`What!' Sir James's voice rose for a split second, until he remembered where he was. 'He's in Peterhead now. He tried to kill Bob’
`Yes,' said Sarah, and if you remember, Bob refused to charge him with that, or even with resisting arrest. He reckoned that one life sentence would be enough. The guy sent him a letter of thanks afterwards. The flowers yesterday came via his solicitor, with a Get Well note.'
Proud Jimmy shook his silver head. The world is a wondrous place! What sort of copper gets fan mail from a man he's put away for life?'
Alex grinned. 'Only my-' She stopped in mid-sentence, her mouth frozen open. Suddenly an expression of pain swept across her face. 'Ouch! Sarah, he's squeezing my hand, like he wants to break it! What do I do?'
`Squeeze back,' Sarah replied urgently. She looked up at the monitor and saw that the heart-rate was starting to climb again. `Hard as you can. It's as if he's trying to make contact, as if he's trying to come round, despite all that sedative that Braeburn pumped into him.
`Kiss his hand, talk to him, let him smell your perfume — anything! Just try to let him know that we're here!'
FIFTY-SEVEN
He was back in the field, but the landscape had changed. No longer did it stretch away for ever. Instead it was encircled by high dark woods, reaching up towards the sky and blocking out most of the lights.
He was moving, but very slowly, looking around him at the filth and the carnage. Once again he saw the doll that was not a doll. He tried to avert his gaze, but his eyes moved slowly also.
At last it reached out beyond that fearful relic, to the centre of what had become an arena.
There in the dreamscape, a dark ' looming shape rose up from the ground. In the distance, it seemed to have a face, twisted into a grotesque grin, leering at him, exulting in the knowledge that he was its captive. He tried to look elsewhere, but he was held firm, as if in a beam. He tried to squeeze his eyes shut, but knew as he did so that he was seeing not with any conventional sense. The dark vision remained.
He felt it call him onwards and he obeyed, although he did not want to go. This was a dream from which, he knew, there was no escape. In it he knew who he was. He remembered his run through the streets. He remembered the three men. He remembered the unnoticed girl. And he remembered the blow, and the pain; the sinking, the feeling of drowning, and at last his passage through the blackness that had delivered him to this place.
`Perhaps I am dead and in Hell,' he thought. 'Perhaps this is what Hell is: to be trapped for ever in your worst nightmare?'
He was drawn towards the grinning shape in the distance; his movements seemed to gather pace. He fought against it, but it was until suddenly he stumbled over something which had no use…until suddenly he stumbled over something which had gone unnoticed as he looked ahead.
Managing to hold himself upright he looked down at his feet. There, collapsed on its back, lay the body of a man, a look of utter surprise on his face. He was in his early thirties, neatly dressed and clean-cut, with two small exceptions. Just right of centre in his chest, and through the centre of his forehead there were dark, ragged bullet- holes.
It was a face Skinner knew, from life and from a score and more of earlier dreams. As he stared down at it, the look of surprise faded, to be replaced by one of recognition. Slowly and stiffly the apparition began to rise from the ground with a mixed smile of welcome and anticipation. 'Well, hello again,' it began.
He recoiled from it in horror, feeling his hands clench with tension…
… and suddenly, upon his left hand he felt an answering pressure, something that was not of the dream. He held to it tightly, afraid to let go in case he was holding on to life itself, and as he did the apparition faded. He remained trapped in the dream… there was no escape from there… but he was held still and motionless, held back from the horrible grinning shape.
Other sensations came to him. In the distance he heard whispery voices. On the back of his hands he felt the softest of moist touches. A scent reached him, not one of the blood and oil and burning which filled the dream, but something fragrant, a scent that he knew.
There he lay, in his own private darkness, grasping the unseen fingers which had rescued him from the spectre, and another that had come to take his right hand. There he lay, suspended from life, dead but undead. There he lay, and held on.
FIFTY-EIGHT
‘D'you ever notice how slow the pace of change is in London?'
Mackie looked at the acting Inspector, puzzled. 'What d'you mean?' he said. I'd have thought the opposite.'
McGuire paused on the pavement and shook his head. `When I was a lad, I came down to Wembley once, with my dad and my uncle.' He raised an arm and pointed along Wardour Street. 'We had a pint in that pub there, and that one, and that one. They're all just as I remember them. You pick out three pubs in a row in the middle of Edinburgh, and if just one of them has the same name and paint-job that it had fifteen years ago, you'll be lucky.'
The DCI laughed. 'There's more to life than boozers, big fella.'
`So there is, and over the last ten years Edinburgh's had a new Conference Centre, a new Opera House, new cinemas, four big new retail parks, a new civil-service building, and umpteen big new office developments, in the city centre and out by the bypass. Not bad for a city of under half a million folk.'
`Maybe so, Mario, but it could be that London is so big that change just isn't as obvious.'
Cyril Kercheval's nice little Italian place was opposite two of McGuire's fondly remembered ale-houses. Mackie gazed through the window and was pleased to note that it was much quieter than their Chinese meeting place. Kercheval was waiting for them inside, with a raffia-bound bottle of Chianti uncorked on the table.
`Hello again,' he began, rising to greet them. What have you been up to since yesterday.. or can't you say?'
It's all right. Special Branch isn't nearly as cloak and dagger these days. We leave most of that to your outfit. Mario's new to the section, so I've taken the opportunity to introduce him to some of our opposite numbers down here.'
Kercheval nodded in what seemed to be approval. `Good, good. Not a wasted moment, eh?'
He looked at the menu, with a knowledgeable eye. Inspector,' he said, putting it down and filling their glasses with the dark red Chianti, 'you're a touch Italian, I think. How about choosing for us. On the MI5 tab, of course.' He sipped at his wine. 'Good stuff, this.'
If you insist,' said McGuire, a good enough detective to know when he was being patronised. He spoke rapidly to the waiter in Italian. The man scribbled on his pad, reddening in the face at one point, and disappeared down a narrow staircase set in a corner of the dining room.
`Well? What did you order?'
`Scotch broth — that's soup of the day — and three Aberdeen Angus sirloins, medium rare, in a whisky sauce, with chips and peas. Sherry trifle to follow. My nose tells me that's all they're capable of cooking here. Oh yes, and I said to him that even without tasting it I could tell that the Chianti was shite, and could he please bring us a real bottle and uncork it at the table, otherwise there'd be hell to pay on account of us being coppers.'
He smiled showing all of his gleaming front teeth. 'That's only a rough translation, of course.'
Kercheval was as red as the waiter. 'Oh, I see. Glad to have you along in that case.' He turned quickly to Mackie. `What a, new s from the North? About Skinner, I mean.'
`None, either way. Mario phoned his wife an hour ago. They say that today will be crucial.'
`Mmm. Must be a worrying time for you both. Of course, you may not know him that well, what with him
