Martin paused, to bring his rising voice under control. Skinner looked over into the mid-section of the big hall, which was flooded by the temporary lights which had been set up. Many of the seats were torn and, as in the upper area, some were stained scarlet. More blood trails led up the aisle towards the exit door.
'By the time I got here,' Martin continued, 'they'd taken eight people out dead from the audience. Five more are touch-and-go.
One woman had her hand sliced off. Her boyfriend had to put a tourniquet on her.' He paused, gulping in breath. 'The worst casualties are on their way to hospital. Most of them are being treated here.'
Skinner caught sight of 'Gammy' Legge kneeling in the centre of the scorched blackened stage. 'Do we know anything about the type of bomb yet? Was it the same as Saturday?'
'There's an old guy reckons he can describe it for us. He's a weird old boy; he's either tremendously excited or a bit hysterical or both. He can't stop talking. I've sent him downstairs with a PC. Do you want to talk to him?'
'Too right. Let's get to him before he starts to embroider it.'
Martin led the way out of the Music Hall and down the wide carpeted staircase, back to the foyer. The Fringe cafe-bar in the rear ground-level hall had been turned into an emergency canteen.
A number of survivors, more shocked than injured, were sitting around on stacking chairs, drinking mugs of hot sweet tea.
Skinner could hear the old man's shrill, hoarse voice rising above the hubbub even before Martin pointed him out. He was standing on his tip toe, clutching a white mug, with his chin stuck out, bellowing and gesticulating with his free hand to the young officer detailed to look after him. His small stature was accentuated by the wizening and shrinkage which the advancing years had brought with them.
Skinner could see at once why Martin had thought him weird.
More than anything else, he looked like a large monkey in fancy dress. He had a broad flat face, and a high forehead, from which his long, thinning hair swept back. Skinner noted with surprise a sprinkling of black still showing among the grey. A small gold ring looked garish in his left ear, but somehow it was in accord with his crew-necked blue-and-white hooped sweater, and comfort-cut black jeans. He wore open-toed sandals, without socks. He might have been. Skinner estimated, anywhere between sixty-five and eighty.
Martin introduced them. 'Boss, this is Mr Charles Forsyth. Mr Forsyth, ACC Skinner.'
The little man turned and looked slowly up at the figure towering above him. 'So you're the great Bob Skinner! I've met you once before. Must be nearly twenty years ago. You were just a raw-arsed sergeant then!'
The man's voice was still raised and hoarse, and Skinner guessed this was his normal tone. He looked at Forsyth afresh, trying to place him in his memory, but failed.
'Well I'm pleased to meet you again, Mr Forsyth, although I'd rather it hadn't been here, and in these circumstances. So you were in the Music Hall when the explosion happened. Tell me, were you there alone?'
'Call me Charlie. Aye I was alone, thank Christ. Mary – that's my girlfriend – she was feeling a bit off-colour, and anyway, she didnae really fancy the idea of Aussies pretending taste be song-anddance men. Don't know what brought me, truth be told. It's out of my usual line, all that prancin' poofter stuff. I'm a writer, y'know,' he added inconsequentially.
Skinner was not surprised by the revelation, but decided instinctively not to pursue that line of conversation.
'Where were you sat, Charlie?'
'Downstairs, three rows from the back. If I'd been three rows further down… The guy in the sixth row, straight in front of me, caught a big lump of flying timber or something, right in the throat. It took the poor bastard's head half off. And that could have been me. Mind you, I've always been lucky. I remember once in Burma…' His voice trailed off, as if he had suddenly discovered that this detail of his war-time memories was no longer there.
'Andy says you can describe the explosion, Charlie,' Skinner prodded, gently.
The little man's eyes lit up at once, and he seemed almost to straighten from his stoop. 'Aye, too fuckin' right I can! It was the radiogram.'
What?'
