Innuendo!

Hutton failed to take the hint and carried on regardless, mistakenly assuming my obvious lack of enthusiasm was a moral issue. "That doesn't seem to bother her, but if it's a problem for you, try one of the others. Janet Strang enjoys a good shag. If you put a bit of business their way they'll put out for you. No fuss and everyone's happy. At least that's been my experience."

Once again he was looking over my shoulder at whatever was going on elsewhere, but then he turned his gaze back to me and I think he realised I was on a different wavelength. He looked at me carefully through watery drunken eyes and then gave me one of those unsmiling smiles that are a speciality of insincere politicians and dangerous gangsters.

"It was good to meet you, Jamie. I'll mention your name to your boss next time I see him. You know what I told you about those lassies at AGFAM?" He paused and tapped the side of his nose with his finger, conspiratorially. "Just make sure you keep that to yourself."

That message and the look he gave me before he turned away were absolutely clear. If I said anything about our conversation then he would land me in some serious shit. As far as I was concerned, that was fine. I knew he was talking nonsense about Susie and her colleague.

*

Ever wondered why it takes so long for banks to transfer your money? It was only when I started working for the bank that I realised they hang onto your money for as long as they can, so they can use it to make more money for themselves. The banks argue this is only logical, as the money is generally not in the form of rolls of banknotes or stacks of coins locked away in an old strongbox. Modern banking is pretty slick at using your money for the benefit of the bankers and their bonuses.

The bank I worked for was no different. Transfers of any amount greater than a three figure sum took three days to be processed, which gave the bank two overnights to make money on the lending markets. To augment this and reduce its short term exposure to risk, the bank also had portfolios of investments with investment fund managers, including AGFAM.

The man in charge of this lucrative activity was Jeremy Robbins, the bank's investment manager, whose small team of well-paid deputies was empowered to make trades and investments with all that transient money being held up between our bank and anywhere else. Jeremy was an arrogant little man with a pin stripe suit and a pair of heavy rimmed spectacles with lenses as thick as the bottom of a glass bottle.

I knew a bit about Jeremy from conversations with colleagues, including Sam Sutherland, who had been in the same batch of graduate starters as me. Sam had been assigned to Jeremy's team and Jeremy was making him fetch coffee, book meeting rooms and arrange Jeremy's appointments for him. None of these tasks should have been delegated to Sam, but he knew if he complained it would backfire on him.

I probably wouldn't have bothered to ask Sam about our bank's dealings with Alpha General if I hadn't bumped into him a few days after the reception. I was sitting in the staff restaurant, enjoying a ham and cheese toastie for lunch when he pulled up a chair next to me. We chatted about the weather and this and that, but Sam was soon griping about the latest demeaning errands that Jeremy was getting him to run.

"I've learned nothing useful about banking," he told me. "I'm just some sort of dogsbody as far as Jeremy's concerned. The other day he had me collect his dry cleaning for him. It's bad enough having to act as his personal secretary, but that sort of thing is taking it a bit too far."

"So do you have to make all his appointments for him?" I asked.

"Yes. I have to book rooms, confirm appointment times with whoever is going to be at the meeting and then set up reminders in his personal calendar for him."

"Does he have a lot of meetings?"

"It's mostly internal management team meetings, but he also has regular performance review meetings every week or so with our account manager at AGFAM. We do a lot of business with them, but sorting out the arrangements for those meetings is a pain in the arse."

"Why's that?"

"Getting in touch with the bloody woman seems to take forever and then she's never able to get a meeting room booked at their offices. Jeremy always ends up having to meet her in the Scotlandic Hotel, just round the corner from AGFAM."

The hairs on my neck were beginning to stand on end.

"I know some people at AGFAM," I said. "Who is this woman?"

"Janet Strang," he replied.

"Nope," I deadpanned. "Never heard of her."

*

Susie was already preparing dinner when I got home that evening. I went and changed into my jeans and my favourite Brewdog tee shirt, grabbed a Punk IPA from the fridge and we sat down to enjoy her excellent chilli con carne. When Susie asked me how my day had gone it gave me the opening I was looking for.

"Much the same as usual, but I was talking to one of my colleagues and he was telling me that availability of meeting rooms seems to have become an issue. Do you have that problem?"

