Skinner’s round bs-4

by Quintin Jardine

  `Good, I want to hear what she's got to say.'

  He paused. 'Right, what else do we have? Post-mortem results, forensics on Morton's kit?'

  On the P-M results, yes, sir. Sarah was right as usual. Blow to the head, then death by drowning. The lungs were full of water. There's nothing from the lab about Morton yet though. That could take a couple of days. They're having to take mud samples from the garden, from the banks of the loch, and from the fairway to see if they're different. They've found grass traces on the trousers, and they're having to take samples of that as well.'

  `Bugger!' snapped Skinner, impatiently.

  `Yes, boss, but here's some good news. The manufacturers of those cigarettes called. They're sending up a full report, but what they're saying is that the stub we sent down is special. The company is about to launch a new brand of luxury fag, and last week they handed out some samples… last Saturday morning in fact, at the European Golf Tour event in England. They won't be on sale anywhere for another month, and they've never been distributed anywhere else. So whoever smoked that cigarette in the starter's hut brought it all the way from last week's golf event, and he was there on Saturday.'

  Skinner beamed with pleasure. 'Ali; he said, 'you may have made an unusual day even more memorable. Keep the pressure on our colleagues to find Richard Andrews, and let me know when they do. Now I must go. There's someone I have to see.'

  He paused at the door, jerking a thumb towards the television set. 'What were you watching, by the way?'

  Martin smiled. 'I had the TV people give us a monitor and a live feed in here. This event's going out worldwide. You were very impressive, boss. But what I want to know is, who taught you to putt like that?'

  Only the best, my boy. And now I must go and talk to him.'

  He jogged back to the clubhouse, and changed, after the briefest of showers, into his formal wear. Sarah and Jazz were the centre of attention when he reached the dining room. The baby was holding a golf glove, twisting it in his strong little hands. Skinner gave Sarah a quick kiss, as Darren Atkinson handed him a pint of McEwan's 80 Shilling ale. 'Cheers, skipper, I need this.' The policeman took a generous mouthful of beer, savouring its smoothness.

  'Whose is the glove, Jazz?' he said.

  The baby looked up at him, and gurgled.

  I thought I'd try to interest him in the game early,' said Atkinson.

  `That's nice of you. I'll see that it's preserved. He can hand it on to his firstborn. The way you played today you could still be Number One then.'

  `Keep your eye on me. I haven't peaked yet. You wait till Sunday.'

  Hector Kinture’s going to hate you do any worse damage to his course!'

  Atkinson smiled and shrugged. 'He should have got himself a decent bloody architect then, shouldn't he, instead of Wild Colonial Boy.'

  Skinner glanced across at the Marquis, but he gave no slign of having heard. He stepped to one side, and motioned Atkinson to follow. 'Darren,' he said, quietly. 'Remember that bloke Andrews, the one I didn't ask you about the other day?'

  The golfer nodded. 'Mr Nice, yeah.'

  `Can you remember if he's a smoker?'

  Atkinson looked at him blankly. ‘Eh? Let me think. Yes, of course he is. I remember the first time I met him he was a chain-smoker. He's cut it down a lot since then, but, yes, he still smokes. How come you're concerned about his health, I wonder?'

  `Like before,' said Skinner, 'don't wonder too hard. You just concentrate on the golf. Leave the detecting to me.'

  Forty-two

  ‘He really is a nice guy, that Darren, isn't he?'

  ‘You're just chuffed because he made a fuss of your wean,' Skinner grunted.

  ‘Don't be silly. He's charming, and you know it’

  `He's God's own golfer, I know that much. I've played two rounds with him now. In all that time he's hit one bad shot, and when he did that it just made him sharpen up even more.

  Apparently today was his fourteenth successive round under seventy.'

  `You didn't do too badly yourself today, honey.'

  `That was the effect that playing with him had on me. Hideo and Norton reacted the other way. I was sorry for them.'

  He put his arm around her as they sat on the bench, watching a group of children as they attacked the apparatus of the Goose Green playground. Jazz was dozing in his cradle, strapped to his father's chest.

  `Tell you one thing, babe. You're right about Sue. She is smitten with the man. You should have seen the way she looked at him this afternoon. I hope she doesn't do anything daft.'

