Skinner broke his retreat, and feinted a karate kick, but Lennie reacted lightning-fast, swaying back and ready with a strike of his own. Skinner could tell that the man had no martial-arts training, yet realised that he was as deadly as any black belt, a natural fighter with enormous strength.
He backed off once more, then came in again with a second feint — a kick to the head. Once more Lennie leaned back instinctively, his hands up to catch the blow he thought was coming. But, instead, Skinner's foot changed direction and slammed into the side of his left knee. Lennie grunted, and sagged slightly, but he stayed upright and balanced. Skinner's momentum committed him to his next move: a sweeping chop to the throat with the cutting edge of his right hand. It would have been a finisher, even against such a formidable opponent, but his wrist was caught in mid-air, just short of the target. The big man jerked him up and towards him. Skinner knew what was coming, but he could only begin to pull back as Lennie's broad forehead crunched into the bridge of his nose. He heard a thunderous crack inside his head, and felt the hot blood flowing.
The fingers of a huge right hand clamped around his throat, and his wrist was suddenly released. Instinctively, skill and technique forgotten, he clawed at Lennie's face, digging for the eyes with his thumbs, luck more than judgement guiding him to his target. The big man snarled as pain made him release his death grip to push Skinner away. He shook his head, blinking. Skinner hit him: a straight right-hand punch square on the chin. It was a blow that might have stunned a horse, but it seemed only to renew the giant's strength and determination. He closed again.
`You're tough, all right,' Lennie said softly. 'But it won't be enough.'
Skinner tasted blood in his mouth. And then he tasted something else. An icy coldness flowed through him: a feeling that he had known before, one that he feared; a presence in him that very few had seen. He had wished him gone for ever, but now, when he needed him, his other self was back. He heard himself hiss in the darkness. 'I don't see a gun, Lennie. And without one, you'll be carried out of here, big and all as you are.'
For a second the giant looked at him, and something in his adversary's eyes made him pause. If there had been an escape route, that expression might have persuaded him to take it, but finally the knowledge that there was nowhere else to go made him close in once more.
This time Skinner did not back off. This time he stepped, lightning-fast, inside the outreaching arms. His cupped right hand smashed against the side of the great head. Lennie screamed as his eardrum burst, but the sound was choked off as steel-hard fingers slammed into his diaphragm. He doubled over slightly, head leaning forward, chin stuck out.
Skinner pivoted on his right foot. The heel of his right hand sped upwards toward its target, aimed in the final blow. But in that very second, the sole of his moccasin found a pool of water on the pathway. He slipped off-balance.
Now it was the wounded giant who was fighting for his life. He grabbed the smaller man, and used his brute force and bulk to bear him backwards towards the pool. Skinner gasped as the small of his back hit the concrete, and as the breath was forced from him by Lennie's weight. Then the thick fingers were round his throat once more, and his head and shoulders were forced under the surface. He was helpless. There was a roaring in his ears. His eyes felt as if they were popping from their sockets. Somewhere in the depths of the pool he fancied he saw Ainscow, beckoning to him. And then another vision swam into his drowning mind. Jazz, his son, cradled by Sarah. She was dressed in black.
No! he roared in his mind. And he kicked upwards, with both knees and thighs, upwards with more strength than he had ever dreamed he possessed.
The great bulk of Lennie flew over him, and landed in the pool with a splash which sounded to Skinner, with his head still submerged, like an explosion. Again the fingers had left his throat. He swung himself up and out of the water, choking and gasping for breath. Seconds later, a huge hand slapped on to the concrete beside him, reaching for him. He scrambled to his feet, icy anger still coursing through him. He turned round to see both of Lennie's hands on the poolside, arms straightening as he hauled himself upright, like a great black creature emerging from an ocean.
Skinner stood facing him. He waited until both arms were straight, then kicked him with the outside edge of his right foot, with savage force, just above the right elbow. Then as the great trunk hung there helpless, he kicked him again without finesse, without technique, but as hard as he could, with his right instep, on the base of the jaw below the left ear. Big Lennie's desperate eyes glazed over and the huge arms lost all their strength. He slipped back into the water, unconscious, and disappeared beneath the surface.
Skinner slumped to his knees beside the pool, faint suddenly with exhaustion. A few feet away, Lennie Plenderleith's head and shoulders broke the surface once more. Skinner reached out weakly for him, but he had floated to the centre of the pool. He crouched there, wondering if he had strength left to dive in and pull the giant out, and if he had the will to subdue him once again, should he revive. He hauled himself painfully upright — and, as he did, the chamber was suddenly illuminated by the beam of a flashlight.
Are you all right, sir?'
Skinner looked around. He stood in the spread of the light, his shirt soaked, his steel-grey hair plastered to his head, blood trickling from his broken nose, and from an angled cut over his left eye. His right foot was throbbing from the force of his last kick, and he stood awkwardly, trying to keep as much weight as possible on his left side.
Brian Mackie and Mario McGuire stood in the doorway, gazing at him in naked astonishment.
`Don't be flicking stupid, Brian. Of course I'm not all right! But I'm a fucking sight better than that guy in there — and better still than the one on the bottom. Now, fish Big Lennie out before he drowns, and handcuff him before he wakes up. I'd help but, quite frankly, I'm knackered!'
