Skinner’s round bs-4

by Quintin Jardine

  Of course, pinching M'tebe's old man wasn't part of your grand design,' said Skinner as they walked. 'I wasn't really interested in who did that, until one of the Aussies let something slip.

  The Reverend was smarter than they expected. Just before he escaped, one of them used the name, "RA". At first, I assumed he meant Richard Andrews, but when all the other pieces fell into place, I realised that he didn't. He was talking about Rick Atkinson.

  `That's when you shattered my last illusions about honour and the nobility of the human spirit, Darren. I mean, multiple murder's one thing,' he said, his tone filled with ironic sadness, `but fixing a golf tournament, for God's sake! How could you?'

  He shook his head and sighed, almost theatrically. 'Poor Oliver, poor Bravo. Reminds me of the old saying, about there being no greater love than that of the man who'd lay down the lives of his friends to save his own!'

  Skinner's ball was indeed awaiting him on the narrow green as he crested the rise, even if it was fifty feet from the hole. He lined it up, thinking only of distance, and rolled it up, stopping it two feet to the right of the hole to secure, to his inner joy, his thirteenth par.

  `So there we are, Darren,' he said, walking to the fourteenth, a relatively gentle 414-yard par-four, designed by the course architect to imbue a false sense of security into the unwary before the tigerish finishing holes. Two enemies dead, the tournament in your hands, the police protecting your life and limb, and Mike Morton, your last target, in deep trouble with us.

  `But that gives you a problem. We're watching Morton like a hawk, in case Richard Andrews tries to make contact with him. Ironic, isn't it, we're treating Morton as a murder suspect, and by doing so we're protecting him from the real killers.'

  He laughed as they stepped out on to the tee. Atkinson looked away from him down the fairway. He took his driver from McGuire and sent the ball an effortless 290 yards. Skinner did his best to copy the ease and smoothness of his swing, and was rewarded by a straight drive which carried around 240 yards but pulled up sharply on the fairway, running on only a further ten yards.

  `You know,' said Skinner, suddenly serious, as they headed off once more, 'I'll have Mike Morton on my conscience for as long as I live. If I had kept him under surveillance, he'd still be alive. I couldn't see the whole picture at that time, yet it should have occurred to me that if Morton wasn't behind the two murders, and the attack on you, then he might easily be a target himself. But he shot his mouth off at me yesterday afternoon, and I got annoyed. I still wanted to speak to Andrews, if only to close off that line of enquiry, so I gave Morton twenty-four hours without cover to produce him, and the threat of what would happen if he didn't. But in truth, the poor bugger genuinely didn't know where Andrews was!'

  He paused, and looked sideways at Atkinson again. 'You must have thought all your Christmases had come at once, when you saw my people drive away from Bracklands. One day to go, and a clear shot at Morton, if you can get him on his own.'

  When they reached it, Skinner's ball was sitting up nicely for his next shot. Once more, the flag was protected by a deep bunker, making a direct approach hazardous, and so he hit his five-iron instead carefully to the wide area of open green to the right. Even Atkinson fought shy of a direct attack on the flag, landing his soft eight-iron twenty feet away.

  It turns out to be pretty easy. Rick phones Morton, doesn't he? He tells him he wants to meet him in secret, last night. Maybe he says that he wants to talk to him about his company and yours co-operating now that Masur's out of the way.' Skinner was looking closely at Atkinson as he spoke. Beneath the mask of impassivity, he thought that he detected the faintest twitch of an eyebrow.

  `Morton agrees to meet him. He says he'll skip the dinner. Rick says, "Good, let's meet where no one'll interrupt us. How about on top of Witches' Hill, just after dark?" Morton says OK, and he's a dead man.'

  Skinner lined up his putt, lagging it almost perfectly once more, leaving himself an eighteen-inch tap-in. Atkinson stalked his putt like a tiger, in pursuit of his seventh birdie, but once again found only the lip of the hole.

  It was only when I stood on the top of that hill this morning, looking at what was left of Morton that the whole thing fell into place,' said Skinner as they walked from the green. 'I thought about his "doppelganger" remark, I thought about Henry's case of mistaken identity, I thought about the second note, and I knew right then what I should have worked out yesterday. If I had, I'd have saved Morton's life.

