Stay of Execution

84

Sarah Grace Skinner had always taken pride in her self-control. She had known some difficult moments in her otherwise sunny and privileged life, but she had come through them all with a toughness she was sure she had inherited from her father.

So, as she had felt it ebb away over days, weeks and then months, she had grown more and more frightened. Her loss of her sense of place and her self-confidence was starting to show in her work. That stupid rush to an unsupportable conclusion in the autopsy of the banker suicide was something that she would never have done before.

And now she was doing something else that in the past would have been alien to her. She was running away. She had risen from a sleepless night, not for the first time spent alone, had dressed quickly and had seen to her children. She had said nothing to them other than the usual, ‘Be good today,’ and then she had left them to Trish, with a lame excuse about an early appointment, and had carried on with her own preparations.

She had slung her case into the back of her car when the nanny was occupied in the nursery, and had driven off without a backward glance, her view of the road slightly blurred by the tears in her eyes.

She was unsure how she would be welcomed, or even whether she would be welcomed, but it was a chance she was prepared to take. Before, she had always weighed the consequences of her actions; at that moment she found, for the first time in her life, that she did not care.

The traffic was building up as she drove towards Edinburgh. She was no fan of rush-hours and had managed to avoid them for most of her working life. She was no fan of city living either but, in the right circumstances, she reckoned she could grow used to it.

As she approached the turn-off to Fort Kinnaird and Craigmillar beyond, she switched on the radio. By one of those random chances that always come up when least wanted, the Beatles were singing ‘All You Need Is Love’, on Forth Two. She switched it off again, at once.

The traffic slowed through Craigmillar. Edinburgh’s traffic planners did not like motorists and went out of their way to make life difficult for them, laying down bus lanes and narrowing roads at every opportunity. By the time she reached Peffermill, she feared that she would arrive too late, but at the Cameron Toll roundabouts, it speeded up. When she turned into Gordon Terrace, it was ten past eight.

She parked across the street from the house and took her case from the car. Slowly she walked up the driveway to his door, as if she was considering every irrevocable step. Just once, she hesitated, thought about turning back; but she kept on, until she stood on his front step. She rang the bell and waited.

She waited for a while; remembering the lay-out of the house, she thought that he might be upstairs, in the shower, so she rang again, keeping her finger on the button for a few seconds.

She had barely taken it away before the door opened. ‘Can I. .’ she began, before the question died in her mouth.

A woman stood there, staring at her. She wore a long t-shirt that came almost to her knees, her red hair was tousled and she wore no makeup. The look in her eyes was one of pure, undiluted hostility.

‘Maggie,’ Sarah gasped.

‘Right,’ she hissed. ‘Now get the fuck off my man’s step, and out of his life.’

The big green door was slammed in her face.