07 - Skinner's Ghosts

by Quintin Jardine

  He looked up at her, over his shoulder. ‘I’m still waiting for dawn,’ he muttered. ‘I feel like I’m at war on two fronts. Can you imagine how it feels, to know that my name will be all over this morning’s press? I’ve been a police officer for almost a quarter of a century, more than half my life. In that time, I like to think that I’ve never done a dishonourable thing.

  ‘Yet here I am, accused of abusing my position through my relationship with you, sacked by Anderson as unsuitable for my security post, under investigation for corruption, stigmatised, suspended, and effectively banned from acting personally in my defence.

  ‘At the same time there’s a madman at large with a kidnapped child, with whom I have a strong personal link, and for whom, somehow, I feel a responsibility. Not just that, he’s targeting me in some way I don’t yet understand. I want to be out there chasing the guy, I ought to be; yet I can’t, by order of Dr Bruce Anderson. I tell you girl, there are a few ghosts in my life, and it’s as if they’re all coming back to haunt me, all of them at once.’

  He took the hand which she laid upon his shoulder, and pressed it gently.

  ‘Can’t I help, love?’ she asked. ‘Can I help ease the pain?’

  He stood up from the table and turned, looking down at her. ‘No, honey. No you can’t. I suppose you’re a third front, another area of conflict in my life.’

  ‘Is that how you see me?’ she asked, quietly.

  He shrugged his wide shoulders. ‘Oh God, I don’t know. Maybe I should have chosen my words more carefully. But our future is something else to be resolved, and right now, I just can’t handle any of it.’

  He cried out in sudden exasperation. ‘When I was out there just now, running along the top of the beach, I remember thinking to myself, “Why stop? Why turn back?” There’s part of me that wants to chuck it all in, and I’ve never felt like that before. It’s scary, Pam. It’s as if since the stabbing, since my split with Sarah, since my discoveries about Myra, and now with all of this, that I’m just not me any more. There’s a bloke inside me, but he’s a stranger. Know what else I’m finding out? I don’t even like him.’

  She pulled him to her, and hugged him, pressing her face against his chest, running her fingers through his hair. But he stood, still and upright in her arms, until finally his right hand came up, and he stroked her cheek with his f ingers.

  ‘I’m a real mess, am I not?’ he whispered, as she looked up and saw his sad smile. ‘Who’d want a future with a crock like me?’

  As he spoke, as he asked his despondent question, a face came into his mind’s eye, quite unexpectedly: Sarah, looking at him and frowning, with a mixture of surprise and disappointment. He tried to will her away, but her mental image remained. And he knew. At that moment, he knew.

  A thump from the hall broke the moment. ‘Post lady,’ he said, matter-of-fact once more. ‘She’s always early on a Saturday.’ He released himself from her hug, and walked through to the hallway. There were three items of mail lying on the doormat, between the glass and outer doors. Picking them up, he glanced at each in turn as he stepped back into the living room.

  He recognised the handwriting on the first, and tore it open as fast as he could. It was a ‘cheer up’ card from Alex, with a note inside which read, ‘Don’t worry, Pops, I’ll keep an eye on that awful man Cheshire. Anyway, with me on your side, how can you lose?’

  He smiled, and positioned the cheery Beryl Cook card, with its voluminous, yet voluptuous ladies, on the shelf above the gas fire, then laid the second envelope, a bill from Scottish Power, unopened beside it.

  As soon as he looked at the third item, he felt an old familiar tremor in the pit of his stomach. Policemen, more than any others, have an instinct for danger which is triggered even in the most normal of surroundings.

  ‘Deputy Chief Constable Robert Skinner.’ He read his name aloud as he stared at the padded A5 Jiffy bag, the container of choice for many a small letter bomb. He never received official mail at home, but always in the office, where it was X-rayed as a matter of routine. At that moment, Pam appeared in the doorway. He beckoned her into the room. ‘Wait here,’ he ordered. ‘I need to check this out.’

  He stepped past her, back into the kitchen, reaching for the cutlery drawer, from which he took a short, but razor sharp, fruit knife. He sat down once more at the table and felt the package with both hands from all angles, pressing gently, and very carefully, lest he should activate a trigger mechanism inside. The only object which he could sense within the bag seemed to be solid and rectangular, a small, firm box.

