Skinner's Ghosts
SKINNER'S GHOSTS by Quintin Jardine.
Chief Constable Bob Skinner could be forgiven for thinking not only that someone up there doesn't like him, but that someone down here is out to get him.
Suffering the strain of a marriage on the rocks, the last thing he needs is for his private life to be plastered across the front pages of a sleazy tabloid. To make matters worse, when a woman, already linked to Skinner by tragedy, is found battered, raped and strangled, with her young son a kidnap victim, his search for the kil er becomes a personal quest, Finally, as a second brutal crime, and new al egations about the detective himself, make simultaneous headlines, he finds himself at the centre of a deadly maze of conspiracy.
As time ticks away, Skinner faces the greatest, and most personal, tests of his career. Unless he can clear his name, and uncover the secret behind the series of brutal crimes, he stands to lose all: his family, his career, and even his life and liberty.
Quintin Jardine was a journalist before joining the Government Information Service where he spent nine years as an advisor to Ministers and Civil Servants. Later he moved into political PR, until in 1986 he
'privatized' himself, to become an independent public relations consultant and writer.
Praise for his previous novels, also published by Headline: SKINNER'S RULES
Remarkably assured novel.......a tour de force - New York Times Excellent thriller - Manchester Evening News
Deplorably readable - Guardian
A first-class read - Jefrey Archer
SKINNER'S FESTIVAL
Comes through strongly and believably.....has the right city atmosphere - Edinburgh Evening News Robustly entertaining - Irish Times
SKINNER'S TRAIL
Skinner is a TV series waiting to happen - Peterborough Evening Telegraph Engrossing, believable characters...captures Edinburgh beautiful y.....It al adds up to a very good read -
Edinburgh Evening News
SKINNER'S ROUND
The Skinner series grows in authority and should be a natural for television - Time Out A complex and suspenseful saga that never flags from start to finish - Bolton Evening News SKINNER'S ORDEAL
Fast-paced, fast-cut stuff....some sharply written dialogue - Worcester & Hereford Evening News Quintin Jardine has created the toughest Scottish cop since Taggart - Peterborough Evening Telegraph SKINNER'S MISSION
Once again Jardine serves up a thriller full of action, gritty realism and sharp patter - Darlington Northern Echo
Also by Quintin Jardine
Skinner's Rules
Skinner's Festival
Skinner's Trail
Skinner's Round
Skinner's Ordeal
Skinner's Mission
the Oz Blackstone Series
Blackstone's Pursuits
A Coffin for Two
HEADLINE
Copyright Quintin Jardine 1998
The right of Quintin Jardine to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in Great Britain in 1998
by HEADLINE BOOK PUBLISHING
A HEADLINE hardback
10987654321
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Jardine, Quintin
Skinner's ghosts
1. Skinner, Bob Fictitious character - Fiction
2. Police - Scotland - Edinburgh - Fiction
3. Detective and mystery stories
I. Title
823.9'14[F]
ISBN 0 7472 1944 3
Typeset by Avon Dataset Ltd, Bidford-on-Avon, Warks Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Mackays of Chatham PLC, Chatham, Kent
HEADLINE BOOK PUBLISHING
A division of Hodder Headline PLC
338 Euston Road
London NW1 3BH
This book, like those which went before, and those which will follow, was inspired by my wife.
Catherine Campbell 'Irene' Jardine
1946-1997
Kate, my lovely Kate.
*** ***
1
The woman walked, at a steady unhurried pace, down the middle of the village road.
She was wearing the wig and gown of one of Her Majesty's Counsel, a formal, enveloping uniform which served to emphasise, rather than mask, her advanced years. She was smal , and birdlike in her features, with a few grey whiskers sprouting among her wrinkles; clearly, she was very old.
Yet for all that, she walked straight-backed and steadily in front of the hearse, and its burden, as she led it down the main street, down the short distance from the great grey castellated house toAberlady's churchyard, and to the grave which awaited. As she approached, in the doorway of the church a lone piper played a lament.
