pack the car and come through here.
'Normally we stay till Sunday evening. The girls have to be back in Glasgow for school on Monday.' His eyes moistened again, as his out-of-date tenses caught up with him.
'Catherine found the hairdresser, Charlie What'sHis-Name, through the wife of one of my colleagues. She was very particular about her hair, and about Tanya's.' He broke off. 'Look, Bob, when can I see her?'
'As soon as possible. Before the post-mortem, certainly.'
'Where was she shot?' the bereaved husband asked, quietly.
'Back of the head, once from close range,' Skinner replied. 'She'd have died in an instant.' He touched his forehead. 'The bullet exited here. It was a medium-calibre weapon; from the cartridge case we found, I'd say nine-millimetre.'
'Christ, and I thought we'd banned al handguns,' Anderson moaned.
'You might as well have banned the wheel. In my experience, murderers don't mind using il egal firearms. The fact is they nearly always do. With one or two notorious exceptions, when a person used his own, registered firearm to kill, it was nearly always a suicide.'
He smiled, grimly, for a second. 'See those blokes you've brought up to investigate me? In their home city you can buy a gun in a pub for a few quid. There are so many shootings down there, they barely make the papers now, unless they're fatal. Eastern European weapons usually. Half the Red fucking Army seems to have sold its weapons on the Black Market. Nine-millimetre pistols, many of them are, and they change hands a lot.
'When we find the bullet that killed your wife. Minister, it will tell us whether the gun has been used in an earlier crime, but it's highly unlikely that it will tel us who pul ed the trigger.'
Anderson nodded. 'I understand.' He sighed. 'To think that I turned down the chance of Protection Squad cover. What a bloody self-confident fool I am.'
'No,' said Skinner, quickly and emphatical y. 'Don't torture yourself with that one, sir. They'd have been with you, not your wife and daughter.'
'Okay. That's some comfort. Now what can we do to catch this man?'
'We've already blocked every main road out of Edinburgh,' Martin replied. 'However, he may have gone to ground in the city itself.
Alternatively, he had plenty of time to make it out of the city before our officers were in place.
'To be frank, sir, I don't see this man simply driving up to a roadblock. He's too thorough.' The Head ofCID paused. 'How long had your wife been going to Charlie Kettles on Saturday mornings?'
'About three months.'
'And taking Tanya every second week. The man must have been watching her for al of that time, establishing a pattern, planning. He must have watched Leona McGrath in the same way.'
Anderson twisted in his chair, to look at Skinner. 'Need this be the same man? Couldn't it be a copycat?'
'Aye,' said Skinner, 'it could. But it isn't. It's the same man. I received a tape this morning.' He looked round, and saw a midi hi-fi unit on a sideboard behind the couch. 'Listen to this.'
He took the copy of Mark McGrath's message from his pocket, slid it into the tape player, and switched it on. Anderson listened in silence, as the child's voice filled the room. Gradually, his face twisted in anguish, and he began to sob.
The two detectives waited, as he composed himself once more.
'Sorry, gentlemen,' he said at last. 'It's all just too much.'
'I know,' Skinner whispered. 'My daughter was kidnapped once.'
The Secretary of State looked up at him. 'Did you catch the man who did it?'
'Oh yes,' said the detective, even more softly than before. 'I caught him. He won't do it again. I'l catch this bastard too, and neither will he.'
Anderson smiled, weakly. 'I'd better lift your suspension, then, pending the outcome of the enquiry.'
'No. Don't do that. I don't know for sure, but it may be better if this man thinks I'm out of the action.'
'Whatever you want. So how wil you catch him. Bob?'
'I'll wait. The next move is his. When he makes it, I'l be ready for him if he makes the slightest mistake. Sooner or later, he will.'
Anderson sighed. 'Oh my God, but I hope so.' He looked at the two detectives, numbly, from one to the other. 'Is this political, gentlemen?' he asked, bewildered
'It has to be,' Skinner replied. 'Two MPs' children snatched. A Member and a Member's wife murdered. And yet it could be personal too in some way. The man chooses to contact me. There's a link between Leona and me, and between Mark and me. There's a link between you and me, Dr Anderson. So it could be aimed at me, somehow. Or it could be all about money.
'We'l know soon, when he contacts us again. For now Andy and I will just have to do the thing we're worst at.'
'What's that?'
'The waiting.' He rose from his seat. 'We'l send a car for you, Dr Anderson, when your wife is ready for a visit. It'll be within the 187 hour, I hope. We'l use the back entrance for your privacy.'
'Also,' said Martin. 'I'll put armed officers in position, front and back.'
'What's the point?' replied the Secretary of State. 'The horse has bolted.'
'Still.' The Head ofCID followed Skinner out of the room, all the way down the stairs to the back door at the sub-basement level.
'Here,' he began, at last, as they slid into the Mondeo, 'upstairs, when you were talking about motives, you said something odd: about links.'
'I know,' said Skinner. 'I should have told you before, and I better had now. Because I'm pretty certain you're going to find out anyway.'
56
It was the most tumultuous press conference that Martin had ever attended, let alone chaired. The murder of a cabinet minister's wife, and the kidnap of a second politician's child.
For the first time in his life, he had felt that the media were out to get him, and although he had been as careful as he could not to al ow words to be put into his mouth, he knew that he would be lucky if only a few newspapers questioned his competence and hinted that Skinner's suspension was compromising the investigation.
The DCC was gone when he returned to his office, en route for the airport to pick up Pam from her return flight. Martin sat with his head in his hands, feeling helpless, as the first radio news bulletins were already beginning to say, and very alone.
He was grateful for the sound of the telephone, even though he did not have the slightest expectation that it might be bringing him good news.
He snatched the hand-set out of its cradle. 'Martin,' he said, eagerly.
'Hi, Andy. I like it when someone's pleased to hear from me.'
Such was the clarity of his voice that the man on the line might have been in the next room, but the Chief Superintendent knew that he was calling from Washington. 'Hi Joe,' he responded. 'Yes it is good to hear from you. I feel like I'm running out of friends, and luck, just at the moment.'
'Jesus, kid,' drawled the American. 'What size of dog's crapped on your lawn?'
Quickly, Martin told him of the morning's atrocity, and of the earlier surprise in Skinner's morning mail. 'I see what you mean,' said Joe Doherty, tersely. 'I would say that you are dealing with a real Lulu there. Yes indeed, a real peach. I take it you've looked for a terrorist connection.'
'Joe, we've looked for every sort of connection, and come up blank.
Like Bob says, al we can do now is wait for the guy to make his next move, and hope that he makes a mistake. You never know, maybe we wil get something from Mark's message tape.'
'Yeah, you never know. But just don't hope for anything; then at least you won't be disappointed.'
