Bob chuckled again. 'Ah, you mean - like I said to Andy - that I made an honest woman of you . ..'
'Well?' she asked, with an expectant tone in her voice.
His grin widened into a broad smile. Then she looked into his eyes, and was hit like a hammer by the truth of something that she had been told, once before: that he was the most dangerous man she had ever seen.
'Pamela,' he said, quietly, still smiling, but deadly and cold. 'Quite 258
literally, I couldn't make an honest woman of you to save your life.
It's way beyond that.
'You're my implacable enemy, my so-called love. I was more baffled and bewildered than I've ever been, trying to find the person who wanted to finish me, and yet all the time, I was sleeping with her.
'Even though in the end he was desperate to tell me al about it, I didn't actual y need Noel Salmon to admit to me that it was you who tipped him off about our being together, or gave him the bribe information.' He caught her gasp. 'Never underestimate anyone, even a weasel like him. Not even he is going to take an anonymous tip without at least trying to check the source.'
He pushed himself upright, off the doorframe. 'Remember, when you cal ed him and dropped that note for him in the dustbin near the Norwegian Memorial in Princes Street Gardens? He went there early, and watched you drop it. He didn't know who you were, not then, until he saw the two of us together after he started watching us. When you dropped him the information about the bank account in the same way, he didn't need to follow you again.'
Skinner paused. 'At first, I wondered why anyone would pick a useless pissed-up wee twat like Salmon as a means of shafting me.
But as soon as I knew it was you I worked that one out for myself.
You were having it off with Alan Royston when I barred wee Noel from Fettes. You found out from him, on the pil ow, which journalist hated me the most.'
His smile was al gone now. 'Come, on Pam, don't disappoint me.
Protest your innocence.'
She looked at him, her once-soft eyes blazing. 'I can't. Because I can't believe what I'm hearing. I didn't realise you were so desperate that you could do something like this.'
'If you can't believe it,' he answered her, 'then why did you call Air UK this afternoon and book a flight for Amsterdam at five forty-five this evening?' He eyed her evenly. 'Mario called me just afterwards, on my mobile, while I was in the garden at Fairyhouse.'
He smiled cruelly at her surprise. 'Ever since I knew it was you, Special Branch have been bugging your phone.
'That's what the suitcase is about, Pam.' She started to speak, but he silenced her with a single look.
'No. Don't interrupt me. You are in very great danger. Just listen.
'I knew it was you, my pet, because of two stupid mistakes you made. The first was when you slipped me a blank sheet of paper to sign when you were my executive assistant. For a second or two, I actual y believed my own story, that I had given someone my autograph. Then I remembered that when I do that I always sign myself "Bob Skinner". The ful Monty signature, "Robert M.
259
Skinner", that's reserved for official letters and for cheques.'
He shook his head. 'I should have known from the first moment that I heard of the bribe al egation that it was an inside job. But there are some things that not even I'l face wil ingly. And I didn't, not until Alex brought me back my own signature from Guernsey.'
Skinner sighed, then went on, in a cold, even voice. 'The clincher came when you used Carole Charles's typewriter to type that note.
You never believed for an instant, did you, that anyone would match the note to that machine?
'It was handy, a standard electric typewriter unconnected with the Force, so you used it. After it was recovered from the flat in Westmoreland Cliff that Carole kept as a secret office, Neil and I brought it back to Fettes, and I put it in your room. It was there for a day or so until it went off to the production store. You had that time to use it.
'In the same way, as my assistant, you had every chance to hide that receipt in my desk later.
'If Cheshire hadn't found it, I suppose that eventual y you'd have dropped a hint that he should look there. It would have been a clumsy, accidental hint of course,' he said sarcastically, 'and you'd have been appal ed by the way it turned out.'
He paused. 'The typewriter was a huge mistake, really - far bigger than the signature, because who else could have used it? I knew I didn't. Not Neil Mcl henney, in a million years. Not Ruth McConnel , in the same million. Not Carole Charles, because she was dead when most of this happened. Not Jackie, because he didn't even know about the Westmoreland Cliff office, let alone about the bloody typewriter.
