It was a short distance to the Skinners’ home, no more than three minutes’ walk, but they were both grateful not to have to make it as the rain grew heavier, battering on the roof of the Mercedes G Class. Their driver pulled up as close to the door as he could, and all four leapt out and into the porch of the modern villa. As Bob had expected, only their two youngest children, Seonaid and Dawn, were in bed; Mark and James Andrew were still awake, but both were flagging. Alex kissed her half-siblings . . . Mark was half her age and Jazz was twenty years younger . . . then she and her escort disappeared into the night, as Bob and Sarah went upstairs to change out of their formal clothing into casual.
‘Who are you first-footing?’ Skinner asked Ignacio, his oldest son, as he came back down.
The young man stared at him. Clearly, the phrase meant nothing to him.
‘Christ,’ he lamented. ‘Did your mother tell you nothing of your Scots heritage when she was bringing you up in Spain? Traditionally, the first person across your threshold in the new year should be a tall dark handsome man. In an ideal world he’ll be carrying a lump of coal and a bottle of whisky.’
Beside Ignacio, his girlfriend Pilar Sanchez Hoverstad laughed. ‘I don’t think I would let anyone in if he was carrying a bottle of whisky,’ she said. ‘Vodka, yes, or maybe schnapps.’ She pulled a face. ‘But not whisky, never. And what is coal?’
‘Yes,’ Ignacio echoed. ‘What is it?’
‘Seriously? You mean . . . ? Fuck! I give up. Where are you going?’
‘To our friend Ronnie’s house. She lives on Goose Green, where you used to live with Alex.’
‘Ronnie? She?’
‘Veronica, Dad, Veronica Goodlad. She’s at uni too, studying English.’
‘Well, you’d better get moving,’ Bob said, ‘or she’ll have graduated by the time you get there. Have you got a bottle of anything to take with you?’
‘Two,’ Pilar replied. ‘Spanish wines; a Tempranillo and a Verdejo.’
‘Very nice,’ he murmured. ‘Can I come?’
‘The hell you can,’ Sarah retorted, as she re-joined them.
‘Nah. You’re right. I’m too old for all-nighters. On you go, you two, but don’t forget to be back for the Loony Dook at midday.’
‘What’s that?’ Pilar asked.
‘A swim in the sea on New Year’s Day, on Gullane beach. It’s become a tradition.’
‘In the sea?’ she gasped. ‘Nacho, you never told me that. All you said was to bring my costume, that we were going to swim. I thought you meant in a pool.’
He nodded. ‘I know, they’re crazy here. You don’t have to, really.’
‘No, I will,’ she insisted. ‘If my mother was here, she would. She is very proud of being Norwegian. I have her blood so I must too.’ She looked up at Bob. ‘Are you doing it?’
‘Yup. Jazz too.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ Sarah murmured.
‘Try and stop him.’
‘I think he’s beyond my control,’ she admitted.
Bob escorted his oldest son and his partner to the door, returning to the living room with a brandy in one hand and a bottle of Corona in the other. He handed the goblet to his wife and settled down beside her on the sofa. ‘Want to watch Jools Holland?’ he asked.
‘Tomorrow maybe; it has less attraction now that I know it isn’t live. Mind you, I’d like to be in the audience when they record it. Could you fix that for next time? You’ve got contacts everywhere.’
‘Not quite,’ he corrected her. ‘I have contacts in the media, in the security service and in the police. None of those will cut much ice with the producers of the Hootenanny.’
‘What about your former wife’s actor boyfriend? He’s got cred with them, surely.’
‘Maybe,’ he acknowledged, ‘but given that I once offered to make Aileen a pair of earrings with his nuts, he might not be too willing to use it. Ask me in six months and I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Who knows where we’ll be in six months? I’ve been following the press coverage of the new coronavirus in China after I read a piece on a pathology website ten days ago or so. Unless they find a quick and effective treatment, and very fast, that could become global. If it does, the consequences are anyone’s guess. Who’s to know what’ll happen?’
He frowned, and his mood darkened. ‘Who was to know a couple of years ago what would happen with Jimmy Proud? Hell no! More recently than that, could I have imagined Alex being attacked in a secure penthouse apartment? Hell no! Could I have foreseen what would have happened to poor Carrie McDaniels?’ He shuddered.
