Quintin Jardine - Skinner Skinner 12

by Head Shot (pdf)

  Essary, dead of a sudden massive heart attack.

  'Raj Amritraj was from Goa, in India; not all that far back, Goa was a Portuguese colony, until the Indians booted them out. Check that out for me too, with the GMC, but I'm right, I know it; Jorge and Raj met in Portugal. The poor old doctor probably thought he was in it for half a mil ion, but all he got was a bul et in the back and maggots in his eyes.'

  McGuire stood, abruptly, and walked up to the small bar, returning with another pint of lager and another squash for Mcl henney. 'Don't let that go to your head,' he said, acidly.

  'So,' his friend asked, 'does that make Ivy this El a Frances, then?'

  'That's what logic tells you, except for two things. Ivy's age is pretty flexible, but all the descriptions we have of Frances put her around the thirty mark, and that would be pushing it for the wee lass. Plus, when I showed Ivy George Rosewell's photo, she told me that he had a beard; that's what started this bal rol ing in my head. Now why would she do that, if she was in on it?' He paused. '. . . Which begs another fucking big question.

  'But meantime, pal, you and I better go and see Ivy in the morning.

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  No way I'm going to be alone with that one, not again, but I need to know everything she knows about old Jorge.'

  Neil raised his eyebrows. 'Hey, hold your horses, McGuire. You're divisional commander Borders CID, remember. This is not your investigation; it's Maggie's first, and it's Greg Jay's second.'

  'That's where you're wrong. I saw Wil ie Haggerty this afternoon . . .

  this thing's gone above Dan Pringle . .. about matters not unrelated to the story Alice Cowan told you. I told him what I suspected, and that I had you checking it out for me on the quiet. He told me I was a rucking chancer, and then he said I was dead right.

  'As things stand now, Mags is in charge of an investigation which, if it succeeds, wil lead her to her own father as the culprit. That can't be al owed to happen. At the same time, Greg Jay's compromised himself as far as the ACC's concerned. After Haggerty heard my story, he cal ed the Big Man himself in the States. As of now, in the light of what you've confirmed, I'm ordered by him to take this thing forward myself, to trace Jorge Rose and Ella Frances, whoever she is, and to arrest them if they're still in our jurisdiction.

  'I've also got discretion to choose my own team . .. and you, DI Mcllhenney, are it.'

  'Thanks a million. So who gets to tell Detective Superintendent Rose about this?'

  'Haggerty's going to brief Jay, but that job is down to me, very definitely.'

  'Fine. And when you break it to her, I'm going to be somewhere else.'

  'You did what?' she screamed at him. 'Just run that past me again. You had Neil Mcl henney make enquiries that related directly to my investigation and you never told me. Then you told the ACC about it, not just over my head, but over Dan Pringle's head as wel . And now, as a result, I'm being fucking well stood down!

  'Is that it? Does that sum it up?'

  He stood there like a schoolboy; their living room had become the head teacher's office and he was well and truly on the carpet. She was in a rage the like of which he had never seen before, not from her, and rarely from anyone else. Sometimes he had wondered what it would be like if his wife ever lost the self-control which, alongside her talent, was one of her twin trademarks. Now he knew; he could see the result, and, big and tough as he was, it scared him.

  'Yes,' he replied. 'Baldly put, that sums it up. Now would you like to hear why?'

  'No, I would not,' she yelled. 'I'm not interested. Al I can see is the sneaking, conniving ambitious toadying bastard that you are. Three days it's taken you to trample my fingers on the ladder; that's all, three fucking days.'

  'Listen, damn it,' he protested, his own voice raised for the first time.

  'I didn't tell you because Neil's checks might have come to nothing. And if they had, all it would have meant was that your father had done yet another runner from his job and his life. I don't want that man to appear in your life one more time. If I had even floated the possibility that he might be involved in all this, far less behind it, I was afraid it would do your head in ... as it has done.

  'When I told Haggerty this afternoon, it wasn't just because I had to, it was because I was concerned about you, and about the position you might be in. He agreed with me; Bob Skinner agreed with me.'

