07 - Skinner's Ghosts

by Quintin Jardine

  The reporter was recovering his confidence rapidly - and, as Martin knew, with justification. His scenario had a loud ring of credibility about it.

  ‘So,’ said the dishevelled little man. ‘Can I go now?’

  ‘Oh no,’ replied the blond detective. ‘Not so easily. Besides, there’s a tape I want you to hear.’

  ‘What sort of tape?’

  ‘In a minute. Let’s go back to Mr Skinner’s phone number. Was that included in your anonymous note?’

  ‘I’m not saying any more about that.’

  ‘We’ll see.’ Martin reached into the pocket of his jacket and took out a small tape player. He pressed the ‘play’ button. A few seconds later, Salmon heard his own voice, echoing from the speaker with a metallic tone. The two policemen gazed at him, as he sat back in his chair, surprised and slightly shocked.

  ‘But think on this: I haven’t finished with you yet - not by a long way.’ As the recorded conversation ended with a click, McGuire reached across and switched off the tape.

  ‘How did . . .’ Salmon began.

  ‘Work it out for yourself,’ said Martin. ‘Did it never occur to you that it was a bit dangerous to call a senior police officer on an unlisted number and to make threats.’

  ‘What d’you mean, threats?’

  ‘What else would you call that last comment of yours?’ The policeman paused. ‘But wait. There’s more. A few minutes after you phoned him, Mr Skinner received another call on his unlisted number. If you’d been at our press briefing this morning, instead of being banged up in here, you’d know about it already.’ He switched on the tape once more.

  ‘I have the child. He is alive, but at my disposition. You will hear from me again.’

  Salmon sat bolt upright in his seat at the sound of the smooth, controlled voice. His eyes widened. ‘Was that . . .?’

  ‘The man who murdered Leona McGrath, and kidnapped her son? We have to believe that it is. Which throws up a pretty big coincidence. Two men, in possession of a very confidential telephone number, using it within minutes of each other.’

  Martin leaned forward, his forearms on the table. Suddenly, although his expression was as affable as ever, there was an air of menace about him.

  ‘Now, Salmon,’ he said, in a clear, formal voice, ‘do you know that man? Did you give him Mr Skinner’s number or did he give it to you?’

  The dishevelled reporter gulped, fear showing in his eyes. ‘I’ve no idea who he is,’ he protested. ‘No, I didn’t give him Skinner’s number! No, I didn’t get it from him!’

  ‘How did you get it, then? No more bullshit, friend. You are in very dangerous waters, and way out of your depth.’

  Noel Salmon slumped back in his seat. ‘It was in the second message,’ he whispered.

  ‘What second message?’

  ‘I got it last week. It was anonymous, like the other one.’

  Andy Martin fixed his green eyes on the man. ‘So how do you know that it didn’t come from the man we’ve just heard on that tape?’ he asked, in an even tone.

  His quarry looked down at the scratched tabletop. ‘I don’t,’ he muttered helplessly.

  ‘No, you don’t, do you? Not if you’re telling the truth, you don’t. For if we believed that you were lying to us, in any way, we’d have to look at the possibility that you were this man’s accomplice.’

  ‘Wait a minute . . .’

  ‘So prove yourself to us. Let us see the second letter.’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Salmon, plaintively. ‘That was what I flushed down the toilet.’

  The detective whistled. ‘I see. You are in deep shit, aren’t you?’

  ‘Appropriate, in the circumstances,’ said McGuire, beside him.

  ‘Help yourself, then,’ offered Martin. ‘Tell us what was in the letter.’

  Salmon turned his face away from them, towards the wall of the windowless interview room, his fingers twisting, intertwined, in an unconscious show of indecision.

  ‘Come on, Noel,’ said the Head of CID.

  Salmon turned back to face them, nodding slightly as if he had reached a decision. He looked up in the silence which filled the room and opened his mouth as if to speak.

  There was a knock on the brown-painted door. The handle turned. The door swung open, revealing the bulky frame of Neil McIlhenney. A tall, dark-haired man stood behind him.

  ‘What the hell is it?’ snapped Andy Martin, in a rare display of annoyance.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said the Sergeant, ‘but I had no choice.’ He nodded over his shoulder, towards the man who followed him into the room. ‘This is Mr Alec Linden. He’s a solicitor, retained by the Spotlight to represent Salmon. He demanded that I bring him in here.’

