wave, almost knocking him backwards, physically. He knew, before he
looked inside, what he would find.
Uncle John McConnell lay full length, submerged completely in his big
enamelled bath. He had played his last round of golf, and listened to his
last radio football commentary.
Even before stepping into the bathroom Pye had guessed that he had
been dead for days, and he had feared that he would find him in a state of
hideous decomposition. Instead, and to his surprise, the old man's body
was more or less intact, if a strange waxy colour, and if one ignored the
strips of what looked like skin, floating on the surface. He looked almost
like a statue, carved out of soap.
The young sergeant reached across the small bathroom and opened the
ventilation panel set in the window, then stepped back out into the hall and
closed the door behind him.
There was a phone in the hall. He picked it up, but to his surprise, the
line was dead. Instead, he took out his hand-phone and dialled the main
switchboard of his Edinburgh k .
'Give me the Ops Room 'f headrters.
The line rang only twice beCi't w °ffiCer'' he asked telephonist,
speakmg,' said a deep, North (tm)£" answered. 'Operations. ACC Chase
Hello sir; said the y voice How i
Mr Martin's office. I didn't (tm) T 'This is (tm) Spot check, Sergeant, spot check T " °n a Saturday'
Your secretary, sir Ruth M n
Johr.only when we got here,toTdT (tm) to (tm)' her Uncle
Where's Cumbernauld?' ChaseT,?aP WaS dead'In his bath.'
'Between Stirling and Glasp
don't have their Ops number to LIT'" ' " " Strathclyde area, but I
Okay, Pye, I'll turn them omf
'To be on the safe side, yes u d° y°U d? CID?'
Like I said, the old chap seems to hte f d°eSn'1 lo°k suspicious at all.
'" the water- was alone in tL hou SOrt °f (tm)e and died, have to have police here, as we HasZ" ?"?' S° "nder Scots law I
m familiar with the law , d°Cton
address," '" "n,' said Chase, heavily. -Wha.'s "he
Fifteen Glenlaverock Grove ' F
'Yes, sir, she is. She doesn- 0°"(tm)" " -x.of-kin,w
T S ye'' """"S". '. She's out
Well, you better bloodv tell h
emergency services descend mobndedr3"11'1""' before the local
14
Bob Skinner laughed. The one place I can't be contacted, Neil, as you
well know, is on Gullane Hill with my clubs over my shoulder. If I took
my mobile out on the golf course with me, I'd soon run out of playing
partners.
'I'm sorry they interrupted your Saturday though. I didn't really expect
that.'
'No problem, Boss. My daughter was just about to bully me into doing
the ironing.'
'Has she not taken that over yet?'
'No, she says she's too small to reach the ironing board properly. She
also says that she doesn't expect to be tall enough till she's about eighteen.
She's more like her mother every day, I tell you.'
'You don't have to, mate. I've seen her in action.' He smiled briefly at
the thought. 'Anyway, what did this boy from the Met have to tell me?'
Mcllhenney drew a breath. 'Nothing you're going to like.' He outlined
the content of Crowther's call, omitting nothing. When he finished there
was silence from the other end of the line.
Skinner broke it at last. 'The bastard must have fired a blank,' he said,
firmly. 'There was a gun, Neil, and it was fired. Believe me?'
'I never doubted you for one second, Boss,' his executive assistant replied.
'It's just a pity there weren't any witnesses.'
He heard the Deputy Chief Constable sigh. 'Aye, well, that's not exactly
the case. The fact is, there was someone with me when it happened.'
'Why didn't you say so, then?' Mcllhenney blurted out.
'Discretion, pal. Discretion. Does the name Louise Bankier mean
anything to you?'
'Louise Bankier? The actress? The movie star?'
'The very same. Lou was there; she and I had just had dinner in a
restaurant in Soho. We were looking for a taxi when the car drove by and
the guy took his pop at me. For all sorts of reasons, I didn't want her about
when the Met boys arrived, so I stuck her in a taxi and sent her home as
soon as I'd called the thing in.'
'Boss, what the hell. . .'
Skinner laughed again, softly, at his friend's incredulity,'... was I doing
up the West End with Louise Bankier? She and I go back a long way ... a
very long way.
'She was just starting at Glasgow University when I was in my final
year; she was seventeen and I was twenty-one. We met at the Fresher's Fair
when I was signing up new members for the squash club. She joined, and
fortunately for the world, she also joined the drama club on the same day.
'She could play squash eff all, but when it came to the acting game . . .
