Quintin Jardine - Skinner Skinner 12

by Head Shot (pdf)

  'Aye, all right,' said Charlie. 'I'l get a panda round as soon as I can.

  Haud on a minute.' He laid the phone on the counter of the office, and turned to the radio transmitter. 'Any car in the Oxgangs area, come in please,' he said, into the microphone.

  There was a crackling sound. 'Aye, Charlie?' a male voice answered.

  'Need an attendance at the doctor's surgery in Oxgangs Road. There's a body there, and next-of-kin needin' advised.'

  'Cannae do it, man. We've got a domestic here. Bloke's thumped his wife; we're having taste arrest him.'

  'What about Jenny?'

  'Her car's down the bypass at a road accident.'

  'Aye, okay.' He flicked the mike off, and picked up the phone.

  'Listen, hen,' he said. 'Al our cars are occupied, so I'll have to come myself. I can do that; I just have to put my phone on divert and let divisional HQ know why. I'll just be a couple of minutes.'

  Excited at last by the prospect of escaping from his nocturnal prison, the clerk, dispatcher and occasional jailer made his arrangements, slipped on his uniform tunic, with its utility belt, and made ready to step out into the fresh night air. As an afterthought, he took the office's Polaroid camera from the desk where it was kept.

  10

  3.

  He liked the spring; 'the renewal of God's promise' he called it, even though he had never been devoutly Christian. Few things appalled him more, in fact, than his country's religious right, and their active involvement in the electoral process ensured that he was an ever-present at the pol s, voting the straight Democrat ticket whatever the personal failings of its candidates.

  Indeed in the previous fal he had been proud to play his part in ensuring that party kept its grip on the New York State senatorial seat, beginning in the process a career which he hoped would lead the new incumbent to the White House in her own right. How the First Gentleman would take that would be something else again, but what the hell, he had had his eight years.

  He approved of women in public life. Just as well. Goddammit, he thought, with a smile, with the wife and daughter I've got.

  He had been an active politician himself once upon a time, forty-five and more years back, a young man not fresh from law school, but forged thereafter by bloody action in Korea. A short spell in the public defender's office in New York City had been enough to light the spark. He had seen men die in battle and had accepted it as something that came with his birthright. But the sight of one of his clients, a young black boy barely out of his teens, being dragged, screaming, to the electric chair, strapped down and virtual y burned to death, had made him physically sick on the spot.

  He was elected to the State Senate and served for a total of six years, through the cold dark years when Elsenhower was president, Nixon was scheming to succeed him, and John Foster Dul es, and his spymaster brother, ruled the country. With the rise of Kennedy, friends of his from Massachusetts persuaded him to put his own political career to one side for a while, to work on the young senator's presidential campaign team. There had been a promise of national office at the first electoral opportunity, but in the immediate aftermath of the narrow triumph, his reward had been a post as second assistant attorney general, in Bobby Kennedy's team.

  He and the new president's aggressive, ambitious brother were at odds from the start, and relations between them had worsened when he had discovered that the New York senatorial seat, which he had been told would be his in time, was in fact earmarked for Bobby.

  And so, a mere six weeks before the fall of the elected King Arthur, he had accepted an offer to become a senior partner in what was then known as McLean and Whyte, the largest legal firm in Buffalo, in his home state. In the same month, he had made an offer of his own, one of marriage to Susannah, a young teacher he had met in Washington.

  Yes, he had seen a few springs since then, he mused, as he gazed out through the trees, across the glassy Great Sacandaga Lake, its waters catching the last rays of the evening sun. There had been thirty-eight of them, to be precise, every one memorable in its own way, every one marked by increasing success, professional y and privately. Where once he had dreamed on a national scale, dreamed without limit for a brief period, so caught up had he been in the seductive atmosphere ofCamelot, now he reflected on the success he had made of his life, materially and spiritually.

  Most of all there had been his daughter, a special girl from the outset.

  As she had grown, blooming in her intelligence and her beauty, he had looked at her, looked at his wife, and at himself, far more of a golden family than any branch of the doomed Kennedy clan, and he had wondered that he had ever been so weak that he had been seduced by their promises of joy. Why had he ever sought to bask in their glory, when such light had lain within himself, waiting for its moment to shine?

