Skinner's Ghosts (32 page)

Tears of helplessness sprang into her eyes. 'Andy, this is a nightmare. I know Pops has had a terrible time over the last few months, but he hasn't changed that much. This is my dad and he's still one of the two best men in the world.'

He drew her to him, and hugged her, as they stood in the window of the Haymarket flat, looking up towards Princes Street, and the Castle. 'I know, sweetheart. The Chief may tell me to think like a policeman, but I just can't in this case. I don't give a bugger about the evidence, Bob didn't do it, and that's that.'

Alex was sobbing now, in his arms. 'But Andy, what if he's convicted?'

'Then I'll leave the force, if necessary, to prove his innocence.'

'You mean because he won't be able to, where he'll be?'

'Shh, Wee One. Don't imagine that even for a second.'

'I try not to, but. . . The thing you told me about last night, about Pops and Leona. How much harm can that do?'

'Probably none, injury terms. I doubt if it would be admissible in 213

evidence. No, its damage is in the way that it makes Cheshire and Ericson see Bob: as being flawed, vulnerable. Open to offers, if you like.'

He squeezed her shoulders again. 'Listen, you're one of his team.

You have to keep fear at bay. You're seeing old Christabel tomorrow.

She should be good for morale.'

'I never asked you,' said Alex. 'D'you know her?'

Andy smiled. 'I don't know how to answer that. She isn't an acquaintance, yet I know the old witch al right. She cross-examined me once in the High Court. I was only a baby DC then, in some breaking-and-entering thing. I'd only been involved in interviewing the minor witnesses.

'The Advocate Depute took me through it, a bit casually, maybe, then it was her turn. She stood there over her papers, and by God did she put a spell on me. She started going on about Witness A, Witness B and Witness C, and by the time she was finished I hadn't a bloody clue who was who.

'Every question she asked, her voice got louder and louder, until she was bawling at me like an old cow across a field. My mother was there, too, to watch me give evidence in the High Court for the first time. So proud she'd been.' He laughed. 'Afterwards, outside in the corridor, I'd to stop her from tearing into Christabel, for bullying her boy.

'I tell you, with her on his side, Bob's got a chance, whatever the evidence that's been set up against him.'

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63

The clock on the BMW showed 1.11 a.m. when Skinner pul ed into a vacant parking space outside Pam's converted warehouse. He had expected her to be in bed, asleep, but as he turned his key in the lock and opened the front door, he heard the sound of music, playing softly from the stereo.

There was no light in the living room, other than that of the city outside, diffused by the muslin drapes, but he could see her silhouette as she sat waiting for him in her armchair, her legs doubled beneath her.

She turned towards him as he entered the warm room. From the slope of her shoulders and the swell of her breasts, he could tell, even before his eyes grew accustomed to the dimness of the light, that she was naked.

She rose and came towards him, to wrap herself around him, to press her body against his. 'I was just beginning to worry,' she whispered, pulling his head gently down and kissing him.

'It's been a long day for you. Did you find Balliol? Did he tell you what you wanted to know?'

He swept her up in his arms and carried her through to the bedroom. 'The music . . .' she began.

'Let it play out.'

He laid her down on the bed, and began to undress. 'Yes, I found Balliol,' he said quietly. 'No, he didn't tell me, because he doesn't know either. Salmon's been fired, into the bargain.'

'That's good news, at least.'

Skinner shrugged his shoulders as he stripped off his polo shirt, all in a single supple movement. 'Christ,' he said, 'I hum, what with the golf and the journey. Think I'l take a shower.' He stepped out of his slacks and briefs. 'Salmon was just a commodity to Bal iol,' he went on. 'Something to be bought and traded in once it was used up.'

As he headed for the bathroom she rose to fol ow. 'Incidental y,'

he called over his shoulder, his voice loaded with irony. 'Everard sends his regrets for your personal embarrassment. I told him it'd make your day. Over dinner, I told him you were stil thinking about suing. Made your mind up yet?'

She nodded, as she watched him step into the bath and twist the 215

shower control, standing back for a few seconds till it reached the set temperature. 'I'm not going to. I just don't need the extra embarrassment it would bring. Even if they settled, the press would still get hold of it.'

