Skinner's Mission bs-6

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘I’ve waited twenty-three years for that,’ he said, at last. ‘Listen, no-one knows we’ve got McCartney and Kirkbride locked up, do they?’

  ‘No, we’ve had a news blackout over the whole thing. So have the Northumbrians, at our request.’

  ‘That’s excellent. In that case you can choose your moment. You could pick Terry up now, if you like.’

  ‘What would you do?’

  ‘Guess.’

  Martin scratched his chin and smiled. ‘I reckon you’d knock up the Fiscal and get a formal arrest warrant,’ he said. ‘Then you’d pay a call on our funny friend first thing tomorrow morning, at his home, and invite him to give us a special performance.’

  ‘Spot on,’ said Skinner. ‘Where does he live? Torphichen, isn’t it? Say around seven thirty. Late enough for him to have had his last breakfast as a free man. Light enough for our people to see. Still early enough for there not to be too many neighbours around to get in the way. That’s what I’d do.’

  ‘Good enough for me,’ said Martin. ‘Let’s have him, then, and let’s see how he reacts when he finds himself looking at thirty years.’

  ‘Don’t let’s build our hopes too high, Andy. I spoke to a man today who’d happily have done life for his friend . . . in a sense he is. If Terry doesn’t talk, we may get him, but we don’t get Charles.’

  ‘He will, though; I feel it in my bones. Terry isn’t in the same league as his gaffer. Do you want to be there?’

  ‘No, son. It’s your show. You don’t need me around. Take no chances though. When you pick him up, go in armed. We’re lifting him for ordering three murders, after all.

  ‘Let me know as soon as you’ve got him.’ He smiled. ‘And if you need me to come into the interview and terrify him, just ask! I’d enjoy that. Good luck.’

  He hung up and looked at his watch. It was five minutes past seven, and he was alone in the Command Suite. He picked up the phone again and dialled the number of the mobile which had been issued that morning to Pam Masters.

  ‘Yes?’ She sounded hesitant.

  ‘It’s okay,’ he said, ‘it’s me. Where are you?’

  ‘Still at Companies House,’ she said. ‘No luck so far though, sir.’

  ‘Got much still to do?’

  ‘There are a few things I can try.’

  ‘In that case, I’ll come up and help you.’

  Outside, the snow which had been teasing the city all day had finally made up its mind to get serious. The BMW snaked sideways momentarily as he eased it down the white-blanketed driveway, but his reaction, and the car’s own systems, straightened it up at once. He chose the least hilly route to Companies House, relocated from George Street to plush new premises in Saltire Court, a showpiece office building in Castle Terrace. By the time he parked before its high-pillared entrance, sat in the shadow of the Castle Rock’s great bulk, the car’s clock showed 7.29.

  Saltire Court is home to major law firms, accountancy practices, fund managers and others as well as to the Scottish Register of Companies, and so the building was ablaze with light as he walked into the first of its two atriums, and showed his warrant card to the doorkeeper. As he reached the lifts, one of them slid open and a round-faced, blue-suited man stepped out. ‘Hello, Neil,’ said Skinner, recognising a lawyer friend from East Lothian. ‘Knocking off early tonight?’

  ‘You’re not, I see,’ said the man with a smile. ‘You don’t need our services, do you?’

  ‘I hope not,’ said the policeman, suddenly grim, ‘but if it turns out that I do, I’ll give you a shout. Cheers for now, though. Watch yourself on the way home. The roads are pretty bad.’

  As the lawyer looked after him, frowning, puzzled by his off-the-cuff remark, he strode off in search of his assistant.

  He found her in a glass-walled office, accompanied by a registrar. He could tell at a glance that the man was clearly not enjoying his enforced overtime.

  ‘Hello, boss,’ said Pamela. ‘Just in time for the final act, I fear.’ She shifted in her seat, adjusting the skirt of her tight-fitting two-piece grey outfit. ‘I think I’ve run out of ideas. Mr Shaw and I have covered every company registered in the last twenty-five years and still trading. There’s nothing with John Jackson Charles, Carole Charles or Douglas Terry listed as a director that we didn’t know about before.

  ‘We’ve looked for every combination of those names that we could think of. Carole Jackson, Charles Jackson, Terry Douglas, the lot; no joy. Except that Terry Douglas is a director of a toffee manufacturer in Inverness, and Charles Jackson is on the board of a computer firm in Glasgow. I’m coming to the conclusion that this is one very wild goose.’

