strange, and awkward in a way that I've never known Sarah to be before. She and I have always really been two girls together; we've got on like a house on fire. Whatever you've done, you've really upset her, Pops."

"Did she say anything to you, about us?"

"Not really. I had a feeling that there were things she wanted to say, but stopped herself short. Maybe she thought I'd automatically take your side."

"And would you?"

"Yes, of course. But I'd try not to let Sarah know that. Come on, tell me; what's up?"

"Simple. She thinks I should be there supporting her, I think she should be here supporting me."

"Against the powers of darkness, in the shape of Councillor Maley and her faction?"

"That's part of it, yes."

"Then it's rubbish. You've never needed anyone's support against the likes of her. You're just putting it that way to cover your guilt over leaving Sarah with the kids in the States and charging back over here like a mad bull."

"Did Sarah suggest that to you?"

"No. She didn't have to. I know you even better than she does, Father. I know exactly how you feel and how you think. But I'm a woman too, so I know what Sarah's feeling."

"Listen, girl," he retorted, 'my job's under threat. These people are trying to use my condition to get rid of me. What else could I have done but come home to deal with them?"

"If you want my legal opinion, it'll cost you dinner tonight, in the Roseberry."

In spite of his indignation, Bob grinned. "Deal."

"First, you could have sought two objective medical opinions in the USA, ideally from practitioners who are consultants to the county or state police. Assuming they certified you fit, you could have instructed Mitch Laidlaw to present them to the police authority and to demand that you be returned to the duty list immediately, with a

Supreme Court interdict in his hand if necessary. That done you could have phoned Uncle Jimmy and asked him to put you on compassionate leave."

"Mmm. And you think that would have worked, do you?"

"You could have instructed me, never mind Mr. Laidlaw, and it would have worked. If you'd passed the medical, under the present rules the Court would have given you the interdict and Maley's lot would have been held in contempt if they'd gone against it.

"It's still not too late to change your tactics though," she pointed out. "Why not set up a full medical examination by two independent cardiologists up at the Murrayfield? If they clear you, my boss can go to Maley and demand your reinstatement, or by-pass her even and go straight to the chair of the Police Authority." Alex smiled, and put her hand over his. "That would be the sensible way of doing it. But you are you, Pops, and when it blew up I'd never have expected you to react in any other way than you did."

"So Sarah's right?"

"I won't say that, because I don't know the whole story. Didn't she suggest what I just did?"

"No. She told me I should let them get on with it. She told me I should take my collapse as a sign from God and give up my job."

"Oh dear," Alex whispered. "Mistake. Then again," she continued, firmly, "I thought exactly the same thing when she called to tell me you'd had an incident. And that coming, as it did, right on top of what happened to your poor friend Joe Doherty dying so suddenly as well. I'd have thought twice about saying it to your face, though."

"And you'd have been right. What happened to Joe and what happened to me are in no way related." He looked out of the cafeteria window, across the airport car park. "Still, I will do what you suggest. I'll line up a couple of specialists to give me a going over, tomorrow, if possible, and we'll take it from there.

"But that is tomorrow; all that apart, the God that Sarah mentioned does indeed work in mysterious ways, and because I did come back, I was on the spot to become involved in something very important, and very, very personal. It's really what I have to talk to you about, before you hear it on the telly."

Alex raised her eyebrows. "Sounds intriguing; I'm glad I came."

"So am I. Let me ask you a strange question. Does the name Michael Niven Skinner mean anything to you?"

In an instant, all of the mischief went from her expression; looking at her, Bob imagined he saw her lawyer's face. "Ah," she exclaimed. "So that's it. Yes, it does. He's my uncle, isn't he?"

Very few people had the capacity to take Skinner completely by surprise, but Alex had always been one. "How did you… When did you…?" At the third attempt, he found words. "How long have you known about him?" he gasped.

"Since I was sixteen; we did a genealogical study at school, as part of Modern Studies. Some of us were taken up to the General Records Office and shown how to go about constructing our family trees. I knew about you and me, so I started with Grandpa and Grandma Skinner. I fed in their names to the computer. Maybe you can imagine how surprised I was when I found our tree had an extra branch, and that according to the records, it was still alive, although not bearing fruit."

"Bloody hell," he whispered. "Why didn't you ask me about him?"

