Skinner's ordeal bs-5

by Quintin Jardine

  'It means this isn't a false alarm at least,' said Arrow. 'She wouldn't take the cat to Sainsbury's.'

  As they watched, the woman glanced quickly up and down the street, then strode down the path, stepping over her low stone wall rather than opening the gate, and walked off down the pavement, away from their position.

  Mcllhenney made to start the car, but Arrow stopped him. `Wait a bit. There are garages round behind the houses. Look, she's just turned into the access road. She's gone for the Mazda.'

  `Hope we can keep up with it.'

  `No problem. She won't want to be stopped for speeding. And anyway, those things aren't as quick as they look.'

  They waited and watched the mouth of the access road, with their car engine running. Less than two minutes later, a red car Pulled out, and turned right, towards the main road.

  Mcllhenney put the car in gear. 'No!' said Arrow. 'That wasn't her. That was a Golf CTi.

  There's more than one garage round there.'

  I hope she hasn't changed cars,' growled Mcllhenney.

  But at once, his fears were put at rest. A blue metallic two-seater, with black hard-top, swung out of the access road and followed the path of the Golf.

  Okay,' said Donaldson, 'that's her.'

  The Sergeant pulled their borrowed Peugeot away from thekerb. 'Want to start a book on where she's off to?' he asked. `Could be Aldershot,' said the DCI, `to pick up her boyfriend.' `Don't see it,' Mcllhenney chuckled.

  `Why not?'

  `Because that's a two-seater. If she's picking up young Short Wave, she'd have to put fucking Tigger in the boot!'

  I don't see it being Aldershot either,' said Arrow, as they followed her through a sweeping right-hand curve. 'She'd have headed south for the M3 back there if that was the case.

  She's taking us over Putney Bridge. That probably means Hammersmith and the M4.'

  And where will that take us?'

  `Depends. If she turns on to the M25 it could take us anywhere.'

  `Great,' said Mcllhenney, keeping two vehicles between their car and the Mazda as it pulled up at a red traffic light. 'I like a mystery tour.

  I remember a couple of years ago, Maggie and Mario were on an observation just like this. They got taken on a cross-country chase. The folk they were chasing went to ground in a house by the seaside in Fife, right on the beach. Brian Mackie and I were sent up to do the overnight watch. We spent the night freezing our balls off in the sand-dunes, while Maggie and Mario got to shack up in the local hotel. Bloody magic, it was. The Thin Man and I caught our deaths of cold, but those two have never looked back since.'

  They headed along Fulham Palace Road, picking up the A4 in Hammersmith as Arrow had forecast. The traffic was light as they hit the motorway, but sufficiently thick for Mcllhenney to maintain a concealing curtain of vehicles between Ariadne Tucker and her pursuers as they matched her gathering speed.

  Before long they came to the signs for the M25. 'Place your bets, gentlemen: said Mcllhenney. 'I'll have a quid on the M25.'

  `No bet,' said Arrow, 'that's where my money is. I'm hoping she's heading for Derbyshire.

  Then I can call in on my Aunt Ivy.'

  Okay,' said Donaldson, exasperated, 'I'll cover those. I say she stays on the M4.'

  A minute later the DCI handed over two pound coins, as the Mazda swung on to the M25, heading north.

  `Chance to get your money back, Dave,' Arrow laughed. `She's got four choices here: M40 and the Midlands, M l and the North, or M11 for Buckinghamshire and East Anglia.'

  `What's the fourth choice?'

  `Drive in circles round the M25 all fookin' weekend.' The DCI laughed. 'Okay, I'll take the M 11. Neil?'

  `Give me the MI.'

  `Fair enough,' said the soldier. 'I'll take what's left. M40: Three minutes and three miles later he pocketed another two pounds.

  `Right,' he grinned. 'Next bet. Where's she going to turn off?' `Bugger off!' roared the two Scots, in unison.

  As it transpired, Ariadne turned off at Oxford, around half an hour later. She took the A40, skirting the north of the City of Spires, and heading on towards Witney. 'Nice countryside this,' said Mcllhenney, keeping her in sight, but in the distance on the single carriageway.

  It'll get nicer,' said Arrow. His companions looked at him, puzzled.

