Skinner's festival

14

They arrived at the Pleasance theatre complex with only three minutes to spare.

For eleven months of the year, the Pleasance is used by Edinburgh University and its graduates as a leisure and recreational facility, and thus makes little or no impact on the life of the city. But during August it is transformed into a cosmopolitan centre for the performing arts, throbbing with activity eighteen hours a day. Bars, cafeterias and two theatres are set around a central courtyard filled with benches, chairs, and tables. Around one corner of the cobbled yard, rows of canvas seats are set out, making the area into a third and impromptu theatre, used by the ragbag of idealists and solo performers who, unable to find or fund a venue, flock to the Fringe regardless, ready to make use of even the crudest stage to further their dreams of glory.

Bob and Sarah saw Alex before she spotted them. Wearing her stage make-up, she stood at the top of the stairway which led into Pleasance Theatre 2. Her eyes scanned the crowd; her arms were folded tight across her chest and her brow was knitted with impatience – and gathering disappointment. Even caught off guard, the girl still looked stunning: tall and slim, with big, round blue eyes and a jumble of long dark hair, shining with natural highlights, which fell around her wide shoulders like a shawl.

As they approached. Bob and Sarah saw her rise on her toes, stretching up to peer as far into the crowd as she could. Then, with a shrug of frustration, she dropped back on to her heels and made as if to turn away. •Alex!'

At Sarah's cry, she turned and caught sight of them at last, as they reached the end of a snaking queue of around forty people leading towards and then up the stairway entrance.

'Where have you two been?' she called down to them. 'I was beginning to feel like I'd been stood up. Listen, when you get in, do me a favour and sit well to the back. I don't want to be able to see either of you, or catch your eye during the show, in case it makes me freeze. Wish me luck!'

Bob smiled up at her. 'Break a leg, kid, or whatever!' he shouted. Sarah blew her a kiss. Alex waved to them and disappeared into the theatre.

There were only a few of the steeply tiered seats left when they entered, but they found two in the third row from the back, close to a spotlight. None of the cast would look in that direction for fear of being blinded.

Alexis Skinner was five weeks short of her twenty-first birthday.

She was the only child of Bob's youthful first marriage, which had been cut tragically short by the death of his wife in a simple car accident when Alex was only three years old. She had no clear memory of her mother, and Bob had brought her up virtually alone – with the occasional help of his parents – in the cottage in Gullane, the East Lothian golfing village, where he and Sarah now shared their off-duty time. Myra, Alex's dead mother, had left a sizable endowment policy to provide for her education at one of the Merchant Company schools in Edinburgh. However, the young Alex had demanded that she be allowed to stay with her friends in East Lothian, stamping her tiny foot to emphasise the point. Eventually, Bob had let her have her way. Gullane Primary and North Berwick High it had been, and both schools had done well by her. University had been a different matter, as she had chosen to read Law at Glasgow. Now, three years on, she was about to enter her Honours year, on track for a First, with a string of commendations and prizes to her name. She intended eventually to pursue a career at the Scottish Bar. To her father's private delight, recently she had been awarded a Faculty of Advocates' Scholarship, to help her through her period of pupillage and over the first months of her career in advocacy, where traditionally a newcomer had little or no earning capacity.

When Alex was five, Bob had invested her school endowment fund in a Ivory Sime capital growth trust, switching to an income fund when she was ready to leave school. Her 'private means' – as sometimes, with mock grandeur, she described her mother's legacy – allowed her to live a frugal but comfortable student existence. Freed from the need to find a part-time job, she had been able to pursue her interest in the theatre, which had been developing since the start of her university career, gathering pace as she gained more confidence in the progress of her studies. After a year in the University drama club, she had joined a rather more ambitious theatre society founded by, but no longer restricted to, Glasgow's wealthy and influential Jewish community. Bob and Sarah had seen her perform in two productions, each a musical, and had been surprised by the way her naturally powerful singing voice had developed under coaching. It was now good enough to have attracted interest outside the theatre group. As Sarah knew – daughter and stepmother having decided to keep it a secret, from Bob until the release of the album – she had been used as a backing singer by a Glasgow rock-group which was already internationally successful, and still seemed to be moving on an upward career path.

