Quintin Jardine - Skinner Skinner 07

by Skinner's Ghosts (pdf)

  '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.'

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

  'Well he has, Pops. This is stil 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 smal 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'l give you keys to Pam's place.'

  Laidlaw leaned across his desk. 'Bob, I have to ask you this. We've got copies of al 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 real y 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.

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  Because, when this is over and I go back in there, I'l 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'l 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 cal ed him Algie once, and was never seen again!'

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  "Bff

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  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 real y 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'l 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 gril es and damp courses.'

  'That's right, Pam,' cal ed Martin, in his chef's apron, quartering 197

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  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 betAlgie looks there, too.'

  Behind him, the living-room door opened. Alex stood there, smiling. 'Al over,' she said. 'Congratulations, you two. Al 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 smal for four to work together, and so Bob and Pam went out together, to 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 cal ed 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 ofBal iol's interests, of his nature, and of his Scottish connections.

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

  'A he
l 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!'

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  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 stil no progress to report.

  Not unnatural y, 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.'

  And so she had gone to work, to her desk, and the telephone had rung, once.

  She waited for Alan Royston to leave the Chief Superintendent's office before knocking on his door. 'Excuse me, sir,' she said, impeccably formally, 'while you were away, there was a call; from a

  lady. She didn't leave a name, just a number.'

  She handed him a note, and left.

  Once he was alone, he punched the 0171 number which Pamela had given him into his direct telephone. The cal was answered after three rings. 'Yeah?' said an unmistakably American voice.

  'Andy Martin, Head of CID, Edinburgh. You rang me?'

  'Yeah, hi, I'm Caroline Farmer. I cal ed about the tape you sent down yesterday. No luck with this one, I'm afraid.'

  'Is there anything at al that you can tell me?' the Scot asked.

  'Nothing that's gonna help you. The message was recorded on some fairly average equipment, a standard ghetto-blaster, I'd say. Apart from the sound of the tape motor itself, and someone breathing next to the mike, there is absolutely no background noise.

  'This tape was recorded indoors, for sure. There's no traffic noise, no birdsong, no rustling leaves, just that motor and the breathing, like I said.'

  'How about the message? The news bulletin and the child were definitely recorded at the same time, were they?'

  'For sure. The radio sound came from another receiver. If he'd been dubbing off the ghetto-blaster itself you wouldn't hear the kid over it as it fades. Also there's a faint click as he switches the other radio off.'

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  'How about the breathing itself?'

  Caroline Farmer chuckled. 'What can I tell you? You breathe in, you breathe out. From the rate of respiration, I'd say that it was a man, but that's al . Sorry to disappoint.'

  'Fair enough,' sighed Martin. 'Thanks, Ms Farmer. There's no disappointment; we real y didn't expect anything more. Have the tape sent back up with your report, please.'

  He hung up, staring out of his window and cursing quietly, at the slamming of another door. When he looked round, there was a bul et-headed figure in his doorway. 'Yes?' he asked, curtly, 'Don't you believe in knocking?'

  'Not a lot, no. We haven't met. I'm DCC Al Cheshire, and you'l know why I'm here from your fiancee, and from her father, no doubt.

  I wonder if I could ask you to come with me, Chief Superintendent.

  I assure you. It's necessary.'

  Curiosity overcoming his annoyance, Martin nodded and rose, following his visitor out of the office, past Pamela and past Sammy Pye, both of whom looked up as they passed. 'Have you seen Salmon yet?' he asked, outside in the corridor.

  'Yes,' said Cheshire, amicably. 'He is an obnoxious little shit, isn't he? Pity you couldn't make that cocaine charge stick. He didn't tell us anything new, really. Stil insists that his sources on both stories about Skinner were anonymous.'

  'D'you believe him?'

  'Doesn't matter, real y. We can't force him to tel us anything, the way we're set up. Do you?'

  Martin smiled and shook his head. 'I never believe Salmon, not unless I know he's terrified.'

  'Then I suggest you scare him, Mr Martin,' said Cheshire quietly.

  He led the way into Skinner's office. Chief Superintendent Ericson was waiting inside, grim-faced.

  'We wanted you to see this right away,' said the investigator. 'Even though you're Skinner's mate, you're the senior man available.

  'As you know we searched his premises yesterday, and Miss Masters' flat. Clean as a whistle, as we'd expected, and frankly as we'd hoped.

  'But we were sitting here half an hour ago when Ronnie said to me, "Al, where do you feel most secure?", and I said to him, "In my office, don't I?" So we searched, in here, and I'm afraid we found this.' He walked behind Skinner's desk and pul ed out the top right-hand drawer, raising it slightly to free it from its track and lifting it clean out.

