Skinner's Festival

by Quintin Jardine

  There was carnage indeed in the Ross Theatre, and yet he soon saw it might have been worse. He looked around first for McGuire and Mcllhenney, and to his great relief spotted them both, still huge in their jackets and helmets, shepherding uninjured spectators away from the scene. And then Adam Arrow was by his side. 'God, Andy, I’ve never seen anything like this. What do you hear on that radio of yours?’ Once again the accent had vanished. Three attacks one after the other. First Filmhousc, then the Balmoral – both bombs, from the sound of it – then here. We were attacked by missiles fired from the Mound. One missed. The other hit over there by the looks of it.’

  'Sidewinders, I imagine. In that case we were lucky.’

  'Not all of us, though.’

  They had reached the heart of the missile’s devastation. Neither could be sure how many had died, but a circle of twelve metal seats lay tangled and bloody under the floodlights, with broken bodies twisted among them. Around this immediate circle, perhaps two dozen people sat stunned and disbelieving. Some were bleeding, and several held their ears as if deafened. The silence was that of a mourning parlour. It had a power of its own, one which seemed almost to hold at bay the growing clamour from Princes Street, and the howling of sirens as police, fire crews and ambulances raced to their different destinations.

  The soldier and the detective began to direct the men at their disposal to the care of the casualties, to render first-aid to those who were bleeding, and to confirm, as far as they were able, that none of the walking wounded was seriously hurt. When he was satisfied that everyone was in good hands, Martin called across to McGuire. 'Mario, you’re in charge here now. I’ve got to check out Filmhouse.’

  As he sprinted into the night, he glanced up at the Half-Moon Battery. Standing at its edge, framed in light, he caught sight of a silhouette unmistakable even in its overcoat.

  'Thank Christ for the boss tonight,’ he muttered sincerely. 'But what’s he doing up there still?’

  SEVENTY-FOUR

  The corporal looked puzzled as he handed Skinner the whistle. Skinner took it from him with a curt nod.

  'Right, you all know me?’

  'Sir!’ said the corporal, speaking for all six men. ; 'Major Ancram will have told you that you are know under my command. What I want you to do is this: throw a guard around the Crown Square – that’s the Great Hall, the Queen Anne Barracks, the War Memorial, and the Royal Palace. All the areas below will be empty by now, but there’s nothing there that anyone

  would be after. What you must guard against is anyone or anything that shouldn’t be there. The chances are that nothing unusual will happen, but if it does . . .’

  He paused to let his words sink in, then went on. 'If any of you sees anything, and you don’t know for sure it’s friendly, don’t ask I for its name, shoot it. If it turns out to be the regimental mascot, or the RSM’s tart, well, that’ll be too bad, but they can both be replaced. Right, Corporal, get your men spread out.’ He held up the whistle. 'I know it’s old-fashioned, but if I need you, I’ll blow this thing. If you hear it, regroup here, by the One O’clock Gun. If

  any of you need me, chances are I’ll have heard you shoot!’

  SEVENTY-FIVE

  But Skinner was wrong.

  He was standing by the gun, training his night-glasses on the National Art Gallery, looking for any sign of intruders. For he suddenly felt acutely aware that the building was currently

  housing an international exhibition of the life’s work of Rembrandt. It had been brought to the Edinburgh Festival under the sponsorship of a major insurance company, and it was worth, conservatively, over a hundred million pounds.

  'Forget the banks. That’s only money,’ he said softly to the night, his thoughts gathering speed. 'Anybody with the resources to fund what we’ve just seen doesn’t need money. But what if he wants something else, something unique, just for himself, and will go to any lengths, any cost? There’s only one other collection in Edinburgh as valuable as that exhibition, and we’re up here guarding that.’

