Skinner's Festival

by Quintin Jardine

  vulnerable to love. Such a pity, because he turned out to be my one weakness too.’

  For a moment Ariel paused, her boasting turned to wistfulness. If it had worked, I was going to stay here, not leave with Ingemar. I could have married Andy. How’s that for funny. But

  when I had to let Alex see me last night, I lost that chance.’

  Ariel, enough. We have to go.’ For the first time, anxiety showed in Ingo.

  She nodded. 'Yes, we must. So here is he deal. Bob. We leave the ladies here. But we take you. Just you. Not your little friend – he’s the soldier Andy mentioned, I imagine – we couldn’t handle you both in that little plane. And we take our prizes here, of course – the Crown, the Sceptre and he Sword. We have a delivery to make to our client.

  'You.’ She turned to Arrow. 'Fetch the bags from the car and load them into the plane. Then we take off – and you make sure there is no attempt to stop us. Bob, you take your chance at the other end. Now throw down your gun. Let’s get moving!’

  Arrow looked across to Skinner, who nodded to him, and at the same time dropped his Browning on the ground. The little soldier moved past Sarah and Ariel, behind the car, and took the holdalls from the boot. He carried them across to the hangar, shoving its doors further apart with his shoulders, and placed them on one of the two rear seats of the plane.

  That’s good,’ said Ariel. 'That’s the most important part. Now, Bob, you get on board, please.’

  Skinner shook his head. 'Not till the girls and Adam are free and clear.’

  'Oh no, Adam is not going anywhere.’ Barely looking to take aim, she snapped off a single shot. Arrow crumpled and went down.

  'So that just leaves the five of us. Now, do you get on that plane or … ?’ She stopped and shrugged her shoulders, impatiently.

  'But why bother? It’s much easier if we just kill the lot of you. Ingemar. I’ll shoot the women. You take Skinner – now!’

  As she called to her brother, she pushed Sarah away from her and levelled her gun at her chest. The shot was still cracking all around the airfield, even as she fell.

  NINETY-NINE

  Andy Martin lay on the damp grass. He saw the car’s approaching headlights, and saw it swing to a halt with its beams shining into the hangar. He saw the muzzle-flash and even at that distance, heard the sharp sound as Ingo dispatched the driver. He saw him pull Alex from the car. He saw the eye-to-eye, gun-to-gun stalemate between Skinner and the Swede.

  And then he saw Sarah’s head and shoulders emerge from the far side of the car, and saw the profile of the woman who followed, pushing her forward but staying close, holding

  something to her side. It was the profile he had come to know so well, in the moonlight

  not so long before, but different somehow. The truth came to him in a flash, and his heart sank. He had taken the devil into his bed and into his heart, in the guise and the garb of an angel.

  He watched, helpless. Seeing her lips move, he strained to hear what she said, but of course he was too far away. He saw Arrow take the bags from the car and carry them into

  the hangar. He started in horror as she shot him down. And then, still through the telescopic sight of the sniper’s rifle which Skinner had taken earlier from Brian Mackie, he saw her

  push Sarah away from her, and knew instantly what she was about to do.

  Tears flooded his contact lens, but only in the second after he pulled the trigger.

  ONE HUNDRED

  Ariel – who had been Andy’s beloved Julia – twisted like a corkscrew as the heavy rifle bullet tore through her. Ingo looked across in horror as his sister fell. His gun, which

  had been swinging towards Skinner, wavered aimlessly for a moment . . . And in that moment Skinner was upon him. Not the affable if inquisitive Skinner whom he had met before as Alex’s Pops. This was another Skinner: the cold, deadly Skinner he had glimpsed a few minutes earlier. The executioner Skinner, with no mercy in his eyes.

  He felt his gun hand immobilised as an immensely strong forearm knocked it outwards and upwards. He felt his arm twisted and a hard hand clamping across his throat, setting his jaw at an angle. He felt no more after that, but he heard, crashing through his brain, a terrible thunder as the heel of Skinner’s right hand slammed under his chin, driving it upwards, throwing his head backwards, and breaking his neck. That thunderclap sound was the last living sensation of Ingemar Svart.

  Skinner held the dead weight upright with one arm, as he hugged his daughter tight against him with the other. For a few moments, the three figures stood there in some terrible tableau,

  until Ingo’s lifeless fingers loosened their grip on the belt around Alex’s neck, and Skinner allowed his body to slip to the ground. He felt Alex’s long slender hands on his face, turning him towards her.

  'Pops, Pops, are you all right?’

  He blinked, and then smiled at her, as wide a smile of relief and happiness as she had ever seen. As they stood together, Sarah came to them and wrapped her trembling arms around them both.

  As Bob embraced them, the women felt a violent trembling run through him, as sudden exhaustion, physical and emotional, overtook him. But quickly he brought it under control.

  It’s all right now, girls. It’s all right. It’s all over.’

  He led them across into the hangar and towards the plane.

  'Now, you two sit in here, and look after the Queen’s Sunday hat, while I get this lot sorted out.’

