Skinner's Rules (17 page)

Shi-Bachi shook his head, but it was in recognition of the certainty with which the man spoke, rather than in disbelief. He looked Skinner in the eye, and said sadly, ‘Then I am afraid, gentlemen, that there is no more to be said. I am sorry that you are so badly treated.’

He rose, and the policemen opposite rose with him. He bowed shortly. Only Skinner returned the salutation as the Ambassador turned, opened the brass-handled door behind his chair, and walked out of the room. Without a word, Allingham turned and made to follow.

‘Hold on, you!’ The Chief Constable’s voice boomed like thunder, ahead of a gathering storm. Skinner had never heard that tone from his boss before. He guessed that Allingham was about to discover how Proud Jimmy felt about being shown by an interloper, in his own office, the limitations of his power.

Allingham stopped in his tracks.

‘You’ve made this mess. You clean it up. I want Yobatu
san
off my patch and on his way back to Japan, asleep or not, before this day is out. You will make that happen.

‘If you try to leave Edinburgh before the arrangements are made and under way, I will have you arrested. And in this city, I have the power to do that.

‘Martin, go with this man, and make sure that he does what he’s told.’

Allingham’s face flushed but he said nothing. He left the room with Martin, purposeful, at his heel. The Strathclyde detectives looked at Proud in undisguised admiration. He thanked them as they left. For Wilson he had only a glare of dismissal.

Skinner turned to go, but Proud stopped him. ‘Hang on a minute, Bob. Sit down.’ He settled into one of two leather armchairs set on either side of a coffee table in the middle of the big room, and motioned Skinner towards the other.

Proud hesitated, as if considering his choice of words very carefully. At last, he said, ‘Bob, you and I are different sorts of policemen. Let me put it this way. I’m a policeman, but you’re a copper, in the best sense of the word. You have an understanding of the job and a feel for it that I, even at my exalted rank, have never had. I see it as something that is necessary to society, and I tend to approach it dispassionately. That works for me. But you, you care so much.

‘I’m an administrator, you’re a motivator. I feel bad enough about all this, but I can only imagine how gutted you must be at the way it’s turned out. You’ve been a detective for most of your career. That’s a dirty job, but there are times when my job can get dirty too; you’ve just been involved in one of them. I hate creeps like that man Allingham, but believe me, there are worse than him about. You’ll find that out when you’re sat behind that desk over there.’

Skinner looked at him in astonishment. Proud Jimmy had never talked to him like this before, had never mentioned him as a possible Chief.

‘Maybe I don’t want that,’ he began, cautiously.

‘Don’t kid me, and don’t kid yourself. Whatever you say, or allow yourself to believe, you want it all right. You can’t criticise the man if you’re not prepared to have a go yourself, and I know that you don’t agree with everything I do.’

Now it was Skinner’s turn to flush under the gaze of this new, and wholly unexpected, James Proud.

The Chief laughed. ‘Don’t worry, you’re right, and more so after this morning. I must be getting past it, if I can allow myself to be set up like that, in my own bloody office no less, by those two slimy twats. When Wilson told me that Pringle Muckhart wanted him here just as an observer, I actually believed the lying bastard.

‘I’ll tell you one thing, Bob.’ Proud’s tone changed, and his face was suddenly fierce. ‘If Mr bloody Wilson goes just one mile over the speed limit anywhere on my patch, he’ll have his fucking collar felt. Our Mr Wilson is about to become the best motor insurance risk in Edinburgh, and he doesn’t even know it.’

Proud, who rarely swore, was deadly serious. Skinner looked at him in amazement, then threw back his head and laughed. ‘But the Crown Office will drop the prosecution!’

‘The Crown Office will move to bloody Stornoway by the time I’ve finished with it!’

His stern face broke into a smile once more.

‘Anyway, about my desk, and the chair behind it. I haven’t got that long to go, and I want you to be in a position to succeed me. I’ve felt aggrieved for a long time that Jock Govan in Strathclyde has an ACC as his Head of CID, while I’ve only got a lowly DCS. Well, finally I’ve managed to persuade those Bolsheviks on the Police Committee to authorise one extra Assistant Chief Constable on the establishment.They’ll approve it today; and you, my son, are it. Congratulations.’

