Autographs in the Rain by Quinten Jardine.
Book Jacket.
As BOB SKINNER takes an evening stroll
with a gorgeous filmstar on his arm, surely the
worst of his worries is that back at Headquarters,an ambitious new colleague is scheming to enlarge his territory at Skinner's expense. But when a frightening shotgun attack sends Skinner and his old flame Louise Bankier diving for cover,
seems danger has zeroed in on him once again.
Returning to her native Scotland to shoot her
latest film, Louise Bankier is one of Scotland's
most popular exports - except with the stalker,
who seems determined to scare her witless -
maybe worse. For Skinner, tracking down
her tormentor isn't just business now.
It's very personal indeed.
Meanwhile, the case of a pensioner found dead
in his bath turns out to be anything but an open
and shut case - especially when one of Skinner's
closest staff is accused of murdering him. And
a gang of thieves specialising in stealing items
of a rather slippery nature are driving more,
than one police force to distraction.
On several fronts, Skinner is about to find out
that nothing is quite what it seems...
Quintin Jardine is the author of ten previous
acclaimed Bob Skinner novels: 'Remarkably
assured... a tour de force' NEW YORK TIMES
HEADLINE
FictionCrime
UK £9.99
ISBN 0-7472-7399-5
9 780747"273998
Quinten Jardine was a journalist before joining the Government Information Service where he spent nine years as an advisor to ministers and Civil Servants. Later he moved into political PR, until in 1986 he 'privatized' himself, to become an independent public relations consultant and writer. He is the author of the acclaimed Bob Skinner crime series as well as the Oz Blackstone mysteries.
Also by this author
Skinner's Rules
Skinner's Festival
Skinner's Trail
Skinner's Round
Skinner's Ordeal
Skinner's Mission
Skinner's Ghosts
Murmuring the Judges
Gallery Whispers
Thursday Legends
Blackstone's Pursuits
A Coffin for Two
Wearing Purple
Screen Savers
Quintin Jardine
HEADLINE
Copyright (c) 2001 Quintin Jardine
The right of Quintin Jardine to be identified as the Author of
the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2001 by
HEADLINE BOOK PUBLISHING
10987654321
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means without the prior written
permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated
in any form of binding or cover other than that in which
it is published and without a similar condition being
imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious
and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead,
is purely coincidental.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Jardine, Quintin
Autographs in the rain
1. Skinner, Bob (Fictitious character)
2. Police 3. Detective and mystery stories
I. Title
823.9'14 F
ISBN 0 7472 7446 0 (hardback)
ISBN 0 7472 7399 5 (trade paperback)
Typeset by
CBS, Martlesham Heath, Ipswich, Suffolk
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Clays Ltd, St Ives pic
HEADLINE BOOK PUBLISHING
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This is for Dr George Armour Bell, QBE, uncle, medical adviser, and
all-round good guy.
Acknowledgements
My friend and fellow mysterian, Richard 'Kinky' Friedman, a star in two
galaxies, who suggested the title, unwittingly, in a Mongolian hut in
Edinburgh.
Patsy, at Moonmare, wherever in the world, or on the Internet, that
be.
may
Sylvia Cunningham, MBE.
William Crowe, a fellow escapee from an institution in Elmbank Street,
Glasgow.
A fine man, nameless on this page at least, who tried to teach me chemistry
in that very institution, but failed through no fault of his own.
1
Christmas comes early in London. So does closing time.
The couple stood on the edge of the pavement and looked along Oxford
Street; it was just over an hour before midnight, the lights were shining,
their tableaux stretching all the way along towards Marble Arch. Buses
and taxis flowed along Regent Street towards the Circus, business picking
up again as the pubs began to empty.
'Jeez,' the tall man murmured. 'It's a shallow and inhospitable place,
this. Damn near two months to Christmas and the fairy lights are on show
already. Yet try and get a drink after eleven and you've no chance. To
paraphrase an old Frankie song, London by night is a God awful sight. ..
even on a Friday.'
