candidate would hold it.'
Did he indeed,' said the little widow, intrigued. 'I wonder who he had in mind.'
FORTY-TWO
Skinner had just refilled the coffee mugs when his scrambled direct line rang. He stepped across to the desk and picked it up. `Yes?'
DCI Donaldson, sir. I'm calling from Captain Arrow's office in Whitehall.'
`Hello, Dave. I've been expecting your report. Look, I've got company here, Mr Doherty and Ms Gower, so I'm going to switch to hands free.' He pushed a button on the receiver and replaced the handset. 'Right, how's it going down there?'
Donaldson's voice boomed tinnily around the room. Interesting, sir. We've satisfied ourselves that the Red Box was clean when Maurice Noble took it home with him.'
`That doesn't really surprise me. Go on to the interesting bits.'
`Right, for a start, Maurice Noble's colleagues say that he was showing signs of depression. This was related to the excessive hours that Mr Davey made his staff work, and to his belief that his wife was having an affair.'
`Have you spoken to the wife?'
`Just left her, sir.'
`What did she have to say? You did put it to her, didn't you?'
Of course, boss. We asked her directly. She didn't admit anything.'
`But you have room for doubt?'
`Substantial.
Okay. Is Adam there?'
`Yes, sir. I'll put him on.'
Skinner picked up the receiver, cutting out the loudspeak. Adam, I think maybe we should put a tail on Mrs Noble. Do y agree?'
Too right. I've put a tap on her phone already.'
Is that authorised?'
I've fookin' authorised it.'
`Fine, if you can do that. Now I want you to use Donaldson and McIlhenney for the tail.
They're both good guys, and I trust them. While they're keeping the lady in their sights, I'd like you to do something else for me. It sounds as if we have to consider suicide by Noble as a possibility here. I want you to go back into his past and find out whether he had the skill to make an explosive device.'
Okay,' said Arrow. 'From memory, there was nothing to indicate that, but I'll take a look.
Maybe he 'ad a Boys' Own Chemistry set when he was a lad. Anything else?'
`Yeah. Let's cover all the angles. If the Red Box spent the night at Chez Noble, I'd like to have the place checked for any sign of an illicit entry while they were asleep. Ask Dave Donaldson to arrange to borrow a Scene of Crime Squad from the Met.'
`Right, I'll do that.'
`Good,' said Skinner. 'Now, Joe Doherty has with him the American file on Agent Robin.
I've got Brian Mackie flying down there tomorrow. I'll ask him to give it to you.'
`You can if you like,' said Arrow, 'but it ain't news to me. M16 found out about Robin before the Yanks did. The CIA obviously didn't tell the NSC, but it were our lot that tipped them off! Don't worry about Agent Robin, Bob. We've got an operation in place in that respect, and I'm pretty certain that Robin isn’t the person we're after! The best thing we can do is follow the leads we ‘ave, and keep an eye out for traces of General Yahic.'
Skinner said cautiously. 'I'll go with your judgement on that. Good luck.'
‘cheers mate. I'll keep in touch.' Arrow hesitated. 'One thing though, Bob. Are you all right?'
`Me! Of course. Why?'
'Cos from where I'm listening, you sound absolutely knackered!'
FORTY-THREE
Bob Skinner lay in the dark. It was 2.30 a.m., and he was afraid.
He lay alert, listening to his wife's soft breathing, because he was afraid to fall asleep, afraid of another dream visit to those muddy acres, afraid of the horror but also of the reality of his vision of the night before.
He knew with a great certainty that the nightmare was not over, only interrupted. He could remember none of the detail, only the horror, but he was certain that if he yielded to his sandy, heavy eyes, he would be back in its midst, not screaming awake this time, but moving on towards something in the darkness, something that he knew was there, something frightful, something awful. He was afraid too that even his wakeful state would not be a defence for ever, and that soon the final recollection would break through the wall in his consciousness which he had built against it, and kept cemented firm.
He slipped out of bed, moved noiselessly over to his wardrobe and found running shorts, a sweat-shirt and trainers. Rather than stumble about in the bedroom and risk waking Sarah, he stepped out to the landing and clothed himself, then tiptoed downstairs and let himself out into the street. He locked the door behind him, zipped his keys into a pocket in his shirt, and trotted towards the road, running across the lawn and leaping over the corner of the gravel to maintain his silent escape.
Had he looked back, he would have seen Sarah at the bedroom window watching him anxiously as he loped into the night, down Fairyhouse Avenue.
He ran with long easy strides, not pushing himself as he climbed the hill and took the turn which led on to Queensferry Street. He crossed the wide road almost at once, picking up his pace as he ran past Stewarts Melville College then turned right, heading down the hill towards Dean Village.
As he ran in the light, cold drizzle which was falling on the centre of Edinburgh, the waking nightmare faded. He settled into a steady, metronomic pace, and he began to think through his investigation. He replayed all the decisions he had taken, and all the orders he had given.
He thought back to Donaldson's report and to his description of Maurice Noble's depression, and to his fears over his wife. Could Noble have been a perverted suicide? He asked himself. The very question made him feel frustrated.
One of the things which he disliked most about his senior command role was the extent to which it took him away from day-to-day contact with criminal investigation. Throughout his career as a detective, one of his great strengths had been his ability to get to know the people he was confronting, by studying their actions, by speaking to those who knew them and finally, in many cases, by staring into their eyes across the table in an interview room.
The essential delegation which his rise through the ranks had forced upon him had robbed him of much… too much, he thought.. of that closeness with the crime-fighting process. It was not that he distrusted his staff or doubted their ability to form their own judgements. On the contrary, Skinner believed that his handpicked team was the finest in the country.
His problem was that as the commanding General and Field-Marshal-in-waiting, for all the power and glory, he derived less satisfaction from the job than he had as a member of the frontline team.
Of course, since moving into the command suite he had enjoyed one or two personal successes. But they had been accidents of fate, rather than part of the due process. Now he had chosen to place himself publicly at the head of the most demanding enquiry his Force had ever faced, and he was troubled.
The carnage on the Lammermuirs had thrust torments into his dreams, and he knew that they were taking a physical toll. Yet, apart from that, since the early hours of the investigation when he had stood frustrated in the Command Vehicle, trying to think of all the things he should be doing yet having difficulty in stringing them into a logical sequence, he had had the strangest feeling that somehow he was floating above events, unable to reach