He looked at her as the water began to play on his chest. 'We'd be talking serious money, here. From what Balliol said, I suspect he's already told his solicitors to deal if you press it.'

'Stil ,' replied Pam. 'I want to bring no more embarrassment into your life, or rather into our life . . . because that's the way I want it.'

Skinner frowned, just as he plunged his head into the spray.

'Bob,' she went on, over the splashing of the water. 'I wasn't going to tell you this until morning, but I can't keep it in. Alex cal ed. She said that Andy had gone out, on purpose, so that she could phone.'

'Eh?'

'He's been forbidden to have contact with you on a personal basis.'

'What? Why?' He stepped back, out of the spray.

'Because Cheshire and Ericson searched your office. They found the receipt, taped underneath one of your desk drawers.'

Breath hissed out of Skinner. 'Jesus. Hidden in my bloody desk?

And I said to Andy, that if I had hidden it, I'd have put it where I felt most secure. That smart bastard Cheshire must have thought along the same lines.'

He smiled grimly at Pam, completely without humour. 'Commandment number five, Sergeant: thou shalt not underestimate your adversary. I'm always breaking that one. If only I'd had the sense to search my fucking office before he did!

'The bastard who set me up must have broken into Fettes right enough. I tell you, when this is over, I'm going to have such a security blitz on that office!' He snorted. 'Except that if I don't come up with something pretty fast, when this is over I'm going to be the subject of some pretty tight security myself He stepped back into the shower.

'I think I'll ask to be sent to Shotts Prison. My friend Big Lenny Plenderleith and I would make quite a team. We'd be running the place inside a week.'

'Don't say that,' Pam cried. She stepped into the shower beside him, rubbing her face in the wet hair of his chest. 'None of that will happen. You wil come up with something; you're invincible. Don't think about it. Think about this instead.'

She picked up a hot, wet sponge, ran it up the inside of his thigh, and began to massage him. He grinned down at her. 'You're a bit optimistic, aren't you? Not even I have that good a mental isolator switch. Besides, I've covered most of Scotland today, and back again.'

He switched off the shower and reached for two towels.

The smile vanished and the glower was back. 'Be patient. Maybe, after a couple of years they'll allow us a conjugal visit.'

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''-l-"""

64

Skinner was familiar with Parliament House and with the Advocates Library, headquarters of the Scottish Bar. So was Alex, from student visits, and from occasional visits as a teenager, to watch her father give evidence as a police witness in a significant trial.

But neither had ever been inside the Lord Reid Building, the advocates' consultation centre, until they arrived in its small courtyard off the Royal Mile. Number 142 High Street, in New Assembly Close, was built in 1814 by James Gillespie Graham as the Commercial Bank. Much later, before its acquisition by the Faculty of Advocates, it housed the popular Edinburgh Wax Museum. Skinner guessed that currently far fewer people passed through its doors every year than during its time as a tourist attraction, but that in income terms, its turnover was far greater.

'Consultation with Miss Christabel Innes Dawson, QC,' Mitchel Laidlaw announced to the uniformed Faculty Officer at the smal desk in the reception hal .

'Very good, sir,' said the man. 'If your party wil please go into the waiting room.' He pointed them towards a large, leather-upholstered waiting room, its walls hung with works of art from the Faculty's extensive collection, and with a large fireplace similar in size and style to that in the formal drawing room in Bute House, and which Skinner guessed at once was original. The policeman in him thought of the profitable trade in stolen antiquities and of the signs posted on several disused Georgian and Victorian offices in and around Edinburgh's Golden Mile which advised potential burglars that al fireplaces had been removed. 'If they ever find out where the store is .. .' he had said once to Andy Martin.

Normally an advocate will arrive to greet solicitors and clients and to take them to their consultation rooms. But Christabel Innes Dawson QC was far too senior and venerable to do her own fetching.

After a few minutes, the attendant reappeared. 'If you will follow me, gentlemen, madam ... Miss Dawson will receive you in Room Five.'

The trio followed him, latterly in single file because of the narrowness of the corridor which led to the rear of the building, until they reached a flight of four steps, with a varnished door at the top.

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The attendant knocked, opened it and announced them: 'Mr Laidlaw and party, Miss Dawson.'

