07 - Skinner's Ghosts

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘Och, love, I’m sorry,’ Skinner blurted out. Glancing at Martin, he saw that his friend was stunned. ‘So why didn’t you tell Andy . . . for I can see you didn’t?’

  ‘Because I knew that you’d tell us both, if and when you were ready.’

  He grinned, but without humour. ‘You knew better than me, then.’

  Abruptly, he turned to Royston. ‘Right Alan, now that’s said, please carry on.’

  The man nodded, and finished unzipping his case. ‘That’s why I’m here, sir, I’m afraid.

  ‘Noel Salmon came to see me at six o’clock. The little bastard was almost chortling with glee. He gave me this, and asked if you would care to comment on the story for his next edition.’

  Slowly he withdrew, from the document case, a copy of the Sunday Spotlight. ‘This will be on sale in all of its supermarket outlets around Britain tomorrow morning. They’ve labelled it exclusive, but they’ll release copies to television and radio at nine this evening, to promote their sales.’

  His hand shook as he handed Skinner the newspaper, and he winced as the policemen unfolded it and saw the front page.

  ‘Top Cop and Sexy Sarge,’ the headline blared. ‘Naked romps shock police force . . . Exclusive, by Spotlight’s top reporter Noel Salmon.’

  Skinner felt his spine stiffen as he stared at the tabloid, his eyes widening. Beneath the headline most of the front page was taken up by a colour photograph. It had been shot with a long lens, and through a muslin-draped window, but it was clear enough. It showed a tall, naked man, standing with his back to the window and the camera. Beyond, sitting up in bed and staring at him, as if in awe, the head and shoulders of a woman, recognisable clearly as Pam Masters.

  ‘Holy shit!’ Skinner whispered at last, as he stared at the picture. It took a while, before he was able to shift his gaze to the story beneath. He began to read, aloud, in a strained voice.

  ‘Top Detective Bob Skinner, Edinburgh’s famous deputy chief of police, has been enjoying a steamy affair with his quote personal assistant unquote, Sergeant Pamela Masters, while his beautiful doctor wife Sarah has been staying in the US, with her parents and year-old baby son, James.

  ‘Only last year Mrs Skinner, 32, spent a week-long vigil at her husband’s bedside as he lay critically wounded in an Edinburgh hospital after being stabbed by a young girl.

  ‘The two-timing detective, 46, thought to be a serious candidate for the post of Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, and the stunning Sarge have been enjoying raunchy romps at Skinner’s luxury seaside cottage in Gullane, Scotland - one of his three homes - and at 34-year-old Masters’ penthouse pad in Edinburgh’s trendy Leith district.

  ‘This week, Detective Chief Superintendent Andy Martin refused to answer Spotlight questions on his boss’s indiscretion, or on the likely reaction of Mrs Skinner, angrily ordering that your reporter be thrown out of an open press conference at which he tried to raise the issue.

  ‘Martin, 37, is engaged to Skinner’s lawyer daughter Alexis, 22, and is known throughout Scottish police circles as his personal protégé.

  ‘The high hopes that Masters, a one-time marketing whizz-kid, clearly entertained for a similarly rapid rise through the ranks, look like disappearing even more rapidly as Skinner’s own career is thrown into doubt.

  ‘Spotlight readers must ask whether the two-timing ’tec can be trusted in one of the country’s top police positions, and whether he can continue in his other post, as security adviser to Bruce Anderson, the new Secretary of State for Scotland.

  ‘Read next week’s Spotlight for Sarah Skinner’s reaction to her husband’s betrayal. More exclusive pics on pages 4 and 5.’

  ‘Would you credit that?’ said Skinner hoarsely as he looked up from the newspaper. ‘The miserable, snooping, duplicitous little creep photographed me through my bedroom window. And the story’s a fucking travesty.

  ‘Sarah and I are formally, legally separated, both here and in the States. “Holidaying with her parents” for Christ’s sake! She has a job over there. She took my son over there - without my agreement at that.

  ‘What the hell else have they done? Let’s see.’ He lifted the paper again and tore it open at pages four and five. As he did so Alex and Andy came to stand with him, scanning the pages from either side.