Once again the Chief left Skinner dumbfounded. When he could speak, he said, ‘Sir, you’ve taken my breath away. Does that mean that you want me out of CID?’

‘Good God no! You’re the best detective in the country, you’ll stay as Head of CID, but with ACC rank. You won’t even have to wear uniform dress.’

‘That’s a pity. I’ve always had a thing about silver braid and Sam Browne belts!’

Proud laughed at Skinner’s jibe at his formality of dress. ‘I’m the last of the dinosaurs, Bob. Most chiefs these days dress like managing directors, and keep the uniform for ceremonial.’ Skinner caught a change in his tone and looked at him curiously, but Proud went on. ‘I’ve always believed in being seen for what I am, even in the New Club. It helps keep the aloofness which the job forces on you.

‘By the way, that’s another part of your grooming for office that I’ve taken care of. I’ve put you up for membership of the Club.’

‘Oh Christ, not me, surely!’

‘In Edinburgh, it goes with the job. You’ve just seen politics in action. Well, politics is what the Club is about, in part at least. I’ll find a way to sort out Pringle Muckhart for what he’s done to us today, and the Club will help me do it. If he’s wise, My Lord Advocate won’t waste any time in promoting himself to the Bench!’

‘You’re a deep one, all right, Jimmy,’ Skinner mused inwardly. ‘Too good at playing the caricature policeman, that’s your trouble. So good that most people believe it, me included up to a point. Until today.’

Aloud he said, ‘What a morning. Stuffed by the mandarins, now my whole life takes a new turn. Me in the New Club!’ He shook his head in mock disbelief.

Smiling, Proud rose to his feet. Skinner took the signal, and stood up with him. ‘I must get off to the Committee to have your appointment ratified. It’s a formality, though. It’ll be effective from tomorrow, but you can tell Alex now. And your Doctor, of course.’

Skinner’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

Proud chuckled. ‘When you’re Chief Constable, you know everything!

‘Take some advice, Bob. Clear your desk and take your wee girl away on holiday. It’ll let you think about the future, and get Yobatu off your mind.’

“Thanks, Chief. I’ll do that, just as soon as Sarah can get away.’

December, normally a month of mounting excitement, was relatively quiet after the uproar of November. Peace returned to Edinburgh: The press follow-up of the Yobatu arrest was deflected by a simple statement that the person interviewed had been eliminated from the enquiry. The officers in the search team were told that Yobatu was hopelessly insane, and that the arrest was not to be discussed with anyone, not even wives or partners. The vigils in the Royal Mile were continued for a time, but were scaled down, and eventually stopped, although a public pretence was maintained that they were still continuing at an appropriate level. ventually, with other, newer stories to entice them, and with no further killings, the media lost interest.

The loss of Yobatu, and the unscratched itch, still rankled with Skinner, but four things happened to make them more bearable for him.

First, Sarah and Alex were joint belles of the annual CID dance - never referred to as a ball. The doctor’s arrival on the ACC’s arm finally allowed the force to discuss in public what it had been discussing in private for weeks.

Second, he became a member of the New Club, and found that the institution, in its bizarre home in Princes Street, was much less stuffy and austere than he had imagined. Quickly, he came to appreciate its value as an information exchange, and as a place where business could be done discreetly, if technically against Club rules.

Third, he noted on a routine report, the pending prosecution of one John Wilson, of Liberton, on a charge of driving with excess alcohol in his bloodstream.

Fourth, the Lord Advocate, Lord Muckhart, resigned suddenly and mysteriously, citing ‘personal reasons’. Later he was forced to admit that he was involved in an adulterous relationship with the wife of a leading Scottish politician, after the
Scotsman
newspaper, having received information from an anonymous source, broke the story. ‘That,’ Skinner said to Sarah, ‘is what I call getting even!’

The detective and the doctor flew to Spain on Boxing Day, on a tourist flight from Manchester to Gerona. They were the only people on the plane who were not bound for the Andorra ski slopes. The Catalan weather was mild and sunny, and the absence of heavy tourist traffic allowed them to make more use of their hired car than had been possible earlier in the year.

