Skinner's rules

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As a city, Edinburgh is a two-faced bitch.

There is the face on the picture postcards, sunny, bright and shining, prosperous and smiling at the world like a toothpaste ad.

But on the other side of the looking glass lies the other face: the real world where all too often the wind blows cold, the rain lashes down and the poverty shows on the outside. That cold hard face was showing as Bob Skinner made his way to work.

The wind whistled down from the North, driving the rain across Fife, with the threat of snow not far behind. It was 6.43 a.m. on one of those fag-end of the year November days when it seemed impossible to relate the dull, grey city to the cosmopolitan capital of the August Festival weeks, or the friendly town invaded on bright, sparkling Saturdays in January by hordes of visiting rugby followers.

Detective Chief Superintendent Robert Skinner brought his Granada to a halt at the High Street entrance to Advocates’ Close. The tiny gateway, unnoticed every day by hundreds of passers-by, led into one of the many alleyways which flow from the ancient Royal Mile, down to Cockburn Street, to the Mound, and to Cowgate.

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