Thursday legends - Skinner 10

by Quintin Jardine

  She stopped and looked up at Mario, as he shuffled through the photographs. 'I make it seven shots,' he told her finally, 'each with the number one on the back, in accordance with the file number, of an old geezer chatting up what looks like the rough trade in Leith, or taking boys into a New Town flat. There are a couple of shots of him going into an entryway in what could be Cockburn Street and a blow-up of him shot through a window, presumably in the same place. 'What's the second document?'

  Maggie turned back to the screen. 'Number two. Raeside. Jesus,' she hissed, 'this one's a Deputy Procurator Fiscal.'

  Her husband picked up the envelope numbered two, and slid out the photographs inside. 'Is that right?' he exclaimed. 'He should be prosecuting himself in that case. Getting a blow-job off a bloke in a beach car park is definitely lewd and libidinous conduct in my book.'

  He took another envelope at random and looked at its contents; then another; and another. 'They're all the same; Alec's been gathering information on gay men.'

  'But not just a random selection. A judge, a Fiscal.' She scanned the files, picked one and clicked it open. 'Yes,' she murmured. 'Thought I recognised that name; this one's a Minister in the Scottish Parliament.

  'And that one,' she said, opening another document. 'Oh my! This one's a woman. The Chair of the Police Committee.

  'Mario, what are we going to do with this?'

  In answer he picked up the phone and dialled Ruth McConnell's extension. 'Ruthie,' he asked, 'is the Boss in today?'

  'No. He called to say that Sarah's making him stay at home for the rest of the week.'

  'Okay.' He hung up and looked at his wife. 'That settles that. We're going to Gullane.'

  66

  Jack McGurk snapped into wakefulness; he had been on the verge of dozing off as he leaned back in the passenger seat of the anonymous Vauxhall as he watched the building across Rothesay Terrace. He sighed, deeply; 'Ah, bloody hell, Ray,' he said, to the man behind the wheel, 'I hate this sort of duty. Sometimes I wonder if Dan Pringle's still blaming me for that crap my brother-in-law printed in the News'

  'Come on, Jack, you've still got your stripes, haven't you?' said DC Wilding. He grinned. 'No-one ever held that against you ... at least not for long, anyway.'

  'Maybe so, maybe so. Someone's got to do this, I know. It's just...'

  'It's just that you thought that once you became a sergeant you could leave this sort of crap to poor bloody foot soldiers like me.'

  McGurk laughed. 'Aye, I suppose so. Whereas all that's happened is that I get to sit on this side of the car, not in the driver's seat.' He glanced at his watch. 'Five to bloody one. Chances are they'll be having a boardroom lunch in there, and you and I'll be stuck here till fuckin' six o'clock or later.'

  'Or maybe not,' said Wilding. 'Look.' McGurk followed the direction of his nod, and saw a man trotting briskly down the steps which led from the offices of Paris Simons. He seemed to move awkwardly, an impression created by his twisted, stunted left arm, undisguisable even by his expensively cut suit.

  'Our man,' the Sergeant muttered. He made to open the car door, until his colleague laid a hand on his shoulder. 'Wait, Jack, wait.' As they watched, Luke Heard strode along the pavement and turned into an alleyway at the side of the building. 'There's a car park back there.'

  'He can drive? With that arm?'

  Wilding nodded. 'He's got an S-type Jag. Automatic, with adaptations, I suppose.'

  The two detectives sat for a minute, watching, until a silver Jaguar with Heard at the wheel, appeared in the alleyway and turned left into the road, heading eastwards. The Constable slid the Vauxhall into gear and set off after him.

  The fund manager took a right turn at the end of Rothesay Terrace, not noticing, apparently, the vehicle following. He headed downhill, and across Belford Bridge, the temporary resting place of Howard Shearer, then up Belford Road, until he turned into Ravelston Dykes.

  'Where's he going, d'you think?' Wilding mused.

  'Maybe he's off to the casino to lose another couple of grand. We'll see.' They tailed Heard down to Western Corner and then along the Corstorphine Road, out of the city. 'Aye,' McGurk muttered as they swept past Murrayfield Hospital, 'Looks like the tables right enough.'

