07 - Skinner's Ghosts

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘I’ve got some. Spotlight is quite an institution over here you know. It’s making inroads in Great Britain too, as you have reason to know. The story about Bob and Pam got it the sort of national attention it’s been after.’

  ‘So who owns it?’

  ‘A straight question: not such a straight answer. In the first instance, Spotlight belongs to a corporation registered in Chicago. It owns just that one news magazine, but also a string of cracker radio stations, mostly though not all in the South.’

  ‘Radio KKK, you mean?’

  ‘Oh no, nothing so unsubtle. Radio Free America is more like it, the voice of the militants, those backwoods democrats who only like elected government when it does what they want.’

  ‘Who owns the equity in the Chicago corporation?’ asked Martin.

  ‘Another corporation, registered in Houston. It’s owned in turn by yet another corporation, registered in LA, which also holds a large chunk of the stock of a satellite television news network. Strip the whole thing away, though, and you wind up with a global holding company which pulls together a part of the corporate holdings of a very interesting guy. He’s possibly the richest man in America.’

  Doherty paused, as if for effect. ‘Does the name Everard Balliol mean anything to you?’

  ‘Somehow I feel it should.’ Martin scratched his head, and searched his remarkable memory. ‘Yes. I remember him. That Pro-Am golf tournament Bob wound up playing in a while back. The one there was bother with. Everard Balliol was one of the leading amateurs.

  ‘As I recall, he didn’t like losing.’

  Doherty laughed. ‘He wouldn’t. Mr Balliol doesn’t like losing at anything. It’s a common trait with billionaires, they tell me.’

  ‘What’s his background?’

  ‘His granddaddy was in oil. Everard diversified in a big way. He’s still a major player in the oil business, but on top of that he’s into computers, telecommunications, air transport, banking, insurance and a few other things.

  ‘Politically, he’s way out on the right wing. There was talk a few years back of him going after the Republican nomination, but when he talked about nuking the Colombian coca fields they decided that they didn’t want another Goldwater. For a while, he thought of running as an independent, but he decided that he couldn’t win under that flag, so he dropped it.

  ‘Instead, he contents himself with backing right-wing causes. He funds but doesn’t own one or two militant publications, and gives them air-time on his stations. Spotlight is a special toy. He uses it in the States to embarrass federal and state governments if he feels that they’re backsliding . . . and he feels that way a lot.

  ‘The international editions run the same way,’ Doherty went on. ‘Balliol hates every sort of liberalism, anywhere. When your election turned out the way it did, he went ballistic apparently.’

  Martin realised that he was frowning, and that it was growing deeper by the second. ‘Is this man dangerous, Joe?’

  There was a pause, for thought. ‘He’s dangerous in that he has unlimited resources. He’s dangerous in that his political attitudes are shared by a large number of very spooky people, and if he ever gave them serious financial backing, we’d have a real problem.

  ‘But if you mean is he dangerous like homicidal? I doubt it. He’s completely ruthless, but I reckon if he really took a dislike to someone he’d prefer to hurt him in a way he’d remember, rather than just by having him made dead. Spotlight is the perfect tool for him. Bob should have let him win that Pro-Am, I think.’

  ‘You could see Bob doing that, could you?’

  ‘Maybe not.’ He chuckled at the thought. ‘There is one other thing about Balliol that should interest you. He’s a real Scotophile.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said the laconic Doherty. ‘He claims Scottish descent. In fact he claims to be the descendant of kings. He owns a castle in your fair land, with an estate. Bought it a year or two back. They tell me he’s building a private golf course on the land.’

  ‘It isn’t Balmoral, is it?’

  The American laughed out loud. ‘No, but if that ever comes on the market you can bet Everard will snap it up. His current pile is a place called Erran Mhor, north of somewhere called Fort William, apparently.’

  ‘Does he use it much?’

  ‘He never announces his arrival or departure,’ said the American, ‘but yes, he does. In fact, he’s there right now.’

  57

  ‘What about the signature, Bob?’ asked Mitchell Laidlaw, holding a photocopy of Medine’s sample, which Cheshire and Ericson had given to Alex. ‘Is there any chance that this could be genuine?’

  Skinner took the sheet from him and looked at it. ‘I’d say it probably is. Almost certainly.’

