Skinner's Ordeal

by Quintin Jardine

  `Which hotel were you in?'

  ‘The Rubens, between Victoria Station and Buckingham Palace.'

  That's one more link in the chain of evidence. We've got motive, threat, access to weapons technology and hardware. Now you tell us that you were in the vicinity when the crime was committed. Be reasonable, Mr Sawyer; try to see where I'm coming from.'

  Sawyer flared at him. 'I'll tell you where you can go, as well.'

  Martin smiled. Ì'm sorry, I won't be going anywhere until you can persuade me that you didn't kill Colin Davey, or that you couldn't have had anything to do with his death.'

  `How can I do that when you've made up your mind already?' `No, I haven't, sir. I—' He broke off, as Sammy Pye's sombre face appeared in the doorway.

  `Mr Martin,' said the young DC. 'We've found some things. They're out here.'

  Òkay, Sammy.' He stood up from the desk. 'Mr Sawyer, you'd better come too.'

  Pye led them in single file, through the hallway, out of the house and round into the vast garage building; or rather into what was in part a garage.

  The greater area was set up as a workshop; a very specialist workshop. In the corner there was a small forge, with an anvil beside it, and hammers hanging on a rack. Not far away stood an oxyacetylene cylinder, a mask, and cutting gear. In the centre of the area was a workbench, on which were stacked several sheets of stainless steel. Scraps of metal lay all around the floor.

  Now if you'll follow me again, please, sir,' said Pye. He led Martin back out of the workshop and into the house, Sawyer, Swift and Superintendent Hawes following behind.

  When we arrived, sir, I couldn't help noticing the skirt that Mrs Sawyer was wearing. It's leather, and it's virtually the same colour as the stuff on the box that Mr Skinner recovered on Friday. So while the lads were searching the garage building I had a look around in here.'

  He led the way up a narrow stairway which led off the back of the hall. This could have been the maid's quarters, once upon a time,' said Martin, as they climbed.

  `But not now, sir,' said Pye. 'In here.' He led the way into a small room, with a wide double window which overlooked the gardens to the rear of the house. Before it stood a wide table, with a heavy-duty sewing machine positioned at one end. The rest of the table was covered with thread spools and paper patterns, some of which were weighted down by a large pair of black scissors. To the right of the table there was a big divided stable-style door. Pye opened the upper half, to reveal a deep-shelved cupboard, packed with bolts of material. He reached in and removed one, unrolling it and holding it up for Martin and the others to see.

  It was bright red leather.

  Martin stared at the material, then at Sawyer. 'Jesus Christ,' he whispered, to no one. 'The man's made his own Red Box!'

  In the dead silence, his mobile telephone rang.

  EIGHTY-ONE

  ‘Yes, sir, I'll call you back as soon as we've got something to report.'

  Donaldson switched off his phone. 'The Chief Super says we should go in. He's in the middle of his search just now, at the Sawyer bloke's place. He didn't go into detail, Adam, but he said to tell you that he's going to be busy there for a while.'

  Ìs he, indeed? Well, let's go and find out if we've got a couple of rival candidates in here.'

  The trio climbed out of the car, and set off round the corner of the hedgerow. They skirted the pond on the narrow side and headed directly for the cottage, past the two cars.

  `Lieutenant Richards's father must have left him a few quid as well as the cottage,' said Donaldson. 'That's a top-of-the-range Laguna.'

  The wooden garden gate creaked slightly as Arrow opened it, but otherwise they approached the old house silently. There was no bell, only a huge, old-fashioned, blue-painted knocker. The little soldier seized it and rapped, as loudly as he could, once, twice, three times. They stood there for almost a minute, listening for sounds within, but hearing none.

  `D'you think they might have gone for a walk while I was Phoning Andy?' whispered Donaldson.

  Arrow grinned at him, almost impishly. 'What would your priorities be in this situation?'

  He reached for the knocker again, but as he did so, the door opened. Ariadne Tucker QC

  stood there, holding it slightly ajar. Her pink satin robe was tied tight around her waist, but still she held it closed at the neck, with her left hand. Tigger the cat rubbed itself luxuriantly against her bare ankles. She looked at Mcllhenney, who was slightly flushed with embarrassment, then at Donaldson, and finally down at Arrow.