  Then he heard the strange sound in the dark, and knew at once, with his detective’s instinct, that the National Gallery was not the target – and that his germ of an idea had been right all along. The Royal Regalia of Scotland are not nearly as famous as their English counterparts in the Tower of London, and they have been admired by far fewer tourists over the years. Indeed, most Scots do not even know they art there. Since the Union of the Kingdoms

  almost five hundred years ago, only King Charles II, then an exile and outlawed by Cromwell, has been crowned in Scotland. Thus the Honours of Scotland – as they are sometimes called – are, in main, older than the Crown Jewels of England. They are also, in

  their own way, beyond price. Therefore they are guarded in the most effective manner possible, by the army itself, in the heart of the garrisoned citadel of Edinburgh, which stands impregnable on its rock – unless, in some dire emergency, that garrison were to be flushed out. Without waiting to discover exactly what that sound in the dark had been, but sensing its meaning anyway. Skinner grabbed his radio and spoke urgently into the open channel.

  'Get some back-up here to the Castle. They’re after the Crown Jewels! “

  SEVENTY-SIX

  He stumbled over the body in the dark. The soldier lay face-down, near the Portcullis Gate, at the foot of the Lang Stairs. Skinner turned him over. The heavy clouds reflected the amber light of the city back down to earth, and in that dim glow Skinner could see that the man had been stabbed in the throat. The gurgling sound heard earlier must have been his death rattle, or a last attempt to raise the alarm. The man had dropped his rifle. Skinner spotted the short, fully automatic weapon lying on the ground. He picked it up without further thought, thankful for his practice sessions with this same firearm on the St Leonards rifle range.

  Leaving the dead soldier. Skinner hurried back to his rendezvous point by the One O’clock Gun. He hesitated for a moment about blowing the whistle, with the risk of alerting the

  intruders, but quickly decided that alerting his own men had priority. So he gave a single sharp blast, and hoped that the raiders would confuse it with the many other varied sounds now floating up to the Castle from the chaos in the city below. Only three of the other soldiers answered his summons, including the corporal. Skinner glanced at him and held up the whistle, a gesture asking whether he should blow it again.

  But the NCO shook his head sadly. 'Naw. They’re good lads. They’d have come if they could.’

  With twenty-twenty hindsight. Skinner cursed himself for not commandeering twice as many men, then he addressed the remaining three. 'Look lads, we’ve got a raiding party in the

  Castle. They’re after the Crown Jewels. I don’t know how many there are, but they must be inside the Palace by now. I’ve already radioed for back-up, but we can’t wait that long. If they get what they’re after, then get loose out there in the dark, we’ll never catch them.

  'Corporal, you take one of these two and go round behind the war Memorial to the main entrance to Crown Square. The other will come with me up the Stairs, and in by the side way. And, again ask no questions. You see it, you shoot it!’

  The corporal slapped one of his soldiers on the shoulder, and together the pair headed off up a slight incline to the right, hunched in the dark and their rifles held ready. Skinner led the

  remaining man back past the body of his dead colleague and up to the top of the stone staircase, until it opened on to the topmost level of the Castle. Together they raced across the ground behind the Fore Wall and the Half Moon Battery, and flattened themselves against the side of the Scottish National War Memorial.

  Slowly, Skinner eased forward to peer round the corner into Crown Square. At the edge of his vision he saw the corporal and his partner sprint into the square, away from the dangerous frame of the narrow entrance, bracing themselves, crouched, against the buildings.

  There were two men stationed at the door of the Palace. They were dr
essed in black, and carried short, ugly guns which Skinner recognised at Uzis. They spotted the two soldiers as soon as they appeared at the far end of the square, and swung their weapons up to firing positions. But too slowly. The corporal and his companion cut them down with bursts of

  sustained deadly accurate rifle fire. Skinner saw both men thrown back against the wall of the Jewel Chamber by the impact. Then as the firing stopped, they crumpled slowly, limp and dead, to the ground.

  He shouted across the square. 'Corporal, is there any other way out of there?’

  'No, sir,’ the man called back. 'Whoever’s in there must come through that door at the foot of the Flag Tower.’

  'Right, we wait. Our back-up should be here any minute.’