'Well this nonsense – I won't dignify it with the name of a play – was set in the early Sixties and the stage was dressed with props from that time. Gate-leg table, chintzy chairs, that sort of stuff and one of those huge standard electric radiograms they had back in those days. You'll be too young to remember them, maybe.
Great big bastards they were. They weighed a ton. That's what blew up! I was lookin' straight at it at the time. It just seemed to
disintegrate, and puff outwards in smoke, and everything else on stage along with it. Funny, looking back it's as if it happened in slow motion.'
'Are you certain?'
'Certain? Of course I'm fucking certain. I was there, wasn't I?
There was a lassie standing right alongside it. Lamentable Christ, what a sight! I remember once I saw this big Nigerian soldier take a direct hit from Japanese artillery. The only thing left was his boots. Great big boots they were, with his great big fucking feet still in them. I'd ordered him taste stay under cover. Christ, ye couldnae tell those boys anything at all. Hearts of lions, brains of fieldmice.' His voice tailed off, the awful memory of the evening reviving another horror of the past, taking him back to the jungles of fifty years before.
Skinner calmed the old man's excitement. "Thanks, Charlie.
Thanks very much. You're a good man. You've given us the first eye-witness account we've had since all this business started.' He turned to the young PC. 'Constable, organise a car. Have Mr Forsyth taken home.' The man set off obediently.
Ta,' said Forsyth. 'Ye know, Skinner. All this, it makes me glad I'm not long away from the wooden waistcoat. I grieve for Scotland when this can happen. Good luck to you, son. Catch these fuckers.'
As he left the little man in the canteen, Skinner wondered about his reaction. What kind of man could witness such appalling carnage and still describe it so matter-of-factly? Then he realised quite simply that, perhaps an eighty-year-old could do so: someone knowing that his lease on the planet was running out, taking every day as a bonus, caring only about that day and the next, and hopefully the day beyond. The horror of that evening might be blocked out easily by a man like that, and a strange satisfaction drawn from the privileged position of being an important witness, from the unexpected burst of warmth at being the centre of attention once again, rather than being just another lonely old man shouting his bizarre reminiscences to gather himself an audience.
35
In the foyer, DCC McGuinness now seemed in full control both of himself and of the situation. The stream of casualties out to the ambulances had subsided.
Skinner went to check on Sarah in the first-aid room, which was still crowded with bleeding, shocked victims, waiting mainly in silence for attention. He realised that the decision to treat the less seriously injured at the scene had been a wise one. Edinburgh's main hospital casualty departments would have been swamped by the numbers.
Sarah estimated that she had another thirty minutes of stitching and patching to do. 'Look, you'll want to start work on this. Why don't you just leave me the car key and go off with Andy?'
'Yes, I'll do that,' he agreed. Handing her the big BMW key, he kissed her on the forehead and went downstairs. In the lower hall he was intercepted by Alan Royston, the police Media Relations Manager, who had set up a makeshift press office in a room to the left of the foyer. He led Skinner to where a dozen reporters stood waiting. There he explained to them what had happened in the Music Hall, describing the scale of the destruction. He answered the questions of the group as best he could, and agreed finally to Royston's suggestion that the journalists and photographers should be taken together into the hall to see for themselves. As he was making his way towards the exit, Al Neidermeyer arrived.
There was a television cameraman puffing at his heels, a city freelance whom Skinner knew
by sight.
'Well, copper,' snarled Neidermeyer. 'So much for your security. How many more people did you let die here tonight?'
Once more. Skinner felt his self-control valve begin to strain.
He glanced quickly at the camera to make certain that the red action light was unlit. The cameraman was looking away, embarrassed. Then his right hand swept upwards in one short, swift motion. As it passed close to Neidermeyer's face, he flicked the second finger with his thumb, lightning-fast. The broad fingernail caught the American, very hard, square on the tip of the nose.
36
Andy Martin was waiting for him outside. He saw the anger in Skinner's eyes, but an inner caution stopped him from asking what was wrong. Instead he suggested that they go and talk things out at his flat near Haymarket, rather than return to the headquarters building.