  She looked surprised, but a long way short of alarmed. 'Oh dear,' she said at last, in her long slow barrister's tone. 'This is very difficult. I think you'd better come in.'

  She turned and walked back into the cottage, with the cat padding along behind her. The front door led directly into a huge room, with plastered, painted walls and a shiny rug-strewn stone floor. There was a huge fireplace set in the gable wall, filled with blazing logs. Facing it, a staircase led up to the attic.

  She walked over to it and put her foot on the first step. `Darling,' she called out, 'I think you'd better come down. Some gentlemen are here to see us. Oh, and do put something on!'

  The soldier and the policemen stood awkwardly in front of the hearth and waited.

  Ì'll make some tea,' said Ariadne brightly.

  Ì'd rather you stayed here, ma'am,' said Arrow.

  `No, Captain, I think tea would be a good idea.' She turned and disappeared through a door in the far corner of the room. As the door closed behind her, Tigger ran across the floor and up the staircase. Arrow made as if to follow it, but stopped with his foot on the bottom step.

  He called up into the attic. 'As the lady said . . . would you come down, please, Sir Stewart.'

  Upstairs, a few seconds later, a door creaked. Slowly, and with as much dignity as he could maintain, Sir Stewart Morelli descended, his face a strange mixture of outrage and apprehension. He wore cavalry-twill trousers with a check Viyella shirt, but he was barefoot.

  `How did you know?' Donaldson asked the soldier, incredulously.

  Ìt was something Ariadne said, the first time we saw her. She mentioned my Army background, before I came to this job. She said that Maurice had told her, but he couldn't have. Nor could Colin Davey, even. In Whitehall, access to my file is restricted to Morelli and the Chief of Staff, and that old bugger doesn't gossip.'

  `You never expected to find Richards here, did you?'

  `Well, I couldn't be certain, but when I saw that flash car outside, I knew for sure it wouldn't be him. This house was all the vicar left his son.'

  Morelli had reached the foot of the staircase. 'Arrow,' he barked, with a show of bluster.

  'What the hell is all this about? What are you doing here?'

  Ì'm sorry, Permanent Secretary,' said the soldier brusquely, `but those are my lines. I'm assisting these officers in a murder investigation, and we find you right in the middle of it.

  Like it or not, we'll have to ask you about your relationship with Ms Tucker . . . no, goddammit!' he snapped. 'With Mrs Noble.'

  Morelli looked at Donaldson and Mcllhenney. 'Very well,' lie said. ‘But I must ask the police to leave.'

  `You're in no position to do that, sir.'

  Donaldson put a hand on Arrow's shoulder. 'Adam, in the circumstances, we don't mind.

  We'll wait in the car.'

  The little man looked up at him. 'Okay, but not in the car. I want you handy. Wait in the kitchen. I'm sure Ariadne'll give you tea.'

  The detectives left by the door under the stairs. Arrow and Morelli faced each other across the room. They were silent for some time, as the soldier stared out the civil servant.

  `How long, Sir Stewart?' he asked at last.

  Àround a year,' came a voice from the doorway. Ariadne re-entered, carrying a laden tray. Automatically, Arrow stepped across and took it from her, placing it on a low table before the fire. She began to fill the three cups.

  `We
met at a Ministry evening I attended with Maurice,' she said as she poured. 'It was just one of those things. I had come to the end of my tether with Little Mo, as I called him.

  He was a lovely, intense chap . . . indeed, that was what drew me to him in the first place .

  . . but in the context of a marriage his intensity turned to possessiveness and pretty soon, as I told you, to paranoia.'

  `So you gave the poor little bugger something to be paranoid about.'

  She smiled coldly, taking a fireside seat facing her lover. 'I suppose you could put it that way.'

  The look in his eyes stopped her smile stone dead. 'I just did,' he said. He turned to the Permanent Secretary, who had taken another seat by the fireside and was warming his bare feet.

  `So, Sir Stewart, let me get this right. You two were having it off, before Maurice was given the Private Office job.'

  Ì don't like your turn of phrase, Arrow,' the man snapped.

