consider them.
"Thank you, sir."
He looked at the road ahead. "Can I ask you something else, Andrea?"
"Within reason."
"When we saw you on the video tapes, and when we began our talk
yesterday, you looked .. . different. Why was that?"
She took a deep breath. "Because I'd stopped taking my medication.
When I got that call last Friday, it just did my head in. You know
what I mean? I just screamed inside; I thought that it had all been a
sham, that I wasn't cured, or under control at all, and that the
medicine was all useless. So I stopped taking it. What you saw was
what happened as a result."
Andrea looked across at him. "How does that make you feel, Steven?"
she asked. "It makes me feel like a bit of a cripple still."
He felt himself frown. "It makes me angry, Andrea, that's how it makes
me feel. For the guy who called you did so knowing what it could do to
you. That's one of the most evil things I've ever come across. He
won't be doing it again. Not if I can help it."
"Nor if I can. I'll try to make myself remember from now on; God does
not use the phone."
forty.
Walking back into his office in the Fettes headquarters building as a
serving officer should have been one of the most satisfying moments of
Bob Skinner's life, let alone his career. He had been faced with a
threat and he had crushed it; normally he would have taken a moment to
savour his triumph, but he had no moments to spare.
Instead he went straight to his desk and switched on his computer; he
fidgeted impatiently in his seat as it booted up, but eventually he was
able to log on using his private password ... Michael. He opened the
file on which he had stored a number of highly sensitive direct-line
telephone numbers. When he had found the one for which he was looking,
he picked up one of his telephones, a black, old-fashioned handset, and
keyed it in.
A flat emotionless voice answered. "Yes?"
"Adam, it's Bob."
"Hello, mate, how the fook are you?" The man's tone had changed in an
instant. "I'd heard you were ill. Not that I believed it, mind."
"I've never been better. Things get exaggerated along the way."
"Must have been, or you wouldn't be calling me on this line. What can
I do for you?"
"A small favour." He paused. Major Adam Arrow was one of his most
trusted friends, although the story of their relationship would never
be written down. Arrow was a serving army officer, but he worked in
the sector of the national security machine that the public do not see.
He had served undercover in many trouble spots, and had seen and done
things that would have turned a weaker man into a lifelong insomniac,
yet he still slept well, every night, and had risen in the Ministry of
Defence to a position so sensitive that he was responsible only to the
Secretary of State himself, and in extreme circumstances,
when things had to be politically deniable, not even to him.
"Remember," Skinner continued, 'that time you looked into my father's
MoD file?"
"Of course."
"Well, there's another one I'd like you to look at, one that you'll
find isn't nearly as distinguished as my dad's. He's my family secret,
my brother."
"Michael," said Arrow, quietly.
As it had been with Alex, Bob's surprise was pure reflex. "How did you
know about him?"
A soft laugh came down the secure line. "Are you forgetting who you're
talking to, mate? Come to that, are you forgetting who you are? The
first time you ever got involved with the security services, you were
subjected to top level vetting. There's nothing about you that isn't
known and on file; at my level I have instant access to all of it. This
line you called me on has a clever little device, at my end at least;
it's linked through my computer, and whenever there's an incoming call
it identifies the person on the other end through the number and pops
his file up on screen. I'm looking at it right now."
"Is it up-to-date, though?"
"Pretty much. I know what you were doing in the States a couple of
months back. I know that your brother was found dead at the weekend,
and looking at the most recent entry, I can guess why you sound in a
bit of a rush right now. Is that current enough for you?"
"It's so current that it's worrying."
"You're top rated, mate."
Skinner snorted, "Uhh? Am I a threat then?"
"No. You're important, and you know things ordinary people don't.
You're a national fookin' treasure, Robert. So we have to know
everything about you."
"Fuck. Don't tell me any more. Will you look into Michael's Ministry
file for me?"
"Sure, not a problem. What do you want to know?"
"I want to know the truth about what happened in Honduras; the incident
that led to him getting kicked out."