‘Go back those two years,’ she countered. ‘Could we have imagined that now we’d have a beautiful second daughter? Not really. Or that you’d be chair of InterMedia UK? I didn’t see that coming. Or that you would be back in the police?’
‘I’m not back in the police,’ he corrected her. ‘I’m mentoring rising CID officers. As for InterMedia UK, that’s only a division of the parent company, and it’s at the pleasure of my friend Xavi.’
She sipped her brandy and smiled. ‘Your friend Xavi Aislado: the only man I know who’s as big as Dominic Jackson.’
Bob nodded. ‘That’s why he was a goalkeeper, until his knee packed in on him. Big Iceland, they used to call him at Tynecastle. Strange thing is, I never saw him play. I only knew him as a young journalist.’
‘How did you two get close? Did you feed him insider information?’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘And put my career in jeopardy? I don’t think so. The fact is, Xavi tells people I saved his life. I didn’t; I turned up after he’d been shot, and I got him to hospital, but it was never life-threatening.’
‘That’s not what he means when he says that,’ Sarah argued. ‘He told me that if you hadn’t turned up when you did, he might have put another bullet in his head and you’d have found three bodies instead of two.’
‘He may say so, but he wouldn’t have done that. Yes, what happened was tragic, but he’s too strong a character.’ He sighed. ‘That’s another story, though. Let’s look forward today. Have you made a New Year resolution?’
She laughed. ‘Yes, I resolve to dissect the next person who calls me “Lady Skinner”. I’m an American; we don’t do titles.’
‘Of course, you do!’ Bob declared firmly. ‘Half of your compatriots refer to themselves by their job titles. Chief this, Coach that: look at Blue Bloods on the telly, everybody round the table has a title; it’s a status thing. You do it yourself, Professor Grace.’
‘Yes, I do, because I’ve worked damn hard to attain the status. Lady Skinner makes me out to be an appendage of my husband. It’s archaic, it’s . . . it’s . . . anti-feminist!’
‘Enlighten me, do.’
She raised her brandy goblet. ‘Certainly, Sir Robert. Suppose I had been honoured, not you. Suppose I’d been made a dame.’
‘You can’t be; you’re a US citizen.’
‘Piss off, Skinner, just suppose, for the sake of argument.’
‘I don’t want an argument.’
‘You asked me to enlighten you; let me. If I’d been made a dame, that’s the female equivalent of a knight, right?’
He smiled and eased himself closer on the sofa. ‘If you say so. I’ve never really thought about it.’
‘I do say so. So there I am, Professor Dame Sarah Grace. What are you?’
‘Bob.’
‘What else, idiot?’
‘Whatever you’d like me to be. How about Chief Skinner? That’s what they called me whenever I visited the States.’
‘But what would everyone else call you, instead of Lady? What’s the male equivalent?’
‘Gent? That’s how it works with public toilets.’
‘Nothing!’ she cried, her nostrils flaring. ‘There is no gender equivalent to the courtesy title given to the wife of a knight . . . or to a husband,’ she added, with a flourish. ‘It’s all right for the little wife, but it would be demeaning for a male to walk in h
is wife’s shadow . . . or his husband’s? Is that not sexism, is it not a denial of feminism? Go on, tell me.’
He put his head against hers. ‘The only thing I will tell you is that when you have a certain amount to drink, and get argumentative, you also get very horny. So what say I display my masculinity . . . ever notice that there’s no such word as maleism? . . . by carrying you upstairs, Lady Skinner, and we carry on this discussion in a more intimate setting?’
A few strands of her silver hair fell over her right eye. ‘Are you suggesting that we bring in the new year with a bang?’
‘Perceptive as always.’
‘And you’ll concede that I’m right?’
‘Whatever it takes.’
She put her arms around his neck. ‘In that case, Sir Robert, I’m all . . .’
He was in the act of lifting her from the sofa when they were interrupted by the powerful voice of P!nk, Skinner’s ringtone. He paused, looking Sarah in the eye.
‘Go on,’ she sighed. ‘You’ve never been able to just let it ring, and you never will.’
