Skinner's Ordeal (19 page)

The men chose cold beers as dessert, leaving their ladies to tackle the sticky toffee pudding.

`Here, friend,' said Bob, taking a swig of his Budweiser Straight from the bottle. `D'you realise wee Jazz is going to be your brother-in-law?' Andy choked on his beer, and Alex spluttered on her sticky toffee.

As the laughter subsided, Sarah looked across at her stepdaughter. 'My God, I forgot to ask. Have you set a date yet?'

`Give us notice of that one, for Christ's sake,' said Bob sincerely.

`Relax, Pops. We're in no hurry, are we, Andy?' He smiled and shook his head in agreement, perhaps not entirely sincerely. 'We just thought we should put a label on it; mark out the territory, so to speak. I want to get my studying over with before getting married. I've still got to finish my diploma year at University, then put in my two years in a solicitor's office, before I can think about going to the Bar.'

`That's all up to you, Babe, but do one thing for me.'

`Name it, Father.'

`Don't make any formal announcement for a few weeks, and keep the ring out of sight.'

`Why?' Her face clouded over.

`Because if Andy's appointment as Head of CID, and his engagement to my daughter were announced in virtually the same breath, the comedians in the Press would have a field day.

I've already filled in one bloke today for taking your mum's name in vain, and I don't want it to become routine procedure.'

She gulped. 'Sorry, Pops. I never thought. Our timing's lousy.'

Not your timing, love — God's. Or rather, someone else's!'

THIRTY-SEVEN

Arrow waited until the stairway light, on a push-button time-switch, flicked out before turning the brass handle.

As he had suspected, the door was unlocked. He pushed at it very gently, until a little light spilled out, not from any source in the narrow hallway but from deeper within the apartment. Opening it to the minimum to avoid the creaking of the hinge which he knew would have come at a certain point, he slipped soundlessly inside.

Three doors opened off the hall, all panelled with frosted glass. The one on his left shone with a soft pink light, against which he could make out the shape of a dressing gown hanging on a hook. Holding his breath and moving with ghost-like silence on the balls of his feet, he crept past it to the door facing him, opened it and slipped inside.

The room was warm. The imitation coals in the gas fire still glowed, telling him that it had been switched off for only a few minutes, and the television screen still shone with a blue-grey luminescence. As his eyes became accustomed to the darker surroundings he could make out the shape of the furniture — a two-seater settee, an armchair, a sideboard, and in the heavily Curtained bay window, a small round table.

He dropped into a crouch behind the sofa and waited, ready to spring into action at any moment.

The minutes dragged out. He shifted his position occasionally to ease the weight on his joints. The side-effects of an office job he mused. I never used to feel stiff, lying in ambush for people in the dark.

At last he heard the sound of someone moving. The pink-lit door off the hallway swung open, and suddenly, the rest of the apartment was brighter. Instinctively, he dropped deeper into his place of concealment, ready to react at any moment to discovery, but instead, he heard the sound of the third door opening, then closing quickly, and saw the effect of a second light being switched on.

Seizing his chance, he sprang to his feet and, like a nervous cat, moved back out into the hallway. He saw at once that the dressing gown was still hanging behind the door.

When she returned, he was already in bed. She jumped when she saw him, with a small involuntary gasp, her pert breasts bouncing in a particularly intriguing fashion.

Àdam, you swine! You're always playing games! How long have you been here?'

Àbout ten minutes. And I'm always telling you about leaving that bloody door on the chain. One night it might not be me who comes through it.' He took a corner of the quilt, lifted it up, and Shana Mirzana slipped into bed beside him.

`You're warm,' she said, rubbing herself against his body, feeling his arousal. She touched the light stubble around his chin, and kissed him, sniffing quickly at his breath as she did so. `Been drinking?'

`Watch it. Even breathing it in is against your religion, ain't it? I had a quick meal and a beer with the Scots lads in the Sherlock Holmes, that's all,' he said. 'I made my excuses as soon as I could. They're staying in the Strand Palace, but they were off in search of t'nightlife when I left.'

`They'll be lucky.'

Ah but they'll have help. They were meeting up with that lad from the Met in some pub up Wardour Street.'