  'And where is my career now, alongside yours? Up shit creek, in their eyes, in mine, in yours and in the eyes of everyone who ever finds out 274

  about this. You've rucked me, Mario, just like he did; you're just the same.'

  He recoiled from her words. 'I suppose you told Neil everything,' she hissed. 'Of course you did, you always do.'

  'No, I didn't; I told him that the bastard knocked your mother about and left, but I didn't tell him why.'

  'And he hasn't guessed by now? Don't make me laugh.'

  'Don't you compare me to your father either,' he retorted. 'The man is a beast; he's a pederast, a thief and a murderer. When he was in Portugal he probably raped and murdered a child, only they never found the body.

  When wee Ivy came along he must have thought all his Christmas Days had come; she looked fourteen, she was willing, and it was legal. No, do not compare me to Jorge Rose.'

  'Okay, I won't compare you to anyone. You are unique; I had complete trust in you and you betrayed it. You undermined my career as you were advancing your own. When I think of it, what have you ever given me?

  Jesus, you can't even give me a kid.'

  She exploded into tears. He put a hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off, violently. 'Get out of here!' she screamed. 'Get out before I call my office and tell them you've been thumping me. That would look real y good in the News, wouldn't it. Get out, God damn you!'

  He was in the doorway when she cal ed after him. 'You don't get it, do you? You don't get the worst part of it. Since I've been a police officer, I've wanted him. It's been my dream that one day I might arrest him; I wanted it so badly it hurt me. I wanted to see him in cuffs, humbled, being slippery and slimy, then scared, in the interview room. I wanted to

  leave the likes of Charlie Johnston alone with him for ten minutes or so.

  I wanted al of that, for my mother, for my sister, but most of al I wanted it for me.

  'I was seven when he started on me, Mario. Seven.'

  'Mags...'

  'Shut up! Just get out, or I pick up that phone and start screaming into it.'

  'Where did you spend the night, then?' asked Neil Mcl henney. 'Under the Dean Bridge, maybe? You look like death warmed up in the micro.'

  'I thought about going to my mother's, but that would have involved her, and that's the last thing I want. So I went to Paula's instead. So now Greg Jay's lot really have got something to talk about.'

  'Oh Christ, Mario, you didn't, did you?'

  'Did I sleep with her, do you mean? Keeping it in the family, like? No I didn't, but if I had it would have been ...' He stopped himself short, the word 'appropriate' frozen on his tongue. 'Not that Paula was offering, not last night, not with the mood I was in. She switched into mother-hen mode, instead. Even did me a cooked breakfast, whether I wanted it or not.'

  'Have you called Maggie this morning?'

  'Yup. The sound of the phone being slammed down is stil ringing in my ear.'

  'Aw shit. I knew she'd be mad, but not this mad. Do you want me to phone her?'

  'That's very brave of you, pal, but there's no sense in the both of us being disembowelled, is there. No,' he pushed himself up from his seat in Mcl henney's office, 'let's go and see Ivy instead. We might do some good there.'

  The two big detectives strode outside the headquarters building.

  'My car,' said McGuire. 'I know where she lives. It's not that far, actual y.' In fact it took less than ten minutes for them to drive up to Ferry Road, and along to the crossroads that led down towards Bonnington, on the right.

  'I've seen better, I've seen wors
e,' Mcllhenney murmured as he looked up at the shabby frontage of the tenement. 'You sure this girl will be in?'

  'There's more chance other being in than ofJorge. Mind you, we'l check his place just in case.' Mario led the way upstairs to the Rosewell apartment; without bothering to knock, he used his skeleton key to slip the lock once more. Nobody was in and nothing was different; the 276

  apartment had not been touched, nor as far as he could see entered since his last visit.

  They stepped back on to the landing, closing the door once more, and across to Ivy's flat. McGuire rang the doorbell, then leaned down and shouted through the letterbox. 'Ivy! Miss Baldwin! Open up, it's the police.' He straightened up and waited for the sound of her coming to open the door, smiling as he imagined her face, in the knowledge that they knew her real name.

