Thursday legends - Skinner 10

by Quintin Jardine

  'Sure, the final insult.'

  'Ah, you're a Catholic then. But you don't deserve the Last Rites, you're a copper.'

  He leaned over and tapped Martin in the middle of the forehead with the barrel of the big pistol. 'I used to shoot them right there, so they could see it coming. I always wondered whether they did ... see the bullet, I mean. Think about it: if someone shoots you right in the middle of the scone at close range, do you see the bullet just before impact? Do you die before you see the flash? I'm pretty sure you don't hear the bang. I used to time that; when I heard the bang the guy's brains were usually on the way out the back of his head. One or two of them flinched though, looked away just as I was pulling the trigger. Fucking brains everywhere then, even on me; top of the head comes right off with a heavy-calibre gun.'

  'You're going to make a hell of a mess of your kitchen,' the detective growled.

  'Ahh, a hard boy,' said Scotland, knowingly. 'We'll see that too, when the time comes, just how hard you really are. Anyway, I'm not going to shoot you here ... not unless somebody rings the bell, that is.' Martin began to think, frantically. Who expected him that night, or might call on him, find him missing? Rhian? No, no more. Karen? No, baby-sitting for Neil. Alex? Unlikely. Pye? No. Mario? Christ, I hope not. Change the subject, change the subject.

  'Earlier on, Lawrence,' he kept his tone even; no panic, no fear, 'you said that Alec Smith only thought he'd retired you. Are you saying you've been active since then?'

  'No. I'm saying that the likes of big Smith couldn't retire me. I withdrew, because it was too dangerous for the people I worked with for me to be around them. I could never be completely sure that I had evaded surveillance.'

  Scotland looked at his prisoner and let out a sort of snort. 'Hhghh. You realise you haven't even asked me how Smith thought he had retired me? That means you know. Probably always bloody known. I imagine that big bastard was really proud of himself, talking it all over Special Branch. Not so fucking cocky now, though.'

  'I know what he did,' Martin acknowledged, 'but I only found out this week. I took over Alec Smith's job, but I never knew about it then. Alec never told anybody anything they didn't need to know, not even his family. He was the world's most secretive man and all of his secrets may have died with him.

  'We only found out what he did to you because Tommy Gavigan was leaned on after his death. He told us all about it. He's out now, by the way; retired early, sent on down the road.'

  'You mean he's got a fucking pension for that?' Another flash of anger.

  'Which he'll never enjoy spending for looking over his shoulder. Unless ... maybe we'll get him your job at Guardian.'

  Scotland smiled, a cruel grin of power. 'You forget,

  Detective Chief Superintendent ... you won't be getting anything for anyone after tomorrow.'

  'As you say, we'll see about that.' Move on, quickly. 'How did you know who Smith was? What he was?'

  'Come on, Mr Martin. Our intelligence wasn't that bad: I don't mean my Irish friends, I mean Tony Manson's intelligence. He always knew who all the coppers were, including the Special Branch people. Tony got me involved in Ireland, you know. Some contacts of his needed an outside worker to take on a special job; somebody very big in Sinn Fein, someone they couldn't get near. He could have sent big Lenny Plenderleith, only he didn't want to risk losing him; so, since I had done a few things for him by that time, he volunteered me. The job got done, and I got asked back for the tricky ones. I got paid, of course; I was strictly a mercenary.'

  'So why the straight job now? What took you to Guardian?'

  'I am straight... or at least I was. Tony's dead, big Lenny's in the nick for ever, Jackie Charles is banged up and his wife's a gingerbread woman, Dougie the Comedian's dead; all of it, or most of it, thanks to Skinner and you. I was a hired gun; now there's no-one left to hire me.

  'So I took a job at Guardian. The money was good, the work was easy enough - on-site night-security work mainly, offices, the university, the zoo, even. Then, bugger me, what happens but big Smith gets appointed General Manager. I thought I was for the off right away, but no, he kept me on. He told me that he liked having me where he could see me. But then, after a year, he left. They wanted to make him a star down south, so the story went, but he wouldn't have it.'

