He climbed back into the BMW and drove on towards the mock castle. When he was stil a mile away, he passed through a large gate, a symbolic gesture really, for the place was too large to be wal ed in. Beyond the entrance the road widened out, into newly laid, white-lined tarmac. The detective drove on to the very end, which came as a curve opened into a wide area beside a lawn which stretched from the Castle of Erran Mhor down to the lochside.
Skinner, dressed in crisp blue trousers and a matching polo shirt, drew his car to a halt beside a green Range Rover, climbed out and walked across the parking area and towards the house, climbing a 203
wide flight of stairs set into the lawn, and stepping on to a terrace which stretched for the ful width of the four-storey building, around eighty yards. He crossed it, passing under a portico which arched over the main doorway.
One half of the great double door swung open before he reached it, and a man stepped out. Korean, Skinner guessed, dressed in a black teeshirt and slacks, balanced lightly on his feet, with brown muscles oiled and rippling. The bodyguard stared at him, impassively, without offering a word.
'I'm here to see Mr Balliol,' said the policeman. 'I reckon he owes me a game of golf.'
The Korean stared back. 'Mr Balliol, please,' Skinner repeated.
Stil the man did not move or speak.
'Okay,' sighed the detective, at last. 'I'l play the game.'
He took a step towards the doorkeeper. As the man leapt forward to grasp him in what would have been a judo hold, the policeman pivoted with exceptional speed and hit him on the temple. It was a short, hooking, right-handed punch, hard but wel short of ful force.
The Korean's eyes glazed. As he slumped to his knees, Skinner seized his right arm and twisted it round behind him, jerking him back to his feet.
'Did I get the password right?' he asked, looking towards the open door.
'Not bad,' said Everard Balliol, stepping into view. 'Not bad at all for a guy your age.' The policeman had met the American four times, and had spoken to him twice. This was the first time that he had ever seen him smile.
Skinner released the Korean, and patted him on the shoulder. The bodyguard nodded, without any sign of animosity, and went inside.
'Just my rich man's game,' Bal iol grinned.
'Pretty risky game. I might real y have hurt that bloke.'
The billionaire shook his head. 'Not you. I guessed you wouldn't damage the guy too bad for just doing his job.'
He stretched out his hand in a friendly greeting, which Skinner accepted. 'Come on in.' He turned and led the way into a surprisingly small hal way from which a staircase climbed. 'You want the grand tour?' he asked.
'Maybe not this time.'
Bal iol led him through the hal and into a study, behind the stairway. It had a big picture window which looked out across the golf course. Skinner could see two greens, cut and prepared, although only the one on the right had a flag in position.
'So what brings you to see me, Mr Skinner?'
'I'd have thought you'd have worked it out.'
Bal iol looked at him, his expression guarded. 'Should I?'
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'Come on, now. You going to tell me that though you own it, you don't actually read Spotlight
'Shit, man,' drawled the Texan. 'Of course I don't read that stuff.
Would you?' He smiled. 'But sometimes they do tell me what's goin'
in it.'
He walked over to the window. 'You serious about that golf game?'
'I heard you were building a course, so I stuck my clubs in the car.'
'Go get 'em then. I've only got nine holes in play so far, but they're good ones. Tiger Nakamura advised me on the layout. Come round to the first tee, just outside the window. I'll call out the caddies.'
When Skinner arrived on the tee, Balliol was waiting for him, with a huge bag holding a set of brand new Callaways, and with two more Koreans, dressed in black like the doorman, but with white golf shoes on their feet. The American handed over a map of the course, and a hole-by-hole yardage chart.
'We're playing ten to eighteen,' he said. 'The earth moving took longer on the front nine. You still off seven?'
'Down to five,' Skinner replied. 'But I'm out of practice.'
'You get a shot, then.' Bal iol grinned, hugely. 'The practice is your problem.'
He took out his Great Big Bertha driver and split the first fairway.
Skinner took a few practice swings, then tugged his tee-shot left, into heavy rough.