  He held the door open as first Sarah and then Alex stepped up into the small craft. Then he turned to go to look for the fallen Arrow, and found, to his great delight, that the little soldier was sitting upright.

  'Fookin marvellous these new flak jackets are. Give us a hand up.’

  Laughing with relief. Skinner pulled him to his feet. '

  'Don’t know what’s so fookin’ funny. Bob. Takes your fookin’ breath away does a bullet in the chest!’

  A few yards away Ariel lay on the ground. Most of her white top had been stained blood-red, but she was still moving. Skinner knelt beside her. As he did, he glanced across the landing strip, in the direction from which the shot had come. The moon had risen, and in its glow he could see Andy Martin coming slowly towards him, a rifle in his hand. His shoulders sagged as he walked like a man with no desire to reach his destination.

  Skinner looked down at the woman. Her lips were blood-frothed, and he saw that she was dying. 'Ingo?’ she said faintly.

  'No.’

  He saw her eyes flood with tears.

  'Ariel,’ he asked, 'who is your buyer?’ But he was not surprised when, with the last of her strength, she shook her head.

  'Then who is Mr Black?’

  'Not so clever after all, eh. Bob,’ she whispered. 'Work it out for yourself.’

  A final light of satisfaction shone in her hard eyes. Then it faded, and she was gone.

  And in death she was Julia again, soft-eyed gentle Julia.

  Skinner unfastened the ribbon which tied her pony-tail, and let her hair fall loose. Then he stood up, as Andy Martin came to his side and stood, looking down with reddened eyes at his lover’s body.

  ‘I’m sorry, Bob,’ he said very quietly. 'She took me in, hook, line and sinker. I even brought her to your house, and put Sarah in danger.’

  'Andy, Andy. She took me in, too. She was Crystal Tipps, remember. I believed her every bit as much. Christ, it was me who told you to take her to Sarah. Andy, man, never blame yourself again. What you did was the hardest thing you’ll ever have to do in your life, and because of that, it was the bravest, too. When I let my gun go, I knew I was putting all our lives in your hands, and I never doubted for one second that you’d come through.’

  Then he and Adam Arrow took Andy Martin, now limp and exhausted, and led him away from the bodies of Ariel, who had also been his Julia, and of her brother with whom she had

  schemed, stolen, killed and finally died.

  'Ah, but, lads,’ said Andy as they walked away
, in a voice full of almost unspeakable regret. 'When she was Julia, when she was good … I’ll never find anyone again like the woman she

  pretended to be.’

  Adam Arrow dug him gently in the side with an elbow.

  'Sure you will, Andy. Sure you will. She were only an illusion, remember. She weren’t real. There’s plenty of women who are, though. Why for a start there’s two in that plane over there. Mind you, one’s spoken for, and the other – well 'er father’s a bad fella’ to cross!’

  ONE HUNDRED AND ONE

  'So our Mr Black didn’t exist after all.’

  It was mid-afternoon, only one day and a half after the deaths of Ingemar and Ariel, and the end of all their plots, their projects and their schemes. Bob Skinner and Sir James Proud stood in the back garden of the bungalow at Fairyhouse Avenue. The blazing heat which had marked the first Festival days had gone, but there was still enough warmth in the sun for them to be in shirtsleeves. Each held a drink in his hand: Proud Jimmy’s a gin-and-tonic, Bob’s the usual beer straight from the bottle.

  'Well, Jimmy, you could say that in fact he did. He was – well, what would you call him? A trading identity, I suppose. Ariel and Ingo’s joint trade name. And it really was their name, too. Shahor in Hebrew, which she wasn’t, and Svart in Swedish, which he wasn’t either. Both mean “Black”. Interpol have finally tracked them down. Brother and sister they were indeed, but German by birth. And guess what? Their family name was Schwartz.

  'Julia’s story to Andy about her parents’ marriage breaking up, and her being sent to Israel, that was a load of balls. Apparently the truth is that the teenage Schwartz kids joined a right-wing action group, one that went in for violent protests of various sorts. The police never caught on to them, but their father found out about it and threw them out. After that happened, they seem to have decided that terrorism had a limited future, not to mention

  very poor profit margins, but that the sort of things they had learned could be put to good commercial use, given the right sort of customer – one prepared to put up whatever funding they would need to get what he was after.

  'They must have known they were both very young to be credible as the leaders of the sort of operations they were offering to put together. So they seem to have invented “Mr Black” as a

  sort of authority, figure, a mystery man in the background, to keep their clients happy that they were dealing with someone really heavy-duty, and to keep even the hardest acts among the hired help well in line. When their bluff was called, they were tough enough – as anyone who crossed them found out.

