Donaldson braked as soon as the Vauxhall was out of sight, and Mcllhenney jumped out.
He was headed at a half-trot up the slight slope, and turned into Victoria Street, just in time to see the soldier kiss Ariadne, and hug her to him. 'Oh aye,' the Sergeant muttered.
He was about to step back into Abbey Orchard Street, for fear of being spotted, when the pair turned away from him, the soldier's arm around the woman's shoulder and stepped into the doorway from which he had emerged.
Donaldson appeared at his shoulder. 'Where'd they go?'
Ìn there, sir. The guy was in the court. They must have arranged to meet here. Let's see what this place is.' They advanced towards the spot, just as the taxi drew away. Through the glass, the DCI thought he saw the driver wave goodbye.
Ìt's a wine bar, sir. What's it called?' Mcllhenney peered at the sign. 'Methuselah's. Very twee. Do we go in?'
Donaldson shook his head. 'No, no way. She'd spot us. We in luck, though. New Scotland Yard's just across the street. phone Garen Price, and tell him we need a hand.'
`You might ask him to bring us a camera, too. We'll want identify that soldier. I'm not brilliant on Army uniforms, but I got a feeling that his was the same as Major Legge's -
the RAOC.'
`What, you mean . .
Àye, sir, I do: the explosives experts!'
FIFTY-ONE
‘Jesus, Neil, are they ever coming out of there?' It was almost seven-thirty; Ariadne and the soldier had been in Methuselah's for almost three hours. The two Scots policemen sat in their borrowed Cavalier, parked on Victoria Street a hundred yards away from the bar.
'I don't know, but I'll tell you one thing. Whatever they're drinking, they've had more than one bottle. I hope our Welsh pal isn't keeping pace with them.'
Just at that moment, as if Mcllhenney had summoned him, white light spilled out into the street as Methuselah's door opened and Detective Sergeant Garen Price stepped out. He looked around for the car and then ran towards it. 'All these Welsh boys play rugby,' said Donaldson. 'From the way that one moves I'd say he was a hooker.'
`What, like Lily Savage?' said Mcllhenney, but the line was lost on the DCI. He reached back to open the rear nearside door for his Metropolitan colleague.
`They're just about to leave,' Price gasped, as he climbed in. 'He's calling a cab and she's paying the bill.'
What were they doing in there?' Donaldson asked. 'Eating,' said the Welshman, smiling.
'Not eating each other?'
They were affectionate, guy, but they were more interested in the lentil soup and the creamed smoked haddock. Very tasty they were too,' he added, with a smile.
Mcllhenney eyebrows rose in indignation. 'Christ, listen to him! We've been out here freezing our gonads off and he's been at the scran!'
The bullet-headed Welshman grinned even wider. 'Had to keep up appearances, mate. I'd have looked a right dildo sat there for three hours munching the free peanuts and gherkins.'
`How did they seem?' asked Donaldson.
`She looked relaxed enough. The guy seemed a bit tense, though. She was always stroking his hand and the like, as if she was soothing him.'
`Maybe the bugger has reason to feel tense.'
`Hoi, here they come.' Price pointed back down Victoria Street, towards another black cab which was waiting outside the bistro. A few seconds later Ariadne Tucker and her escort appeared.
He opened the taxi door and held it for her. She was slightly taller than him, and had to bend to kiss him. She hugged him, quickly, and stepped inside the taxi. To the watchers'
surprise, the soldier closed the door after her.
‘Dammit!' snapped Donaldson. 'They're splitting up.' `What'll we do?' asked McIlhenney.
`You two bale out and follow the soldier, wherever he goes. I'll tail Ariadne home . . . if that's where she's headed!'
FIFTY-TWO
Andy Martin looked at the bed and saw his father, on the day he died.
Phil Martin had been in his early fifties when the cerebral haemorrhage had struck him down, without warning, in his stand seat at Parkhead, ten minutes from the end of an early season Celtic vs. Aberdeen league match.
He had been rushed to the Southern General Hospital, but not even the skills of Scotland's finest neurosurgeons could save him.