  It takes a very special sort of person to plan and to do what your brother Rick did to Morton'

  The policeman's conversational tone had gone, and his voice was hard and cold. 'I've only ever met one other man who could have done that. I breathed a sigh of genuine relief when he died. But now I've met two more like him.

  `To lure him up there; to ambush him; to handcuff him to a tree; to pile the wood around him; to set fire to it; to stuff his handkerchief into his mouth to choke off his screams. And then, I guess, to watch him, as he writhed against the flames, until you were quite sure the job was done.

  `Yes, you're very special guys, you Atkinsons. I'm looking forward to meeting you side by side.'

  They had reached the fifteenth tee, 195 yards away from its small green, which sloped away so that only the top of the flag could be seen. Although only a par-three, it had proved the most difficult hole on the course.

  `So how about it, Darren?' said Skinner, very quietly, so that only he and Atkinson could hear. 'This has been one-way traffic so far. I've shown you what I can see with my detective's vision. It's all logical, and to me it's all unanswerable truth, and maybe I can even prove it. So what d'you say? Underneath all that calm, have I got to you, you ruthless, murderous bastard?'

  The golfer turned to him, with the animal look on his face once more. 'Sure Bob. I'm just scared helpless. Let me show you how scared I am.'

  He turned and called to McGuire, the professional smile brought back as quickly as it had been banished. Four-iron, please, Mario.'

  He took the club from McGuire, and hit a shot so audacious that even Skinner was amazed.

  Rather than playing the hole in the only way which seemed possible, by hitting safely to the back of the green and settling for two safe putts, he fired in a shot on a lower trajectory. The backspin seemed to make the ball sizzle off the club-face. The crowd sucked in its collective breath in suspense as it zoomed towards the target, to pitch, clearly, above the flag. Suddenly the gallery clustered on the viewing platform behind the green, roared its applause. `Bugger,' said Atkinson quietly, after a few seconds. 'It hasn't gone in, they're not jumping high enough!'

  Through the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth, Bob Skinner, the rest of the onlookers, and the television audience across Europe, saw a display which was to be ranked by commentators as the finest burst of tournament golf ever played. Atkinson seemed to select shots which looked impossible, then to execute each one perfectly. The ten-inch birdie putt at the fifteenth was followed on the next hole by two six-iron shots, one from the tee, the next to within a yard of the flag. The 527-yard seventeenth was humbled by an impossibly long drive, a five-iron and a six-foot putt for an eagle, taking the imperious champion to ten under par.

  In the face of this awesome, intimidating display, Skinner kept his concentration. He felt himself inspired by the unspoken challenge of this chilling man, and played the best golf of his own life, extending his string of successive pars to what was for him an unprecedented seventeen.

  At last they stood together on the eighteenth tee. 'Looks like you're in the money, Bob,' said Atkinson, and Skinner alone caught the trace of mockery in his voice. 'A par up the last for a sixty-two, and this finishing hole; I mean it really isn't worthy of me.' He looked down the 472-yard par-four hole. The southern side of the Truth Loch made a jagged bite into the fairway, intimidating to Skinner. From the championship tee, anyone taking a direct line to the flag had to carry his drive 290 yards over water to gain the reward of a
mid-iron approach. Nearer the tee to the left there was a second landing area, allowing the professionals a safer option of hitting a two-iron or three-wood. Closer still there was a third section of fairway which required only a 180-yard carry but left a second shot of around 300 yards to the green.

  `You went on about me rubbishing the course, Bob, and by and large you're right. All things considered, most of it is pretty good. But this hole really is too easy for me. All I have to do is hit over the water and it's at my mercy.

  `Well, not for me. If O'Malley can't design a decent finish for me, I'll create my own challenge.'

  I understand,' said Skinner. 'There's the rest of us, and there's you, Darren, or at least you and Rick. That's how you see life, isn't it?'

  Atkinson looked at him, and Skinner caught in his eyes, as well as the deadly ruthlessness, something which he had seen only once before in his life, an arrogance, a belief in personal infallibility so strong that it seemed to engulf mere fanaticism and carry on to something beyond. 'Have it as you will,' he said.

