Skinner’s round bs-4

by Quintin Jardine

  For the fourth time, the announcer introduced the members of Team Atkinson. For the fourth time the professional and the policeman drove from the first tee. Skinner hit his best drive of the week, around 280 yards, and as close to Witches' Hill as he dared go. Atkinson's shot was majestic, all power and grace, soaring 320 yards down the fairway, leaving him the ideal approach to the flag.

  Skinner and the champion walked together towards their drives, the huge gallery scrambling and scampering along the path to their left. As they passed the foot of Witches' Hill, Atkinson saw the line of coloured tape inside the first circle of trees and bushes which roped off the hill, and the uniformed officers who stood at intervals inside the boundary.

  `Why's that?' asked Atkinson, pointing to the hill.

  Oh we just want to keep any curious spectators off the hill after play, that's all. It's quite a historic site, after all. Or aren't you into history?'

  The golfer laughed. 'No, not me.'

  They reached Skinner's ball. He selected a four-iron and struck a safe, straight shot to the front edge of the green. It stopped thirty feet from the flag, making an opening par secure.

  Atkinson's feathered eight-iron was perfect. It rose through the still air, biting into the lush green five feet from the hole, backspin stopping it dead. Skinner shook his head. `How you can do that with an eight-iron defeats me. I can hardly get my wedge shots to hold on the green.'

  `Practice, partner. Practice for a lifetime, and the impossible will become merely the difficult.'

  Atkinson's birdie putt never wavered, and they moved on to the second, a 385-yard dogleg hole which bent right around the hill even more severely than the first, with an area of rough on the left placed strategically to force players, in theory, to hit iron shots from the tee.

  Skinner's conservative shot left him further from the green than at the much longer first, but Atkinson took his four-wood from the bag and hit a high shot, with an early hip movement which helped it fade from left to right round the curve of the hill, bending like a well-struck free-kick in soccer.

  They set off down the fairway. 'I don't mind telling you, Darren,' said Skinner. 'I'll be bloody glad when this week's over, and this whole circus has left my pleasant wee county.

  This whole thing started with a murder, of a man I knew, and it's ending with something just as bad.'

  `What, you mean Morton?'

  `Who said anything about Morton, man?'

  Atkinson paused. 'Well, he ducked out of the dinner last night, then he didn't show for breakfast this morning. I figured that you'd found Mr Nice and that he'd done a runner before you could arrest him.'

  `Good guess, that. We've found Andrews all right. He's been a pain in the arse all week, but we've tracked him down.' Skinner stopped as he reached his ball. He looked at the lie and the line. 'Give me a three-iron, please, Neil,' he said to McIlhenney. Taking the club from his makeshift caddy, he hit another careful shot, which carried once more to the front of the green, a few feet closer to the flag than at the first.

  `Good shot,' said Darren. 'Play to match par, not beat it. Pros play for birdies, all but the very best amateurs for pars. Remember that, play enough and you could get your handicap down to something near scratch.' His perfect tee shot had left him an approach of no more than 115 yards to the green. `Wedge please, caddy.' He took the club from McGuire and hit an approach to the flag which finished even closer than the shot at the first. For a moment Skinner thought that it would drop into the hole.

  As they moved on to the third, a 220-yard par-three with a green almost surrounded by bunkers, Atkinson was already two under par. He smacked his two-iron to the back of the long green, its widest point, leaving himself with a long putt but with his par secure. Skinner's three-iron was short of the green, but his thin chip ran fortuitously close to the hole to secure a third par.

  They came to the fourth tee and surveyed the 465-yard hole, its fairway bisected 240 yards away by the stream which flowed from the murky Truth Loch. 'You know, Darren,' said Skinner. 'I can tell you now, I've spent a good part of this week thinking that you might be the ultimate target of whoever's been killing people out there. Anyone as good as you, and as successful as you has to have a host of enemies, and if one hated you enough to want you dead… well. I've known circumstances before when a series of crimes were committed to confuse us, and throw us off balance, while the real target is achieved.'