  She bypassed Witney, where the road became dual for a few miles, and was sign-posted for Burford and Cheltenham. 'Oh Christ!' said Mcllhenney. 'I've got a bad feeling about this

  There's a jump meeting on at Cheltenham today. I think they're going to the bloody races!'

  For a few minutes, even Arrow's confidence was dented until, with barely any warning, the Mazda, 300 yards ahead, turned right off the A40 into Burford.

  Mcllhenney accelerated to the turn and swung on to the dramatic, completely unexpected downward sloping main street of the Oxfordshire market town. He stared ahead. The road was empty. 'Where is she?' he snarled, thumping the steering wheel with one hand.

  `Take that left turn down there,' said Donaldson, pointing. I think I just caught her tail as she turned in.' Mcllhenney followed his direction. The road went nowhere but to a supermarket. On the far side of its car park, they saw Ariadne Tucker hurrying towards the entrance.

  `Shopping,' laughed Arrow, as Mcllhenney found a bay near the entrance. 'She's doing her fookin' shopping! We'll be here for an hour, anyway.' He glanced at his watch, which showed 9.13 a.m.

  He was wrong, by fifty-nine minutes. Only Donaldson saw her as she emerged through the automatic door, still walking briskly, but no longer rushing. There was a faint smile on her face. He dug Mcllhenney in the ribs and called to Arrow. 'Hey, that was quick: she's out.

  D'you think it was her turn to buy the condoms?'

  Mcllhenney eased out of the car park, following her but hanging back until he saw that she was turning left, heading down the main street once more. He slipped out of the junction, very slowly, driving as if he were a tourist, out early to beat the weekend traffic.

  At the foot of the hill there was a set of traffic lights. The three pursuers saw the Mazda go through on green. As they made to follow on the amber, a tractor pulled out of an alleyway and blocked their path, just as the light turned to red.

  Mcllhenney exploded. 'You stupid bastard!' he shouted through his side-window, red-faced and waving his fist. The tractor driver was a young man, in his early twenties. He glared back at Mcllhenney and dismounted from his cab. He seemed to climb out in stages. He was huge, at least six feet five, and built out of slabs of something very muscular.

  He advanced on the Peugeot. 'Who are you calling-'

  As Donaldson held the Sergeant's arm to restrain him, Arrow jumped out of the back seat and stepped up to the giant. They made a ludicrous sight, the little soldier gazing up at the vast young farmer, at least a foot taller than he.

  `You,' he said clearly and loud enough for the pedestrians on either side of the road to hear. 'He's calling you a stupid bastard. You pulled right out in front of us there, without anything like a signal.' The ruddy young man glowered down at him. Now, sunshine, you're going to get back in your cab and move out of our way. If you don't, I'm going to leave you in a bloody 'eap by the roadside and shift it myself.'

  The farmer laughed at him.

  `Listen, mate,' said Arrow, crisply and evenly, in his finest Derbyshire, holding the man with a hard unblinking stare. 'This is your last warning. Move it or you won't be moving anything for about a month. And think on this. If someone my size says that to someone your size, it means only one thing. 'E can fookin' well live up to it! Get me?' To emphasise his point, he stabbed the hulk in the midsection, with the straight fingers of his right hand.

  The giant gasped and went pale. He bent over slightly, as if he was about to vomit. He looked at his tiny tormentor again, then turned, and without another word, got in and reversed tractor off the road.

  As Arrow climbed into the back of the car, Mcllhenney drove through the green light.
r />   'Thanks, Captain A,' said Mcllhenney, `You saved that boy a right good tankin' there. I'd never have let him off as easy as that.' He smiled at Arrow in the rearview mirror,

  `Never shout, Neil,' the soldier replied in a quiet emotionless voice, which brought a sudden chill into the car. 'Just tell them what you want, and show them what'll happen if they don't do it. Like a girlfriend of mine used to say, and like that lad just found out, size doesn't mean a thing. Now let's get Ariadne.'

  Ahead of them, the road forked, becoming to the left the A424 to Stow-on-the-Wold, and to the right, the A361 to Chipping Norton. The Mazda was nowhere to be seen.

  `Take a right,' said Arrow.

  `You know where she's going?' asked Donaldson.

  I do now.'

  From Burford, they had run straight into a village called Fulbrook. 'Right again,' said Arrow. Mcllhenney obeyed.

