Thursday legends - Skinner 10 (27 page)

He
frowned at Martin. 'No, you couldn't have done that, not you.' Then he laughed.

'I
saw your guy in the papers, saying that you were looking for a seriously
disturbed individual over Alec Smith's death.

Fucking
hell, that's ironic; big Alec was a seriously disturbed individual himself.

'I
looked into his eyes, behind that big gun that he pointed at me, just like this
one
...'
He waved the big pistol in
the air,
'...
and I could see
something in there that was plain fucking crazy. That scared me as much as the
thought of my brains flying out the back of my head.

'I
will tell you one thing
...
just one
thing. I could not think of anything worse in the world than being that man's
enemy.'

'I
can.'

'What's
that?'

Martin
gazed straight at the other man. 'Being mine,' he said quietly,
'...
as you will find out.'

'Big
talk,' Scotland sneered. 'But no more talk now, no more till morning. We sit
the Death Watch in silence; you with your thoughts, me just watching you.
There's something incredible about studying a man who knows he's going to die
in a few hours.

'I
haven't done it for a long time.'

36

'Sure,'
said Sarah. 'I keep copies of all my autopsy reports here, on my lap-top
computer and in hard copy.' She looked at her husband and at Neil Mcllhenney
standing in the conservatory, where she had been reading when they arrived.
'What's the panic anyway?'

'No
panic,' said Bob. 'It's a thousand-to-one chance, but it's something we have to
check. Will you get us a copy of the report on the second post-mortem you did
at the weekend?'

He
turned to Mcllhenney. 'Neil, you'd better get home for your baby-sitter.'

'No,
it's Karen. I'll call her; she'll understand.'

'Okay,
but first let's try to knock this thing on the head. Let's just phone the
Diddler just in case he's been at home all the time, let's not look any dafter
than we have to.' He picked up the local telephone directory, a
commercially-produced listing of village numbers, found the entry for 'Shearer,
H', and dialled it.

The
phone rang four times, before the Diddler answered. 'Hello,' he said. 'Howard
and Edith are away from home right now, but if you'd like to leave us a
message, or even send us a fax, we'll get back to you.'

'Bugger,'
Skinner swore. 'Come on, Neil,'he said. 'He lives just up the hill; let's check
out his house for signs of recent occupation.'

Sarah
met them in the hall; she had a document pouch in her hand, and looked in
surprise at the torch Bob held in his. 'We'll be back in a minute, love,' he
told her. 'We're just going up to the Shearers' place.'

He
led Mcllhenney out into the bright night, down his long driveway and into Hill
Road. Halfway up the steeply-rising street he stopped at a gateway; it led to a
big bungalow, modern, like his own, in contrast to the great stone houses which
climbed the hillside and which were silhouetted all around against the shining
blue sky
...
until the glare of a
security light obliterated everything else.

Diddler's
outer door was locked, and the house was in darkness. The door was solid, with
no glass panels. Skinner pushed the letter-box open and shone his torch through
it. 'Fuck,' he swore quietly. 'There are newspapers all over the place; and one
of them's the
Sunday Times.
Nobody's been here since the weekend.

'I
don't like this. The Diddler might be a fucking wee sweetie-wife at times, but
he's a good bloke and I am worried about him.'

'Where
else could he be?' his assistant asked.

'He
and Edith have a place in the south of France; conceivably they could be there.
But what isn't conceivable is that none of us knew about it. The Diddler has
never missed a Thursday night without letting Benny Crossley, or Davie McPhail,
or me know in advance
...
and I mean
never.

'We'd
better have a look at that report.'

They
ran back down the hill to Skinner's house. This time, Sarah was waiting in the
kitchen, making a pot of coffee, simply to have something to do. The Floater
file was lying on
the work surface; Bob picked it
up and took out the report. 'Does this mention old scars and other
distinguishing marks?' he asked.

'Yes.
Right there on the first page. The body had an appendectomy scar, and that's
it, apart from a fairly unusual blood type.'

'Any
sign of a healed fracture of the right big toe, about seven years old?'

'The
right big toe was missing. Severed. Look, you two, what is this? You've just
been to Shearer's place. You don't think that man could be the Diddler, do
you?'

Mcllhenney
took a folded newspaper from his back pocket and handed it to her. She stared
at the image on the front page; slowly her eyes seemed to widen. 'My God,' she
whispered. 'I see what you mean. And I helped prepare this picture, too. Yet it
never occurred to me.'

'Where's
the body now?' Bob asked.

'It'll
still be in the mortuary at the Royal Infirmary, I imagine. But Bob, you will
not be able to identify it; take a look at the photographs in there if you
don't believe me.'

He
did as she suggested, taking the big colour prints from the pouch, and wincing
as he looked through them. 'I believe you,' he muttered, at last. 'We'll need
DNA testing, Neil. The trouble is we'll need something from the Diddler to make
the comparison. That means we'll need to get into the house, to look for hairs
off pillows and the like.'

'And
Edith's in St. Tropez with Victoria, their daughter,' said Sarah. 'I met her in
the village last week and she told me they were going, now that the Highers are
over.'

'Shit.
We'll need her approval to get into the house: last thing I want is to scare
the woman before we're certain that the wee bugger isn't shacked up somewhere,
up to his old tricks.'

