Skinner's Festival

by Quintin Jardine

  Martin was still smiling as he and his chief went back into the room together. He poured them both coffee from one of the Thermos jugs.

  'What’s the grin for?’ said Skinner, accepting a cup. 'Christ, you haven’t bloody scored with Crystal Tipps there, have you, Andy? See you, boy, you’d shag Desert Orchid if you could catch it. If I ever find out that you talk in your sleep, I’ll have to think again about you as head of Special Branch.’

  Martin’s grin was suddenly a little forced. 'You can say that, Bob, but since you put me in this job, I haven’t been able to keep a girlfriend for more than two months at a stretch. They say it’s because they never know where I am.’

  Skinner laughed out loud. 'Bollocks! It’s because they do know where you are. You’re usually with some other female! Come on, let’s get moving. I’ve got to get ready for Alex’s show. And you’ve got to fix up these Scottish Office people for tomorrow, then get

  home and take your ginseng and Vitamin E. You wouldn’t want to go limp on wee Julia.’

  TWELVE

  Dropped off by Skinner at Fettes Avenue, Martin entered the building by the back door and trotted up the stairs from the basement level to his office.

  He was pleased to see that, save for Barry Macgregor, who was manning the telephones; the Special Branch suite was empty. It was 6:20 pm, and it was Saturday, but he knew this meant, not that everyone has finished for the night, but that the inspection of the chosen venues was already well under way. Sitting down behind his desk, he read the ex-directory telephone number which Skinner had written down for him on the back of a business card,

  then picked up his secure telephone and punched it in.

  A clipped, slightly cautious voice answered. 'Hello, Michael Licorish.’

  Andy Martin had met the Head of the Scottish Office Information Directorate on a few occasions, and had seen him in action in one or two high-pressure situations. Licorish had

  impressed Martin each time as an unflappable, no-nonsense performer, who could keep his media people under control, out of respect as well as his authority, and at times when others would be running for the nearest exit. He had been deputy director in those days, waiting patiently for his crusty old military predecessor to complete his last few months.

  'Michael, hi. Andy Martin here. Special Branch. Remember me?’

  The responding voice lost its cautious edge. 'Hah. I should forget? What can I do for you, Andy?’

  'I take it that you’ll have heard by now, the real story of our so-called gas explosion in Princes Street today.’

  'Mm. I know all about it. Secretary of State briefed me this afternoon. Told me about the warning letter, too. And about Bob Skinner’s antiterrorist unit. Seems a strong reaction for this S of S, between you and me.’

  'Needed though, as it’s turned out.’ Martin described Skinner’s encounter with the motorcyclist.

  'Jesus, Andy. S of S didn’t tell me that.’

  'He doesn’t know. It happened after Bob had left him. Now you appreciate how serious this is, I hope you won’t quibble over what I’m going to ask you for.’

  Martin explained the plan for a pass system, and all of the reasons for it.

  'We’re going to have to process a hell of a lot of people very quickly, so the sooner we can get started, the happier I’ll be. My outfit is having the registration forms printed overnight, and the passes too. What I’d like you to do is to provide us with suitable staff to handle the accreditation at the Festival office venues, from tomorrow evening onwards. I could put police personnel in to do it, but your people are properly experienced in this sort of thing.

  They’ll handle it faster, and the performers won’t get prickly the way some people do when they have to deal with us.

  'What d’you say?’

  'I say yes, if you’ll pick up any overtime tab.’

  ·Done.’

  'Right. How many will you need?’

  'Tomorrow, six good people. Two each at the Festival and Fringe offices, and one at each of the Jazz, and Film festivals. The television thing doesn’t start for another week. After that, their job will be continuous at least up to the third weekend, with completely new companies and solo performers coming in all the time. But we’ll draw up a rota of registration times at all the offices. That’ll let you run it with two people at the most – maybe only one.’

  'That sounds fair. I’ll line my people up. I’ll use my tour escorts; they’re smooth talkers. And my publicity section people; they do this sort of thing on royal visits. Where will you want

  them, and when?’

