Skinner's ghosts bs-7

by Quintin Jardine

  'It stil sounds the same, Jimmy,' Skinner had grumbled. 'Different bloody axes being ground, that's al.'

  The Chief Constable on the other hand, appreciated the Board. He focused on its advisory status, deciding arbitrarily which parts of its advice he would reject, and which he would accept. He understood too that the police service benefited from the lack of significant 108

  "w political interference with its work, and had no intention of rocking that particular boat.

  'Indulge them, Bob,' he always advised his deputy. 'Let them have their say, then let them go away home. They don't have any weight, so they can't throw it about.'

  Today, though, the normally benign Chief was in no mood to be conciliatory.

  The listed items on the agenda were eliminated with unprecedented speed, until, fifty minutes after opening the meeting, Councillor Topham announced: 'We now come to other business. I am advised of a motion by Councillor Agnes Maley, of Edinburgh City Council.'

  Sir James looked around as Councillor Maley rose to her feet. He knew her well: a self-confessed enemy of the police service, she owed her position of power within her party to her ability to mobilise the enlarged group of women members in her support. As she stood, short, squat and denim-clad, she was flanked by five other colleagues.

  'Thank you, Chair,' she began, but had gone no further before the Chief Constable thrust himself to his feet.

  'If you will excuse me, Councillor Maley,' he boomed. He glowered at the Chair. 'Council or Topham, I had assumed that you would instruct that this motion, if it has to be heard at al, should be stated without the press and public being present. Standing orders allow you to declare that sensitive items be discussed in private. I have to insist that be the case here.'

  Marcia Topham stared at the silver-haired policeman. This was not kind, benign 'Cal me Jimmy' Proud. This was someone she had never seen before, fierce, bristling, formidable and on battle bent.

  For several seconds her mouth formed sounds, but none emerged.

  She was beaten to it by a shout from the left. 'I protest, Chair. The Chief Constable's right out of order. He's responsible to this meeting.

  He doesn't run it.'

  Sir James rounded on Agnes Maley. 'As usual, Councillor, you're mistaken when it comes to police matters. I am not responsible to this Board. It advises me. Now I am advising it that it is not appropriate for the private business of a senior serving officer – any serving officer, for that matter – to be discussed in public session.'

  He looked back towards Council or Topham. 'Madam Chair, you may wish to consult your solicitor.'

  Grateful for the escape route, Marcia Topham nodded. 'Mr Wanless,' she asked, quickly. 'What's your guidance?'

  The solicitor took a deep breath and looked up at her. 'The Chief Constable is quite right: you have the power to order this matter heard in private. However, you do not have an obligation in this case.'

  A murmur of satisfaction sped along the benches behind Proud.

  'That said,' the solicitor went on, his voice rising in emphasis, 'I am 109 bound to remind you that no form of privilege attaches to this body.

  Should anything be said in discussion which was held subsequently to be defamatory of Mr Skinner, or Detective Sergeant Masters, then the Court would undoubtedly find that defamation to have been aggravated by a decision by you to hold the debate in public. This would be in addition to the personal responsibility for such defamation which would probably attach to you.

  The decision is yours, Madam Chair.'

  Councillor Topham's gaze settled on the lawyer, as if she was trapped by the headlights of an oncoming car. At last she glanced helplessly across towards Councillor Maley. 'Will the press and public please leave,' she said.

  Before her, on the members' benches and in the public gallery, cries of protest rang out. However, with council attendants and two police constables acting as ushers, the room was cleared relatively quickly.

  'Very good,' said the Chair, as the door closed on the last journalist.

  'Now, Councillor Maley, do you wish to proceed?'

  'One moment more, please!' Proud's voice boomed out even more loudly. 'Before the lady begins, I have something else to say.'

  For a moment. Council or Topham looked as if she would use her gavel to intervene, but the Chief froze her with a glare and a dismissive wave of his hand.

  'I want it recorded in the minutes of this meeting that I believe that it is absolutely disgraceful for this motion to be entertained. It relates entirely to matters which are within Mr Skinner's private life, and which are no business of this Board in any way.

