Skinner's ghosts bs-7

by Quintin Jardine

  'Not a soul in fact, just you and me, and this place being where it is, no-one wil remember having seen us on our way up here.'

  He crossed to the sash-cord window and pulled it up, tugging hard and opening a gap of around two feet. 'Know what defenestration means, cockroach?' he asked.

  Salmon gaped at him, speechless.

  'It means jumping or being thrown out of the fucking window.

  And that is just about where I am with you. You've given me grief, son, and now you're going to find out just how stupid you've been.

  'I'm not going to thump you around or anything. It's as simple as this: you either give me the name of the person who tipped you off about Pam and me, and who gave you the info on this bribe setup, or out you go. Splat. You'l be back on the front page again, only as a headline, not a byline.

  'A drunken suicide, it'll be. There won't even be a Fatal Accident Inquiry.'

  Skinner seized the reporter by the collar once more, jerked him upright and hauled him, whimpering, over to the wide-open window.

  'I know it was one of two people. I think I know which, and I'm certain you do too. For your sake, I hope I'm right.

  'So what's it to be?' he asked, and Noel Salmon found himself with no reason to doubt the sincerity of his question. 'Are you talking or flying?'

  80

  Skinner was in his dressing gown as he opened the door of the Fairyhouse Avenue bungalow. For once in his life, Sergeant Mcl henney looked nonplussed.

  The DCC laughed. 'Relax, Neil, it's all right. I'm alone. I just felt the need of a shower and a change of clothes, that's all. Go into the kitchen and make us a couple of coffees. The milk in the fridge should be okay. I'l be with you by the time you're done.'

  He was as good as his word. Mcl henney turned from the counter and handed him a steaming mug as he walked into the room, dressed in a black teeshirt and light cotton trousers.

  'Did you get caught in the rain, boss?'

  'No. Not for long, anyway. The company I was in made me feel unclean, that's al. I've seen the last of the wee bastard though. He decided to take a flight.'

  The Sergeant looked at him curiously. 'Mr Salmon's going to make a fresh start in London. I persuaded him that Edinburgh was too small a place for his talents to blossom.'

  'He'll be able to walk on to the plane, will he?'

  'Walk! I reckon he'l run up the steps. So, Neil, how did you get on at Leuchars?'

  His assistant beamed his satisfaction. 'Score one for us,' he answered. 'You were right. Or if you weren't, those planes were Russian. The CO up there was a bit coy at first, until I explained to him that if he didn't co-operate, you'd arrange for the Secretary of State to shit on him from a great height.

  'From what he said, he had good reason to be coy. They've been running secret tests out of Leuchars at night, on a new radar system, using it to try to keep track of American Stealth fighters. You know, those Star Wars-looking things. It was one of them you heard on the wee boy's tape.'

  'And was the course plotted?'

  Mcl henney nodded. 'Oh aye, boss. Both by the radar system and by the plane's on-board system.'

  He took a map from the pocket of his jacket and spread it on Skinner's kitchen work-surface. 'We timed the noise from the Big Ben chimes on the tape to within a couple of seconds. When the 256 recorder picked it up, it was right here, travelling from east to west.'

  He leaned over the map, and pointed to an oval, drawn in blue bal point ink, with an arrow indicating direction. 'This is a detailed Ordnance Survery map, boss. The flight-path at that point went over a valley called King's Gully. It's twelve miles north of your man Balliol's place, on Loch Mhor.

  'There's nothing but hills between the two, but the map shows a couple of cottages in King's Gully itself.'

  'Yes,' Skinner hissed. 'I think tomorrow morning we'l pay a cal.'

  As he spoke, his mobile phone, which he had laid on the counter, began to ring. He picked it up and answered, walking towards the back door and out into the garden. 'Skinner.'

  The,' said Adam Arrow, tersely. 'Your man is known to certain people down here. If he's done what you say, then they are very, very angry with him.

  'I'm authorised to tell you about him. Also I have a very specific request for you: a request, not an order. If you feel you'd rather not, then I'l come up to handle the matter, but the belief is that it should be dealt with locally if possible, and I've told them that you're more than capable.'