  The right turn took them completely by surprise. 'Fuck me, he's going into the zoo!' snapped Wilding. 'He'll twig if I follow him in there.'

  'Pull into the filling station opposite,' the Sergeant ordered. 'We'll leg it.' His colleague did as he was told, swinging off

  the road and parking on the forecourt, well clear of the pumps, and flashing his warrant card at the attendant, before following McGurk across the road to the grey-walled zoo.

  'Police,' the Sergeant barked at the girl on the admissions kiosk. 'Let us in, quick.'

  Inside, they looked around, until Wilding spotted the sleek form of the Jaguar, brake-lights shining as it pulled into a car park beside a stone building. 'Look; the bastard's going for his lunch, Jack,' he gasped, breathlessly. 'There's a club out here, and he's probably a member. He must be, to be able to park there.'

  'Let's just wait and see.'

  The two detectives stood at the top of a rise, a hundred yards distant, watching Heard as he climbed out of his car. Before he closed the door he reached across to the passenger seat, picked up an object, and slipped it into his pocket. Then, instead of heading for the building he turned on his heel and strode out of the park, into the zoo itself.

  'Going to throw buns to the elephants, d'you think?' murmured McGurk.

  'Not in that direction. He's heading for the penguins; first place my kids make for when I bring them here.'

  Edinburgh Zoo's penguins are its star attraction. At weekends or during holiday periods, their enclosure would have been surrounded by spectators, but on a midweek afternoon it was deserted, except for a tall girl in dungarees and green Wellington boots; she was brushing the pathway around the pen. Heard walked straight up to her and stopped. She was as tall as him. As the detectives watched, maintaining a safe distance, she smiled and leaned forward as if to kiss him, but he swayed back.

  'Now who the hell's she, I wonder?' the Sergeant whispered, under his breath.

  'Bit on the side? Lucky him if she is.'

  'He doesn't fancy it today, then; even from this far away, he does not look like a happy man.'

  Their target stood stiffly, facing the girl. His voice was raised as he spoke to her, for fragments of incomprehensible sound seemed to drifted across on the light breeze. She was in no way intimidated; instead she stared at him, eyes bright, lips moving in a retort. All at once, Luke Heard seemed to slump down into himself. He reached into his pocket, took out the packet which he had brought from the car, and shoved it roughly down the front of her overalls. Then he turned on his heel and walked away, back down the rise. McGurk and Wilding watched him, all the way back to the car park.

  'What the fuck d'you think that was about?' the Constable exclaimed as they watched him slide back into the Jaguar.

  i don't know, Ray,' McGurk answered. 'But I think we should find out.'

  'Will we brace the girl?'

  'Not without checking with Dan Pringle; we don't want to blow our surveillance of Heard just yet. She works here. We can find out who she is, and talk to her any time we like.'

  'I've just remembered who she is, Jack,' said Wilding, quietly. 'I recognise her from this distance, even if you don't; you and I took a statement from her the Saturday before last. She's the girl who spotted Howard Shearer in the Water of Leith.'

  67

  Skinner put down the telephone and stared out of the conservatory, across the wide Firth of Forth. There was something unsettling about Lennie Plenderleith; even when he spoke to the man by telephone, as he just had for the first time in his life.

  Big Lennie, when he was Tony Manson's first lieutenant, had maimed or murdered God knew how many people; later, after his mentor's death he had taken revenge in savage and terminal fashion. He had even tried to kil
l Skinner himself.

  And yet, in spite of it all, against all logic, he found himself liking the giant in Shotts Prison. 'Why?' he asked himself, yet inwardly he knew the answer. In his own way, Lennie understood the meaning of loyalty and obligation as well as anyone he knew and had practised them, even though it had led to his imprisonment for life.

  Those were the virtues which Bob Skinner valued above all others and if, in Plenderleith's case, these were accompanied by awesome, pitiless violence when he perceived it to be necessary ... the DCC knew that the same streak ran through him. They came from different backgrounds, they had taken different paths through life, yet as Skinner sat in his comfortable home, he wondered whether, had their circumstances been reversed, it might have been him who had ended up in a cell.