  He shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘But so what? Mitch, I attend lots of public functions. Quite often I have to make speeches. To Rotarians, for example, or parent groups at schools. I even chaired a reading once at James Thin in George Street, for the publication of the memoirs of a retired copper.

  ‘Frequently I’m asked for my autograph at these events. I always give it, sometimes without even looking at the person who wants it. So getting hold of a sample of my signature would not be a difficult thing to do.

  ‘Don’t worry too much about that. Even if the handwriting gurus insist that it is genuine, we can still defend against it.’

  He handed the photocopy back to Laidlaw and looked across at Alex. The three-strong defence team had gathered once more in the offices of Curle, Anthony and Jarvis, as soon as Alex had returned from Guernsey.

  ‘It’s some comfort to know that Al Cheshire is a straight-down-the-line operator, after all. I was getting the idea that he’d arrived with his mind made up. When I checked him out, I found that every investigation that he’s handled within another force has ended in a prosecution.

  ‘Mind you, in nearly every one of those, he was called in only after preliminary enquiries showed strong evidence of corruption.’

  ‘He’d tell you that’s the case here, Bob,’ said Laidlaw, quietly.

  ‘Aye, and from what Alex has told us he’d be dead right.’ Skinner turned to his daughter. ‘That was good work you did though, love, picking up the point about the Bank of England notes and rubbing his nose in it. If the money had been in one big lump of sequentially numbered notes, then fair enough. But the fact that it was put together as it was, that helps us.’

  ‘How?’ asked Laidlaw.

  The policeman smiled. ‘I’m not sure yet. It tells us that it was put together, if not outside Scotland, then probably from an external source. Now the fact is that if anyone had bunged me, it would have been someone within my own patch.’

  Alex frowned. ‘Yes, that’s true, Pops, but that person could have had cash in another country. It’s hardly the strongest defence to lay before a jury.’

  ‘I agree,’ her father replied, ‘but if this thing does get to court, at least it’s something for old Christabel to argue.’ He chuckled, suddenly, glancing at Laidlaw. ‘It’s a pity old Orlach’s dead. If we’d been able to fix it for him to be on the Bench with Christabel defending . . .’

  ‘Let’s look at the courier,’ said the solicitor, his crimson, weatherbeaten cheeks indicating that he had spent his morning on the golf course. ‘That was a major stroke of luck, surely.’

  Beside her boss, Alex nodded vigorously. ‘Yes. The man’s targeting you in some way through these crimes. He used your private phone number. There’s evidence of malice, and a potential identification of him as the courier. Christabel will make hay with that.’

  ‘If we capture the guy alive, maybe she won’t have to. But . . .’ Skinner shook his head, slightly. ‘I’m not so sure. Okay, Medine picked him out from the photofit, and okay, he had my Gullane number, yet there are two major holes in the argument.’

  ‘What are they?’ asked Alex, frowning.

  ‘Well it’s a mistake, for a start, and this is a very smart gu
y we’re after. If the kidnapper had set me up in Guernsey, I don’t see him exposing himself by acting as his own courier.’

  ‘Why not, Pops? You’ve said yourself that you’re waiting for him to make a mistake.’

  ‘Not one as big as this, though. He’s better than that.’ He stood up from the conference table and walked to the window. ‘Anyway, all that’s subjective. The other hole in the argument’s based on fact.

  ‘The kidnapper made that tape on Thursday. He posted it first class on Friday, although we still don’t know from where, the postmark was too badly smudged. So he knew I’d have it on Saturday.’

  ‘So?’ asked Laidlaw.

  ‘So if it was him who set me up, through Spotlight, he did that on Thursday at the latest. If it was him, he’d have known that by Saturday I’d be under investigation. Yet there was not the faintest hint of that on the tape, not even the faintest hint of him. Through Mark, he was still talking to me as a copper, on Saturday morning.

  ‘No, I’m afraid I need a lot more convincing that the kidnapper is behind this.’

  He turned to Alex. ‘What’s Al Cheshire’s next move?’

  ‘He’s going to interview Noel Salmon, tomorrow midday. Salmon says he doesn’t want me there. He says he’d feel threatened.’