  Skinner felt the hair prickle at the back of his neck. 'Is this your request?' he asked. 'Or does it come from someone else?'

  'Oh yes,' Arrow replied. 'This doesn't come from me or my boss, or even his boss. It comes from the very top man. From everyone's boss.

  'Now, let me tell you about your man.'

  Skinner was grim-faced and thinking hard when he walked back into the kitchen.

  'I've been thinking, sir,' said Mcllhenney. 'If we're going after this man, shouldn't we let the Northern Force know about it? King's Gul y's on their patch.'

  'You're right, Neil,' said the DCC. 'We should. But we're not going to.'

  He took the kitchen telephone from its wall bracket and dialled the Head ofCID's direct line. 'Andy,' he said, as soon as the call was answered, 'I want you to meet me at headquarters at six thirty. Don't discuss it with anyone, not even the Chief, but make sure that the sports field is clear. There's an army helicopter coming to pick us up

  … just you and me, that is. I'll be there sharp, but I've something to do between now and then.'

  'Understood. Is there any equipment that you want me to draw?'

  'No,' Skinner replied. 'The army's providing suitable clothing and boots. Your size and mine. Other items too. Everything we'l need wil be on the chopper.'

  81

  He was in the bathroom when he heard the key in the lock. The door opened and closed quickly, then light footsteps crossed the living room.

  He dried his hands, listening with a soft smile as he heard drawers and doors sliding, and general sounds of rushing around.

  Silently, he stepped out of the bathroom, grinning as he stood in the doorway of Pamela's bedroom. 'Christ,' he chuckled, 'haven't you got enough clothes out at my place already? Did Andy let you go early? It's just gone four o'clock.'

  With her back to the door, she jumped at the sound of his voice.

  'Bob,' she cried. 'I almost died.' She turned to face him, looking flushed. 'What are you doing here? I thought you said you'd see me at Gullane.'

  He shrugged. 'Cal of nature, madam, like we used to say when I was in uniform. I was nearby, so I answered it here.'

  'I didn't notice your car,' she said, recovering her composure.

  'As you guessed, I just looked in to pick up one or two more things.'

  He laughed. 'In a suitcase?' He shook his head. 'Love, why don't you just admit it?'

  Her eyes narrowed slightly, and her face flushed again as she looked at him, quizzically. 'Admit what?'

  'That you're moving in with me, piece by piece, dress by dress, shoe by shoe, tight by tight, knicker by knicker.'

  Her face lit up as she grinned, gauchely, like any young girl in love. 'Well,' she said, 'now that I'm transferring to another force, now that, hopeful y, I don't have to feel threatened by this madman, isn't it time that you…'

  Bob chuckled again. 'Ah, you mean – like I said to Andy – that I made an honest woman of you…'

  'Well?' she asked, with an expectant tone in her voice.

  His grin widened into a broad smile. Then she looked into his eyes, and was hit like a hammer by the truth of something that she had been told, once before: that he was the most dangerous man she had ever seen.

  'Pamela,' he said, quietly, still smiling, but deadly and cold. 'Quite 258 literally, I couldn't make an honest woman of you to save your life.

  It's way beyond that.

  'You're my implacable enemy, my so-called love. I was more baffled and bewildered than I've ever been, trying to find t
he person who wanted to finish me, and yet all the time, I was sleeping with her.

  'Even though in the end he was desperate to tell me al about it, I didn't actual y need Noel Salmon to admit to me that it was you who tipped him off about our being together, or gave him the bribe information.' He caught her gasp. 'Never underestimate anyone, even a weasel like him. Not even he is going to take an anonymous tip without at least trying to check the source.'

  He pushed himself upright, off the doorframe. 'Remember, when you cal ed him and dropped that note for him in the dustbin near the Norwegian Memorial in Princes Street Gardens? He went there early, and watched you drop it. He didn't know who you were, not then, until he saw the two of us together after he started watching us. When you dropped him the information about the bank account in the same way, he didn't need to follow you again.'

  Skinner paused. 'At first, I wondered why anyone would pick a useless pissed-up wee twat like Salmon as a means of shafting me.