He laid her back down, took out his mobile, glanced at the screen and took the call. ‘Deputy Chief Constable McGuire,’ he growled, slowly, ‘if you’re pished and calling to wish me a Happy New Year, you can stick it up your arse.’
‘I’m not drunk but I wish I was, Bob. Happy New Year, of course, but it’s off to a lousy start.’
The tension in his normally unshakeable friend’s voice snapped him into full wakefulness. As she looked up at him Sarah saw his eyes narrow and his mouth tighten. ‘What’s up?’
‘I don’t want to tell you over the phone. How steamin’ are you? How heavy a night was it at your golf club do?’
‘It was okay, but on the quiet side, as these formal events usually are.’ He glanced at his Corona and saw that it remained more than half full. ‘I’m okay; not okay to drive, but every other way.’
‘Can I send a car for you? There’s one in your area.’
‘Seriously?’ Skinner checked his Rolex. ‘At five to two on New Year’s Day?’
‘Seriously. Could Sarah come too?’
He felt a ripple of apprehension. He realised that McGuire was asking for her as a pathologist, not as his partner. ‘Not a chance of that,’ he replied. ‘Get someone else if that’s necessary. Kids,’ he explained. ‘Ignacio’s gone out and Mark’s still too young to be left in charge.’
‘How about Alex?’
‘She’s gone too. Look, Mario, I’ll come if you really think it’s necessary.’
‘Bob, you’d have killed me if I hadn’t called you. I’ll send the car right now.’
He blinked as the call ended, shaking off the last of his drowsiness. Sarah stood. ‘You really have to go out?’ she asked. ‘Is this a set-up? Have you and your chums planned a stag New Year? Or are you being lured into one?’
‘My chums are all too serious for that, plus, if it was a ruse, he wouldn’t have asked for you and your little bag of tools. No, it’s a mystery, and I have a feeling that when I get to where I’m being taken, I’m not going to like it at all.’
Two
The police car pulled into Skinner’s driveway within three minutes of McGuire’s call ending; by that time he had donned a padded, hooded rain garment that he had bought one cold October night in Barcelona, but barely used since. He slid awkwardly into the back seat behind the uniformed PC driver and her companion, an older man with sergeant’s stripes whom he recognised from his time as chief constable in Edinburgh. He cursed himself inwardly for being unable to put a name to him.
‘Been busy?’ he asked, making conversation in the hope of prompting a recollection.
‘No, sir,’ the sergeant replied. Auld, Skinner remembered, with a surge of relief, Bertie Auld, a crazy Rangers supporter even though he had been named after a Celtic legend. ‘It’s no’ like the old days.’ He paused. ‘Well mibbe’s it is in the town. I’m not used tae East Lothian.’
Eyes met in the rearview mirror. ‘Do you know what this is about, Bertie?’
‘No, sir. The DCC never said. He just told us tae pick up Sir Robert and bring him into Edinburgh, toot sweet, blue light if we need to.’
‘Where in Edinburgh?’
‘Haymarket, sir.’
‘Eh? Haymarket what? The station?’
‘No,’ Auld replied. ‘He said they’d meet us at the War Memorial, that was all.’
‘They?’ Skinner repeated.
‘Him and the chief.’
He was taken by surprise. ‘Maggie too! What the hell? Has there been a military coup?’
The car slowed as they entered Aberlady. As always there were cars parked on either side of the road, but only one other moving vehicle, a Nissan Leaf, travelling slowly and making its way carefully through the space. ‘Do you think we should be stopping him, Sarge?’ the young driver asked.
‘We don’t have grounds, PC Gregg,’ Auld told her. ‘He hasn’t hit anyone, he’s taking care not to, and it isn’t an offence to do fifteen miles an hour.’ He had hardly finished speaking when the car clipped the wing mirror of a wide pick-up truck. ‘That, on the other hand . . . Show him some blue, Janice, and pull him over.’
The Nissan pulled into the kerb, past the last of the parked cars, the police vehicle stopping in front. Auld stepped out; the PC made to follow until Skinner intervened. ‘No, wait here, Constable. I’ll go; I know that registration. She’s one of us.’