  Forcing himself to shove the thought to one side, he picked up the phone again, dialled the Torphichen Place police office and asked for Detective Superintendent Pringle.

  'Afternoon, sir,' said the veteran as he came on line. 'Did you get anything?'

  'Yes, Dan, but nothing that's going to take you forward. I had the Governor bring Lennie to the phone and I asked him about his meetings with Luke Heard. He assured me that the two of them only ever talk business. Heard gives him a quarterly report detailing the performance of every investment in the trust portfolio; Lennie looks at it and makes a few off-the-cuff comments. Later, once he's had a chance to study it at leisure, he writes to him with more detailed instructions.

  'There's never any small talk. The big fella told me that he doesn't like Heard; he thinks he's a nasty piece of goods. He only does business with him because the Diddler turned him down.'

  'So Lennie had something against Shearer himself,' Pringle commented.

  'Don't clutch at straws, Daniel. He understood Diddler's position and he still respects it.'

  Pringle could not restrain himself. 'Do you believe all that, though? I mean, the man's a fuckin' murderer.'

  Skinner chuckled. 'As someone once said, it doesn't make you a bad person. Seriously though; Lennie has never once told me a lie. Fact is, I doubt if he's ever told a lie in his life. Take it from me, he did not do Heard any favours, or drop him any hints, accidentally or otherwise.'

  'Aye okay, sir,' the Superintendent conceded, wearily at first, until his voice changed. 'I suppose one bit of luck's all I can hope for in a day.'

  'What d' you mean?'

  'I just had a call from the diving team. They've found the Did- Mr Shearer's organiser thing in the river, just downstream from the house. No sign of the watch yet, though.'

  'Bugger the watch! You give that lap-top to our technical people; with a bit of luck, there'll be retrievable data on it.'

  'It's already on the way to them. I'll give you a call if we get a result.'

  'Do that, but keep Andy informed first; everything goes through him.'

  As he hung up, he glanced across at Martin, who was seated opposite. 'Did you get that?'

  'Diddler's diary?'

  'Possibly, unless it's goosed.'

  'Our day for the high-tech, isn't it?'

  'Seems to be. Go and get Maggie and Mario for me, will you? You understand why I didn't want them in the room while I spoke to Lennie? It would have been a breach of confidence, in a way, to have them listening in.'

  'Sure.' Martin paused. 'Tell me something. Do you ever regret not just standing aside that night and letting him walk out of there?'

  Bob shook his head. 'Never. Not for a second. Sod the guys that he did in; they were crooks and murderers. But he killed his wife, Andy; he cut her throat, and he had to pay for that.'

  The Head of CID left the conservatory, returning quickly with Rose and McGuire at his heels. The Inspector was carrying Alec Smith's computer, while his wife held the strongbox full of photographs.

  'Hi, folks,' said the DCC, pushing himself halfway up from his chair as they entered. 'Sorry to keep you waiting; I had something to take care of. We can get on with it now, though, in peace and quiet too; Mark's at school, and Sarah's up at Edith Shearer's with the other two.

  'So what's the big mystery? What's this that Andy and I both have to see?'

  'Dynamite, Boss,' McGuire, the junior officer in the room, answered. 'Sheer bloody dynamite. As DCI Rose told you on the phone, the late Mrs Smith's Co-op number paid off. We got into the safe, and we found this lot. Once we got into it, we realised that you had to see it.'

  'Okay,' said Skinner, 'let's have it then. How's the battery?'

  'Fully charged. I switched it on as we were coming through.' He handed the lap-top over, raising the screen as he did so.

  The DCC looked at the small keyboard. 'Fiddly thing this. Our Mark's the boy for these.'

  'You wouldn't want him to see what's on there.'

  'Let's have a look then.'

  He looked at the listed folders and clicked open the one marked, 'John'. He hit on the first name at once. 'Barnfather. The old judge?' he asked, glancing up at McGuire, who nodded. As he glanced down the list of names, one jumped out at him. 'Topham? Is that Marcia Topham, the Police Committee woman?'

