Skinner's Ordeal

by Quintin Jardine

`Yeah. Let's cover all the angles. If the Red Box spent the night at Chez Noble, I'd like to have the place checked for any sign of an illicit entry while they were asleep. Ask Dave Donaldson to arrange to borrow a Scene of Crime Squad from the Met.'

  `Right, I'll do that.'

  `Good,' said Skinner. 'Now, Joe Doherty has with him the American file on Agent Robin.

  I've got Brian Mackie flying down there tomorrow. I'll ask him to give it to you.'

  `You can if you like,' said Arrow, 'but it ain't news to me. M16 found out about Robin before the Yanks did. The CIA obviously didn't tell the NSC, but it were our lot that tipped them off! Don't worry about Agent Robin, Bob. We've got an operation in place in that respect, and I'm pretty certain that Robin isn’t the person we're after! The best thing we can do is follow the leads we ‘ave, and keep an eye out for traces of General Yahic.'

  Skinner said cautiously. 'I'll go with your judgement on that. Good luck.'

  ‘cheers mate. I'll keep in touch.' Arrow hesitated. 'One thing though, Bob. Are you all right?'

  `Me! Of course. Why?'

  "Cos from where I'm listening, you sound absolutely knackered!'

  FORTY-THREE

  Bob Skinner lay in the dark. It was 2.30 a.m., and he was afraid.

  He lay alert, listening to his wife's soft breathing, because he was afraid to fall asleep, afraid of another dream visit to those muddy acres, afraid of the horror but also of the reality of his vision of the night before.

  He knew with a great certainty that the nightmare was not over, only interrupted. He could remember none of the detail, only the horror, but he was certain that if he yielded to his sandy, heavy eyes, he would be back in its midst, not screaming awake this time, but moving on towards something in the darkness, something that he knew was there, something frightful, something awful. He was afraid too that even his wakeful state would not be a defence for ever, and that soon the final recollection would break through the wall in his consciousness which he had built against it, and kept cemented firm.

  He slipped out of bed, moved noiselessly over to his wardrobe and found running shorts, a sweat-shirt and trainers. Rather than stumble about in the bedroom and risk waking Sarah, he stepped out to the landing and clothed himself, then tiptoed downstairs and let himself out into the street. He locked the door behind him, zipped his keys into a pocket in his shirt, and trotted towards the road, running across the lawn and leaping over the corner of the gravel to maintain his silent escape.

  Had he looked back, he would have seen Sarah at the bedroom window watching him anxiously as he loped into the night, down Fairyhouse Avenue.

  He ran with long easy strides, not pushing himself as he climbed the hill and took the turn which led on to Queensferry Street. He crossed the wide road almost at once, picking up his pace as he ran past Stewarts Melville College then turned right, heading down the hill towards Dean Village.

  As he ran in the light, cold drizzle which was falling on the centre of Edinburgh, the waking nightmare faded. He settled into a steady, metronomic pace, and he began to think through his investigation. He replayed all the decisions he had taken, and all the orders he had given.

  He thought back to Donaldson's report and to his description of Maurice Noble's depression, and to his fears over his wife. Could Noble have been a perverted suicide? He asked himself. The very question made him feel frustrated.

  One of the things which he disliked most about his senior command role was the extent to which it took him away from day-to-day contact with criminal investigation. Throughout his career as a detective, one of his great strengths had been his ability to get to know the people he was confronting, by studying their actions, by speaking to those who knew them and finally, in many cases, by staring into their eyes across the table in an interview room.

  The essential delegation which his rise through the ranks had forced upon him had robbed him of much . . . too much, he thought . . . of that closeness with the crime-fighting process. It was not that he distrusted his staff or doubted their ability to form their own judgements. On the contrary, Skinner believed that his handpicked team was the finest in the country.

  His problem was that as the commanding General and Field-Marshal-in-waiting, for all the power and glory, he derived less satisfaction from the job than he had as a member of the frontline team.

  Of course, since moving into the command suite he had enjoyed one or two personal successes. But they had been accidents of fate, rather than part of the due process. Now he had chosen to place himself publicly at the head of the most demanding enquiry his Force had ever faced, and he was troubled.