They found Julia Shahor there when they arrived, home from the Film Festival. She greeted Martin, obvious anxiety turning quickly to relief. Radio Forth RFM was playing, and the television was on, with Teletext On 3 on screen, carrying the latest news on the explosion. A Royal Infirmary spokeswoman had confirmed the current death toll at fourteen; the condition of two other victims was said to be critical.
For a time, they stared grim-faced and speechless at the news bulletin on the screen. Then Martin handed Skinner and Julia a Beck's each from the fridge, taking a tin of Tennent's LA for himself. He joined Julia on the sofa, facing the television, while Skinner settled on the floor, his back against the wall.
It was Skinner who broke the silence – broke the spell cast by the horror of the Assembly Rooms. 'Andy, my brother, we've been kidding ourselves to think that we could prevent something like tonight. And we've been underestimating these people.
They're good: very well planned. We've got to catch them before it goes any further. But I do not, for the life of me, know how we're going to do it.'
For once, Martin had no word of encouragement to offer in reply.
Skinner finished his Beck's in one swallow, straight from the bottle. He got up to fetch himself another, then resumed his seat on the floor. With a wry smile, he said, 'But that's me seeing the glass half-empty. The positive side is that at least we've got some straightforward police work to do, thanks to good old Charlie Forsyth.'
'What do you mean?' asked Julia.
'Well, first we have to check every member of every other company that's been using that venue. Then there's the stage props. That exploding radiogram. No fucking way – oh, sorry, Julia – did they bring that all the way from Oz. They must have sourced it locally.'
'Maybe I can help you there,' she offered. 'I know of only three companies in Scotland which supply stage props. I looked into it earlier this year, when I needed things for a display I put on at Filmhouse. One's in Glasgow, one's down towards the Borders somewhere, but the biggest by far is here in Edinburgh. Let me see. What was it called? Proscenium Props – that was it. It was based in a big warehouse out to the west of the city, near Sighthill.'
'Good, Julia, Thanks for that. Well, Andy, that's a priority task for first thing tomorrow – I mean this morning. Find out where those props came from. Then we'll find out all there is to know about everybody on the supplier's payroll – like whether any of them has been handling Semtex over the last few days.'
He drained his second Beck's then pushed himself up from his hard seat on the floor. 'Right, that's it for me. I'm off home.'
'Want me to phone for a patrol car to pick you up?' asked Martin.
'No, no. Don't do that. The boys are too busy for taxi runs tonight. I'll walk. It's not that hellish far from here.' He paused.
'It's a nice night, and it'll let me pull some things together in my head. So long, Julia.'
Martin walked him to the front door of the second-floor flat.
He looked quizzically after his chief as he disappeared down the brightly lit, curving stairway. Eventually he closed the door and rejoined Julia in the living-room.
She caught the faraway look in his eyes. 'What is it?' she asked.
'It's the boss. He's got one of his niggles, I can tell.'
'What do you mean?'
'How do I explain it? Every so often, on a really difficult job, when we're pursuing a particular line of enquiry, Bob'11 decide that maybe it's not quite right: that all the bits don't fit that jigsaw. But he'll keep it to himself, just niggling and worrying away at the thought, like a dog at a bone, until either he's satisfied himself that, yes, we are on the right track after all, or until he comes up with a completely new approach.' He broke off. 'But enough of that. Heard from your aunt?'
'Yes, she's fine.'
'Which side of the family is she from? Mother or father?'
'Actually…' said Julia hesitantly, as if looking for the right words, 'neither. She's a sort of courtesy aunt, really. She was at school with my mother. They were very close.'
'In Israel? Funny, I wouldn't have thought that. Her accent sounds more European.'
'No, not in Israel. Somewhere else. The thing is – well. the thing is, my parents broke up when I was a girl, and I went to live with relatives in Israel. I got in touch with Auntie again when I came to the Sorbonne.' Suddenly she looked troubled. 'But, Andy, I really don't like to talk about all that. It was a bad time for me, and it is best left in the past.'