  I shouldn't think she will. She likes being Lady of the Manor.'

  Aye, but in golf, Darren's bigger-time nobility than a mere Marquis. He's King of the World.'

  He squeezed her arm. `Come on, let's go home. It's getting near supper time for Bonzo here.. and I'm bloody starving too.'

  They left their bench and walked back up the sloping village green towards their cottage.

  `What was the autopsy finding on Masur?' Sarah asked, facing him as she stepped backwards up a grassy ridge. ‘You said we'd talk about it later.'

  `Banged on the head, then drowned. Just like you thought.'

  She nodded, with a look of professional satisfaction. 'I've been thinking some more too,' she said. 'About how it was done.'

  `What d'you mean?'

  `Try to picture it. There's Bill Masur walking back to Bracklands, across the golf course. He's full of the joys of victory. He's rubbed his arch enemy's nose in the dirt, in public. He's had a few drinks, but he isn't drunk. It's a pleasant moonlit night and he's as wide awake as he's ever been in his life.'

  They had reached the cottage. Bob stepped aside as she opened the door with her Yale key.

  'OK,' he said, 'so?'

  `Well, for openers, it would not be easy to sneak up on this man. There are no trees around there. The fairway's wide open. No place to lie in wait.'

  Skinner lifted Jazz from his cradle, handed him to Sarah, then headed off to prepare the baby's bath. 'Who says he was there?' he said, over his shoulder as she followed him.

  `Couldn't he have been walking along the cart track close to the trees?'

  `What happens to the buggies at night?'

  `They're all locked up.'

  'Did your people find any tyre marks on the fairway?'

  'No.'

  `Did they find any marks as if someone had been dragged across the fairway?'

  `No.'

  OK, Masur was a big, heavy guy. He could have been slugged on the path and carried across to the stool, but it would have taken more than one person to do that. A reasonable conclusion, yes?'

  `Yes,' he said, hesitantly, as he filled the bath.

  `Were there lots of footprints around the stool's mooring point, or around the place where Masur was loaded and tied to it?'

  `No.'

  OK. Now lets go back to where he's walking along enjoying the moonlight. He's walking towards Bracklands, remember. So what happens?'

  `Someone softshoe's up behind him and banjoes him, yes?'

  I doubt it. He'd have to be very quiet about it. It was a still night as well as a bright one. And the angle of the head injury was wrong.'

  `What d'you mean?'

  She smiled, and Skinner could sense her triumph to come. `Well if it happened like that, even if the guy had come up behind him like Marcel Marceau, he'd have been hit a downwards blow to the top of the head. He wasn't. He was knocked out by a sideways blow to the base of the skull.' She peeled off Jazz's ripe disposable nappy and wiped him clean, then lowered him carefully into the bath, trying in vain to keep clear of the splashes from his kicking legs.

  I think,' she said, soaping the chortling child, 'and I'd stand in the witness box and say this, that someone walked right up to Masur.. someone he knew. Someone with whom he was relaxed, and off-guard.

  `This person walks right up to him, coming, not necessarily from Bracklands, but from the direction of Bracklands, and says something lik
e, "Hi Bill, you out for a stroll too?" They strike up a conversation. They walk side by side in the moonlight. The newcomer falls just a pace or two behind. Masur doesn't suspect a thing… until the man whips out a cosh, or some such, and drops him where he stands.

  `He's chosen his moment, so he doesn't have to carry him far to the stool. Or maybe he means to finish him off with the club, then sees the stool in the moonlight and indulges a sense of the theatrical.' She squeezed a sponge over Jazz's round tummy, triggering a new round of squeals.

  `That's my story, copper, and I'm sticking to it.'

  Skinner leaned against a wall and looked at her thoughtfully. 'He couldn't just have been overcome by a couple of guys?'

  `Come on Bob, you don't believe that a mean sonofabitch like him could have been tackled straight on, even by two guys, without a battle. The head knock was the only injury, remember. This man would have got a few licks off himself. He'd have had scraped knuckles, and facial bruising. But the only marks on him were caused by the fishes.'

  He sighed. 'Yes, you're right, as bloody usual. I'll buy it. it doesn't make things easy, though.