  Relaxing only slightly, Skinner picked up the fruit knife. Slowly, centimetre by centimetre, he began to cut his way into the bag, not along the top, or along the bottom, since letter bombs were often wired at both ends, but along the side, through the outer skin, and into the fibre padding which he pulled out to expose the inner layer. When it was laid bare from end to end of the bag, he carried the parcel over to the sink, which he filled with water, so that he could drop it should it be, after all, an incendiary device.

  Finally, when he was completely prepared, with the bag laid on the work surface, he crouched beside it at eye level, and began to make the final incision with the sharp little knife. He worked slowly, ready to stop should he meet any resistance, easing the blade through the paper, until the bag was open.

  Leaving it where it was, he reached into the cupboard under the sink, and found a small torch. He fumbled at first with the unreasonably small button, wondering if the batteries were flat until at last its bulb lit up. Pressing the ends of the bag very gently with his broad left hand to widen the opening which he had cut, he shone the beam, undetectable in the daylight, into the gap.

  He was looking for wires, but he saw none: only a black cassette box.

  He released his breath, which he had been holding, in a loud gasp, and picked up the bag, allowing its contents to drop on to the work-surface. Only then did he look closely again at the Jiffy. It was stamped, with what he took to be the regulation amount, but the postmark was smudged and faint. He shone the torch beam directly on to it from close range, but both the time and postal district were indecipherable.

  He swore gently, and tossed the container on to the table, picking up the cassette box as he did so. The lid was clear and showed a shiny new tape inside.

  Only then did he look up, to see Pam standing in the doorway, looking anxious. He glowered at her. ‘I thought I told you to stay next door!’

  ‘I couldn’t. I was worried for you. It’s okay?’

  He nodded, waving the box as he shooed her back into the living room. ‘If this is some direct marketing gimmick, I will personally eat the sender’s liver. But somehow, I doubt it.’

  She looked at him. ‘You think . . .’

  ‘Let’s find out.’ He stepped across to his hi-fi stack, took out the cassette and slipped it into the play-only deck, which was incapable of erasing tapes, even by accident. Using the remote hand-set, he switched on the amplifier, adjusted the volume upwards and pressed the tape button.

  Beside him Pam jumped, as the shouts and background music of a rapper burst from the speakers. Skinner waited, guessing what would come next. ‘It’s Radio One,’ boomed the disc jockey, as the music track faded, ‘the Nation’s Number One. It’s Thursday, it’s eleven thirty, and it’s time for the news.’

  There was a short jingle, and a second voice cut in. ‘This is Newsbeat, with Mary Slavin. Edinburgh police today released a photofit picture of the man they want to question about the murder of MP Leona McGrath, and the kidnap of her son Mark. It shows a clean-shaven fair-haired white man in his mid to late thirties . . .’

  The news announcer was cut off abruptly. ‘Uncle Bob! Uncle Bob!’ The child’s cry which replaced it was unmistakably that of Mark McGrath, but not the self-possessed slightly precocious child whom Skinner knew. It was frightened, shocked and tearful.

  ‘Uncle Bob, Mr Gilbert said that the news would show you when this tape was
made and that I’m all right. But he never said what would be on it. What did the lady mean about my mummy? My mummy’s all right, isn’t she? You wouldn’t let anything happen to her, Uncle Bob, would you!’ It was not a question, rather a cry for reassurance - a cry for a denial of the horror that the boy had just heard on the radio, clearly for the first time.

  He broke off, in a crying and whimpering sound which ended after a few seconds in a loud sniff. ‘Mr Gilbert says I’ve to tell you, Uncle Bob, that he has one more thing still to do, then he’ll be ready to tell you what this is about. That’s what he said. And he says he’ll be in touch again, soon.’ There was a click, and the tape went dead.

  Skinner, who had been staring at the tape deck as if the child was actually inside it, turned back to Pamela. Her hands were to her mouth, and there were tears shining in her eyes. ‘How awful,’ she cried. ‘For the poor wee boy to find out like that about his mother being dead. You just can’t imagine cruelty like that.’