His son had arrived at the hospital late in the evening, having been flagged down on his way back from a day on the beach by a police colleague warned to look out for him.
He had been shown into a small room, not unlike this one. He had seen a still figure lying beneath a single sheet. Then he had been told the prognosis by the consultant neurologist.
Finally, after a heart-rending discussion with his mother, he had given his permission for his father's ventilator to be switched off, and with it, his life.
He had been to neither church nor confession since the day of the funeral, but now, looking at his friend, he remembered his own decision and offered up a prayer that Sarah would not be forced to do the same thing.
`How's he doing?' he whispered, taking the seat beside her. `His pulse is still firm and stable, but it isn't coming down fast enough for my liking.'
`What does the surgeon say?'
Òh,' she sighed, 'he says I shouldn't worry about it. He says the shock was pretty severe, and that it's still only twelve hours or so since he came out of surgery. He's right, of course, but still . . She glanced up at the bank of monitors, her young face pale and drawn.
'I just don't like it, that's all.'
Andy took her hand. 'Sarah, my dear. You need a break from here.'
`No!’ Her mouth drew into a tight line. 'I'm staying with him.'
He nodded. 'Fine, I understand that. All I'm saying is that you should go home for a couple of hours. Have a bath, see the baby, and have something to eat, then come back. Alex has a meal ready for you. I'll sit with him while you're away.'
She looked at him, wavering. There were dark circles under her eyes.
`Go on,' he said. 'There's a traffic car waiting for you downstairs. It'll take you home, and have you back here before midnight.'
She shook her head, still reluctant. 'No. What if something . . . happens?'
`Sarah, I promise you that if his condition changes, either way, that police car will have you back here in ten minutes.' He took her arm, and standing, drew her to her feet with him. Now on you go. There's another fellow back home needs you as well.'
Finally, she nodded. 'Okay, but you will call if anything changes!'
Ì promise. But everything'll be okay, you wait and see.'
Her mind made up, she kissed him on the cheek, and left the Unit — hurrying, almost, lest her resolve should crack.
The door had barely closed behind her when Bob's arm moved on the cover, trembling perceptibly. His fingers twitched as if he was reaching, in a dream, for something familiar which had disappeared.
Instinctively, Andy took his hand, and grasped it tight. The tremor stilled at once.
`There, there, Big Man,' he whispered. 'It's all right, she'll be back. The reserve team's on for a few hours, that's all.' He gazed at his unconscious friend, and saw the slightest flicker of his right eyelid.
`Christ,' he said. 'I wonder what's going on in there? Knowing you, though, it'll be about police work!'
FIFTY-THREE
‘You two took your time. Where the hell have you been?' Dave Donaldson pushed himself out of his armchair as Mcllhenney and Price appeared in the doorway of the Strand Palace bar.
`Bloody Aldershot,' growled McIlhenney. The flicker led us all the way to bloody Aldershot.' He glared at the DCI. 'Rank has its privileges, so get them in. Mine's a pint, and Garen'll have the same.'
Òkay, I'll swing for that. You sound as if you've earned it.' He stepped across to the bar, a few feet away, and ordered the drinks.
`How about you?' asked his Sergeant. 'Did you have any more excitement?'
'Nah. She went straight home from the wine bar.
Her mother was still there. She seems to be in residence, so I don't imagine that Ariadne'll have a gentleman caller through the night.' He nodded to Price. 'I left one of your night-shift colleagues there just in case, though.'
He handed a precisely metered pint of ale across to Mcllhenney, who looked' at it sceptically.
`When I got back here,' said Donaldson, returning to their table with the other beers, 'there was a SOCO report waiting for me, about the Noble house. The Scene of Crime people went over the place today. Their report was interesting. They found definite signs of an attempted break-in, via a small, unalarmed mezzanine window.'
‘Oh aye? said the Sergeant, his level of interest and his eyebrows rising simultaneously.
`That was all, mind you. There was no concrete evidence that anyone had been inside, but the window had been attacked, and although, as I said, it would have been a tight fit, it was big enough to admit a slim-built person — a youth, maybe, or a woman!