  `Tough. It suits the circumstances. Let me take it a little further. You two were having it off, but poor paranoid Maurice was giving Her Ladyship grief, making things difficult. So you came up with a wheeze. You'd give him the Private Office post, so that he would be away from home with the Secretary of State for long periods of time, leaving the field clear for you two to indulge in whatever it is you indulge in. All of us could see that the poor little bugger was never fit for the job, yet you shoved him into it, with promises of joy thereafter, and left him at the mercy of that shit Colin Davey.'

  He glanced back towards the woman. 'If you'd reached the end of your patience with Maurice, why didn't you just leave him and set up home together?'

  She peered at him coolly and smiled again. 'Because Lady Morelli would have been most upset. Because the Bar Council would have taken a dim view. Because neither of our careers could have stood the scandal,' she said.

  `Get used to all those ideas now,' the little man growled.

  Àrrow,' said Morelli, 'before we go any further, how did you trace us here?'

  `Through young Richards, who owns this love-nest. We saw him with Ariadne, and then we heard her make arrangements with him for the weekend. My policemen friends thought we were going to find him here.'

  `You tapped my telephone?' the woman blurted out indignantly.

  `Too bloody right we tapped your telephone. You're an adulteress, and your husband's just been killed by a device planted in a Red Box to which you had access all of the night before it exploded. I reckon you'd rather appear for the prosecution than for the defence in those circumstances.'

  She stared at him, and went very pale.

  Now, Stephen William Richards: where the 'ell does he fit in?'

  `Your vetting procedures should be more thorough,' she said defiantly. 'Stephen is Maurice's half-brother. Their mother divorced her first husband, married Stephen's dad, had him, then died, all in short order. Maurice's dad, who was a really nice man, helped him through school and college, out of the goodness of his heart, because apart from this cottage, the Reverend Richards didn't have a bean.'

  Arrow shook his head. 'And after all that generosity, the lad repays Maurice by helping you to cuckold him with Sir Knight, 'ere!'

  `No, it wasn't like that. Stephen is devoted to me. He saw how unhappy I was with Maurice, so he helped us.'

  `What was Plan B?' the soldier asked suddenly.

  Ìf Stephen couldn't get up to town to give me the key personally, whoever got here first could pick up the spare from his cleaning lady Mary, on the check-out in the supermarket where she works at weekends. We've never had to do that before.'

  `Why didn't he give you the key at Methuselah's?'

  She looked at him in surprise. 'My, you have been nosy, because he didn't have it with him, silly. He only came up to see me that day because he was devastated about Maurice, and wanted my shoulder to cry on. I asked him to come back up with the key, but he was trapped on base by an inspection.'

  Ì know that. I arranged it,' said Arrow. He looked across at her, in her chair. He could see that she was trying to keep her composure, but her hands were working unconsciously and nervously in her lap, and the lapel of her satin robe had slipped down, exposing most of her left breast.

  `That's all very fine, Ariadne,' he said, 'but here's the prosecution case. Richards betrayed his brother because he'd do anything to have that black mark taken off his record, the one that Morelli put there, personally, after he and Davey crucified him for his indiscretions. A clean sheet and early promotion. That's what's in it for him. That's the object of his heart's desire, as you put it. That's how you two forced him to let you use his cottage, and his bed.'

  His eyes flashed across to the Permanent Secretary. 'Isn't right, Sir Stewart? And DON'T

  think of lying to me!'

  `Yes' Slowly Morelli nodded, looking down at his bare feet now reddened with scorch-marks from the fire.

  'Right. Now let me extend the case. You were supposed to be on that plane last week, but when Davey booked himself on, you withdrew. Having done that, you told young Richards, an explosives expert, to make you a device. Just before Maurice left for the plane, Ariadne slipped it into his Red Box.

  `Maybe it was meant to explode in the taxi, or perhaps later, when he and Davey were alone. Because Davey didn't fancy you either, Sir Stewart; everyone in the Private Office corridor knew that too. So maybe the plan was to take him and Maurice out together. But no . . . maybe the pair of you are just so evil that you didn't care where the bomb blew up.

  Whichever way, it all fits. Like a glove.'

