Skinner's festival bs-2

by Quintin Jardine

  He negotiated a roundabout, glowering across at Arrow. 'But do you know what hacks me off, Adam? Back in the Eighties, there we were tackling and beating one of the worst drug problems in Europe, and few if any people outside Edinburgh knew or cared about it. They didn't know, because it wasn't hot news. It was like murders in Ireland, everyday occurrences, so it only got a wee bit of coverage, short-lived and mainly local. Didn't matter that it was a tragedy. It had no news value. Yet look at Edinburgh now.

  Some arseholes set off a firework and murder a primadonna, and we've got every news organisation in the world demanding to know what we're going to do about it. The world's unjust, Adam.

  A rich and famous person becomes a victim, and we have a media shit-storm. OK, well and good, and so we should have. But where were they all eight years ago when that poor wee man died in his front room, with his blood spraying all over his three-year-old daughter? Just two newspapers carried that story. Two: that's all.'

  As Skinner spoke, they wound their way through the area which had been the battleground in the fight against the dealers. Wester Hailes, the windows of its high-rise blocks glinting in the sun.

  Niddrie, beginning to look scruffy again a few years on from its last cosmetic repainting. Pilton, much of it still grey and terrible, its poverty proclaimed by the boarded windows, the steel shutters guarding its shops even as they did business, and the burnt-out cars in its school grounds.

  Skinner swung the car down towards Newhaven and the east. 'Enough, Adam, enough. Now at least you know that all human misery isn't concentrated in Belfast. Come on and I'll show you the other side of my patch. I need to clear my mind.'

  They drove through Leith and Seafield, by-passed Portobello, and beaded out of the city on the A I. As they passed the Craigpark retail centre, he glanced across at his passenger.

  'You a golfer, Adam?'

  'Not so's you'd fookin' notice, but I play.'

  'Good lad. It's too nice a day to waste.'

  Twenty minutes later they were in Gullane, in Bob and Sarah's 'other house', as they had come to call it. As Adam admired the garden in full bloom. Bob delved into a cavernous cupboard, emerging eventually with his golf kit, Sarah's ladies' clubs, and a pair of her studded shoes which proved an ideal fit for the stocky little soldier.

  Gullane number-one course was mostly clear. There were no party bookings, and as Bob looked down the first two fairways and up to the third tee, high on the hill, he could see only one match, nearing the long second green in its peculiar ravine. He recognised the players: two of the club's many retired bankers.

  Waved on to the tee by the bespectacled starter, he showed his guest the line to the first green with a low straight shot, hit with a two iron. The ball seemed to run for ever on the hard, brown fairway.

  Arrow selected Sarah's metal three wood, teed low, and boomed off a drive which headed straight for the far side of the roadway, and for the garden of one of the big white houses which ran parallel to the fairway on the right. But just as Skinner's hand crept up to cover his eyes, the ball drew back in towards the fairway, cleared the waiting sand-trap, bounced, and ran on to finish only twenty yards or so short of the green.

  ' "Not so's you'd fookin' notice," indeed!' Skinner mimicked.

  They each took four, then halved the next three holes, before Arrow's aggression lost him a ball on the difficult, rising dogleg fifth. Skinner was still one up when they climbed on to the seventh tee, the highest point on Gullane Hill. Like all first-time visitors to the famous old course. Arrow was stunned by the finest view in golf. The wide estuary of the River Forth sparkled in the sun, its waters flat calm at ebb tide. The watermark was so low that the grounded wreck of the Great War submarine in Aberlady Bay could be seen clearly.

  Bob recited the names of each of the six golf courses which were in view from the hill-top, then pointed his way along the Fife coast opposite, past Kirkcaldy and the Methil rig yard, on to the East Neuk villages. Largo, Earlsferry, Elie, St Mohans, Pittenweem, Anstruther and, in the far distance, Crail.

  'By Christ, Bob. Why bother to play fookin' golf? Why not just come straight up here and enjoy it?'

  Skinner laughed. 'Many's the time I've wished I had done just that, mate. And it tends to be all downhill from here, in more ways than one.'

