Thursday legends - Skinner 10

by Quintin Jardine

  'Are you hinting that the First Minister's security adviser might have had Alec bumped off? If you are, you can forget it; I know the man. On the other hand, David Murray doesn't; he'd have called me, for sure.'

  'So what are we going to do about this, if it doesn't impact on the murder investigation? Shouldn't we interview the people on the list, at least, just to eliminate them?'

  'What? Interview a judge, two Scottish Cabinet Ministers, Marcia Topham and Jim Elder? To tell them all that they've been persecuted by a madman. I don't think so. There isn't a single piece of information here, or a single photograph, that could be used as evidence of a serious crime.

  'Let me show you what I'm going to do with this lot. Mags, did you say something about copy disks?'

  'Yes sir,' Rose replied. 'There are two.' She took them from the strongbox and handed them over.

  Skinner reclaimed the computer from Martin, slid the two disks into the floppy drive, one after the other, and erased them. Finally, he selected the 'John' folder and dragged it to the waste-basket in the bottom corner of the screen.

  'You sure?' asked the Head of CID quietly. 'What if one of them did kill Alec?'

  'What if?' he murmured. 'I can live with it.' He pulled down a Command from the Apple menu and emptied the wastebasket, destroying Alec Smith's report for ever.

  'Leave those photographs with me, Maggie,' he said. 'We're having a barbecue tonight.'

  68

  'So, what did you find out about the Lewis girl?' Dan Pringle asked.

  'She's been working at the zoo full-time since she finished her Highers a few weeks back,' said McGurk. 'She was a pupil at Watson's. I did a quiet check-up there; she and Heard's daughter, Sophie, are best pals apparently.'

  'Where's the Heard girl just now?'

  'She's crewing a schooner around the Western Isles for her Duke of Edinburgh's Gold award.'

  The Superintendent raised an eyebrow. 'She's doing what?'

  'Crewing, sir.'

  'Ahh. For a minute I thought you said something else. So do you reckon her pal's crewing her old man while she's away?'

  'It's a thought, but it's barely relevant, is it?'

  'Naw. Not a bit. But you know what I think? I think that Heard's been giving her one and now she's threatening to tell the girl Sophie and Mrs Heard. The way you described it, that could have been hush money he was handing her.'

  'Still,' McGurk ventured. 'Do you think we should interview her, just to confirm it?'

  'We've interviewed her already, son. A week last Saturday, after she spotted Shearer floating under the Belford Bridge. You were there, remember. She was still shaking like a leaf, terrified; poor lass got a hell of a fright. Andy Martin told me that after we were done he had to get the MO to give her a sedative.

  'If Heard's been banging her, she's of age, so it's no crime. If she's been blackmailing him, that is, but there's been no complaint. If there is, we'll investigate; until then, we leave her alone.'

  'Fair enough, Boss. So we keep up the tail on Heard, then?' 'Until further notice.'

  'Do you think we could get a tap on his phone?' 'Not a fucking chance. You do it the hard way.' McGurk scowled. 'Great.'

  The Superintendent chuckled. 'It's a hard old life, son. I'll give you some more bad news. The technical boys reported back on Shearer's electronic organiser. It's useless; it's been in the water too long. They can't get a bloody thing off it.

  'Right. You get off and team up with Wilding again, so you can both follow Heard after he leaves work. And just in case you think I'm doing fuck-all on this investigation, I'm off up to Harry's Bar, in Randolph Place.

  'I had another chat with the Bryant girl; she told me that Mr Shearer used to look in there sometimes, if he'd been working late.'

  69

  Martin swung the MGF into his driveway, smiling as he saw the raised garage door and Karen's car inside. 'We'll need to do something about that,' he chuckled to himself. 'The F-reg Nova lives outdoors.'

  As he eased himself out of the sports car, a voice - a soft, familiar voice - called out behind him. 'How are you, Andy?' He had hoped to avoid the moment, but he knew in his heart that it was better faced sooner than later.

  'Hello, Rhian,' he answered. 'I'm fine. How are you?'

  'Okay.' He was relieved when she smiled. 'I can't help but notice, though, that you're a hell of a fast worker.'

