'He'd tell you that's the case here, Bob,' said Laidlaw, quietly.
'Aye, and from what Alex has told us he'd be dead right.' Skinner turned to his daughter. 'That was good work you did though, love, picking up the point about the Bank of England notes and rubbing his nose in it. If the money had been in one big lump of sequential y numbered notes, then fair enough. But the fact that it was put together as it was, that helps us.'
'How?' asked Laidlaw.
The policeman smiled. 'I'm not sure yet. It tells us that it was put 193 together, if not outside Scotland, then probably from an external source. Now the fact is that if anyone had bunged me, it would have been someone within my own patch.'
Alex frowned. 'Yes, that's true, Pops, but that person could have had cash in another country. It's hardly the strongest defence to lay before a jury.'
'I agree,' her father replied, 'but if this thing does get to court, at least it's something for old Christabel to argue.' He chuckled, suddenly, glancing at Laidlaw. 'It's a pity old Orlach's dead. If we'd been able to fix it for him to be on the Bench with Christabel defending…'
'Let's look at the courier,' said the solicitor, his crimson, weatherbeaten cheeks indicating that he had spent his morning on the golf course. 'That was a major stroke of luck, surely.'
Beside her boss, Alex nodded vigorously. 'Yes. The man's targeting you in some way through these crimes. He used your private phone number. There's evidence of malice, and a potential identification of him as the courier. Christabel wil make hay with that.'
'If we capture the guy alive, maybe she won't have to. But…'
Skinner shook his head, slightly. 'I'm not so sure. Okay, Medine picked him out from the photofit, and okay, he had my Gul ane number, yet there are two major holes in the argument.'
'What are they?' asked Alex, frowning.
'Wel it's a mistake, for a start, and this is a very smart guy we're after. If the kidnapper had set me up in Guernsey, I don't see him exposing himself by acting as his own courier.'
'Why not, Pops? You've said yourself that you're waiting for him to make a mistake.'
'Not one as big as this, though. He's better than that.' He stood up from the conference table and walked to the window. 'Anyway, all that's subjective. The other hole in the argument's based on fact.
'The kidnapper made that tape on Thursday. He posted it first class on Friday, although we still don't know from where, the postmark was too badly smudged. So he knew I'd have it on Saturday.'
'So?' asked Laidlaw.
'So if it was him who set me up, through Spotlight, he did that on Thursday at the latest. If it was him, he'd have known that by Saturday I'd be under investigation. Yet there was not the faintest hint of that on the tape, not even the faintest hint of him. Through Mark, he was stil talking to me as a copper, on Saturday morning.
'No, I'm afraid I need a lot more convincing that the kidnapper is behind this.'
He turned to Alex. 'What's Al Cheshire's next move?'
'He's going to interview Noel Salmon, tomorrow midday. Salmon says he doesn't want me there. He says he'd feel threatened.'
'He's catching on, is he?' scowled Skinner. 'Did Cheshire tell him he had a choice?'
'Well he has, Pops. This is stil an informal investigation. No-one's under caution.'
'That's right, Bob,' Laidlaw confirmed. 'However… Alex, find out if Salmon would accept my presence. Maybe he'd find me less of a threat.'
He looked across at Skinner, as he resumed his seat. 'Going back to Christabel for a moment, Bob. In the light of the information which Alex has brought back, I think it would be good idea if we arranged a consultation for Monday. If that's okay with you, I'll set it up.'
Skinner nodded, and Laidlaw made a smal note on a pad on the table in front of him. He looked up again. 'What about this receipt, Bob? What do we do about that?'
The detective shrugged. 'Alex was right. Let Cheshire search wherever he likes. Any sheriff would give him a warrant if he asked for one, with what he's got. There's no point in putting him to the bother.'
'Pops,' Alex intervened, hesitantly, 'he wants to search Pam's as well. You've been living there.'
'Of course he does. I've already discussed the possibility with her. As long as it's done very discreetly, she's okay with it. To be on the up and up, neither of us should go back to anywhere that's to be searched. So Alex, once we've finished here, you go back to see Cheshire and Ericson and take them where they need to go. I'l give you keys to Pam's place.'
Laidlaw leaned across his desk. 'Bob, I have to ask you this. We've got copies of al the documents. Cheshire was good enough to give us them, while he holds the originals. Looking at that receipt, have you ever seen, however casually, it or anything like it?'
Skinner laughed. 'You asking if I mistook it for one of Sarah's Jenners receipts? Oh yes, a hundred grand. Got off light today, didn't we!
'No, Mitch. I have never seen that receipt in my life, anywhere.
Although, the way things are going for me just now…' He stopped in mid-sentence. 'What the hell, let Al Cheshire and his pal – but only them mind. Not one of my own officers is to be used – let them go through my socks, Pamela's knickers, and everywhere else. You go along with them though, Alex, and look over their shoulders, just to keep them on their toes.
'They won't like the business any more than I do, I suppose,' he growled. 'Tell you one thing I real y don't like, though, and that's Jimmy letting them use my office. I know why he did it, to keep them out of sight of the troops as much as possible, but I don't have to enjoy it, even though I would have done the same thing myself.
Because, when this is over and I go back in there, I'l always know.
'It's a bit like someone sleeping with your wife, I suppose.'
'Or your husband,' said Alex, instinctively and as unthinking as her father.
Mitch Laidlaw coughed, to break the silence. 'Look, this will all be over soon,' he said. 'I know it's tough on you both.'
'There'l be more pain,' murmured Skinner, 'before anything starts to heal.' He reached across and squeezed his daughter's hand.
'One thing I was going to ask,' said Laidlaw, casting around desperately for anything that would change the subject. 'Cheshire.
For the record, what is the Al short for? Alan? Alexander?'
Skinner smiled again. 'Hell of a good question,' he replied. 'We've all got a secret somewhere, but in the end no-one's is safe from me.
Algernon, that's Cheshire's secret. He's an Algernon. They say that someone cal ed him Algie once, and was never seen again!'
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58
Pamela shuddered, in Andy Martin's armchair. 'It makes my flesh creep,' she said, 'to know that even as we're sitting here, strangers are searching my home.'
Skinner smiled, glancing across at Martin. 'I suppose it's a sort of justice for a copper. You and I have done the same thing to other people often enough.' He looked round at Pam. 'Maybe you haven't, honey, not yet at least, but it's part of the career you've chosen, part of making a difference, as you put it.
'Perhaps it's only right that we should have a taste of how our subjects feel, not so much the villains we're after, but their families, when we invade their homes and start tearing the most private parts of their lives apart.
'Remember that Japanese bloke, out in Balerno…'
Talking about private parts, you mean?' interjected Martin, from the kitchen door.
Skinner laughed, short and savage, and in that time a gleam came into his eye. Pam started in her chair as