"I'll see what it says. How soon?"
"The usual. Soon as you can."
"When can I get back to you on this line?"
"I don't know. I'm off to the States; since you're that clued up,
you'll understand why. I'd like you to courier a report to Neil
Mcllhenney in my Special Branch office, marked for my eyes only, on
return. I don't want this going through my assistant. He's too new. I
don't know him yet."
"Okay," said Arrow. "Good luck in Buffalo."
"Thanks, Adam." Skinner gave a small shudder as he hung up the phone.
He operated on the fringes of, and on occasion deeper inside, the
secret society, but even he could still be surprised by the length of
its arm. He checked his watch and stood up; he thought about stepping
along the corridor to say hello to the chief, and to Jack McGurk, his
new executive assistant, but that would have cost him time he did not
have.
He was glad that the Special Branch outer office was empty when he
stepped through the door. Normally he would have been happy to spend
time with a bright young copper like Alice Cowan, but at that moment in
his life, all he wanted to do was to pick up his bag and papers from
Neil Mcllhenney and catch his plane.
The big inspector was waiting for him in his office. There was a small
suitcase, cabin-sized, standing beside his desk.
"Thanks, pal," said Bob quietly. "This is above and beyond the call of
duty."
"But not friendship. Don't sit down; you're on the five-fifteen
shuttle connecting to the seven forty-five flight to New York. That
gets you in about eleven, US time. You have an airport hotel
reservation then an early morning flight to Buffalo. You'll be there
for half-nine. The tickets are ready for collection at the airport."
He picked up the case, and an envelope from his desk. "Come on, we're
obscenely tight for time, so let's shift. You can tell me on the way
what this is about."
Mcllhenney led the way out of his office and down the stairs to the car
park behind the Fettes headquarters building. He drove quickly out on
to Carrington Drive; a few turns later they were on Queensferry Road,
heading for the Barnton Roundabout at substantially more than the
permitted speed limit. "Right," he said, as they hit a stretch of
straight road.
His face became more and more solemn, and more and more pale, as
Skinner told him the story. He was a detective too; he knew the
conclusion to which the bare facts pointed.
"Oh, man," he whispered, as his friend finished. "Oh, man. The dead
man, Ron Neidholm, have you met him?"
"No. Until that little bitch Babs Walker rubbed my nose in his picture
I'd never heard of him. I'm told I should have, but gridiron
football's not my game. Does he mean anything to you?"
"Yes, he does. I follow it a bit on television. He's not Joe Montana,
John Ellway or Dan Marino, but he's pretty close. He's outlasted all
of them too."
"Until now," Skinner grunted.
"Mmm." He paused. "Our Spencer's a great American football fan;
Neidholm's one of his favourites."
"God knows how he's going to take it then, when he finds out that
Auntie Sarah's topped his hero."
"Bob, for fuck's sake," Mcllhenney shouted. "You cannot afford even to
think like that, far less say it out loud."
Skinner flushed at the rebuke, and chewed his lip. "I know, pal. I'm
sorry. But... It's just that I've had a few hours to think about this
now, and I'm going to have a few more until I shuffle into fucking
Buffalo. And from what Oakdale told me, it looks pretty bleak."
"Maybe it does, but plant this thought in your head and do not let it
waver. No way could Sarah kill anybody. She is not capable of it."
The big man's eyes dropped. "I'll try, Neil, and it's nice of you to
say that. But you and I both know, from professional and personal
experience, that that isn't true. There are always circumstances, my
friend, in which we can do things we never contemplated. You know that
as well as I do."
"Not Sarah," Mcllhenney insisted. "I know you two have been alienated
lately, but you're not going to tell me you doubt her in this?"
Bob shook his head. "No, I'm not; and I won't, I promise you. I'm
sorry I even expressed the thought. But man, this on top of everything
else. We've all got our breaking point; maybe I'm getting close to
mine."