  He looked down, grinning himself. 'No. You're wrong there; it took me far too long to work out how I felt about Karen. I'd been taking her for granted, behaving towards her like an absolute shit. I wasn't much of a gentleman with you either; I'm sorry for that.'

  'Don't be.' Her smile widened. 'I chased you like the strumpet I am. I'm sorry too, for letting you down like I did with Paul Blacklock.'

  'Ahh, don't worry about that; I was no angel either.'

  She gave him a long, meaningful look. 'I don't mean about fucking him; I mean about spilling the state secrets. That was a really stupid thing to do and it compromised you. Look, don't feel guilty about me or anything; it was just a fling for both of us. You concentrate on being happy; I haven't spoken to your lady yet, but she looks terrific.'

  He sighed with a sort of relief, as she turned towards her front door. 'Thanks, Rhian,' he told her. 'Just don't go calling yourself a strumpet again; not around me at any rate. Hey, Juliet's not mad with me is she?'

  'Only because you didn't give her a seeing-to,' the girl laughed. 'No. Mum's full of herself just now. She's making noises about going to live with Spike and leaving this place to us. I don't know if I fancy being chaperone to my kid sister, though.' He voice dropped until it became a confidential whisper. 'Between you and me, I fear she prefers girls to boys. She has this pal, Sophie Heard: I walked into her room one day and caught them doing something very naughty to each other. Tongues and things ...

  'A few weeks back, Margot got very mopey. Eventually she told me that Sophie's father had found out about them too; now he's sent her away to sea, or something, and told Margot to keep away from her when she gets back.' Rhian gave a mock sigh. 'Blood will out, I suppose. She always was Daddy's little girl.'

  'How is your father these days?' he asked, casually. 'Do you ever see him?'

  'No,' she replied, a little wistfully. 'He's living happily ever after.' She waved goodbye and stepped inside.

  Andy scratched his chin as he walked into the garage, closing the door behind him and entering the house through the internal, fire-resistant door. Karen was waiting for him at the top of the stairs, in the living-room doorway, smiling broadly. He dropped his briefcase, took her in his arms and kissed her.

  'D'you still love me then?' he asked, as they came up for air.

  'Too bloody right. Guess what? I've got a teaching job. It's only a short-term contract, covering maternity leave for a girl in a school up in Oxgangs, but it's a foot in the door at least. I start after the holidays.'

  'Good for you. In that case we'd better get down to planning the wedding: it'll have to be mid-July if we're going to spend a month on honeymoon like we discussed. That shouldn't clash with Bob's plans. He's taking the family to Spain for the last week in June and the first half of July.'

  He picked up his briefcase once more and tossed in into the living room, before going upstairs to change. 'Have you got more work in there?' Karen asked as he reappeared, in jeans and a white tee-shirt.

  'The latest statements and officer reports in the Shearer case: they're my reading for tonight. I'll chuck it in an hour or two though. Maybe we can catch a movie somewhere.'

  'Deal. You get started, I'll whip up something exciting for supper.'

  He opened his briefcase and took out the Shearer folder, homing straight in on the summary of Dan Pringle's interviews with Janine Bryant and Andrew John, and Skinner's note of his telephone conversation with Mitchell Laidlaw in Hong Kong. 'Oh yes, Mr Heard, you're well in the frame,' he murmured.

  His eyebrows rose in surprise as he read Jack McGurk's report of the fund m
anager's lunch-time excursion, and his meeting with Margot Lewis at the zoo. Superintendent Pringle had added a note, recording his theory that a sexual relationship had existed between Heard and his daughter's friend, and that he had been forced to buy her silence.

  Martin smiled as he read. 'Close, Dan,' he muttered, 'but no cigar. If Heard was paying Margot off, he was probably protecting his daughter.'

  He had almost finished his reading when Karen reappeared from the kitchen, carrying a tray with a bowl of cold melon-and-ginger soup, setting them on two occasional tables which she had placed in front of the sofa.

  'Well?' she asked, as he put the folder back in his briefcase and turned his attention to their meal. 'Any sign of the big breakthrough today?'

  'Not much. We got into Alec Smith's safe and found, as far as any of us could see, no more than the sad ravings of an obsessed, lonely man.'

  'No link between the two murders, then?'

