‘I didn’t. I haven’t a fucking clue who he was.’ Gently, at first, he began to shake.
The violence of his rigor had passed, but he was still on the sofa, trembling slightly, when Skinner arrived, a few minutes after the emergency medical assistance. He stepped into the room without a word, and looked down at each of the bodies on the floor. ‘So, Mr Jones,’ he whispered. ‘You couldn’t let it lie, could you.’
He glanced back, over his shoulder. ‘I passed an ambulance on my way in here,’ said the DCC to Martin.
‘That was Kwame; but he’s okay. He took a few slugs from Jones in the shoulder and in the side of his face. Flesh wounds, that’s all.’
‘How about you?’
‘Nothing a change of jockey shorts won’t put right. That big Ghanaian in the ambulance saved my life though. Him and the bloke outside.’
He looked up. ‘I’m confused, Bob. Confused! I’m fucking bewildered. Why should Jones kill Grimley? Okay, he was stuffed in Court, but the insurers picked up the tab.’
Skinner smiled back at him. ‘He killed him because that’s the kind of man he was, son. Try calling him Hamburger. He was the seventh member of the armed robbery gang . . . the Boss, the planner.’
‘Eh?’
‘Adam Arrow just drew the picture for me. Remember Mitchell Bloody Laidlaw’s joke? He didn’t know it, but he wasn’t kidding. Our Ham Burger was a District Attorney right enough . . . in the Army.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Jones was a captain in the Advocate General’s office. Bennett and McDonnell worked for him; he prosecuted Clark and Newton at courts martial. But before he went into that line of work, he fought in the Falklands with Collins and Saunders. Natural-born killers, the three of them were, apparently.’
Martin gave a final shudder and pushed himself to his feet. ‘But why the robberies?’
‘Work it out with me. Jones may have been a shit-hot criminal lawyer in the Army, but in the gentle world of civvy street, and civil law, he wasn’t so good. He proved this once and for all by landing his firm with a compensation claim from this fellow.’ He nodded down at Grimley’s body.
A cough came from behind him. ‘Can I begin in here, sir?’ asked Arthur Dorward, in his white tunic. The Inspector looked disapprovingly at his senior officer’s clothing.
‘Aye, sure Arthur. We’ll be in the garden.’ Skinner led the way outside through the front door. The morning sun shone on a green-painted wooden bench. The two friends sat down on it, side by side.
‘Jones must have seen that he was finished as a lawyer after that,’ the DCC continued, ‘or at least condemned to a career which was beneath his ambitions and his dignity. So he decided to look for an alternative source of income. Having seen crime first hand, he knew the best way to go about it, and the mistakes to avoid.
‘He figured too that, basically, us coppers are pretty thick. If it isn’t obvious to us, it’s never easy.’ Skinner shifted on the hard wooden bench.
‘Once he had made his decision, well, he was an officer, after all, so he recruited his own platoon. Adam checked the guest list at Paras reunion dinners. They show that he kept in touch with Collins and Saunders. He must have made a point of keeping track of people, for he was able to recruit Newton and Clark, his old customers, then Bennett and McDonnell, his old assistants. Jones knew all these guys personally, though only Rocky and Curly, and Tory and Bakey, knew each other.
‘But they all knew, in different ways . . . Rocky and Curly from the battlefield, Bakey and Tory from Court, Big Red and Big Mac just from being around him . . . what their pal Hamburger was capable of.
‘He brought them all together, he formed the so-called Paras group up in the TA Club, and they used that as a base to plan their campaign. It really was immaculate, Andy. A group as well-trained as that, yet as disparate as that. They set about a short, sharp burst of high-value robberies, with the objective of setting each of them up for life.
‘The highlight was the Raglan’s jewel robbery, which fell into their lap when Jones met Arlene Regan up in the Club. They had a fling, she passed on her boy-friend’s tip about the Russian and his diamond buys, and she and Nick were paid to disappear. McDonnell was too, after he reported that Bennett was looking like talking to you.
‘What d’you think?’
Martin leaned against the back of the garden seat, his eyes closed in the sunshine. ‘We’ll need to find Clark and Newton, and Arlene, to confirm it all, but I’ll go for that. I’ll get a warrant this morning, and we’ll search Jones’ place before the day is out.’
Opening his eyes, he looked sideways at Skinner. ‘Life’s funny, is it not. Grimley and Jones; each chasing different rainbows and each with their hands on a pot of gold, yet they both wind up dead, in the same room.’
He paused. ‘And Jones killed Rocky and Curly?’
‘Looks like it, doesn’t it?’
‘I can’t argue against any of it.’ Out of the blue, Andy Martin laughed; it was a mixture of tiredness, elation and most of all, relief at still being alive to enjoy the bright morning, and to plan the uncertain future with the woman he loved.
‘Which leaves us,’ he said, ‘with the Star Prize Question. Who rode off from here on his motorbike? Just who the fuck shot Adrian Jones?’
‘That is something,’ said Skinner, soberly, in contrast to his friend’s borderline hysteria, ‘that I don’t reckon the world will ever know.’
87
Bob Skinner was a straight arrow, who did not approve of drinking and driving at all. Nevertheless, although his car was parked in the street outside, he nursed a pint glass as he sat in the bar of the TA Club. It was shandy, half beer and half lemonade, pressed upon him by the manager.
He had been waiting for just over twenty minutes when the man entered, immaculate in his uniform. ‘A right fucking bandbox,’ Skinner whispered, to no one. ‘I’ll bet his dad was proud of him.’ The soldier walked up to the bar, past the policeman’s corner table, without noticing him.
‘Pint of lager, please, Barry,’ he called out.
The manager nodded and picked up a glass. ‘There’s someone to see you,’ he said, as he slid it across the wooden top, and took the money which lay there.
Sergeant Henry Riach turned, to see the policeman sitting in the corner, smiling across at him. ‘Mr Skinner,’ he said, looking surprised. ‘What brings you here?’
The DCC stood as he came across, extending his hand to offer a seat. ‘Mr Herr mentioned to a colleague of mine that you were a regular in here on a Friday. I thought I’d drop in to let you know about our investigation into your father’s death.’
‘I gather it’s been successful,’ the sergeant replied, ‘according to what I read in the papers.’
‘Yes. We’re still looking for three of the gang, but I’m satisfied that Curly Collins killed your father, and that Rocky Saunders shot my young police officer.’
A thin smile spread across Riach’s face, and a gleam came into his eyes. ‘And they’re dead. Now that’s what I call natural justice.’
‘Not everyone would agree with that. I know a right few coppers who would call it murder.’
‘You can’t expect me to see it that way.’
‘No, of course I can’t,’ Skinner agreed. ‘I understand exactly how you see it. So would your Uncle John McGrigor, I’m sure . . . not that I’d ever ask him to admit it, mind you.’
He grinned at the young soldier. ‘How did you find out that the Paras’ friend Hamburger was Adrian Jones?’ he asked. ‘He never used his real name when he was in here.’
For the first time, the easy smile left Sergeant Riach’s face, and his gaze dropped from the policeman. In the midst of the long silence which hung over the table, Skinner noticed that his hand was trembling slightly as he picked up his glass.
And then he looked up once more, his eyes hard and defiant. ‘Rocky Saunders told me,’ he said, quietly. ‘Just before he died. He told me who he was, what he had done in the Army, what he did now, and where he lived.
