got.
It won't be there now, though.' Skinner's pace slowed as they approached the green. 'This is the really clever bit. Earlier on today, Rick had a call on his mobile. There was hellish interference on the line, but he'd just have been able to make out you, or rather a voice which through all that static he was certain was yours, telling him to drive the van to the course and to meet you behind the eighteenth after the tournament. Then the interference got too bad and the line went dead.
`He tried to call you back, but he got a pre-recorded message telling him that there was a fault with your phone.'
Skinner stopped, in the rain, and looked at the great golfer with a savage smile. 'I can't touch you, Darren. Not yet, at least. I'm sure that twins talk to each other on the phone all the time, and that would be your defence. But I can arrest Rick in connection with Morton's death, after that phone call he made to him. Then, after the motorcycle tracks in the mud at the foot of Witches' Hill, which my people found at first light this morning, are matched to the Yamaha, I can charge him with his murder.
`Who knows, maybe I'll find something in the Winnebago that'll be a perfect match with the dent in Michael White's skull, and in Masur's. But tough if I don't. Doesn't matter to me whether Rick gets three life sentences or just one. Either way, I'll make sure that the prosecution drops enough hints to the judge to get him a twenty-five- year minimum sentence.
Now, champion of champions, your public awaits. Go ahead and take your applause, and your million quid.'
And so Darren Atkinson, as he had done so often before, strode alone on to the eighteenth green of Witches' Hill, to the roars of thousands of his admirers, waving and smiling, and hiding his real self from their sight. As Skinner followed him up the green to fading applause, he walked across to mark his ball where the shot of his golfing life, or anyone else's, had finished, two and a half feet from the flag.
Skinner glanced up at the leader board and saw, to his quiet satisfaction, that Oliver M'tebe, with a final round of 65, had finished a comfortable second. Then he bent down, marked his own ball, wiped it clean and replaced it, with the maker's name pointing directly towards the hole. As he paced out the distance, he glanced across at the silent crowd, and saw his daughter once again. For an instant their smiles linked across the green, and then he bent to his eight-yard putt. Keeping the head of the Zebra clear of the grass, as Atkinson had said, he stroked the ball. It rolled smoothly on its way, ten feet, twenty feet, its line two inches to the right, until, in the last two feet of its travel it curved towards the hole and fell in, for his first birdie of the day and a round of 71.
He punched the air in delight, as the crowd shouted, smiling and waving to Alex as he retrieved his ball from the hole and backed off, leaving the oval green to the champion.
The crowd fell silent in expectation, as Atkinson, now wearing a dark blue waterproof jacket, strode across the close-mown grass. He replaced his ball and looked down the thirty inches of his putt, satisfying himself that there was no swing or borrow that he did not see. He bent over the ball, and set himself for his sixty-first and last shot of the day.
The rumble of thunder which broke into the silence, although still some way distant, drew a gasp from the crowd. His concentration broken, Atkinson stood up to let it subside.
To Skinner, watching intently from behind, it was as if the man had looked into a mirror. The figure who faced him, standing behind the green, and whose puzzled eyes the golfer's met, could have been Madame Tussaud's finest work of art. Skinner had met twins before, but never any who were more identical than these. Height, build, hair-colouring, suntan, even their blue waterproofs; everything matched.
And then Rick Atkinson's expression changed, as he caught something in his brother's face, and completed the mirror image. The look in his eyes was cold, hard and furious as sudden comprehension dawned. It confirmed for Skinner, beyond any final doubt, the vision of the crimes which he had pieced together in his detective's eye. Atkinson began to back away into the crowd, but found himself restrained on either side, discreetly but effectively, by Andy Martin and Brian Mackie.
The crowd, oblivious to the exchange, fell silent again. The rain began to hammer down harder as Darren bent over his putt for a second time. He struck it quickly. The ball rolled true and caught the hole, but it was travelling too fast and spun round the lip, finishing on the edge but still on the putting surface. The crowd's groan could not drown out the sound of the champion's slap against his thigh. He reached over and tapped the ball into the hole to win the Murano Million. Their disappointment forgotten, the crowd rose, cheering.