  To his immense, if private satisfaction, he saw that for the first time they both looked thoroughly frightened.

  `We didn't!' Morelli protested, at last, while Ariadne sat, ashen. 'That wasn't why I withdrew from that trip. I pulled out only because Davey's decision to go meant that Maurice would be away for the weekend, and Ariadne and I could be together. And you'll never get Richards to admit to doing anything like you say.'

  `How well do you know me, Sir Stewart?' asked Arrow quietly. Ì'll have a bloody good try. And anyway, how do you know he didn't do it? Even if you weren't involved yourself, how do you know that she and the lad didn't cook the idea up between them?'

  `That's bollocks,' said the woman, recovering some of her assurance, 'but it's all irrelevant anyway. There are no witnesses to this conversation. You don't think we'll repeat any of this, do You?'

  The soldier looked at her, pityingly. 'Don't be daft, luv. I had the spooks wire this whole place up last night. Every word of this, and every bump, grind and creaking bed-spring from before we got 'ere, it's all down on tape.' He jerked a thumb towards Morelli.

  Ì've already got his admission that he used improper influence on a serving Army officer, to help him pursue a sexual relationship with a junior colleague's wife. Maybe you two killed Maurice, Massey and Davey and all the rest; maybe one of you did; maybe neither of you did. But you are a pair of treacherous bastards, and for you at least, Sir Stewart, it's the end of your career.'

  He looked from one to the other. 'It's also the end of your dirty weekend. The two of you will come back with us to London, voluntarily, and you'll be interviewed, formally, by the police. After that, we'll decide what's to happen. If you don't agree, you will be arrested . .

  `By whom?' asked Ariadne?

  `By me, ma'am,' he replied formally, without a trace of his customary bantering accent.

  'My position gives me that authority . . . as Sir Stewart will tell you. If I have to do that, you'll be taken directly to Scotland, where you'll be interviewed by the officer in charge of the investigation. So tell me. Where are we going?'

  `London,' said Morelli wearily. 'We'll go to London.'

  `Good. We leave as soon as Her Ladyship's dressed and you've got your bloody shoes on.

  Until then, neither of you will be out of my presence.' His glare stopped Ariadne's protest, even as it formed on her tongue. Ì'm not having either of you getting on your mobiles to warn the boy
Richards.'

  He called out towards the kitchen. 'Dave, Neil! Find the bloody cat, if you can, then get in here. We're all heading back to London.

  EIGHTY-TWO

  “Yesterday was quite a stunner, Bob, for me as well as for you. But I see that sort of thing every now and again in a patient; a deeply-suppressed memory forced to the top by a recent trauma.

  Ì'm not surprised you kept the recollection hidden from yourself all these years. It must have been bad enough for a twenty-two year old to be thrust into something like that, but to find that you had been on the same plane just a few days before .

  He shook his head. 'Tell me, were you given any counselling after the experience? Were you even offered any?'

  Skinner laughed softly. 'Don't be daft, Kevin. We didn't have things like that back in the seventies.'

  `Then God alone knows how many damaged people like you we have wandering around.

  You wouldn't care to sue your Force, would you? I'd be happy to give expert evidence on your behalf.' In the corner, Sarah spluttered with suppressed laughter.

  The DCC shook his head. 'Times have changed, man. As a Commander there's no one more in favour of stress counselling than I am. If I'm learning anything from this experience, it's that it should be compulsory from now on.' He paused and grinned again.

  'But before I can do anything about that, I have to get myself back to work. So let's get on with curing that mental toothache.

  O'Malley nodded. 'If you're absolutely sure you're ready. That was quite a session we had yesterday.'

  `Kev, after that, I can't wait to bring the rest out. I'm not just ready, I'm impatient.'

  Òkay, but let's slow down. You're too pumped up just now. I want to start with five minutes of relaxation and meditation. Just sink into those pillows, pick out that spot on the ceiling again, think your happy thought, and concentrate on them both to the exclusion of everything else.'

  Skinner was almost asleep before O'Malley counted him into his trance.

  `Hello, Bob,' said the psychiatrist gentry, once his patient's eyes were closed. 'I want you to take us into the dream again, at the point at which we left it yesterday. Let me know when we're there.'