  The Chief Superintendent sighed heavily in his exasperation, and nodded, standing up as he did so and reaching out to switch off the tape recorder. ‘You’re right, Neil, you didn’t have a choice. Thank you. Interview suspended.’

  He turned to the lawyer, as McIlhenney withdrew. ‘I don’t think we’ve met, Mr Linden.’

  The man shook his head. ‘No. I’m senior partner of Herd and Phillips, in Glasgow.’ Martin recognised the name of the biggest criminal law firm in Scotland. ‘I was instructed by Mr Salmon’s employers immediately after they heard of his arrest on a radio news bulletin. They are naturally concerned that he is being persecuted because of the story in today’s issue of their magazine. So am I.

  ‘I understand from your Sergeant,’ said Linden, brusquely, ‘that you are questioning my client over his possession of an unlisted telephone number.’

  ‘That, and his possession of a quantity of cocaine.’

  The solicitor frowned. ‘I wasn’t aware of that. You’ll do me the courtesy of allowing me a few minutes alone with my client?’

  ‘Of course. Give us a call when you’re ready.’ The two detectives stepped outside, into the corridor, where McIlhenney waited. ‘What do you think, sir?’ asked McGuire.

  ‘I think he’ll piss all over us,’ said Martin glumly. ‘Fuck me, Neil, if you’d only stopped to tie your shoelace before you knocked on that door. We had Salmon by the stones right then.’

  The Sergeant looked crestfallen. ‘Christ, boss, but I’m sorry.’

  ‘Ach, never you mind, big fella, you weren’t to know.’

  They stood silent in the corridor for almost ten minutes, before the door opened, and Linden’s face appeared. ‘Gentlemen, we’re ready for you now.’ Martin and McGuire re-entered the room, and resumed their seats across the table from Salmon and his new adviser.

  ‘I’ll come straight to the point,’ said the solicitor. ‘On the matter of the cocaine, my client maintains that it was introduced to his premises without his knowledge by his lady-friend. On the matter of the telephone number, it is not an offence simply to possess such information, and you have no evidence whatsoever that it was obtained corruptly. Also, my client denies any knowledge of, or co-operation with, the person who made the second telephone call to Mr Skinner.’

  He paused. ‘I have advised my client that he should answer no further questions. Obviously, it is up to you to decide how to proceed on the matter of the cocaine, but in the meantime, I insist that Mr Salmon be released.’

  Andy Martin glanced at the journalist, who sat relaxed, beaming back at him, all his arrogance and cockiness restored. In his mind he weighed the options of the situation, realising that, with his solicitor by his side, Salmon would not budge from his story. He knew that he had no practical choice.

  ‘Okay, Mr Linden,’ he sighed, at last. ‘You can have him. A report will be submitted to the Procurator Fiscal. It’ll be for him to decide whether your client will be charged with possession.

  ‘In the meantime, I suggest that you advise him to be very careful of the people with whom he associates, and to be wary of any further anonymous information he might receive. Now please, take him away, so that we can have this place fumigated.’

  20

  ‘Don’t tak
e it to heart, Andy. You did well do get anything out of the wee shit. I know Alec Linden. He’s an honest operator, but very sharp. If he’d turned up earlier you’d have got sod all.’

  Martin’s face twisted into a grimace. ‘I know that, Bob, but I was so nearly there. He knows more than he told us. Plus, he’s got something else up his sleeve, I’m sure. And he was that close to spilling it, when that bloody lawyer turned up.

  ‘When he made the arrest, Mario offered him the chance to call someone, but he turned it down. We reckoned he was wetting himself so badly about the cocaine, he wasn’t thinking too straight.’

  ‘So how did Linden know about it, and where to find him?’ asked Skinner.

  ‘Sheer bad luck. Salmon’s boss was trying to find him. One of the people he called was John Hunter. Old John laughed, and told him where he was. The Spotlight guy called his Scottish lawyer, who happens to be Linden.’

  ‘Damn it,’ said the DCC. ‘And Linden happened to be available and not on the golf course. Life’s a bugger at times.