  Their match continued as tight as it. had begun. Each was fiercely competitive, and Sarah's clubs seemed to suit Arrow perfectly. However Skinner's straighter game gave him the edge, until they shook hands on the green of the short sixteenth, after the little soldier had missed a ten-foot putt for a match-saving half. Both to celebrate and to demonstrate, on the seventeenth tee Bob took out his boron-shafted driver for the first time, and sent a huge shot soaring over the downward-sloping fairway. His body English seemed to give the shot extra yardage as it squeezed over the cross bunkers guarding the approach to the green.

  Arrow came very close to following him, but his ball found the sand.

  As they walked down the steep slope, the little soldier looked up at his partner. 'Cool bugger most of the time, ain't yer, Bob. It's as well you don't give people the same treatment you gave that fookin' ball there. Tell me something. You've told me one thing that makes you angry, but is there anything that makes you really mad, really blow your stack?'

  As he continued down the hill. Bob looked deep into himself, as if searching for the other Skinner, the one whose appearance he dreaded, as if analysing him, working out what brought him to the surface. Eventually, on the ridge above the bunker, he stopped, and leaned on his clubs.

  "That's a better question than you know, Adam, and it's a tough one to answer honestly. But I'll try. You say I'm a cool bugger, but you're wrong. I might be controlled, but that's a different thing. There are, I think, just two things that would make me lose self-control. Christ, I hope there are only two. One is any direct threat to my nearest and dearest: to my wife Sarah or my daughter Alex. Most people would say the same. The other one is betrayal. An act of serious betrayal. That gets me. And if that betrayal is bad enough, then – well let's just say I'm not so nice to know.'

  Arrow looked at him shrewdly. 'Betrayal. You mean like what that prick of a Secretary of State of yours did to you at your press conference?'

  Skinner's eyes narrowed as he took out his putter. 'Who called the prick a Secretary of State, Adam, that's what I'd like to know,' he said softly, with a cold smile, rolling the ball into the hole.

  28

  The world was still turning on its axis as normal when Skinner ahd Arrow returned to Edinburgh from Gullane.

  It looked like any other Festival Monday afternoon as they drove along Princes Street. The hospitality marquee above the Waveriey Centre had been repaired. Banners bearing the sponsor's corporate logo fluttered from poles set on its supporting pillars. A few guests stood in the entrance, drinks in hand, enjoying the summer day.

  Skinner rolled down the windows of the BMW. The sunroof had been open all through the journey from Gullane. As they drove along, they took in the sounds of the street. Competing bagpipers, some live, some no more than taped Muzak floating from the open-fronted shops, competed for attention above the noise of the traffic, vehicular and human. The open-air Fringe sideshow at the Mound was in full swing. Edinburgh was alive: full of bustle. The capital was wearing its bright Festival face, as if there was no threat, as if no crisis existed.

  Back at Fettes, Arrow headed for the car which had been assigned to him, and drove straight off to Redford Barracks to await the check-in of his SAS unit. His men were travelling north on various afternoon flights from Heathrow, in groups of two or three.

  Skinner settled back into his swivel chair, behind his desk, at precisely two minutes before 4:00 pm, just in time for his regular Monday meeting with his deputy and the six Divisional heads of CID. As Commander he needed to know everything that was going on throughout the force's sprawling territory. At the same time these weekly meetings as a group encouraged a healthy exchange of information amon
g colleagues.

  Once Ruth had brought in coffee and the obligatory chocolate digestives, he gave his fellow detectives a comprehensive runthrough of the threat and the security operation. The summary briefing took only ten minutes.

  "So that's what we've done,' Skinner said finally, ' and that's who's in the anti-terrorist squad. Any questions, gentlemen?'

  'One, sir.'

  Skinner looked across at Douglas Armstrong, a big, bluff man from Dalkeith. Armstrong was his nominated deputy and, as a Detective Chief Superintendent, a tank above the Divisional heads. 'Whose side are the politicians on?'