  But there was no sound of Ivy; only a thin wavering cry, the tired wail of a child, rising to a scream of panic or even pain. He thumped the door this time, but still she did not come. Rums' screams grew louder.

  'Stand back,' said Mcl henney, 'I was always better at this than you, even when I was a fat bastard.' He jumped high, kicking out with the heel of his right foot, striking just below the lock, which gave at once under his violence. In a shower of splinters, the door swung open.

  McGuire reached the living room first, but stopped at its entrance, fil ing it with his bulk. His col eague eased him out of the way and moved ahead.

  Ivy was lying naked on the carpeted floor, in the middle of the room.

  Her tiny body was covered in contusions, and her face seemed to be one single bruise; her left eye was closed, and her nose had been broken.

  Great angry welts stood up round her throat.

  'Strangled, the poor wee thing,' Mcllhenney sighed. 'Beaten half to death, then strangled.' He turned to look at his friend, and saw him stil in the doorway, tears streaming down his face.

  'Too much, Neil,' he moaned. 'It's just too much. When I find this man, I'm going to kil him, nice and slow.'

  'That's why we have to find him together, pal; so as you don't do that very thing.' The inspector reached for his phone. 'Better call it in; we can't deal with this one on our own.'

  'Phone Haggerty,' said McGuire, pul ing himself together with an effort. 'Not Pringle or Jay; I don't trust either of them. Tell him where we are, and what we've found. Let him decide who deals with it.' He turned and moved towards the bedroom, where Rufus screamed on. 'But tel him to get the childcare people here, pronto.'

  Bob Skinner had sensed the tension building in his wife from the moment she had wakened. In a sense he welcomed it; she had been entirely too cool for his liking when she had viewed her parents' bodies, too composed by far, but this was the day when the tough stuff would begin again. She had her meeting with her lawyer, and then the funeral run-through.

  lan and Babs Walker were good people, to think of easing things for her with their supper invitation, but he knew that she would not relax again. .. any more than he would... until she had laid Leo and Susannah to rest.

  He had that burden on his shoulders too, and more besides. He had told her nothing of Doherty's discoveries, and of the awful place to which they led. He did not know if he ever would, for al of his experience as well as his instinct for self-preservation told him that the secrets buried there had to be left undisturbed. Too much time had passed for any good to be served by the truth, whatever it was, being uncovered.

  He knew that, and he only hoped that he had been able to bring Joe Doherty to agree with him. Whoever was behind the deaths of Leo and the others was not kidding, not at al , and besides, similar things had happened in his own country. He dreaded to think what would happen if his own story, and that of his friend Adam Arrow, ever found their way into the public domain. Few things ever worried Bob Skinner, but that was one of them.

  He was relieved when Sarah told him, over breakfast, that she planned to spend the morning indulging in retail therapy, and asked him to join her; in fact, he jumped at her suggestion.

  Buffalo is not the most sophisticated shopping city in America, but it had enough to occupy them. He had already bought his funeral suit, and so while Sarah shopped for clothes for herself and Seonaid, he concentrated on the boys.

  He had just bought a New York Mets cap for Mark, and the smal est basebal glove in the store for James Andrew, when his phone sounded in his pocket. When he took the call, Willie Haggerty's gravel voice sounded 278

  over the satellite link. He checked the time; ten fifteen, mid-aftemoon in Edinburgh.

  'McGuire was right, Bob,' the ACC said, without pleasantries.

  'Mcl henney's enquiries confirmed what he suspected. But it's worse; it looks as if the man Rosewell is still around. He's getting ready to move, though.' He told Skinner about the discovery in Bonnington, and about the dead girl's link to the man they were after.

  'Who knows that he's Maggie's father?' asked Skinner.

  'Only McGuire, Mcl henney and me; I didn't see the need to tell Pringle.'

  'Good, keep it that way. When was the girl kil ed?'

  'Yesterday afternoon, the doctor reckoned.'

  'Do we know for sure it was Rosewel ?'

  'He's the only runner in the field. Plus, we can check. The lass put up a fight; they found skin under her fingernails, so we have a DNA trace.

  We're going to have to take a blood sample from Maggie Rose; if it matches, it's him.'