  He called out to McGuire. 'Four-iron, please, Mario.' The knowledgeable crowd murmured in surprise. Skinner, who had been doing his best all week to ignore the spectators' presence, looked at them over his shoulder, and saw for the first time among them, his daughter. A slight frown creased Alex's forehead.

  He turned back to watch Atkinson, feeling on his face the first fat drops of the rain which had been threatening all afternoon. 'First landing area, Bob,' said the golfer quietly. He hit an easy gentle shot which soared high over the water to pitch softly in the centre of the first promontory. 'There, that leaves me three hundred to the green, and a bunker in line with the flag. No one could get on in two from there. A hundred quid says I get a birdie. Got the bottle for that, Mr Skinner?'

  `You're on,' said the policeman, evenly. 'Neil, my driver please.' He lined up on the central landing area, swung smoothly and struck the ball as cleanly as he could. The distance across the water was 230 yards, but the adrenaline was coursing through his body and the ball cleared it easily. Its leftto-right fade was accentuated by a friendly bounce, leaving him around 190 yards to the green.

  As Skinner walked from the tee, pulling on his new all-weather garment, Atkinson fell into step beside him. 'You know, Bob,' he said, with undisguised mockery. 'This story you've told me, it's really good. It flows along nicely, I have to admit. But a story is all it will ever be,

  'cause it's got a couple of loose bricks.

  “For openers, I remember quite well meeting that dozy greenkeeper — on Monday — and giving him an autograph. I was heading off to practice and I signed it in a hurry. Golfers are notorious among collectors; half the autographs we do are written on the march, so no two signatures look the same… apart from those on cheques. That's how it was with Webb.'

  At least that's what you'll say in court,' said Skinner, as they walked in step around the first curve of the Truth Loch.

  Exactly! And you know better than I do what a good QC will do to Hughie Webb in cross-examination. After five minutes he won't be able to swear what month it was let alone what day of the week. I don't fancy your star witness in the White case, mate.

  `Tell you something else. I don't see Susan Kinture standing up in court. I'd have to say that she came to my room…' He looked at Skinner in mock outrage. 'My hostess, for God's sake

  … climbed straight into my bed, muttered something about not having had any for years, and set about me. I'd have to say that I told her next day that if she ever did anything like that again, I'd go straight to Hector.'

  He slowed, as they approached his ball. 'Those are two problems you've got. Here's another.

  Masur only decided at the last minute to walk back to Bracklands, after he and Morton had their second barney. How the hell could Rick have known about that? There are a few claims of empathy in twins; you know, one experiencing the other's pain even when they're miles apart, but nobody in his right mind's going to suggest that they're telepathic.'

  He stopped beside his ball, and knelt down to look at its lie on the soft, lush, velvety grass.

  'Watch this, Mr Policeman,' he said, standing up. 'Driver, please, Mario.' McGuire looked at him in surprise, but Atkinson nodded in confirmation and held out his hand, snapping his fingers. Behind them the crowd murmured as they saw the white-bibbed policeman caddy remove the cover from the longest club in the bag, notoriously uncontrollable even from the best of positions on the fairway. Atkinson swung the driver experimentally.

  Standing behind the ball he looked down the line of the 300-yard shot which faced him, nodding to himself as he planned it.

  Skinner could picture the look in his eyes as he stepped up to address his ball, ignoring the rain, which was growing heavier by the minute. He swung with an unimaginable combination of power and finesse, thundering it away yet leaving the grass unmarked. The Titleist soared in its early flight out over the loch, heading, it seemed, far to the right of its target. Then, with a curve which defied gravity, it drew unerringly back in towards the green, pitching first on the fringe, then leaping forward to the flag. Skinner strained his eyes against the gloom of the afternoon, but was certain that he saw the ball come to a dead stop on its second bounce, looking for all the world to lie on the very edge of the hole.

