“Well, you shouldn’t have stayed away from us so long, should you?” said Sophie mercilessly, choosing to ignore the fact that she had been Lindsay’s first port of call after her duty visit to her parents in the Highlands.

“I didn’t have much of a choice. I never wanted to be a bloody hero. All I wanted was to be the best journalist I could be.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic, Lindsay. If those mad bastards in the secret service had really wanted you, they’d have come and got you, wherever you were. Spy scandals are ten a penny these days. A couple of months after you broke the story, your average 007 would have been hard pressed even to remember your name, never mind what lid you had lifted.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Lindsay said gloomily. “You make it all seem worthwhile.”

Sophie laughed. “Come on, Lindsay, you’re still in one piece, and you’ve got the satisfaction of knowing you did the right thing. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.”

Before Lindsay could reply, the cab driver pushed back his glass partition. “Youse gonny sit there blethering all night while the meter runs?” he inquired pleasantly.

“Sorry,” Sophie said, pushing Lindsay out of the cab and paying the driver. Lindsay watched her as she searched her bag for her wallet. Time was being kind to Sophie, she thought. Now she had passed thirty, she seemed to have grown into her bones. In her twenties, her high cheekbones, straight nose, and strong jaw had given her face a raw, unfinished look. But age had softened the impression, producing a striking image of humor and strength of character. Her curly brown hair was shot with gray now, giving an effect that other women paid their hairdressers fortunes for. Tonight, she was wearing a silky cobalt-blue jogging suit under a padded ski jacket, and Lindsay envied her style.

Sophie turned round and caught Lindsay’s scrutiny. One eyebrow twitched upward in amusement. “You look like you’re sizing me up for the kill,” she remarked wryly. “Come on, this is it,” she said, pointing down an alley between the tall, Victorian buildings. A large square sign swinging in the evening air proclaimed “Soutar Johnnie’s” above a painting of a cobbler working at his last. “We’ll have a drink and something to eat here before we meet Helen and Rosalind at the Tron Bar after their Labour Party meeting. Let’s just hope my radiopager doesn’t go off,” she added as she led the way down the alley.

“You’re not on call tonight, are you?” Lindsay asked.

“Technically, no. But if one of my patients goes into labor, they’ll probably call me in. The price of being a specialist.” Sophie was a consultant gynecologist at Stobhill Hospital, where she was in the vanguard of those treating the city’s growing numbers of HIV-positive women, mainly prostitutes and drug addicts.