  'Ask them all to report to Fettes at 2:30 tomorrow, and to ask for DI Brian Mackie. We’ll brief them then, and allocate them around the offices.’

  'You’ve got it.’ There was a pause. 'Here, does this mean that we get to meet that glamour girl, her with the … If it does, I might come along myself!’

  'Nice one, Michael, but I’ve put myself down for that painful task.’

  'That sounds like corruption to me, Andy! See you.’ The line clicked dead.

  Martin grinned. Suddenly he thought again of Julia Shahor, her black hair, her pale, heart-stopping face and her dark brown eyes.

  He snorted. 'Crystal Tipps, indeed! Shag Desert Orchid, indeed!

  Ginseng and Vitamin E, indeed! Giving away your own secrets, Bob?’

  THIRTEEN

  Skinner raised a hand in farewell to Martin, as he dropped him at the Carrington Road entrance to police headquarters.

  He pulled the BMW away from the kerb, its steel sunroof fully open. The day was beginning to cool, but the August evening sun still blazed from the west in a cloudless sky. Looking down as he reached for the on-button of the radio-cassette, his eye was caught by the rip in the knee of his denims, and in the same instant his mind swept back to Charlotte Square, replaying the incident with the motorcyclist.

  Analysing the incident as he drove the short distance home, several things struck Skinner in succession. The first was the sheer speed of his own reaction to the threat. He had known

  instinctively that the man was pulling a gun, even before he had seen its barrel. The second was that he had felt no fear. Twice in his life, now, he had been exposed to direct gunfire, and on neither occasion had he been afraid. Was it simply that there had been no time for the luxury of terror, or was the answer somewhere deeper inside him, more complex and more sinister? Was he a man who actually courted and enjoyed danger? Was there even in him a

  touch of the psychopath?

  He cast his mind back through his career, recalling the many criminal psychopaths who had crossed his path over the years.

  One in particular stood out from the crowd: a merciless killer whose most striking feature – apart from his total lack of concern for his victims, or his own safety – had been his absolute

  coolness. Catching him had been the toughest job of Skinner’s career. Yet, as he thought of his own peril, and of the danger he had faced on another occasion. Skinner recognised something of that killer in the way he himself had reacted to each situation.

  Cool, unflappable and, if he was totally honest, ready – if it came to it – to kill another human being without a scrap of remorse.

  That was the reason why, when the firearms had been issued earlier, he had declined to take one himself. For Skinner did know fear, deep in his heart: fear of the easy confidence and skill with which he handled a lethal weapon, and of his readiness to use it.

  The final thing to strike him in this self-analysis was that it was now far too late to dream up a good story for Sarah to explain away the rip in his jeans. He would have to handle it as best he could. That thought snapped him back to the present, just as he turned the BMW into the narrow driveway of his home. He pressed a remote signalling device and the door of the double garage swung up. Running the car inside, he parked alongside Sarah’s Frontera Sport, then entered the bungalow by the back door, closing the garage doors with his signaller as he did so. That was one of
the small, routine security precautions which had become a fact of his life.

  The kitchen was empty, neat as usual save for five crumpled Safeway bags lying on one of the work-tops. Skinner checked the fridge and found that it had been re-stocked. He took out an opened carton of orange juice and took a swig, leaning his head back and pouring it into his open mouth, Spanish-style. As he replaced the carton and closed the door, two brown arms wound round his waist and a chin dug itself into the centre of his back.

  From its position he could tell that Sarah was barefoot. And from the warmth flowing through to him he guessed that nakedness was her overall condition.

  'Hi.’ Her voice was muffled slightly by his shirt.

  As she spoke, he felt her right hand at work. In a few seconds, she had loosened the buckle of his belt and unzipped his denims.

