Skinner's Ordeal

by Quintin Jardine

  He sat upright in his chair and waited. After a few seconds, Skinner spoke, drowsily.

  'We're in the big, flat field. Oh Christ, but I wish they'd given me wellies. I'll never get these boots cleaned.'

  `We'll worry about that later. Let's go forward now, and as we do, you describe what we're seeing.'

  Skinner took a deep sighing breath. For a few seconds silence hung in a pall over his bed.

  `Bits of the plane are still smoking,' he said slowly. 'There's wreckage all over the place. It looks like a hurricane I saw on television a while back. Everything's smashed to pieces.

  `There are suitcases and rucksacks, all over the place. They're all burst open; the things that were in them are spread around. Look over there, Kevin. It's a big sombrero. And there, a big black fan, like they sell in the markets. There's someone's stuffed donkey. Oh, look at it, the way it's standing up in the mud.' His voice was incredibly young and sad.

  'It's looking around like a lost dog.'

  His limbs moved slightly on the bed. 'Over there, Kevin; he said suddenly. 'What's that?

  It's a hell of a big donkey, surely.

  Come on.' His legs twitched, as if in his dream he was trying to run through the mud.

  'What the hell is it? Is it someone's dog?' He fell silent again, his legs thrashing now.

  ` Ahh!' The sudden cry filled the room, making Sarah's blood run cold. Àw no, look at that man. Oh Christ, look! You can see his bones; you can see his guts, lying out there in the mud. And he's burned, poor bastard.

  Òh my, look over there. It's another, and another, and another. Jesus, Kevin, can you imagine the last thirty seconds or so, when they all knew they were going to crash! What it must have been like in that plane! And that could have been Myra and me. Just a week ago.'

  `Yes, Bob,' said O'Malley, very gently, 'but it wasn't you.

  Nothing you can do about it. That's the way the dice rolled. Now let's move on. Keep talking to me, as we go, describe for me what we're seeing and what you're doing.'

  Òkay,' said the young Skinner. His legs began to labour once more. 'The mud's thicker here. There are more bodies over there, in front of us. They're not burned, or as badly smashed up, but some are sunk right into the muck.

  Òkay, Bob, now carry on, don't stop. Are we heading for anywhere in particular?'

  `For the far end of the field.'

  Ànd what's there?'

  `The cockpit. I can see it, where it's ploughed right into the ground. There's no one there yet. The firemen and the ambulances are all stuck.'

  `Who's with us?'

  Ìnspector McGuinness, from Hawick, and a bloke called Fender, another Constable.'

  Ànd we're all going towards the cockpit?'

  `That's right.'

  Òkay, let's just head for it.'

  The thrashing of Skinner's legs grew more violent, as if the mud was turning to glue. All at once it stopped. 'Over there, Kevin. That thing — it looks like a doll. I'm going to look at it. That's what it is. It's a doll. See? The arms and legs are all out of their sockets the way dolls go when you twist them. The head's all turned round, too. Wait for me a minute, I'll just put it right'

  He paused, as if concentrating on something. To O'Malley and Sarah, watching him, it was as if the air in the small room began to tingle. And then he screamed.

  A pitiful heartrending scream.

  `What is it, Bob, what is it?' asked O'Malley, his voice shaking in spite of himself.

  Ìt's wee June, Kev, it's wee June!'

  `Who's wee June?'

  He was sobbing in his sleep, uncontrollably. 'My pal Dougie Fiddes, from Motherwell.

  He's only a couple of years older than me. He and his wife, Shona, arrived in our hotel a fortnight ago, at the end of our first week; them and their baby, wee June.

  Àw, Kev, I was playing with her in the pool last week, on the day we left. She's only two, and now look at her, look at her. Oh man, it's just no' fair!' He paused, his voice catching on his sobs.

  Ànd look at me, Kevin. I've pissed myself!'

  O'Malley looked down and realised suddenly that Skinner was speaking the truth, past and present.

  `Bob, we're going to come up now. That's more than enough for this session. On one: Five. Four. Three. Two. One.'

  Skinner's eyes snapped open, staring at the ceiling in horror. His hand clutched at his sodden groin.

