Skinner's Ordeal

by Quintin Jardine

  If that happens, my godson might need me even more.'

  'Mmm. In that case you can have all the time you need. Wee Mark's our star witness. In fact, he's almost our only witness!' Martin settled into his chair, and indicated to Higgins that she should take a seat.

  `What was his dad like? The late Roland. I wasn't here when he paid us a visit, but I got the idea that Bob didn't care for him.' `What gave you that impression?'

  Ì think the fact that he called him an "insufferable little arsehole" may have had something to do with it.'

  Higgins laughed softly. 'Yes, I could see that Mr Skinner and he might not have hit it off.

  Roly was a better talker than a listener, and an expert on everything. He found success in politics early, and it went to his head. He used to be okay, but lately, no, I'm afraid not. He always had time for Mark, but if he'd treated his secretaries like he treated Leona, then he'd have gone through about one a week.'

  `Did he give you any hassle?'

  `No, but only because I always made it clear that I would never talk to him about police work. But the truth is, if Leona wasn't such a close pal, and if Mark wasn't my godson, I'd have stayed away from them after he landed the Scottish Office job.'

  Àye, well, Ali,' said Martin. 'A week ago Roland McGrath was a power in the land.

  Today he's a pile of bones and ashes. You give your pal as much time as you can manage.

  From the sound of things, she needs it.'

  Sixty-One

  ‘Just what could those bloody stupid letters have to do with this accident, Chief Inspector?'

  Experiencing the full weight of Ariadne Tucker's frosty glare, Dave Donaldson found it easy to imagine how a hostile witness would feel in the box, under her cross-examination.

  A pang of relief passed through him as he remembered that English barristers were not admitted automatically to practise in the Scottish courts.

  `Probably nothing at all, ma'am,' he said. 'But until we know exactly what the circumstances were, we can't discount the possibility of a connection. The letters, according to what we've been told by the investigating officers, accused you of infidelity.

  The relevant questions arising now are, who was the author, and what was the motive?

  Were they meant to harm your husband, or could they have been written by someone with a grudge against you? Your practice usually involves criminal cases, doesn't it?'

  At once, her glare turned to a cool smile, which Donaldson found almost as unsettling.

  'Yes, it does, Chief Inspector,' she said, in honeyed tones. 'But I am a very good criminal silk. In fact, I'm probably the best around at the moment. So my clients tend to leave court either by the front door, or in the knowledge that their sentence is a hell of a lot shorter, or less expensive than it might have been.

  `Take the trial I'm on just now as an example. It's been going on for weeks. The Judge has just begun his summing up, and it'll take him another couple of days, but I know already and so does he that my client will walk. The chap's as guilty as sin, but my duty to the court is to demonstrate the weakness of the case against him. The Crown hasn't delivered enough material to the jury for a conviction, and the Judge's summing up should point that out.

  Ì tell all my clients that I'm there to prevent a miscarriage of justice, and they understand that. The fact is that in a good proportion of my work I actually achieve such a miscarriage, of natural justice at least.

  `Therefore, Mr Donaldson, there are no grudges harboured against me as a result of my work. It's the bad barristers who have plots hatched against them in Parkhurst.'

  `How about your private life, Mrs Noble?' Neil Mcllhenney had decided almost at first sight that he disliked the woman. It was obvious in his tone. 'Any enemies there?'

  The frost returned to her eyes. 'Not that I know of, Sergeant. Have you?'

  Mcllhenney smiled. 'That's a sure-fire certainty, ma'am. I think I'm making one even as I speak, which probably means that I'm good at my job, too.'

  `No doubt you are, Mr Mcllhenney, but I fail to follow your line of questioning. Why should my enemy want to kill my husband, or blow up a planeload of people?'

  `Who says he did? Perhaps he wanted to kill you and didn't care whether he got Mr Noble.' He glanced around the drawing room. 'Maybe the bomb was meant to go off here, only it had a dodgy timer. Maybe your enemy assumed that Mr Noble would open the box at home, only he didn't.'

  Ariadne Tucker was rattled. 'What enemy? I've told you, I don't have any.'