"I suppose it depends on the size of the meeting," she replied. "For bigger meetings it could be a problem from time to time, but there's no shortage of small meeting rooms. Most of them are set up for videoconferencing, so reviews and investment decisions are all recorded by A/V. That way there can be no misunderstanding about whatever the client has instructed us to do."

"How interesting," I replied. "It sounds like you have a pretty good set up. Our office has a couple of teleconferencing suites, but the small meeting rooms are fairly basic."

For me, this was a Hamlet moment. We might not have been in the state of Denmark, but I was beginning to get the feeling that something was rotten. It seemed Janet Strang's inability to book a meeting room at AGFAM was based on the "alternative fact" that none were available. However I wasn't about to start talking to Susie about what Janet Strang and Jeremy Robbins might be getting up to at the Scotlandic Hotel, so I changed the subject and we talked about our plans for the weekend. The weather forecast looked good and Susie and I were thinking about walking the Pentlands, a ridge of hills that rollercoasters along south of the city, separating it from the undulating farmlands of Midlothian. The views of the city and the Firth of Forth are wonderful when the weather is clear.

*

On Monday I called Alan Johnston. After some coaxing he agreed to meet me for a beer after work at the Grangeford Bar. With its high, ornate ceilings and glittering mirrors it's a busy place most days, but Mondays are usually quiet and I knew we would not be overheard.

We got ourselves settled in one of the wood panelled corner booths with a couple of pints of IPA.

"So what did you want to talk about that couldn't wait, JD?" he asked me.

"To be honest, Alan, it's about the innuendo," I replied. "It's getting to me."

"I wondered if that would happen."

"You mentioned it when Susie and I got married."

"Yes. I'm not sure what to say," he responded. "Clare told me Susie was a bit of a free spirit, but it was her former boyfriend, Bobby Jackson, that got her into those high-end sex parties that people gossip about."

This was all news to me. Susie and I had never discussed our past histories in any great detail, but I wasn't going to stop Alan spilling the beans about what Susie had been up to before she met me.

"Was she forced into doing things against her will, then?" I asked him.

"No. Clare says Susie liked it, but Bobby had a twisted mind. He got a buzz from watching her fucking other guys, took a load of pictures and wasn't too discreet about keeping them private."

"Have you seen any of those pictures?" I asked.

"Not personally, but Clare says she's seen them. She says they show Susie dancing the horizontal mambo with some of Edinburgh's elite. Mind you, nothing too kinky. No arse banditry, golden showers, bondage or any of that other M&Ms or M&S nonsense, although I've heard that's not uncommon in those circles."

"Thanks, Alan. I think you mean S&M or BDSM. Anyway I've been wondering if she might be keeping something from me. She's had plenty of chances to tell me."

"Maybe she's been trying to save your feelings. She broke up with Bobby when she found out about him showing those pictures around. That was before you met her, so she's probably afraid to tell you anything, because you would think badly of her. Anyway, at least it's all in the past. Clare had a heart-to-heart talk with her on your wedding night and Susie told her she would never do anything to hurt you."

"Okay. I suppose I've known all along that Susie was sexually adventurous. From what you're telling me, I think she was vulnerable and her former boyfriend took advantage of that. He exploited her. Let's just hope no one else gets the same idea."

"Damn right," said Alan.

We talked a bit longer about the four of us getting together sometime soon for dinner and decided we'd suggest the idea to our wives and let them pick a date. As far as we could tell, Susie and Clare hadn't been in touch with one another for quite a while.

*

The next week got off to a bad start when the old gas-fired boiler decided to go on strike. Neither Susie nor I could get it to work, despite resetting the controls several times. Eventually we made do by boiling water in the kitchen kettle for a warm wash, rather than taking cold showers.

Wee Davy, our landlord, was pleasant enough but very tight with his money and he wasn't ready to invest in a new boiler. Alex, the nice guy from Kingston's Gasfitters and Plumbers who had fixed the boiler last time it broke down, had explained to us that a series of deteriorating components was causing problems. In other words, the boiler was suffering from old age. This time, after various telephone calls, Davy managed to get Alex to agree to come over to our place sometime the next morning and see if he could work his magic.