  The spread showed an array of photographs. One showed Sarah, white-tunic-clad at an open-air crime scene, frowning at her husband. ‘Last year, at Witches Hill, I guess,’ said Skinner. Others showed Martin, at the press conference, pointing to the door as he ordered Salmon from the room, then glaring angrily at Alan Royston. A fourth, taken in the street below, showed Alex and Andy leaving home, casually dressed.

  Finally there was a series of three photographs, in colour like the rest. They had been taken from a high vantage-point looking down into the garden of the Gullane cottage. The first showed Bob and Pam, kissing. In the second, she was kneeling before him, her face buried in his lap. In the third, he had gathered her up in his arms, and was carrying her towards the house.

  ‘The dirty little sod,’ Alex cried out. ‘Imagine photographing us in the street like that. And those in Gullane . . . How could they have taken them?’

  Icily calm now, Skinner shrugged. ‘The window shot, that’s obvious. They waited outside and they got lucky. The others . . . they could only have been taken from one place. The big house at the top of the Green, the one that belongs to our chum. He’s in the Seychelles just now and the place is empty. They must have climbed on to the roof.’

  He crumpled the tabloid in his hands, twisting it in his fury and tearing it to pieces. Throwing it into a corner, he turned to his daughter, putting his hands on her shoulders and looking her in the eye. ‘I am so sorry, my love, that you and Andy have been mixed up in this. It’s not right, it’s not fair, and it’s all down to me.’

  She looked at him solemnly. ‘Dad,’ she began, ‘I’ve only got one thing to say to you.’

  He waited, looking at her anxiously. ‘Go on.’

  ‘If the Spotlight’s done nothing else, it’s proved to the world that you’ve got a nice bum for a forty-six-year-old.’ She smiled at him, suddenly and brightly, and hugged him. ‘Pops, if you think for one second that I won’t stand by you in this . . .

  ‘You, Sarah, and Pam, you’re all grown-up people. Just do what’s best for my wee brother, that’s all I ask. But I know you will.’

  Bob heaved a great sigh of relief. He turned to Andy Martin, who was smiling also.

  ‘Right, people,’ he barked. ‘What am I going to do about this?’

  Martin answered him at once. ‘We, Bob. What are we going to do? I for one am going to have that little bastard Salmon arrested and charged with breach of the peace. I reckon we might be able to make that stick, on the basis of that bedroom shot.’

  ‘I’d love to let you, Andy,’ Skinner replied. ‘You know that. I’d love to use all my power to have this little man broken like a butterfly on a wheel. For Pam’s sake, I’d like personally to knock ten bells out of him in a quiet room somewhere.

  ‘But none of that is going to happen.’ He turned to his daughter.

  ‘Alex, right now, you get on the phone to the chairman of this new law firm of yours, my football-daft chum in North Berwick. I know you’re only a raw new apprentice there, but in this you’re acting for me. I want an opinion from him on whether we can go to court to secure an injunction stopping publication of this crap. If it’s possible, do it.

  ‘If he says it isn’t, I want him to issue through the firm a statement on my behalf saying that my relationship with Miss Masters is an entirely private matter, setting out the legal position between Sarah and me, and saying - if he thinks that we have a case - that writs for defamation will be issued on Monday morning by both Pamela and by me.

  ‘Any press statement from me should issue through your firm, not the force. Got all that?’

  Alex nodded. ‘I’ve got Mr Laidlaw’s number too. I was given a list of senior
partners’ contact numbers. I’ll call him now from the bedroom.’ She rushed off to make the call.

  Skinner turned back to Royston. ‘Alan, I should crucify you for letting Salmon back into Fettes against my orders, but I’m not going to. For the Chief’s sake, you need to be back on the job now: and anyway, I was only going to chew you out on Monday, nothing worse.

  ‘Unless an injunction sticks, Sir James will be asked tonight for a response to the story. He’ll need your objective guidance and support. I want you to come with me now, to see him. I have to tell him about this, personally. Once I’ve done that, I’ll withdraw so that he can’t be accused of acting under pressure from me.’

