presumptuous, but I've got to say this. I'm glad that things seem to be all right again between you and Mr Martin.'
Skinner smiled. 'There's nothing presumptuous about caring for friends, Maggie. I'm just as glad about what you and Big McGuire will be doing next weekend.'
`That's good,' she gulped. 'In that case, as well as coming to the wedding, I wonder if you'd give me away. My dad's dead, as you know, and I've got no brothers or uncles, and there's no one I'd rather.. Or is that really too presumptuous?'
He stopped in his stride and looked at her, straight-faced. `Maggie, giving you away would be an honour…' he broke into a grin.. provided I get you back after the honeymoon.'
The grin became more quizzical. 'You never know, it might be a dress rehearsal.'
Before she could ask him what he meant, she was interrupted by a cry from down the walkway, beyond the bookmaker's tent. 'Miss Rose! Maggie!'
Both she and Skinner looked up in surprise. The woman who waved to them was dark-haired.
She was beaming and her eyes were shining with delight. She wore a brightly coloured top and jeans with a look of newness about them. Beside her in a buggy was a small girl, her hair in bright ribbons.
Maggie's eyes widened. 'My God. Lisa! Is that you?'
The woman rushed towards them, pushing the buggy as fast as she could. The drab, wan creature Maggie had met in Germany had vanished. In her place, the new Lisa Soutar was confident and effervescent.
`What the devil are you doing here?' Maggie asked as she reached them. 'What's happened?'
Lisa smiled. 'I've been looking for you. I rang your office and they said that you'd be here. I just wanted to find you and thank you.'
`Thank me? For what?'
`For waking me up, that's what. When you came to see me the other day, I was suddenly ashamed of the way I must have looked to you. And just talking to you about the curse and everything, I realised all at once just what my nana had done to my life. I decided there and then that I'd never do that to wee Cherry.
`Then when you phoned to tell me about the Bible, and what it was worth, the rest just fell away too. I thought to myself, 'Bugger it, wumman, this is your chance to change your life!'
And so there and then I packed up; I bought a plane ticket; I took my Bible from that bank vault, and I brought my daughter, and it, back home. Cherry and me, we're here for good. The Bible's here only until I can sell the bloody thing. As for Nana's warning, ah'll take my chance wi' the Devil! And as for the Witch's Curse, it's a good story, so maybe someone will help me write a book about it.'
Maggie threw back her head and laughed with delight. 'Yes, and Lisa, I know the very man!'
She paused. 'But what about your husband?'
`That miserable bugger!' she snorted. 'I have to thank you for that too. When you looked at the way we were living, when you looked at his fancy hi-fi stuff in the house and then at me in my shabbiness, you looked so bloody angry. I realised that I was angry too, only I'd been too feart to let it out.
`So as far as Corporal Davies is concerned, he can… well, saving the presence of wee Cherry and the gentleman here, do you know the phrase, 'Piss up a rope'? All I have to do now is arrange things so that when I sell the Bible, he doesn't get a single penny from it.'
`Lisa,' said Maggie, 'it's a hell of a word to use about this, but you're magic!'
She stopped. 'But listen, I'm sorry. You've been thanking me. This is the man you should thank. This is my boss, ACC Skinner. It was him who sent me to see you, and it was him who uncovered the curse, and your tape.'
Lisa looked up at him, and her mouth dropped open. She looked suddenly sad. 'Oh, you poor man. You know, I still remember your wife like yesterday. She was so nice. I remember you too. What must finding that tape have done to you?'
Skinner smiled at her. 'I'm glad I found it, Lisa, for what it's done for you, and for what it's done to uncover more wrongs than you can imagine. It's a funny thing you know, but I believe that in this world, most things do turn out all right in the end. Even if sometimes it takes a few hundred years!'
Sixty-nine
Skinner's Round
`Team, could you do me a favour?' Skinner asked, as they stood on the first tee, at five minutes before 1 p.m. on the final day of the Murano Million. The crowd which gathered behind them was by far the biggest of the event.
`Name it, my friend,' said Darren Atkinson, with a smile, although his eyes were beginning to narrow as he gathered his concentration for the challenge ahead.
`Could you sign something for me? I can't let this week go by without having a memento of it.' He produced an event programme. 'Hah,' said Darren, 'a punter at heart!' He took the programme, signed it with a flourish, then passed it to Hideo Murano.
As the Japanese automobile heir and the millionaire singer added their signatures, Skinner said, I'm a punter indeed, skipper. I took your advice about going to the bookie's. So did my assistant, your stand-in caddy's fiancee. They gave us seven-to-two against you shooting sixty-three or lower. I've got fifty quid on you to do it. Maggie wasn't as sure though. She reckoned with Mario caddying the odds weren't long enough, so she only bet a fiver!'
McGuire looked relieved by her lack of confidence.
Atkinson gathered the team together. 'Look, boys. This is crunch time. The team event's sewn up. We couldn't lose that if we tried. But in the individual event, I've got a million quid to secure, and I don't want to win it just by a shot or two. Bob, here, he's got something pretty big to go for too. He's in sight of the scratch amateur prize, and he could even shoot lower than one or two of the pros.'
Norton Wales cut in. 'So what you're saying, Darren, boyo, is that you'd like Hideo and me to keep out of the road of you two.'
Atkinson looked flustered by his directness. 'I don't want to be rude, but yes. That's about it.'
`Rude, man! Considering what's at stake, you've been magic all week. Don't worry about us.
There's nothing in the rules to say we have to play, and we won't add anything to the effort, so for today I'll just be a spectator like that lot there. How do you feel, Hideo?'
Beside him, the Japanese nodded emphatically. He and Wales withdrew to the back of the tee, to explain the change of plan to their caddies, and to pay them for their shortest day's work ever.
For the fourth time, the announcer introduced the members of Team Atkinson. For the fourth time the professional and the policeman drove from the first tee. Skinner hit his best drive of the week, around 280 yards, and as close to Witches' Hill as he dared go. Atkinson's shot was majestic, all power and grace, soaring 320 yards down the fairway, leaving him the ideal approach to the flag.
Skinner and the champion walked together towards their drives, the huge gallery scrambling and scampering along the path to their left. As they passed the foot of Witches' Hill, Atkinson saw the line of coloured tape inside the first circle of trees and bushes which roped off the hill, and the uniformed officers who stood at intervals inside the boundary.
`Why's that?' asked Atkinson, pointing to the hill.
Oh we just want to keep any curious spectators off the hill after play, that's all. It's quite a historic site, after all. Or aren't you into history?'
The golfer laughed. 'No, not me.'
They reached Skinner's ball. He selected a four-iron and struck a safe, straight shot to the front edge of the green. It stopped thirty feet from the flag, making an opening par secure.
Atkinson's feathered eight-iron was perfect. It rose through the still air, biting into the lush green five feet from the hole, backspin stopping it dead. Skinner shook his head. `How you can do that with an eight-iron defeats me. I can hardly get my wedge shots to hold on the green.'
`Practice, partner. Practice for a lifetime, and the impossible will become merely the difficult.'