I phoned Susie to give her the good news, but she was unimpressed. She told me she had a vital meeting on Tuesday that she couldn't afford to miss, so I would have to be the one who stayed home and waited for the plumber to come and fix the boiler.

The bank is very flexible when it comes to its staff working from home in circumstances when the work would not otherwise get done, so I was able to get permission from my boss without being hassled. We all have laptops or tablets and we all have mobile phones, so there are no problems remaining in communication.

The mood at home that Monday evening was very cool, not least because the central heating was out of commission due to the boiler problem. Susie was slightly placated by the fact that AGFAM's offices, like ours, had showers that were used by staff who cycled to work. She planned to take a bag of toiletries and a towel with her, so she could freshen up before her important meeting.

Dinner was a microwaveable chicken curry, which seemed to taste of nothing much. I wasn't very hungry, but I had a question that I wanted to ask Susie.

"Do you look after the city's investment portfolio at AGFAM?"

"Well, actually there are several people who are responsible for the various investment funds and the related transactions, but I'm the account manager. Why do you ask?"

"Just wondering."

She looked at me curiously. "Wondering about what?"

"About how the city is doing financially."

She looked relieved. "Silly boy! You know I can't tell you anything about our clients' investments."

"I didn't really expect you to tell me anything," I replied, trying hard to avoid revealing my growing unease.

*

The following morning I worked on a business development report for the bank while waiting for Alex to turn up. There was still no sign of him by 11:30, so I called Kingston's for an update, which was just as well. Alex's pregnant wife had gone into labour earlier than expected and he was now anxiously awaiting the arrival of their first child in the Simpson maternity wing of the Royal Infirmary. Kingston's had left a message for Davy to let him know that Alex was unavailable and that someone else would be round on Wednesday instead, but no one had told me about the change of plan.

I had to admit that having a baby was a really good excuse for not showing up to fix an old boiler. It would be a nuisance to be without a boiler for one more day, but babies come before boilers, alphabetically and any other way I can think of. Hopefully all would go well for Alex and his wife. Meantime I decided to follow Susie's lead by taking my toiletries and bath towel to the office to have a shower and freshen up before finishing off my working day there.

I finalised the draft report and made myself a sandwich for lunch before packing up and catching a tram around 1.30pm. It slowly wound its way westwards through the town centre, passing the Scotlandic Hotel en route. That was when I spotted Susie walking down the street and then she turned and went in the front door of the hotel.

There was a coffee shop and a restaurant in the hotel and I wanted to believe that Susie was just going to grab a bite to eat or maybe have a coffee. I also wanted to believe that Janet Strang was just incompetent when it came to arranging meetings and that the Scotlandic Hotel was just a handy alternative meeting spot. The problem was I couldn't be sure. I got off the tram at the next stop and started walking back along the street towards the hotel. I could have a look round the coffee shop and the restaurant. If Susie saw me I'd just tell her I spotted her from the tram and thought I'd pop in and update her about the boiler.

It only took me a few minutes to walk back to the hotel, but there was no sign of Susie in the lobby, the coffee shop or the restaurant. I couldn't check the women's toilets, but I took a seat close by and decided to wait a few minutes, just in case she was in there. Then Teflon Tom walked in. He strode purposefully across the lobby without looking in my direction, pressed the button to summon the lift, the doors opened and he disappeared inside. The indicator panel lit up to show the lift had stopped at the third floor.

I had a sinking feeling in my stomach as I stood and walked over to the hotel's reception desk.

The young man behind the counter looked up as I approached.

"Excuse me," I said, "I have to contact your guest, Miss Susan Dunn. Can I call her room?"

"Certainly, sir. Just let me check. That's room 329. I can connect you from here or you can call from the lobby telephones. Just dial the room number."

I wanted to make sure there was no mistake, so I went over to the lobby telephones and dialled 329.

"Hello?" was all she said, but it was her.

I gave her my best version of a German accent. "Frau Fischer?"

"No," she replied. "There's no one here by that name."

"Please excuse me. Wrong number," I said in my German accent and hung up.

No smoke without fire, I thought, as I made my way up the stairway from the lobby to the third floor ten minutes later. For what I had in mind I would have to be careful. I needed a bit more evidence before I could be certain of what Susie was doing in room 329 and I had waited long enough. There was a glass covered fire alarm panel in the third floor corridor. I smashed it with my elbow and the sound of the alarm going off was deafening. I had time to stand behind the vending machines and ice dispenser, before the door of room 329 opened.