'Let's play for now,' said the billionaire, as they moved off, their black-clad caddies lugging their bags, 'and talk later. Tell me one thing though. How d'you know about the golf course? Only Tiger and me and a few others know about that.'
'More people must know than you think,' said Skinner, 'if a simple copper like me can find out about it. Have you got planning permission?'
Bal iol laughed. 'Don't need it. You gotta know that. Al I'm doing is landscaping my own back yard!'
They played on, chatting occasionally, but largely in silence.
Skinner had been serious about his lack of practice. Putting rather than the quality of his shots kept him in touch with his host's tidy game, but when he missed from ten feet on the seventeenth, the match was over. The sweetness of revenge shone in the American's eye, while the worm of defeat gnawed at the policeman's stomach.
It was late afternoon when they returned to the castle, where sandwiches and drinks were laid out in a great drawing room with a southward view across the loch.
'Okay Mr Skinner,' said Balliol at last, as he and his guest looked out across the terrace. 'So you're steamed up at me about that Spotlight stuff.'
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The policeman shook his head. 'No,' he muttered. 'Not steamed up. That's an understatement.'
The American looked at him. 'This is something you'll never hear me say again, so listen good. I'm sorry.'
Skinner looked at him in surprise, but said nothing.
'A few weeks ago,' Balliol went on, 'the chief editor told me that the British edition had been offered a story about a well-known guy in Britain who was two-timing his American wife and diddling this woman who worked for him.
'The guy who claimed to have the story, Noel Salmon -1 thought it was a gal at first with a name like Noel - said he wanted a job.'
'Why did this come al the way up to you?'
Bal iol smiled. 'Spotlight's kinda like my toy,' he said. 'But I'm tight with my business money, see, and the British edition had been swal owing cash, so I said a while back that all new spending had to be given the nod by me. So I was asked about Salmon, and I said if the story holds up, hire him.
'That was the last I heard til someone sent me a copy, and I saw your beefy ass on the front cover.' Something in the American's tone made Skinner guess that Balliol might be homosexual. He wondered if the FBI had its own suspicions.
'I have to admit I laughed, when I remembered how pissed I'd been with you at Witches Hill. I didn't feel too good about your lady friend being' in those shots, though, especial y the ones where it looks like she could be ... you know.'
'I'll pass on your regrets,' grunted the detective, sourly. 'She'l be touched.'
Balliol looked away for a second. 'Yeah. Okay. Anyway,' he continued, quickly, 'at the same time as I'm sent the copy, my chief editor says that Salmon has another story, about you, and an illegal payment, a bribe. Our lawyers say though, no way can we use it without more evidence.
'So the chief editor says let's pass the story on to the authorities, announce that we've done it, and act like the good guys. We still sell magazines, but we don't get sued if the story turns out wrong. So I said to go ahead, and that's the way it played.'
Skinner looked at him. 'You know the real reason I came up here, Balliol? I'm a great believer in looking people in the eye. I've never met a man who can do that and tell me a direct lie at the same time.
'So wil you look me in the eye, right now, and tell me that
it wasn't you who set me up with that rigged bank account, then tipped off your own man about the story?'
The billionaire turned to face him, fixed his gaze upon him, eye to eye, and smiled. 'Shit, son,' he laughed. 'If I'd been going to set you up, it'd have been with a mil ion, not a miserable hundred grand.
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I'd have set you up so you'd have gone away for life.
'But I didn't, and that is the truth.'
There was a long silence. 'Now,' said Balliol, breaking it finally,
'is that al you came for, or is there something else?'
The big detective nodded. 'Yes, there is. Your creep Salmon says that the information about me came to him from an anonymous source, that he doesn't know who it was tipped him off. We don't believe that, my pal and I. We think that he was about to give it up when your lawyer arrived to get him out of custody.
'I'd like you to order him to come clean now, to tell me who his source is. Because that's the person who set me up with this phoney bribery charge.'
Balliol sighed. 'Wel that's a bastard, ain't it? I'd do that for you, Bob sir, only I can't.'
'Why the hell not?'