They spent hours poring through the maze of streets and alleys that was old L‘Escala. Most of the businesses and shops were still open, reminding visitors that this was a working town first, a resort second.

Their week passed too quickly, as they relaxed in each other’s company. Soon it was New Year’s Eve. In common, it seemed, with much of L‘Escala, they had made a reservation in their special restaurant in St Marti, where a gala supper was advertised to see out what had been for them a momentous year.

As usual, the food was superb. A feast of calcots, the unique Catalan vegetable, was followed by thick, creamy tomato soup, before the arrival of the main course: a spectacular baked fish-pot. The meal drew to its leisurely conclusion before midnight.

Suddenly Skinner took an envelope from his pocket and handed it to Sarah.

Puzzled, she tore it open. Inside was a pale blue card, with a gold question-mark on the front. She opened it. Inside there was a second question mark, in Bob’s scawled style.

She looked up at him, and as she did so, he placed a small box before her on the table. Embossed on the lid, in gold leaf, was ‘Hamilton & Inches, Edinburgh’. She lifted the lid and a large single diamond set on gold sparkled out at her.

‘Well,’ said Bob, in a voice she had never heard before, ‘are you daft enough to marry a copper with very limited promotion prospects?’

‘My love,’ she answered, twin tears tracking down her cheeks, above her shining smile, ‘I’d be daft not to!’

Bob took the ring from the box and slipped it on to the third finger of her left hand. It was, of course, a perfect fit.

As Sarah stared at the diamond on her finger, parties at the three surrounding tables, who had been watching breathlessly, broke into applause. A dark Spanish man came over, smiling, and shook Bob’s hand. His wife embraced Sarah. And just at that moment, midnight began to strike.

Bob reached across the table and took both of Sarah’s hands in his. ‘Happy New Year, my darling. You know, since Alex was born, this is the first one I haven’t brought in with her. Once, even, I was on duty, in the office, and I took her in with me. But things change and lives move on. Now I don’t intend ever to bring in another without you by my side.’

Normally, Bob danced only under extreme duress. But that night, as he and Sarah drifted around the floor to the music of the small band, it was as if they were waltzing on air, above the stone floor of the terrace restaurant.

 

At 1.00 a.m. local time they used the pay-phone in the corner to call Alex. To their surprise they connected first time. The background noise confirmed that it was midnight in Scotland, the sacred hour of ‘The Bells’, and that Alex had a full house.

‘Happy New Year, love,’ Bob shouted into the telephone.

She bubbled down the line. ‘Happy New Year, Pops! Are you having a terrific time?’

‘Yes, pretty terrific.

‘Listen, baby, hold on to a chair for a minute, we’ve got something to tell you. You’re going to have a stepmother!’

Twelve hundred miles away, Alex said, ‘Yeah, wonderful. About time, too. Put Sarah on. Oh, look at me, I’m crying.’

Sarah took the telephone from Bob. She tried to imagine what a stepmother tone should sound like.

‘Right, my girl. Are you behaving yourself?’

‘Of course not, are you? Sarah, that’s wonderful. Did he manage to propose without making it sound like he was charging you with something?’

‘Listen kid, your old man’s got style. It was wonderful. Right on the stroke of midnight he pops the question. When we get home I’ll tell you all about it.’

The cut-off noise began to sound.

‘Have a great time. See you soon!’

Sarah replaced the receiver and turned to Bob. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.

‘You’ve no idea how good it feels to be official.’

‘Oh yes, I have. You’d better start planning. Your track record shows that you’re not very good at being engaged, so I don’t intend for this to be a long one.’

Sarah took him at his word. As the taxi wound past the jetty where the Olympic flame had landed in 1992, and along the dark beach road to L’Escala, their plans took shape. It would be an Easter wedding, in Edinburgh. Alex would be maid of honour, Andy would be best man. If his uncertain health allowed him to travel, Sarah would be given away by her father, who had talked of a trip to Scotland when she had visited her parents in Florida.

‘If he can’t come maybe Andy could do that too,’ she said.

‘Can he do both?’

‘Why not? Or maybe the Chief, what is it you call him, Proud Jimmy, maybe he could do it.’

‘Steady on. We’re not that chummy!’