  'Bloody hell. Who's going to ask her?'

  'If it comes to that, it'l be down to me. Things are bad between Mario and her just now.'

  Skinner sighed. 'I was afraid of that. Wil ie, I reckon we should take McGuire off this investigation as well.'

  'Who else is there, Bob? He knows the case, he Joiows the people involved. If Rosewell's killed the girl, he's maybe gone already, but if not, he won't be here for long. My feeling is that we let Mario run, but have big Mcl henney at his side al the way, to keep him in check.'

  'He's the only man I know who could do that,' the DCC admitted.

  'Okay, do it, but keep tabs on it al the way.'

  Sarah was frowning at him as he returned his phone to his pocket.

  'Business at home,' he told her. 'Nasty, but you don't need to know right now.'

  'BeppeViareggio?' she asked.

  'Partly, but let's drop it.' She looked as if she had no inclination to do so, but he was saved by the bell, or the tone, of his cellphone as it sounded again.

  'Yes,' he answered, expecting Haggerty again.

  'Mr Skinner?' It was an American woman's voice, low and even.

  'Yes.'

  'This is Philippa Doherty. I have some bad news for you.' Bob's head swam and his stomach lurched. He leaned against the store counter feeling the blood rush from his face. 'I got back from my flight this morning. When I let myself into the apartment I found Dad dead in bed.'

  'Oh no,' he hissed.

  'The doctor reckons he had a massive heart attack in his sleep.' He heard the girl catch her breath, keeping hold of her control. 'We've been warning him for years about his smoking,' she said. 'I guess it's finally caught up with him. I know you were in touch with him recently, and I found your number on his pad, so I thought I'd better tell you, along with his other friends and col eagues.'

  As she spoke a wholly unreal feeling swept over Skinner; it was as if he was in a room full of people, everyone on the move, steadily, not rushing, but heading somewhere. He started to slide down the counter, until Sarah caught his arm. 'Bob!' she exclaimed. 'What is it?'

  Slowly he realised that he had passed out for a few seconds, but his wife's touch, her voice and that of Philippa Doherty, asking if he was stil there, seemed to have brought him back to the present. He nodded to Sarah, and spoke into the phone. 'Yes, yes. It's a terrible shock, that's all.

  Poor old Joe. I wil miss him so much. My condolences to you and al the family.'

  For a moment he was on the verge of asking if she had found a floppy disk in the house, but he realise
d that would have been pointless, and maybe even dangerous for her. There would be no floppy disk, and Jackson Wylie's recovered iBook would either vanish or yield nothing.

  'Philippa,' he told her, instead, 'I'm stil in the US as it happens, so please, let me know the funeral arrangements. And thank you for thinking of me; thank you for letting me know.'

  For the second time in five minutes, he ended a cal , but this time looking stunned, not just worried.

  'Joe Doherty?' asked Sarah, incredulous.

  He nodded. 'Coronary, they say.'

  'You doubt it?'

  'No; at least I'm sure that's what a post mortem will show. I've never yet heard of a cat that actual y died of curiosity.'

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  70

  Mario McGuire hated plastic coffins, the containers the mortuary guys brought with them to murder scenes. Whatever little dignity they allowed was more than offset by their odour; a mix of polyurethane and disinfectant, and by the brutal truth that they had been used on uncounted occasions in the past, to carry victims of all shapes and sizes.

  He had seen people being crammed into these things. One corpse, that of a man stabbed to death in a pub fight early in the career of young PC McGuire, had been so gross that the crew of the meat wagon had simply left the arms hanging over the buckling sides as they had carried it away.

  As they lifted her into her container, Ivy Brennan, who had been Baldwin, looked like nothing more than a broken dol . There was something especially tragic about her, the tiny, flawed innocent who had deserved so much more from life than to be the victim of George Rosewell, that even the black humour of the attendants was silenced.

  Mario had banished his earlier weakness; grateful that only his friend had been there to see him overcome. It had been replaced by a huge, towering rage, which seemed to emanate from him in waves as he thought about everything that had gone wrong so suddenly in his life, and contemplated what he was going to do to the man who had brought it al about.