  'I believe that the proposer and seconder are motivated by malice against the police in general, which has been evident before at meetings of this Board. They have seized on the disgraceful publicity attaching to Mr Skinner's private life as a means of damaging my service, even if it means the further public humiliation of one of its finest officers.

  'The days in which personal relationships between serving police officers were forbidden are long gone, as the proposer and seconder, and their supporters, know well. Indeed were I to propose their reintroduction, they would be the first on their feet in protest.'

  He turned and looked at the benches behind him. 'On a personal level, rather than professionally, I do not believe that by today's standards Mr Skinner and Miss Masters are wrongdoers. By my own standards perhaps, but the world is changing.' He stared hard at Agnes Maley. 'I am prepared to bet you,' he said, 'that among the members of this Board, there must be at least one who is living in what some might call sin, with a person separated not yet divorced.' The councillor's face flushed beetroot red.

  Sir James turned back to the Chair. 'I am no great Bible scholar,' he said, 'but I do remember well the story of the woman taken in adultery.

  'I will say just this. Before anyone casts the first stone at Bob Skinner, they should remember that no-one in this room is in a better position than me to know which of you is without sin. And before this matter is put to a vote, Councillor Maley and her friends would do well to bear that in mind.

  'Now I wil leave you to your discussions.' He picked up his papers and strode from the chamber.

  32

  Andy Martin had only one phobia: heights. He also possessed an inherent wil to win which had made him a feared opponent on the rugby field, and which would not al ow him to be overcome by anything, not even mortal terror.

  He had tackled his secret enemy head-on by joining a rock-climbing club in his senior year at high school, and had taken this further at university by joining the mountaineering club. It had been hard, al the way through, but he had kept his jaw tight and his hands strong in a domestic climbing career which had taken in some of the finest climbs in the Cuillins, the beautiful mountains of the Island of Skye, and in the spectacular, craggy Lake District.

  Yet a true phobia is never banished; it is only overcome moment by moment. And so, as the police helicopter swept over the purple heather of the moorland, Martin, in the co-pilot's seat, stil felt a lurching in his stomach as he looked down, and stil fought to master the panic at the back of his brain.

  'Okay, John,' he said to the police pilot through his headset, essential equipment given the booming noise within the cockpit from the engine behind them, and the whirring of the rotors above. 'That's the fifth sector on this map covered, and no sign of any recent activity up here, other than bloody sheep. One more to go: bank south please, down towards Longformacus.'

  The pilot nodded in confirmation and swung the craft round. They were flying at a height of around three hundred feet, high enough not to be easily identified from the ground, low enough to allow Martin to scan the area beneath with powerful wide-field binoculars. They flew on for ten minutes, sweeping the sector in swathes, east to west, west to east, as if they were mowing it from a great height.

  'There's a bothy down to the right,' Martin cal ed out at last. 'Drop us down a bit and let's take a closer look.' The pilo
t obeyed, dropping the helicopter by around fifty feet and slowing their steady speed still further.

  Martin peered through the glasses. The bothy, a stone-built shelter, was in poor repair. At one corner, its slate roof had col apsed. There had once been glass in its single window, but now its panes were smashed, and its door hung by a single hinge. Al around, the grass 112 stood high, and the narrow worn path which led to the door from the heathery pasture was overgrown and barely discernible.

  The Chief Superintendent shook his head. 'No,' he called, into his microphone, 'another dud. There's been no-one there for years by the look of it. Pick it up again.'

  The pilot flew on as ordered, through one swathe, then another, until finally they were almost over the village of Longformacus, beyond which the character of the land changed. They were to the west of the tiny community when Martin spotted the caravan. 'What's that doing there?' he asked himself.

  It was a touring van, stil shiny and new. Yet it was wel away from the roadway, parked on the bank of a small, fast-flowing stream feeding into a small loch, over which they had just flown. There was no car alongside it, but the grass around it was crushed and torn, as if a vehicle had turned and reversed there, recently and frequently.