  `How about someone who's mentally disturbed?' the Sergeant fired back. 'Emotionally stable people don't plant explosive devices. Any nutters in your life, public or private?'

  ‘For the last time,' she shouted at the policeman. 'Sane or otherwise, I don't have any enemies!'

  `So who would write those letters accusing you of adultery?' said Mcllhenney quietly, managing, with a great effort, to keep triumph out of his tone. 'A well-meaning friend?'

  She looked at him. The anger left her eyes. She nodded solemnly. 'Nice one, Sergeant.'

  She pushed herself out of her armchair and walked over to the bay window.

  Àll right, I'll tell you. There's no point in keeping it quiet now anyway. Maurice himself wrote the letters.

  `From the earliest days of our marriage, he was paranoid about me. He was convinced that I had affairs. It started off as hints at first; nudge, nudge, wink, wink, sort of stuff, but gradually it became more serious. The hints became accusations.'

  `We have to ask you this, ma'am,' said Donaldson. Was there substance in them?'

  `No, there was not,' she said firmly.

  `So how did you react to his suggestions?'

  ‘I cross-examined him.'

  `What do you mean?'

  Ì put him in the witness box. I made him set out his evidence, and I took it apart.'

  `Did he have any evidence?' asked Mcllhenney.

  She sighed. 'No. Deep down poor Maurice, much as I loved him, was an essentially insecure personality, with little or no inner self-belief. He really could be quite inadequate.'

  `Sexually?'

  She looked sharply at the Sergeant. 'Well, if I'm being frank, he wasn't a superstud. But I was speaking in emotional terms. As I said, he was paranoid, a classic manifestation of low self-esteem. For example, if I met a colleague of his and exchanged even a few friendly words, it would fester, and I'd hear about it at some time in the future.'

  `Did you ever meet Colin Davey?'

  `Yes, I was introduced to him at a reception around two months ago. I took an instant dislike to him. Then about a fortnight after that I had a consultation with a solicitor who turned out to be his Constituency Chairman. As it was coming to an end, Davey called into his office. After we had each completed our business we talked for about twenty minutes, while he waited for his car, and I for my taxi.'

  `What did you talk about?'

  `Trivia. I didn't like him and I could tell that he didn't like me but it was easier to jabber about the weather than to sit in silence.'

  `Did your husband know of these encounters?'

  She nodded. 'He was in the room on the first occasion. The second time he was in the official car which came to collect Davey from the solicitor's office. When it arrived, Davey and I came out together . . .' Her voice trailed off as she saw the expressions on the faces of the two policemen.

  Òh no,' she said quietly. 'Surely not.'

  `Later, did Mr Noble ever mention either of those meetings?' asked Donaldson.

  She shook her head. 'No, he didn't. But after the letters, he wouldn't have.'

  `What do you mean?'

  `When Maurice showed me the first letter, I guessed at once that he had sent it to himself.

  I didn't accuse him at that stage. I just burned it, and I did the same with the second. But when the third arrived, I decided that I had to put a stop to it, so I called in the police.'

  ‘Did you expect them to trace it back to him?'

&nbs
p; `No. I was pretty certain they couldn't do that. I simply wanted to give him a scare and put a stop to the endless accusations. It worked. The arrival of the police gave him a hell of a fright. After they had gone, I sat him down and made him promise that the nonsense would stop. I told him that if he ever accused me again of having an interest in another man, then I really would leave him. That seemed to have done the trick'

  `So he said nothing to you about Davey?'

  Not in that context, no. All that he said about him was professional. About his conduct, about the way he treated his staff, and generally about what a horrible man he was.'

  Ànd you agreed with that?'

  She nodded. 'Maurice was dead right about him. I thought that he was a typical politician.

  Arrogant, self-centred, and power-hungry sums up the way he came across to me.'

  `You weren't attracted to him by all that arrogance?' asked Donaldson. 'It can happen, you know.'

  She laughed, bitterly, in his face. ‘Not in the slightest, Chief Inspector. But surely your argument is that my husband thought I was.'

  ‘Not our argument, Ms Tucker. Simply a line of enquiry, a piece of potential evidence which we have to assess. From what you've told me and from what we've heard from others, it's a pretty strong possibility.' He paused. Ì'd like to record this discussion, ma'am.

