Quintin Jardine - Skinner's trail

It was only a small scream.

Not much of a scream at all, really. Yet it had a profound effect on Bob Skinner.

His broad shoulders and his ramrod straight spine, which had been rigid with tension, relaxed and sagged. In the same instant his eyes overflowed with hot, sudden, unexpected tears. They ran down his face, mingling with the sweat of the two-hour drama in which, although only a bit player, he had been involved as intensely as the two principals.

The scream, spontaneous from the shock of the first inflation of the lungs, faltered quickly, became for a second or two a hiccupping splutter, then settled into a long-drawn-out wailing cry.

Bob Skinner stared in awe at the miracle of new life, at the infant fresh from the womb, held upside-down before him by the young doctor whose white cap and mask seemed to add lustre to the shining blackness of his face. Then, through his trance, Bob felt the pressure of his wife's strong grip and turned towards her. His mouth shaped words, but no sound came. He was for that time, indeed for the first time in his forty-five years, struck quite dumb.

Sarah said it for him, We have a son.' She looked back towards the baby, as his crying took on added volume with the cutting of the umbilical cord. A few seconds later, he was swaddled and placed in her arms. She kissed the tiny forehead above the slitted eyes, oblivious of the smears of blood and mucus.

`Welcome to the world, James Andrew Skinner,' she whispered.

Bob's left arm slipped round her shoulders as she lay propped up on the delivery table, legs still spread in the position of birth. He leaned down and peered at the white bundle of soft blankets, looking into his son's face for the first time. The power of speech returned. 'Yes, wee fella. Hello, there. You'll like it out here, I think, Master JAS. Hope you'll like us.'

`No doubt about that, copper,' said his wife. 'Hey! JAS I like the sound of that. James Andrew Skinner, aka Jazz. Spelled J-A-Z-Z. That's what we'll call him. Yes, Bob?'

The new father threw back his head and laughed. The movement loosened his surgical cap, and he shook it off completely, freeing his thick, steel-grey hair. 'Yes! That's great. Our boy Jazz. It sort of suits him doesn't it. He looks pretty cool already.'

The baby's crying had stopped. The crumpled face had begun to relax, a wrinkle line across the forehead disappearing as it did. A small right hand forced its way from within the bundle. Very gently, Bob touched the tiny palm with his index finger. The fingers closed in a reflex action on its tip. He was amazed by the strength of the grip. 'My God! Feel that.'

Sarah nodded. 'I know. I am a doctor, remember. The human animal is proportionately stronger, in relation to body weight, at the moment of birth, than it will ever be again, even suppose it grows up to be an Olympic weightlifter.' She offered the middle joint of her little finger to the bud-like mouth. It clamped on tight, and began to suck voraciously. 'Ow! Jazz, baby, what have I let myself in for?' -

The young nurse who had handed Sarah her baby for the first time returned and took him back, to have all his regulation parts checked and counted, to be weighed, to be washed and to be spruced up generally for his debut. Bob glanced at the big wall clock, to mark the time in his memory. It was two minutes before midday on Sunday the twelfth of May.

He helped a second member of the delivery team restore Sarah to a more conventional and comfortable position, with her back propped up on the birth table high enough for her to be able to watch the first nurse at work.

The new born Jazz Skinner was stretched out on the blanket which had served as his first robe, while the girl washed him gently, from top to toe. 'Look at him, Bob,' said Sarah. Fit as she was, her breathing was still slightly heavy from the exertion of the birth, and its irregularity gave an added edge to the wonderment in her voice. 'Look at him. He's just like you.'

Bob beamed, then chuckled. 'Hair's a bit darker, though!'

`Yes but it looks as if it'll lie the same way once it's dried off. And look at the shape of his body; how long and lean he is. Just like you. And his little face: that frown line above the bridge of his nose. That's yours, too.'

He squeezed her shoulder. 'Sarah, love. He's like all new shy;born babies. He's got a face like a well-skelped arse, and he will have until he opens his eyes properly. Talking of arses, when the doc held him up there, something looked familiar. That's "one thing of yours he's got, at least.'

`Bob!'

`Come on; girl. That's a compliment. You've got the nicest arse in Edinburgh!'

Hmm. Wonder if you'll still say that when you see the effect carrying young Jazz has on it?'

"Course I will. Anything on you is the best by me. You're a wonder, Doctor sorry, Professor and you've just proved it again.'

From the breathless moment when they had confirmed it, using an over-the-counter test kit, through to the uncomplica shy;ted delivery, two days early, in the grandly-named Simpson Memorial Maternity Pavilion within the crowded precincts of Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, Sarah's pregnancy had been a model without major upsets for either mother or father. Bob had been outraged on one occasion by a junior doctor's description of his thirty-year-old wife as an 'elderly prim', but had been mollified by Sarah's explanation that the term was medical jargon for first-time mothers over twenty-five.

Alex, Bob's daughter by his all-too-brief first marriage, had been born over twenty years before, in an age and under a regime in which fathers were excluded as a matter of policy once their biological task had been completed. So the growth of Sarah's bump, and the gestation process of the individual who had just emerged from the dark chrysalis of the womb as his son Jazz, had been in effect as new an experience for him as for his wife. He had shared in the preparation every step of the way, attending all of Sarah's training classes, and the consultant's sincere inquiry as to whether he wished to attend the birth had been greeted with a sternly raised eyebrow and a curt, 'Of course.

Even Bob's work had seemed to co-operate in allowing him to spend as much time as possible at his wife's side. After a terrible twelve months, with drama following drama, life had become, since the previous September, even quieter than was normal in Edinburgh. It was as if the city's criminal underclass had been awed by the grand scale of the crises of the previous year, and cowed also by the force with which Assistant Chief Constable Robert Skinner had dealt with each one. As a result, Skinner had been able to establish a normal working routine for the first time since his promotion to Executive Officer rank. Even the demands of his 'second job', as security adviser to Andrew Hardie, the recently appointed Secretary of State for Scotland, had slackened off, through a general lessening in the terrorist threat.

So marked had been the change that, in addition to sharing the routine tasks of Sarah's pregnancy, Bob had been able to resume his stewardship of his police force's karate club and rejoin the squash ladder. He had even entered, for the first time in five years, the spring knockout golf tournament, where his path to the final had been blocked by a suspiciously good fourteen-handicapper who would now find it difficult as a result, or so it was hinted by colleagues, ever to escape from the humdrum of the traffic department. The new routine had been badly needed therapy for Bob Skinner, after a year during which he had faced the greatest challenges of his life, shocking himself at times by the things of which, in hours of need, he had proved capable, encountering an inner self whose exist shy;ence he had never suspected, and whose ruthlessness he feared.