  He shook his head. Not this time, though. Every crime committed this week has had a purpose, and very strong motives behind it. The strongest of the lot, actually: power and money. The only time we've been off balance this week was when Hector Kinture's mother sent that bloody silly note to the Scotsman.'

  He fell silent as Atkinson addressed his ball and hit a towering drive, carrying the stream by fifty yards and taking a high forward bounce. He stepped up in turn, concentrating with all his might. His drive cleared the water also, and ran on to finish 300 yards out, his longest of the week.

  They strode off the tee together. 'By the way,' said Skinner, `the third note was dropped off in the early hours of this morning, at the Daily Record office in George Street.'

  Atkinson looked across at him, with raised eyebrows. Skinner glanced back, with a sad look in his eyes, an expression of huge disappointment.

  `You know, Darren,' he said, 'it was the way you treated poor Sue Kinture that started me thinking that maybe your feet had a touch of clay in them.

  I reckon you must have women throwing themselves at you all the time. But if you took those opportunities, they'd deflect your concentration from the main mission, to be Number One, and you wouldn't be quite the ruthless bastard that you are.' They reached the narrow stone bridge which crossed the stream. Skinner stood aside to allow Atkinson to cross first.

  `Sue's a really nice lady you know. OK, she's married and she shouldn't have made eyes at you, but old Hector is no good to her between the sheets, and out of his frustration with his condition, he gives her a hard time now and again, so there's an excuse. But she didn't deserve what you did to her, screwing her brains out in her own house on the night of the PGA dinner, then cutting her virtually dead the next day.

  `No gentleman behaves like that, Darren — yet that's your image, the first gentleman of golf.

  I was really disappointed in you, when Sue told Sarah, and Sarah told me.

  And then I realised.' He stopped at his ball, and hit an adrenaline-charged six-iron into the heart of the green. He handed the club back to Mcllhenney. 'As I said, I realised what had happened to cause your change of heart.'

  They stopped at Atkinson's ball. The champion took an eight-iron and hit a solid shot ten feet from the flag. 'Hope I'm not putting you off talking like this,' said Skinner. 'I've got a few quid riding on you after all. It's just that it's so much easier to tell you my story out here.'

  They strode steadily towards the green.

  `We were discussing your behaviour towards Susan. It came to me that you changed towards her after I told you about the Keyman arrangement Hector had with Michael White, and that, because of it, he wouldn't need or want any new cash in Witches' Hill.

  I remembered that and I thought, "What a pity, Darren's not such a nice guy after all, shagging the poor lady just to get her to support him as the replacement investor in the venture, then dumping her when he finds that's a non-runner." And that's all I thought at first.'

  He lined up his putt and sent it a foot or two past the hole, marked his ball and watched as Atkinson's ten-footer lipped the hole, drawing a gasp from the crowd, then swung a few inches past. The champion tapped in, slapping his thigh in frustration. Skinner said nothing, but rolled in his putt for a fourth straight par.

  They walked across to the fifth hole, another par-three, but shorter at 170 yards than the third.

  The air seemed heavier than ever. Skinner glanced up. The clouds seemed lower, leaden and more threatening. 'Yes,' he said. 'That's all I thought at first. But then my nasty, dark, su
spicious polisman's imagination went to work, and I started having the sort of thoughts that wake you up in the night.

  `That's when detecting really does become like golf, Darren. After all the practice, a good golfer imagines playing the shot he's faced with, and then he plays it to make his vision reality. After all the teamwork, the good detective pictures in his mind the commission of the crime. Then he goes out to see if the evidence is there to colour in his outline. And when the really good detective goes looking, a guy like me, with a really nasty, suspicious mind, it nearly always is.'

  Atkinson's back was to him, over his ball, as he finished speaking. His shot was majestic, a high seven-iron pitching over the flag. Behind them their massive gallery cheered, then groaned as the backspin this time took the Titleist back down the slope of the green. Skinner hit a five-iron. The ball caught the sole of his club and flew low. It pitched short of the green but ran on, finishing, to his and the crowd's surprise, slightly closer to the hole than the classic shot of the champion.

