Murmuring the Judges

2

The tall man stretched his lean, tanned body along the length of the white plastic lounger beside the family-sized swimming pool which took up much of the garden of his Spanish villa. His grey hair was wet and slicked back against his head, as the sun glistened on it, and on the droplets of water which still clung to him.

‘Have I told you lately, honey,’ he said, in his rugged Lanarkshire accent, ‘that the day I met you was the best day of my life?’

The woman, on another sun-bed a couple of feet away from his, propped herself up on her elbows and looked him in the eye. She was as tanned as he was. Her auburn hair hung down over her shoulders, and her long naked back shone with a mixture of lotion and perspiration.

She smiled. ‘Yeah,’ she drawled. ‘You’ve told me. Like every day of the twelve we’ve been here in L’Escala.’

His face grew serious. ‘Och, Sarah love, it’s just that I can’t tell you often enough. Just like I can’t say sorry often enough for being a complete arse, and for driving you away, like I did last year.’

The sturdy child who sat between them looked up at him and smiled from beneath his wide-brimmed sun hat. His features, as they developed, promised to take on the characteristics of both parents; his father’s dominant nose and chin, his mother’s wide hazel eyes, and her open grin. ‘Arse,’ he said, beaming.

‘Jazz! No!’ his mother called out, turning the boy’s face towards her and shaking her head in disapproval. ‘Don’t copy everything Daddy says.

‘And you,’ she said, grinning at her husband, ‘how often do I have to tell you? His ears are like blotting paper, soaking up everything we say, so that he can perfect the sounds he likes best.’

Bob Skinner looked suitably reproved. ‘Okay,’ he acknowledged. ‘I’ll swear in Spanish in future.’

‘Not even in Spanish.’

Beside Sarah, James Andrew Skinner pushed himself to his feet. ‘Mark,’ he called out loudly, half walking, half running, carefully and deliberately, on his solid toddler’s legs between the sun-beds, towards the pool where another child swam.

As his mother sat up and caught his arm, reaching for two flotation bands, he eyed her full breasts, hunger stirring a memory of infancy. Meanwhile Bob rose once more and dived into the pool, making only a small splash. He surfaced beside the blond-haired boy, who wore armbands also, and who was swimming laborious breadths.

‘Hey, Mark,’ he said, putting a hand under the child’s chest and lifting him to the side of the pool, where he clung to the tiled edge, ‘your swimming’s come on a power in the time we’ve been here. But don’t overdo it. You don’t want to fall asleep over your pizza tonight, do you?’

‘Pizza!’ the boy yelled. ‘In the pink place by the beach?’

Bob Skinner nodded, pleased hugely by his foster-son’s juvenile delight. Although he was only seven, young Mark’s life had been so scarred by tragedy, with the separate violent deaths of both his parents, that the policeman had feared that he would never be a child again.

His offer to adopt the boy after his mother’s murder had been welcomed by all three of his surviving grand-parents, each of whom recognised their inability to raise a child to manhood. Even more vitally, it had been welcomed by Mark, who had come to know the Deputy Chief Constable well through his adventures.

Skinner grinned as he remembered their earnest conversation, on the beach, back at their other home in Gullane.

‘So, wee man, you’ll come to live with Sarah and me, as our adopted son, and as James Andrew’s big brother?’

‘Yes please. My daddy promised me a wee brother. But then he died.’

‘Well you’ll have one now, ready made, and he’ll be a handful, I’ll tell you. Now, is there anything you want to ask me?’

‘Will I call you Daddy and Mummy?’

‘No, I don’t think so.You should always honour your natural daddy and mummy. Uncle Bob and Auntie Sarah would be better, don’t you think?’

‘Yes, I think so.Will I be called Mark Skinner?’

‘What would be right, do you think? When we adopt you, legally you’ll be our son, Auntie Sarah’s and mine. But that doesn’t mean that you have to change your name.Your mummy and your daddy were both very special people, and you can still carry their name if you want to. Do you?’

‘Yes, I think I do.’

‘That’s good, because although I’ll give you my name if you want it, I think it’s right for you to go on being Mark McGrath.’

It had been virtually plain sailing after that, although there had been one minor concern when Mark’s grand-father had questioned Bob’s decision to send the child to the local primary school in Gullane, and later to high school in North Berwick.

‘Look, Bob, if it’s a matter of money, Mark will inherit a fair bit from his parents. I can arrange for school and university expenses to be met from his trust fund.’

‘Mr McGrath, I’m not going to adopt the boy and expect him to pay for his upbringing. This has nothing to do with money. I believe that it’s better for him to be educated in his own community, especially if the facilities are excellent. My daughter went to those schools and left Glasgow University with a First in Law.’

‘Okay. I concede that. The truth is, I’m ambitious that Mark should go to Oxford or Cambridge. He’s very bright, you know. It might be difficult getting in there from an East Lothian school, but sometimes the private sector can pull strings for its pupils.’

‘Hah! The way things are heading in this country, all that privilege crap will be swept away by the time Mark’s eighteen. Even if it isn’t, and there are strings that have to be pulled, I think you’ll find that there are few people better at that than Chief Police Officers. Anyway, as you say, Mark is very bright, and when that time comes, he may well have his own views about his education, which should be respected. Right now, he really does want to go to the local primary.’

Bob grinned once more, this time at the sight of Jazz, buoyant in the blue water and paddling away furiously with his legs. Unlike his adoptive brother, who pushed himself off the poolside and thrashed off to meet him, he was a natural born swimmer.

Sarah eased over beside her husband at the deep end of the pool, and linked her arm through his. She kissed him lightly on the cheek. ‘It’s been a success, hasn’t it, this family-building holiday in L’Escala. D’you think we could stretch it to a third week?’

‘Seven more days of Spanish sun?’ he replied. ‘I’d love to, but for one reason and another my Chief Constable hasn’t seen enough of me this year. I owe it to Proud Jimmy to get back. Anyway, you and I have a new house to sort out, and our older boy has to start his new school.’

He chuckled. ‘No holidays in term-time from now on, lady. Get used to the idea.’

Sarah wrinkled her nose, and pulled herself up against the wall of the pool, her breasts breaking the surface of the blue water. ‘Ugh. For how long, d’you reckon?’

Bob’s chuckle turned to a frown. ‘Christ, given our wish for at least one more child, probably until I’m about seventy.’

‘All the more reason to take another week, then.’

He slipped his free arm around her waist, as Jazz and Mark swam towards them. ‘I’ll give you two extra days, assuming we can change the ferry booking to Saturday night, but that’s as far as I can stretch it.’

He paused. ‘I really need to get back for Andy as well.’

Sarah’s eyebrows rose as she reached out to take Mark’s hand. ‘Detective Chief Superintendent Martin? What’s bothering our future son-in-law? Nothing to do with him and Alex, I hope.’

Bob grinned. ‘Not this time, I’m glad to say.

‘No, he’s got himself worked into a lather about a spate of armed robberies on the patch. When we put Jackie Charles out of business we thought that we’d see a reduction in that type of thing, and a virtual end to organised crime in general. But it hasn’t happened. Now Andy’s thinking is that we may have a new Mr Big on our hands.’

His smile had faded. ‘If he’s right, and he usually is, then I agree with him. Whoever it is needs to be squashed, and damn quick. I don’t like criminals in general, but the sort who carry guns. .

‘I tell you, Doctor Sarah, if there is someone back home who thinks he can turn my Edinburgh into Dodge City, then for sure the bugger is going to wish that you’d persuaded me to stay on here. . even if it was only for another week!’