  ‘He’s catching on, is he?’ scowled Skinner. ‘Did Cheshire tell him he had a choice?’

  ‘Well he has, Pops. This is still an informal investigation. No-one’s under caution.’

  ‘That’s right, Bob,’ Laidlaw confirmed. ‘However . . . Alex, find out if Salmon would accept my presence. Maybe he’d find me less of a threat.’

  He looked across at Skinner, as he resumed his seat. ‘Going back to Christabel for a moment, Bob. In the light of the information which Alex has brought back, I think it would be good idea if we arranged a consultation for Monday. If that’s okay with you, I’ll set it up.’

  Skinner nodded, and Laidlaw made a small note on a pad on the table in front of him. He looked up again. ‘What about this receipt, Bob? What do we do about that?’

  The detective shrugged. ‘Alex was right. Let Cheshire search wherever he likes. Any sheriff would give him a warrant if he asked for one, with what he’s got. There’s no point in putting him to the bother.’

  ‘Pops,’ Alex intervened, hesitantly, ‘he wants to search Pam’s as well. You’ve been living there.’

  ‘Of course he does. I’ve already discussed the possibility with her. As long as it’s done very discreetly, she’s okay with it. To be on the up and up, neither of us should go back to anywhere that’s to be searched. So Alex, once we’ve finished here, you go back to see Cheshire and Ericson and take them where they need to go. I’ll give you keys to Pam’s place.’

  Laidlaw leaned across his desk. ‘Bob, I have to ask you this. We’ve got copies of all the documents. Cheshire was good enough to give us them, while he holds the originals. Looking at that receipt, have you ever seen, however casually, it or anything like it?’

  Skinner laughed. ‘You asking if I mistook it for one of Sarah’s Jenners receipts? Oh yes, a hundred grand. Got off light today, didn’t we!

  ‘No, Mitch. I have never seen that receipt in my life, anywhere. Although, the way things are going for me just now . . .’ He stopped in mid-sentence. ‘What the hell, let Al Cheshire and his pal - but only them mind. Not one of my own officers is to be used - let them go through my socks, Pamela’s knickers, and everywhere else. You go along with them though, Alex, and look over their shoulders, just to keep them on their toes.

  ‘They won’t like the business any more than I do, I suppose,’ he growled. ‘Tell you one thing I really don’t like, though, and that’s Jimmy letting them use my office. I know why he did it, to keep them out of sight of the troops as much as possible, but I don’t have to enjoy it, even though I would have done the same thing myself. Because, when this is over and I go back in there, I’ll always know.

  ‘It’s a bit like someone sleeping with your wife, I suppose.’

  ‘Or your husband,’ said Alex, instinctively and as unthinking as her father.

  Mitch Laidlaw coughed, to break the silence. ‘Look, this will all be over soon,’ he said. ‘I know it’s tough on you both.’

  ‘There’ll be more pain,’ murmured Skinner, ‘before anything starts to heal.’ He reached across and squeezed his daughter’s hand.

  ‘One thing I was going to ask,’ said Laidlaw, casting around desperately for anything that would change the subject. ‘Cheshire. For the record, what is the Al short for? Alan? Alexander?’

  Skinner smiled again. ‘Hell of a good question,’ he replied. ‘We’ve all got a secret somewhere, but in the end no-one’s is safe from me. Algernon, that’s Cheshire’s secret. He’s an Algernon. They say that someone called him Algie once, and was never seen again!’

  58

  Pamela shuddered, in Andy Martin’s armchair. ‘It makes my flesh creep,’ she said, ‘to know that even as we’re sitting here, strangers are searching my home.’

  Skinner smiled, glancing across at Martin. ‘I suppose it’s a sort of justice for a copper. You and I have done the same thing to other people often enough.’ He looked round at Pam. ‘Maybe you haven’t, honey, not yet at least, but it’s part of the career you’ve chosen, part of making a difference, as you put it.

  ‘Perhaps it’s only right that we should have a taste of how our subjects feel, not so much the villains we’re after, but their families, when we invade their homes and start tearing the most private parts of their lives apart.

  ‘Remember that Japanese bloke, out in Balerno . . .’

  ‘Talking about private parts, you mean?’ interjected Martin, from the kitchen door.