`Could they say how recent this was?' asked Price.
Donaldson shook his head. 'No, not for sure. They reckoned the marks were pretty fresh but they couldn't put an exact date on them. They lifted a print, though, off the window frame, and some strands of wool, like from a glove.'
`Wearing gloves, yet leaving prints?' Mcllhenney queried.
`That's what I said to myself too, but the report reckoned that the housebreaker would have had to take a glove off to get any purchase on the window.'
Did you check whether an attempted break-in had been reported by either of the Nobles?'
`SOCO were up to that one, Neil. That was included in their report. There's been nothing notified to the police at that address, ever, apart from an incident a year ago, when Ariadne complained that she had been receiving anonymous letters.'
‘Eh?' said the big Sergeant, choking in mid-swallow. 'What happened?'
`The local CID dealt with it. Apparently there had been three letters addressed to her husband, accusing her of having a bit on the side. Their investigation was fruitless, but the letters stopped anyway, according to the Nobles.'
‘Do any of them still exist, sir?'
Donaldson laughed. 'Apparently wee Maurice was so outraged that he burned the first two. His wife hung on to the third, and gave it to the police. They couldn't get a thing from it other than the fact that it was done on word-processing software, printed on a high-quality laser and posted in Tottenham. Once the investigation had been abandoned, Ariadne asked for the letter back, so that it could be destroyed as well.'
Mcllhenney looked at him in astonishment. 'And they gave it to her?'
Àpparently so. Who knows, maybe strings were pulled.' `Some strings, sir. Are we going to do anything about it?' Donaldson shrugged. 'I don't know. I'll speak to Arrow and to Andy Martin in the morning.'
McIlhenney's expression grew grim. 'When were you in touch with Edinburgh last?'
Àbout an hour ago. There's no change; he's still unconscious.' They sat in silence for a while, until eventually Mcllhenney went back to the bar for three more pints.
`So tell us about the soldier,' said Donaldson as he resumed his seat.
Mcllhenney glowered at him again. 'Bloody Aldershot, like I said. He caught a train at Victoria, so like good coppers we got on too. When we get to the other end, does he order a taxi? Does he hell! He's a fit lad so he walked the two miles instead. Eventually he arrives at a bloody Army camp.
`There was a security post there, and he showed a pass. That stuffed us. I mean, we could hardly walk up to the Redcaps and say, "Excuse me, but who was that soldier boy who just walked in here?" We couldn't do anything but turn around and come back. A waste of bloody time,' he growled.
`Not altogether. At least we know where he's based now; there can't be an infinite number of RAOC Lieutenants there.' McIlhenney shook his head. 'We could have worked out where he was stationed, and as for identification, we managed to get some decent pictures at Victoria. We dropped them off at the Yard on the way back here.'
Donaldson nodded approvingly. 'Well done. We'll show them to Arrow first thing in the morning. While we're at it, we can discuss what to do about Ms Tucker's possible midnight caller . . . and about those anonymous letters!'
FIFTY-FOUR
Sarah woke with a start, disorientated. She gazed at Bob on the bed, bathed in the pale green light of the monitor screens, and wondered what could have disturbed her.
He looked so peaceful, lying there. She thought of a hundred other times in their short life together when she had watched him sleep, and could not recall having seen him look so restful She pressed his hand gently, lovingly.
All at once she realised what had roused her. She realised too how closely she was in tune with the working of his body. The touch of his hand was noticeably warmer than it had been an hour earlier. She looked at the heart-rate monitor. The blips of his pulse, while still regular, were moving across the screen at a significantly faster rate than before.
She grabbed the panic button, which hung on the end of a long cable at the head of the bed and pressed it, once, twice, three times. Within seconds the Night Sister came bustling in from her station. 'What is it, Dr Grace?' she whispered.
`His temperature's taken a hike. And look at the pulse! Something's wrong.'
Distrustful of monitors, the white-haired sister lifted Bob's right wrist from the bed, and held it for around twenty seconds. `Don't get yourself in a panic, my dear, but I think I'll ask someone to come up here.'
