Skinner’s round bs-4

by Quintin Jardine

  The cup of premium-priced coffee, halfway to her lips, slipped in Maggie Rose's fingers, and all but fell from her grasp. Wills laughed aloud.

  `Wonderful, isn't it? Margaret, my dear, you may marry your Sergeant and live happily ever after, but you and I will always be entwined in another union, that of unearthing a piece of undiscovered, and quite spectacular history. An illegitimate child, born to a future Earl, by a woman whom he was to burn at the stake. Not only born by the woman, but brought forward for Christian baptism by her, and by the two women who attended the birth.

  And they were…' He stopped as he realised that she was no longer listening to him.

  `That explains the Kinture Bible being given to Elizabeth by her aunt, Matilda.'

  Her eyes flashed with excitement as she told Wills of her visit to Knox at the National Library, and of her own discovery of the Bible's provenance. It was Henry Wills's turn to look astonished.

  `But I'm sorry, Henry. I interrupted you. You said there was more.'

  `Yes, lots.' Piece by piece he recounted the remainder of his remarkable exploration of East Lothian's murky past.

  `What do you make of that?' he asked, as he finished.

  I don't know,' said Rose. 'But I do know that we should tell the whole story to the boss, as soon as we can. I think that you and I go back out to that stand, and watch some more golf, while we wait for him to finish.'

  Fifty-eight

  Skinner whistled as Wills finished his story. 'That's very impressive, my friend. I wish all of my detective officers were as thorough as you.

  `So Agnes Tod and her sister Matilda were the daughters of the factor of the Kinture Estate: not, I'd have thought, people who would be described nowadays as working-class.'

  `No, indeed. Their father, Walter Tod, ran the Earl's estate on a day-to-day basis, collected rents, hired and fired staff, and all that. That would make him a very important man, and a man to be feared as well. They'd have been brought up in an estate house, probably quite a grand one. We know from the Bible that Matilda was literate, and now, from the parish records, that Agnes was too.'

  `What do we know of their father?'

  Only that he was an elder of the Church and that he died in 1591.'

  And Matilda, what of her?'

  `Her death is recorded in 1637 and the entry is witnessed by Elizabeth Carr. She never married. I'd surmise that Matilda brought up her sister's child.'

  And the witnesses to the birth?'

  One was described in the entry as a midwife, and the other as a maid.'

  Skinner leaned back in the empty grandstand and gazed at his friend and his assistant in undisguised admiration. 'You two should set up in business. A detective and a historian, researching into the past.

  `Henry, how do you feel about some more research? This is already the weirdest investigation I've ever known, but now that I've begun, I'm going to follow it as far as I can.

  I'd like to hear everything you can tell me about the so-called crimes that led Agnes Tod to her death.

  I want to know what the Burning of Witches' Hill was all about.'

  Wills puffed up with pride. 'I should be delighted to assist. I will go back to Edinburgh now to begin my research. I'll work non-stop and call you as soon as possible.'

  He stood up, hot and sticky in his suit, yet as dignified as always, and started off down the grandstand's stairway. At the foot he stopped, suddenly, and looked back at Skinner and Rose as they descended behind him.

  Oh, one other thing, Bob. Do you remember in the tent, this morning? That man I was so sure I recognised? Well, I think I've seen him again.'

  Fifty-nine

  Skinner's mind was spinning with a host of new possibilities as he washed away the sweat and grime of the sultry day and changed into blazer, grey slacks, white shirt and tie.

  On his way through to the bar, he paused to look at the updated scoreboard. Darren Atkinson's dismissal of Witches' Hill as a test for top-class golfers seemed not to stand up to measurement against the performances of the other competitors. Only he and M'tebe had broken 70 on the third day, with the World Number One's flawless 66 only a shot less than the young South African, his only realistic challenger among his seven professional opponents. The rest of the field, with Ewan Urquhart at its head, was averaging around or just under par. On the amateur scoreboard, Skinner's third-round 77 had strengthened his position as leader of the scratch section, with Everard Balliol shooting 78, but in the handicap section he had been overhauled by Hirosaki, the Japanese, whose nett 67 had earned him a tie for the lead.