  They walked from the tee together, as before. Skinner resumed his narrative. The first thought that came to me, as we bathed the baby one night, was "Why is Darren rubbishing this course quite so hard?" I mean it's brand-new, but it's well over seven thousand yards long, and to any normal human being, even a seasoned pro like Tiger Nakamura, it looks bloody difficult. Suddenly, among all the rubbishing, I caught a whiff of something unpleasant, and potentially, dangerous. I caught the scent of envy. And then, to add to that, I remembered something else. I wasn't able to confirm it until this morning, but once I did, that part of the story was pretty well firmed up.'

  He fell silent for a while as they reached the green, as he watched Atkinson line up his putt across the difficult, slanting surface, and hit it, to stop two inches above the hole. The champion tapped in and stood back, applauding with the rest, as Skinner two-putted safely for his par. 'You're doing well, partner,' he said, coolly. 'Keep up the good work.'

  `Thanks,' said Skinner as he tossed his putter to Mcllhenney, and began the twisting walk to the next tee. Anyway,' he went on, 'as I was saying, another recollection had come to me.

  Last Sunday, Lord Kinture was telling me about all the people who wanted to invest in Witches' Hill. "Everyone and his brother literally" he said.'

  `When I asked him again, this morning, he confirmed what I had guessed. He told me that, originally, you and your brother Rick had wanted to be major players in Witches' Hill. In fact you wanted to be the majority players, and to have sway over architecture, management and everything else. He said that you two realised that Witches' Hill had the potential to become the world's top golfing resort in the world's finest golfing country. He told me that you offered him all the development capital and your input on design, assuming that he'd jump at the chance.

  But he and Mickey White didn't want you or your money. They had their own, and their own ideas and plans for Witches' Hill. Lord Kinture said that when he turned you down, you and Rick were… "incandescent" was his word.'

  He paused as they reached the tee, and looked down the narrow sixth fairway. 'So Darren, I added all that up in my nasty detective's head, and I was forced to a conclusion that I genuinely hate… that as well as Mafioso Mike Morton, another potential bidder, but a man who tends to pick fights in public with people who have crossed him, I've got two other people with just as strong a motive for killing Michael White.'

  Skinner broke off, as Atkinson hit a careful three-wood to the heart of the fairway, away from any of the inviting bunkers. His own shot, a full drive, edged perilously close to a sand-trap on the right, but bounded just beyond its clutches. They marched off together once more.

  `Where was I?' said Skinner. 'Yes, White. As I picture it, you and Rick saw him as the barrier to your involvement in Witches' Hill. You knew that Kinture needed his cash. So you reckoned that if he was dead, you and Rick could buy out his widow. You had the motive, you two, and your behaviour with Sue Kinture, plus your comment to me that you'd like to invest, proved that you had thought about it after the event. So why not before it?'

  He paused and looked at Atkinson. The champion was striding along beside him, head down, unsmiling, looking for all the world as if he was concentrating on his next shot. 'That brought me to the heart of it, Darren. Could I picture you, you of all people, as someone who would murder, who would take lives in pursuit of gain or ambition?

  And the terrible thing is, man, and it pains me, I can.' He shook his head.

  `Hundreds, thousands of people, maybe more, have the motivation to murder. The questions which follow are, "Is it worth it?" and "Are they the sort of people who would kill for their own gain?" Whatever the answer to the first question, the answer to the second is almost invariably — and fortunately — a loud "No!"

  `Premeditated killers, as opposed to the spur-of-the-moment domestic variety, are totally ruthless in their pursuit of an objective. They are totally determined. They are dedicated.

  They are mentally very, very strong.

  I've just described the qualities which go to make business tycoons, fighting soldiers, successful policemen and many others, including champion sportsmen. The difference between all of them and the sort of person who killed White is that they possess compassion.

  They have the conscience gene that's missing from the killer's DNA make-up.

  I've dealt with people like that, Darren. I can pick them out. My method's pretty crude, but I've never known it to fail. I choose my moment, and I just look into their eyes!'

  They stopped at Skinner's ball. He beckoned McIlhenney towards him, and selected a wedge.

  His shot was high and sure, to the back of the green, not flirting with the bunker on its front edge, behind which the hole was cut. Atkinson, emotionless, called for his sand-iron, and floated a soft, delicate shot. If the putting surface had been a dartboard, it would have been a bull.

