‘ Well, chum, this is your way out. You’re going to point me at brother Maitland, and I’m going to see that he’s put away. I don’t care much whether it’s done in private or in public, but he’s got to be locked up.
‘We’re going for a drive to my place. It’ll take us about half an hour to get there. You’ve got that time to consider your position in all this. And you’ve got that time to make up your mind to tell me the whole story. You’re going to tell me anyway. I’m not pissing about here. There’s the easy way, and there’s the hard way. I don’t want to have to beat it out of you. That’s strictly against my rules. But as I said, I’m on your side of the street now, and if I have to, I will. Now I’ll shut up and let you think it over.’
He slipped the car into gear and moved off, out of Bristo Square, turning back towards George Square, past the open-air car-park, towards the main road. As the Sierra turned left into Potterow, a nondescript elderly Ford Escort, its locks worn smooth with age and easily picked, pulled gently out of the car-park.
It followed the Sierra’s turn into West Nicolson Street, past the Pear Tree pub, its customers overflowing into the beergarden as the Friday-night crescendo gathered momentum, and the student survivors of the MacEwan Hall massacre began to arrive.
It kept the Sierra’s tail lights in sight as it headed through Holyrood Park, towards Edinburgh’s eastern suburbs, and beyond, to East Lothian.
98
Skinner was as good as his word on the drive to Gullane. He was silent all through the journey, throwing only the occasional glance at Allingham. Once or twice, in the headlights of on-coming vehicles, he could read the despair written on the man’s face.
The drive in the dark took the half hour that Skinner had forecast. There was no street light near the cottage. After drawing to a halt, he allowed the Sierra’s headlights to illuminate the front door, while he unlocked it with Chubb and Yale keys.
He stepped into the entrance hall, switched on the light, and deactivated the burglar alarm. Then, leaving the Yale off the latch, went back to the car, switched off the lights, and motioned to Allingham to preced him back to the cottage. Inside, he pointed him towards the living room. As the man obeyed, Skinner closed the front door behind them.
The house was chilly. Skinner turned on the gas fire at full power. He pulled the heavy, lined curtains across the windows and across the double patio doors, and stood for a minute in silence with his back to the heat, facing the door to the hall. Allingham had slumped on to the long green leather couch to his left; where he sat, staring at his knees.
‘Right, chum,’ Skinner said abruptly, rousing the man from his contemplation. ‘Your moment has arrived. I don’t really want to get blood and snot all over my upholstery, so save us both a lot of pointless grief and tell me the whole story.’
He walked over to his hi-fi stack, to his right on the wall facing Allingham, picked up a cassette and slipped it into the tape-deck. He pressed the RECORD button.
For a second or two, a last faint gleam of defiance showed in the Londoner’s eyes. Then it was gone. He sighed long and deep.
‘Okay, Skinner, okay. How much do you know?’
‘I know that Mortimer and Jameson were working together to develop a legal case to invalidate the Declaration which set up the State of Israel. I know that their paymaster was a man named Fazal Mahmoud, an old lover of Rachel Jameson from her student days. He was a Syrian then, but currently is — or was until tonight — trading as a Lebanese out of their Embassy in London.
‘He’s been missing for a while. Last weekend we tracked him down to a house in Fife, where he was being sheltered by two other old university chums. They were a couple named Harvey. We found the link and watched them. They led us right to him. My people were careful, but somehow Fazal discovered that the Harveys had been rumbled. When he did, he shot them dead on the spot and made a run for it. He’s been underground since then — until tonight.
‘He was the man with the Uzi. I believe that he was set up by your outfit as the assassin of Al-Saddi. The reason ties in somehow to the Mortimer-Jameson document. But I haven’t put that quite right. The real point is that he was set up to take the blame for the assassination. Poor old Fuzzy was your Lee Harvey Oswald, with us cast in the Jack Ruby role.
‘For Fuzzy had back-up - back-up from Maitland. Maitland wasn’t sent up here to protect Al-Saddi. He was sent up to make sure that he was killed; if necessary, to kill him. Just as he killed Mortimer and Jameson. Just as he killed three innocent people in Edinburgh to set us on the trail of a maniac. And just as, at the very start, he killed Shun Lee, a piece of advance planning to help us fit Yobatu into the frame when the time came.
‘His first job tonight was to get Fazal into that Hall with his Uzi. So he arranges an “accident” for his SAS unit, to keep them away from the very operation that he has planned. Then he attacks and cuts up a young girl, to lure the police away from the door of the debating chamber. Finally, he follows Fazal inside, unnoticed, through the open door. And when Fuzzy opens up with his Uzi, hitting everyone and everything but his target, he stands in the darkness behind him and puts Al-Saddi away with a single shot from a silenced pistol.
‘In concept and execution, it was awful and brilliant. But he made one huge mistake, although he couldn’t have known it at the time.’
Skinner produced one of the Betacam cartridges from the right-hand pocket of his jacket, and waved it in the air.
‘He allowed himself to be filmed. If he hadn’t done that, then neither nor anyone else would ever have cottoned on.’
He paused for a second, allowing Allingham to take in what he had said. He placed the cartridge on a long rosewood coffee table.
‘That’s what I know. But there’s a big piece missing, and that is:
‘Tell me, Allingham. Tell me now.’
The white-faced man lifted dark, haunted eyes and looked into Skinner’ face.
‘Don’t make me. I warn you, there are some things that it’s safer not to know. Man, I’m police, like you. I lived in your world not so long ago. But now I’m part of another where, as you said, the game is played in a different way, where the stakes can be whole countries and millions of lives. In that game, rule number one is this simple: there are no rules.
‘When it’s a matter of protecting the state, even the planet, you do what is necessary. That’s why we have Maitland. There is no one better than him at doing what is necessary.
‘He isn’t SAS of course, not in the sense of being a regular officer. He was Special Boat Services once, at the time of the Falklands, when his unique talents were first noted during certain operations on the South American mainland. Now he works with the Special Forces on occasion, but on a consultancy basis.
‘Maitland isn’t his real name, by the way. He was Captain Lawrence in the SBS, but that may have been false too. But whatever his real name, he is, shall we say, the principal executive arm of the Security Services.’
‘You mean he kills people that the Government wants out of the way?’
‘Not the Government. The politicians don’t know about him, not even the Prime Minister. Although the Security Services report to the PM, there are some things that even he isn’t told. That he can’t be told. For example, the fact that he himself, the whole Cabinet, and the entire Opposition Front Bench are kept under permanent surveillance.’
Skinner whistled. ‘Holy Shit!’
‘It goes back to a standing order given by Macmillan after the Profum Affair. He told them to do it forever, as standard practice, and never to refer back to him or any of his successors on the matter.’
He paused. ‘But that’s got nothing to do with this business. As for Maitland, very few people know about him. Those who are aware of his existence sometimes refer to him as “The State Executioner”.’
Allingham looked into Skinner’s face. ‘Now that you know more about him, do you still want to know the rest of it?’
Skinner’s eyes were hard as flint. His voice was soft, but filled with power and a terrible menace. ‘Friend, it’s