In fact when Jackie did claim to have typed the note, the whole thing screamed out at me, and the last of my disbelief vanished.'
Skinner grinned again, cruelly. 'Think about it, Pam. When was the last time that you and I made love? Before that note was tied to that typewriter. Ever since then, I've managed to have a headache.
'No, lady, only you could have used that machine to type the note.
I didn't want to believe it. At first I wouldn't let myself. Not because I'm deep in love with you, because I'm not. No, because I didn't want to admit to myself that you could con me, and maybe because I didn't want to find out why.'
He began to move slowly, menacingly, towards her. 'Then something happened,' he said, slowly, 'that made everything else insignificant.
'When Cheshire and Alex came back from Guernsey with the suggestion that the man who made the cash delivery might have been the same man who killed Leona and Catherine Anderson, and kidnapped the kids, at first I dismissed it out of hand.
'But when Peter Gilbert Heuer sent me this morning's tape, that 260
outlandish idea turned out to be the truth. I made sure you were in earshot when I said that, out loud, in Andy's office this afternoon. I wanted to see how you'd react. It didn't take you very long to cal Air UK.
'Because you know, Pamela, that Heuer's involvement in both plots makes al of this a whole different game, one with lives at stake, and maybe yours among them.'
He was standing over her now, as she backed towards the window.
'That thing he let slip, my dear, that he knew of the Guernsey bank, means that you are linked to Peter Gilbert Heuer. It means that you gave him my unlisted number in Gullane, just as you gave it to Salmon. Most of al it means that you are linked to the murder of two women and the kidnapping of their children.'
He gripped her by the arms, just below the armpits, and he lifted her up, clear off her feet, to stare into her eyes, cold, hard and with
menace.
'You must tell me now, Pamela,' he said, evenly. 'You have no choices left.' He lowered her to the ground, turned her around, and pushed her firmly towards the living room.
'You will tell me everything, because you are standing on ground more deadly than you know. And most of al .. .' for the first time, his tone betrayed his hurt, and huge disappointment, 'you wil tell me ... why?'
When she looked up at him, her eyes were almost as cold, as cruel as his. 'Why?' she repeated, in a calm, hard-edged voice which he had never before heard issue from her lips. But it reminded him at once of one that he had heard before, and had thought was silenced for ever.
'To take away your life,' she said. 'That's why. And, to quote you back at yourself, to look at the wreckage afterwards and say, "Quite fucking right too".'
261
82
'Sorry I'm late, Andy,' said Skinner stepping out of his car, parked at the rear of the headquarters building. The time was fifteen minutes to seven, and a green helicopter stood on the sports field, its blades stil and drooping.
'S'okay,' said Martin. 'Our stuff's on the chopper.' They began to walk towards the aircraft. 'Did you do the business you mentioned?'
He nodded. 'I won't be seeing Pamela Masters again.' Martin's head swivelled round in surprise.
'The lady's been a rucking roadblock in my life, pal,' Skinner said, vehemently. 'But not any more.'
'A clean break, I hope?' asked Martin, tentatively.
'Oh yes, as clean as they come.' The younger man looked at him, puzzled again by both his tone and his mood. 'I'l tell you al about it later; for now let's get away in this contraption. Hello, Gerald,' he said, recognising the young lieutenant who stood by the helicopter door, and shaking hands before climbing in.
'Where are we going, sir?' the pilot asked. 'Mr Arrow only told me to report here. He said you'd have further orders.' Martin looked at Skinner in surprise at the mention of Arrow's name.
'That's right.' He produced Mcl henney's map. 'We're going to pay a call on a man named Everard Balliol at a castle on the shore of Loch Mhor. He doesn't know we're coming, though. I always think it best to surprise Everard. He thinks I'm al right, though. Especially since I let him beat me at golf.'
The pilot looked at the map, then at a larger chart spread out on the seat beside him. 'Okay, gentlemen,' he said. 'It looks simple enough. I'll file a flight-plan with Prestwick once we're in the air. I'd guess around an hour and a half, two hours. I should warn you, though there's a restricted area just to the north. That might be a problem, if there's military traffic expected.'
Skinner shook his head. 'I don't think so. Let's go.'