  He leaned back in his rocking chair on the wide wooden terrace under the eaves of their log cabin, enjoying the shimmering colours of the lake before him. A brassy piece ofAaron Copland sounded from inside, and he caught the aroma of brewing coffee. 'Couldn't get any more American, could we?' he said aloud, and wondered what his son-in-law would think if he could see him lounging there.

  He frowned as he thought of his son-in-law; now there was an individual who would have given them pause for thought, back in the sixties. There was stil time for him to do that, even now. Yes, he had plans for his son-in-law. He had to see him, and soon, for there was something he had to discuss with him, something very serious ...

  The familiar creaking board sounded behind him; Susannah's footfal as she carried out the supper tray to lay upon their table. He made to rise, 12

  stiffly as always these days. And then he felt the cold, sharp thing whipping suddenly round his neck, tightening so fast, with a faint, peculiar twanging sound. He had no time to think, only to feel his tongue swell in his mouth and his eyes bulge in their sockets, to hear the roaring in his ears and to see the evening burst for an instant into sudden flaring light, and then go black.

  The man held the strangling wire tight for some time after the old man's still-muscular body had gone limp, after his bladder had given forth its own signal. Finally, he released it, letting him slump down into his chair; and then he turned, and went into the isolated, lonely wooden house.

  4

  'So, Willie, how are you finding the air through here?' Sir James Proud asked his assistant; his deputy in Bob Skinner's absence.

  'Pure and clear, gaffer,' Haggerty replied. 'So fuckin' pure that every so often it makes me dizzy.'The Chief Constable's left eyebrow twitched slightly; he realised that the dining room waitress was behind him, and had overheard. 'Excuse my French, Maisie,' he apologised.

  'That's a'right, sir,' she said, as she laid a bowl of thick pea soup before him. 'Ah'm frae Glesca myself, originally. Ah know yis are a'

  linguists through there.'

  Still, thought Haggerty, as she laid a salad before Detective Chief Superintendent Andy Martin, this is another king's court I'm in now ...

  even if the prime minister is away.

  Proud Jimmy scratched his chin. 'You know, gentlemen,' he mused, 'as an Edinburgh man, born and bred, I'm bound to say that I'm beginning

  to feel like an outsider in my own force. There's Bob, there's you, Andrew, and now you, Willie; west of Scotland men all of you, all my senior team. Mind you, the balance wil swing back in my favour in a couple of weeks.'

  'Aye,' Haggerty grunted. 'The Tay, the Tay, oh the silvery Tay,' he quoted. 'Long may it flow from Perth to Dundee. You looking forward to it, Andy?'

  Martin shrugged his broad shoulders; green eyes flashed. 'Sure. On the whole, I am. It'l be a wrench though; I've been in this city for all of my police career so far.'

  'Which is exactly why you had to go for the Tayside job, son,' the Chief interjected. 'It's the way things are; you can't be a one-force man any more, not if you have aspirations to command rank.' He glanced at Haggerty, reading his mind. 'I'm no example to quote either, before y
ou do. I'm the last of the dinosaurs. Yes, I've been here a long time; too damned long, a few of our council ors have been heard to say.

  They think I'm just hanging on to spite them; I'm not, though.' He smiled, wickedly. 'We've got plans. Bob and I. A couple of years will 14

  see them through to fruition, then I'l be off.'

  The outgoing Head of CID managed with some difficulty to keep his surprise from showing on his face. He had discussed the future with Bob Skinner, his closest friend as well as his immediate boss, but he had never heard Sir James anticipate his own retirement. He guessed that his imminent departure for assistant chief constable rank in the Tayside force had raised him to another level of confidence.

  'So,' Haggerty murmured, pausing in his determined consumption of his soup, 'the balance is swinging back, is it? Is that stil a secret?'

  Proud Jimmy sat back slightly in his chair. 'It never was, Willie, not from you. I'm sorry, I thought you'd been informed. It was decided before you arrived, but I had to wait for the man at the centre of it to get back from holiday. He did, today, and we told him. Dan Pringle will succeed Andy as head of CID, when he goes in two weeks.'