  The only guy in the house party who isn't accounted for is Morton, and the way those two went at it, I hardly see him — or his fixer Richard Andrews — walking up in the moonlight and saying, "Hiya Bill, how's it goin'?" So if Masur did meet someone in the middle of the eighteenth fairway, I have no tiny idea of who it was… unless one of Aggie Tod's witches flew in on a broomstick and zapped him!'

  Friday

  Forty-three

  'So what's she like now, Myra's magic child? What did she turn into?' There was a strange sadness in his tone.

  Maggie Rose put down her notes, her account of her German interview completed. She looked at Skinner, through the eyes of someone who knew him well, and saw, written on his face, the depth of the old memories which the rediscovery of his dead wife's tape had stirred in him.

  `She's grown into a kind of pathetic wee woman, sir. She's married to a man who obviously treats her like a skivvy, but that's not all. She's borne down by possession of that bloody curse. It took me a while to realise what it is about her. She's possibly the loneliest person I've ever met.'

  `Why's that, Mags? She's got her kid, hasn't she? And she must have friends around her, living in married quarters. Are you telling me she's homesick for Longniddry!'

  Rose smiled and shook her head. 'No, sir. It's not that. It's Aggie Tod's curse. I've told you how Nana Soutar reacted when she found out that Lisa had made that tape for Myra.

  Possession of the tale sets you apart from others. It makes you unique. It's been handed on in that family for four hundred Years. I mean, just look at that tree. It's fantastic.' She pointed to the piece of paper on the table, in the mobile police office.

  The thing has built up its own tradition within that string of descendants, and gathered its own power. They've had four centuries of believing that if they betray the witch secret they've been entrusted with, then the Devil will show up to sort them out. They've had four centuries of submission to the tale, of its being beaten into them when necessary. Within their own family, these women have been set apart, seen as different, somehow.'

  Rose picked up the paper and looked at it again. `D'you know what keeps Lisa going, through the drabness of her life, and what makes her tolerate that bloody husband of hers?' Her anger boiled over. 'Honest to God, in that whole house there was nothing to show that Lisa is cared about!'

  Skinner reached out and touched her hand. 'Maggie,' he said kindly. 'I know that sometimes it's hard not to get steamed up over people's problems. But that's the job. We're police officers, not marriage counsellors or social workers. You mustn't allow yourself to be deflected from the task by sympathy for others. Have compassion, but professionally, you've got to stick to what's relevant. You know that.'

  `Yes sir, I do. And this is relevant. I do have a point to make. Lisa is driven on by one thing.

  She's living for the day when wee Cherry is old enough to be told the story, and to take her place in the line of the Tellers. Then it won't be just her alone. There'll be two of them to share the secret, two strange women a bit different from the rest.

  `Yet Lisa's still marked by her nana's warning, and until I came along, with the tape and the press cutting, there's no way that she'd have breathed the story of Aggie's curse to another living soul. I'm certain of this. Whoever sent those notes to the Scotsman and the Herald didn't hear the story from Lisa Davies.'

  Alison Higgins stood up and refilled her mug with coffee from a Thermos jug on the table. 'If that's the case, what other possibilities are there? Didn't Henry Wills say that there was a nineteenth-century reference to the story?'

  `Yes, he did. I'm seeing him later today. I'm going to follow that up with him. I've asked him to help me find out who Elizabeth Carr is too.'

  `Come on, Inspector,' said Higgins. 'You heard what the ACC said about keeping to the point.

  Is that strictly relevant?'

  I don't know, ma'am, but I can't say that it isn't, and neither can you. It's bizarre and it's a bloody nuisance, but the Aggie Tod story is linked into two murder enquiries. If we run it completely to earth, we may find out who else knew of the curse. If we do, we may have found our killer.'

  'Touche,' said Higgins.

  `There's something else I want to do, that might not be so relevant, but it is connected to the story.'

  `What's that?' asked Skinner.

  I want to find out as much as I can about Lisa's Bible, sir.

  It's an extraordinary thing for an ordinary person to have.'

  If you can call Lisa Soutar ordinary!' said Higgins.