  The view of the spectators behind the rope barrier was hampered by the bunker which guarded the green, and by the distance itself. Some cheered, but others stayed silent, not seeing where the shot had finished, thinking perhaps that it had gone awry. In the stands beside the clubhouse there was a moment of stunned silence, as the crowds there in the distance took in the sheer enormity of Atkinson's blow. And then, as one, they leaped to their feet, some waving programmes or hats. It took a moment for the sound to travel back down the fairway, and then it reached them, crashing over them like a wave.

  The champion turned back to the policeman. 'Impossible shot that, wasn't it? To bend a ball like that with a driver, to hit it that far, and then to pull it up with backspin. You're right, Bob.

  There's the rest, and there's me.

  A hundred quid, I reckon.'

  'It'll be worth it,' said Skinner, 'for that shot. But what a pity that you don't keep your power-lust for the golf course. What a pity that you see people as you see golf balls, to be manipulated, and crushed when necessary, with the same level of feeling.'

  They walked on, towards the next landing area, and Skinner's ball. 'Telepathy, Darren, you said earlier. Almost, but not quite. You ask me how Rick knew that Masur would be walking back alone to Bracklands, in the dark, and vulnerable?

  `Dead simple, really. You've both got mobile phones. The latest digital GSM model by Motorola. They've got numbers in series, and they were supplied by a company in the South of England. They work internationally, so wherever you are, you can talk to each other. It is telepathy of a sort. One of you has a thought, and the other can share it seconds later.

  `Remember the night of the PGA dinner? You were embarrassed when your phone rang.

  Embarrassed! You almost swallowed your tongue. That was Rick, calling you by mistake.

  That's not a guess. I know it. I've checked, you see. This is your world, Darren, but I've got mine, and there I can do things that you couldn't imagine.

  I know Rick called you during the dinner. I know you called him afterwards. I know you called him last night, after my detectives had left Bracklands. I know that he called Morton just a couple of minutes after that. If I'd had a wee bit more warning, I'd even know for sure what he said, and what you said to him. But the jigsaw didn't fit in time for me to do that.'

  They arrived at the detective's ball. He looked down the line to the green. The flag was guarded by the encroaching bunker but, from the line of Atkinson's shot, he knew that the hole was cut well back from it. ' "Play the card, not the course", you told me. Best golfing advice I've ever had, and I'll never forget it. Let's see if I can finish in style. Eighteen straight pars and Skinner's round will be t
he best he's ever played.

  `Five-wood, please Neil.' Mcllhenney gave him the club, with a brief smile of encouragement. He lined up his shot, gathered his breath and his concentration and hit it, high and handsome as he had intended down the line of the flag over the bunker and to the back of the green. The applause of the crowd was less rapturous than for Atkinson's shot, but it was warm nonetheless. His chest swelled with pride. The champion joined him and they walked together towards the green, under the eerie, threatening, darkening skies, in the rain the intensity of which was gathering slowly but inexorably, to the breaking point of the storm ahead.

  I'll fill in the last part now, will I?' said Skinner. 'Where has Rick been all this week, to have been able to do all these things, to react as swiftly as he did to your two telephone calls, to take advantage of sudden opportunities to remove the only two guys who stood in the way of your ambition to make DRA Management the Number One force in world golf, with the Number One player at its head?

  Was he booked into a hotel near here? Hardly, not looking like he does, among all these golf fans.' He shook his head, and took from his back pocket a small white card, on which a few lines were scrawled.

  On August 1, a Winnebago mobile home — the compact version, not one of the big ostentatious jobs that stand out a mile — was registered in the name of DRA Management, number P 325 QRC. These things are popular among golfers, especially those who don't have wives. Arthur Highfield reckons this new one must be your fifth.

  `Before that, last March in fact, a Yamaha trail bike, 125 cc, was registered in the name of Reginald Atkinson, number N 763 LRC. Arthur thought he remembered seeing a bike mounted on the back of your last camper vehicle.

  One of my guys got these numbers this morning through the PNC. Then he had calls made to all the caravan sites. We struck it lucky at Yellowcraig, outside Dirleton. It isn't a commercial site: the local Ranger Service looks after it, and the sort of people who go there tend to wear green wellies rather than golf shoes. The warden we spoke to remembers the vehicle. There's no register kept there, but his description matches the one we've got.