Teflon Tom was first out, with shoe laces undone and his jacket and tie slung over his arm as he tucked his shirt into his trousers and scurried towards the fire exit stairs. He was followed by Susie, who paused and leaned against the doorframe to quickly jam her shoes on before trotting after him, buttoning up her blouse as she went.

I had seen enough for my purposes and I had no intention of trying to catch up with them. I was absolutely fuming with a white hot rage, but I had other plans. I waited a minute more before going downstairs and exiting the hotel, confident that Susie and Teflon Tom would have made themselves scarce as quickly as possible. Then I caught the next tram to my office.

*

Sam Sutherland was enjoying an afternoon without having to run errands for Jeremy Robbins, who had flown to London for a senior management team meeting.

I found him at his desk, reading up for one of the tests that we all had to take if we wanted to sit the professional exams at the end of the year.

"I think I might be able to do you a favour," I told Sam. "I spoke to my friends at AGFAM. Don't tell Jeremy, but I may be able to pull some strings so they don't need to use the coffee shop at the Scotlandic."

Sam grinned. "That's great. He's scheduled to meet Janet Strang at 2pm on Monday next week."

"I'll see what I can do," I replied. Taking a leaf out of Teflon Tom's book, I tapped my finger against the side of my nose and added, "Just make sure you keep that to yourself."

I had no intention of trying to arrange a meeting room for Jeremy and Janet, but Sam didn't know that. Of course he was a little disappointed when I contacted him again later that afternoon to tell him I had been unsuccessful.

"Maybe next time," he said.

"We'll see," I said, but I had other plans for Jeremy and Janet.

Edinburgh has a few private detective agencies that handle investigations into marital mistrust issues. But they wouldn't be able to add much to what I had seen with my own eyes. What would be the point anyway? I wasn't going to bother collecting any additional evidence that Susie was prostituting herself and hanging the horns on me. However I did want to get some of the dirty linen aired and for what I had in mind the Edinburgh Daily Post looked a better bet.

The latest scandal uncovered by the Post was a shakedown of building contractors by a bunch of city officials who were feathering their own nests. The officials were now guests of her majesty's prison service and the man who had done all the hard work to put them there was the Post's chief investigative reporter, Dan Wetherston. I called him and gave him a brief outline of what I thought was going on and we agreed to meet the next morning while Kingston's fixed the boiler.

*

It's strange how our emotions change so rapidly. One minute you're winning the game and the next you're a loser. The trophy seems to be won and is then lost. Defeat is snatched from the jaws of victory. That sudden change from joy to despair really takes the wind out of your sails and I suppose it's the same for love and hate. It wasn't that I suddenly hated Susie, but I despised her for what she was doing. I felt hurt and humiliated and I was going to make sure she didn't get off lightly. There would be recriminations and we had some very painful discussions ahead of us, but in the meantime I would make the most of what we had before it was gone.

On Saturday I hired a car and Susie and I drove north to St Andrews along the East Neuk coastal route, stopping at one of the old fishing villages en route to take pictures and enjoy the crab and lobster sold from a shack on the pier. The sun was out and I imagined that Susie's smile had chased away the rainclouds. We had a late lunch in St Andrews and walked hand in hand along the vast stretch of sandy beach next to the Old Course. The wind picked up gradually and it was soon clear that a storm was blowing in as we headed back to the car.

That evening, as the storm raced in from the North Sea and rain battered the windows of the flat there was no more innuendo. We had a light supper of smoked salmon with a glass of an excellent New Zealand sauvignon blanc then we went to bed early.

When I came back from brushing my teeth in the bathroom she was lying on her back on the bed, completely naked and spread-eagled, displaying herself to me. She raised her arms to draw me down on top of her, but I wanted to take it slow. I kissed my way up her legs and licked her thighs and tummy, settling down to tease her clit with flicks of my tongue before licking up and down her slit. I put my mouth over her pussy, sucking her clit and then spearing her with my tongue as she moaned quietly. My hands were busy fondling and kneading her buttocks to get her heated up, while she wriggled and squirmed with pleasure, pulling and twisting at her own nipples.