He moved quickly to join the sergeant who stared in surprise as he moved past him leaning over beside the driver’s window as it opened. ‘Noele,’ he said, ‘are you okay?’
‘Sir? What are . . .’ There was a pause as the woman composed herself. ‘I’m okay, Bob, just a bit shaken up. That fucking pick-up shouldn’t be allowed to have unfolded mirrors that wide.’
‘Agreed, but what the hell are you doing here, and who’s looking after the wee one?’ He paused, turning to Auld. ‘Do you know DS Noele McClair?’ he asked. ‘She works with DCI Pye and DI Haddock on Serious Crimes. Our kids are best mates.’
‘Very good, sir,’ the veteran sergeant said quietly, ‘but has she been drinking? There’s lights on in that house over there and people are lookin’ at us. Bloody social media, ye ken.’
McClair replied for him. ‘I had a glass of Prosecco with my mother at the bells, Sergeant, and I gave myself a breath test before I left the house.’
‘Why did you leave the house, exactly, Noele?’
‘Duty, sir. I had a call from Sauce. He said I’m needed. He did offer to have me picked up, but I said I’d rather be in control of my own movements.’
‘Did he tell you why?’
‘No, just to meet him at Haymarket. I imagine he meant the divisional office at Torphichen Place.’
‘This gets stranger and stranger,’ Skinner murmured. ‘That’s where I’m heading, at the request of the DCC. Noele, don’t worry about getting home, that’ll be taken care of. Park up, come with me and let’s get there as fast as we can.’ He glanced at Auld. ‘Use all the blue lights you’ve got, Bertie.’
Three
The rest of the journey into Edinburgh passed by almost entirely in a silence that was broken only by the chatter of the police transmissions on the patrol car radio. The road traffic was as quiet as Skinner had expected it to be, and the broadcast transmissions were routine, none of them offering any clue to the reason behind the summons to the capital.
As they entered the city, PC Gregg turned left at the Willowbrae traffic lights, then right into Duddingston Village, choosing the road through Holyrood Park, where they saw the first of the revellers, their number growing steadily as they carried on into the Cowgate and beyond through the Grassmarket.
‘We’re coming this way, sir, because Princes Street’s cordoned off for Hogmanay,’ the driver explained. As a mere detective sergeant, McClair seemingly did not merit an explanation.
‘It takes us nicely down to Haymarket,’ she observed, asserting her presence.
<
br /> Skinner sensed an edginess in her, one that he felt himself. McGuire’s call, and its nature, was unlike any he could recall either receiving or making in his career. His unease grew as they turned out of Grove Street into Morrison Street. It was empty, but for a black Range Rover, beside which stood two people recognisable to everyone in the police car, even out of uniform.
Mario McGuire signalled that they should pull in behind his car. Chief Constable Margaret Rose Steele was by his side.
‘Where’s Sauce?’ McClair wondered aloud, as they came to a halt. ‘I’m supposed to meet him.’
‘Let it play,’ Skinner told her, as he opened the door. The rain had become sleet, and the temperature made him thankful for his choice of overcoat. ‘He’ll be somewhere. Hasn’t it occurred to you that you’re not the only DS on his team? In fact, you live further away from base than any of them, you’re off duty and yet he called you.’
She offered a nervous smile. ‘He’s always saying I’m the best.’ She slid along the back seat and stepped out beside him.
‘Thanks for coming,’ the chief constable said, as she approached them. ‘We didn’t expect you both to arrive together.’
‘But you knew DS McClair was coming?’
‘Yes, she was called in on my instruction.’
‘Even though she’s a single mother like you? There must be a powerful reason for that.’
‘All four of us have got young children,’ she retorted. ‘We should all be with them, but this . . . Well, it overrides that.’
‘Even for me? I’m a civilian, remember.’
‘Neither of you are here because you’re cops,’ McGuire said, beckoning. There was something in his eyes that Skinner could not read, for all the years he had known the man. ‘Come on and we’ll show you what this is about.’
They fell in behind him as he led them a few yards down Morrison Street, pausing as they reached its junction with Torphichen Place, where the West End Police Office was located. As they turned the corner, Skinner tensed. Beside him Noele McClair gasped.
The Roots of Evil (Bob Skinner) Page 2