  'It wouldn't have suited his plans.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'I don't know, but he was up to something. Until last Friday night, that is,' Martin added, quietly.

  Lawrence Scotland laughed. 'So you're finally getting round to what you came to talk to me about, are you? I knew somebody would, after that. I hoped it would be Tommy Gavigan, but you'll do. Oh aye, you'll do. A Detective Chief Superintendent, indeed.'

  'How did you find out where Alec lived? Did you look at the personnel records at Guardian?'

  'Don't be daft. I'm a shooter, not a safecracker. No, I just followed him home; back to his lair, the fucking animal, there on the beach with just him and his fucking dog. I thought about grabbing it off the street, you know, throttling it and dumping it on his doorstep ... just so he'd know.'

  'He'd probably have killed you, if he thought you were threatening him.'

  'I worked that one out for myself, pal. Anyway, what harm had the poor bloody dog done?'

  'So ten years on, you decided to kill Alec himself. The thing that surprises me is that I never really fancied you for it. That's why I was stupid enough to come to see you alone; just for a chat about Alec, to find out what you knew about him back then.'

  'You mean you didn't come to apologise,' said Scotland, scornfully. 'No, I never thought you would. You don't really mind what Smith did to me, do you? Come on, be honest, admit it.'

  'No, I don't really mind; I can't approve of it, but I can see why he did it. There were no cries of outrage when we found out.'

  'Naw, I didn't imagine there would be. I can see why myself, truth be told. I made big Alec angry by slipping his surveillance that last time I went to Ireland, to Armagh. I don't think he was a man who liked to get angry. He was all about control, and anger signifies a loss of control.

  'He must have planned it very carefully, and looked at all the reports of the jobs I did. All of them shot in the head, standing up, facing the gun, no blindfold, no bag over the head, nothing like that. He did the same thing to me; exactly the same, on purpose.

  'There's an added element to being on the other end of it, you know, when you've done it yourself. I realised right then that of all the people I'd dealt with, the people who were the most terrified - they all were at the end, but I mean the most of all, crying, begging, pissing themselves, all that stuff -were the ones who'd actually killed people themselves. They'd seen the brains coming out too, and when you've seen that the last thing you want is that it should be your brains flying all over the place. No, you don't want that.

  'Big Alec knew that; so he did what he did to me, and in a strange way I respected him for that. But it was way over the top. I hurt his pride, but he terrified me, almost to death, and he humiliated me in the worst possible way. Being left sat in your own shite miles from nowhere is worse than being dead. You might say that you have no sympathy for me, but you couldn't have done what he did, could you? Load the gun, spin the chamber, pull the trigger. Then do it again.'

  He frowned at Martin. 'No, you couldn't have done that, not you.' Then he laughed.

  'I saw your guy in the papers, saying that you were looking for a seriously disturbed individual over Alec Smith's death.

  Fucking hell, that's ironic; big Alec was a seriously disturbed individual himself.

  'I looked into his eyes, behind that big gun that he pointed at me, just like this one ...' He waved the big pistol in the air, '... and I could see something in there that was plain fucking crazy. That scared me as much as the thought of my brains flying out the back of my head.

  'I will tell you one thing ... just one thing. I could not think of anything worse in the world than being that man's
enemy.'

  'I can.'

  'What's that?'

  Martin gazed straight at the other man. 'Being mine,' he said quietly, '... as you will find out.'

  'Big talk,' Scotland sneered. 'But no more talk now, no more till morning. We sit the Death Watch in silence; you with your thoughts, me just watching you. There's something incredible about studying a man who knows he's going to die in a few hours.

  'I haven't done it for a long time.'

  36

  'Sure,' said Sarah. 'I keep copies of all my autopsy reports here, on my lap-top computer and in hard copy.' She looked at her husband and at Neil Mcllhenney standing in the conservatory, where she had been reading when they arrived. 'What's the panic anyway?'

  'No panic,' said Bob. 'It's a thousand-to-one chance, but it's something we have to check. Will you get us a copy of the report on the second post-mortem you did at the weekend?'