  He made his way through to the bar, and found Atkinson, Wales and Murano, his teammates, grouped together in the midst of the throng. Their lead in the team competition seemed unassailable, and as they stood in their tight circle, bantering cries flew at Murano, from his Japanese companions, and at the little singer from some of the other celebrities in the room.

  As Skinner reached the trio, Atkinson handed him a pint of beer shandy. He gulped at it thirstily, realising for the first time how demanding the day's conditions had been.

  OK skipper,' said Norton Wales beside him. 'Tell us how it's going to be tomorrow.'

  Atkinson looked at him, unsmiling, deadly serious. `Tomorrow? Eighteen holes to go. The last round, and that's where your man comes into his own. In way over sixty per cent of my tournaments I shoot my lowest score in the last round. That's why I'm Number One. That's not an ego statement, it's just a fact. In professional golf, you can play good golf on the Thursday, better on the Friday, and great on the Saturday. But if you can't do it on the Sunday, then you can't be the man.

  I am still, by a long way, the best Sunday player in world golf. Young Oliver, and Ewan, they're both coming up, and Andres does something spectacular every so often, but on Sunday afternoon, I'm your man. That's what it's all about. Hell, that's what life is all about.'

  He looked around his three teammates. 'Whether you play golf, or sing, or make cars, or catch crooks and killers, it's about being Number One, and to do that you have to be the best Sunday player in your own field.

  `You guys all are great Sunday players in your own right, so you know what I'm talking about. You all know how hard you have to work to be the best, what you have to do, and how ruthless you have to be.'

  Suddenly he grinned and the sparkle came back to his eyes. `So what that all means is that if it's decent weather tomorrow and you're betting men, you should go see the bookies and ask them for odds on me shooting sixty-three or better. They'll probably say three-to-one, four-to-one, something like that, and if they do, bite their hands off. Statistically, the odds should be six-to-four on.

  `You know, my brother makes all his beer money betting on me on Sundays!'

  `Don't the bookies see him coming a mile off?' asked Skinner.

  Atkinson grinned again, and shook his head. 'No chance! DRA Management is quite a big organisation now. He has people to do that sort of thing for him!'

  Skinner's retort was choked off short by the insistent tug on his sleeve. He looked around, surprised by the interruption, to find the hot angry eyes of Mike Morton glaring up at him. 'A word, mister,' he said softly.

  The policeman gazed down, coolly, at the newcomer for a few seconds, then nodded towards the only quiet corner of the room. They had hardly detached themselves from the crowd, before Morton turned on him.

  OK fella. I've just taken a call from my lawyer, Salter. He told me you heard this morning that those samples you took put me in the clear. I don't suppose you could have told me direct, no? Yet still I've got your people following me around, watching everything I do.

  Suppose I take a piss there's one of your people watching me. I tell you, guy, get your tanks off my fucking lawn, or there will be trouble.'

  Skinner shrugged his shoulders. 'If you've got a problem with our procedure in informing you of the results of the tests, take it up with Salter. That was the way he wanted it.

  As for my "tanks", they stay where
they are for as long as I decide. Our tests of those samples prove to me that you didn't kill Masur yourself. We know already that you couldn't personally have killed Michael White, or kidnapped Oliver M'tebe's father, or tried to poison Atkinson. But that doesn't put you in the clear, or under Scots law make you not guilty of murder.

  `We know that you were stuffed twice by White, over investing in Witches' Hill and over the field. We know that Masur was doing you over in business. We know that you tried to gain control over Darren Atkinson, and that now you see him building up a stable of his own, with young M'tebe as one of his stars.'

  Morton stuck out his chin. `So what? White was a small-timer, an amateur. Masur was a crook. A thousand people could have wanted him dead. And as for Darren fucking Atkinson and his doppelganger brother

  … Nothing. Skinner, you've got nothing, so get your people off my back!'