'Come on now,' his companion laughed. In her high heels she stood
only three or four inches shorter than his six feet two. She was golden
haired, stunningly beautiful in classic contrast to his rugged, life-formed
features, and her pale blue eyes seemed to reflect the sparkle of the pageant
light. Her voice was full and mellow, that of a contralto in her prime, refined
and with the faintest trace, if one listened closely enough, of a Scottish
accent. 'Glasgow was just the same when we were youngsters,' she said,
'but without the bright lights.'
'I never cared, when you were around.'
'No,' she countered quickly, a chuckle in her throat, 'nor when the other
one was, either. You made your choice; and from the way you were talking
about your daughter tonight, you've never regretted it.'
Suddenly, for the first time that evening, he was sombre. He hunched his
broad shoulders inside his Barbour jacket, his sigh expelling a great cloud
of breath into the frosty night. 'Regret is your enemy,' he said. 'If you give
in to it, it can destroy you. It's a waste of time anyway; you can't change
the past.'
'But would you, if you could?' she asked him.
'Why? Would you? The way you say that makes it sound as if I dumped
you, yet I've always understood that our breaking up was a joint decision.'
She reached up and adjusted his tie, looking at the knot, rather than into
his eyes. 'Then, sir, that just shows you how good I am at my job. Oh, I
didn't make a fuss when it happened. I was a big girl; I put on my mature
face and agreed with all the common sense you talked.' She put a fingertip
betwe
en her breasts. 'But in here, my little heart was breaking.'
'I'm sorry. I really am,' he replied sincerely, 'but I still think it was for
the best.'
'So do I, now; no doubt about it. But back while it was happening
She smiled up at him, with a flash of mischief in her eye. 'Did you love me,
then?'
He nodded, his steely hair glinting under the street lights. 'Yup.'
She opened her mouth to respond but broke off as a pedestrian paused,
and turned to stare at her. The man seemed to hesitate, then carried on his
way. She looked back at him, the interruption over. 'But not as much as you
loved her?' It was a statement as much as a question.
'It wasn't just that. I loved her, sure... although to be absolutely truthful,
I liked you more. Ahhh ...' He paused for a few seconds, gazing up at the
night. 'Look, Lou, I don't care about religion or any of that stuff, just about
what's right and what's wrong. My first personal commandment is loyalty.
I've broken it twice in my life, and found that I hated myself for it, on both
occasions.
'The way I came to see it back then was that I made a promise when I got
engaged. If I had broken it off, I couldn't have hacked the guilt, and sooner
or later, I'd have blamed it on you.'
'And I'd have hated that, for sure,' she conceded. She chuckled again,
deep and warm, at his frown. 'Don't worry, I haven't spent the last twenty
five years pining for my lost love. I've found a few since then: two marriages,
three serious affairs . . . not bad for a wee girl from Bearsden. I've never
felt a pang of guilt, either. We're totally different personalities, you see:
yours is set in concrete and mine's tossing about on life's restless ocean.
'I'd have left you by the time I was twenty-one. For sure.'
She paused as a red bus roared by, close to the kerb. 'When was your
other fall from grace?' she asked him.
'A couple of years back,' he answered. 'My second wife and I had a
major fall-out; she went back to the States, and I got involved with someone
else. We got over it, though. We found out that we mattered too much to
each other to let go.'
AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN
She smiled again. 'So there's no point in my asking you back to my
place for a nightcap?'
He raised an eyebrow at her question, and glanced away, out into the
street. 'That would depe
In mid-sentence, he stopped, threw his left arm round her waist and
flung himself sideways, pulling her with him as he dived behind an
abandoned newspaper stand. They heard the blast behind them before they
hit the ground, and the scream of tyres as a dark coloured saloon accelerated
away down Regent Street.
He was on his feet again in a second. 'Wait here,' he told the woman,
then ran off down the street after the car, trying to catch a clear view of its
number-plate, only to see it disappear round the curve in the broad street,
heading for Piccadilly Circus. She too was standing once again as he returned
to their safe haven. No one had come to her aid; indeed, none of the few
people who had been passing at the time were anywhere to be seen.
She stared at him, bewildered, but apparently not in the least frightened.