  Would you give us a formal statement, please.'

  Òf course,' she said. 'I know the drill. I'll set something down, sign it and let you have it.

  Could you collect it tomorrow evening?'

  Donaldson nodded. 'Yes, but in the circumstances I'll have to ask you to write or type it yourself, rather than dictate it to a secretary'

  `Naturally.' She brushed her hands down her skirt. 'Now, will that be all?'

  The DCI shook his head. 'No, there's just one other thing. The forensic people who looked over your house found signs of entry at a small mezzanine window. They said it was unalarmed.'

  `Yes, it is, I'm afraid. The alarm system was in the house when we bought it. I expect that whoever installed it saved a few pounds because that window is so small. We'd been meaning to upgrade it, by installing movement sensors, but we never got round to it.'

  `Have you noticed anything out of place since last Thursday evening?' asked Donaldson.

  'Or did you hear anything that night? You said that you worked late.'

  She pursed her lips. 'Let me think. I was in my study, off the second bedroom.'

  `Would there have been lights showing?'

  `Probably not. Anyway, let me think. Yes, I do recall hearing a sound, as if someone had tripped over something.'

  `Were you startled?'

  Ariadne Tucker looked at the Chief Inspector, as if to indicate that 'startling' was something which happened to other people.

  Ì just assumed,' she said, 'that Maurice had gone downstairs for some reason and had trodden on the cat. Which, almost certainly, is what happened!' She gathered herself and moved towards the door. 'Now, gentlemen, if that really is everything ‘

  Donaldson and Mcllhenney followed her into the hallway. She held the door open for them, but as the Chief Inspector stepped outside she caught his arm. 'Look,' she said. 'This theory about Maurice thinking I was having an affair with the Secretary of State. It really is pretty far-fetched, isn't it?' For the first time, her voice sounded less than confident.

  Òf course it is, ma'am,' said Donaldson soothingly.

  Àye,' said Mcllhenney. 'The only trouble is, it fits the facts as we know them. When you get down to it, blowing a plane full of people out of the skies, that's pretty far-fetched too, yet that's exactly what happened last Friday!'

  SIXTY-TWO

  Leona,' said Alison Higgins, as she hung up her overcoat in her friend's hallway. 'Are you sure you're up for this? How many people are coming?'

  Ì'm perfectly fine,' said the little woman. 'There won't be too many of us. Just you and Marshall Elliot, plus Roly's Constituency Chairwoman, Vice-chairman and Treasurer.

  Don't you worry, I can handle half a dozen close friends for supper. I'm cheating anyway.

  I've had a caterer send in a huge shepherd's pie and a big glitzy gateau.'

  `Fine, but what's it all about?'

  Ìt's just something I felt I had to do, in the circumstances. Go on, Alison, pour yourself a drink and relax. What would you like?'

  Higgins shook her head. 'Ach well, as long as it keeps you occupied. Got any Swan Light?'

  Leona laughed. 'The Sheila's Pint?' she said, mimicking an Australian accent. 'Of course I have, with you coming. Get yourself one, then give me a hand to set the table. They'll be here soon.'

  ‘Where's Mark?' asked her friend, as she reached into the fridge’.

  ‘He's at his grandpa's for the night. I thought it might do the fellow some good to have him around. My son's an amazingly resilient wee chap, isn't he?'

  `So's his mother, by the looks of things.'

  The two women had barely finished setting the table went when the doorbell rang. Alison, in the hallway at the time, went to answer it, to find all four guests on the doorstep.

  `Hello Marsh,' she said to the agent. 'All together, I see.' `Yes, I thought it made sense for me to pick everyone up in the Rover.'

  She smiled at him. Higgins had developed a secret attraction to Marshall Elliot. 'Tory staff still under orders to buy British, then?' she said lightly.

  He returned her grin. 'If that was the case, my dear, we'd all be driving TVRs or Morgans or some such!'

  His three companions smiled nervously. Alison thought that the Chairwoman looked particularly ill at ease.

  `How is Leona tonight?' Elliot asked quietly as they entered the hall. 'I wasn't sure about this, but she insisted.'