  But as soon as I knew it was you I worked that one out for myself.

  You were having it off with Alan Royston when I barred wee Noel from Fettes. You found out from him, on the pil ow, which journalist hated me the most.'

  His smile was al gone now. 'Come, on Pam, don't disappoint me.

  Protest your innocence.'

  She looked at him, her once-soft eyes blazing. 'I can't. Because I can't believe what I'm hearing. I didn't realise you were so desperate that you could do something like this.'

  'If you can't believe it,' he answered her, 'then why did you call Air UK this afternoon and book a flight for Amsterdam at five forty-five this evening?' He eyed her evenly. 'Mario called me just afterwards, on my mobile, while I was in the garden at Fairyhouse.'

  He smiled cruelly at her surprise. 'Ever since I knew it was you, Special Branch have been bugging your phone.

  'That's what the suitcase is about, Pam.' She started to speak, but he silenced her with a single look.

  'No. Don't interrupt me. You are in very great danger. Just listen.

  'I knew it was you, my pet, because of two stupid mistakes you made. The first was when you slipped me a blank sheet of paper to sign when you were my executive assistant. For a second or two, I actual y believed my own story, that I had given someone my autograph. Then I remembered that when I do that I always sign myself "Bob Skinner". The ful Monty signature, "Robert M.

  Skinner", that's reserved for official letters and for cheques.'

  He shook his head. 'I should have known from the first moment that I heard of the bribe al egation that it was an inside job. But there are some things that not even I'l face wil ingly. And I didn't, not until Alex brought me back my own signature from Guernsey.'

  Skinner sighed, then went on, in a cold, even voice. 'The clincher came when you used Carole Charles's typewriter to type that note.

  You never believed for an instant, did you, that anyone would match the note to that machine?

  'It was handy, a standard electric typewriter unconnected with the Force, so you used it. After it was recovered from the flat in Westmoreland Cliff that Carole kept as a secret office, Neil and I brought it back to Fettes, and I put it in your room. It was there for a day or so until it went off to the production store. You had that time to use it.

  'In the same way, as my assistant, you had every chance to hide that receipt in my desk later.

  'If Cheshire hadn't found it, I suppose that eventual y you'd have dropped a hint that he should look there. It would have been a clumsy, accidental hint of course,' he said sarcastically, 'and you'd have been appal ed by the way it turned out.'

  He paused. 'The typewriter was a huge mistake, really – far bigger than the signature, because who else could have used it? I knew I didn't. Not Neil Mcl henney, in a million years. Not Ruth McConnel, in the same million. Not Carole Charles, because she was dead when most of this happened. Not Jackie, because he didn't even know about the Westmoreland Cliff office, let alone about the bloody typewriter.

  In fact when Jackie did claim to have typed the note, the whole thing screamed out at me, and the last of my disbelief vanished.'

  Skinner grinned again, cruelly. 'Think about it, Pam. When was the last time that you and I made love? Before that note was tied to that typewriter. Ever since then, I've managed to have a headache.

  'No, lady, only you could have used that machine to type the note.

  I didn't want to believe it. At first I wouldn't let myself. Not because I'm deep in love with you, because I'm not. No, because I didn't want to admit to myself that you could con me, and maybe because I didn't want to find out why.'

  He began to move slowly, menacingly, towards her. 'Then something happened,' he said, slowly, 'that made everything else insignificant.

  'When Cheshire and Alex came back from Guernsey with the suggestion that the man who made the cash delivery might have been the same man who killed Leona and Catherine Anderson, and kidnapped the kids, at first I dismissed it out of hand.

  'But when Peter Gilbert Heuer sent me this morning's tape, that outlandish idea turned out to be the truth. I made sure you were in earshot when I said that, out loud, in Andy's office this afternoon. I wanted to see how you'd react. It didn't take you very long to cal Air UK.

  'Because you know, Pamela, that Heuer's involvement in both plots makes al of this a whole different game, one with lives at stake, and maybe yours among them.'

  He was standing over her now, as she backed towards the window.