  'Where are we?' Martin muttered again. He looked at his map, tracing their progress with a finger. The loch was marked as the Black Water reservoir, but there was no carriageway shown at al.

  'Know what that road is down there?' the detective asked the pilot.

  'Either I'm misreading the map, or it doesn't exist.'

  'That's the Southern Upland Way, sir, the walkway that crosses the country from the Solway Firth to the East Coast. There's going on for a hundred miles of it. You can manage a car along part of it

  … just about.'

  'Let's see if we can find out who owns that caravan, then. We came over a farmhouse a couple of miles back. Put me down near there and I'l see if anyone knows.'

  The pilot nodded and swung the helicopter around. He found a flat spot in an empty field just over a quarter of a mile from the house and set it down. Martin jumped out, grateful y, and set off across the dry grass. The gravel ed road to the farmhouse ran beside the field, turning through a high-pillared gateway. As the detective slid through a gap in the beech hedge which served as a boundary, a man appeared at the head of the driveway.

  'What's up?' he asked, cheerful y. 'Mechanical trouble?' He stood around six feet four, and despite the warmth of the day he was dressed in country clothes: twill trousers, heavy shirt and tweed jacket. But Martin noted his hands before anything else. They were, he thought, bigger than any he had ever seen.

  He smiled at the man, shaking his huge right mitt. 'No,' he replied.

  'Nothing like that. I'm a policeman, from Edinburgh. We're looking for someone, and we thought that he might just have a hideaway up here on the moors.

  'My name's Martin, by the way. Detective Chief Superintendent.'

  'Robert Carr,' said the ruddy-faced man. 'I own this land. Thousand 113 bloody acres of it, much of it useless for anything but sheep.'

  'Does that extend up there,' he pointed westwards, 'past the reservoir?'

  'Yes,' replied Carr, 'and a damn sight further.'

  'There's a caravan up there, beside the stream.'

  The farmer looked surprised. 'Is there? Stil?'

  'You know about it?'

  'Yes, but I'd assumed that the fellow would have been gone by now.'

  'What fellow?'

  Robert Carr turned towards his big grey stone farmhouse, beckoning Martin to fol ow. 'Chap rang the doorbell about a week ago. Said his name was Mr Gilbert. He told me that he was planning to do some walks along the Way, and that he had a caravan as a base. He asked me if he could park it somewhere out of the way.

  'He seemed like a decent chap, so I said okay, and gave him directions up the road. Told him he could set up by the stream, and take fresh water from it… just as long as he didn't put anything back in! He offered me cash, but I told him I wasn't that strapped.'

  'Have you seen him about much?'

  'I haven't seen him at al, not since then. I'd thought he'd moved on.'

  Martin looked up at him as they reached the farmhouse's kitchen door. 'Can you describe him for me, this Mr Gilbert?'

  Carr ushered him indoors. 'Mary!' he bellowed. 'Tea for two, lass!'

  As he led the policeman through to a comfortable study, a small grey woman scurried in the opposite direction, smiling and nodding.

  'Housekeeper,' he said. 'I'm a widower.'

  He paused. 'Gilbert,'he went on. 'Description. Right. Same height as you, few years older maybe. Clean-shaven, fair hair, though not as fair as yours. Short and very well cut. Slim build, but not skinny, if you know what I mean. Wearing light cotton trousers and a red teeshirt, with a badge saying Reebok or something. Also, wore sports sandals, without socks.'

  'What about his accent?' asked the policeman.

  For the first time, the farmer looked puzzled. 'Haven't a bloody clue,' he said eventually. 'You know, I don't think he had one.'

  'No? You sure? Scottish, English, Irish, Welsh?'

  Carr's eyes narrowed, as he tried to hear again the sound of the man's voice. But eventual y he shook his head. 'Sorry. Not Welsh or Irish: that's all I can tel you with any certainty.'

  The study door opened, and the housekeeper appeared with tea and biscuits on a tray. She filled two cups and handed one to each of the men before leaving, still without having uttered a word.

