Skinner’s round bs-4

by Quintin Jardine

  He checked along the table. 'Everyone ready? Right, let's have her in.' He pressed the green button on the panel by his right hand. A few seconds later the door opened, and a small woman entered, immaculate in a Constable's uniform. She sat down on Skinner's nod, and took off her cap, revealing short, well-groomed dark hair. Huge brown eyes looked nervously, but smiling, along the five Board members, finally coming to rest on Skinner with a directness which, a few years before and out of uniform, might have caught his attention in more ways than one.

  His uniform belt dug uncomfortably into his ribs, and cut off the smile which was twitching at the corners of his mouth. `Right, WPC Masters..

  Three hours and seven applicants later, Skinner, thoroughly irritable, hung up his uniform on a hook in the small changing room attached to his office. The face of the little WPC was still fresh in his mind. He found her annoying in a strange way, but could not work out why. She had passed her promotion examination with flying colours, but Skinner made a mental note to transfer her from the Press Office to CID, and out of headquarters, at the first opportunity.

  He slipped on his jacket and glanced at his watch. It was three-fifteen; another hour of paperwork lay before him before he could beat an early retreat to prepare himself for his appointment on the practice ground with Darren Atkinson. He stepped out of the changing room to find Brian Mackie standing in his office. The Chief Inspector held several sheets of fax paper in his hand.

  `Hi, Brian,' said Skinner. 'What's up?'

  A message from South Africa, boss. They want us to pass some dodgy news on to someone.'

  He waved the fax pages. The ACC frowned. 'Oh? Who is it?'

  It's one of the golfers in the big tournament, sir. The young chap, Oliver M'tebe. Apparently someone's kidnapped his father. They don't know whether he's dead or alive.'

  `What does the message tell you about the background? Is it a gangland thing, or what?'

  Mackie shook his dome-like head. 'No, sir. That's the odd thing. The South African police say they don't understand it at all. M'tebe senior is a Presbyterian minister. He's very popular, does lots of work for poor black families, doesn't upset people by getting involved in politics, so apart from his son being famous he doesn't have a high profile at all. Just not the sort of chap to get into trouble.

  `Yet, apparently he left home this morning for a meeting with some elders in his church.

  Didn't turn up, and he hasn't been seen since. His car was found forced off the road along the route. One eye-witness, a parishioner, claims that he saw the minister being bundled into a Land Rover by two men, both white. He said that he looked bewildered, as if he didn't know what was going on.'

  `Sounds like a real mystery, doesn't it? I take it that the South Africans want us to ask the son whether he can suggest a motive for his father being snatched.'

  `Mmm, that's right.'

  Skinner raised an eyebrow. 'Could be that the kidnappers are after a ransom from the son?

  Any communication from them at all?' Mackie shook his head.

  OK. I'm heading out that way. Get me a copy of that message and I'll take care of it. Gives me an excuse.' He pointed at the pile of correspondence on his desk. 'I've seen enough of that stuff for now. On days like this I feel like a paper-pusher, not a copper!'

  Sixteen

  ‘It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Rose. You are clearly on a path to glory!'

  Henry Wills's small brown eyes twinkled as he shook the Detective Inspector's hand. She looked at him, curiously.

  He explained. The first time I ever met Andrew Martin he had just left the post which you now occupy, as ADC to my friend Bob. He made the jump to Special Branch at an early age, and, of course, he's moved up the ladder since then. After Andy, Brian Mackie followed the same route. So obviously, one will have great expectations of you.'

  Maggie looked at him, sceptically.

  Wills raised his hands in mock horror. 'Detective Inspector, please don't think that I'm being patronising. I mean every word quite sincerely. I have all the time in the world for Andy and Brian. As for Bob Skinner, why I've known him since I've been in this post, and I know that he chooses his personal assistants with the greatest care.'

  Rose smiled, at last. 'In that case, thank you for your kind words. I hope I can live up to them.'

  `There's no doubt of that.'

  Wills paused. 'Speaking of Andy, how is he? I mean personally, rather than professionally.'