  Skinner sat down beside her. ‘Sounds like it.’ He scratched his chin, racking his brain. Suddenly his eyebrows rose. ‘There is one other outside possibility,’ he said. ‘Try looking for the surname Huish, Mr Shaw. Spelled H-U-I-S-H. Carole Huish.’

  The man sighed with undisguised impatience, adjusted his spectacles and bent over a computer printout, his untidy black hair dropping flakes of dandruff on the pages as he searched through its leaves.

  At last he looked up. ‘There’s no Carole Huish listed,’ he said. ‘Only one person with that surname, in fact. Jacqueline Huish, sole director of a company named Thirty-First Nominees, registered three years ago, registered office, 31a Rankeillor Street.’

  ‘Pull its records for us, Mr Shaw, then we can all go home.’

  The man disappeared, unsmiling. ‘Heavy going, isn’t he,’ said Skinner, quietly, as he left.

  ‘His boss made him stay with me,’ said Masters. ‘Not a happy man.’

  ‘He’s a bloody fool, then.’ Her big eyes, and a sudden surprised smile, flashed up at him.

  Mr Shaw returned within three minutes, holding several photocopied sheets. ‘It seems to be a holding company,’ he said. ‘Very small. It lodges a balance sheet every year, for minimum compliance with the law. It seems to have nothing but fixed assets, depreciated over different periods. That usually means that it’s a device for holding property.’

  Skinner stood up. ‘Just the device we were after, Mr Shaw. Thank you for being so patient with us. Come on, Pam.’ He took the photocopies, shook the man’s hand, and ushered Masters out of the office.

  ‘Yess,’ they hissed in unison, outside in the corridor.

  ‘Jackie Huish,’ said Skinner. ‘Pretty obvious if you know the key. Carole’s maiden name, Pam, in combination with his Christian name. And she’s a sole director. I wonder if even Jackie knows all the details of this company.’

  ‘Surely he would, boss?’

  ‘Not necessarily. Not if he felt he didn’t need to. Or maybe, not if Carole felt that he didn’t.

  ‘Tomorrow we’ll look at the property register to find out what Thirty-First Nominees actually owns.’

  He glanced at his watch. ‘But that’s tomorrow. Tonight I’m bloody starving. The Atrium Restaurant’s in this building. Some say it’s the best in town. Fancy a bite?’

  She laughed, and laid a hand on his arm. ‘Boss, I can’t let you feed me all the time. I’ve got food in the fridge, and you’re going home to an empty house. Come home with me, and I’ll make us both dinner.’

  He looked down at her, doubtfully, for a few seconds, pondering her invitation. ‘What the hell,’ he said at last. ‘Why not? You’re on, Pam.’

  Three inches of fresh snow had fallen on his car in the half-hour they had been in the building, and it was growing deeper by the second. He swept it away from the front and rear screens and from the side windows, with a cleaning blade which he took from the boot. As they slid into the car the snow created a fantastic winter scene as it swept through the yellow beam of Edinburgh Castle’s floodlights, high above them.

  ‘March can be a demon of a month, can’t it just,’ he said as he drove off, slowly and more carefully than ever. ‘Every year, when we think it’s spring at last, it chucks this sort of stuff at us. Remember how mild the weather was at the weekend too.
’

  He reached the lights at the foot of Lothian Road, and turned, into the clutches of Edinburgh’s notorious one-way system. ‘I would like to take the buggers responsible for this maze and lock them away for a very long time indeed,’ he muttered, almost to himself. ‘I told Jimmy we should oppose this tooth and nail, but the Police Board is stuffed with sympathisers of the sods who dreamed up this nonsense.’

  In the darkness, she smiled, amused by his frustration.

  Even with the car’s state-of-the-art steering, the treacherous crawl down Leith Walk was a nightmare. But at last they reached Pamela’s flat in one piece, and parked in a vacant space outside. The snow was heavier than ever, almost blinding. Skinner looked out from the shelter of the doorway as his assistant fumbled in her bag for her key.

  ‘I should really head for home,’ he said. ‘Trouble is, I doubt if I’d make it as far as Portobello.’