  The road grew narrow as soon as they turned on to it, with barely room for two cars.

  Mcllhenney drove slowly and carefully along its twists. High hedgerows loomed on either side, until after almost a mile, they began to widen out and the searchers came to a small church, set on sloping ground to their right with a small parking area facing it.

  `Pull in there,' the soldier ordered.

  `What is this place?' asked Donaldson.

  `Remember I told you that Richards' father was a vicar? When he retired he bought a cottage here, and when he died, he left it to his son.

  `You bugger,' said Mcllhenney. 'You knew that when you took that bet off us on the M40!'

  'Aye, but I couldn't be certain! Right, I'm going to see what's what. I'll wander into the church like a tourist. I should be able to see the village from here.'

  He stepped out of the car, crossed the narrow road, and trotted up the few stone steps which led to the churchyard. The building itself was tiny, a place of worship dating from baronial days, best known in modern times for the graves of a famous literary family which lay around it.

  Arrow wandered idly among the famous headstones, pretending to make notes with a pencil in a little book which he had produced from a pocket of his Barbour jacket. But all the while he was looking across at the hamlet of Swinbrook. There were barely a dozen cottages there, gathered round a little pond, which the narrow road skirted.

  Four cars were parked on the grass on the other side of the water. A Suzuki Vitara stood off to the right, not far from a battered Austin Maestro. Ariadne Tucker's Mazda sat away to the left against a fence, drawn up as if in a rank behind a silver Renault. Beyond the two vehicles was a wide thatched cottage, with two attic windows, built in yellow Cotswold stone. A vine grew around and over the door. Arrow guessed that in the summer, it might bear blue clematis flowers.

  Two chimney stacks rose up from the roof, and from each one, thick black smoke spiralled, as if from fires newly lit in cold hearths. He smiled quietly to himself and made his way, slowly and idly, back to the Peugeot.

  `They're here,' he said, as he climbed in. 'It looks as if he beat her to it, although not by much. Two fires kindled; that's their smoke climbing.' He pointed above the hedgerow which bounded the parking place. 'One in the living room, one in the bedroom, I'd guess.

  His car's parked outside, and hers is behind it, jamming it in.'

  `Should we do a DVLC check on the other car?' asked Donaldson.

  I couldn't see the number. Anyway, what's the point?' He paused, and looked at his companions. 'Okay, policemen. What do we do? Go straight in, or give them half an hour, just for devilment, and catch them on the job?'

  `We've done all we've been ordered to do so far, and it seems as if we've got a result,' said the DCI. 'Before we do anything else, I'd better call Andy Martin and take orders from him… But I'm like you. I can't wait to catch the Widow Noble sharing her grief!'

  EIGHTY

  The Lakeland mountains loomed high around Seatoller, as Andy Martin, Sammy Pye and John Swift sat in their car. Despite Arrow's assumption at the briefing the evening before, they were a long way from the seaside.

  Sawyer's home was in a village in the heart of the Lake District, past the southern tip of Derwent Water, overlooked by Great Gable and Glaramara, and beyond by towering Scafell Pike. The house was built of dark stone, almost the colour of the slate which formed its roof. It was an unimpressive rectangular villa, with a large garage outbuilding set well back from the road.

  Martin checked his watch, and looked behind him. In the back seat, beside Swift, sat a Superintendent from the Cumbrian Force. The very sight of his thick serge uniform made the Scot begin to itch. For a few months, earlier that year, he had worn something similar, and had hated every moment of it.

  It's nine o'clock,' he said. 'Ready to go?'

  Superintendent Hawes nodded. 'Yes.' He waved a piece of paper in the air. 'I've got the warrant.'

  Okay, on you go, Sammy.'

  Detective Constable Pye slipped the idling Mondeo into gear and drove straight into and up the broad driveway of the villa. He noticed as he passed the sign at the gate that it was named Aspatria. A second vehicle carrying five uniformed officers, a Sergeant and four Constables, followed behind him. The car wheels crunching through the grey gravel path announced their arrival.

  Chief Superintendent Martin stepped out of the front seat, with his Cumbrian colleague by his side, and pulled the handle of what he took for the doorbell. A boom sounded inside the house.