This Fringe show was far different from anything she had attempted before. In fact, Alex had said, it was the most difficult thing their group had ever tackled: a stage version of Tom Wolfe's book The Right Stuff, telling the story of the pioneering American Mercury astronauts. No music, just straight drama. And for the first time Alex played the female lead. She was cast as 'Glamorous Glennis' Yeager, the wife of the first man to break the sound barrier. When not involved in dialogue, she narrated in spotlight from side stage, as the story developed. She had enlisted Sarah as American accent coach and, throughout July, the Skinner household had rung to the sound of Transatlantic conversation.

On occasion even Bob had found himself joining in.

Bob and Sarah settled into their seats, as the last light dimmed to blackness. Then suddenly in a brilliant stage illumination there were Alex and the male lead, miming a chase in which Alex was steadily overtaken and thrown to the ground, in what the skilful stage-lighting effect made believable as desert. The Yeagers' strange courtship ritual began a play which unfolded its gripping story over two and a half hours. Before the show. Bob had held private reservations about a play which attempted to tell the whole story of early space exploration in a makeshift theatre. However, when it was over, he conceded to himself that it had worked, thanks to the intensity of the fellow players and, of course, to Alex's exceptional performance.

The final curtain was received with thunderous applause and a standing ovation, a rarity on the Fringe. Eventually, after three encores, the applause quietened and the audience began to file out. Bob and Sarah made their way down to the front. Less than a minute later, Alex appeared through a side door. She was followed, a few paces behind, by a muscular blond man, an inch or so under six feet in height, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. •Well, what did you think?' she bubbled, still on a high from the warmth of the applause. 'Was it ok?'

'Ok?' said Bob. 'It was brilliant. You could take that anywhere.

Well done, baby. Always knew you were a star.'

'Yes, terrific, kid.' Sarah hugged her.

Alex kissed them both. 'Thanks, Pops. Thanks, Sarah. You really mean it?'

They smiled their replies, as Alex turned and beckoned to the man waiting behind her.

'There's someone I'd like you to meet. This is Ingemar Svart, known as Ingo – our lighting genius. We imported him from Sweden specially for the show.

'Ingo, meet Bob and Sarah Skinner, my Dad and Mum.'

Inwardly Sarah was enormously pleased by Alex's introduction, but she held up a hand. 'Please, Alex! That's step-mum. I'm only nine years older than you, remember. Hi, Ingo, it's nice to meet you. I thought your lighting was great.'

'Thank you. I am also pleased to meet both of you.'

As he returned the Swede's firm handshake. Bob was struck by the clarity of his ice-blue eyes, and by the easy confidence with which the man, whom he judged to be around thirty, returned his appraising gaze. He tried, but failed, to read his thoughts through his calm expression. Behind the smile, Ingo Svart was impassive.

Alex reclaimed his attention. 'Pops, d' you mind if we pass on supper? There's a first-night cast party, and we've really got to go to it. You two could come with us, if you like.'

As his daughter spoke, Skinner caught sight, over her shoulder, of a tall, balding figure framed in the door at the side of the hall.

'No, babe. Thanks, but we won't. I want to have a look round here. Then we've got our table booked at the Waterfront. Can't let it go to waste. You go on, though. Enjoy yourselves. You've both earned it. Now, I must say hello to Brian over there.'

He walked with Alex and Ingo back across to the side door.

Detective Inspector Mackie smiled, and nodded a greeting to Alex.

Then he stepped aside and held the door for her and her companion, before turning back to Skinner.

'Evening, boss. Good show?'

'I'm biased, I know, but it was one of the best things I've seen in a long time. A Fringe award-winner for sure. How're you doing?'

'Fine. I've just been scouting round this place – and the other theatre. No problems with either from a security viewpoint, but the bars and that open courtyard scare the hell out of me. It looks virtually impossible to make them secure, as things are just now.

Mind you, there are only two ways into this complex. How would you feel about blocking the back way, and then searching everyone as they come through the arch?'

Skinner shrugged his shoulder. 'I'd feel uneasy about it, but maybe we don't have a choice. Think through the pros and cons and give me a recommendation in the morning. While we're here, why don't you walk me through it. After that, we're off to eat.

Want to join us?' "Thanks, boss, but I won't if you don't mind. I'm rubberducked. So I'm bound for an early night, Saturday or not!'