  'If you mean our own Board, they're solidly behind us, as always. If you mean ministers, they're backing us too, for the moment at least. We've got a job to do. Let's just do it as well as we can, and cam any thanks we get at the end of the day. And when I say we've got a job to do, I mean you too, whatever your Division, aye, even you down in the Borders, Ron. These people must have a home base. For all the high-flown language, and all that crap, this is just another bloody gang. We don't know how big it is, but there has to be a gang-hut somewhere, a place where the boss is, a place where orders are given – a place where these letters are typed. Even if they're so well organised that they never meet as a complete group, there is still movement and contact between them. They communicate through letters, not over the phone, and they use pretend couriers. There's a contact point, when the courier picks up his envelope – unless of course, he's the author, but that's unlikely.

  'So we're not just looking for people, we're looking for that place as well. I want you, in your Divisions, to put all your people on the alert, uniform as well as CID, to keep an eye out for any possibility, however slight. The only forensic knowledge which we have is that the notes were produced by a computer or word processor using a fairly obscure typeface called Venice, and that they were printed on Conqueror paper by a Hewlett Packard Desk-jet.'

  He handed each man a manufacturer's brochure showing the ugly but functional square-shaped printer, and a sample sheet of Conqueror paper with its clear water mark.

  'If any of your people find anywhere where they see those two items together, they should report it back and let us follow it up. I don't care who the owner is, whether it's your wife's brother or the parish priest, each case is to be reported back. We're checking out all printer stockists and paper suppliers. Both these items are sold over the counter, but we already think we know where the printer was bought: a shop in Queensferry Street, last Tuesday.

  Buyer paid cash and left a phoney address for product registration. All the assistant could describe was tallish male, may have been darkhaired, but he wore a hooded tank-top and shades, so she couldn't be certain. She didn't remember his accent. The shop doesn't sell Conqueror paper, but there's a stockist in William Street, and we're checking it out now.'

  'Any prints on either letter?' asked Armstrong.

  'No, Douglas, not a smear. Gloves all down the chain. So, gentlemen, unless any one of you has anything else on your patch that's about to go pear-shaped, and you need to tell me about in private, that's it for today. See you all here next week, on a group basis again, I think, unless you hear different. Go to it, and good luck.'

  29

  Heading for home. Skinner was in the act of closing the door of his office behind him when another thought occurred. He went back to his desk and picked up his scrambled telephone, keying in one of forty pre-programmed numbers.

  The call was answered brusquely on the first ring. 'Hullo.'

  Willie. Skinner here. How are you lot getting on with our pal?'

  'No' bad, sir.'

  'How are my guys doing?'

  'First class. That's a hard big bastard, that Mcllhenney. And the boy Macgregor, he's so sharp he'll cut himself.'

  'Well just you keep an eye on him and see that he doesn't. Now, what about Macdairmid?'

  'He's spent most of the day at the Constituency Labour Party offices. Ah had a tap put on them too. Is that OK wi' you?'

  'Yes, for now, but just make sure you remember to take it off as soon as Macdairmid's eliminated as a suspect.'

  'Shame! But yes, sir. That's understood. No' that it's produced anything yet that would interest you, other than the guy haranguin' lassies in the Housin' Department, threatenin' them that their jobs '11 no be safe if they don't do as he says.'

  'He's not saying he'll use his political clout to have them sacked, is he?'

  'Not straight out. Naw. Well it isn't enough for a charge, if that's what ye're thinking; it's nothing that the Crown Office needs to taste hear. Mind you,' Haggerty mused, 'if someone dropped a copy of the transcript taste the Sun, it might finish him as anMP.', 'Don't bother yourself, Willie. Nice thought as it is, it would cause too many problems. Anyway, we've got enough on the guy now to make sure that he's quietly de-selected, and we'll do that at the right time. For now just keep tabs on him and see if he leads us anywhere.'

  Haggerty grunted. 'Understood. There is one thing, sir. The boy does have a funny habit. Twice, he left the offices and went fur a pint in a pub on Greenlands Road. Mcllhenney and Macgregor took turns tailing him. Apparently, each time, he only had a half-pint, and hardly touched that. But each time, he used the pub pay-phone. 'S'that no interesting?'

