Thursday legends - Skinner 10 (26 page)

He
leaned back, allowing Lesley room to clear away some pint glasses; as he did he
spotted a newspaper left on the floor by an earlier customer; he bent and
picked it up. It was a copy of the
Evening
News,
two days old. 'Have
you put a name to this bloke yet?' John asked, pointing to the likeness on the
front page.

'I
don't think so,' Skinner replied, 'but I've been away; I don't know the whole
story.'

'Let's
have a look,' said Mcllhenney. 'I haven't seen that e-fit yet.' He took the
newspaper from John and studied in.

After
a few seconds he started to laugh
...
and then the laugh tailed off and was replaced by a frown, as he thought of the
man who treated Thursday as if his life depended on it, who never missed a
game, yet who, without warning, had failed to appear that evening.

He
passed the crumpled
News
to the DCC. 'Here, Boss,' he
said. 'Look at this picture, this unidentified floater. Could that or could
that not be the Diddler?'

35

'This
is very stupid, Lawrence. I'm the Head of CID, for God's sake; my staff and
various other people knew I was going to talk to you. It's a matter of time
before they come looking for me.'

Martin
had been sitting on the wooden kitchen chair for almost five hours, his hands
tied behind his back. In that time neither he nor his captor had said a word.
Scotland had simply sat there, gazing at him, levelling the gun at him. He knew
that he had been playing a game with him, a game of growing tension, growing
terror. Okay, the guy had won.

'You
better start praying that they don't then. For the first time that doorbell
rings I'm just going to blow your fucking brains out.'

The
detective looked at him and knew that he meant it; cold terror gripped him
inside, but he made a conscious effort to keep it from showing. 'They won't
ring the doorbell until there's an armed response team in position outside. How
are you going to get out?'

'I'm
not. Once I've shot you, I'll just give myself up. When they try me I'll tell
them the whole story of what Alec Smith did to me. That Gavigan bloke; he's
still around. I'll call him as a witness.'

'You've
never met Bob Skinner, have you?' Martin asked. 'No, but I'd like to. I'd like
to have him sitting in that chair next to you.'

'You
wouldn't, believe me. There's a flaw in your plan; Bob's not going to let you
walk away from here. You kill me and he's going to kill you, not just because
he's my best pal, but because of the story you could tell in the witness box.
He's a crack shot, incidentally, and he's a very patient man. I'd keep well
away from that window if I was you.'

'I
don't care about being dead, mister; I've been dead before. But thanks for that
advice.' Scotland walked round behind Martin, to the window, out of any line of
sight from outside. The kitchen went dark, suddenly. The detective glanced over
his shoulder and made out the shape of Venetian blinds, now admitting only the
narrowest strips of daylight.

'Is
this your standard practice, pre-execution?' he asked.
Keep him talking, Andy. He's got a lot to say.

'Was,
Mr Martin, was. I'm retired now, remember. Alec Smith retired me about ten
years ago: or he thought he did. But as it happens, you're right. I always used
to do this in Ireland; the Provos, and the Ulster-based Loyalist guys, they
would just kill quick and off. There's the target, bang, another couple in the
head to be sure, job done.

'I
didn't like that approach. That was much too impersonal for my taste. The way I
saw it, the people I was sent to kill were human beings just like me; they had
the right to know who was going to kill them, and why. Plus, they had a right
to prepare themselves for the end of their lives.

'So
I would pick them up, take them to a safe house and sit up all night with them,
talking to them about the conflict, listening to their threats often enough,
but very rarely listening to them beg for their lives. They were real soldiers,
most of those boys, I'll give them that.

'Are
you going to beg?' he asked suddenly.

'Fuck
off.'

'We'll
see, when the time comes. Anyway, we'd have our death watch, my customers and
I, then at dawn I'd give them the Last Rites
...'

'You'd
what?' Martin interrupted.

'I'd
give them the Last Rites. They were all Catholics, the people I killed over there,
and I knew the words, sort of, so I gave them the Last Rites. It meant
something to them, believe me.'

'Sure,
the final insult.'

'Ah,
you're a Catholic then. But you don't deserve the Last Rites, you're a copper.'

He
leaned over and tapped Martin in the middle of the forehead with the barrel of
the big pistol. 'I used to shoot them right there, so they could see it coming.
I always wondered whether they did
...
see the bullet, I mean. Think about it: if someone shoots you right in the
middle of the scone at close range, do you see the bullet just before impact?
Do you die before you see the flash? I'm pretty sure you don't hear the bang. I
used to time that; when I heard the bang the guy's brains were usually on the
way out the back of his head. One or two of them flinched though, looked away
just as I was pulling the trigger. Fucking brains everywhere then, even on me;
top of the head comes right off with a heavy-calibre gun.'

'You're
going to make a hell of a mess of your kitchen,' the detective growled.

'Ahh,
a hard boy,' said Scotland, knowingly. 'We'll see that too, when the time
comes, just how hard you really are. Anyway, I'm not going to shoot you here
...
not unless somebody rings the bell,
that is.' Martin began to think, frantically. Who expected him that night, or
might call on him, find him missing? Rhian? No, no more. Karen? No,
baby-sitting for Neil. Alex? Unlikely. Pye? No. Mario?
Christ, I hope not. Change the subject, change the
subject.

'Earlier
on, Lawrence,' he kept his tone even; no panic, no fear, 'you said that Alec
Smith only thought he'd retired you. Are you saying you've been active since
then?'