  'Interpol has been trying to get a handle on them for a while. They reckon they’ve been in business for six or seven years. That would have made them early to mid-twenties when they started: in no small way. apparently. They stole a twenty-million-dollar stallion in the States. It’s never been seen since, but some very quick two— and three-year-olds have started showing up in the Gulf States, and in Hong Kong! The Schwartzes disappeared around five years ago, and then Ingemar Svart and Julia Shahor showed up. Each had brand-new degrees – phoney of course, although they were both exceptionally talented. They followed different careers, well apart, but each, according to their passports, was able to do a lot of travelling. The stamps show that they were both in the vicinity of those jobs that Stewart told Adam

  Arrow about. They were a roaring success, until, eventually, they showed up here.’

  Proud sipped his drink, the ice almost melted. 'Quite a pair. Quite a story. I’m just glad you were able to stop them. So how are Sarah and Alex? Are they getting over it? How are you. For that matter?’

  'The girls are OK. A bit shaky still. So are we all, but we’re leaning on each other. We’re a family. We’ll be fine.’

  'And Andy? What about him, d’you think?’

  'That’s something else again. What a thing he had to do! I told him to take a month off. But all he said was that if I did, then he would, too. I’ll keep an eye on him for a few weeks. Make him take counselling at least. Then, once he’s justified himself to himself, and shown everyone he can carry on regardless, I’ll sort out a sabbatical for him. Maybe we could send him off to do some research on security policing in another country, with another force. Somewhere far away.’

  'That’s a good idea,’ said Proud Jimmy. 'I’ll look into some possibilities. Oh, by the way, there’ll be no FAI on Ingo or Ariel. I’ve fixed that with the Crown Office. They did a postmortem on him last night. The old pathologist told me he couldn’t believe his eyes. He said the last injury he’d seen like that was thirty-seven years ago, and that bloke had been hanged. How bloody strong are you. Bob?’

  'Strong enough to look after my nearest and dearest. That’s all the strength I’ll ever need.’

  'Well, my friend, I hope you never have to call on it again!’

  Skinner smiled. 'Go on. Jimmy. Get the girls, and Andy and Adam. Those steaks’ll be barbied by now!’ a Proud Jimmy turned to walk into the house, then stopped.

  'Interpol haven’t a -clue about the client, have they?’

  'No, not a sniff. You know, I’m beginning to think they might have done it on spec., and that they might not even have had a client. If they were risking their own money, that could explain why they pursued it to the very end. They’d have had cash enough from their earlier jobs to fund the whole operation, and there are enough wealthy weirdos around the world for them to have set up an auction for the Regalia, and pulled an incredible price. That could have been what it was all about. But, chances are we’ll never know!’

  EPILOGUE

  Everard Balliol sat in his den. He was a ten percent shareholder in TNI, and as such received daily transcripts of the station’s output, as a matter of course. His jaw was working fiercely as he read the account of the foiling of the Edinburgh Castle raid, and of the failure of the follow-up attempt on the Crown Jewels of Scotland.

  'Just as well for those two, they didn’t make it,’ he growled. “Wouldn’t have been no mountain high enough for them.”

  Everard Balliol was a vengeful man. It ran in his family. He was also one of the richest in the world, and so had the resources to indulge his whims, in whatever form they developed.

  It was that crazy book he had picked up on a hotel stop-over a few years back, when there was nothing else to read. The Lion in the North it was called, by some guy named John Prebble, and that had started him on his crusade. Until then, he’d no idea that he was the descendant of kings. The names had jumped out at him, early in the book, and he had read all night. John Balliol, and then Edward Balliol, Kings of Scotland and allies of the mighty Plantagenets of England, their throne usurped by the brigand Bruce, and so robbed of their birthright. His family’s birthright. His birthright. For the finest genealogists his money could buy had confirmed his instant assumption. He did spring in direct line from the seed of those ancient kings. Royal Scottish blood did flow through his veins.

  Everard Balliol’s crusade to restore what he saw as his family’s good name had been his driving force from that time on. He had paid frequent trips to Scotland. He had studied its later history, its laws, its institutions. He could have bought up much of it, but had decided early on that he wanted no part of contemporary Scotland. It had been corrupted, softened, Anglified, and its People had been spread around the globe. So instead, he had considered how to have his personal entitlement of Scotland, and eventually he had decided. If he could not have his kingdom, he would have its crown.

  From a hugely wealthy and very unorthodox art collector friend, he had heard already about 'Mr Black’, and the anonymous box number in Geneva. Very special assignments: you want it, you give him enough money, he’ll get it for you. 'His team is good,’ the friend had said..'I know. Look at that painting they got for me. Even if I had been able to buy it at auction, it would have cost fifteen million dollars. Through Mr Black, I got it for eight.’

  And so Balliol had contacted the Geneva box number, and Black had sent
his messengers: that little woman and her blond brother. He had given them enough money, given it to them two years back, and he had waited. And now it was gone, and nothing to show for it. He slammed his fist on the desk, in his den, in his bungalow, in his fortified compound, in the deeps of Texas. As he read the report again, he fixed on one name – a memorable name.

  Assistant Chief Constable Bob Skinner. – 'Some day, my friend. Some day,’ Everard Balliol said aloud.