  `Granted. But even at that… I mean we're talking about, a Bible which pre-dates the King James edition. And apart from its age, it's a remarkable work. The cover is rich beaten; leather. It's been well cared for by all its keepers, and inside there are some beautiful illustrations. I persuaded Lisa to let me take some photographs of it. I'm going to find an expert, to see if it can be identified, and to get an idea of how much ' it's worth. `She'd never given a thought to its value. Now that she has, she's decided to keep it in a bank deposit box.

  Her husband doesn't know it exists, but she reckons that if he ever found it he might take it and sell it.'

  She looked up at Higgins, still standing coffee mug in hood. 'I don't know,' said the Superintendent. 'I'm more interested in finding out who else could have written those notes to the press.'

  Aye, Ali,' said Skinner, 'but this investigation is already so weird that we can't rule out anything. Maybe, just maybe, researching the Bible will help us to answer that very question.

  OK Mags, you get on with all that, and report back to Miss Higgins on each part of the investigation.'

  `Very good, sir.' She got up from the table, put her notes back in her briefcase and left the office.

  Skinner and Higgins were alone. The ACC picked up the Thermos jug. Guessing by its weight that it still held coffee, he twisted its screw cap and poured himself a refill.

  `You're doing a good job on this investigation, Alison,' he said. 'No one's going to fault you for lack of achievement.' `Thank you very much, sir.'

  `But there is one thing. It's an essential skill of command. It's a bit like football; no, let's say sailing, since that's your sport. You can either be the sort of captain who issues every order, and who sees the crew simply as implements of her will, or you can be the type who keeps a steady hand on the tiller and lets her crew get on with their different tasks, backing their judgement all the time… even if on occasion they're wrong.

  I don't succeed all the time, but I try to be the second sort of skipper. If I have a crew member who's idle or slipshod, then he'll walk the plank, but I always respect those who do their best. If someone comes to me and proposes an initiative, then I give them the same trust I expect them to place in me, and I let them run with it.'

  And that's what I should have done with Maggie?'
r />   `Yes, as second nature. It may be that at the end of the day, all she'll achieve is a free valuation of her family Bible for Lisa Davies. But that's not her objective. She wants to find out all she can about that book, and about how it might have come into the hands of a burned witch's sister, because that's what her training and her instinct tell her she should do.

  `You're in command of good detective officers, Ali. And their second greatest asset, after their attention to detail, is their instinct. Never suppress it, or countermand it… unless your instinct tells you different!'

  Higgins nodded. 'Thank you, sir, I appreciate the advice. I'm grateful to you.'

  `Don't be, Superintendent.' He waved his right hand vaguely around him, circling the room.

  'To finish my sailing analogy, I'm Admiral of the CID fleet and it's my job to see that we all make a safe landfall! One other thing. How's that coven hunt doing? Have we had word of local witches?'

  Higgins smiled. 'As a matter of fact, sir, we just did. One of the PCs in the Haddington station was told by his daughter that there's some sort of group in her school. The kid said that it's older girls and boys, and that they meet every Friday in an old quarry behind the town.'

  Oh aye? To do what?'

  `Maybe we'll find out tonight. Andy Martin's taking some people to the quarry tonight, to see if there's anything in it.' `Could be interesting. Meantime, I've got some golf to play!'

  Forty-four

  East Lothian is one of the driest counties in Scotland, but when it rains in summer it does so in full measure.

  A brief visit to the practice ground had convinced Skinner that while the opening day of the tournament had been the finest of his life on a golf course, the second round would be an ordeal to be endured. Like most good links golfers, he was accustomed to windy conditions, but he detested heavy, still days with rain pouring from leaden skies.

  He had begun his practice wearing his favourite waxed cotton hat, made by Christy and guaranteed waterproof, only to find that it lived up to its warranty so well that as he stood over the ball, rainwater flooded off its brim like a waterfall, obscuring his vision. Laughing helplessly at the ludicrous picture which he offered to the three foolhardy spectators who stood, huddled under umbrellas, around the practice area, and to the television camera on its rostrum behind him, he zipped his Gore-Tex jacket as high as it would go and retired, stopping in at the professional's shop on the way back to the clubhouse to buy a brimless rain hat and a new non-slip glove.