One Hundred
They brought us here in the same ambulance, would you believe. Big Lennie's still badly concussed, but he's conscious and talking. His right arm's broken and they've just taken him off to set it. Otherwise he's not too bad. I kicked him hard enough to take a normal man's head right off, but they say all he'll have is a headache and a stiff neck for a couple of days, and that'll be it. I had another talk with him once he'd come round. He said that he'd make a statement to the Guardia Civil, admitting to killing Santi Alberni. So tomorrow morning you can call Gloria and tell her she can begin to look forward to sticking it up her insurance company.'
`That's great,' said Sarah, on the other end of the telephone. `But what about you? You aren't kidding me, are you? You are fine?'
He glanced at his face in a mirror on the wall of the Royal Infirmary's Accident and Emergency Unit, from where he had been allowed to telephone his wife. He chuckled. 'I've been better looking, but, yes, love, I'm okay. Honest. They've straightened my nose and put a couple of stitches in my forehead. And they've taken pictures of my foot and satisfied themselves that it isn't broken. So I'll be limping home in a few hours.'
`A few hours! Why so long?'
`Because I'm going into the office to dictate a statement, while it's all still crystal clear in my head, for Ruth to type up in the morning.'
`Okay, I'll see you whenever. Just wear a paper bag over your head, if you think you might frighten the baby! He's with me just now and, as you can possibly hear, he's not best pleased at being wakened in the middle of the night!'
Bob laughed, a mixture of amusement and — though Sarah could not and, if he could avoid it, would never realise it —sudden relief at being alive to enjoy more moments with his wife and son.
'Oh,' said Sarah urgently. 'I almost forgot. How's Andy?'
`No problem. He's got a hard head, too. He was only out for a few minutes. It looked worse than it was. They've X-rayed him and stitched him up, and he's signed himself out. The doctor here offered him a bed for the night, but he said he'd rather sleep it off at home. I'd forgotten: he's signed off on two
weeks' holiday. Now I'm off too. There's a driver waiting at the door for me. I had my car taken to Fettes in case I did wind up with my foot in plaster. Go back to sleep now, you and wee Jazz. I'll see you both in the morning.'
He hung up, wondering for that moment how Sarah had known of Andy Martin's accident. Then he shook his head and limped towards his driver at the door.
One Hundred and One
‘So that's the story, Ruth,' said Skinner to his tape-recorder, as the early-shift staff began to wind their way up the drive below his office window in the early morning sunshine. 'That's Skinner's trail. It started in Edinburgh, wound through half a dozen countries, and ended back on our own doorstep. The story's full of greed and violence and death. But it's about honour, too. Big Lennie Plenderleith, or Dominic Jackson as he would have been for the rest of his life, is in a strange way one of the most honourable men I have ever met. He had his legacy, the sort of fortune the rest of us can only dream about, and he had a whole new life in front of him. As he said, he was free and clear. And yet he gambled it all, and he lost it all, to repay his debt of honour to Tony Manson. I tell you, Ruth, Big Lennie is certainly the toughest man I've ever come up against, but he sure as hell isn't the worst.'
The recorder whined a warning that its micro-cassette was about to run out.
`Right,' said Skinner as he switched it off and took out the tape, putting it beside two others in his typing tray. 'That's it. Home, Robert — but on the way let's call in to compare stitches with young Martin.'
He drove the BMW carefully through the morning rush hour, saving his still-aching foot as best he could, enduring the traffic queues which he normally hated, until he arrived outside the grey Victorian terrace just behind Haymarket where Andy Martin lived. He parked, glancing in the driver's mirror as he climbed out of the car. He smiled, wincing, as he saw the swelling across the bridge of his nose, and the bruised bump around the cut.
`Let's see if you can beat that lot, boy,' he said to the sunny morning.
Martin's flat was on the second floor, and his injured foot made the climb awkward, but eventually he reached the blue-painted front door. He pressed the bell-push and waited. Thirty seconds passed without an answer. He pressed again, and waited for another minute. He smiled and shook his head.
`Dozy bastard,' he said. He pressed the bell for a third time and thumped the door with his fist. ‘Polis’ he shouted, disguising his voice, 'Open up in there!'
There was a muffled response from within. At last the door swung open. There stood a young woman. She was wearing a man's satin robe, in blue, with the monogram 'AM' on the breast pocket. She was rubbing her hair vigorously with a huge peach-coloured towel. One of its corners had fallen across her face.
`I'm sorry,' said the hooded woman, her speech muffled by the towel. 'I was in the shower. Andy's just nipped down to the shops to buy a paper and some—'
As she spoke she looked up and, as she did so, her voice grew more distinct, and the towel fell from her face. The sentence tailed off unfinished as she stared at Skinner. Her eyes were wide, mirroring the blank astonishment in his. Her mouth, like his, hung open slightly.
Time stopped. Afterwards, neither would be able to say for how long they stood there in their frozen tableau. But in whatever time it was, in that time worlds moved and lives changed.
Eventually the woman recovered her voice, or at least a vestige of it. She smiled, tentatively. `Hi, Pops.'
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