  Skinner smiled, a soft gentle apologetic smile. 'Oh but we know other things too, Morton, like the name you were born with, and like the business that the rest of your family is in. I know all about you, friend. I know who Richard Andrews is, and I can guess what his job involves.

  What I don't know is where he is.

  As things are so far, when I draw up a realistic list of people who might have committed these crimes, then the only name on it is your cousin Rocco… and he works for you.'

  And in an instant Skinner changed. The amiable mask fell away, and Morton met for the first time the man who lay behind it, as he leaned close to him, and took his tie in his right hand.

  He looked into his eyes, with an expression seen by very few people, all of them in the deepest trouble of their lives. As the American looked back at him, the last of his bluster left him. He tried to look away, but Skinner's thumb dug under his chin, forcing him to keep eye contact with his cold, implacable, frightening stare. Behind them, the buzz of conversation continued unabated, the others in the room ignorant of their confrontation.

  Skinner could smell the rank sweat rising from the man. When he spoke again it was almost a whisper, but his tone was as cold as the look in his eyes. 'Back there, Morton, I thought I heard a threat. Maybe I was wrong. But here's one of mine. You have around twenty-four hours of liberty left, unless you can produce cousin Rocco, and prove to me between you that he had nothing to do with these crimes.

  `This is my home patch, and someone's been leaving dead people all around. I don't like that.

  In fact I hate it wherever it happens, and however hard I try to delegate responsibility for its investigation, sooner or later I always end up getting involved. Everyone's got a professional weakness. Yours is lack of co-ordination between your brain and your mouth. Mine is that whenever I see crime, especially violent crime, a little piece of me is outraged for the victims, takes it personally, and gets involved. When that happens, like it has right now, then the bad people can look out.

  `Now I'll surprise you. I don't really think you did these things. I look into your eyes and I know that you haven't the bottle to kill, or order it done. Yet I've been wrong about people before, and the facts before me tell me that any jury would say I am this time. So my twenty-four-hour warning still stands. I'll take my people off surveillance, for now. But if by this time tomorrow you haven't put my mind at rest over cousin Rocco, you'll be arrested and charged.'

  He released the quivering American's tie. 'Now you can go and enjoy the rest of your day. I won't be at the Murano dinner tonight; I've got other things to do. But that doesn't mean I won't be thinking about you.

  `Remember, give me Rocco Andrade Andrews within twenty-four hours or you'll find yourself in a clubhouse that's a hell of a lot less comfortable than this one!'

  Sixty

  Sarah leaned across the dining table and tilted her wine glass first to her left, and then to her right, towards the two men who sat on either side of her.

  `You don't know, you two guys, how much I've wanted us to be sat around this table, the way we are now. You don't know either, how hard it's been for me to hold myself back from taking the two of you and banging your heads together.'

  She sipped her Barolo. 'But I knew that if I let you work it out in your own way, and in your own time, it would all come OK in the end.'

  Andy Martin leaned back in his chair and smiled. Jazz was sleeping on his shoulder, drooling quietly on to his denim shirt. 'You know, don't you,' he said, 'that alongside my mum, you two are the best friends I have in the whole damn world. I wanted to put it right too, but the pride in me held me back… that and the fact that I didn't know how to go about it, or whether Bob wouldn't tear the front out of another shirt if I tried!'

  He stroked the sleeping baby's back, absent-mindedly, as he glanced to his left, to the fourth, unoccupied side of the rectangular table. 'I was going to say that I couldn't be happier, but of course, that wouldn't be quite true. Not for any of us, I suppose.'

  `Well, my friend,' said Bob, 'that's something else that has to be left to work itself out in its own time.'

  And it will,' said Sarah. The question is, how do you feel about Alex now, after the explosion, and now that you've seen the other side to her? When she comes back, how will you want it to be?'

  Andy eased Jazz off his shoulder and into the crook of his arm. 'Like it was, of course. I love her. There was a time, all of a sudden a few months ago, when I realised that I had stopped thinking of her as a kid, as an honorary niece, and when I realised that she was all I'd ever wanted in a woman; bright, beautiful, clever, exciting and mature.' He chuckled, softly and sadly. 'Only maybe not quite as mature as I thought!