  `Fine, as far as I know,' Rose answered, non-committally.

  `Good. It's just that I haven't heard from him since he came to see me, a couple of months ago, to give me back the keys to my place in Florida. Poor chap was terribly depressed. He didn't give me all the details, but it was clear that something had gone disastrously wrong between him and Alex.'

  Maggie felt her stomach drop. Had Wills been looking at her he would have seen a sudden expression of uncontrolled astonishment sweep across her face, until she recovered herself.

  `You know, when they came to ask if they could rent the place for a couple of weeks, I couldn't have been more pleased for them. I'd only met Alex once before, when she did that Festival thing last year, but she struck me as a very dynamic young lady — her father's daughter all right. For all that there must be at least ten years between them, she and Andrew seemed perfect together. They couldn't have been happier. Alex said they were going to surprise Bob with their news. She asked me to keep our arrangement to myself, for a while.'

  `Twelve years,' said Rose, quietly.

  `Pardon?'

  `There's twelve years between them in age. Alex is twenty-one.'

  Is she? Well, no matter. They seemed as well suited, as my mother would have said, as Sarah and Bob. That's what made it such a shock when it went wrong. All that Andy said was that they had had a row, and that Alex had gone off on some sort of tour of Europe. But for it to have happened on the day they were due to leave, it must have been pretty catastrophic. No wonder the chap jumped at the chance of getting out of Edinburgh for a while. Bob must be pretty sad too.'

  `You know Mr Skinner,' said Rose. 'He keeps things pretty tight.'

  `Yes; thought Henry Wills. 'And so do you. Bob has chosen well.'

  Aloud he said, 'Well anyway, let's just keep our fingers crossed. Now to the business of the day. Which of our radical foreign students is in trouble this time?'

  Maggie smiled, more in relief at the change of subject, than at Wills's ironic question. 'None that I know of, sir. That's DCI Mackie's province. No, this is more of an academic matter. Mr Skinner thought you might be able to help us, since I gather it's your field'

  Intriguing. Most people forget that I was a pure academic before I lost myself in this administrative jungle! So what is it?'

  She put her briefcase on Wills's desk, which seemed huge in the small, dusty office, at the upper rear of the Old College Building. Taking care not to scratch the surface with the sharp metal studs on the base, she opened it and took out a folder of papers, and the tape cassette box.

  `First of all,' she said, 'I take it that you've read about the murder of Michael White'

  He nodded vigorously. 'Yes. Damn shame. Quite a benefactor of this University, in a quiet way.'

  And have you read today's Scotsman?'

  `No, not yet. I have a frightful confession, Miss Rose. I'm a Guardian man'

  OK.' She took a copy of the newspaper from her folder and passed it across the desk. 'Read the front-page story, please.'

  As Wills read his expression changed from puzzlement to intrigue. 'How strange,' he said, putting the paper down on the desk. Rose passed him a copy of the original scrawled letter.

  He studied it closely for more than a minute, his excitement growing visibly.

  It looks like a line from the old Witch's Curse.'

  `What's that?'

  It's part of the East of Scotland folklore from the time of the persecution, around the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. None of that stuff was ever p
roperly documented, and not just because illiteracy was the order of the day. The people who led the witch-finding did it to divert people's attention away from the real evils of poverty, servitude, and the local laird having power of life and death over ordinary folk. The witch-burnings were no more than lynchings. They had little basis in law even in those days, so no one involved wanted to be tied too closely to them.

  `Most of the stories survived only by word of mouth, until they were written down decades, sometimes centuries, after the event, invariably in garbled form.'

  He paused. 'The Witch's Curse relates to the burning of one Agnes Tod, spelt with one "d", in East Lothian in the late sixteenth century. The Marquis of Kinture claims to own the site of the burning. I understand he's built his new golf course around it.

  As far as I know, the curse has only ever appeared once in written form, in a mid-nineteenth-century history of Haddingtonshire. It said that Agnes Tod, as the flames were lit, cursed all there with blade, water and fire, and that since then the hill on which she and her coven are said to have met, and where they were burned, has been a place of strange happenings.