  ‘It’ll ease off,’ she said, opening the door. ‘And if it doesn’t,’ she added, cheerily, ‘I’ve got a spare room.’

  She paused, as they stepped inside. ‘Or would that embarrass you?’

  Bob smiled down at her. Had he thought about it at that time, he would have realised that for the first time in months, he did not feel completely alone. ‘I’m going on forty-six,’ he said. ‘All my life, I’ve been too easily embarrassed. Too old for that now. Whether it would be appropriate, though, that’s another question.’

  The flat was on the attic floor. She showed him into a spectacular loft-style living area, perhaps eight metres square, with two large windows set into the wall looking for all the world like at inverted ‘W’. A large green leather sofa sat, facing out towards the blizzard, with a single matching armchair beside it, both set before a Sony television set. The floor was sanded, varnished beech, with small rugs strewn about here and there.

  ‘Make yourself at home, sir,’ she said. ‘I have to change into my cooking gear.’

  ‘I will if you stop calling me “sir”. I hope I’m here as a friend, not a senior officer. “Sir”’s for out there.’

  ‘What will I call you then?’

  ‘In here? Anything you bloody like.’

  She grinned. ‘Okay, Eagle.’

  ‘What?’ He laughed, surprised. ‘What’s with Eagle?’

  ‘Because that’s how I think of you. When I was in marketing, the consultancy hired a personnel development consultant. Part of her technique was to make us see everyone in our group as the particular creature which they most resembled. It was a team-building exercise . . . I think.

  ‘I still play the game, for my own amusement. I see you as an eagle. A great big bird, flying high, watching everything. Always ready to swoop when you see something wrong, and when you do, unstoppable.’

  He was still laughing as he took off his jacket and threw it across the back of the sofa. ‘Hey, hold on a minute; an eagle’s a bird of prey, a ruthless hunter-killer.’

  She nodded. ‘I know. That’s how I see you. And I’ll bet that’s how you’ve looked to some of the people you’ve put away.’

  She grinned again. ‘What about me? What animal do I make you think of?’

  He gazed at her, appraising her; studying her tumbling hair, and her big, round, smiling eyes. And suddenly, for the very first time he realised, consciously at least, of whom she reminded him: a wild creature at times, but human. Every time he looked at her, at the back of his mind he thought of Myra.

  He played the game, nonetheless. ‘Okay. I see you as a panther. A big, sleek cat,’ he laughed, ‘with a purr like thunder.’

  She whistled. ‘Wow! I’m flattered. A panther. What makes you see me that way?’

  ‘I knew another panther, once.’ He loosened his tie and grinned again. ‘Now, what did you say about dinner? This is one hungry eagle.’

  Six doors opened off the room. She disappeared, with a wave, through the one closest to the window, on the left. As he waited for her return, he stood and looked out of the great uncurtained ‘W’. Although the central heating radiators kept the room at a comfortable temperature, a rim of ice had formed on the glass outside, and the snow had turned the waterfront into a belated Christmas card. It was piled high on the rigging of the floating night-spot, which was moored against the east embankment of the Water of Leith. It lay like icing on the pointed roof of the Malmaison Hotel, transformed from its earlier state as an abandoned customs house. There was no more traffic. The blizzard had won, and was rubbing in its triumph.

  Pamela’s cooking gear turned out to be a blue and white apron, worn to protect a plain white teeshirt and baggy cotton trousers with a pattern which reminded him of the waiters in a certain beachfront Spanish bar. She showed him how to operate the television remote, but instead he followed her into the kitchen.

  ‘How can I help?’ he asked her.

  ‘If you’re serious, you can wash and cut up the peppers and stuff.’ She pointed to an assortment of vegetables, lying on a chopping board, and handed him a broad-bladed knife.

  ‘Would you like a drink?’ she asked. ‘Sorry I’ve none of that Spanish Eagle beer, but there is some San Miguel.’

  He glanced out of the kitchen window. ‘Appropriate or not,’ he said, ‘your spare room looks inevitable, so I might as well. Not beer, though. I could murder a vodka and tonic.’

  Pam nodded. ‘Good choice. Me too.’

  They sipped their drinks as they worked, Bob preparing the vegetables for the wok and washing the rice, Pamela defrosting a brick of frozen fish soup in the microwave and cutting chicken breasts into strips. Gradually their meal took shape, until, as they finished their second vodka and tonic, Pamela pronounced it ready.