  He turned to Mcllhenney. 'Neil, you'd better get home for your baby-sitter.'

  'No, it's Karen. I'll call her; she'll understand.'

  'Okay, but first let's try to knock this thing on the head. Let's just phone the Diddler just in case he's been at home all the time, let's not look any dafter than we have to.' He picked up the local telephone directory, a commercially-produced listing of village numbers, found the entry for 'Shearer, H', and dialled it.

  The phone rang four times, before the Diddler answered. 'Hello,' he said. 'Howard and Edith are away from home right now, but if you'd like to leave us a message, or even send us a fax, we'll get back to you.'

  'Bugger,' Skinner swore. 'Come on, Neil,'he said. 'He lives just up the hill; let's check out his house for signs of recent occupation.'

  Sarah met them in the hall; she had a document pouch in her hand, and looked in surprise at the torch Bob held in his. 'We'll be back in a minute, love,' he told her. 'We're just going up to the Shearers' place.'

  He led Mcllhenney out into the bright night, down his long driveway and into Hill Road. Halfway up the steeply-rising street he stopped at a gateway; it led to a big bungalow, modern, like his own, in contrast to the great stone houses which climbed the hillside and which were silhouetted all around against the shining blue sky ... until the glare of a security light obliterated everything else.

  Diddler's outer door was locked, and the house was in darkness. The door was solid, with no glass panels. Skinner pushed the letter-box open and shone his torch through it. 'Fuck,' he swore quietly. 'There are newspapers all over the place; and one of them's the Sunday Times. Nobody's been here since the weekend.

  'I don't like this. The Diddler might be a fucking wee sweetie-wife at times, but he's a good bloke and I am worried about him.'

  'Where else could he be?' his assistant asked.

  'He and Edith have a place in the south of France; conceivably they could be there. But what isn't conceivable is that none of us knew about it. The Diddler has never missed a Thursday night without letting Benny Crossley, or Davie McPhail, or me know in advance ... and I mean never.

  'We'd better have a look at that report.'

  They ran back down the hill to Skinner's house. This time, Sarah was waiting in the kitchen, making a pot of coffee, simply to have something to do. The Floater file was lying on the work surface; Bob picked it up and took out the report. 'Does this mention old scars and other distinguishing marks?' he asked.

  'Yes. Right there on the first page. The body had an appendectomy scar, and that's it, apart from a fairly unusual blood type.'

  'Any sign of a healed fracture of the right big toe, about seven years old?'

  'The right big toe was missing. Severed. Look, you two, what is this? You've just been to Shearer's place. You don't think that man could be the Diddler, do you?'

  Mcllhenney took a folded newspaper from his back pocket and handed it to her. She stared at the image on the front page; slowly her eyes seemed to widen. 'My God,' she whispered. 'I see what you mean. And I helped prepare this picture, too. Yet it never occurred to me.'

  'Where's the body now?' Bob asked.

  'It'll still be in the mortuary at the Royal Infirmary, I imagine. But Bob, you will not be able to identify it; take a look at the photographs in there if you don't believe me.'

  He did as she suggested, taking the big colour prints from the pouch, and wincing as he looked through them. 'I believe you,' he muttered, at last. 'We'll need DNA testing, Neil. The trouble is we'll need something from the Diddler to make the comparison. That means we'll need to get into the house, to look for hairs off pillows and the like.'

  'And Edith's in St. Tropez with Victoria, their daughter,' said Sarah. 'I met her in the village last week and she told me they were going, now that the Highers are over.'

  'Shit. We'll need her approval to get into the house: last thing I want is to scare the woman before we're certain that the wee bugger isn't shacked up somewhere, up to his old tricks.'

  He took the coffee which Sarah handed him. 'Look, we're not going to catch any killers tonight. You get back to the kids, Neil, I'll phone Dan Pringle and tell him to meet me in his office at eight sharp tomorrow.'

  Mcllhenney grinned. 'That should be an interesting phone call. Where we have the football on a Thursday night, Superintendent Pringle has the Masons: and Superintendent Pringle likes a drink.'