He
took the coffee which Sarah handed him. 'Look, we're not going to catch any
killers tonight. You get back to the kids, Neil, I'll phone Dan Pringle and
tell him to meet me in his office at eight sharp tomorrow.'

Mcllhenney
grinned. 'That should be an interesting phone call. Where we have the football
on a Thursday night, Superintendent Pringle has the Masons: and Superintendent
Pringle likes a drink.'

37

Karen
Neville drove quietly along the narrow street. She took a deep breath as she
saw the red MGF parked in the driveway. It was after midnight; she had thought
it over several times, indeed she was still thinking it over, but she was
there.

To
hell with what he might have to tell her, or ask her. There were things that
she needed to say to him, and she couldn't hold them inside over another long,
lonely weekend.

Things
like the way he had misread her, and how it wasn't his fault since she had
misread herself. Things about stability and the need to stop being a human
mayfly, before June came along and there were few options left, and even less
future. Things about this bloody office situation and how untenable it was
becoming for her, calling him 'Sir', or 'Boss', or 'Mr Martin' in front of
other people. Christ, it was a wonder she had never said 'Thank you, sir,' as
he had come inside her, 'Thank you for the part of yourself you've given me,
the only part you ever give.'

That
was at the heart of it: most of all she had to tell him outright that theirs
was a taking relationship on both sides, with little or no giving at all, and
that she could not go on that way. She couldn't go on being his safe house away
from the demons, even if that meant that he could no longer provide the
self-same comfort for her.

She
didn't know what she was going to say to him after that, other than 'I quit:
everything, as of now. Goodbye.'

Or
maybe she would simply speak the truth and say, 'I'm sorry, Andy, but I love
you.'

She
took another deep breath as she parked in front of his car, blocking his
driveway. The house was in darkness, but she knew that his bedroom and living
room were on the far side. She pressed the door buzzer, hearing it sound
inside. She waited; and she waited. She rang again, longer this time, in case
he was asleep, although she knew he never slept all that deeply. Still she
waited until the picture began to form in her head.

Why
was his car in the driveway and not in the garage? Was there another car in there?

Andy,
not asleep. Andy, not alone. Andy, with this week's blonde. Or maybe Ruth
McConnell
...
or maybe Alex. Was he
really over her? Would he ever be?

Yes,
she got the picture.

Her
nerve failed her. She walked away from his front door, climbed back into her
car, turned on the engine and then, as quietly as she could, Karen Neville
drove away.

38

He
tried, but he couldn't; he couldn't think about his life. Only about his death,
only about that bloody great gun and the cold, thin man who had been pointing
it at him all night. It looked pretty old, a Webley service revolver maybe, or
an American Colt, the sort of wartime souvenir that had been handed in by the
thousands at firearms amnesties over the last fifty years.

It
may have been a museum piece, but Martin was in no doubt that it was in working
order. Lawrence Scotland knew his firearms; he'd had plenty of practice during
his years as a consultant to the Irish Loyalists and to the late and
infrequently lamented Tony Manson. A heavy calibre job; point four five,
probably. For a second too long he found himself imagining what one of those
would do to his head, how much of it would be left.

He
had seen a murder victim once, years back, where a heavy weapon like that one
had been pressed to the victim's temple. Contact wound; explosive, hardly
anything left in the cranium. He thought of JFK and the apparent mystery of
what had happened to his brain, when his body had arrived at the Dallas
hospital.
Where was the
mystery? It was all over Jackie!

I
wonder who
'11
identify
me. Bob maybe, poor bugger. Not my dad though, please not him. Altogether too
old for that; it would kill him.
He
pictured a funeral; solemn people in black suits. His parents supported by his
younger brother,

David,
and his wife Caitlin. Bob, Jim Elder, Proud Jimmy in uniform
...
Don't
wear uniform, Bob, not for me. I know how much you hate it.
...
Sarah,
and Alex, near the front. Karen, a row further back with Sammy and Neil. Mario
and Maggie
...

Stop
it, Martin,
he shouted at
himself, inside his head.
This
man only has your body captive. Let him take your mind and you really are dead.
If he does what you think he's going to do, you have some sort of a chance.
He's your enemy, he's the other team, and what do you do to them? That's right:
you smash them into the fucking ground, ruck the bastards till they howl for
their mothers. You 're going to get this guy with whatever you have and you
're going to hear his last pathetic gasp.

Anger,
Andy, anger. No point in staying cool now; Mr Cool will get his fucking head
blown off. Be Mr Angry; anger is your only weapon. Anger kills, cool is
vulnerable. Yes, let Lawrence fucking Scotland be Mr Cool.

'Okay.'
The man spoke quietly but the word was like a shout, knifing its way into his
thoughts in the gloom of the kitchen. 'It's time to go. Time to meet your
maker, Mr Martin. Come along quiet now; be a good lad and I'll give you the
Last Rites.'

'Fuck
you and your rites, you blasphemous bastard,' the detective snarled.

'Ahh,'
said Scotland, 'that's what you're going to be is it? Defiant to the end. I had
one of those once, in Armagh; only he wasn't, not to the end. He was one of
them who had seen the brains flying out. At the end he was blubbering like a
baby, not facing the gun, turning away and getting his head blown all over the
place. I pissed on him afterwards; it was the only time I've ever done that.
Before today, that is.'