Conversation was difficult because of the noise of the engines, but Skinner managed to brief Martin on the intelligence gleaned by Mcllhenney on his visit to Leuchars. 'If the cottages are on Bal iol's land, as I think they are, he should be able to tell us who 262
the occupants are, and hopeful y some more besides.'
'Yes, let's hope so. Who's meeting us up there? A squad from Northern?'
The DCC shook his head. 'Nobody.'
'Eh?'
'This is down to us, Andy, just you and me.'
They sat in silence for the rest of the flight, looking at the scenery, as they crossed Stirlingshire to Crianlarich, then swung northward, skirting Ben Nevis and Fort William to the west, and following the jagged coastline. Final y, just before eight thirty, the pilot began his descent, until Balliol's castle came into view, a grey speck on the horizon at first, but growing larger and larger as they approached, along the banks of Loch Mhor.
'Set it down near Mr Balliol's own helicopter,' Skinner ordered, looking down and seeing two black-clad figures run out on to the castle terrace.
As the aircraft settled in the grass and as the blades began to slow in their rotation, the DCC saw Balliol himself emerge, from a small door not far from his study. He jumped down from the helicopter, and ran towards him.
'What the hell's this, Bob?' drawled the American, yet with the air of someone who had not been truly surprised for a long time.
Skinner shook his hand and introduced Martin, who had fol owed behind. 'Sorry to drop in unannounced like this, Everard, but this is important and we have to move fast. I need to know, does you estate include a place called King's Gully?'
The billionaire looked at him. 'Sure, and the land for ten miles north of that, five miles east and all the way west to the coast.'
'There are cottages in the Gul y - two according to the map. Who lives there?'
'Christ, Bob, I don't know that. My estate factor deals with all that stuff.'
'Is he here?'
'No, he lives on the far side of the loch. Come on in, guys; I'l call him, and tell him to get round here.'
'Thanks,' said Skinner, 'and ask him also, if he has any plans of the King's Gully cottages, to bring them with him.'
'Yeah, okay.' He led the way into the house, and through to the study. 'Set three more places for supper,' he barked to one of the Koreans. 'No, make that four: I forgot about the pilot.'
'No,' said the DCC. 'He has to stay with the chopper. I'm sure he'd be pleased if you took something out to him, though.'
They were still in the study, but ready to eat when the Estate Factor's Land Rover drew up outside the study window, twenty minutes after Balliol's telephone summons. A tall, grey, 263
weatherbeaten, tweed-clad man jumped down from the driver's seat and strode purposeful y into the house, carrying a briefcase.
'Hi, Don,' called Balliol, as the newcomer appeared in the doorway of the study. 'This is Donald McDonald,' he announced to Skinner and Martin. 'He was here when I bought the place, but if he hadn't been I'd have hired him anyway, for his name alone.'
The billionaire waved his employee towards a seat, as two Koreans fol owed him into the room carrying trays laden with hamburger rol s and jugs of coffee. 'Don, these guys are policemen. They need to know about the cottages up in King's Gully. Like are they occupied, and if so, by whom?'
McDonald gave a thin smile. 'I can answer those questions.' His accent, like his name, was pure Highlands. 'You may have seen two cottages on the map, gentlemen, but one has been derelict for years.'
He turned to Balliol. 'I've been meaning to talk to you, sir, about either demolishing it, or refurbishing it for rental.'
'Later, Don, later.'
'Very good. The cottage which is in habitable condition is rented to a single gentleman. His name is Gilbert Peters.'
'How long has he held the tenancy?' asked Martin.
'This time, these six months past.'
'This time?'
'Yes sir. A few years ago now, when my father was estate factor here and I was his assistant, in the time of Lord Erran, Mr Peters also rented the cottage. When he gave it up, we assumed we'd seen the last of him, but when he turned up again, I remembered him well enough.
'I had no hesitation about letting him have the place once more.
My father used to comment on how good a tenant he was. Always paid his rent on time, by bank transfer, and always kept the place spotless. He even made a few improvements.'
'Such as?'
'Well, when he was here the first time he had the telephone put in.
Since he's been back, he's painted the outside, and he's instal ed a television satellite dish.'