Neil laughed. "Aye, sure. That'll come when they tighten the screws
on your box, man. Even then you'll probably kick it open. You will
get over there and you will get this sorted, or you'll fire up the
local boys to sort it themselves."
"You have faith in me, don't you?"
"We all do. And it's justified. Look at today, look at Councillor
Maley, who was last seen bustling out of Fettes with her spiky tail
between her legs. Sarah did not do this, and you'll get her clear."
"And if I do? What then?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean there are other questions."
"Only if you choose to ask them."
They drove on in silence, until Mcllhenney sped round the approach road
to the airport. "Going back to Maley," he said at last. "I've got
something on her."
"Indeed? Will it keep till I get back?"
"Probably. He's in Shorts Prison. I just need to check out a few
things more."
"Go and see big Lenny, if you need to," said Skinner. "Tell him I sent
you, and that I'd trust you with his life. He'll get the humour in
that."
The inspector nodded, as he drew to a halt on a double yellow line in
front of the airport. Two uniformed traffic officers approached as
they stepped out of the car. Mcllhenney flashed his warrant card and
frowned at them; they backed off.
Skinner took his flight bag from the back seat, and his passport from
his friend's hand. "Thanks, man," he said sincerely, 'for everything
you've done. But there's one more thing."
"Name it."
"Alex. I'd hoped to see her to tell her about this, but I just haven't
had the time. It's a hell of a job, telling her that her stepmother's
in the slammer for murder; there's only you and Andy that I'd ask to do
it, and I'd rather it was done face-to-face. You'll find her at her
office; she thinks she's waiting for me."
"I'll do that."
"And tell her I love her."
Mcllhenney grinned. "She knows that, man."
"Aye, but tell her anyway."
Forty-One.
"How did we do with Sheringham?" Maggie Rose asked briskly. Steele
and Regan faced her across the desk in her small office.
"He either hides the incriminating evidence in mysterious ways, ma'am,"
the inspector replied, 'or there ain't any. We went in there with our
search warrant at seven o'clock, and we searched every inch of it, but
we found nothing explosive or inflammatory apart from a can of
hair-spray."
"I thought he lived alone."
"He does," Steele replied, 'but us guys, these days, we're full of
surprises."
"The only hair-spray in our house is mine, but I'll take your word for
it. Did you put a sniffer dog in?" She caught his frown. "Sorry, I
should have taken that for granted. It didn't react to anything,
then?"
"There was a blown condom under the bed, but that was all that excited
it."
"She must have been in heat," Regan muttered. Rose glared at him.
"There was nothing at all, absolutely nothing?"
"Well," said Steele, 'there was an extra remote. The boy's a gadget
freak. He's got a snazzy hi-fi, a big telly, DVD player, video, and
all of them work off remotes. But there was an extra one."
"Is that significant?"
"Long shot, but it could be. The technical boys say that it might be
possible to trigger an incendiary with a telly remote, if you set it up
right. But we'd need to have the detonator to know that, and it was
pretty much melted in the fire."
"Yes, damn it, so it was." She looked at the two men. "What you're
telling me, then, is that we don't have any grounds for continuing to
detain him?"
1QS
"Apart from being a little shite, no, we don't," the inspector
admitted. "The phone call isn't enough, not nearly. Even last night,
once he'd had a chance to think about it, he was claiming that someone
could have taken his phone from his pocket, used it, then put it back.
It was made at seven-thirty; there was a staff drinks party in the
Candela and Finch offices last Friday evening, part of the bicentenary
celebrations."
"So he could be telling the truth?"
"Yes, and if he is that gives us a list of about a hundred and fifty
guys to work through. If he isn't, it makes no bloody difference; the
phone call alone isn't enough."
"He goes, then. I'll phone his solicitor; I'd better start making
soothing noises as well. George, go down to the cells and get him."
The sergeant nodded, and left the room.
"There's one thing worries me about turning him loose, Maggie," said
Steele as the door closed.
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