  Royston nodded. ‘I agree with all of that, sir. But there’s someone else involved. What about Pam?’

  Skinner could see his anxiety. ‘Look, Alan,’ he said. ‘I know that you and she were close once, but don’t worry. I’ll look out for her in this.’

  He turned away from the press officer, took out his mobile, and dialled Pamela Masters’ number. She answered, sounding hesitant and a little afraid.

  ‘Listen love,’ said Bob, ‘to what I have to say. We’ve got a media problem, and it could be messy. Stay where you are for now. Don’t answer the phone, and don’t answer the door until I get there. I’ll give four quick buzzes so you know it’s me.

  ‘Before then I have to see the Chief, and I have to go back to Fairyhouse Avenue.’

  ‘Why do you have to go there?’ Her tone was one of bewilderment.

  ‘Because I have to phone Sarah, and it just seems right to me that I do it from there.’

  ‘Bob. This problem involves me, yes?’ She sounded completely scared now.

  ‘I’m afraid so, honey. You and I will be all over the scandal sheets tomorrow, thanks to a wee man with a grudge. But don’t you worry: things are under control, and hopefully we can nip it in the bud.

  ‘I’ll be with you as soon as I can.’ He ended the call just as Alex reappeared in the doorway.

  ‘Dad,’ she said. ‘I’ve got Mr Laidlaw on the line. He wants to speak with you.’ Skinner nodded and followed his daughter through to the flat’s main bedroom. The telephone was lying off its cradle on a bedside table. He sat down and picked it up. ‘Mitch, hello. Sorry to break into your Saturday evening, but this fucking scandal sheet’s left me no option.’

  Skinner had known Mitchell Laidlaw socially for twenty years, as a fellow member of an informal group who gathered together on Thursday evening in North Berwick Sports Centre to play enthusiastic, if largely unskilled, indoor five-a-side football. However this was the first time the two had ever spoken on a professional footing. Laidlaw’s career had paralleled that of Skinner, as he had risen through the legal ranks to become Scotland’s leading litigation solicitor, and finally, head of its largest law firm, Curle, Anthony and Jarvis, which Alex had joined a month earlier on leaving university.

  ‘So I gather from your daughter, Bob.’ Skinner was struck at once by his friend’s tone. There was no hint of the normal Thursday-evening banter. Mitch Laidlaw sounded solemn and totally professional.

  ‘Alex has read the article to me, and described the photographs. I admit that charging the people involved with breach of the peace is a nice idea, but even if the Sheriff convicted, he’d be overturned at appeal for sure, and your force would be open to an action for malicious prosecution. So you were right to veto that.

  ‘As for an injunction, I’m afraid that we just don’t have time to injunct successfully. By the time we had drafted it, and rounded up a judge, the article would be in the hands of the broadcast media, and I suspect in the hands of the Spotlight’s sister publications.’

  Skinner growled. ‘You mean there are more of these damn things?’

  ‘Oh yes. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to deal with this magazine on behalf of angry clients. There’s an American version, one in Australasia, and issues in French, German, Spanish and Japanese. The chain is US-owned, and each version is marketed purely through supermarkets, at checkouts and at in-house news-stands.’

  ‘Okay, if we can’t stop them, can we sue the bastards?’

  On the other end of the line, he heard Laidlaw take a deep breath. ‘Can I ask a very delicate question, Bob?’

  ‘If you have to.’

  ‘I do. Are you completely confident of Miss Masters’ integrity?’

  ‘One hundred per cent,’ the policeman replied without hesitation.

  ‘Good. In that case, I’d say that she has a very strong case in an action for defamation. The paper implies beyond challenge that her relationship with you is motivated by a hope of personal advantage. Tell me Bob, what was the sequence of events here? How did the relationship - which Alex says you don’t deny - how did it develop?’

  Skinner reflected for a few moments. ‘Let’s see. The first time I ever met Pam was when I chaired a promotion board for prospective sergeants. It was a twenty-minute interview and she passed unanimously.

  ‘A few months later, my Executive Assistant was promoted and I was looking for a successor. I remembered Pam, interviewed her and gave her the job. My marriage was in trouble before that. In fact her appointment virtually coincided with my moving out.