  'Big Clan, eh. He'll be pleased.'

  'He's like a dog with two tails, Willie; like a dog with two tails.'

  Martin grinned. 'You should have seen him,' he told the ACC.

  'Pringle's such a phlegmatic bugger; I don't think I've ever known him to get excited, before this. When he was passed over last time, he thought that was it for him. He thought that Brian Mackie would be appointed, out of al the divisional CID

  commanders.'

  'So did I,' Haggerty confessed. 'Either him or Maggie Rose, at any rate.'

  'Bob and Andy thought it was too soon for either of them,' the Chief explained. 'Besides, Pringle's done a fine job over the last few months in sharpening up the Borders Division. We all agreed that he deserved it.

  Actual y, the truth is it's very much an interim appointment; Dan's not that far away from retirement.'

  'So who's going to the Borders?'

  'Mario McGuire,' the DCS told him. 'He's done his Special Branch stint; he's earned a move as well. So he's off on promotion to a divisional CID command, as a detective superintendent just like his wife, and big Mcl henney's going to the SB job.'

  'Which leaves a vacancy as Bob's executive officer,' Haggerty mused.

  'Indeed it does,' the Chief agreed. 'That'l be decided after Bob gets back from his conference. Incidental y, he and I have been discussing that subject more generally. After al the fuss we had with Ted Chase, we've decided that you should have the opportunity to appoint your own assistant. Sergeant rank: think about it, eh?'

  The new ACC leaned back from the table as the waitress took away his soup bowl and laid a plate of braised beef, carrots and chips in its place. 'Can I have Maisie, here?' he joked. 'She's doing a great job so far;

  Proud Jimmy shook his head. 'The needs of the senior officers' dining room supersede yours, William.'

  The Glaswegian laughed; yes, the Edinburgh air was different, but it was fresh and it suited him. He had been astonished by Bob Skinner's phone cal , asking if he would be interested in the job, in the wake of the appointment of his predecessor, Ted Chase, to the office of the inspector of constabulary. The bluntness of the question had taken his breath away. He had felt himself to be in a rut, his career path at its end, marked down as too rough a diamond for the command floor, an unlikely choice, as a confirmed thief-catcher, to be given charge of uniformed policing.

  'Apply for it, Willie,' Skinner had said. 'The job's yours if you do; Jimmy and I'll make sure of that.'

  'But why me, for ruck's sake?' he remembered croaking the question.

  'I'm having no more Ted Chases in here, pal. It's as simple as that.

  Aye, we want new blood, but this time I'm going to make sure I know what type it is. You're my choice; and besides, it'll be a damn good career move for you. The Dumfries and Gal oway post will be coming up in a few years; that'd be a nice place to command.'

  'Jesus wept, you think long-term, don't you?'

  'I've got fuck all else to do in this job; other people catch the thieves and murderers now. When Jimmy said he'd make a politician of me, he didn't know the half of it. I don't like the breed, Wil ie, based on bitter experience. But they exist, so I'l play their game . . . only I'll make up my own rules.'

  So he had applied, and Skinner had kept his promise, despite what Haggerty had regarded, privately, as the worst interview of his career.

  He glanced around the headquarters dining room, at the heavy silver braid on the uniforms. Yes indeed, he thought. A different air from Glasgow.

  He had almost finished his beef when Martin's mobile rang. The Chief gave a slightly tetchy frown; he had a firm belief that there should be sanctuaries in which the telephone did not ring.

  'Sorry, boss,' the Head of CID apologised, but he answered its call nonetheless.

  'Andy?' The word was a sob. The voice on the other end of the line was so contorted that it was almost unrecognisable. At first, he supposed 16

  it was Karen; the fear of a miscarriage rushed into his mind. Then he looked at the number shown by the phone's LCD display, and he knew who it was.

  'Sarah?' A muffled, gasping sound was her only answer.

  'What's wrong?'

  'Andy.' It seemed to be al she could say.

  'Sarah, what is it? Are you ill? Is it one of the kids?'

  'No,' she moaned. 'Andy, can you come out here? I need you. I can't get through to Bob.'

