Read Online Thursday legends - Skinner 10 by Quintin Jardine - Free Book Online

of her younger guests.
    Rhian
had gone upstairs after showing him through to the garden. Just as her mother
was handing Martin a goblet of red wine she reappeared, dressed in jeans and a
tee-shirt, and with her hair tied back in a pony-tail. She picked up a bottle
of Belgian beer from the serving table, took his hand and drew him towards his fellow
guests, who were gathered on the lawn.
    'Come
on, let me introduce you around.' As he had expected, most of them were young,
around Margot's age. She pointed to a group gathered around the younger Lewis
daughter, a tall dark girl, in a light blue dress. 'You know the guest of
honour, of course.' Actually, he had never exchanged a word with her. From what
he had seen she was a serious type, who looked, as did Rhian, a year or two
older than she really was. He gave her a smile and a wave. She responded,
almost shyly, sneaking a quick look at her sister. For an instant, he detected
a hint of a smirk on her face, and wondered.
    'These
are the serious people, though.' she led him over to a group of half a dozen
men and women, older than the rest and standing a little apart. 'Hi everybody,'
she called out.
    One
of the men, who had been looking down on to the dark, slow-moving Water of
Leith, glanced over his shoulder. 'Ah, it's herself,' he said, turning. 'I
wondered where the hell you'd got to.' He grinned at Martin. 'Can I guess?'
    'I've
been changing,' Rhian answered.
    'That'll
be the day, honey. You'll never bloody change.' There was a familiarity in the
exchange; two people comfortable with each other. Andy eyed the other man
appraisingly, remembering Rhian's remark about older lovers, trying to guess
his age. He was small but trim, with dark, grey-flecked hair which was thinning
on top; well-preserved, but probably in his early forties.
    She
brought him back by squeezing his hand. 'Don't listen to this so-and-so. Have
you two met before? Andy, this is Spike Thomson, Edinburgh's oldest teenager
and a legend in his own mind. Spike, this is Andy Martin; he lives next door.'
    The
man's eyebrows rose. 'Ah. I've heard of you. You're Bob Skinner's pal, aren't
you?'
    The
detective looked at the other man warily, although he was not certain why. 'You
know Bob?'
    'Of
course. I'm one of the Thursday mob.'
    Spike
Thomson. Get the brain in
gear, Andy boy. How many Spike Thomsons can there be? 'The disc jockey? Fair footballer too, according
to Bob.'
    'That's
kind of him. How come we've never seen you on a Thursday night?'
    The
detective grinned down at his new acquaintance. 'I've been asked, but
football's definitely not my game. I used to play rugby.'
    'Me
too. I played scrum-half for North Berwick High, then for the rugby club for a
while. What was your position?' He took a pace backwards and looked Martin up
and down, noting the thickness of his neck, the breadth of his shoulder.
'Prop?'
    'For
a while, at school, but I played all my senior stuff as a flanker.'
    'Ah.
That explains why you're not a football man. Bloody lethal on the football
field are flankers, to a man. Who'd you play for?'
    'West
of Scotland.'
    'Any
good?'
    The
policeman smiled at the directness of the question, sportsman to sportsman.
'Some folk thought so. I played for Glasgow District a few times; got as far as
an international trial, but that was it. I joined the force and packed it in.'
    'Why,
for God's sake? Couldn't you have carried on playing as a policeman? Others
do.'
    'Maybe,
but working shifts in Edinburgh meant that I couldn't guarantee to make
training in Glasgow. I could have played for Edinburgh Accie Firsts at one
point, but I decided against it. I took the view that, since the force was
going to be my career, I'd better devote myself to it full-time if I was going
to make a success of it.'
    'You've
done all right so far, haven't you?'
    'I'm
more than pleased with where I am now, yes.'
    'Where
do you want to wind up?'
    'In
a Chief Constable's chair.'
    Thomson
looked up at him. 'Won't that mean leap-frogging