  At the same time, with her other hand she unfastened, quickly and skilfully, the buttons of his shirt. When she had finished, he turned into her embrace, facing her, shrugging off his shirt in the same movement. She threw her left arm round his neck, pulling his mouth down to hers. As they kissed, her right hand moved lower down, quickly finding and releasing the object of its search.

  He gripped the top of her thighs and lifted her clear of the floor, feeling both her strength and her softness as she wrapped her legs around him, not really needing her guiding hand as she lowered herself, to draw him deep into her. He found her mouth as she gyrated against him, tasting slight saltiness. Gradually her movement grew faster, her body bucking and heaving, her legs gripping him tighter than he would have believed possible.

  She cried out aloud, once, twice, three times, and then suddenly, so did he, as he felt himself erupt inside her – coming and coming until he thought he would never stop. But at last

  Sarah’s movements began to slow, until she settled gently against him, and he became aware for the first time of her weight, on his hands, arms and shoulders.

  He whispered in her ear. 'See, if the window cleaner came now . . .’

  Bob felt her laughter well up, from inside her. She hugged him, gripping him tight once more with her thighs.

  He walked them, still locked together, through to their bedroom and laid her on the bed. He settled on top of her but she rolled him over and sat up, keeping him still hard and inside her, as she reached down to strip off the rest of his clothes. Then, slowly, she began to move again, her eyes misty and her body glowing with a light sheen of sweat. Her fingers ploughed their way into the hair on his chest until he drew her down close to him again and rolled

  her over, thrusting deeper and hearing her gasp with what he thought for a moment was pain, until it stretched into a long sigh of pleasure. She arched her back and swung her legs up, gripping him yet again, and pushing with her thighs in perfect time with his thrusts. Her head was flung back. her chin upturned, her neck as if offered to the wolf. Strands of her auburn hair clung to her damp face. She began to climax again, throwing back her arms, using only her legs to pull her centre tight to him, and once more they came together, gasping and crying, and finally laughing at the skill and energy of their love-making, and glorying in the sheer pleasure of being one together.

  Eventually he rolled away, to lie on his side, propped up on his left elbow. With his right index finger he traced the line of her nose, while smoothing back her damp hair, where it had stuck to her forehead and to the sides of her face.

  'Love you, doctor.’

  'Yeah. And I you, copper.’ She reached up and rubbed his cheek. 'You’re on the edge of needing a shave.’

  Since their engagement on New Year’s Day – and their subsequent April marriage – theirs had become the deepest, closest and most powerfully physical relationship that either had

  ever known. In their intimacy Sarah had been cautious at first, holding herself back, still with the memory of her earlier, failed engagement in New York. But as a wife, she had developed a sexual frankness and an appetite for congress which often astonished her and always delighted Bob. With his daughter Alex now independent of them, living in her Glasgow flat during university term-time and for most of the summer, they had full freedom to enjoy each other, and eagerly they took advantage of it.

  Bob, despite being in his mid-forties, had evolved sexually, too.

  He often thought of himself in the fifteen years between Myra’s death and Sarah’s arrival in his life: a quiet, private, thoughtful man, a loner; good qualities for a high-achieving detective but barriers on the road to happiness. For all of those years he had been wounded inwardly, like Sarah, but more severely. His few brief sexual encounters with available women – never at his home, and always when Alex was away with her grandparents or at school camps – had been deeply unsatisfying and had left him grieving afresh for his daughter’s dead mother. So when he had first met Sarah, in the line of duty, and had felt immediately drawn to her, it had been in spite of himself, and his nature, that he had followed his instincts. And now he was, he knew, a far better man for it. He had still only a very few close friends, Andy Martin and James Proud top of the list, but he had become more approachable, more ready to laugh with others, and to share his thoughts with them. He perceived, too, that he was now more active in his support of those in trouble, where before he might have offered no more than sympathy. At first he had worried whether the new Skinner might be too soft as a

  commander, but he had realised quickly that the qualities which he had felt himself developing were strengths rather than weaknesses.

  He had now lapsed into a reverie, from which Sarah recalled him abruptly, by propping herself up on an elbow and tweaking his nose.