  'Other than Bob's football connection, you mean? No, none that I could see. There are a hell of a lot of threads in this investigation, love, but none of them appear to be interconnected. It still looks as if that bastard Scotland killed Alec. As for the Diddler, on the face of it his arch-enemy Luke Heard is the main candidate but there's no evidence against him, not a scrap.'

  They ate in silence for a while; when the soup was finished, they took the bowls back through to the kitchen and returned with plates of pasta, with a creamy forestiere sauce.

  'You're no closer to an arrest with Shearer, then?' Karen asked, as they neared the end of their meal.

  'No. The only positive thing that's happened today came from a chat Dan Pringle had with a barmaid in Harry's. She told him that she saw the Diddler on the Tuesday before he was killed. He came in on his own, then got into conversation with a girl. Eventually they left together, she thought she heard Shearer say something about the Bar Roma.

  'The staff there were pretty vague, but Dan made them check their credit-card slips and receipts. They came up with an answer; one minestrone, one pasta starter, two Calzones, two cappuccinos and a litre of house red.'

  She grinned. 'Any garlic bread?'

  'Not that Dan mentions.'

  'He must have scored, then. Fresh breath in the clinches, and all that.'

  'Whether he did or not, we need to talk to that girl. But we have no description, and the barmaid is sure she hasn't been in Harry's before or since that night.'

  He forked up the last of his linguine, then leaned back on the sofa. 'Okay, enough shop. You want to go out? Anything you fancy seeing?'

  She slid closer and laid her head on his shoulder. 'There's a new Miles Grayson movie on at the Odeon ...' She paused. 'But to be honest, in the dark I prefer you to him.'

  He laughed. 'Since you put it that way...'

  'Oh, I do. You go and open a nice bottle of wine and we'll just have a quiet night in, talking and looking at the paintings.'

  'Okay.'

  He went back to the kitchen and chose a chunky Thomas Hardy Shiraz from the wine-rack. When he returned, Karen was standing, brow furrowed, looking intently at one of the pictures. It was a vivid oil of North Berwick beach, looking back from the sea.

  'How long have you had this?' she asked.

  'It's one of the newer ones: done by a local artist. I bought it in the Westgate Gallery. There should be a date on it.'

  She peered at the bottom corner. 'Two years old. So that will be Alec Smith's house, there, at a time when he was actually living in it.' 'I suppose so.'

  'In that case,' she murmured, pointing at a small, predominantly red, image which, as his gaze followed the direction of her finger, seemed to spring out from the painting as never before. 'What the hell's that?'

  70

  The young Sergeant's face was split by a yawn, when the phone rang in his pocket. He answered it almost eagerly; anything to break the boredom of the stake-out. One day, Dan Pringle might forgive him for whatever it was he had done.

  'McGurk,' he answered.

  'DCS Martin, Jack. Where are you right now?'

  'Outside Luke Heard's house, sir.' Unconsciously, he pulled himself up in his seat. Ray Wilding, beside him as usual, noticed his reaction and snapped awake himself.

  'What's happening there?'

  'Not a lot, Boss. A girl arrived about half-an-hour ago and let herself in with a key. I'm pretty sure it's the daughter.'

  'Home is the sailor...' Martin murmured. 'Okay, Sergeant, I want you to stay there. Don't let Heard out of your sight. I may very well want to talk to him later.'

  'Sir, we're due to be relieved by a couple of uniforms in an hour. Mr Pringle okayed it.'

  'Don't make me repeat myself, Jack.'

  'No, sir.' McGurk rolled his eyes at Wilding as he put the phone back in his pocket. 'Sounds like the DCS has lost patience. Thank Christ for it; so have I.'

  Martin cradled the telephone and looked at Karen; he crossed his fingers and held them up. 'Honey, have you done a wash since you moved in?'

  'Only a coloured one,' she replied. 'I couldn't work out the programme for a white wash on the machine; I was going to ask you tomorrow morning.'

  'You beauty.' He turned and bolted downstairs, heading for the laundry room beside the garage.

  When he returned a minute or so later, he was holding in his left hand a large white bin-bag, stuffed full. Without a word, he picked up the telephone directory and flicked through it until he found a single unique entry - there was no-one else of that name in the Edinburgh area. He memorised the address.