  `God,' he whispered, trembling. 'In my life I've been shot, stabbed and half-strangled, but I've never had an experience as awful or as terrifying as that. I remember it now, as clear as a bell, yet • • •

  `Yet you've been having the experience, subconsciously, for half your life,' said O'Malley.

  'Your way of dealing with something that for most people would be too awful to contemplate has been to shove it right down into the depths of your mind, and as I said yesterday, to build a wall around it. I've had other patients who have done that, but they've all been dysfunctional personalities. For you to have suppressed it all and achieved what you have is remarkable. In fact, it suggests—' He stopped. 'No, I'll keep that thought to myself, until we're all through.'

  Sarah was still shaking as she came to stand beside him. 'Do you want to go on, Bob? We know about the doll now, but we still have to confront the man in the cottage. Are you strong enough for that?'

  He smiled up at her, weak, white-faced, but determined. 'I have to do the rest of it, love.

  But in one more session. Next time, I promise to stay continent. That wasn't just an awful experience. It was very embarrassing . . . then and now.

  `Yet,' he said, 'at the time, neither McGuinness nor Pender mentioned that part of it. I think it was because they'd done the same themselves.'

  EIGHTY-THREE

  ‘That's a bit of a turn-up, Adam,' said Andy Martin. 'It must be a bit awkward for you, finding your boss right in the middle of the situation.'

  Ì work for the Ministry,' said Arrow, 'not for the individual. It doesn't worry me a bit. In fact, I'm pretty pleased with myself. The idea of having such a corrupt bastard at the heart of the country's defence: I tell you, it would curdle any soldier's blood. What I'd really like to do is offer him a pearl-handled revolver and the key to the library — except he wouldn't have the balls to do the decent thing. Mind you, if I didn't have your two coppers around, I might be inclined to help him. But no, we'll go back to London, we'll pick up the tapes from the spooks and play them to the pair of them, and then your lads can interview them formally.'

  Standing in the Swinbrook churchyard, with Donaldson's mobile phone in his hand, Arrow heard Martin suck in his breath. 'I don't know about that, Adam. Morelli's very heavy duty.

  I don't think it's fair to lump that on Dave's shoulders. If Bob was fit he'd be on the first plane down. As for me, I'm a bit tied up here with our other live prospect. I'll have to consult the Chief. I suspect he'll want to handle this one himself.'

  Òne knight to another,' chuckled Arrow grimly.

  `That's right. Anyway, for now, you get your prisoners back London. I'll be in touch.'

  Martin pushed the 'End' button and strode back into Sawyer's study.

  `Right, sir; he said. 'Let's go over this again.

  The man was seated in a hard-backed chair, with Sammy Pye standing, stern-faced, behind him. He was still wearing his oily, grimy overalls.

  `How many more times?' he snarled. `Metal-working is my hobby. I'm a blacksmith. My wife is into leather.' A chortle welled up in young Sammy Pye's throat, but was choked off short by a single glance from the Chief Superintendent.

  `She's a tailor by training, and she runs a dress-making business from the house. Lately she's been designing her own range. She's always worked in spun fabrics, but a few weeks ago she came up with a concept in leather. She bought that length to try it out.'

  `Red leather, Mr Sawyer? That's pretty garish for clothing, is it not?'

  An eyebrow rose as he looked up at the detective. 'Colour selection is not my wife's gr
eatest asset as a designer. You saw that skirt she was wearing. A bit bright for morning wear, you'll agree.'

  Ìs that all she's made in that material?' asked Martin. 'There's quite a bit missing from the bolt.'

  Somehow, Sawyer managed to shake his head and shrug his shoulders simultaneously.

  'She did make something else, but it was a disaster. She found that it's too difficult to work with the bloody stuff on anything more complex than a skirt. She was supposed to be making a tailored top, but it wound up looking like a red bag with holes in it.'

  `How about your metal-work? What sort of things do you do?' Ànything. Sculptures in steel, wrought-iron gates, furniture . . .

  `Cabinets?'

  `Yes,' said Sawyer warily. 'I could do . . . but I haven't.' `You haven't made a steel box,'

  Martin signed with his hands about this wide, this long, this deep?'

  `No.'

  Ànd you haven't bound it in red leather?'

  `No!'

  `Nor decorated it with gold paint, of the type we found in the lower part of the cupboard in your wife's studio?'

