‘Is this investigation jinxed, or what?’ the Head of CID growled. ‘Every time we turn up potential witnesses they either die or they go underground.’
‘Look on the bright side, Andy,’ said Skinner, stretching his legs as he leaned against the back wall of the squash court, deep in the bowels of the Headquarters building. His white towelling shirt and the red band around his forehead were heavy with sweat as he spun his handmade Worton racquet in his right hand. ‘You’ve identified the gang, and they’re out of business for sure.’
Like many squash players of his generation, he eschewed the modern high-tech alloy frames and synthetic strings, preferring to stick to traditional gut-strung wood. ‘If you’re good enough, son,’ he was fond of saying to his younger friend, ‘it doesn’t matter what you use. So my racquet’s an ounce or two heavier than yours? So your frame widens the efficiency of the striking surface? So what, if you do what you’re supposed to do and hit the ball dead in the middle of the strings every time?’
If pressed, Skinner would admit that of all the ball games he played, squash was the one at which he really excelled. He was a low-handicap golfer, but he knew that his game lacked the finesse ever to allow him to make scratch. As a footballer, he was capable, but his sheer size made him less adept than smaller players, particularly in indoor sports halls. But on the squash court, he was able to blend touch, timing, power and economy of movement into an irresistible package. In middle age he played less frequently than in his twenties and thirties, when he had been the number-one player in one of the city’s most prestigious clubs, but he was still good enough to be untouchable by any user of the Fettes courts.
Andy Martin had learned everything he knew about the game from his friend. However he was still a long way from having learned everything that Bob Skinner knew.
Yet, as they gulped in air during the short break between games, the older man glanced across at his opponent and smiled. Martin was playing with a ferocity born of frustration, and had taken an early lead, only to be hauled back to two-all, in the five-game match.
The Chief Superintendent slapped the side wall of the Court with the flat of his hand. ‘We’ve identified the gang, you say. Yet the truth is, Bob, that we’ve stumbled over them. They might be out of business, and three of them might be dead, but the survivors are still a few million quid to the good.’
‘I know, and that’s bad luck for the insurers; but at least the public are safer than they were. You’d better postpone the rest of this conversation, though. You’ve got a chance of beating me here, but only if you’re concentrating on nothing but the game.’
He replaced his eye protectors, tossed up the small, hollow, rubber, yellow spot ball, which he had been holding to keep it warm, fired it against the front wall once, twice, three times, at blinding speed, then caught it.
‘Play.’
He had deceived his opponent. Actually, Martin had no chance of beating him. The more a squash player is in command, the more he walks about the court, rather than runs. By the time he was 2-5 down in the deciding game, the younger man was running flat out, from one corner of the Court diagonally to another. Finally, Skinner finished the match with a beautiful drop shot from the centre of the court, which kissed the front wall just above the tin and fell into the nick, running flat and unplayable back along the floor.
They were in the showers before Martin had recovered enough breath to speak. ‘You conned me out there, you big bastard,’ he gasped.
‘I always con you, son. The one thing you’ve never learned about this game is how to conserve your energy. The first two games aren’t important. The third, fourth and fifth; they’re the ones that count, and that’s when you have to have something in the tank.’
‘When are we playing again?’
‘Friday, if we’re clear.’
‘Right. I’ll concede the first two games.’
Skinner grinned. ‘You always do, one way or another.’ He picked up his shampoo and began to knead it into his hair.
‘You realise, Bob, don’t you,’ said Martin, his voice raised above the powerful jets from the shower heads, ‘that we’ve got a new investigation on our hands now?’
‘It’s the same one we’ve always had, really,’ the DCC countered. ‘We’re still looking for the man behind the robberies, only now, we’re pursuing him for the murders of three of his team.’
‘You don’t think that either Newton or Clark could be the killer?’
‘Not for a second . . . and neither do you. Those two guys have run for their lives, literally.’
‘Why do you think that they bolted after Collins’s murder, and not after Saunders was killed?’
‘I guess when they heard that McGrigor was questioning a local man in connection with his shooting, they assumed the same thing John did, that he’d been killed by a jealous husband.’
‘I suppose so. And as you say, by making a break for it, they’ve confirmed our suspicion that they were all part of the gang. I just wonder though. Is that all of them?’
Skinner stepped out of the shower, just as the automatic switch cut off the jet, and picked up his towel. ‘Let’s go through them,’ he said, ‘the people that Steele’s bar steward pal listed. Nathan Bennett, aka Big Red; dead. PO Malky McDonnell, alias Big Mac; done a runner. Ryan “Rocky” Saunders, aka the West Linton fornicator; dead. Charles Collins . . . I think I played squash against him a couple of years back, when the force sent a team up to Colinton Castle. Beat him three-love; easy, it was . . . aka Curly; dead. Rory “Bakey” Newton; done a runner. Alan “Tory” Clark; done a runner.
‘That’s all six of Mr Herr’s Paras accounted for. But it leaves their pal Hamburger.’
‘Hold on, though,’ said Martin, pausing as he rubbed himself down. ‘We have absolutely no evidence that he’s involved at all.’
‘No, but I hope we’re agreed that someone else is. Look at what happened this morning, after bloody Gibson announced over Radio Forth that Collins had joined Saunders in the mortuary. Newton heard it, called Clark, and both of them disappeared, in mid-shift . . . except that the baker went home first and gave his wife fifty grand in cash.
‘Those two were the last survivors of the six, but the speed with which they left tells us that neither of them killed Bennett, Saunders or Collins. They’re afraid of someone, that’s for sure.’
‘Hamburger?’
‘Maybe yes, maybe no. In any event, we know nothing about him, and all the people who could give us a lead are either dead or missing.’
‘We’ve still got to trace him, though,’ Martin conceded, gloomily.
Skinner nodded. ‘Tell you what, Andy. I’ll take responsibility for that, with McIlhenney. Collins and Clark have wives; maybe the name Hamburger will mean something to them.
‘There’s something else; Nathan Bennett’s own bank was the scene of the first robbery. Maybe the team were confident enough to hit the places where they banked themselves. We need to collect photographs of the other five, and see if we can spot any of them on Pye’s video tapes. Bad news for Sammy, I’m afraid. He’s in front of that screen again. But maybe Mr Ankrah will help him out.’
He paused, dropping his towel on the floor and opening the locker in which he had hung his clothes. ‘Alongside that, we have to concentrate on recovering the proceeds of the robberies. McDonnell, Williams and Regan must have been paid to vanish; Newton and Clark obviously had access to money too. So it’s a fair bet that Saunders and Collins had cash hidden somewhere. Let’s do our best to recover it.
‘As your first priority, though, I suggest that you have Royston organise a press briefing and go public on what we know.You can identify Rocky and Curly as associates of Big Red, and suspected members of the gang, then say that we’re looking for Big Mac, Bakey and Tory, his other pals.
‘If I were you I wouldn’t even hint that there’s anyone else involved. Let’s regain the advantage here, if we can.’
66
Skinner had never before been in the office of the Lord President of the Court of Session, in Parliament House, the great grey building which was home to the Faculty of Advocates, the judiciary and the majority of the Supreme