  As he spoke, he heard, from within the building, a sound like the smashing of heavy glass. An alarm bell began to ring, pointlessly.

  Skinner left his soldier companion in the lee of the War Memorial, and ran across to the steps of its only entrance. He shielded himself behind its arch, and blessed his luck and foresight as a grenade exploded in the square. He heard shrapnel zing against stone walls, and ricochet off into the night. Then he swung himself out from behind the grey pillar and waited ready for what he knew would happen next.

  There were two others, also dressed in black like their dead colleagues. Each carried a holdall in his left hand, and a blazing Uzi in his right. As they burst through the door, they sprayed fire blindly at unseen targets, but this kept the soldiers at the far end of the square pinned down nonetheless. They could not see where their greatest peril waited. Skinner dropped the first intruder with two quick shots. The other swung round towards the side exit from Crown Square, and straight into the path of the waiting soldier, who roared a battle-cry as he emptied his magazine in revenge for his fallen comrades.

  In the silence that followed, amid the reek of the gunsmoke, Skinner found time to look inside himself. He was pleased that he had been able to fire without hesitation, pleased too that he had handled the job so unemotionally, without any thought of Barry Macgregor in his mind. Perhaps, he thought, the closet door was locked for good. Maybe he did not need that other guy after all. He held the other men in position for three full minutes, lest there were other intruders still inside the Jewel Chamber. But the next man to enter the square was Captain Adam Arrow, leading his silent troops in full combat array.

  Arrow appraised the scene in a second, and realised why Skinner and his trio of soldiers were waiting immobile. At his signal, two men sprinted across the open space and threw stun

  grenades through the open door of the Flag Tower, holding their ears against the percussion. Then they rushed inside the building and up the stairs, their guns held in front of them.

  A few seconds later they emerged, and waved the all-clear to Arrow.

  As Skinner and the soldiers gathered at the doorway, the corporal found a switch, and soon the square was ablaze with light. Weapons at the ready, they approached the four figures

  lying crumpled on the flagstones. Three of the raiders were as dead as they could be, but the fourth still showed signs of life.

  Skinner radioed for an ambulance.

  The two holdalls lay on the ground nearby. The larger of them was streaked with blood. Skinner knelt down and unzipped it and from within he took a sword still sheathed in its bejewelled scabbard. Not just any old sword, this one, but that which had been ceremoniously borne in state before the kings of Scotland.

  He held it up by its scabbard for a moment, feeling its weight and its fine balance. Then he handed it over to Arrow and bent to open the other bag, knowing also what he would find there. First, the golden sceptre, finely worked, heavier than it looked. And then Scotland’s ancient pride, the crown itself. It was almost indescribably beautiful. Even in the harsh artificial light its jewels glinted in the delicate gold circlet. Pearls, set in gold, gleamed on the red velvet inner cap, and six more, with four sapphires, formed the cross at its apex.

  Skinner held it up by its white ermine surround, for all to see 'There you have it, lads. This is what our Freedom Fighters were really after. Priceless, they call it, but for someone who

  wanted it badly enough, not beyond price, it seems.’

  SEVENTY-SEVEN

  Skinner could scarcely believe that so many journalists would turn up sober for a 2:30 am press briefing. Extra seats had been brought in, filling the briefing hall completely. Yet they were all soon occupied, and the side aisles were also packed with correspondents, many standing, others crouching to allow the photographers and television cameramen a clear view of the table at the head of the room, and of the big dark-suited, steel-haired, stubble-chinned man who sat at it – his Chief Constable, in full uniform and clean-shaven, by his side.

  Skinner waited as Alan Royston and his uniformed assistants distributed the printed statement which he and Proud Jimmy had dictated together within the last hour. They waited for some

  minutes more, to give every man and woman in the room an opportunity to read and understand it fully. When he judged the time was right, Skinner rapped the table with his knuckles to recapture the attention of his audience, and began, slightly hoarsely.