  `No!'

  Òkay.' Martin paced across the small room, and back again.

  `Let's leave that for now. Let's talk about explosives instead. Your company uses them, doesn't it, for live missile tests?' `Yes.' Sawyer shifted in his chair.

  Ànd you admit that you are thoroughly experienced in handling and priming them?'

  `Yes, I am,' he said grudgingly.

  `You have to keep a meticulous record of their use, of course.'

  Òf course.'

  Ìn that case, can you explain why, at your factory, which my Chief Inspector has just searched, there's a discrepancy in those records? Why you actually have about three kilos less explosive there than your stock sheet says?'

  `We had a live test firing from a Harrier a couple of weeks ago. My stock controller probably hasn't entered that withdrawal as yet.'

  `Come on,' said Martin, 'he should have entered it as soon as it was taken out.'

  `Yes, I know, but Griff was off with flu around that time. We probably slipped up. Look,'

  he said, standing up with his jaw stuck out aggressively, 'what have we got here? What do all these questions add up to? What's your allegation?'

  Ì haven't alleged anything yet, Mr Sawyer. I've just established with your help that you have metal-working and munitions skills, that you're in possession of certain materials, and that you were in a certain area of London at a specific time. That's all I've done so far.

  But now I'll tell you what those circumstances suggest you might know already; that Colin Davey, a man you threatened, was killed by a bomb placed in his Ministerial document case —a steel box, bound in red leather, decorated with gold paint.'

  Sawyer stared at him. 'I think I want my lawyer now,' he said.

  `Yes,' said Martin. 'In fact, at this stage, I insist that you call him. I will have certain things to put to you formally, under caution, and he should be present. But you'd better tell him to engage a Scottish solicitor as well, and to head for Police Headquarters in Edinburgh.

  Because that's where you and I are going.’

  `Come with me, please, Mr Sawyer.'

  EIGHTY-FOUR

  ‘What's this all about, sir?'

  `Well, Lieutenant Richards,' said Adam Arrow lazily, about you, really. You're a very important soldier. You could give my friend and me the answer to some questions that

  'ave been troubling us.'

  Stephen William Richards sat, straight-backed, immaculate in his brown uniform, gazing slightly anxiously across a desk, in an interview room in the basement of the Ministry of Defence building in Whitehall. Two Military Police Sergeants, who had escorted him from his base in Aldershot, stood to attention behind him, the peaks of their caps casting crescent shadows across their faces.

  `My friend here,' the little man nodded to his right, 'he's a policeman, from Scotland. His name's Detective Chief Inspector Donaldson.' Suddenly he smiled. 'Bloody long ranks, these coppers 'aye, don't they?' he said conversationally. 'No wonder they must use initials.

  DCI Donaldson and I are involved in the investigation of the murder of the Secretary of State and all those other people who were killed in the plane crash last week. Those people included your half-brother Maurice, I understand.'

  The Lieutenant nodded, a shadow of pain passing across his face.

  `Mr Noble kept quiet about your relationship when I vetted him for the Private Office job earlier on this year. I wonder why? Maybe it was because 'e was embarrassed about your run-in with the Minister and the Permanent Secretary and about your problems as a trainee equerry. Could that have been it, d'you think?'

  Perhaps,' said Richards quietly.

  'You're quite an athlete, aren't you, Lieutenant?'

  À bit.'

  `Sexual athlete too?'

  `Hardly.'

  `You like older women though, don't you?'

  `Perhaps.'

  `You like your half-sister-in-law, Ariadne. You fancy her something rotten, don't you?'

  The young man flushed.

  `Come on, admit it — you've always fancied her.'

  He nodded, eyes downcast.

  `Tell me, Stephen,' Arrow asked, 'what did she see in Maurice? They must have been an odd couple.'

  `No,' said the Lieutenant, 'not always. When he met Ariadne, Maurice was a different guy.

  Sure, he was serious, but he was confident, outgoing. He had had plenty of girlfriends, but they'd always been quiet types, never his equals in personality terms. Ariadne was different. He looked up to her, and as her career progressed, the higher he had to look.

  They married very quickly. Maurice began to change shortly after that. He became possessive, to the point of being boring about it. From the earliest days, I knew they were headed for trouble.'