  Hey! I’m still here, you know.’ She glanced down towards his right leg. 'Going to tell me about that now?’

  Bob glanced down to see the red raw scrape on his knee. He looked at Sarah and grinned.

  All right. I’m in Charlotte Square, and I’m watching this motorcyclist outside Alan Ballantyne’s place, you know Number 6. I think he looks a bit iffy, so I decide to check him out.

  I’m on my way over to talk to him when he reaches inside his jacket. That bomb must have got to me more than I thought, because I decide he’s going for a gun, and I dive for cover. In fact, what’s he got in his hand is nothing but a mobile phone. Did I feel like a prat? Yes I did. Worst of all, big Denis from the Scotsman saw it all. Ask him.’

  He said it all with a smile, thinking: That last part was a clever touch. Hope it does the trick.

  Sarah’s eyes narrowed as she weighed up the plausibility of his story. 'What did the biker do?’

  'He got the fright of his life. Imagine. He hears what he must have thought was a nutter shouting and running at him, then sees him diving about in the street. He revved up his bike and bombed off. What else would you expect?’ Bob kept smiling, his fingers mentally crossed, as she looked at him for a few long seconds.

  Well, if that’s all. Lie there and I’ll clean up that knee.’ She swung herself off the bed and walked on tiptoes into their shower-room. A few seconds later she reappeared, leaning on the

  doorjamb with an uncapped bottle of Dettol and a wad of cotton wool in her hand.

  As always, the sudden sight of his wife naked gave Bob a rush of pleasure, even although he had seen her thus only a few seconds before. He smiled as his eyes took in her long legs, her smooth belly with the dark heart of mystery at its base, her high, proud, full breasts.

  In her turn she looked at him, stretched out on the bed with the special relaxation that only follows great sex: grey-maned but still vibrant with the spirit of youth, long, lean and muscular. He smiled at her again, but she kept her face straight.

  'Think it’s funny, huh. Spread 'em, boy, and take your medicine.’

  He did as he was told, rolling on to his back, his legs forming a V. She knelt alongside him and padded the scrape on his knee with the cotton wool, now well soaked in the antiseptic. She held the bottle of Dettol upright in her left hand as she worked.

  He wi
nced as the antiseptic stung, smiling a stage smile through clenched teeth.

  'That’s a brave soldier,’ she cooed.

  Then, suddenly, she straddled him again, sitting on his legs, immobilising him. She switched the Dettol bottle to her right hand, holding it, not upright this time, but almost horizontally

  with her thumb over the top. It hovered menacingly above his lower midsection.

  'This stuff stings. Don’t it just?’ she said.

  Bob laughed involuntarily, taken by surprise. He looked at the bottle, unsure of what would happen next.

  'Was that really how you scraped your leg, big boy?’ she said, mock menace in her tone.

  The grin stayed on his face. 'Well, no. The truth is, I was at the zoo, and I got too close to the alligator. Naw, that’s not it, I was crossing Princes Street, and I was run over by a bus. Or maybe it was when I tried to jump the food queue in Marks and Spencer.’

  'Ok, ok, ok! I give up already.’ She jumped to her feet and put the bottle on the bedside table.

  'Now, for God’s sake, get a move on. It’s almost seven and we have to be at the theatre for eight.’

  His grin grew wider. 'Exactly. So what’s the rush.’

  He reached up and drew her to him.

  FOURTEEN

  They arrived at the Pleasance theatre complex with only three minutes to spare.

  For eleven months of the year, the Pleasance is used by Edinburgh University and its graduates as a leisure and recreational facility, and thus makes little or no impact on the life

  of the city. But during August it is transformed into a cosmopolitan centre for the performing arts, throbbing with activity eighteen hours a day. Bars, cafeterias and two theatres are set around a central courtyard filled with benches, chairs, and tables. Around one corner of the cobbled yard, rows of canvas seats are set out, making the area into a third and impromptu