"Pops, I've always trusted you; always. I knew that if you had kept his existence a secret from me for sixteen years, you must have had a bloody good reason, and that you would tell me if and when you were good and ready. Now you have done, there's something I have to ask you straight out, something that's been on my mind, given what my mum was

…" She hesitated, as if she was afraid to utter the words on the tip of her tongue. '… Given that we know she had affairs," she exclaimed, at last. "He isn't my real father, is he?"

It was one of those times: Bob Skinner was taken aback, completely.

"God, no. Not a chance. You can rest easy on that score; you are my daughter. You were conceived on holiday in a cottage on Mull; even if

Myra had been that way inclined at the time, she'd have had to walk a bloody long way to find anyone else to do the deed. Besides, every time I look in the mirror I see in me your eyes, your mouth, and your chin; a bit careworn perhaps, but yours for sure."

For a second Alex's own chin trembled, but she held herself together.

"Thanks, Pops; silly or not, that's been my private nightmare, for a while now. So tell me, how did my uncle Michael become a non-person?"

And so he told her, the same story he had told Andy, and more. He confessed that after Michael's expulsion his mother had had a breakdown, and that she had become an alcoholic herself, neglecting him, becoming more and more remote from his father, and drinking herself inexorably to an early death.

"I'm sorry, Alex," he said when he had finished. "These are all things you've had a right to know; I shouldn't have kept them from you."

"Yes you should, if that's the way you saw it," she retorted. "It hasn't exactly made my morning now you have told me. I know that every family has a closet with skeletons in it, and I also know that sometimes the best thing to do is to leave the door closed."

She sipped her latte. "So what's made you open it? Was it your near-death experience in America?"

"Hell no! When I came to in that ambulance all I thought about was Sarah, you and the kids. No, it's because of Michael's real-death experience in Perthshire; that's the reason. It's going to be all over the news bulletins in an hour or so."

He told her of the discovery in Miss Bonney's basement, and of the photograph in her uncle's pocket. When he was finished she shivered, for all the warmth of the morning. "The poor man," she whispered. "For all he did, that he should die like that. Or did he have it coming to him?" she asked. "Maybe he never changed. Maybe he never stopped behaving like an animal, until finally…"

"No," Bob said. "I may have respected my father's wish that I never see Michael again, but that didn't stop me from keeping an eye on him from a distance. For the last few years, until he moved to Edinburgh, Willie Haggerty's been giving me reports about him. More recently, someone else I trust on the Strathclyde force has been keeping a discreet eye on him for me. He's never been in any trouble all the time he's been living through there.

"Then there's the Jesuit."

"Who?"

"Brother Aidan, the superintendent of Oak Lodge, the hostel where your uncle lived. Once a year, he makes a report to the trustee who looks after Michael's money, letting the family know about his general health and his lifestyle. Originally, the trustee was your grandpa; since he died, it's been me. The reports have come through the solicitors who set up the trust.

"Andy's detectives will start their investigation with him, but they've agreed to let me talk to him first, to explain what's happened. He's an old man, and he might need advance warning so he can think about the last time he saw Michael, and what he was doing around then. So what I plan to do is put you in a taxi and send you home to Gullane, then, after I've paid a call on Neil Mcllhenney, get through to Gourock."

"Hmmph!" Alex snorted. "You can forget that for a start. If you think you can drop this bombshell on me then leave me behind as you go off to open a can of God knows how many worms… well, you can think again, Pops. If you're going to Gourock, then so am I."

He looked at her and grinned. "Would it work if I ordered you to get in a taxi?"

"It never has before. Why should it now?"

"True."

"Besides, if this story is going to hit the press soon, I'd rather not be in Gullane when the phone starts ringing."

"That shouldn't happen. I've told Andy to say to the press that I've been estranged from Michael for the last thirty years, and that any enquiries about him should be addressed to my family solicitors. But I don't suppose it'll hold them all at bay. You're right; there are bound to be a few calls. So you can come with me, if for no other reason than that."

"Very graciously conceded," said Alex. "By the way, why do you want to see Neil?"

"To give him advance warning of what's going to hit the press."

"Couldn't you phone him?"

Alex's father gave her a look full of intrigue. "Ah, but that's not all I want to see him about. I've had a thorn in my side for too long. It's time I got rid of it."