  Skinner laughed, short and savage, and in that time a gleam came into his eye. Pam started in her chair as she caught a glimpse of a man she did not know, a glimpse, she realised, of Bob as he had been before life had cut him so deep. She shivered slightly as she realised also that perhaps it was a man she did not really want to know.

  ‘Aye, maybe,’ he said. ‘But I was trying to be serious. I was thinking of his poor bewildered wife, confronted with a team of hard-faced men and women, bursting into her home armed with a warrant. As far as I know she’s back in Japan now, picking up her life, but I bet that’s one experience she’ll never get over.

  ‘We’ve got it easy, Pammy, compared to her. Our houses are being gone over by a DCC and a Chief Super, not by Tom, Dick and Harriet, or even Neil, Mario and Maggie.’

  ‘But what about yours?’ she said. ‘Won’t they be tearing up the carpets and everything?’

  ‘Nah. They’ll be going through the motions. Algernon knows well enough that if I am bent, I’ve had time and warning enough to hide the evidence where he’ll never find it. In a real search, for a single piece of paper, he wouldn’t just be under the carpets, he’d be under the floor, and into the ventilation grilles and damp courses.’

  ‘That’s right, Pam,’ called Martin, in his chef’s apron, quartering a yellow pepper, ready for the food processor. ‘Only he doesn’t expect to find it, because he doesn’t really believe Bob’s bent.’

  He stepped back into the doorway. ‘Where would you hide a piece of paper?’ he asked.

  Skinner smiled. ‘Same place as you, and I’ll bet Algie looks there, too.’

  Behind him, the living-room door opened. Alex stood there, smiling. ‘All over,’ she said. ‘Congratulations, you two. All three houses are clear. They were very thorough. They even looked among Jazz’s nappies down in Fairyhouse Avenue. But they cleared everything up too.’

  ‘Too effing right!’ said Bob. ‘Did they say anything?’

  ‘About the search, no. Salmon has agreed that Mr Laidlaw should sit in on the interview though.’ She looked across at Andy, and at the pepper in his hand. ‘Is that as far as you’ve got with dinner? Here, out of the way.’

  The kitchen was too small for four to work together, and so Bob and Pam went out together, t
o the nearest Oddbins, to choose the wine for the evening.

  They took a conscious decision to talk about golf, music, food and drink over dinner - anything, Bob insisted, but work, politics and sex. But eventually, the meal was over; eventually, the dregs of coffee were drying in their cups.

  ‘I’ve got something else for you, now,’ said Andy to Skinner, at last. ‘Something that Pam’s been involved in. Joe Doherty called today.’

  Bob started in his seat. ‘Nothing to do with Sarah?’ he asked, but his friend stilled his anxiety with a smile and a shake of the head.

  ‘No, no. This is some checking up we asked him to do under the Old Pals’ Act, on the ownership of Spotlight. We got a result.

  ‘Remember Everard Balliol?’

  Skinner frowned. ‘Yank? Golfer? Witches Hill Pro-Am? Bad loser? Am I getting close?’

  ‘Spot on.’ Andy launched into Joe Doherty’s account of Balliol’s interests, of his nature, and of his Scottish connections.

  ‘What does that make you wonder?’ he asked, when he was finished.

  ‘A hell of a lot, my son,’ said Bob. ‘A hell of a lot.

  ‘You know, I was wondering what to do with myself tomorrow. With me having to keep back from the investigations, and away from my own bloody office, I thought that I’d be at a loose end. Not any more. Now my Sunday’s laid out for me.’

  ‘How?’ asked Alex. ‘What will you be doing?’

  ‘I’m surprised you have to ask, daughter. I’ll be driving up to Erran Mhor, north of Fort William. Mr Everard Balliol is one bastard that I want to look in the eye!’

  59

  Pamela was at work at her desk when Martin and Alan Royston returned from the stormy Sunday morning press briefing, held only to record the fact that, twenty-four hours after the murder of the Secretary of State’s wife, there was still no progress to report.

  Not unnaturally, neither man was smiling.

  She had offered to go with Skinner on his search for Balliol, but he had turned her down firmly. ‘I can’t do anything to help find these kids, Pam, but you can, even if it’s only by sitting at a desk beside a telephone, waiting for it to ring.’