'Who is she?' asked Pamela Masters.
Beside her, at the wheel of the white BMW as they sat at the head of the queue of waiting traffic, Deputy Chief Constable Bob Skinner smiled.
'Don't you know, Sergeant?' He paused. 'But then I don't suppose you would. It's been a long time since even I've seen her in action.
'She is Christabel Innes Dawson, QC; in her heyday, the only woman Silk in Scotland, and one of the very finest too.'
'And who's . . .'
'Who's in the chest? That is Lord Orlach, Senator of the Col ege of Justice, and Lord Justice Clerk for what seemed like about a hundred years. Old Orlach was the last of the Supreme Court judges not to be subject to compulsory retirement. He finally did step down though, last year.'
'And Christabel's his widow?'
Skinner drew in his breath, and shook his head. 'Christ no! Orlach's wife died donkeys years ago, but he and she never married. He had his town house in Heriot Row, and latterly his country seat out here, while she had her establishment in India Street, with the brass plate on the door saying "Miss Dawson, Advocate". They had a relationship though, that lasted fifty years, until the old boy died last week.
'When he was plain John Stevenson K.C . ..'
'KC?' Pamela interrupted.
'Aye, King's Counsel; it was that far back. . . and she was a junior, admitted to the Faculty of Advocates almost over the dead body of the Dean of the time; he took her on to assist him in a capital murder trial. Their affair began back then.'
He glanced across at the pretty, dark-haired woman in the passenger seat. 'It was never admitted, or discussed, though.' He smiled, at a memory. 'They really did think they were being discreet, too. There's a story about Orlach, that once, in the New Club, an Outer House judge asked him how Christabel was ... as innocently as that. Orlach froze him with a look, and afterwards, every time one of that judge's decisions came before him on appeal, the old boy would reverse it.'
'Why didn't they marry?' she asked him.
Skinner laughed again, softly. 'Well at first, Mrs Stevenson wouldn't have approved. Then, by the time of her death, Orlach was on the Bench. It was never said of course, but the feeling was that if they had got hitched, Christabel would have had to leave the Bar.
The rules were such that you could never have been sure that she wouldn't have wound up pleading a case before her husband, and that wouldn't have done at al .'
He smiled at the black-gowned figure as she drew nearer, then suddenly and spontaneously stepped out of the car and stood beside it. As she turned to lead the hearse into the churchyard, Christabel Innes Dawson, QC, glanced sideways and gave him the briefest nod of recognition.
'Of course,' he said as he folded himself back into the driver's seat, 'the fact that they didn't marry meant that she could and did appear before him without restraint.' He laughed again, out loud this time. 'I remember she cross-examined me once in a criminal trial, with Orlach as presiding judge. Andy Martin too. He was raw at the time and she knew it. At the end she was screaming at him like a banshee, and old Orlach let her get on with it.'
'Did she try it on with you too?' Pamela asked.
'No, fortunately. She had a degree of respect for DI rank and above, but detective constables and sergeants . . . she chewed 'em up and spat out the bits.'
He looked at her mischievously. 'She still appears, you know. A few times a year she'll take on the defence in a High Court trial.
More often than not she gets an acquittal. Maybe we can fix it for you to be a police witness in one of them.'
She snorted, and flounced her dark hair. 'No thank you!'
As the hearse passed through the churchyard gates, the uniformed police officer who had stopped the traffic turned to Skinner, saluted and waved him on. The DCC nodded an acknowledgement and slipped the car into gear.
He glanced to his left as he passed the church, as the old lady moved to join the congregation inside.
'All these years maintaining their discreet front,' he murmured,
'yet when the time comes she leads him to the grave. There's a nobility about that, though, Pam, is there not?'
She looked at him, as the BMW snaked though the chicane exit from Aberlady, heading for Gul ane 'Maybe there is. What I can see though is a situation that's a bit close to home. I'm as big a secret as old Christabel there ... or so you think.'
'What d'you mean ... so I think? I haven't told anyone, not even Andy. So who would know?'