Skinner walked across the green to his partner, unsmiling, yet with his hand outstretched.
'That was some round of golf, Darren,' he said quietly, 'given the conditions. Sixty-two, ten under par, in the final round of a tournament. But only you and I will ever know how good it really was.' He took his hand in a grip rather than a shake. 'Now come over here, before you go for your prize and get your reward. I want you to hear this.'
He eased Atkinson in front of him towards his twin at the edge of the green. As they reached him Alison Higgins stepped between them, her back to Darren. 'Reginald Atkinson,' she said,
'I am arresting you in connection with the death of Mike Morton. You do not have to say anything, but…' Rick's face was impassive as she recited the mandatory caution. He looked, not at her, but over her head at his brother.
I didn't…' Darren began.
I know. Keep it that way. Don't say anything.' Without a fuss, and without a single spectator being aware of the drama, he was led away by Martin and Mackie.
Atkinson and Skinner were left in the rain. Their two caddies stood on the far side of the green. 'I suppose those two stooges were in on the act,' said the golfer, nodding towards them.
In on what act?' said Skinner. 'Think yourself lucky. You got a free caddy. Mario can't take a penny of that million of yours, but I'll have to pay the other bugger. Now come on, let's get our scores in and they can have the presentation. We should let the people get away home before the weather gets any worse. As well as that, Darren, having to let you walk free from here is sticking in my throat, so the sooner I'm shot of you the happier I'll be.'
He led Atkinson off the green. Behind them McIlhenney produced Skinner's big, bulging, rolled golf umbrella from its pouch down the side of his bag.
As they headed for the clubhouse, Skinner's way was blocked. 'I suppose I should say well done, Skinner,' said Everard Balliol. 'Damn fine round that must have been. Too damn fine for a seven-handicapper, but I suppose the company made the difference.' The taciturn Texan looked at him. 'We'll have a rematch some day, buddy. Depend on it.'
`Your place or mine, any time,' said Skinner, and resumed his progress to the clubhouse.
`You think you're getting away with this, Darren, and in a physical sense, you're probably right. Rick won't say a word to implicate you; I guess he'll claim that Morton threatened him.
He'll get his twenty-five years regardless, but you'll still be a hero, not tarnished at all. You'll be able to headhunt someone to run DRA for you and build the business into something that'll let Rick live in luxury when he gets out. The grand design is under way, even if your twin will be over sixty before he can enjoy it.'
He paused. 'You know, ultimately people like you and he only care about yourselves. Rick won't shop you because he couldn't gain from it, that's all. Pretty soon you'll have got used to the idea of life without him. You'll build your empire. That's what you're thinking, even now, isn't it?
Except that's not how it's going to be. Mike Morton's father, the old man of influence, is still alive. Masur's Yakuza friends, the boys in Tokyo, they're still around. And I'm here.
I know the full story, Darren, and I'm going to make it my business to see that they hear it too: all of it. Don't build yourself an empire, friend. Build yourself a fortress, because they'll be round to see you sometime fairly soon.'
Atkinson looked at him, weighing him up. 'That's bullshit. You wouldn't do that. You couldn't do it.'
Skinner stared back, with eyes like ice, and Atkinson saw him, saw all of him, for the first time. 'You haven't the faintest notion of what I could do, Darren. And you better believe that I will do just what I've said. I've told you, I've met people like you before, one or two of them, and none of them has ever got away from me.
`Neither will you slither away from what you and your brother have done here. You may think you have. But sooner or later, someone, Sicilian or Japanese, will come calling. Now's a good time to quit, partner. At the top. Because it's going to be impossible to stay there if you can't go out in public for fear of your life. DRA Management is finished. You're finished. My word upon it.
