‘He’d have told me anything to stop me shooting him. Unfortunately for him, there was nothing he could have said that would have stopped me.’
‘How did you happen to show up at Grimley’s cottage?’ Skinner asked, although, as before, he had guessed the answer.
‘I followed Jones from his home. I watched him for a while, just like I watched Saunders and Collins. I found out that he never went out at night without his wife, so that gave me a problem. Finally, I decided that I’d tail him in the mornings, as he went to his work, and wait for a chance.’ Riach’s eyes narrowed. ‘If I had to, I was even prepared to do him with a pistol through the window of his Toyota. I followed him for three days on the trot, but there were always too many people around. Then I got lucky.
‘He was an early starter, so I was always there well in advance, but on that third morning I was surprised when he left so soon. He didn’t take his normal route to his office. Instead he went past Queensferry, round the bypass, down the A68, then cut off down to Humbie.
‘When I saw the house, I thought that Newton or Clark . . . maybe the both of them . . . might be hiding there, so I let him go inside, and I set myself up in the woods. Mind you, when I saw him break in through the back door, and saw that he was carrying a sawn-off I said to myself, “Aye aye, something up here”. Then I heard the shot.’
Riach paused. ‘I hadn’t a bloody clue who’d been done, and to tell you the truth, I didn’t give a stuff, but I guessed it wasn’t Jones. So I stayed behind my tree and waited.
‘It was only a minute later when your folk arrived. The black chap threw me at first, but I recognised Martin from the telly. I just kept watching the house, and that side window. All of a sudden Jones stepped into sight. I saw him picking up his shotgun, so I let him have it.’
‘What weapon did you use?’ asked Skinner, quietly.
‘A service carbine. It’s a stumpy wee rifle, dead accurate, and it fits the pannier of my bike.’
Riach drained his glass. ‘Mind if I get another?’
‘Not at all,’ the policeman answered, impressed by his calmness.
‘You want one?’
‘No thanks, Henry, I’m fine.’
He watched as the young soldier walked to the bar and returned, his glass replenished.
‘Can I ask you a question now?’
‘Okay.’
‘How did you know it was me?’
‘I just guessed, sort of.’
‘But didn’t your lot think that Jones killed Saunders and Collins?’
‘Yes we did, at first.’
‘Then after Jones was killed, that statement you put out said that the two of them had been rivals, and that they’d killed each other in a confrontation.’
Skinner shook his head. ‘No. It said that they had
‘Still: how did you know?’
‘Well,’ the policeman began, ‘there were a couple of things. You stabbed them before you shot them, yes?’ Riach nodded. ‘With a bayonet, fixed to your gun, to bring their heads up? Yes, I thought so. That was a soldier’s thing, for a start.
‘Something else came to me the other night. Before he disappeared, Bakey Newton made two phone calls; one was to Clark, to tell him what had happened. We checked: the other was to Jones. Now if he’d thought for one moment that his pal Hamburger was wiping out his team, he’d hardly have called him, would he?’
‘Who killed Bennett, then, and his sister?’ the sergeant asked.
‘Oh, Jones did them all right. There’s no doubt about that. We even found the sniper’s rifle he used, hidden in his garage. It was a souvenir from his army days.
‘That actually helped me to you. Because that’s how you worked out who might have been involved in your father’s murder, through the army connection.
‘You knew Bennett, of course, like you knew all the so-called Paras group, for you saw them all in here, every Friday night. When you heard on the telly, or read that he and his sister had been done, and . . . the most important thing of all . . . that Big Mac had vanished: I assumed that’s when you began to put the thing together.
‘You knew that these hold-ups were military operations, and here were these six guys, an odd bunch of ex- regulars with this mysterious pal whose real name they never used. After Bennett’s death, and McDonnell’s vanishing act, I don’t imagine that you had any doubt.
‘Did you, Henry?’
‘None at all,’ Riach answered, his eyes fixed steadily on Skinner’s. ‘I knew Rocky and Curly were the really hard guys in the group, so I got their addresses from the Infantry Division records, and I went after them . . . Rocky first. He was easiest, living out in the country. He told me the lot.
‘So,’ he asked evenly, ‘what are you going to do about it?’
The DCC gave a soft laugh. ‘You mean how am I going to prove it?’ he countered.
‘Son, with no witnesses and no corroboration I know how difficult that would be, so I’m not even going to try. Anyway, I’d have shot Rocky Saunders myself, given half a chance, for killing Annie Brown. As for Curly Collins; you see the tears I shed for him.’
He finished off his warm shandy. ‘It must surprise you, a copper talking like this. But I guard the public safety and the public interest. I don’t see you threatening either one in the future. As for justice, it seems to me that’s been served well enough.’ He took a deep breath, held it for a few seconds, then let it out in a great sigh.
‘There’s another thing too. When you shot Adrian Jones, you saved my best friend’s life.’
Bob Skinner stared back at the soldier, until the young man’s eyes fell from his. ‘So, Henry,’ he whispered, ‘this conversation’s just between you and me . . . as long as no one else turns up dead.’
88
‘You don’t mind me calling in like this on a Saturday, Bob, do you?’ asked Lord Archibald. ‘I was down at Muirfield, so I thought I’d take the chance.’
‘Not at all, Archie. I was going to come and see you next week anyway.’
Sarah laid a cup of coffee and a plate of biscuits before the Lord Advocate on the conservatory table, waved a brief goodbye and returned to the kitchen.
‘You’re absolutely certain that Norman King’s in the clear?’ asked the Law Officer as she left.
‘Completely. Beatrice Gates’ illegitimate son, Bernard Grimley, murdered the three judges; I’m well satisfied of that. We found the remains of the cyanide, and a list of tide tables in his cottage. Most important of all we found not one, but two copies of Arnold Kilmarnock’s book about the Gates case. One was clean, but the other had scribbles and annotations all over it. All of the judges’ names were heavily underlined.’
Skinner picked up a biscuit from the plate.
‘Just over three years ago, Bernard Grimley decided that on his fortieth birthday he would trace his natural mother. Can you imagine what it must have done to him when he found out who she was, and what she had done? Until that point, he had been a police source in Glasgow. That stopped, from that day on. Since then, he’s been waiting for his moment . . . or rather his moments.
‘King didn’t kill his father, Archie. It was this guy all right.’
Lord Archibald leaned back in his chair and let out a great sigh of relief. ‘Thank Christ for that,’ he exclaimed. ‘Or rather, thank you and your officers, Bob.
‘I’d have had to charge him you know, if you hadn’t found Grimley. I’d have had no option: well, I would, but if I’d covered it up and it had ever leaked out, it could have threatened the Government.
‘Yes, poor Norman would have gone to Court, with no defence beyond a denial, and he’d almost certainly have been convicted. Can you imagine what the minimum recommendation would have been?The rest of his natural life and ten years after that, probably!’
Skinner flashed a smile across the table. ‘But instead, he’ll be standing in the High Court next week trying to