'You swept me off my feet once before,' she exclaimed, 'but never like
that. What was that about?'
He glared back down Regent Street. 'When someone shoots at me,' he
said, tersely, 'I tend to get out of the way!'
Her hand flew to her mouth, and her eyes seemed to flash as they widened.
'Someone shot at you?'
'It's happened before,' he told her dryly. 'Didn't you see the gun?'
'I heard a bang, but that was all. What was it?'
'The guy in that car had a shotgun. I just happened to be looking that
way as he stuck it out the window and took a bead on me.'
'But who would want to shoot you?'
His mouth twisted in a grimace as he unfastened a pocket of his jacket
and took out a hand-phone. 'More people than you could shake a stick at, my dear,' he murmured as he punched in the police emergency number.
'Do you ever get enraged about anything, Sammy?'
'What?'
'Enraged, I said. As in, really steamed up with anger.'
He looked at her as she stood there, all lips and legs. 'Enraged? No, not
so's you'd notice, anyway. Now if you'd said engorged ...'
'But I didn't.. .' Ruth frowned at him severely.
He grinned back. 'Why d'you ask, anyway? Am I beginning to bore
you, Ms McConnell?'
She shook her head, making her long, glossy hair ripple like a shampoo
commercial. 'Not yet, Sergeant, not yet. All the same, you are getting
predictable. You're the easiest going man I've ever been out with.'
'A typical copper, in other words.'
'Absolutely a-typical as far as I've seen. Where I work it's like a
madhouse at times; I've never seen so many stressed-out people.'
He looked at her with a touch of scepticism in his eyes. 'Such as? I know
the Big Man can go a bit stratospheric from time to time, but the Chief's an
even-tempered sort, and DI Mcllhenney's okay too, isn't he?'
'Up to a point.' She hesitated. 'I shouldn't tell tales out of school, but
She frowned. 'No, better not.'
'Aw, come on, Ruthie,' he exclaimed. 'You can't do that to me. Honest
to Christ, I don't know. You seem to be making a career out of leading me
on then slamming the bloody door in my face.'
'What do you mean by that?' She raised an eyebrow, provoking him
even further.
'You know bloody well what I mean.'
'No. Spell it out?'
'You know.'
'No. Tell me.'
'Okay, we've been going out for... how long? ... six months now, yet
we've never
AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN
'So?' she asked, archly.
'So most people, most couples
'Shag on their first date?'
'No, I wouldn't go that far . . .'
'Well neither would I.'
He drew the car to a halt in a lay-by and switched off the engine. 'Fine,'
he murmured, turning to her, 'but after this long, I'd have thought that our
relationship might have ... moved up a gear, shall we say.'
'You can say it if you like, Detective Sergeant Pye. But can you tell me
why it should? Do you think you're God's gift or something?'
'No,' he protested, 'but it's not as if you . . .' He stopped himself short,
and bit his lip. Fortunately, she laughed.
' ... as if I haven't been round the block a few times? Was that it?'
'No! I wouldn't be that crude, Ruthie. But you've had other relationships,
okay: that's all I was going to say.'
'I didn't jump into bed with any of them either, no one long-term, at
least. Sammy, the first time I screwed someone on a first date I was nineteen.
Two days later I realised that I didn't really fancy him that much, but it
took me six months and a lot of hassle to get shot of him. Ever since then,
I've been careful to distinguish between short- and long-term things.
'There was a time when I had the hots for Andy Martin; given the chance
I'd have shagged his brains out, but that's all he'd have wanted anyway. If
I'd slept with you righ
t at the start, then most probably it would have been
all over by now. The fact that I'm still making up my mind; well, that's got
to be good hasn't it? Unless, of course you're only after a quick legover
yourself?'
'Which I'm not, as you well know.'
'In that case, trust me for a bit longer; being friends is more important
than the other, believe me.'
'I know that,' he conceded. 'Karen and I were only ever pals, for all that
half the force seemed to think.'
She laughed. 'Which is maybe just as well, given that you work for DCS
Martin and that she's Mrs Martin now.'
He capitulated. 'Okay, I apologise,' he said. 'You are not a tease, and
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