  The carnage on the Lammermuirs had thrust torments into his dreams, and he knew that they were taking a physical toll. Yet, apart from that, since the early hours of the investigation when he had stood frustrated in the Command Vehicle, trying to think of all the things he should be doing yet having difficulty in stringing them into a logical sequence, he had had the strangest feeling that somehow he was floating above events, unable to reach down and influence them.

  On other investigations he had felt sometimes that all was not as it seemed, and that somewhere in the pattern of events there was an obvious link which he was missing. In the past, he had worried away tenaciously at the scenario; he had adjusted the living jigsaw until the last piece was in place.

  But this was different. This time he had set an investigation under way without any clear idea of the direction in which it was heading. And this time, there were the nightmares.

  For the first time in his life, professional and personal, he knew that he was not in control.

  Bob Skinner ran on through the sodium-lit darkness. It was 3.10 a.m., and he was afraid.

  They took him completely by surprise, as they jumped from the doorway to confront him.

  They were big fellows, three of them, heavily built, and he knew at once that they were not about to ask him for a light. He broke his stride and tried to dodge around them, but they spread out to block his path.

  His mind had been so preoccupied with his troubles that he had lost track of where he was heading. He looked around him and saw that he was in Dalry Road, a main thoroughfare, but one where no traffic ran other than the occasional police car at that time in the morning.

  He was breathing heavily. The three men circled around him, forcing him to take a defensive position with his back to a shop window. Skinner was afraid no longer. These were flesh and blood things. He felt an old familiar sensation creep over him, a coldness inside, an anticipation of danger. Something else invaded him too, or rather someone, another personality, one who was looking forward to what was about to happen, who knew what power he possessed, and who would take pleasure in using it.

  He scanned the trio, trying to make out faces, but they were all dressed in what could have been a gang uniform — tracksuits with heavy hooded tops. 'You guys really don't want to do this,' he said. For a start, I'm a Police Officer. For another thing, there aren't enough of you. Away home to your mothers before your tea gets cold.' There was a wicked gleam in his eye.

  If all three had charged at once, even he would have stood no chance, but as two came forward, one of the men, the thug on his left, hesitated.

  Skinner sent the first attacker spinning backwards in less than a second disabled by a short, brutal right-handed chop across the Adam's apple. Almost simultaneously, the man in the middle, the biggest of the three, was folded in half by a lightning-fast kick to the groin. Before he could hit the ground, Skinner grabbed him and using his momentum, swung him round and slammed him headfirst through the plate-glass window behind him.

  As the shop alarm began to ring out, the third man, who had plucked up enough courage to move in to attack, froze in mid-stride. The policeman seized him by the shirt, pulled towards him and head-butted him as hard as he could on the bridge of the nose.

  Skinner was still holding the man, smiling savagely as blood erupted from his smashed nose, when he felt the th
ump on his back. He threw down his attacker and turned in surprise, to face a tall, slightly built girl, as she lunged at him for a second time with a long-bladed knife. He had no time to wonder from where she had come. Instinctively he side-stepped, and grabbed her wrist, twisting it sharply upwards, and hearing a crack. She screamed and dropped the weapon. Still holding her, Skinner bent to pick it up with his left hand.

  All of a sudden he felt the pain. It began just below his right shoulder blade and swept through him. He gasped in a breath and it erupted into agony. His eyes swam, and he slumped to his knees, loosening his grip on the girl. As he fell forward, face down on the wet pavement, he heard her footsteps as she race off down Dalry Road.

  Above him, the shop's alarm bell continued to ring out shrilly, but to Bob Skinner, the sound grew fainter and more distant. He clung on to it for as long as he could, but eventually it faded altogether as a darkness swept over him, one in which there were no dreams.

  FORTY-FOUR

  The doorbell rang, but Sarah was halfway downstairs, pulling her robe around her. It was just after 4.30 a.m., and she had been lying awake, waiting anxiously for Bob to return, when she had heard the car pull up outside.

  She threw the door open. Andy and Alex stood on the threshold, unkempt and speedily dressed.

  `What is it?' she snapped urgently. Andy stepped into the hall and put his hands on her trembling shoulders.