Christabel Innes Dawson QC did not rise as her instructing solicitor led her client into the room. She was seated at a very ordinary round table, in a very ordinary room, a far cry from that in which they had awaited her pleasure. She surveyed them as they entered one by one, the attendant retreating and closing the door.

Final y she nodded to the solicitor. 'Well, Mr Laidlaw.' The words seemed to roll from her tongue. 'I had begun to despair that you would ever instruct me in a case. I know al about you, mind. When Ken, my clerk, told me you wanted me in this matter, I asked three senior members of Faculty about you. Two of them described you as the best litigation solicitor in Scotland. The third said you were a shark in a lagoon fil ed with holiday-making children. I think he was saying the same thing as the other two, only in a different way.

'Sit down, sit down please. You're all so tall.'

She turned her attention to Skinner. 'Well, Chief Inspector ... or what is it now? . . . this is a sad surprise. I never imagined for one instant that when the great Mr Laidlaw finally called on me it would be to represent you in a criminal cause.

'Last time our paths crossed, literally, was in Aberlady, I think, a couple of weeks ago. Your informal salute was appreciated. So few people pay respects these days to a funeral cortege. There was a time when gentlemen always removed their hats as a hearse passed by. So few gentlemen left now,' she mused.

'Maybe just fewer with hats, Miss Dawson,' said Skinner, gently.

'Maybe, maybe.' Her eyes flashed suddenly, with a cunning gleam.

'If memory serves, you were in your car with the young lady I've been reading about. Well, I certainly won't be the one to criticise you for such a relationship.' She frowned for an instant. 'I'd tell her she's a bloody fool though.'

Beside her father Alex gasped, but Miss Dawson ignored her presence. She guessed that with her apprenticeship completed and two or three years' experience at the Bar, she might merit a nod.

Skinner looked at his Senior Counsel. He had seen her only twice before out of her court dress, each time from a distance. For their meeting she wore a formal charcoal grey suit, and a white blouse, with a ruffled col ar. He guessed that she had a dozen such outfits in her wardrobe, and precious little else.

Close to, she really did look old, he realised, but he was not surprised, since judging by the year of her Cal ing to the Bar, she could not be less than seventy-eight years old. He had expected her hair to be shorter, and more grey, until he took a second look and realised that she wore a wig not only for court but on al public appearances.

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But her voice disguised her frailty and her years. It had kept its strength through over fifty years of practice, and even now, it was only faintly reedy as she spoke.

She addressed Laidlaw once more. 'Thank you for the papers which you sent to my clerk. I have read them.' She glanced quickly and slightly mischievously at Skinner.'You realise that means that the meter's running, young man.'

Skinner nodded. He knew also that her meter was one of the most reasonable at the Bar. Although her clerk was free to negotiate private fees, she never charged more than the appropriate Legal Aid rate for criminal work.

She looked directly at Laidlaw once more. 'As I say, I've read them, and I've been made aware of yesterday's subsequent development, the discovery of the receipt in Mr Skinner's office. I'm glad at least that there were no fingerprints on it.

'You know I must ask you this. Would a plea of "Guilty" be considered by our client, should the Crown wish to negotiate surrender terms?'

Mitch Laidlaw shook his round head vigorously. 'Under no circumstances. Our client maintains his innocence, and believes that he is the victim of a clever, ruthless and well-planned conspiracy.'

He relaxed slightly. 'In any event, given the evidence which they have, it's difficult to imagine how the Crown could come up with a reduced charge, or why it would wish to.'

'Indeed. Very well. Let's look at our cards.' She leaned across the table, her skinny arms folded. 'On the face of it, the signature is a problem. However, I note Mr Skinner's explanation of how it might have been obtained. I find that credible. So, I believe, will the members of the jury, as long as we can sow other seeds of doubt in their minds, in respect of other aspects of the Crown case.'

She glanced briefly at Skinner. 'I like the point about the Bank of England notes. I think that is odd enough to start the jury thinking, also.

'Then there is the bank manager's unwitting identification of the photofit of the suspect in the McGrath and Anderson cases as the courier who delivered the money, a chap with evident malice towards our client. That's a piece of luck.'