  37

  Karen Neville drove quietly along the narrow street. She took a deep breath as she saw the red MGF parked in the driveway. It was after midnight; she had thought it over several times, indeed she was still thinking it over, but she was there.

  To hell with what he might have to tell her, or ask her. There were things that she needed to say to him, and she couldn't hold them inside over another long, lonely weekend.

  Things like the way he had misread her, and how it wasn't his fault since she had misread herself. Things about stability and the need to stop being a human mayfly, before June came along and there were few options left, and even less future. Things about this bloody office situation and how untenable it was becoming for her, calling him 'Sir', or 'Boss', or 'Mr Martin' in front of other people. Christ, it was a wonder she had never said 'Thank you, sir,' as he had come inside her, 'Thank you for the part of yourself you've given me, the only part you ever give.'

  That was at the heart of it: most of all she had to tell him outright that theirs was a taking relationship on both sides, with little or no giving at all, and that she could not go on that way. She couldn't go on being his safe house away from the demons, even if that meant that he could no longer provide the self-same comfort for her.

  She didn't know what she was going to say to him after that, other than 'I quit: everything, as of now. Goodbye.'

  Or maybe she would simply speak the truth and say, 'I'm sorry, Andy, but I love you.'

  She took another deep breath as she parked in front of his car, blocking his driveway. The house was in darkness, but she knew that his bedroom and living room were on the far side. She pressed the door buzzer, hearing it sound inside. She waited; and she waited. She rang again, longer this time, in case he was asleep, although she knew he never slept all that deeply. Still she waited until the picture began to form in her head.

  Why was his car in the driveway and not in the garage? Was there another car in there?

  Andy, not asleep. Andy, not alone. Andy, with this week's blonde. Or maybe Ruth McConnell ... or maybe Alex. Was he really over her? Would he ever be?

  Yes, she got the picture.

  Her nerve failed her. She walked away from his front door, climbed back into her car, turned on the engine and then, as quietly as she could, Karen Neville drove away.

  38

  He tried, but he couldn't; he couldn't think about his life. Only about his death, only about that bloody great gun and the cold, thin man who had been pointing it at him all night. It looked pretty old, a Webley service revolver maybe, or an American Colt, the sort of wartime souvenir that had been handed in by the thousands at firearms amnesties over the l
ast fifty years.

  It may have been a museum piece, but Martin was in no doubt that it was in working order. Lawrence Scotland knew his firearms; he'd had plenty of practice during his years as a consultant to the Irish Loyalists and to the late and infrequently lamented Tony Manson. A heavy calibre job; point four five, probably. For a second too long he found himself imagining what one of those would do to his head, how much of it would be left.

  He had seen a murder victim once, years back, where a heavy weapon like that one had been pressed to the victim's temple. Contact wound; explosive, hardly anything left in the cranium. He thought of JFK and the apparent mystery of what had happened to his brain, when his body had arrived at the Dallas hospital. Where was the mystery? It was all over Jackie!

  I wonder who '11 identify me. Bob maybe, poor bugger. Not my dad though, please not him. Altogether too old for that; it would kill him. He pictured a funeral; solemn people in black suits. His parents supported by his younger brother,

  David, and his wife Caitlin. Bob, Jim Elder, Proud Jimmy in uniform ... Don't wear uniform, Bob, not for me. I know how much you hate it. ... Sarah, and Alex, near the front. Karen, a row further back with Sammy and Neil. Mario and Maggie ...

  Stop it, Martin, he shouted at himself, inside his head. This man only has your body captive. Let him take your mind and you really are dead. If he does what you think he's going to do, you have some sort of a chance. He's your enemy, he's the other team, and what do you do to them? That's right: you smash them into the fucking ground, ruck the bastards till they howl for their mothers. You 're going to get this guy with whatever you have and you 're going to hear his last pathetic gasp.

  Anger, Andy, anger. No point in staying cool now; Mr Cool will get his fucking head blown off. Be Mr Angry; anger is your only weapon. Anger kills, cool is vulnerable. Yes, let Lawrence fucking Scotland be Mr Cool.