  Martin declined milk and sugar. Actual y, he disliked strong tea, but was too polite to say so. 'What about his car?' he asked.

  'Never saw it,' his host retorted. 'He left it at the foot of the road and walked up the drive. I could just see the top of the caravan over the hedge.'

  The tal man beamed. 'So, could he be your quarry, my Mr Gilbert?'

  'No idea,' Martin lied. 'But I would like to talk to him.' He smiled across at Carr. 'Can I use your phone? To be on the safe side, I think I'd better call in the Cavalry!'

  33

  Skinner, from the corridor, leaned into the ante-room to Sir James Proud's office. 'Is the Chief free?' he asked Gerry, his civilian secretary. It was just after midday.

  'Yes, sir. He's catching up with his correspondence, that's al. I'm sure he'l be pleased to see you.' The young man looked efficient and crisp in an immaculately pressed short-sleeved white shirt.' That our officers should be half as smart,' the DCC mused as he opened the door and stepped into Proud Jimmy's long office.

  The Chief Constable looked up from the papers on his desk. 'Oh, hel o, Bob,' he said, almost casually. 'What can I do for you?'

  Skinner grinned. 'You can give me your version of whatever the hell you said to the Police Board this morning. I've just had a call from Roger Mather, the Tory member from East Lothian; he was laughing so much I thought he'd have a stroke.'

  'Was he?' remarked the Chief, blandly 'What was the outcome? I left before the end.'

  'No vote was taken. Apparently Aggie Maley did some ranting, but didn't quite get round to proposing the motion.'

  Proud Jimmy nodded. 'That's good,' he said. 'That's good. Best that it ends that way. Best for you and best for the force.'

  'Aye,' laughed Skinner, 'but according to Roger, most of the ranting was about you. Christ, Jimmy, did you really accuse Maley of being shacked up with a married man?'

  'Certainly not. Not directly, at any rate. But what if I had? It's true.'

  'And did you really threaten to rattle all the skeletons in their cupboards if they put the motion to a vote?'

  The old Chief leaned back in his chair beaming, now, with undisguised pleasure. 'Too bloody right I did, my son. Too bloody right I did. If those bastards thought that they could have a go at you and I'd just sit there and allow it; or worse, if they thought they could just ignore me…

  'They rucking well know different now, don't they?'

  Skinner shook his head, still laughing quietly. 'You know,
Chief.

  When you drop the old avuncular act you drop it with a real vengeance.'

  Gradual y, though, his expression grew more serious. 'Mind you,' he said, 'you've made an enemy of Aggie Maley.'

  'Nothing new in that. Council or Maley's the enemy of everyone in a uniform… unless it's got a red star on it somewhere. I can handle her, and the troublemakers behind her. Hopeful y Ms Topham wil have a bit more control over them, now that I've set her the example.'

  He slapped his palms flat on the desk. 'You'll find out for yourself at the next meeting. I'm on holiday, so you'll have to be there.'

  Skinner scowled. 'Maybe they'l have another go.'

  'No danger of that,' said Proud. 'They're paper tigers, with a lighted match held at their tails. They might shout the odds for a day or two, but they won't cross me again… or you. No, Bob, you don't have to worry about the councillors.'

  He paused and frowned. 'Ministers, though, that's another matter.

  I don't know this new Secretary of State at al. What's he like?'

  Skinner shrugged his shoulders. 'I barely know him either,' he said. 'I've met him twice, to brief him on outstanding matters. On each occasion he just listened, barely said a word.'

  'What do we know about him?'

  'He's squeaky clean. He's a doctor by profession. He was a GP for five years, till he landed his seat in the wilds of Glasgow.'

  'Pro-police or anti, would you say?'

  The DCC thought the question over. 'Pro-himself more than anything else. He wants to climb the tree. I reckon he'd step on his own granny to reach a higher branch.'

  'Watch him, then,' warned Proud.

  He swung round in his chair. 'Bob,' he ventured, suddenly tentative.

  'About Pamela. Would it make life easier for you if I gave her a job on my personal staff?'