  `Looking at her in that new, different way, it was like I was meeting her for the first time.

  And it was the same for Alex. We were scared at first. We both said, "Wait a minute, what is this?" But then we both said, "Why not? Why shouldn't it be?" The trouble is we should have said the same thing to you two, rather than letting Bob find out the way he did.'

  Sarah put her hand on his. 'Andy, we weren't there for you. We were wrapped up in ourselves and in our new baby. Maybe if you had said something, we wouldn't have been in the frame of mind to listen, and we'd have given you the wrong answer.'

  `So what's the right answer, Sarah?'

  As far as I'm concerned, whether you're asking me as Alex's stepmother or as your friend, it's that it's for you and she to run your own lives, and that neither Bob nor I have the right to interfere in them, even if we choose. If you ask me what I hope for, I hope that you two can work it out, because — apart from us — I've never known two people who were as right for each other.'

  She drained her glass, and put it down on the table. 'But enough. Give me back my baby, and go and do your male bonding thing. To the pub, both of you. Just don't wake this fella by rolling in drunk!'

  `Don't worry, love,' said Bob. 'I've got a big day tomorrow. I couldn't let my captain down by turning up on the tee with a bad head.' He rose from the table and beckoned Andy to follow.

  'Come on, son. Let's see what the nightlife's like in Gullane these days.'

  They made their way together past the three cars parked on the grass in front of the cottage, along the twisting path to the road then down the sloping Goose Green towards the village's main street. As they walked, Bob described his golf, fulsomely, and that of Atkinson. The man plays the game like God. In fact, when he stands up on that tee he thinks he is God, with complete power over the ball. When I'm up there with the guy, in front of the crowd, every so often I have to pinch myself mentally, to reassure me that it's real. But every so often I'll remember what got me there in the first place, and what Ali and you and the troops are investigating while I'm out there doing my best for Michael. This has been the most bizarre week of my life, and I've a feeling that there's more weirdness to happen yet.'

  Aye,' said Martin. 'It would be nice if we could wrap things up tomorrow by finding Andrews and having our scientists help us complete a nice tight case against him and Morton.'

  Only if they're gu
ilty, son, only then.'

  `Come on, let's see how the beer is in the Golf.'

  The clock on the wall above the bakery showed, accurately for once, that it was just short of 10 p.m., as Skinner led Martin along to the old Golf Inn Hotel, set slightly back from the rest of the buildings on the Main Street. The public bar was at its busiest as they entered. Skinner looked around and saw several familiar faces, some friends of long standing. 'Hi, Tony, John.'

  He returned the greetings of two of them as he and Andy wedged themselves into a space at the end of the small bar, their backs to the door. They studied the list of the evening's guest ales on tap, but decided to stick to the heavy beer for which the village pub was renowned.

  As they took their first mouthfuls, Andy dug Bob gently in the ribs. 'Hey, I'm sorry for taking that swing at you the other day. I don't know what came over me. All of a sudden your chin was there, and I just couldn't stop myself. Afterwards, well, it was just OK again, but I'll never know what made me do it.'

  `Cathartic, Sarah would say,' muttered Bob, quietly. 'It was something you needed to do, something I needed you to do, I think, for everything to be squared away between us. You were well entitled. That morning I behaved like an absolute collar and front, as a little English chum of mine would say. I've never acted like that in my life before, without judgement or reason.'

  Oh no? What about that time with that guy, when Alex was in danger?'

  Bob stood silent for a few seconds. 'No,' he said, eventually. `Not even then.'

  `Yes, but maybe you thought that she was in danger again. You had just finished a stressful investigation and taken a real hammering in the process. I've thought about it too. I reckon that you had a sort of post-traumatic reaction, and that all sorts of irrational things went through your mind.'

  `Snap! That's what Sarah thinks, too. I guess I'll just have to buy it as a theory. Best if I do.