  `Not history at all really, that stuff, just legend and superstition’

  Maggie Rose produced a small Walkman-style cassette player from her jacket.

  In that case sir, listen to this tape. It was made in 1977. The teacher you'll hear is Mr Skinner's first wife. It's been stored in his loft ever since.'

  Wills frowned, but took the player from her. She watched him as he put on the headphones, inserted the tape, and pushed the play button. She watched him as his eyes widened, and his mouth dropped open. She heard the indecipherable hiss of sound escaping from the earpieces, and she heard its sudden stop. Wills blinked and rewound it, then played it once more.

  Eventually he took off the headset.

  `That is amazing,' he whispered. 'What was the child's name again?'

  `Lisa Soutar.'

  `Then she's a Teller.' Rose looked at him, puzzled.

  `There are old legends,' he explained, 'which are handed down within families. They are passed on through the female line by word of mouth, skipping generations where necessary.

  The bearers are called "Tellers of Tales". If Lisa Soutar was told this story by her great-grandmother, then I think you'll find that in her family she was the first girl of the line for three generations.

  `That story has never been set down in full before. It's so pure. Did you hear the child's voice? It's as if she was hypnotised by her great-grandmother, and the story implanted in her mind. Maybe she was! Maybe they can do that, these "Tellers of Tales".'

  Is it possible,' said Maggie, 'that the child could have built the story up herself? Could she have seen the earlier account?'

  Wills shook his head. Not a chance. There's only one copy, and it's in the National Library of Scotland, accessible only to academics.

  `No, young Miss Lisa Soutar got this story straight from the horse's, or rather the old mare's mouth. D'you know what? If you dig into the parish records, you could, just possibly, trace the line of Tellers right back to the burning of Aggie Tod!'

  Rose whistled, and shook her red locks. 'I may do just that! At least I know where to begin.'

  `Well, here's another strange thing for you to ponder on,' said Wills. 'I remember that 1977

  East Lothian history project. There were very few copies of the finished work. The schools involved kept one each, one went to the Queen, with a letter signed by all the children who took part, one went to the National Library, and one came to the University. I remember it; I read it. And I'm quite certain that tale didn't appear in it.

  Either Myra Skinner decided not to include it in the typed up chapter which her class contributed to the book, or someone decided that it shouldn't be published!

  `So there's yet another mystery for you, Inspector. Did someone want the Tale of Aggie Tod's curse to be suppressed?' He stood up. 'Now, Miss Rose, it's close on one. Can I tempt you to lunch?'

  Maggie shook her head. 'That's very kind, but another time, perhaps. Right now, I must go back to school!'

  Seventeen

  There was a light knock at the door.

  `Come in, Brian,' called Skinner. 'Is that photocopy ready?' Mackie stepped into the room, slowly. 'Yes, boss, it is. But there's something else. You've got a visitor.'

  Skinner frowned in exasperation. 'Can't you deal with it, Brian? I'll need to get moving if I'm to catch M'tebe.'

  `Yes, but boss, I really thought you'd want to say hello. It's Mr Doherty of the FBI. He's waiting in Ruth's room.'

  `Joe!' Skinner's face lit up. 'Christ, you should have brought him straight in. Joe's a VIP -

  Very Important Polisman!' He strode out of his office and round to Ruth McConnell's small room. `Joe, my man! Too long a time. Welcome to Edinburgh!'

  He beamed down at the slight figure of the American and shook his hand warmly. Doherty was around five feet nine inches tall, but the slimness of his build made him seem smaller.

  Caught between Skinner and his statuesque secretary he seemed almost tiny.

  `Well, Bob,' he said, in a Midwestern drawl, 'you know damn well that this far north the cold gets into my poor bones any time after July, but there are some things that would tempt me out of doors. Like even a small chance of making life awkward for the guy you asked me about yesterday.'

  `You've got something on him?'