'Because Salmon doesn't work for me any more. I told my chief editor to fire him as soon as he had sent his information to your Lord guy.'
'What for?'
Balliol looked at him, genuinely shocked. 'What for? Because he was caught with narcotics in his possession and in the company of a prostitoot. Either one of those things would have got him fired from any one of my companies. Both together! He's lucky I didn't set my Koreans on him.'
'Dammit!' cursed Skinner. 'Now you have to turn out to be a closet moralist! And you the owner of Spotlight too.'
'Nothing closet about it, son,' the American protested. 'Spotlight exposes the private sins of public figures. How can you have a higher
moral tone than that?'
Despite himself, the policeman laughed. 'I'll tell you a story, Mr Morality,' he said. 'A couple of years back, we had some really bad trouble at our Edinburgh Festival. Someone was after something very valuable, and went to extraordinary lengths to try to get it.
'They didn't succeed, and the people who caused al that mayhem were caught. But they were only the hired help. They had a paymaster, and we never did find out who that was.
'Funny, is it not, that when I showed up here today, you real y weren't a hundred per cent sure what I'd come about.' Skinner leaned over, his face very close to Balliol. 'Am I ringing any bells here?'
The American smiled, cool y. 'Bob, son, I remember reading about that affair. The people who did those things were completely out of control, and they got their just deserts.
'I tell you now, you can dig al the livelong day, and al of tomorrow, and al of the day after that and so on, but you wil never tie me to that one. Believe me on this.'
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Skinner stared at him, evenly. 'Oh I do, Mr Bal iol, I do. But digging's my job, and when I get started I'm like the seven fucking dwarfs, all rolled into one.'
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61
Arthur Dorward stripped the last of the tape from the underside of the drawer. Hands encased in latex gloves, he lifted the receipt very carefully, and slid it into a large plastic envelope, with a fastening along the top.
'We won't do any tests here, sir,' he said to Cheshire, as his sergeant placed the envelope in a document case. 'I'd much prefer to have my full lab facilities available when we start to look for traces.'
'Fair enough, Inspector,' said the investigator, 'but if you don't mind, Mr Ericson and I will come with you.'
Dorward's face set instantly into a frown, as he sensed an implied slur on his integrity. Andy Martin stepped in quickly. 'That's al right, Arthur,' he said. 'It's necessary to the enquiry.'
'Very good, sir.' The red-haired man nodded but his expression remained frozen.
'Before we go to get on with it,' he said, 'could I have a word with you, and with the Chief, in private?'
'Of course,' said Sir James Proud, who was standing near the door of Skinner's office. 'Come across the corridor.' He glanced, unsmiling, at Cheshire and Ericson. 'Excuse us, gentlemen.'
He led his two officers out of the room, and into his own suite.
The veteran Chief looked confused, angry and very upset. 'I stil don't believe it, you know.'
Dorward sighed. 'Who wants to, sir? But if we find Mr Skinner's prints on that receipt. . .'
'Then you better hadn't!' Proud Jimmy barked.
The Inspector glanced at Martin, with a look of panic, but the Chief soothed him almost at once. 'Oh, Arthur, make no mistake, I want you to do your job as honestly and as well as you always do. I just hate all this, that's all.
'Now, what did you want to see us about? Here, man, sit down, you're not on report.'
As the Chief Constable ushered them to chairs, Dorward's brows knitted. Looking at him, Martin thought that he might be trembling slightly
'I had a cal this morning from a specialist unit which my lab uses on a consultancy basis. They were reporting on a task I'd given them.'
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His voice was weak, faltering. 'I hardly know how to put this, gentlemen,'
'Try,' said the Chief Superintendent, so tersely that Proud looked at him in surprise.
'Very good, sir. It's like this, then. Remember, we found a number of hair samples trapped in the plumbing of Mrs McGrath's new bathroom?' Martin nodded, almost as a reflex.
'Well, as we thought, we were able to identify four of them very easily. The victim, the child, the nanny and the cleaner: al the people we knew had used the basin. That left us with two hair samples.' He hesitated again. This time it was the Chief Constable who urged him on with an impatient frown.