  'Sure, I'll come. But what is it?'

  He heard her sobbing intensify. 'I can't talk about it over the phone,'

  she whispered, through her tears.

  'Okay, okay. I'm on my way.'

  He ended the call. Proud and Haggerty were staring at him; and not only them. He realised that the urgency in his voice had brought all conversation in the dining room to a halt.

  'What is it?' asked the Chief.

  'I don't know,' he answered. 'She couldn't, or wouldn't, say. I'm off out to Gullane; that's where she was calling from.'

  He rose from the table and turned towards the door. Before he reached it, it swung open and Detective Inspector Neil Mcl henney came into the room, shock and concern written across his face. 'Andy,' he said, his voice low, 'I've just taken a call from a guy who said he was the county sheriff, in Buffalo, New York. He was looking for the Boss, but the message was about Sarah ...'

  Detective Superintendent Maggie Rose was still on a high; the phone cal from Mario had come as a complete surprise. She knew that the Special Branch posting usually carried a reward thereafter, but she had not expected that her husband would have jumped straight from his secretive office to the status of divisional CID commander.

  'How long have you known?' she had asked him, with more than a hint of suspicion, once the initial delight had subsided.

  'I didn't; not until this morning, when the Chief called me in and told me. Honest, love, it's the truth. Do you think I could have kept something like that from you?'

  'After all that time in Special Branch? Too bloody right I do. But I'l take your word for it. So what's happening to Dan Pringle? Early retirement?'

  He had hesitated for less than a second, but she had picked it up. 'Far from it. He's the new Head of CID.'

  Thinking back, she had felt not even a twinge of disappointment; no, her instant reaction had been one of relief. 'Good for Clan. He's earned it.'

  'Aye, sure, but. . .'

  'I've told you, Mario. I've gone as far as I want for now. That job's about half a step below executive rank; I don't have the experience for it.

  Besides, I've out-ranked you for long enough.'

  'You think we'l make the papers? Husband and wife team and al that?'

  'Are you kidding?'

  'TFR, I'm kidding. The Chief said he wants that aspect played down; the press guy's under orders not to mention it.'

  But someone would
, she mused, as she stared out of the window of her small office, all but deaf to the bustle of the Haymarket traffic.

  Sooner or later, some wag would decide to run a feature on the Nick and Nora Charles of Edinburgh CID, and for al ofAlan Royston's contacts and negotiating skil s, it would happen.

  18

  She was brought back to the present by a knock on her door. 'Come,'

  she cal ed, sharply. It opened, with its familiar squeak, and a fresh-faced probationer constable came into the room. He was carrying a brown folder; she noticed that his hand trembled slightly as he held it out to her.

  Christ, she thought, is that how the youngsters think of me?

  'Yes, Constable?' she greeted him, deliberately softening her tone and offering a smile.

  'I'm sorry, miss ... eh, sorry, ma'am, but. . .'

  She interrupted him. 'That's at least one "sorry" too many, son. You're new here, yes?'

  'First month, ma'am.'

  'What's your name?'

  'PC Haddock, ma'am.'

  Poor lad, she thought. You 're going to have to be good.

  'When they sent you up here, PC Haddock, did the lads tell you that I eat probationers for lunch?'

  'More or less, ma'am.'

  'They're right.' She paused. '. . . But not in their first few weeks. I prefer them a bit more seasoned. Now; what have you got for me?'

  Pink-cheeked, the tal , gawky young man looked down at her. 'Chief Superintendent English cal ed in, ma'am.' She nodded; English was the senior officer in the division, the top uniform. 'He's been detained up at headquarters; the meeting with Mr Haggerty's going on into the afternoon. So he asked if you'd take a look at the night-shift reports.'

  Inwardly, Maggie bristled. Manny English was pushing his luck; the night-shift reports were pure bloody trivia puffed up by the panda patrol ers to make it look as if they had been rushed off their feet. They could have been checked by a sergeant, but the Chief Super was a procedural paragon. In addition, he liked to keep in touch with everything that happened on his patch. Stil , palming off uniformed officers' reports to the CID commander, as the next senior officer, was taking it a bit far.