'Sure, love,' he said, soothingly. And in a second it was forgotten. 'He's some machine, old Bob, when he gets one of his niggles going. Wonder what it is this time? One thing's for sure though: sooner or later, we'll find out!'
37
The first rumblings of discontent appeared in the hastily written leaders of the following morning's Scotsman and Herald, while in the tabloids the rumbling was a full-scale earthquake. One lateedition banner blared, 'PLOD FIASCO: BOMBS HIT OZ'. This articulate headline filled two-thirds of the front page, and led a story filled with hastily assembled 'bystander' condemnation of the security operation in general, and of its commander in person.
Resisting the urge to crumple it up and throw it across the room, Skinner read it through to the end. He noted grimly that the only critic identified in the story was Al Neidermeyer.
While the more serious Scottish dailies were more circumspect, notes of concern rang in them all. The sombre leader in the Scotsman went so far as to praise Skinner as an outstanding detective, but developed its theme of two days before, wondering whether counter-terrorism was suited to his skills, and whether the crisis might be better placed under someone else's command.
'Like who, for instance?' he muttered to the empty room.
Michael Licorish and Alan Royston had scheduled a media conference, to be taken by Ballantyne and Skinner, at 10:00 am in the main hall at Fettes Avenue. In preparation for the inevitable grilling, the ACC read all of the reports which lay on his desk, including one from the Royal Infirmary which put the final death toll at eighteen, including the girl he had seen on the stretcher. Her name had been Alice Carroll, and she had been seventeen years old. Also listed at the end of the report was Alice's elderly grandmother, untouched by the shrapnel, but who had died of a heart attack shortly after the explosion.
Skinner had just finished his perusal when Ruth buzzed through on the intercom to tell him that Licorish was waiting outside.
'OK,' he said, 'send him in.'
The Information Director came in a few seconds later. Skinner could see an embarrassed look in his eyes, and knew that he had some uncomfortable news to break. He took a guess.
'Where's the Secretary of State, Mike? I thought he'd be here by now.' "That's just it. Bob. He can't make it. He asked me to apologise to you, and to ask you to take the chair in his place. He said I was to tell you he still has every confidence in you.' "That's fucking big of him. What's his story?'
'It's to do with a family friend having just died. Between you and me, it's actually a friend of Mrs Ballantyne. You know how it is with them?'
Skinner nodded. But he wondered if Licorish knew how it was with
Ballantyne and Carlie.
The Scottish Office man continued, almost sotto voce. 'She's been having an affair with a Liberal peer. Lord Broadgate. But it seems she was too much for him. He had a stroke during the night.
She phoned S of S in a bit of a panic, and he caught the first shuttle down to London.'
'Mmm,' Skinner muttered. 'Nice of him.'
As he looked at Licorish, he sensed something else. Before he could ask, the civil servant produced a brown envelope which he had been holding behind his back. 'This arrived just after he left.'
He pushed it across the desk.
The latest letter was brief and to the point.
Ballantyne, you and your lackeys must believe us now. We have shown you what we can do, and we will not stop until you give us back what is ours. Now we have the attention of the international community, and we have its support.
Withdraw from Scotland before its people rise up and join us in throwing you out.
Skinner threw it down on the desk.
'What the hell is that? It's just fucking rhetoric. They kill an American. They kill Australians. They kill their own Scots folk.
These people have to be crazy, or playing for very big stakes. Is Scotland that important?' He rose from behind his desk and led the way to his meeting with the media.
In the briefing room, the media corps – even Al Neidermeyer, his nose noticeably swollen – were unusually subdued as Skinner described the scene in the Music Hall, then listed the dead. Finally, he put down his notes and looked at his audience.
"There's little I can say to you that I haven't said before. This is a well-organised, well-resourced and completely ruthless group of people. What happened last night was beyond words – beyond mine, and I think beyond even yours, eloquent as you all may be.
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