  Ìt's Bob,' he said. 'He's in the Royal.

  Sarah gasped and looked at Alex, noticing, for the first time, that she had been crying.

  'A patrol car found him in Dairy Road. It was answering a call-out to investigate a shop alarm that had been reported ringing. The officers recognised him and had the presence of mind to get a message to me. They said that it looked as if he was attacked when he was out running. He's been stabbed.'

  Sarah's hands flew to her face. 'Oh my God! How bad is it?'

  `They don't know. I called the hospital. They told me that he was alive, but unconscious, when the ambulance got there. They rushed him straight into surgery. Apparently he has a single Wound in the back, penetrating the chest cavity.'

  Do you know who did it?' she gasped.

  Martin nodded. 'I think so. The patrol car stopped a girl in Dalry Road, running away from the scene. She had a broken wrist. There were three blokes at the scene, all of them hospital cases. The ambulance crew had to give one of them an emergency tracheotomy.

  The Big Man went down fighting and no mistake.'

  Upstairs, Jazz began to cry.

  ‘I’ll see to the baby,' said Alex `Sarah, you get dressed and Andy'll take you to the Royal.'

  She nodded, and headed for the stairs.

  `That's right,' said Martin, a meaningful look in his eye. And when we get there, I'm going to talk to those three guys, and the girl. I have friends in that hospital — and none of those characters will be having anything but the minimum treatment until they've told me the whole story!'

  FORTY-FIVE

  Edinburgh Royal Infirmary has seen many advances in medicine. Unfortunately the same philosophy of constant improvement has not driven hospital building in Scotland's capital, where some medical staff still work in accommodation which has served six generations and more.

  The room to which Sarah was shown to await Bob's emergence from theatre was in the heart of the oldest part of the Infirmary. It was a small lounge serving the doctors attached to the main surgical wards.

  She sat there, white-faced, sipping hot sweet tea from a white mug. Alan Royston was at her side, but the Police Media Relations Manager kept a sympathetic silence, knowing instinctively to leave her to her thoughts.

  Eventually, Sarah felt sorry for him, felt she should break the silence. After all, he was a member of the Skinner team, and would be suffering himself during the helpless time of waiting. However, well-meaning though she was, what she said brought him little reassurance.

  Ìt's at times like this, Alan,' she said, 'that it's awful being a doctor. There are no mysteries for me. I know what's happening in theatre right now, and I know what the worst case is.

  The Senior House Officer who received him in Accident and Emergency showed me where the wound is. Depending on the angle of entry it could have punctured a lung, or it could have penetrated the heart.'

  Royston paled. 'His heart? But surely, that couldn't have happened or he'd be . . . The words faded on his lips.

  `Dead already? Not necessarily; a healthy heart is a powerful organ. But Andy said that the police got there within two minutes of the stabbing and he was unconscious by then.

  That isn't a good sign. Against that, there was a heartbeat when he was brought in. Erratic but still strong, the SHO said.'

  `How long should he be in surgery?'

  She glanced at her watch. 'He's been in theatre for going on three hours now, but there's nothing unusual in that. I expect they'll be a while yet.' She squeezed his hand. 'You have no idea how strong Bob is. He'll be fine.'

  Royston looked at her, and was perceptive enough to realise, as perhaps she did not fully, that she was talking to herself, rather than to him. He admired her strength, and her control. For himself, he was held together by the simple fact that he could not imagine Skinner not surviving.

  The door opened. Sarah looked up, with a tiny involuntary jump, as Andy Martin came into the room.

  `Nothing yet?' he asked.

  She shook her head. 'What have you been doing?'

  `Getting to the bottom of what happened.' He looked at her with a strange, grim smile. 'I called Maggie Rose in, and Mario came with her. We talked to the coppers who found him. They said it was like a charnel-house down there. What a state those three guys are in! The bloke with the swollen Adam's apple and the tube in his throat got off lightest.

  One of them has a suspected fractured skull from going through a shop window, and as well as that he's unlikely to father a child again. The third one has a smashed nose and cheekbone.'

  'What happened?' Sarah asked.