  He upturned it and held it out to Martin. The Chief Superintendent's heart sank, and his face fel . Taped to the underside of the drawer was a receipt. He looked closer: it bore a signature, a number, 200

  the crest of the JZG Bank, Guernsey, and a second number, UK

  73461.

  'I'm sorry, Mr Martin, I really am, but we're going to have to see the Lord Advocate at this point, with a recommendation. Can you call in a forensic team for us, please. I want this item removed by them, with the greatest care, then dusted independently for fingerprints.

  'I think you should cal your Chief Constable as wel , as a courtesy.

  Not Miss Skinner, however. We've reached a stage in this investigation when co-operation with the defence team should be suspended, in everyone's interests.

  'I hardly think I need to tell you. Chief Superintendent, but we real y are talking about criminal charges now.'

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  It is the variety of landscapes confined within such a smal country that makes Scotland a remarkable place.

  There is the flat industrial spread of the central belt, ever-changing in character as the blackest of the Black Country disappears to be replaced by new clean sunrise industry. There are the rolling uplands of the Borders regions, with their sheep and cattle grazing on their moors and pastures. There are the fertile coastal plains of the Lothians and Fife, their fields yellow in spring with rape flowers, and golden in summer with wheat, and with barley to fill the makings.

  And to the north, beyond the foothil s of the Campsies and the Ochils, there stand the Highlands, the mountain country where some say the real Scotland lies, the land which gave its men to rally behind the banner of the Young Pretender.

  Bob Skinner was a cynic when it came to the myths and legends of his own country. As he drove through Glencoe, he recal ed that its notorious massacre had been perpetrated by Scot upon Scot, clan upon clan, a family feud reaching a bloody conclusion. He knew that for all of those who had backed Prince Charlie, the Jacobite, there were many others who had maintained their loyalty to the Crown, distant and Germanic though it may have been.

  It was the grandeur of the mountains which touched the patriot in him. The suddenness of their approach seemed to give them stature above their measured height. There was no rolling approach to distant heights across a hundred-mile plain, as with the Pyrenees or the Alps.

  He had seen both, he had walked in both, yet neither impressed him as did the mountains of his home.

  There was something great and looming and threatening about Ben Nevis, approached from the south, and about al the other Munros, the Scottish peaks of greater than three thousand feet. It was small wonder, he thought as he drove on, that someone like Everard Balliol, to all intents as American as the Stars and Stripes itself, should be drawn back to roots which had been physically severed hundreds of years before.

  He thought of the American as he drove, and their last meeting, under a gathering storm around the eighteenth green of Witches H
il Golf and Country Club: sallow-skinned, mid-fifties, gunmetal, crew202

  y"

  cut hair, tall and lean. Those intense, ruthless, deadly serious eyes.

  The grudging, resentful admission of defeat. The challenge to another encounter.

  'Any time,' Skinner had said. 'Your place or mine.'

  Balliol's place, Erran Mhor, was such a significant estate that, unlike most private dwellings, it merited its own entry on the map of Scotland. The policeman stayed on the main road towards Wester Ross for almost thirty miles after passing through Fort William, at the base of the great Ben.

  Eventual y he came upon a single signpost, pointing westward like a finger and bearing the names Erran Mhor and Loch Mhor. He drove on for miles along the single-track road, with the mountains behind him, and without seeing another car. There were few trees on the peaty plain, and grey boulders and sheep, indistinguishable from a distance, were the only features of the landscape.

  He had no clue of whether or not he had passed on to Bal iol's estate, but gradually, the road rose once more towards a horizon above which he could see wheeling gulls. As he crested the rise the landscape changed, before him the land stretched, cultivated and tended, with neat forest plantations, reaching towards the head of a loch. He pul ed his car to a stop in a passing place, and climbed out, picking up a small pair of binoculars, to survey the scene.

  On the northern shore of Loch Mhor, Skinner could see the turrets of a castle, an impressive structure even from a distance. This was no historic monument built by feudal lords over the centuries, the policeman could tell, but the folly of a Victorian grandee, indulging himself upon money flowing from the sweat of poor people in Britain and around the Empire.

  Beyond Balliol's castle, and beyond a helicopter on its landing pad, there was a green area, with a few trees, and familiar golden patches. Skinner smiled, and sharpened the focus of his glasses. Men were working like ants on a determined mission. There were tractors and mowers, and pick-ups loaded with sand: the billionaire's golf course was nearing completion.