  `Goddamn yes!' Doherty's thin, lined, sallow face lit up with pride. He squared the shoulders of his Savile Row suit and stuck out his chin. If it's there, then the World's Finest Law Enforcement Agency'll find it.'

  `Hah! Can't be too goddamn hot, if the World's Finest Law Enforcement Agency hasn't succeeded in locking him up for it.'

  The smile left Doherty's face abruptly, and he winced. `That's a sad story, Bob. Come and I'll tell you about it.'

  OK,' said Skinner, `but let's think about this. You booked in anywhere?' He nodded at the overnight bag on the floor between them. Doherty shook his head. 'OK, you are now. My place.'

  `Hey Bob, I can't let you do that.'

  Are you kidding? If my wife found that I'd let her fellow American put up in a hotel — even if he is a bloody spook — she'd kill me! Come on.' He led the way back through to his office, and telephoned Sarah. As she answered he could hear Jazz crying in the background. She sounded tired. `Hello love,' he said. `You OK?'

  `Yeah, I'm fine. Motherhood gets to be a ball and chain from time to time, that's all.'

  In that case…' he hesitated ‘.. here's something to lighten your life. D'you fancy having an American house guest this evening?'

  Of course, but who..

  It's a guy named Joe. You'll like him. I'll bring him home now, then I'll have to go out for a while. I'm replacing poor Michael in the pro-am, and my team captain's called a practice session.'

  Sarah, a keen golfer, perked up at once. `Yes? That's terrific. Whose team you on?'

  `Darren Atkinson's, that's all.'

  `Darren? You're playing with him? My God, will Alex be sick when she hears! Darren is our hero. Can Jazz and I come as your cheerleaders?'

  He laughed. 'Only if you can guarantee that the wee fella won't howl at the top of Darren's backswing! Look, Joe and I are heading off. We'll be with you soon.

  He replaced the phone and picked up his briefcase. Ruth and Doherty were standing just inside the door. `Ruthie, I'll be in tomorrow morning by eight-thirty, until around midday, and I should be contactable after that. Thursday and Friday I'll keep in touch.'

  Ruth's grin was slightly lopsided, Brian Mackie called it her `Kim Basinger look'. 'Sir, as you said, you need to practise delegation. Enjoy yourself: you'll be fulfilling a million golfers' dreams.'

  Skinner nodded, suddenly solemn. 'Sure. But I'll always be remembering that I've stepped into a dead man's golf shoes. Come on, Joe.'

  He led the way downstairs and out of the building to where his white BMW was parked in its designated space. Doherty placed
his overnight bag on the back seat and climbed in, holding a document case on his lap.

  Rather than take the shortest route out of town, Skinner turned right as he exited from the headquarters building. 'Let's take a look at my old town, Joe.' The day was overcast but dry as he headed along towards Stockbridge, past Raeburn Place, where the recently re-erected rugby posts signified the coming of autumn, then climbed the hill towards the hogsback centre of the New Town. Turning into Charlotte Square he pointed along George Street towards St Andrew Square, a straight kilometre away. 'They call this part of town "The Dumbbell" because of its shape. Not so long ago, there were billions of pounds managed here. Insurance companies, banks and fund managers used to litter this area. Now most of them have moved out to new buildings, still in and around the city, but state-of-the-art, to let them count even more money. That's what we do now. We don't make things any more. We don't make steel, we don't dig coal, we don't build ships. We just count money, and serve teas to tourists. Oh sorry, I should have remembered. We make beer. We're very good at making beer.' He turned down Castle Street and left into Princes Street, resplendent in its Festival colours.

  I love this place, all year round, but there are times when I worry about where it's going. I mean look at this.' He waved his right hand in the air as he drove past the Royal Scottish Academy. 'All the flags, all the Festival handbills littering the street and fly-posted on empty shop windows: sometimes I think that Edinburgh's become just another bloody theme park, built around history and the Arts, rather than around cartoon characters.'

  Doherty laughed at his friend's cynicism. 'OK, Bob, but so what? Theme parks make money; they give people work. Your city probably earns more foreign currency now than it did when it was building ships. And is there more crime now, or less?'