  ‘Here, you don’t think it was Big Joanne’s stuff, do you?’

  ‘Not a chance. It was Salmon’s, okay, but he’s right. It’ll be his word against hers. The Fiscal won’t proceed against him. He’s off every single hook, and free to carry on persecuting you.’

  Skinner reached across the wooden garden table and slapped his friend lightly on the shoulder. ‘Fuck him, Andy. He’s not worth the bother. Let’s concentrate on the main event; not on my self-inflicted troubles, but on finding poor wee, stolen Mark McGrath, and the evil bastard who took him.

  ‘You say Salmon told you that my number was included in the second anonymous letter he received?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Did you believe him? I mean, he can’t produce either letter. He could be lying.’

  Andy Martin shook his head, taking a bite from one of the thick ham sandwiches which Skinner and Pamela had prepared. ‘I believed him,’ he said, after devouring the mouthful. ‘The second phone call on your tape knocked the feet from under him. He knew that it looked bad for him. Just at that moment, he’d have shopped his granny to get off the hook.’

  Bob stood up from the table, sandwich in hand, and began to pace, backwards and forwards across the slabbed area of his cottage garden. ‘So what have we got?’ he began. ‘A mystery informant slipping Salmon damaging information about me, and giving him my phone number as well, so that he can really wind me up by calling me at home to rub it in.

  ‘A second man with my unlisted number, who calls me, specifically - not the Press Association, or the telly, or even our headquarters, but me - to tell me, in person, that he has Mark.’ He stopped his pacing and looked back towards the table, first at Pamela, then at Martin. ‘What are the chances, do you think, given the connection of the number, that our killer is also Noel Salmon’s anonymous source?’

  ‘Pretty good, I’d have thought,’ said Pamela.

  ‘Could be,’ said Martin. ‘But in a sense that’s irrelevant. The best lead we have is the number itself. If we can find out how our man came by it then we’re close to finding him.’

  Skinner chuckled. ‘Unless he broke into Fettes to get it! That’s been done before.’ He sat down once more. ‘No, but you’re right. Have a blitz on Telecom, and on our own telecommunications room. Don’t ruffle any feathers, but if there’s anyone there who might be making a bit of extra cash by selling restricted numbers, find out.’

  The Head of CID looked at his chief, as Pam Masters carried the empty plate back into the kitchen. ‘Don’t worry. It’s already under way. If there’s a bad apple in there, anywhere, I’ll crush the last drop of juice out of him . . . or her, if it comes to that.’

  ‘I’m sure you will, Andy, I’m sure.

  ‘Meanwhile, there are people down in London who are listening to that tape as carefully as they can. Not to the Salmon bit, but to the kidnapper’s call, analysing every fragment of sound on it, seeing if there’s anything in the background that they can locate.’

  ‘What are the chances?’

  ‘To be truthful, not very good. I’ve listened to my copy time and time again, but I can only hear the guy’s voice. Mind you, our London friends are working with the original, and can amplify sound to levels that only a very sharp-eared dog could pick up. If there’s anything there, they’ll find it.’

  He stopped and looked towards the cottage. ‘You did tell Alex you were coming out here again this afternoon, didn’t you?’ he asked, suddenly.

  Andy nodded. ‘She said she had some work that needed doing.’

  ‘On a Sunday? Christ, she’s only just started with that law firm. They can’t have her working weekends already, surely?’

  ‘No, I think it was housework.’

  Bob raised his eyebrows and stared across the table. ‘Alex? Housework?’ He pointed upwards to a V-shaped formation of geese, flying westwards. ‘What d’you think those are, Andy? Pigs?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, my daughter just didn’t want to come. Alex doesn’t approve of Pam and me, does she?’

  ‘Bob, that’s between you and her.’ Andy hesitated. ‘But if I were you, I’d just let it lie for a while. She’s said she’ll support you, and she will, but she’s very fond of Sarah, and she was gutted when you two separated. She won’t give you any more grief, but it’d be best if you let her come to terms with things in her own time.’

  The older man stared at the sky again, back towards the geese as they wheeled round towards Aberlady Nature reserve, their nesting ground. ‘Aye, you’re right,’ he murmured at last. ‘The last thing I need is to fall out with our kid as well.’