  ‘We worked together well and amicably for a while. We had a few late shifts, which led to a few meals together. I realised early on that I was attracted to her, but our physical relationship didn’t develop until after Sarah had taken our son to the States. We spent two nights under the same roof, once at her place when I was snowed in, and once in Gullane. But we didn’t actually sleep together until my separation from Sarah had been legally recognised. I can give you dates later, Mitch, but that’s the sequence of events.’

  ‘That’s good,’ said the lawyer. ‘Now what about Miss Masters’ post as your assistant?’

  ‘As soon as I saw how things would develop, I moved her out of my office. I transferred her to Andy Martin’s personal staff, and took Sergeant Neil McIlhenney as her replacement.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Laidlaw. ‘So because you and she were entering a physical relationship, Miss Masters actually lost her important, fast-track job as your Executive Officer?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Then all she has to do to pursue a defamation action is to decide on the quantum of the claim. That is, how much the accusation that she was prepared to sell herself for advancement is worth to her, or at least how much a court is likely to think it worth.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Hmm.’ Mitch Laidlaw contemplated. ‘She has good career prospects, yes?’

  ‘Yes. She was a late entrant, but she can expect to make Chief Inspector, as a minimum.’

  ‘Well in that case, I think they’d settle out of court for at least a hundred and fifty thou. Maybe two hundred. Plus costs, of course.’ The solicitor paused again. ‘She’ll need to instruct me personally if she wants to proceed, but that can be done tomorrow.

  ‘Now. About your own case. That’s not so clear-cut, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Why not?’ Skinner protested.

  ‘For a couple of reasons. First, you are a very senior officer. Even if Miss Masters sues successfully, the defence against an action by you could be that you used your position, a glamorous and powerful position, to turn the lady’s head, or to pull her, if you want a Thursday-night term. Second, you may be separated legally, but you are still married.’

  ‘Hold on, Mitch,’ Skinner protested. ‘The article says that Sarah went to the States on holiday and that I’ve been having it off behind her back.’

  ‘No, Bob. You read it that way, but it didn’t actually say so. The phrase used was “staying in the US with her parents”. In any event, their defence would be that an action for adultery would succeed, and if one was lodged and decree granted before your case reached the Court of Session we wouldn’t have a chance.

  ‘To sum up, if you instruct me I’ll lodge a writ for defamation on Monday, but with no great expectation of success. In
that case, any short-term benefit which may accrue to you would be lost when you were forced to drop your action and meet defence costs.’

  The big policeman sighed. ‘So what do you recommend?’

  ‘I will issue a statement on your behalf, saying that your relationship with Miss Masters is private and personal, with no professional overtones, and that it began after you and your wife entered a formal separation agreement. I will say also that I have advised you of the potential for an action for defamation, and that you will consult with me on Monday to determine the course of proceedings.

  ‘That’ll put the Spotlight thing into some sort of perspective, and it’ll make the rest of the media think carefully about carrying on the story.’

  Skinner grunted agreement. ‘Okay. I know I couldn’t be in better hands, Mitch. So you do as you advise. How will you go about it?’

  ‘I’ll give the statement to our marketing officer, and tell her to issue it in an hour. We’ll say that you have nothing to add to the statement, but you’d better make sure anyway that your force press people are briefed to refer to us all callers who come on looking for you or Pamela. If Alex has my home number, she’ll have the marketing lady’s as well.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Skinner. ‘I’ll alert everyone. Look, thanks again, Mitch. We’ll speak on Monday.’

  ‘Earlier if necessary,’ said Laidlaw. ‘Incidentally, Bob,’ he added. ‘I’m very impressed with that daughter of yours. We haven’t allocated her to a department as yet, so I think I’ll take her into mine.’

  Skinner smiled across at Alex, who stood by the window, watching him. ‘Be careful about that, mate. She could wind up ruling your life too.’

  12

  ‘My goodness, Bob, what a position to find yourself in. Mind you, I have to say - as I’m sure no-one else will have - that you’ve only got yourself to blame.’