She wound up wangling a transfer to the Athenaeum - that was what they
called the drama school in Glasgow - after her first year, and she's never
looked back from there.
'I hadn't seen her in twenty-five years. I followed her career, of course,
and went to all her movies, but I lost touch with her completely. Then last
Thursday, I got a message at my hotel. There was a piece in the Evening
Standard about last week's world terrorism conference. She saw it and
phoned the organisers; they told her where I was stopping.
'I rang her back. She told me that she had called on impulse, for old times' sake; I said I was pleased to hear from her and we arranged to have
dinner, last night. End of story.
'She hasn't changed a bit, you know.' He paused. 'No, that's crap. If
anything she's even better looking than she was as a kid, and she's developed
as a person in ways I could never have imagined. But I suppose we all
have, have we not. Anyway, when all that nonsense happened last night, I
imagined what the papers would do if they got hold of it. Lou does not need
that sort of publicity and neither do I, so I got her out of the way.'
He could almost hear Mcllhenney frown. 'Boss, that's
'Improper, at the very least. Obstructing the course of justice at the very
worst. I know that, but I'll live with it. You just get back to that boy Crowther
and tell him from me to pass the word up his line that if his commander
doesn't want his gonads fricasseed, he'll pull that bullshit report of his.'
'I've told him that already. Mind you, he wasn't certain that it could be
done.'
Skinner sighed again. Til deal with that if it happens.
'The thing is, Neil,' he went on, 'Louise is not the only one I need to
protect from too much press interest.
16
AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN
'Apart from the gunshot... sure as hell she doesn't need to know about that... there's nothing that Sarah doesn't know, you understand. She was
aware that I was meeting Lou all right; I told her as soon as it was arranged.
But she wouldn't be best pleased either if the wrong sort of stuff appeared
in the papers.
'The truth is that if any smart hacks did some digging, even though it'd
mean going back a quarter of a century, there would still be plenty of people
around to te
ll them that Louise Bankier and I were more than just squash
partners.'
Theodore Chase gazed down the driveway of the police headquarters
building. Normally, every parking bay would have been occupied, and the
street outside, even the school playground beyond, would have been
thronged with vehicles, but on a Sunday afternoon most of the cars he
could see belonged to shoppers at the nearby supermarket.
He stood in Ruth McConnell's tiny office, flicking through her in-trays,
of which she had two; his own, which was empty, awaiting the Monday
morning mail delivery, and Bob Skinner's, which was piled high with papers
waiting for the attention of the DCC on his return from the London
conference.
Ted Chase enjoyed lurking around empty offices, as he put it to himself.
There was something about them; they seemed to him to be possessed by
the auras of the people who occupied them through the week, each with its
own unique signature. Take Ruth McConnell's small room as an example.
She used the same fragrance as his wife . . . Rive Gauche, whatever that
meant; not that his nose would have told him that, for his sense of smell
had been deadened by growing up close to a brewery. Since coming to
Edinburgh he had discovered that he could even drive through Seafield
without the faintest wrinkle of his nose. He picked up the familiar blue eau
de toilette tube, glanced at it, then put it back on the desk, carefully, on its
side, in its original position.
He closed his eyes and he could feel her presence, could see her in his
mind as clearly as if she was really sat there, long legs under her chair,
close fitting skirt moulded to her thighs, riding just above the knee, her
white blouse tucked into the waistband, covering the faintest roll of flesh.
He let his mind roam further until he could actually feel the residual warmth
of her body in the room, and sense the strength of her personality, filling its
every corner.
In spite of himself he began to imagine her naked, hair tousled, glowing
after sex; and then there was someone else in his vision. Sammy Pye? No,
18
AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN
not the young sergeant, someone bigger, older, stronger, grimmer, frightening
as his head seemed to turn towards the intruder . .. Bob Skinner.
Ted Chase opened his eyes wide, and was a shade embarrassed to find
that he was breathing slightly heavily. He thought of Skinner and Ruth;
they had worked together for a few years now. She was a woman and a
half; he had a past that had made the tabloids. He couldn't believe that
she would settle for a lad like Pye. There had to be something there, for
sure.
He was startled when the phone rang on Ruth's desk. For a second he
thought about letting it go unanswered, but that was against his nature.
Somehow, it would have made him feel like a sneak. He picked it up, and
was taken aback to hear Bob Skinner's strong, steady voice. 'Afternoon
Ted,' he began. His tone was neutral, neither friendly nor hostile. 'Your
wife told me I'd probably find you in the office.' Chase waited for the
DCC to ask what the hell he was doing there, as, probably, he would have
done himself in reversed circumstances. When he did not, he felt almost a
sense of letdown.
