‘Kwame, you stay here. I’ll try round the back.’ As Ankrah nodded acknowledgement, Martin turned and walked around the cottage, following a path which led off to the left. The door at the rear of the house was painted green also. Like the other it had two glass panels set in its upper half; but one of them was broken. He turned the handle and the door swung open.
He looked around the small kitchen. Dinner plates, a mug, and a pint glass lay in the sink, unwashed. Two lager cans, their tops punctured, lay on the table. Across the room, another door lay open.
Noiselessly Martin crept into the hall. There were four doors off; two to his left, one to his right and the front door. They were all closed save the farther on the right, which was slightly ajar. Through it he could see lace curtains, a dining chair and part of a gateleg table. At the far end of the corridor, he became aware of Kwame Ankrah’s dark shadow as he leaned forward, peering through one of the glass panels of the entrance door.
He stepped across to it and turned the knob of the Yale, opening it and admitting his companion, who looked both puzzled and tense. The silence in the cottage was almost palpable. The DCS answered the question in the Ghanaian policeman’s eyes with a shrug of his shoulders, then pointed towards the single open door.
Feeling suddenly very vulnerable, almost naked, he stepped through it and into the living room.
Bernard Grimley was there: on the floor. He knew that it was Grimley, even though he had no face. He knew it by his build, and by the fact that it was someone else who stood, ten feet away, in the sunlight which flooded through the uncurtained side window, a single-barrelled, pump-action, sawn-off held securely in his hands.
‘What the bloody hell are you . . .’ exclaimed Andy Martin, as the man raised and levelled the gun. And that was as far as he got.
85
Skinner sat up in bed, a feeling of unease gripping him.
‘What’s wrong, Bob?’ asked Sarah, sensing his mood even through her drowsiness.
He swung his legs out of bed and stood, naked, running his fingers through his tousled hair. ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘Just someone walking over my grave, I guess.’
‘Don’t say that, it scares me. It must be more than that.’
He slipped on his bathrobe and stepped over to the big window, drawing the curtains aside to look out across the Bents, still in shadow, and at the great river, as it caught the first rays of the morning sun.
‘I suppose I’m still wondering who Bakey Newton might have phoned, before he did his runner, and why.’ He glanced at the bedside clock, which showed one minute before seven a.m. ‘I think I’ll take a quick shower, and get into the office.’
He was no more than halfway to the bathroom when the phone rang. He reached it in two strides and picked it up. ‘Skinner,’ he barked.
‘Fookin’ ’ell, I knew I shouldn’t have called this early.’ The tension broken, Bob laughed.
‘You’re dead right,’ he said, sitting on the edge of the bed. ‘What’s the story?’
‘I didn’t have much choice but phone you now, I’m afraid. I’m off to the Gulf wi’ the Defence Secretary in an hour, and I thought you’d want this before I got back, rather than after.’
‘Go on, then.’
‘Well, after I sorted out those names for you, I did a bit more checking into their service records, and something interesting came up.Two of ’em, Clark, the infantryman, and Newton, the cook, had black marks on theirs. They were both court-martialled around the same time, and for a short spell they were in detention together.
‘Clark was done for insubordination, and Newton for beating the crap out of a junior NCO. They were both fined and reduced in rank. However, they both did deals. They pleaded guilty, and the prosecuting officer put forward mitigating circumstances on their behalf, so they stayed in the service.
‘Another connection between them was that they were both prosecuted by the same bloke in the Advocate General’s office.’ As Arrow paused for breath, Skinner’s right eyebrow rose, very slightly, as two thoughts converged in his brain.
‘I’d have made nothing of that,’ the major went on, ‘had something not made me run a check on the prosecutor. He’s long gone from the service . . . left seven years ago . . . but it were the Army that sent him to St Andrews University. They did that after he was wounded in the Falklands, as a very young officer.’
He paused. ‘You keeping up with me?’
‘I think so. You’re going to tell me that Bennett and McDonnell worked for him in the Advocate General’s office . . . not together, a couple of years apart. Then you’re going to tell me . . .’
‘That when he was a baby one-pipper getting his knee permanently stiffened by the Argies, seven of whom ’e killed, personally, two of the men under his command in two-Para were Lance-Corporals Ryan Saunders and Charles Collins.
‘There you are, Bob, m’ friend. A nice neat ribbon, tying all six of your bank gang together. What do you think?’
Skinner sat in silence. At last he said, ‘Adam, you are one clever little bastard. If you ever leave the Army, I’ll give you a job on the spot. All I need from you now is for you to tell me two things.
‘One, that this guy is still alive, and two . . . his name!’
86
Afterwards, Andy Martin never could work out in his mind the exact sequence of events.
He never knew what had happened first; whether it was Kwame Ankrah’s left shoulder slamming into his side, taking him to the floor, whether it was the shotgun blast, or whether it was the sniper’s bullet shattering the window glass and tearing into Adrian Jones’ head.
Whatever it was, in the immediate aftermath, he lay on the ground, his chest heaving and his heart hammering, peculiarly fascinated by Jones’ twitching right leg as it did its dance of death. It had all happened too fast for him to be frightened. That would come later.
He was surprised that the sound of the motorcycle registered at all as he lay there, but it did. He scrambled to his feet, trying but failing to pull Ankrah with him, and ran out of the cottage. By the time he reached the lane, the engine noise was fading in the distance, and all he could see was a mixture of dust and exhaust.
He went back inside the house, and into the living room. Ankrah had pulled himself into a sitting position, his back against one side of the fireplace. He was wearing a dark suit, but nonetheless Martin could see that his right shoulder, and the right side of his face were bleeding.
‘You’re hit,’ he burst out, anxiously, if unnecessarily.
The Ghanaian nodded, the movement making him wince. ‘I’ve had worse than this at home. I caught a few pellets from the shotgun, that’s all.’
He looked over at the body. ‘He was a bad loser, was our Mr Jones. If Grimley had known what he was dealing with, he’d have been a bit more careful about crowing over his victory in the Court.’
Martin’s features twisted in an unfamiliar snarl. ‘He obviously didn’t fancy his chances at appeal.’ He turned and walked through to the kitchen, tearing open drawers until he found three clean dish-towels, which he used to pack against the wounded man’s shoulder and to wipe his face.
‘Thanks, Kwame,’ he said, quietly. ‘If you hadn’t decked me there, I’d probably have caught most of that blast, whether or not Jones was dead when he pulled the trigger. You hold on now, I’ll get help.’
He used his mobile to call Fettes and summon police and medical assistance. Next, he phoned Skinner. The DCC was in the shower, but Sarah answered. ‘Morning, love,’ he said. ‘It’s Andy. Would you ask Bob to come to Grimley’s cottage up behind Humbie, asap. Tell him someone beat us to it . . . no, scratch that, tell him two people beat us to it.’
Replacing the phone in his pocket, he went back to the kitchen and made two large mugs of hot sweet tea. Handing one to Ankrah, he took his own, and sat down on Bernard Grimley’s couch with his faceless body at his feet.
‘You never said you had a sniper in the woods, Andy,’ the African muttered, wincing again as he spoke.