  'Listen, I've got to go out. There's something I have to do and someone I have to see. If I'm wrong, I'll look like a bloody idiot. If I'm right, I'll have lived up to all that bullshit of mine on Radio Forth. I tell you, my love, there is one thing a detective should never take lightly and that's a Bob Skinner hunch.'

  She stared at him, smiling in astonishment. 'Andy, what the hell is this about?'

  He beamed back at her. 'You know, maybe we should rethink your resignation from the force,' he said, 'because you're playing a hell of a good game tonight.

  'Don't wait up for me. I could be pretty late.'

  71

  'How the hell did you get in here?' Spike Thomson's face was a picture of surprise as he turned in response to the tap on his shoulder to see Andy Martin standing before him.

  'I showed my warrant card,' the detective replied.

  'Even so, the doormen here have instructions to call the management if the police turn up, not to just let them in.'

  'Ahh, but I can be persuasive, Spike.'

  'I'll bet you can,' Thomson grinned, raising his voice still louder over a sudden surge in the volume of the thumping music. 'It's just as well you're plain clothes, though. Otherwise people would die in the crush, trying to get out of here.'

  Martin frowned as he looked around the big, smoky, former warehouse, which had been transformed into House 31, Edinburgh's trendiest underground night-club. 'Why?' he asked, his voice raised above the din. 'Is there a drug problem here that we should know about?'

  'If there was,' the disc jockey replied, 'I wouldn't be here. No, this place is very respectable; properly licensed for entertainment and drinks, fire-safety inspected, and everything else. We have our own undercover drugs police on patrol all the time. Any dealer caught here is always handed over to you boys, so they don't risk it.

  'No, it's just that these punters like to think they're doing something daring when they come to an unconventional place like this, so they're conditioned to run at the first sight of a uniform.'

  The policeman grinned. 'The whole world used to operate like that; not any more though. The good people run, the bad ones stand their ground and dare us. Here,' he observed. 'I noticed a "we", back there.'

  'I have an interest in the place.'

  'How big an interest?'

  Spike Thomson leaned towards him, speaking in as close to a whisper as he could manage. 'One hundred per cent. Don't tell anyone, though. The bright young
things might not like it if they found out that the operation was actually owned by a middle-aged, middle-of-the-road AM presenter. "Ma granny listens tae Forth AM." That's what one kid said to me one night, with scorn all over her face. No, the presenters here are all FM jocks; some from Forth, the odd one from further afield, and quite a few just trying to impress me, in the hope I can get them into radio somewhere ... anywhere.

  'What brings you here anyway?' he asked. 'You never said when you called me on my mobile.'

  'I'll tell you, if you can find a place where I won't be telling the whole fucking world.'

  'Sure. Come on through here.' Thomson led the way from his place beside the dee-jay's booth, moving quickly through the ranks of twisting, jumping sweating dancers, with the detective at his heels, until they came to a small door marked 'Private'. He nodded to the security man standing guard and stepped inside.

  The room was sparsely furnished: a desk, two chairs and a table, on which sat a row of monitors, each showing a different part of House 31, and each linked to a video below, on the floor.

  An elderly man sat behind the desk, counting cash into piles. 'Give us a minute, Uncle Bob,' said Spike.

  Martin looked after the old man as he closed the door. 'He really your uncle?'

  'Sure; my mother's brother. He's my book-keeper. It's great, because I can trust him not just with the cash, but to supervise the ticket sellers and keep an eye on the bar, too. If anyone was at it, he'd know.'

  The detective nodded towards the neat bundles of money on the desk. 'What's that?'

  'Tonight's takings at the door.'

  'Jesus.'

  'No, I'm not; but when He comes back, He's promised me that He'll make a personal appearance. Now, what can I do for you?'

  Martin sat on the edge of the desk and gazed at him, evenly. He glanced at his watch; it showed a quarter to one. 'I've had a busy few hours, Spike. I began by reading a report into the suicide of one Dafyd Ogston Lewis. Then I interviewed two men, Ronald Johnston-White, of whom you've probably heard,' he looked quickly at Thomson as he mentioned the name and saw that his guess had been correct, 'and Luke Heard, of whom you probably haven't, although you may have come across his daughter, Sophie.'