  The guy needing the new nose told us all about it. The three of them are druggies. They were buying gear, and they were a bit light on readies. When Bob came along, they decided to mug him.'

  Sarah let out an impromptu, incongruous laugh; its tone was slightly hysterical, Alan Royston thought.

  'What? Only three of them?' she said.

  Àccording to the guy, that's what Bob said to them too. They should have believed him.'

  `What about the girl? What was she doing there?'

  `She was the dealer, believe it or not. I know her — Fay Knight, her name is. Big Neil and I nicked her earlier on this year. She didn't have any stuff on her, and our witnesses were frightened off by her minders, so the case collapsed. We've got her now, though. It was a typical street operation. She was taking the money, and handing out chitties to the buyers.

  The man holding the drugs was in a stairway across the street; he doled them out when the buyers gave him the note from the girl saying how much. He seems to have legged it at the first sign of bother.'

  `That's a complicated buying process, isn't it?'

  `Maybe, but it builds in added security for the suppliers who control the network. It means that no street dealer ever handles both drugs and money.'

  Sarah raised her eyebrows. 'Yeah, it's careful, okay. So why are you so sure you'll be able to convict the girl for dealing this time?'

  Martin looked at her, his smile gone. 'Because those three guys downstairs will all give evidence against her. It was the girl who stabbed Bob. She was back in the doorway and he didn't see her until it was too late. The man with no nose said that she tried to stab him again. He got the knife off her, and broke her wrist in the process, but then he collapsed.

  The girl took off down the street, but ran right into our people in the patrol car. They arrested her. I've charged all four of them with attempted murder, but I expect the Three Stooges to give evidence against Fay and to plead guilty to a reduced charge of assault the
mselves. That's the deal the Fiscal will do.'

  Sarah stood up, and leaned against him, pressing her face against his chest. 'Attempted murder,' she whispered. 'Pray God it stays that way.' He felt her tremble, and held her tight.

  Àndy?' even muffled against him, her voice was suddenly cold, and harder than he had ever heard. D'you think they'd let me set that bitch's broken wrist? I'd love to make a really bad job of it!'

  FORTY-SIX

  When Brian Mackie and Mario McGuire arrived at Mr Kong's, on the fringe of colourful Chinatown, Cyril Kercheval was waiting outside.

  `Wouldn't you know it,' he said, as soon as the introductions were over. 'This place is closed today. But no worry, I've booked us a table next door.' The two Scots looked askance at his choice, a narrow establishment whose customers were jammed together around a range of tables of varying sizes. The place seemed more like a greasy chopsticks cafe than a restaurant.

  `Don't let appearances fool you,' said Kercheval. 'It has a huge menu, and the food's all terrific.'

  `Fine,' said Mackie, 'but is it secure?'

  The MI5 man roared with laughter at the question. This fellow is archetypal, thought the DCI. Around fifty, with a significant beer-gut, he wore a trenchcoat over a crumpled suit, and a stained MCC tie.

  `Could hardly be more secure, dear boy. The Yuppies only come here at night.

  Lunchtimes, it's full of Chinese, and for most of them English is very much a second language. This is one of the most discreet meeting places in London, but to make you happier, I've booked a table away in the far corner.'

  As he opened the door and held it for the two policemen, the sound boomed out to meet them, a sing-song blend of unrecognisable speech. They eased their way to their table through a central aisle which was barely wide enough to allow them to pass. They hung their overcoats on pegs on a side wall and took their seats. Three thick menus awaited them, one at each place.

  As they sat down, Kercheval's mood and manner changed. `Listen, chaps, I was appalled to hear about our friend Skinner. What's the latest on his condition?'

  McGuire looked across at him, grim-faced. 'Touch and go,' he said. 'My wife's his PA, so I went to the hospital with her. He was in surgery for four hours while they stabilised him, and repaired the damage. He was stabbed through the base of the right lung. The surgeon said that wouldn't have been life-threatening on its own, but the knife nicked an artery as well. There was massive bleeding in the chest cavity: they had to give him six pints of blood, apparently. He was in Intensive Care when I left the Royal, sedated and hooked up to a ventilator. They say that it'll be dodgy for the next forty-eight hours.'