  `She's fine,' said Higgins, to the three constituency officers rather than to him. 'You have to remember that while she's been widowed, her son survived by some miracle. At the moment the relief seems to be outweighing the loss. This evening will do her good too. I know that it's important to her. So please — try not to feel ill at ease in her company.'

  She opened a door off the hall and led the way into the living room, where Leona McGrath was waiting. Inside, Marsh Elliot completed the formal introductions of his three companions to Alison, who was meeting them for the first time.

  Elizabeth Marks, the Constituency Chairman, as she insisted on being described, was a stout, tweed-clad woman in her early fifties, with severe iron-grey hair. Her husband Jeremy was the local Party Treasurer. He was a small mousy man, an inevitable seconder, Higgins imagined, of his wife's proposals in Committee. His main distinguishing feature was an incipient strawberry nose, which suggested that he and alcohol were frequent companions.

  John Torrance, the Vice-chairman seemed the most assured and friendly of the trio. He was tall and slim, in his early forties, clad in a dark blue suit, with a cut which suggested private tailoring. Higgins knew him by reputation and by word of mouth from Leona, as a self-made millionaire with no desire for office, but with a clear vision of the way his country should be run.

  `Superintendent,' said Torrance, with genuine interest as he shook her hand. 'Tell me, what's the word on Bob Skinner? I know him a little through the New Club. That was a terrible business the other night.'

  `The news is fairly good,' she replied. 'He's conscious and the surgery has been effective.

  He's still in Intensive Care, in case of unforeseen complications, but he should be all right.'

  He turned to Leona. And you, my dear. How are you?'

  The little woman nodded her head, a touch nervously, Higgins thought, bouncing her brown curls. Ì'm fine, John. It was too much to take in at first, Roland's death and our child's survival. It was Bob Skinner who rescued him from the cockpit, you know,' she added, as an aside to Mr and Mrs Marks.

  `You just have to come to terms with things. I have. Roly could have had a heart attack, cancer, been knocked down by a bus, anything. I couldn't have done anything about it.
>
  Whatever the cause, he's gone. I'll miss him for ever, but I'll do my crying in the dark.

  During the day I have to look forward, not back, for everyone's sake, for my son's most of all. I think I've found a way forward:

  She paused. 'First things first, though. What would you like to drink?'

  She poured white wine for John Torrance, a Coca-Cola for Marsh Elliot and whisky for the two Marks, who closed in on he with their private condolences.

  `How's the investigation going, Superintendent?' Torrance asked as he and Marsh Elliot, flanking Higgins, gave them their moment.

  Ìt's early days yet,' said Higgins. 'It's a difficult one altogether. I'm not heavily involved, but my Deputy is, and from what he's reporting back, there are a number of possibilities.'

  `Presumably you're looking for international terrorists,' said Marsh Elliot.

  `That's a natural assumption, but the fact is we're looking everywhere.'

  `But Davey or Massey — or both — must have been the target, surely?'

  Higgins, feeling cornered, shrugged 'You can draw that conclusion if you like, Marsh. But you mustn't expect me to comment on it.'

  Leona McGrath, seeing her friend's predicament, moved in to end the interrogation by summoning her guests to supper.

  The Marks continued to surround their hostess during the meal, with elaborate Presbyterian concern which seemed as genuine as the Constituency Chairman's pearl necklace. Apart from the occasional glance to reassure herself that her friend was enduring the experience, Alison was left to enjoy the company and the attention of two attractive men, even if each was wearing a gold band on his left hand. The subjects of Bob Skinner's injury and the investigation were declared, tacitly, off limits; instead their conversation centred around sailing. Torrance revealed that he owned and sailed an ocean-going yacht, while Higgins confessed that her favourite recreation was crewing her brother's somewhat smaller vessel on the Firth of Clyde. Marshall Elliot registered his interest by admitting that before becoming a Conservative Agent, he had spent fifteen years as an officer in the Royal Marines.

  At the other end of the table, far from being borne down by the droning Marks, whose only interest in life seemed to be their small accountancy practice, Leona McGrath seemed to be revelling in her surroundings, smiling and putting her guests at their ease. It seemed almost as if she had reversed the roles and was consoling them.