'Did you tell them where you were going?'

`Bloody 'ell no. What's the use of being a spook if you can't keep secrets?'

Does anyone know about you and me, Adam?'

Not as far as I know, but it's an interesting question. Who Spies on the spies? I'm in the business and I don't know. Imagine though, if there's no one checking up on me, the power I'd 'ave. There was no one checking up on George Blake, and look what he did.'

She propped herself on an elbow and looked down at him. `But you must have a boss.'

`Sure, I have. John Swift, my sidekick, and I report to the Permanent Secretary. We're on secondment from the Army.'

She laughed. 'Swift and Arrow! Quite a combination!'

He forebore to tell her that those were not the names on their birth certificates, a security measure designed to protect their families rather than them. Instead he chortled, 'We get straight to the point, though,' and dived beneath the quilt.

Her gasps turned into squeals as his searching tongue sought her out, until at last she took him, urgently, under the arms and drew him up, on top of her, plunging him into her . . .

not like an arrow, she thought idly, but like a lance — writhing and moaning, bucking urgently against him as he thrust, and thrust, and...

They came together in a great roaring climax, their muscles tensed almost to the point of cramp, until at last they relaxed and slumped, replete, into each other's arms.

To the point you do indeed get,' she murmured ungrammatically, sliding out from beneath him. She pulled herself up into a sitting position and gazed at him as he lay there, face down and smiling. She ran her hand over his skin. It was almost as brown as hers. She tugged his hair.

`Hey,' she said. 'Do you realise how vulnerable you men are?’

‘However tough, however strong, however highly trained, there are always moments when man is completely at the mercy of woman.'

He rolled over and smiled up at her. The thought does occur to me from time to time, but always too late. Fortunately there are damn few women in my line of work.' A small cloud seemed to cross his smile. 'Mind you, I've got a mate who took up with a wrong 'un once.'

`What happened when he found out?'

The cloud thickened. 'Let's just say it put an end to their relationship.'

`What a shame.'

Àye, it were indeed. Still, it all worked out in the end; for him at any rate.'

She leaned down and kissed him again. 'Would you like another drink? I may not take it, but I do keep it. There's some white wine. I'll have a Pepsi.'

Àye, that'd be nice. I'll get it. In t' fridge, is it?'

When he returned a few minutes later with the bottle, in a cooler, a Pepsi and two glasses, she was leaning against the headboard smoking a cigarette. 'Want one?'

`You know I don't, apart from the odd cigar. What the 'ell are those things anyway? They smell pretty strong.'

`They are. They're Turkish. I buy them from time to time I got to like them when I was a student. I don't smoke for effect, boy. I smoke for . . . nicotine!' She laughed at his frown.

He poured his wine and her Pepsi, then slipped back into be beside her. She offered him the cigarette. He took an experimental puff, and felt his head swim as he inhaled'

Quickly, he handed it back to her. 'Bloody hell! I'll stick to cigars.

She sipped her Cola. 'So how are your interviews going?'

`Well enough, but we're not finished yet. We're going to see Ariadne Noble tomorrow.'

Àriadne Tucker QC, you mean,' said Shana. 'Remember; she's particular about that.'

`Do you know anything else about her, other than what you told us?'

`Like what?'

`Like whether she 'as a bit on the side.'

She shrugged her shoulders, doing fetching things with her breasts once more. Adam leaned over and nuzzled them with his forehead. She laughed. 'Down boy. Time enough.

You are staying, aren't you?'

`Yeah, why not. I've got nowt better to do.'

`Bugger.' She dug him in the ribs with an elbow.

Sipping more Pepsi, she leaned against him again. 'It was a bomb that caused the crash, then,' she said, suddenly serious. 'I saw that Scottish policeman on the news. What was his name again?'

`Bob Skinner.'

She grinned again, briefly. 'He looks quite dishy.'

`His wife thinks so.'

She took a curl of his chest hair and wrapped it round her index finger, tugging gently.

'Adam?'

`You made a big deal of asking about the Red Box. That doesn't mean that you think the bomb might have been hidden in it, does it?'