  ‘You can when you’ve seen it as often as I have,’ Bob told her. ‘But I doubt if the guy knew that would happen. We didn’t release the photofit until eleven. Mr Gilbert would have no way of knowing that it would be the lead item on the eleven thirty news. Mind you, I don’t think his conscience would be pricked by the way it turned out.’

  ‘I knew you were close to Mark,’ said Pamela, ‘but I never knew you were on Uncle Bob terms.’

  ‘I made a point of seeing him a lot after the accident, then later, I would look in to say hello sometimes on a Friday after work, when Leona got back from Westminster.’ He sighed. ‘He’s a very gifted wee boy, but he hasn’t half been touched by tragedy. His father, his mother, his mother’s best friend: all of them dying violent deaths.’

  ‘What’ll happen to him? Assuming we get him back alive, that is.’

  ‘Oh we will, Pam, we will. If you believe in anything, believe in that. As for afterwards, that’s a good question. The grandparents are probably too old to take on a six-year-old full-time, and there are no uncles or aunts. If it’s adoption, it’ll need to be a pretty special home.’ He reached down and took the tape from the deck.

  ‘Let’s concentrate on the first part for now, though, getting him back safe.

  ‘That means getting this tape down to the technical people in London, to see if Mr Gilbert’s given us any more accidental assistance. I’m going to take it up to the office as soon as I’m showered and dressed. You’d better come, for I ain’t leaving you here alone. I’m beginning to regret getting rid of our watchers yesterday.’

  ‘But you’re not supposed to go to the office,’ she protested.

  ‘Fuck that for a game of soldiers. But if it makes you happy, you’ll be going in. I’ll just be there as your bodyguard.’

  ‘Okay.’ She started to say more, but hesitated.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked, as they moved together, towards the bedroom.

  ‘Oh nothing. I was just going to teach my granny to suck eggs, that was all.’

  ‘Come on, out with it,’ he insisted.

  ‘Well, it was that name. Mr Gilbert. I don’t imagine it’s for real, but all the same, have you checked?’

  Skinner nodded. ‘As soon as Carr came up with it, I had big Neil do just that. He checked every case on which I’ve led the investigation. Way back. No Mr Something Gilberts; no Mr Gilbert Somethings.

  ‘You’re right. It was bound to be a phoney. Still, we had to try.’

  50

  ‘Bob, I thought the Lord Advocate told you to stay away from here.’

  Andy Martin looked up in surprise as the door of his office opened and they entered. Pam had noticed his car in the rear car park, but Skinner had known already that with the search for the kidnapper in full swing, and with his own absence, there would be no more days off for his friend for the foreseeable future.

  ‘He can try having me arrested, or he can sue me, or he can piss off.’

  He took a tape from his pocket and laid it on the desk. ‘Play this.’

  Without a word, Martin picked up the cassette, reached across without standing up to put it in the player, and listened in grim glowering silence to the child’s desperate message.

  ‘Bastard,’ he hissed, very quietly, when it was finished.

  ‘Another one for the specialists, Andy.’ He wrote down a name and a number. ‘Here’s who to call. That’s a copy. I’ve got the original in an envelope in my pocket.’ He patted his jacket. ‘Sergeant, would you like to fly it down to London?’

  Pam, surprised, nodded.

  ‘Good. I’ll drive you to the airport and pick you up. You’ll be safe travelling, and in London, I reckon.’

  He turned back to Martin. ‘Anything strike you about the message?’

  ‘You mean apart from the cruelty of Mark finding out about his mother’s death?’ the Head of CID growled. ‘One thing,’ he went on. ‘That’s what he said. “He has one more thing still to do”, before he tells us what he’s up to. That one thing was killing our Mr Sweeney, no doubt. So we can expect to hear from him any time now.’

  ‘No, I don’t think that was it. Have you got a time of death on Sweeney yet?’

  ‘About four o’clock on Thursday.’