  'I’d appreciate it if everyone here could take that statement as read. It’ll save my voice. But I’ll sum up now for television and radio.’ He glanced down the room towards the camera platform. 'In relative terms we have been fortunate tonight. This is no comfort to the families of the nine victims killed by the ground-to-ground missile fired into the Ross Theatre. However, things could have been much worse. There were no other serious casualties, either in the Gardens or due to the other explosions at Filmhouse and at the Balmoral Hotel. The first of these, we know now, was caused by a satchel of explosives placed against a wall in the foyer. It brought down the front of the building, but the rest stood firm. Fortunately all the audience and staff were inside the cinemas at the time, so everyone was brought out safely.

  'We believe that the Balmoral bomb, too, was left in a suitcase in the foyer. Again fortunately, the receptionist had gone into her office, and the doorman was outside watching the fireworks. So that area was completely empty when the device went off”.

  'We believe that the second missile at the Ross Theatre was aimed at the Prime Minister’s car, but the vehicle moved out of the line of fire just in time, thanks to the speed with which DCI Andy Martin and DI Brian Mackie acted to get the two ministers clear of the scene.’

  On impulse, Sir James Proud broke in, pointing towards a stocky, blond, green-eyed man leaning against the wall. 'I’d like to single out Andy Martin for special commendation, but also congratulate all the other members of the team: Brian Mackie, Mario McGuire and Neil Mcllhenney, who placed themselves without hesitation in the line of fire, and not forgetting DS Maggie Rose, but for whose keen eyes we could well have had a dead Prime Minister by now, not to mention her fellow officers and friends.’

  As Al Neidermeyer raised a hand. Skinner eyed him without animosity. The American looked back with caution and new respect.

  'We’re putting this out live on TNI. Could you just run over the whole picture of what happened tonight?’

  Certainly. It’s now clear that the so-called independence campaign was in fact a professionally planned operation to cause chaos and confusion among the police and emergency services, and to steadily stretch us to the point we reached tonight, when we

  had to call out every last resource at our disposal, including the garrison from the Castle. We know now that the real objective was theft of the Honours of Scotland, our Royal Regalia. Call it fantastic, call it audacious, but it actually happened, and it almost succeeded.’

  'Do you think you’ve got them all. Bob?’ The questioner was the grizzled John Hunter, looking slightly unkempt in the middle of the night, an unaccustomed time for him.

  Skinner smiled at the familiar face. 'No, John, we haven’t. We don’t know yet whether the types who planted those bombs and fired the missiles were the sa
me ones who attacked the Castle. Forensic tests should tell us, though. Also we don’t know for sure that there were only four in the raiding party up at the Castle. A long rope ladder was found fastened to the Half Moon Battery dropping down to the lawn below. That was their getaway route so possibly someone was guarding it, then legged it.

  “There’s Mary Little Horse, too. We still haven’t traced her. And there’s someone else we haven’t got. That’s the one who set this whole thing up. Somebody who wanted so badly to possess the Scottish Crown Jewels that he or she was ready to provide the necessary finance for an operation as brilliant and as ruthless as this one. There is absolutely no clue as to who that person might be, but we can assume that he or she is extremely rich, and must have some very special interest in Scotland.’

  'So what else have you got?’ said Al Neidermeyer.

  'Well, we’ve got a wounded man in the Royal, under very special guard. An hour and a half ago we faxed fingerprints from all four intruders to various agencies around the world, but we’ve had no firm response as yet. So we still haven’t identified any of them. However, we think we may have the getaway vehicle. We found a Mercedes saloon with false plates parked in Johnstone Terrace under the Half Moon Battery. Not the driver, though, and

  none of the four killed in the raid had car keys on him.

  'Within the last hour we’ve learned that an aircraft, a De Havilland Dash, has been sitting in a hangar at Cumbernauld Airport, ever since it was flown in two weeks ago. The hangar rent

  was paid up until tomorrow, cash down, by the pilot who flew it in. The copy receipt is made out in the name of Mr Black.