'Who's going to be around at this time of night?' asked Sarah anxiously.
'Mr Braeburn, the consultant. He's staying on the premises tonight:
'What? Because of—'
Sister looked at her reassuringly. 'Of course not. He has an early start in surgery tomorrow, that's the only reason,' she said, lying in her teeth, but knowing that Sarah would believe her because she wanted to. She hurried back to her station.
In less than five minutes, the door opened and Mr Braeburn slipped into the Unit. He was a tall, thin man with fine surgeon's hands. His hair was so unruly that for a moment or two Sarah had difficulty recognising him as the same person who, still in his theatre clothes, had briefed her that morning on Bob's surgery and on his prospects.
`Hello again, Doctor,' he said. 'Let's have a look at the prize patient, shall we?'
He went quickly and expertly through a string of procedures, checking pulse, heart, breathing, temperature and blood pressure, lifting one of Bob's eyelids and testing his pupil reaction with a pencil torch.
When he was finished, he withdrew to the head of the bed, motioning Sarah to join him.
'It's damn funny. Blood pressure is as it should be, so I'm quite certain that the arterial sutures are holding, and that there's no internal bleeding. He's not in the clear yet, by a long way, but physically he's in good shape for someone who should have been dead when he was brought in here. He's heavily sedated, yet he seems agitated.'
He clutched his chin between thumb and first finger. 'I think I'm going to ask Sister to give him some more sedative, just to slow that heart-rate down a bit. He looks like a man who could handle some extra jungle juice.
She looked up at him. 'But what's causing it? What's raising his pulse?'
Mr Braeburn shrugged. 'Who knows? I wish I knew what's going on inside his head, because the best answer I can give you is that something in there is making him fight the sedative!'
FIFTY-FIVE
‘He looks like a real fookin' bandbox, doesn't he? If I'd kept my uniform as neat as that, when I wore one, I'd 'ave been a Colonel by now.'
`You don't know him, then?'
Arrow looked at Donaldson with the disdain normally shown only by Glaswegians when they are asked by Southerners whether they know someone from Edinburgh.
`Neil,' he said slowly. 'I know the Army isn't what it was. I know we've shrunk a bit. But if I knew every one-pipper in every Regiment, we'd really be in trouble!' He handed the photograph to the DCI. 'How old would you s
ay the lad was?'
The DCI made a shrugging gesture, then handed it back. Dunno. I didn't get a close enough look at him. What do you think, Sergeant?'
'Mid-twenties, I'd guess.'
Arrow sank back in his chair, making himself look even smaller. 'A bit young, maybe, to be having it off with an 'ighpowered lady in her thirties?'
`Who can say for sure?' countered Donaldson. 'Maybe Ariadne has a thing about men in uniform.'
`Could be,' said the soldier, 'though wearing one never did me any good in that regard. But then,' he added with a twinkle, Ì'm only little!'
He rose from his chair and walked over to the window of his top-floor office. It faced south, out across the autumnal Embankment, and over the cold grey waters of the Thames.
He stood there, watching a barge as it made its steady way downriver, flapping the photograph idly in his left hand, and tapping the glass with the knuckles of the other.
Eventually, he turned back to face Donaldson and Mcllhenney, holding up the snapshot.
'Right, lads. Leave this with me. I'll have someone check the records downstairs. We've got, or should 'ave, a photograph of every serving officer in this building, so it shouldn't take us long to trace this guy. Meantime, what about these anonymous letters that you mentioned? What does Andy Martin say you should do about them?'
`He agreed that we should follow them up,' said the DCI. 'We want a complete picture of this couple. I'm intending to call on Ariadne again this evening. Want to come with us?'
Arrow shook his head. 'No, I don't think so. I've got other plans for this evening. Anyway, this is a purely civil matter. If I was there she might want to know why.'
`Yes, I see that.' He paused, then handed over the SOCO Report. 'Right. Last item on the agenda. Read this.'
Arrow took the document and scanned through it. As he did his face darkened. He read through it again, more slowly this time. `What do you think of it?' asked Donaldson.
Skinner's Ordeal Page 19