  ‘That figures. You see, I don’t think Mr Gilbert knew that he’d have to take the risk of killing Sweeney until he heard the news bulletin recorded on the tape. He must have known then that only Carr could have given us that detailed a picture, and he must have guessed too that we had the phoney number plate from the caravan. Only at that point did it become a bigger risk to leave Sweeney alive than to kill him.’

  Skinner stabbed at the table with a finger. ‘So,’ he said vehemently.‘Mark’s “one more thing” means something else. The guy’s going to pull another stunt, maybe an even bigger stunt, and there he is, the cocky bastard, telling us . . . telling me . . . about it, knowing that I haven’t clue where to start looking.’

  His face twisted into a scowl of frustration. ‘You haven’t gone public on the link between the McGrath investigation and the Sweeney murder, have you?’

  ‘Christ no. I didn’t want to start a feeding frenzy in the media.’

  ‘Quite right: you’d just have added to the pressure on the troops, and on yourself.’

  The two detectives sat for a while, staring ahead, neither looking at the other, each concentrating so hard on possibilities that they almost failed to react when Pam broke the silence.

  ‘A bigger stunt,’ she said. ‘He’s killed an MP and stolen her son. What could be a bigger stunt, as you put it, than that?’

  The words left Skinner’s mouth almost without conscious thought. ‘To do it again,’ he said quietly.

  As Martin looked at him, his initial disbelief faded against his knowledge of a hundred other viable kites that his friend had flown in the time that he had known him. ‘How many other MPs have young children?’ he asked.

  ‘No idea,’ said Skinner. ‘But the Special Branch offices around the country should know. I think it’s time we got on the phone. You dig up McGuire, and I’ll contact Strathclyde.’

  51

  The two Manchester detectives had flown British Airways to London, for the onward flight to Guernsey. Alex had chosen to travel with British Midland, to minimise the time she would have to spend in the company of the formidable and hostile Cheshire.

  With very few business travellers in the air on Saturday, the flights were all on time, in take-off and in landing. As they disembarked through the tiny Guernsey terminal building into the dull, breezy morning, after a cross-Channel hop spent mostly in silence, Alex looked around for a taxi rank.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Ericson, coming up behind her as she headed for a white Primera minicab. ‘We’ve arranged transport. I’m sure my boss won’t mind if you join us.’

  Cheshire looked as if he would be quite prepared to allow her to take the taxi, but said nothing. Alex fell into step beside the two officers as they headed for the police car which waited a
short distance from the terminal entrance, a uniformed constable standing to attention by the driver’s door.

  ‘First time in Guernsey?’ Ericson asked her, in a reasonable show of courtesy, as the car pulled away from its stand.

  Alex shook her head, setting her curls tumbling, and smiling at the policeman in a way that made even Cheshire stir in his seat. ‘No. Dad brought me here on holiday once, a couple of years after my mum died. I was only about six, but I remember. It rained all the time. We were in the best hotel in town, though, with plenty of covered facilities, so it didn’t matter so much.’

  Cheshire turned in the front passenger seat. ‘Your father could afford good holidays even then?’ he asked, his cold expressionless eyes fixed on her. ‘He’s a man of property, isn’t he? Two houses in Scotland, I understand, and two more in Spain. Looking at that, some might say it’s hardly surprising that some chickens have come home to roost.’

  Ericson looked straight ahead, focusing on the back of the driver’s head. She wondered if his question had been a set-up, until she realised that he was embarrassed by his chief’s brutal directness.

  Quite unexpectedly, Alex smiled. ‘Mr Cheshire,’ she said, ‘if that look is meant to intimidate me, you’re wasting your time. When I was a wee girl, if I did or said something I shouldn’t have, my dad would let me know just by giving me a long look. It was his worst punishment, almost the only one he ever needed; a couple of seconds, and I’d be saying “sorry”. Believe me, when it comes to intimidating stares, you’re not in the same class as him.’

  Her smile vanished. ‘I’m not here to be interrogated by you two, but I am happy to put you right about Pops. He’s had three inheritances in his life. When my mum was killed, the mortgage on the Gullane house was paid off, and there were other life policies in his name. That helped him to buy, largely, an apartment in Spain, which we used. He still owns it, but he rents it out to policemen . . . at a very reasonable rate, incidentally.