  But you didn't resent Ariadne for it,' said Arrow slyly. 'You leched after her instead!'

  `No, I didn't. I adored her but she was my brother's wife. End of story.'

  ‘For as long as your brother was alive,' said Donaldson quietly’

  Richards looked at him, with sudden apprehension. 'What you mean?'

  `With your brother dead, the field might be clear for you., Ìf it weren't for Morelli,' Richards interposed. 'Anyway,' he added, with a touch of defiance, 'she's still my sister-in-law.'

  `Come on, Richards,' Arrow snarled. 'Your moral code's a load of crap. You did everything for Ariadne except fook 'er, but that was only because she never asked you. If she 'ad, you'd have been in there like a rat up a drainpipe, you two-faced little bastard. You betrayed your brother just as surely as if you'd slept with her. You knew about her and Morelli, but rather than put a stop to it, you helped them by letting them use your cottage as a fuck-pit.'

  He stopped and glared across the table at Richards. The young man's face was white, and a study in panic.

  Ì know all about it, Short Wave. We've been trailing Ariadne; this morning we picked her up in Swinbrook, and him. They're upstairs now, in separate rooms, with colleagues of ours, listening to some pretty fruity tapes and waiting for some very big brass to come down from Scotland to interview them.' He paused, letting his words sink in.

  `Tell us, Lieutenant,' said Donaldson, picking up his cue, `when did Morelli first learn of your relationship to Maurice Noble?'

  The Lieutenant's head slumped towards his chest. 'At the time of the fuss last year,' he muttered. 'I had to fill up a personnel form for the Palace, listing next of kin. I put down Maurice's name. My MOD file hadn't been updated since my father's death.'

  Ì see.' The policeman nodded. 'Let's talk about something else now. When Morelli put that mark on your record, didn't you think he was being harsh?'

  `Yes. I threatened to appeal to the Chief of Staff, but Sir Stewart said that if I did that he'd see that the appeal resulted in my being kicked out.'

  'How long after that did you find out about him and Ariadne?'

&nb
sp; 'Not long. Ariadne told me about it.'

  'And when were you first asked for the keys to Swinbrook?' Àbout the time that Maurice was given the Private Office job.'

  'Who made the approach?'

  'Ariadne asked me.'

  'Were you offered any inducement?'

  The young officer nodded. 'Yes. She said that Sir Stewart would be grateful, and that after a while he would remove the note from my record, and push my promotion through. She said that she had persuaded him to agree to review it after a year.'

  Àbout now, in fact.'

  `Yes. When we met the other day, she said he'd promised to do it next week.'

  Donaldson smiled sadly at him. 'Didn't you ever make the connection — that Morelli had got you under his thumb for the very purpose of furthering his relationship with your brother's wife? Or are you the sort of poor innocent who can't conceive of people being that devious?'

  `Yes,' said Richards, after a while. 'I suppose I am. But I'd still have done anything for Ariadne.'

  Òkay,' said Arrow suddenly. 'This place is reeking of hearts and fookin' flowers. Which one of them asked you to make the bomb? Morelli or the woman?'

  The Lieutenant looked across at him in blind fear. 'What do you mean?'

  `You know what I mean. That plane was blown up by a device hidden in Davey's Red Box. We think that you made it. Now did Morelli ask you, or did Ariadne?'

  `Neither. I don't know what you're talking about, Captain’

  ‘`Bugger this,' barked Arrow roughly. 'Dave — Sergeants. Leave us alone.'

  The Military Policemen turned, unquestioning, and marched over to the door. Donaldson looked doubtfully at his colleague for a second, then followed them.

  Left alone together, the two soldiers sat in silence for a while, Arrow staring directly across the table at Richards.

  Ì've been in places like this before,' said the little man eventually, in a quiet, matter-of-fact tone. 'With people like you. They all expected me to beat seven different colours of shit out of them. Some of them even wanted me to. But I 'ardly ever had to. I'll grant you, there have been some cases when both of us knew that someone wasn't going to walk out of the room. But either way, even when some bugger thought he was too tough for me, I always wound up hearing what I needed to hear. Now Stephen, look me in the eye' He fixed his gaze on the young officer, and held it there, unblinking.