  Suddenly he glanced back across the table. ‘And what about you, Andy? What about you? Do you approve of my new relationship? After all, you’ve got a double interest, personal and professional.’

  Abruptly, Martin stood up from the table. ‘Let’s go for a walk,’ he said.

  Skinner shook his head. ‘I don’t want to leave Pam. Not after Leona, and everything that’s happened. Not with a madman on the loose.’

  His friend smiled. ‘Don’t worry. You have very discreet protection.’

  The DCC looked at him, surprised. ‘I didn’t ask for . . .’

  ‘Well you bloody should have. My operational decision. End of story.’

  ‘I’m still not sure. There might be photographers out there.’

  ‘Fuck ’em if there are. Let’s go for a walk.’

  ‘Yeah. All right then.’ With a last show of reluctance, Skinner rose also and took a few paces across to the open back door of the cottage. ‘Pam,’ he called, ‘Andy and I are off for a stroll. Back in half an hour or so. Remember. Keep the door shut, and let the machine answer the phone.’

  There were no photographers in sight outside the cottage. As he closed the gate behind him and stepped between Andy’s silver Mondeo and his own BMW, Bob glanced across the Goose Green. At its lower end, near the back entrance to the Golf Inn hotel, a single car was parked; a nondescript, grey Escort, with a figure in the front passenger seat seemingly reading a newspaper.

  ‘I’ve got another officer positioned round in the paddock,’ said Martin quietly, catching the look. ‘Between them they cover all approaches to the cottage.’

  ‘Yes, that’s enough. What are their orders if they see someone approaching the house?’

  ‘They’re to radio in and alert you, rather than tackling the suspect and risking him getting away. Unless Pam’s there alone, of course. Then they’d go in.’

  ‘What, you mean your game is to let him come at me?’ asked Skinner, a grim edge to his voice.

  ‘Yes,’ said his colleague, with a quick grin, ‘to give us the best chance of catching him. Not that I think it will happen, but if it does, try to leave the guy in one piece. Please.’

  They strolled out of the green taking a narrow pathway beside the Episcopalian church, which led them through the golf club car park to the slopes of Gullane Hill. They trudged in silence up t
he steep road towards its summit, until at last they stood on a grassy knoll which overlooked the club’s three courses, and all of the wide Forth estuary.

  The two friends sat side by side on a memorial chair, gazing out to sea.

  ‘Well, Andy,’ said Bob at last, breathing only slightly heavily from the climb, ‘what about it? What do you think of my indiscretion? Give it to me straight.’

  Martin hunched his broad shoulders, within his roomy sports jacket. ‘If you insist. But first, tell me again how it came about. I don’t mean the situation between you and Sarah: I know that arose out of your extreme views on questions of trust. I mean the thing between you and Pam.’

  Bob leaned against the back of the bench seat. ‘Like I said,’ he began, ‘it just happened. I was lonely, so was Pamela. We were thrown together by the job, and we were attracted to each other. Pam’s divorced, I’m separated. When I realised how it was heading I transferred her out of my office . . .’ he paused for a second, ‘. . . and into my bed.’

  ‘How do you feel about each other?’

  ‘Fond covers it, I think. Somehow, Pam seems to feel . . . safe. She doesn’t ask or threaten. D’you understand what I mean?’

  ‘I think so. A once-bitten, twice-shy career woman. I can see why you’d feel safe with her.’

  ‘Mmm,’ Bob grunted. ‘So come on, out with it.’

  Andy drew in a deep breath of the fresh afternoon air, looking out at the grey sea, beneath the blue sky. ‘Remember when I was younger - not that long ago. I was a serial shagger, and no mistake. You used to tell me I had had more women than cooked breakfasts, and you were right.

  ‘I always had to have a girlfriend because that was part of me, but as soon as I started to feel safe with them, I ran a mile in the opposite direction. Safety, in my view, is no basis for a relationship. Mere contentment shouldn’t be enough.’

  He glanced round, towards Skinner. ‘Bob, you were never like I used to be, nor will you ever be. You couldn’t philander to save your life. When you met Sarah, I was pleased for you. After more than fifteen years of widowhood you’d finally found a woman who was made for you. And I was as jealous as hell. All of a sudden my own life seemed hollow, and I wanted so much to be like you.