  'That thing he let slip, my dear, that he knew of the Guernsey bank, means that you are linked to Peter Gilbert Heuer. It means that you gave him my unlisted number in Gullane, just as you gave it to Salmon. Most of al it means that you are linked to the murder of two women and the kidnapping of their children.'

  He gripped her by the arms, just below the armpits, and he lifted her up, clear off her feet, to stare into her eyes, cold, hard and with menace.

  'You must tell me now, Pamela,' he said, evenly. 'You have no choices left.' He lowered her to the ground, turned her around, and pushed her firmly towards the living room.

  'You will tell me everything, because you are standing on ground more deadly than you know. And most of al…' for the first time, his tone betrayed his hurt, and huge disappointment, 'you wil tell me

  … why?'

  When she looked up at him, her eyes were almost as cold, as cruel as his. 'Why?' she repeated, in a calm, hard-edged voice which he had never before heard issue from her lips. But it reminded him at once of one that he had heard before, and had thought was silenced for ever.

  'To take away your life,' she said. 'That's why. And, to quote you back at yourself, to look at the wreckage afterwards and say, "Quite fucking right too".'

  82

  'Sorry I'm late, Andy,' said Skinner stepping out of his car, parked at the rear of the headquarters building. The time was fifteen minutes to seven, and a green helicopter stood on the sports field, its blades stil and drooping.

  'S'okay,' said Martin. 'Our stuff's on the chopper.' They began to walk towards the aircraft. 'Did you do the business you mentioned?'

  He nodded. 'I won't be seeing Pamela Masters again.' Martin's head swivelled round in surprise.

  'The lady's been a rucking roadblock in my life, pal,' Skinner said, vehemently. 'But not any more.'

  'A clean break, I hope?' asked Martin, tentatively.

  'Oh yes, as clean as they come.' The younger man looked at him, puzzled again by both his tone and his mood. 'I'l tell you al about it later; for now let's get away in this contraption. Hello, Gerald,' he said, recognising the young lieutenant who stood by the helicopter door, and shaking hands before climbing in.

  'Where are we going, sir?' the pilot asked. 'Mr Arrow only told me to report here. He said you'd have further orders.' Martin looked at Skinner in surprise at the mention of Arrow's name.

  'That's right.' He produced Mcl henney's map. 'We're going to pay a call on a man named Everard Balliol at a castle on the
shore of Loch Mhor. He doesn't know we're coming, though. I always think it best to surprise Everard. He thinks I'm al right, though. Especially since I let him beat me at golf.'

  The pilot looked at the map, then at a larger chart spread out on the seat beside him. 'Okay, gentlemen,' he said. 'It looks simple enough. I'll file a flight-plan with Prestwick once we're in the air. I'd guess around an hour and a half, two hours. I should warn you, though there's a restricted area just to the north. That might be a problem, if there's military traffic expected.'

  Skinner shook his head. 'I don't think so. Let's go.'

  Conversation was difficult because of the noise of the engines, but Skinner managed to brief Martin on the intelligence gleaned by Mcllhenney on his visit to Leuchars. 'If the cottages are on Bal iol's land, as I think they are, he should be able to tell us who 262 the occupants are, and hopeful y some more besides.'

  'Yes, let's hope so. Who's meeting us up there? A squad from Northern?'

  The DCC shook his head. 'Nobody.'

  'Eh?'

  'This is down to us, Andy, just you and me.'

  They sat in silence for the rest of the flight, looking at the scenery, as they crossed Stirlingshire to Crianlarich, then swung northward, skirting Ben Nevis and Fort William to the west, and following the jagged coastline. Final y, just before eight thirty, the pilot began his descent, until Balliol's castle came into view, a grey speck on the horizon at first, but growing larger and larger as they approached, along the banks of Loch Mhor.

  'Set it down near Mr Balliol's own helicopter,' Skinner ordered, looking down and seeing two black-clad figures run out on to the castle terrace.

  As the aircraft settled in the grass and as the blades began to slow in their rotation, the DCC saw Balliol himself emerge, from a small door not far from his study. He jumped down from the helicopter, and ran towards him.

  'What the hell's this, Bob?' drawled the American, yet with the air of someone who had not been truly surprised for a long time.