  There was a tall uplighter in the corner of the room, but in spite of it Pam lit two candles on her round dining table. They ate, mostly in silence as they concentrated on their food. The fish soup was followed by the chicken, stir fried and served over the rice with a robust tomato, courgette and pepper sauce, all with a bottle of strong, smooth Argentinian red wine to wash it down.

  ‘Pam,’ said Skinner, as he forked up the last of the rice, ‘ten days ago I had a slap-up dinner in the best restaurant in Los Angeles. It wasn’t a patch on that.’

  She smiled back, almost coyly, through the candlelight. ‘Thank you, sir . . . sorry, Eagle. Food’s always at its best when you’re really ready for it.’ She drained the last of the Echart from her glass. ‘There’s no dessert, I’m afraid, but . . .’

  She skipped through to the kitchen, returning a few seconds later with a tray bearing cups and saucers, a jug of steaming black coffee and a bottle of Bailey’s Irish Cream liqueur. ‘Try this,’ she murmured, as she poured the coffee and topped it off with the Bailey’s, added as if it were milk. ‘Irish coffee, the Pamela Masters way.’

  Intrigued, he picked up his cup and took a sip. His eyebrows rose. ‘My God, that’s indescribable. Why have I never done that myself?’

  They emptied the jug and much of the Bailey’s. Finally Pam produced goblets and a bottle of Hennessy cognac. ‘What’s the good of being a single woman if you can’t indulge yourself,’ she said.

  With their brandies warming in their cupped hands, they sat on the green leather sofa, looking through the window at the falling snow, Pamela at one end, with her legs curled under her, Skinner at the other. On the table, the candles still guttered, but the uplighter was dimmed, and the only other light in the room spilled in from the waterfront outside.

  ‘Who was she, then?’ she asked at last, in its silver glow, ‘Your other panther?’

  He looked down at her, settling into the sofa, feeling warm, muzzy, replete and very comfortable. ‘It was Myra. She was quite a bit taller than you, but . . . Your eyes, the way your hair is, the way you move: you’re different, you understand, but in a way I can’t pin down, you’re very like her.’ He smiled.

  ‘And what about me. Who do I remind you of?’

  ‘No-one,’ she laughed. ‘You’re an absolute one-off.’

  The
re was a long silence as they sat gazing out of the window at winter’s last shout, sinking deeper into the leather cushions. It was Skinner who broke it. ‘I’m thinking, Pam,’ he began, ‘that I should really phone Fettes and have one of the Traffic Department Landrovers pick me up and take me to Fairyhouse Avenue. There’s a spare room there as well.

  ‘You could bring the BMW in in the morning, if the roads are okay by then.’

  She nodded. ‘I will, if that’s what you decide. But can you trust the Traffic boys?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ He looked at her puzzled.

  ‘Can you trust them not to put two and two together and make seventeen, when they pick you up from my flat at going on for one in the morning?’

  He laughed. ‘That is a very cynical view of the loyalty and discretion of your average Traffic Department colleague. And it’s absolutely spot on. It’s a fair bet that the news would be on the canteen grapevine before the current shift was over.’ He paused. ‘Of course, I could always threaten them with crucifixion if they breathed a word.’

  It was Pamela’s turn to smile. ‘That would really start them thinking, wouldn’t it.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right. If they hadn’t been picturing the worst, that would do it for sure. Okay. Your spare room it is, then. And it’s time I was off to it. We’ve got a big day before us tomorrow.’

  He stood up, reaching out a hand to help her to her feet. ‘Thanks a million, Pam. It’s been a smashing evening, and it’s done wonders for me. I was getting pretty doomy, without knowing it. I really needed to relax, and I’m grateful to you for helping me do it.’

  She looked up at him. ‘It was a pleasure. With one thing and another, you must be having a tough time just now.’

  Bob shrugged his shoulders. ‘Maybe so, but no-one’s immune from problems, and no-one can assume that any marriage, any relationship is so strong it’s fireproof. Maybe too, if I was honest about it, I’d see that some of my problems are of my own making. Yes, maybe.

  ‘But for Christ’s sake, Pam,’ he burst out. ‘How are you supposed to react when you feel betrayed by someone you love?’