Skinner's Mission

person.’

‘Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen,’ said Skinner. ‘It’s only computer time, Andy. Get the data and follow it up when you have people available.’

He fell silent. ‘A thought strikes me about Father Ahern,’ he said at last. ‘Maybe he was trying to tell you something else.’

‘Such as.’

The DCC shook his head. ‘It’s only a thought, and you’ve got enough on your plate. Anyway, it’s an area where we might need to call the Chief back into action, with the tact and diplomacy of which he’s so proud. Leave that to me.’

Martin nodded, turned to leave the office, then stopped. ‘I almost forgot. How did you get on at Shotts?’

Skinner sighed, and sat back in his chair. ‘Well. Too well. I can’t go into detail, because I swore that our conversation would be as privileged as Ahern’s confessional, but if you believe Lennie - as I do, implicitly - then far from being out to kill me, Tony Manson was my guardian angel.’

‘Which leaves you with . . . ?’

‘As far as I can see, with only Jackie Charles. Yet Jackie never did a stupid or reckless thing in his life, and for the life of me, I cannot comprehend why he would want to do anything as daft as that.

‘There has to be someone else, Andy: someone else who cut that pipe. Only I can’t see who it was.’

‘So why not leave it at that, Bob?’ said Martin, softly.

Skinner looked up at him. ‘Believe me, Andrew, with all my heart and soul, I wish that I could. But I have to go on until I find all the answers, even though I have this scary feeling that I’m never going to find the one that will let me live in peace.’

He pushed himself up in his chair and grabbed a file from his in-tray. ‘Still, this life goes on. Ask Pam to look in on me as you leave, will you.’

‘Ahh,’ said the Head of CID. ‘Something else I have to tell you. I’ve borrowed her.’

Skinner’s eyebrows rose in an unspoken query.

‘I’ve had a car take her up to Companies House, up in Saltire Court. The search of the Charles property company drew a blank. Only it did seem to confirm that, at one time, he did use his properties for private purposes.

‘So I thought to myself, suppose, after those two raids, Jackie decided that was too risky. A little while back he rolled three property-holding limited companies into one. But suppose there’s a fourth company, one that we don’t know about, in which neither Jackie nor Carole Charles is listed as a director. That’s what I’ve sent Masters to investigate.’

The DCC nodded. ‘I follow your thinking. But couldn’t he simply have bought another property for cash, without forming a company to do it?’

‘He could have, but that’s not the way he works. He always takes the corporate route, winding everything back to a holding company offshore.’

‘Just like Tony Manson did,’ said Skinner. ‘So that even if he had been caught and imprisoned, we’d never have been able to seize his funds.’

‘That’s right. Anyway, I’ve checked the register of properties. Neither Jackie nor Carole Charles are listed under their own names as the owner of any residence or office. Even the Ravelston Dykes house belongs to the property company. In theory, Jackie’s his own landlord, and his own tenant.’

Skinner nodded. ‘You could be right, then. If you are, Pam’ll find them out. One thing I know about her already: she doesn’t stop until the job’s done.’

‘She could answer another outstanding question for us, too,’ said Martin. ‘Where did Carole Charles go when she wasn’t at her Yoga class?’

63

‘Ricky, Ricky, Ricky. What’s come over you?’ the Chief Superintendent laughed. ‘Yesterday you were so keen to get away from Alnwick that you were singing like a bird.

‘Today we can’t get a fucking note out of you.’ The bull-like McCartney sat there, glowering at the wall. ‘Of course, the song sheet keeps changing. Yesterday it was Jimmy Lee - Know that one? Aretha Franklin does it brilliantly - today, there’s a blues number as well. Three murders and you’re bang to rights for them all.

‘Do you know how long you’re going to get? What age are you, again? Let’s see.’ Martin picked up a criminal record sheet from the interview-room table.

‘Forty-five. Jesus, Ricky, do you know what that means?’ He walked across to the interview-room door, opened it for a few seconds, then closed it again with a bang. ‘You never think of an unlocked door as a luxury, do you? At least I don’t. But you . . .

‘Three murders, abduction, a vicious, brutal, crippling attack on a successful young footballer: the most liberal judge on the bench would give you at least a twenty-year minimum sentence for that lot, and God knows what some of the hard ones would do.’ He sat down on the corner of the table and looked down at McCartney. Then he picked up a photograph which had been lying face-down, turned it over and thrust it under McCartney’s nose.

‘That’s just part of what you’re going down for. His name’s Eddie Chang, and on Saturday night you blew his right eye and a chunk of his brain out through the back of his head. We’ve recovered the bullet, and you know we’ll match it to the gun found in your car, a gun which those tests carried out in England can prove you fired.

‘Ricky,’ said Martin, heavily, ‘you will never be alone again in an unlocked room from this day on, until you’re at least sixty-five years old. Maybe you never will be. As a free human being, you’re history. You’re just as dead as Chang, Maloney and O’Flynn are . . . only it’ll be a few years before they bury you.

‘That’s the consequence of playing the silent hero. Whatever you think that Dougie Terry might pay you, it won’t be enough. My guess is that he won’t pay you anything. It’d be cheaper to have you killed in jail than put your family on a pension.

‘It’d be relatively easy too. How can we arrange for special protection if you just sit there and carry the can yourself?’

McCartney looked up at him, doubt invading his defiance.

‘You can’t see any other way, Ricky, can you?’ He paused, letting his words do their work.

‘Well I can,’ he said at last. ‘Yesterday you were ready to tell us all about Jimmy Lee, just to get away from that Rover. Its contents have caught up with you, but the remedy is still the same. Talk to us, tell us the whole story, and we’ll do what we can to help you.

‘But don’t keep us waiting. Even as we speak, DS Donaldson is leaning on your friend Kirkbride. Once we’ve got his statement we might not want yours. Sergeant McIlhenney here, he doesn’t want to offer you any deal at all. I tell you, it’s just as well for you I outrank him.’ McIlhenney smiled across the table at McCartney, and nodded his head, slowly.

The thug stared from one detective to the other. Finally his eyes settled on Martin. ‘Okay then. What sort of a deal are yis talking about?’

The Chief Superintendent nodded and sat back in his chair. ‘Common sense at last! Here it is then.

‘You plead guilty to the culpable homicide of Eddie Chang, the driver of the Scorpio. You’ll claim that the gun discharged accidentally and we’ll accept that. You’ll also plead to being involved in the assault on Jimmy Lee. We’ll close the book in Scotland on Maloney and O’Flynn, and we won’t single you out as the leader of the team that did Lee. You’ll get time, about twelve years I should think, and you’ll probably do the lot, but that’s better than the alternative.

‘This is a once-only offer. To qualify, you have to give us, locked up tight, the man behind the Lee attack and behind Saturday night’s job. Of course, for a conviction it’ll take more than your evidence alone. We’ll need a duet, not just a solo.’

Martin paused. ‘Now. Who gave you your order to have Lee crippled?’

‘Dougie Terry,’ said McCartney, quietly. ‘After the boy crossed him over fixing a Hearts game.’

‘And who ordered the killings on Saturday?’

‘Dougie Terry.’