  They approached the green and the champion looked stonily at the ground ahead. 'I've looked into your eyes, Darren. I did it again, just now. Every time you concentrate on a golf shot, and hit it, the real you is there to be seen. You can't hide it. I look, and I see ruthlessness, determination, dedication and strength. But I don't see a trace of compassion.

  I've looked in your eyes, my friend, and I believe. You could do it. You've got deadly eyes, Darren, the kind I've seen in dozens of interview rooms and, once or twice, in people standing over their victims. None of them have ever walked away from me.'

  He lined his putt and hit it straight and sure, to the edge of the hole. Atkinson's attempt, from fifteen feet, stopped on the edge. Characteristically, he slapped his thigh, the only form of emotion he had shown since the round began.

  They walked off the green together. 'I can read your mind as well,' said Skinner. 'You're thinking, "I'm all right. He can't prove a thing. I was in England when White was butchered, in the midst of a crowd at Bracklands when Masur was drowned, and at the dinner last night when Morton was set alight."'

  Skinner looked quickly at him, sideways as he spoke. Atkinson's expression stayed stony.

  `That's it, Darren,' the policeman said quietly. 'That's the last piece of proof, and all the confession I'll ever need. The fact that I told you about Morton, whose death is still a secret to everyone except my people, Lord Kinture, and Arthur Highfield, and you never even twitched… because you knew!'

  They stepped in silence on to the seventh tee. Atkinson looked down the length of the 575-yard hole, reached out a hand to McGuire for his driver and crashed out one of the longest drives that Skinner had ever seen. The ball carried for over 300 yards and bounced on for another fifty.

  As he bent to retrieve his tee, for an instant the real Darren Atkinson looked up at Skinner. He spoke not a word, but in a flashing moment, his mask of affability was ripped away and a driven fury shone in his eyes.

  The policeman stared back at him, unblinking, before turning away to concentrate his mind on the shot ahead. His drive was as straight as
Atkinson's, but finished sixty yards shorter.

  It's right, though,' said Skinner as they jumped down from the slightly elevated tee. 'You do have alibis for each crime. But Rick, your brother, he doesn't.'

  They walked in silence to their second shots. Skinner's three-wood approach left him fifty yards short of the green, but Atkinson's sweetly struck two-iron soared unerringly to its heart.

  `You might not believe this,' said Skinner, on the move once more, 'but the fact that you and Rick are twins might have escaped me, but for my friend Henry Wills. He saw you yesterday, in the exhibition tent, and he thought you were Rick.

  `Because he taught him, you see, at university back in the early eighties. He taught him history. In the tent, Henry called out, "Reginald". I turned, and you were there with Sandro Gregory, stepping off the Shark's Fin stand. But you didn't see us, or react to Henry's shout, and I thought nothing of it at the time.

  `When Henry saw you later, from a distance, and learned who you were, he thought he'd made a mistake. Of course in effect he was right. When he saw you, he really did see the face of his old student. But Henry's only good with faces, and he couldn't recall the name that

  "Reginald" used, so at that point, I didn't twig. I didn't make the connection until Morton said something about you and your doppelganger brother. Even then it took me a while to say to myself, "Bugger me, they're twins!"

  I asked Arthur Highfield this morning. "Two peas in a pod," he told me. "Darren takes care of the golf, Rick takes care of the business with the same dedication. You hardly ever see them together," he said, "but when you do you can only tell them apart by their clothes and by Darren's big golfer's hands." Oh yes, Darren, and by one other thing. Rick's a smoker, according to Highfield.

  I haven't met your brother yet, but when I do, when eventually I choose my moment and look into his eyes, I bet I'll see the same thing there that I see in yours.'

  Skinner reached his ball, and took his sand wedge from McIlhenney, who, with McGuire, was following just too far behind to be within earshot. 'With that,' he said, 'the jigsaw was complete. I saw the whole picture in my nasty detective's mind — a pair of murderous twins, ready to do anything in the pursuit of their objective. To be Number One… in everything.'