  'The same' Rose murmured.

  He opened the first file, and read his way through it. As he finished, the DCI handed him the first envelope of photographs; he hissed with distaste as he looked through them, then handed them to Martin and opened the next file. Slowly, carefully, and silently, he read his way through all twenty-seven numbered files and examined all twenty-seven envelopes.

  The twenty-eighth file was headed, 'Report'. Skinner clicked it open and gasped. 'Bloody hell! This is addressed to the Lord President.' The document which showed on the computer screen was headed:

  Private and Confidential.

  Lord Murray of Overstoun, Lord President of the Court of Session.

  Copy to: 'The Moderator, General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.'

  The DCC read aloud:

  'This report is written to draw to your attention a sinister network of individuals who exist in Scotland today, exercising a malign influence over our country's moral standards, and bringing to bear pressures which have the effect of undermining the principles upon which our society is based.

  'Every person listed in this document is, or in the case of the late Lord Barnfather, was, an undeclared, practising homosexual. The evidence against them is clear and is presented in photographic form. 'They include, sir, two of your own colleagues, Senators of the College of Justice, five members of the Scottish Administration, including two of Cabinet rank, three Shadow Ministers, three Queen's Counsel holding public office, two high-ranking police officers, four senior civil servants, including one in the Lord Advocate's Department, two senior clergymen of the Church of Scotland and six prominent and influential figures in the Scottish financial and business community.

  'The majority of these people, nineteen to be exact, are married or co-habiting with heterosexual partners. 'The fact that sexually deviant people hold prominent positions represents a danger in itself, given that they are all still in the closet, and are therefore potentially subject to blackmail. However there is a greater danger and it is real and present.

  'All of these people are linked by membership of a range of professional bodies, clubs and societies; many of them are known to each other as homosexuals, and there is strong evidence of collusion between them to achieve further sexual liberalisation in Scotland. There are also instances where it is apparent that criminal proceedings against homosexuals have been compromised because influence has been exercised improperly. 'Sir, this document is addressed to you as the senior figure in the Establishment, standing aloof from politics and at the head of the Scottish Legal system. It is my earnest hope that you will use your influence to ensure that these people are driven from office. I am not afraid to make this report public; my evidence is strong enough to withstand any action for defamation. However, I do not wish to cause a national scandal and I rely on you to ensure that this menace is rooted out.'

  Skinner looke
d up and closed the lap-top. 'Jesus Christ!' he murmured. 'Old Alec must have been right round the twist.' He opened the computer again, but it had put itself to sleep. 'What was the date on the first of those files?' he asked Rose.

  'About five years ago; the file on Lord Barnfather. It was compiled just after his son died.'

  'Ahh, the poor guy. It must have hurt him incredibly for him to react like that. But he was so secretive; he just couldn't have been able to talk to him about it.'

  He pressed a key to re-activate the lap-top and handed it to Martin. 'Look at some of the names on that list... especially number five.'

  'No need,' said the Head of CID. 'I recognised him from the photographs. Assistant Chief Constable James Elder. Who'd have bloody thought it?'

  'Not me, that's for sure.'

  'So where does it take us?'

  'In theory, it gives us twenty-six people with a reason to kill Alec. But in practice ... I doubt if it takes us anywhere. There is a link to the Diddler, I'll grant you, but it's pretty tenuous; his partner, Ronald Johnston-White, is on the list.

  'No, it doesn't help my pet theory, Andy, not a bit. Lawrence Scotland is still the man in the frame for Alec's killing. The guy Heard is still prime suspect for Diddler's murder. As for the attack on me; there's a small army of people would like to have done that; probably one of them did.'

  'Do you think the report was ever actually submitted to Lord Murray, sir?' asked McGuire.

  'No,' said the DCC. 'I'm certain that it wasn't. If that had been put into David's hands, the first thing he'd have done would have been to call me.'

  'You don't think he might have called Sir John Govan?' Martin looked at Skinner, a suggestion in his eyes.