'We've subjected both of them to intensive analysis. They're both from men, for a start. Also they have different blood groups. One is perfectly common, almost regulation issue you might say. But the other is unusual.
'It's not a one-in-a-million type, but it is very unusual. Now as you know, ordinary medical records don't necessarily include blood type, so we have no way of knowing, other than statistically, how many people have this group, and we certainly can't identify them all. But where a person has been treated in hospital, there you'll find a note.'
Inspector Dorward gulped. 'Natural y, we checked at once with the hospitals in our Health Board area. They gave us a quick response.
Five men with that blood group have been treated in Edinburgh hospitals since the beginning of last year. Two of them are dead. One of them is still in the Western. A fourth is seventy-seven years old.
The fifth . . .' He faltered once more. He glanced at Martin, but he was looking at the floor.
'The fifth,' he said at last, 'is Mr Skinner.'
Silence has a quality and a value of its own. It may allow time for reflection. Between loving partners, it may contain expressions which need not be committed to words. But the silence which enveloped Sir James Proud's office as Dorward finished his story, was the type which follows the lighting of a fuse.
Eventually, the explosion came. 'Sweet suffering Christ!' boomed Chief Constable Sir James Proud. 'Are there any more rabbits in this fucking hat?'
He glowered at Martin, then looked across at Dorward. 'Thank you, Arthur. Difficult job, telling us that. On you go with Cheshire now. Not a bloody word about this to him, though, not even if he asks you straight out. He does that, refer him to me.'
Neither of the senior officers stood as the Inspector left the room.
'Jesus Christ and General Jackson,' barked the unusually eloquent Proud as the door closed behind him. 'Bob's up to his neck in the 210
shit with this corruption thing. Does this make him a murder suspect now?'
Martin, impassive, shook his head. 'No it doesn't. Chief. He was with Pam at the time of the murder.'
'Could he have left the hair when he visited the murder scene?'
'No. He was suited up then, and he didn't use the basin. He
left it there on another occasion.'
'Did you know about this?' the chief asked, suddenly, his eyebrows rising. 'You were awful quiet when Dorward came out with it.'
The Head of CID nodded. 'Bob told me about it, yesterday. He said that he was pretty certain that one of those hair samples would turn out to be his.'
Proud Jimmy's mouth hung open slightly as he stared at the younger man, with incredulity spreading across his face. 'Oh, in the name of... He wasn't screwing Leona McGrath as well, was he?'
In spite of himself, Martin smiled, momentarily, at the Chief's reaction as the truth dawned. 'It happened just once, he told me, before the Pam relationship began, but at a time when he and Sarah were having very real difficulty. Ever since the air disaster, when Bob rescued the wee chap, and with al the things that happened afterwards, he always took a special interest in Mark.
'After Leona was elected, he used to look in on them on a Friday evening, after work, just to say hello, and check that they were okay.
The role that Al Higgins would have filled, had things not . . .' He paused, as he and Proud exchanged glances.
'Well,' he continued, 'there was one Friday when Bob was dropped off there, rather than calling in his own car. He'd been visiting one of the Midlothian offices, I think, and he'd used a driver. Leona invited him to stay for supper. They had a couple of drinks, he was down, she was pretty low too. After wee Mark went to bed one thing led to another, and so did they.
'Afterwards, Bob told me, they agreed that it would be a one-off, for everyone's sake. He started to phone her on a Friday, or at the weekend, instead of looking in. He told me that he was never in the house again until I called him on the day of the murder.'
Andy Martin shook his blond head. 'Think about it, Chief. One evening Bob's in that room, in her bed; next time he's there, he's looking at her raped, battered, strangled body. He said to me that holding it together was one of the most difficult things he's ever had to do.'
'I can imagine,' said Proud. 'Why didn't he tell you about this sooner, though, or tel me for that matter?'
'He didn't think we needed to know, Chief. It was only when he worked out how Arthur Dorward would conduct that investigation that he realised it would come out anyway.'
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