  'It's funny, for sure. It could be anything, though, that he didn't want heard in the office. Calling the girlfriend for example.

  Still, we'll take a punt on it. As soon as you see him heading for the CLP offices again, put a tap on that pub phone, and let's see what we get.'

  30

  The rest of the day passed peacefully. Bob and Sarah took in a one-man show. based on the life of Houdini, in a converted church hall in Newington. The star – A game guy,' as Bob declared later – performed several ofHoudini's easier illusions as part of the show, prevailing upon members of the audience to verify that he was securely chained, or straightjacketed, or boxed in, whatever each trick demanded. Sarah's enjoyment of the show was dampened slightly by a constant niggling fear that Bob's mobile telephone would ring, but it never did.

  They returned to their bungalow in Fairyhouse Avenue at around 10:30 pm. Half an hour later, Andy Martin and Julia Shahor arrived for a late supper after the evening's film performance. It was partly a social visit, and partly an opportunity for the two detectives to touch base on the day's events.

  While, in the conservatory. Skinner told Martin of Grant Macdairmid's peculiar visits to the pub in Greenlands Road, Sarah and Julia chatted in the kitchen.

  'How's your aunt reacting to all the excitement?' Sarah asked.

  'She's taken herself off,' said Julia, a note of disappointment creeping into her voice, giving it sudden depth where normally it was flat and devoid of accent. 'She said that I had enough on my hands without having her around, and so she insisted on going back home to Uncle Percy in Brighton. I put her on the Gatwick flight this morning, and he was going to pick her up at the other end. I'm sorry in a way. She likes to be around when it's busy, to help me as best she can. She still does little things about the house.

  I said I didn't want her to leave, but she had made her mind up.'

  'So you're there on your own now?'

  Julia smiled. 'Well, not exactly. Andy says that since his work has become involved with mine, and since he insists on looking after me, after my scare the other night, it makes sense for me to move in with him for a week or two. That is nice of him, is it not.'

  Sarah laughed. 'Nice! It's amazing. For as long as I've known Andy Martin, he's been adamant that he'd never let a girlfriend hang her clothes in his wardrobe. This sounds serious. He's not the head-over-heels type; and that's not the way you strike me either.'

  'I didn't think I was. But when I saw him on Saturday, something just went into melt-down. Earlier tonight he asked me to marry him.'

  Sarah's mouth dropped open in amazement. 'He did what!

  What did you say?'

  'I said that he should ask me again in a month. If he does, an
d if I still feel this same way, then I will marry him, and just as fast as I can.'

  'Good for you, lady. Bob and I didn't hang about either. We took a little more time over it than you and Andy but, still, we only met last year. He had to be a bit more cautious though, having the other love of his life to consider.'

  'What, do you mean his job?'

  Sarah smiled again, and shook her head. 'Apart from that! No, I meant Alex, his daughter. If she and I had hated each other, it'd have been difficult for him – and for me too, come to that. It was fine, though. I love Alex. She's like my kid sister, only she's no kid. It's funny, but your moving in with Andy – it's come just at the right time, in a way. It might help Bob understand something he doesn't fathom yet.' •What's that?'

  'Alex and Bob had their first real row last night. I mean their first ever. She brought her new man home for supper, and Bob gave him the third degree. After he'd gone, Alex just blew her stack. So did Bob. This afternoon she came back from her theatre while he was out – she's acting in a play – and picked up some of her clothes and things. She's moved in with Ingo, the boyfriend. I promised I'd break the news to Bob.'

  She saw a look of apprehension cloud Julia's face, and was quick to dispel it. 'Don't worry. I won't let it spoil our evening.

  I'll wait till afterwards, to tell him.'

  'What will he do?'

  'Well, he might just go and find Ingo and give him a quiet going over.' She paused, and Julia's mouth dropped open, a frown creasing her forehead. Sarah grinned. 'But I think I should be able to stop him doing that. Especially now that I can remind him that you and Andy are in the same situation. He'll sulk for a while, but he'll be OK. Alex wouldn't do anything just for the sake of hurting Bob, and he knows that.'