'No.
I'm saying that the likes of big Smith couldn't retire me. I withdrew, because
it was too dangerous for the people I worked with for me to be around them. I
could never be completely sure that I had evaded surveillance.'

Scotland
looked at his prisoner and let out a sort of snort. 'Hhghh. You realise you
haven't even asked me how Smith thought he had retired me? That means you know.
Probably always bloody known. I imagine that big bastard was really proud of
himself, talking it all over Special Branch. Not so fucking cocky now, though.'

'I
know what he did,' Martin acknowledged, 'but I only found out this week. I took
over Alec Smith's job, but I never knew about it then. Alec never told anybody
anything they didn't need to know, not even his family. He was the world's most
secretive man and all of his secrets may have died with him.

'We
only found out what he did to you because Tommy Gavigan was leaned on after his
death. He told us all about it. He's out now, by the way; retired early, sent
on down the road.'

'You
mean he's got a fucking pension for that?' Another flash of anger.

'Which
he'll never enjoy spending for looking over his shoulder. Unless
...
maybe we'll get him your job at
Guardian.'

Scotland
smiled, a cruel grin of power. 'You forget,

Detective
Chief Superintendent
...
you won't be
getting anything for anyone after tomorrow.'

'As
you say, we'll see about that.'
Move
on, quickly.
'How did you know who
Smith was? What he was?'

'Come
on, Mr Martin. Our intelligence wasn't that bad: I don't mean my Irish friends,
I mean Tony Manson's intelligence. He always knew who all the coppers were,
including the Special Branch people. Tony got me involved in Ireland, you know.
Some contacts of his needed an outside worker to take on a special job;
somebody very big in Sinn Fein, someone they couldn't get near. He could have
sent big Lenny Plenderleith, only he didn't want to risk losing him; so, since
I had done a few things for him by that time, he volunteered me. The job got
done, and I got asked back for the tricky ones. I got paid, of course; I was
strictly a mercenary.'

'So
why the straight job now? What took you to Guardian?'

'I
am straight
...
or at least I was.
Tony's dead, big Lenny's in the nick for ever, Jackie Charles is banged up and
his wife's a gingerbread woman, Dougie the Comedian's dead; all of it, or most
of it, thanks to Skinner and you. I was a hired gun; now there's no-one left to
hire me.

'So
I took a job at Guardian. The money was good, the work was easy enough -
on-site night-security work mainly, offices, the university, the zoo, even.
Then, bugger me, what happens but big Smith gets appointed General Manager. I
thought I was for the off right away, but no, he kept me on. He told me that he
liked having me where he could see me. But then, after a year, he left. They
wanted to make him a star down south, so the story went, but he wouldn't have
it.'

'It
wouldn't have suited his plans.'

'What
do you mean?'

'I
don't know, but he was up to something. Until last Friday night, that is,'
Martin added, quietly.

Lawrence
Scotland laughed. 'So you're finally getting round to what you came to talk to
me about, are you? I knew somebody would, after that. I hoped it would be Tommy
Gavigan, but you'll do. Oh aye, you'll do. A Detective Chief Superintendent,
indeed.'

'How
did you find out where Alec lived? Did you look at the personnel records at
Guardian?'

'Don't
be daft. I'm a shooter, not a safecracker. No, I just followed him home; back
to his lair, the fucking animal, there on the beach with just him and his
fucking dog. I thought about grabbing it off the street, you know, throttling
it and dumping it on his doorstep
...
just so he'd know.'

'He'd
probably have killed you, if he thought you were threatening him.'

'I
worked that one out for myself, pal. Anyway, what harm had the poor bloody dog
done?'

'So
ten years on, you decided to kill Alec himself. The thing that surprises me is
that I never really fancied you for it. That's why I was stupid enough to come
to see you alone; just for a chat about Alec, to find out what you knew about
him back then.'

'You
mean you didn't come to apologise,' said Scotland, scornfully. 'No, I never thought
you would. You don't really mind what Smith did to me, do you? Come on, be
honest, admit it.'

'No,
I don't really mind; I can't approve of it, but I can see why he did it. There
were no cries of outrage when we found out.'

'Naw,
I didn't imagine there would be. I can see why myself, truth be told. I made
big Alec angry by slipping his surveillance that last time I went to Ireland,
to Armagh. I don't think he was a man who liked to get angry. He was all about
control, and anger signifies a loss of control.

'He
must have planned it very carefully, and looked at all the reports of the jobs
I did. All of them shot in the head, standing up, facing the gun, no blindfold,
no bag over the head, nothing like that. He did the same thing to me; exactly
the same, on purpose.

'There's
an added element to being on the other end of it, you know, when you've done it
yourself. I realised right then that of all the people I'd dealt with, the
people who were the most terrified - they all were at the end, but I mean the most
of all, crying, begging, pissing themselves, all that stuff -were the ones
who'd actually killed people themselves. They'd seen the brains coming out too,
and when you've seen that the last thing you want is that it should be your
brains flying all over the place. No, you don't want that.

'Big
Alec knew that; so he did what he did to me, and in a strange way I respected
him for that. But it was way over the top. I hurt his pride, but he terrified
me, almost to death, and he humiliated me in the worst possible way. Being left
sat in your own shite miles from nowhere is worse than being dead. You might
say that you have no sympathy for me, but you couldn't have done what he did,
could you? Load the gun, spin the chamber, pull the trigger. Then do it again.'