'Ruth McConnell, your secretary, for a start. D'you think she hasn't guessed? DCI Rose for another. God, her eyebrows went up when you made me your Exec six months ago!'
Skinner shrugged his shoulders. 'But I replaced you with Neil Mcllhenney after two months.'
'Sure, and DCS Martin was delighted to have me added to his personal staff, wasn't he?' she said ironically.
He raised his eyebrows. 'He never said a word to me. I told him that we had agreed you'd be better working for him and he accepted that at face value.'
She twisted in her seat to look at him. 'Okay, so tell me why, when she called into the office two days ago to see Mr Martin, your daughter... his fiancee . . . froze me like a block of ice with a single look. Not, I suggest, because she thinks I fancy Andy.'
Skinner frowned at her. 'You don't think Ruth's been talking, do you?' He sounded genuinely shocked.
'Of course not,' she said at once. 'DCS Martin's figured it out, and told Alex. He'd do that, wouldn't he?'
Her companion sighed. 'Well they live together, so I guess so.
Those two have no secrets from each other. But, hold on. Even if Andy and Alex have guessed, they wouldn't let on to anyone else.'
'Mmm,' said Pamela, demurely. 'But are you as confident of Sergeant Boyd, from the Haddington nick, who stopped the traffic back there in Aberlady, and recognised both you and me: in casual clothes heading towards Gul ane, where you have a cottage . . . and on a Friday afternoon to boot? Even a plonker like him will have put two and two together from that. Jesus, he's probably been on the radio to HQ already.'
He nodded. 'Touche. You've got me there.' He fell silent as he swung the car round a long left-handed bend, and drove them past the smal stone cairn, marking the entrance to Luffness Golf Club, settling deep into brooding thought, until long after he had closed the door of the cottage behind them.
Finally, as they sat on wooden chairs in the secluded garden, enjoying the warm summer sun, he turned to her.
'So,' he said, with the beginning of a frown, 'are you giving me the message, Pam, love? Do you want me to put us on an official footing? Or do you just want out?'
She shook her head. 'No, out is certainly not what I want .. .
unless you've decided you want your wife back. If that's the case then I'm off like a shot. To tell you the truth, when you went off to the States in May for your wee boy's first birthday, I was more than half expecting you to bring them back with you.'
Bob frowned more heavily, and fell silent once more. 'To be as honest with you,' he said at last, 'I thought that might have happened too, despite what you and I have together. Coming home and leaving the wee fella behind was one of the toughest things I've ever had to do. But there's a wal between Sarah and me that we couldn't break down. I guess she's gone native again, gone back to being an American. Somehow she isn't the woman I met and married.'
Pamela laughed, suddenly and with a trace of mockery. 'Nonsense!'
she said. 'Of course she is. It's just that you've never seen her in her native environment before. Also, for the first time in your lives you're seeing her take up a position which isn't exactly in support of yours.
You can add to that the fact that she's probably never seen you on the defensive before.'
'Well okay,' he said, wearily. 'So we've both seen each other in a new light, and neither of us could handle it. Whatever the case, I won't get back together with her just for the baby's sake. That wouldn't be right for any of us. Anyway, she's made it clear where she wants to be. Remember what she said in her goodbye note about not wanting to be stuck in Edinburgh for the rest of her life. She has a hospital job in the States now, and she's doing scene-of-crime work for the local police.'
'Is she seeing anyone, do you think?' she asked, softly.
The question took him by surprise, so much that he was unable to keep the hurt from showing in his eyes. 'Possibly,' he said, quietly.
'I'm not sure, but I think she could be.'
'But you didn't tel her about us?'
'No. Like I said, I didn't. I thought it was maybe too soon for that.'
'You mean you thought you'd keep your options open?'
'No! I didn't want to kick her in the teeth, that's al .' He drew a deep breath. 'Or maybe I was just chicken.'
She raised an eyebrow, a gesture denoting scepticism. 'Chicken?
The great Bob Skinner was chicken?'
He shrugged his shoulders. 'We al run from something,' he said quietly.