Susan turned to the elderly woman. 'Bob, Sarah, I'd like you to meet my mother-in-law, the Dowager Lady Kinture. Mother, this is Assistant Chief Constable Skinner and his wife.'
The matron's expression unfroze very slightly. 'How do you do?' she said, extending a hand to Skinner, and contriving to ignore Sarah. Bob guessed that she must approve of policemen, but of little else.
`Hector insisted that Mother join us tonight. She lives in a house on the estate now, but every so often she comes up to Bracklands, for an event.' Lady Kinture the elder frowned at her daughter-in-law down her long patrician nose.
`This week must be exciting for you, ma'am,' said Skinner, making an effort.
Her face iced over once more. 'Exciting is not the word I would use, young man,' she said, in a voice like the edge of a fine blade, then turned towards the next arrivals.
Bob led Sarah into the ballroom, into the heart of the throng of guests. 'Cheerful soul, isn't she?' he whispered. `Hector must really have looked forward to going away to boarding school. I liked the 'Young Man' bit though.'
He accepted two glasses of red wine from a liveried attendant. Handing one to his wife, he took a sip, nodding with approval as he recognised a Rioja, from a particularly good year.
`Mmm, nice. They must have known we were coming.
`Sarah love, why don't you go across and talk to Jimmy and Chrissie, and Mrs White? I'm going to seek out young Oliver. I'll be with you as soon as I've broken the news.'
OK.' She reached up on tiptoes and kissed him softly on the cheek. He looked at her in surprise. 'What was that for?'
I should need an excuse? See you later.'
Skinner looked around the long room. He spotted Atkinson a little way off, with Wales, Murano and Arnie Harding, the retired baseball player turned film star. Tiger Nakamura, bizarre in a gold tuxedo, stood beyond them, ogling Frankie Holloway, and nodding sagely, although he did not understand a single word that Toby Bethune MP, the Sports Minister, was saying. At last he spotted the slim figure of Oliver M'tebe standing alone, looking up at a portrait of a Kinture ancestor hung over the empty fireplace. Casually, he strolled over to join him. 'Hello young man. That was a fine seventy you shot today, all things considered.'
The slim African smiled politely. 'Thank you. All the way around I thought of my father. It helped.'
`That's good. Oliver, I've got some news for you on that front. We had a message this evening, from Durban. Your father has been found. He's safe.'
The young golfer's smile spread so wide that Skinner thought it would light up the room.
Skinner took him by the arm. 'Come through here.' He led him into an ante-room.
`How was he released?' said M'tebe, as soon as the door closed behind them.
`We don't know. He stumbled into the road on the outskirts of the city, just a few hours ago.
He was hit by a car…' The golfer's smile vanished instantly and was replaced by a look of panic. 'Hold your horses, he's OK. It was only a glancing blow but he was taken to hospital.
He was dazed and confused, and it wasn't until he was recognised by a nurse at the hospital that anyone knew who he was.
`The doctor who treated him said that he was sure he'd been drugged, probably with a very heavy sedative. They've given him some more, to put him to sleep overnight. In the morning, once he's rested, the police will talk to him, to find out what happened.
`Your mother is at the hospital now, but the message as far as you're concerned is to stop worrying. When you tee off tomorrow, the chances are your dad will be sat up in bed, watching you on telly! That should knock two or three shots off your score.
Now, this is a damn fine party. I suggest you get on out there and enjoy it!'
He held the door open for the young man, whose smile had returned, and followed him back into the ballroom. Darren Atkinson saw them return. 'Good news?' he called across. Skinner nodded and gave him a thumbs-up sign. 'Marvellous. Come on over here, Oliver, and get outside some of this wine!'
Skinner looked around the room once more until he caught sight of Sarah, listening intently to Susan Kinture. He started towards them, until the faintest shake of his wife's head caused him to pull up short. Puzzled, he seized another glass of Rioja from a nearby tray and headed in the direction of Sir James Proud, who stood, with his back to him, resplendent in his Highland dress, his head nodding in conversation. Lady Proud saw Skinner approach and touched her husband on the sleeve. He turned, revealing the third member of their group.
Ah Bob,' he cried. 'Come and join us. Have you had a chance to meet Mr Mike Morton?'
Saturday
Fifty-two
Skinner shortened his stride as he slogged his way up the sheer, narrow path from the beach car park to the top of Gullane Hill. The rain had stopped but the rough grass was still sodden, and the ground still muddy, from the downpour of the day before.
It was still well short of 8 a.m., but already there was a clamminess in the air which made him thankful that he had chosen to leave his tracksuit in the wardrobe, and to run in teeshirt and shorts. Occasionally as he ground his way up the slope a bird would flutter out from the undergrowth, and once a young rabbit darted out across his path, forcing him to check his stride.
At last, chest heaving, he crested the hill and jogged out on to the golf course. He would have paused to enjoy the view from the seventh tee, but it was veiled by morning mist, and so instead he stretched his legs and loped easily down the middle of the fairway, allowing his breathing to return to normal after the effort of the steep climb.
Skinner enjoyed his morning runs around the three golf courses which were laid out on the grassy Gullane hill. They allowed him to plan the day ahead, and to think through the challenges and decisions which awaited him. But now as he skirted the seventh green and headed out across the links towards the lower slopes he felt his brow knit.
His week had become almost dreamlike. He felt himself uncomfortably out of control, being pulled along by events and reacting to them, rather than anticipating developments. He knew that he had been right to delegate command of the investigation of the two murders, and the apparent attack on Atkinson, but removed from the heart of the action, he felt isolated and slightly frustrated. He picked up his pace, punishing himself as he tried to piece the jigsaw together, to weigh the bizarre lead to the Witch's Curse alongside Mike Morton's twin grudges against Michael White, his very public hatred of Bill Masur, and even his potential antipathy to Darren Atkinson as a business threat. Morton was in the picture for all three crimes, and even, potentially for the kidnapping of the father of M'tebe, a client of Darren's company.
`But is Atkinson a threat to SSC?' he asked himself aloud as he ran. 'Of course he is,' his mind answered. 'He's completely devoted to being number one in everything he does, on and off the course. He's already conquered America in one respect, and it isn't in his nature not to want to wrap up the management side there as well. And if his businessman brother's anything like him in attitude, you have to bet on them doing it.
`That pitches them against SSC and Morton, and everything we know about him tells us that's a dangerous situation.
But what about that bloody curse? A death by the blade. Another by water! How the goddamn would Morton or his minder Andrews know about that?'
He stumbled briefly in a rabbit scrape. 'Shit!' he cried out. `Who'd be an effing copper!' He shook his head to clear the distracting thoughts, and looked around him as he ran through the misty morning, down on to the far reaches of Gullane's number two course. As if to remind him that he had reached the fringe of the nature reserve, a pair of late-breeding curlews swooped down towards him, their long beaks menacing, and their drawn-out cries warning him away from their nest. They swooped again, closer this time, almost within pecking distance. He looked ahead, and saw a line of four chicks, almost large enough for flight, waddling in single file across the path. He veered away, heading up the hill once more, back towards the village, with the cries of the watchful parents