`No. It means we know that it was hidden there.' Her wrist lay against him, and he felt the pulse at the base of her thumb quicken.

`Joseph did confirm what I told you, about how the box was packed, didn't he?'

He smiled. 'Of course he did. You can relax on that score: She sighed with relief. 'Thank you, Allah, for that. What a nightmare.'

Òf course,' said Arrow, 'we can't account precisely for the box before it was packed.

Suppose the device was already in there? Suppose you'd put it in earlier? Would Webber have known that?'

She sat up straight. 'He was standing beside me when I packed it. He'd have seen it!'

She glared at him, not smiling now, not teasing. 'Are you serious?'

He stared back at her, poker-faced. They sat there for several silent seconds, like naked brown statues.

`No,' he said at last, a huge smile creasing his broad features.

Àdam, you little bastard!' she said, grinning in spite of herself. She grabbed a handful of chest hair and tugged as hard as she could.

THIRTY-EIGHT

Skinner dozed, and dreamed of mud.

They had returned from the restaurant just after midnight, their taxi having first dropped Andy and Alex at the West End. Having checked that Jazz was sound asleep, Sarah had gone straight to bed, but Skinner had remained downstairs, padding around barefoot, sucking idly on yet another bottle of beer.

Finally he settled down on the settee to replay a video tape of the evening's televised football. Motherwell had been his boyhood team, and thus had retained his lifelong adherence, yet he watched their resounding victory over Rangers with a strange apathy.

He had lived up to his earlier announcement by consuming a substantial quantity of alcohol, yet he could feel no effect, not the slightest trace of exhilaration, not the slightest fuzzing of his thought process. What he felt instead was restlessness, an almost overwhelming urge towards physical activity, and driving wakefulness.

The tape had run out, to be replaced by yet another screening of
The Devil Rides Out
, when Sarah appeared in the doorway, Wrapped in her white towelling robe.

`Bob, its gone one-thirty. I'd like to sleep, but I can't knowing that as soon as I've dropped off you're liable to come up and Plant your big feet in my back! Come to bed, please.'

He sighed, deeply. 'I just don't feel sleepy, but to please you, okay; He had lain there beside her in the dark, listening as her breathing slowed and smiling at her occasional soft snores but resolutely awake himself. Finally he had switched on his reading light and picked up his bedside novel, a piece of Terry Pratchett fantasy which he was reading for the second time.

He had enjoyed perfect sight all his life, but he was reaching that point in early middle age where tiredness at the end of a long day was beginning to take its toll of his eyes.

Gradually, the script became fuzzy; gradually he had held the pages further away, to try to retain focus; eventually the book had slipped from his fingers.

Skinner dozed, and dreamed of mud.

He was back in the field, staring across its flat grey acres, standing in his muddy-trousered uniform amid the jetsam of the crash. The unclothed, disjointed doll was at his
feet. Unthinking, he bent and seized it by an arm, to pick it up. It hung awkwardly in his
grasp, the limbs flopping unnaturally, the head lolling backwards.

It was quite a large doll, and strange in the way it was put together. Probably very
expensive, he thought, remembering the model which he had bought for a friend's newborn daughter. The ball-sockets joining limbs and head to the trunk were remarkably
lifelike, with no sign of the rubber bands which showed when most of the cheaper types
were twisted to this extent. The touch of it, too. In his hand it didn't feel like plastic, as had
his purchase. This one felt almost . . .

He dropped it, with a shriek of horror . . .

. . . and woke in the same instant, his lips still drawn back in the shape of his dream-scream.

This time Sarah woke with him. 'Bob, honey! What is it?' She took him in her arms.

Ìt's okay,' he mumbled. Ì'm sorry.'

'What was it? What were you dreaming about?'

He shook his head. 'Nothing. It was nothing.'

It was hardly nothing, man. You're in a lather.' It was true, he realised, conscious of the cold sweat on his body,

'It was just a bad dream, love. You remember, I had them for a while after that business a couple of years back, when I got shot.'

`Sure I remember. But you didn't wake up screaming then.'

'No? Well, maybe it's only now that the full impact's coming home to me. Don't worry about it, it's just a one-off. The cold sweat's probably just the booze working its way out.