'I've had a call from Ruthie,' he continued, instead. 'Asking if it would
be all right for her to have a couple of days off. Her uncle's died, and she
has to make all the funeral arrangements and stuff.'
'Yes,' said Chase, abruptly. 'I knew about that. I was in the Ops Room
yesterday afternoon when Martin's man Pye called in after finding the
body.'
He heard a soft chuckle at the other end. 'How the fuck did we manage
without you, Ted? I really don't know.'
The ACC felt himself flush. 'I'm still getting the feel of the place, Bob,
that's all.'
'You could have fooled me, mate, but let's not get into that. I told her
that it was okay, and that I'd square it with you.'
'Yes, of course. In the circumstances, it's okay with me.'
'That's good. As it happens, the Chief's chairing an ACPOS committee
meeting in Glasgow tomorrow, so Gerry Crossley'll have some time on his
hands. We won't be neglected.'
'Ah, yes.' Chase did not approve of male secretaries, and could never
keep the distaste out of his tone whenever the efficient young Crossley's
name came up in conversation.
'He's a good lad, Ted,' Skinner said quietly. 'As you might find out for
yourself, one day. See you tomorrow.' There was a click; the line went
dead, then buzzed as the Cumbrian stared at the receiver, taken off-guard
by his colleague's throw-away remark.
It wasn't that he disliked Bob Skinner, Chase told himself, as he replaced
the receiver; he was an affable enough bloke. It wasn't that he was jealous
of him; he took enough pride in his own career achievements not to feel
jealous of anyone. It wasn't that he doubted his ability; he was one of the
most famous policemen in the country, and the Queen's Police Medal wasn't
awarded lightly.
No, he told himself, his concern was based on his distinguished
colleague's attitude to The Book. There were accepted ways of policing,
and these had been developed practically over many years. The relationship
between police and public, in the eyes of Theodore Chase, was one in
which the uniformed body had to stand aloof to command the respect which
he saw as essential to efficient operation. Nevertheless, by no means did he
see himself as being stuck in the past. He approved wholeheartedly of the
new style of uniform, which was more comfortable, and had been designed
to meet modern needs. He recognised the value of the Panda car, although
he stuck to the view that walking the beat still had its place, especially in
the inner city areas.
His problem with Bob Skinner was simply that he seemed to see it all
differently. For example, the man had a little-disguised dislike of wearing
the uniform ... so little-disguised that it was a standing joke throughout
headquarters. Chase saw the dark blue tunic as the basic symbol of authority.
For example, for his Saturday drop-in to the Ops Room, he had worn it. A
quiet Sunday in the office; well, that was something else.
Skinner had an overtly sloppy attitude to reporting channels also. It was
one thing for ACC Operations to pay unannounced visits to his own Ops
Room to keep everyone on their toes, but quite another for the DCC to
involve himself in active criminal investigations. There was even a story
about him taking his baby son on a stake-out of premises in the course of a
hunt for a murder suspect.
Then there was his lax attitude to rank. He accepted that it was for the
Chief Constable to determine whether he and his two assistants should
be on first-name terms, behind closed doors, as they were. However,
Skinner's easy familiarity with the men under his command posed in his
view a clear and present danger to good discipline. He and DI Mcllhenney
played football in the same five-a-side group every Thursday . . . and sometimes, Chase unde
rstood, his daughter baby-sat the Mcllhenney
20
AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN
children to allow them to do it. He and DCS Martin had a fraternal rapport
... so much so that Skinner had been best man at the Head of CID's
wedding. He allowed McGuire, the Special Branch man, virtually open
access to his office.
There were only two lines in Chase's controversial paper on the Force's
command structure to which the DCC had taken outright exception; one
had been a reference to 'the cult of the personality', as he had put it .. and
that was at the heart of his problem with Skinner. He would not... did not
dare... suggest that the big Scot had built his own legend deliberately. No,
he accepted that he was trapped within it. Yet that was the greatest obstacle
to his efficiency as a chief police officer.
The Book of Proper Policing, Ted Chase's imaginary Bible, had been
written by many people over many years. It had come under attack in a
variety of ways, from direct assault by terrorism to insidious undermining
tactics by those people to whom Chase referred most commonly as 'liberals',
yet as he saw it, the solid dependable man and . . . yes, now, he had to
concede... woman in uniform still stood, in spite of it all, as the cornerstone
of society.
Image and perception were all-important; no personality could be allowed
Autographs in the Rain Page 3