  The woman who opened the door was in her early thirties. She was wearing a white top and a red skirt, to which a small child clung. 'Mrs Sawyer?' enquired Superintendent Hawes. She nodded, her eyes widening with fear as she saw the uniform and the men beyond.

  Is your husband at home?'

  `Yes, he is!' The man's voice came from behind them, aggressively. They turned and saw him there, in the centre of the drive, wiping grubby hands on his overalls. He was of medium height, but strongly built, with greasy black hair. He looked to be around five years older than his wife. The gravel scrunched under his Timberland boots as he advanced towards them, purposefully.

  `Mr Sawyer, I am Superintendent Hawes, from Carlisle,' began the uniformed officer. 'I have a warrant, granted by a magistrate, to search these premises. My colleagues here, Chief Superintendent Martin and DC Pye, are from Edinburgh and Mr Swift is from London. Mr Martin will explain the circumstances.'

  `Search warrant?' Bryn Sawyer boomed. 'I thought you'd be here sooner or later, but to come ready armed with a search warrant, that's a bit heavy-handed. I think I'll call my lawyer.'

  I've got no objection to that,' said Andy Martin. 'In fact, I'd advise it. So call him by all means. We'll proceed with our search right away, but if you wish, I'll hold my questions until he arrives.'

  Sawyer shook his head. 'No, let's hear what you've got to say first. It isn't as if I've got anything to hide.'

  'But you were expecting us?'

  `Yes, after that letter of mine to Davey, I suppose I was. Look, come on in here. Marian, take the kid out of the way, for God's sake.' He led the way into the house, and into a study, off the hall. Martin and Swift followed, while Hawes instructed his officers on the procedure of the search.

  `That letter,' said the Chief Superintendent. 'Just bloody stupid, or a genuine threat, warning of consequences for Davey: which was it?'

  `Come on,' said Sawyer, concern showing through his belligerence for the first time.

  'Where was the threat?'

  `You warned him that if your company had to go into liquidation, he'd be punished. Now you've got a Receiver in and Davey's dead'

  `Yes, but hold on a minute. He's an administrative Receiver, and I asked for him. I'm trying to recapitalise and restructure the business, to give me time to find new markets for our technology. As it is, I think I may have cracked it. I had a phone call from the MOD yesterday. Apparently Reaper bit the dust with Davey.'

  `Who bit the dust himself,' said Martin evenly, 'as your letter promised, four days after your Receiver moved in. Surely in those
circumstances, you have to expect us to take your threat just a wee bit bloody seriously.'

  He sat on the edge of Sawyer's desk. 'Let me ask you something. What did you feel when you knew that Davey was dead?'

  The man looked up at him, and smiled savagely. 'Immense satisfaction; he said. Suddenly, guilt came into his face as if he had willed it there. 'Sorrow for the other people on board,' he added, 'but sheer delight that he had bought it. That bastard set out to ruin me, and my family. All his experts, every one of them, said to me, "Congratulations, Bryn, the Breakspear missile is world-beater," then he turns round and gives the contract to a piece of shit that couldn't hit a London bus. Let me ask you something, gentlemen. Don't you think the man was corrupt?'

  `We know he was,' said Swift, `… now. But what the hell difference does that make? If every businessman who loses on a contract killed the guy who awarded it to someone else, we'd bloody soon run out of purchasers.'

  Sawyer shook his black, tousled head. 'Just hold on a minute. I said I was glad the shit was dead. I didn't admit to killing him.'

  `But you do admit to threatening to kill him, in that letter: said Martin.

  `No, I said I'd punish him. I meant that if it came to it I was going to expose him in the media, or something.'

  `That's a bit tame for a man like you, isn't it? I mean, your business is making complex weapons of destruction. The one that killed Davey was a pretty simple device. And in the process you do have access to explosives, don't you?' The man nodded, slowly.

  `Mr Sawyer, where were you on Thursday of last week, and last Friday morning?'

  For the first time there was silence. 'Come on,' said Martin, it'll be checkable. And until you answer, I'm not going to let you see your wife, so you can cook up an alibi.'

  I was in London,' he said reluctantly, with resignation. `Doing what?'

  I had a meeting last Thursday evening with the Australian Military attache. They're shopping for missiles. It turned into dinner and went on till midnight. Next morning I got up and went home.'