`Lots of us are here. The local Force couldn't cope. Some guys came down from Glasgow, and some of us from Hawick.'
`Why were you in Hawick?'
His tone became impatient. 'Because I'm stationed there for six months!'
`The plane that's crashed, Bob. Where was it coming from?'
`From Girona, in Spain. I can see the numbers on the tail, where it's stuck in the mud. I noted them down at the airport last week, just for fun! It's the same plane that Myra and I were on.' Suddenly his eyes wrinkled, and his face creased.
All right, Bob. That's all for today. I'm going to bring you up now. Five. Four. Three.
Two. One.'
Skinner's eyes opened, on the stroke of the last number. They were moist with tears. Sarah jumped to her feet and came over to the bed. She took his hand and pressed it to her breast. 'Bob I never knew. You never told me.'
He looked up at her. His face was drained of colour and he seemed exhausted. 'I never told anyone, love. Not even Myra
Especially not Myra. I haven't spoken about it from that day on, not to a living soul. I find it incredible, but I'd blocked out even the fact of it. All my recollection of it had gone. And I still can only remember the parts that Kevin showed me just now.' He turned to look at O'Malley. 'I never imagined that the mind could do that.'
The psychiatrist looked down at him. 'There are no rules for the mind. It constructs its own safety mechanisms, and we don't have a bloody clue how it does it. In this case, I would say that it has protected you… or itself, whatever… from harm by building an amnesiac wall around this entire incident, within a few months, even weeks of it. It's worked.
You've functioned perfectly well over the years. Your career and your life haven't been damaged at all, when otherwise… Who knows what the long-term effects could have been? I'd surmise that what happened to you last weekend is that the Lammermuirs accident knocked a couple of bricks out of the wall, and let through dream memories from deep in your subconscious.'
Skinner gazed up at him. 'What about the rest of it, Kev? Will it come back of its own accord?'
The psychiatrist ran his fingers through his bushy hair. 'Some of it might, given time. But I'm not going to allow that. We'll have another session tomorrow, if you feel up to it. I want to clean out all of this abscess as quickly as I can. Today was a remarkable beginning, astonishing even, but I have a feeling that we may still have quite a way to go.'
SEVENTY-EIGHT
‘So you’re quite certain that we can take Agent Robin off our list of possibles, Captain Arrow?' drawled the American.
One hundred per cent, Mr Doherty,' said the soldier coldly. `That situation has now been resolved, permanently. I've had it under control for some time, in fact. I just couldn't say so earlier. Agent Robin has been neutralised, deactivated; whatever term you'd like to use, Robin is no longer functional.'
The sallow-faced man looked at him shrewdly. 'Sounds pretty terminal,' he said. 'Might I guess that it's tied in with that Iraqi your police arrested the other day in London, and to the civil servant they found dead around the same time? He's been charged with her murder, hasn't he?'
I believe so,' said Arrow, looking him in the eye.
`Whatever,' said Andy Martin, interrupting. 'That leaves us with three open lines of investigation… live suspects you might say, if one of them wasn't dead. Joe, I'm glad you could make it up for this briefing. I promised to keep you in touch, even though this looks like staying a purely British affair. And Adam, I'm glad you're here too. I want MOD involved on two fronts this weekend.'
He looked across at Mackie and McGuire. 'You lads seem to have had quite a result in Chindersford. That letter shows Mr Sawyer in a pretty bad light. It's the sort of justification I need to ask for a search warrant.
`Brian, I'd like you to put that in hand at once with Cumbrian magistrates. Secure two search warrants in fact, on for the Breakspear factory, where, so the local police tell me, Sawyer is still working alongside the Receiver, and the other for his home. We'll pay simultaneous visits each at nine o'clock sharp, under the authority of the locals who'll be backing us up. Oh yes, and ask our colleagues to go to a magistrate who can be relied on to keep shtumm. I don't want us asking someone for a warrant then finding out that he's a mate of Sawyer.'
He slapped the table. 'Right, division of forces. Brian, you and Mario hit the factory.
Young Sammy here, and I, we'll interrupt Mr Sawyer's Saturday morning breakfast.' He turned to Arrow, Adam, do you want to come with us?'
The soldier shook his head. 'No, I want to follow the other one through. If you need an MOD presence, I'll send up my oppo Swifty. He's ex-SBS and you're going to the seaside.
He'll like that.'
Okay. Tell him to be at Police Headquarters in Carlisle at seven-thirty tomorrow morning.' He glanced at his watch. It showed 6.30 p.m. The four of us from here will go down in one car. We'll gather here at five-thirty sharp.' He glanced again at McGuire and Mackie. 'Mario, that gives you a few hours to be nice to your wife, and Thin Man, it gives you a few hours to find one!'
`Gee thanks, sir,' said McGuire.
Mackie simply scowled. 'That's another home game at Tynecastle I'll miss.
`Lucky for you, then. Now before we break up, let's update ourselves on the other enquiry.
That could be under way already for all we know. Dave Donaldson and Neil Mcllhenney are in place to track Maurice Noble's wife to her assignation with her fancy man.'
'Are you following him also?' asked Doherty.
'No need,' said Martin. 'We're assuming that they'll both wind up at the same place. Once they do we'll nail them.' He stood up, and the others followed his example. 'Tomorrow promises to be quite a day. When it's over, hopefully we'll have narrowed down our list of possibilities.'
`Let's hope we've got at least one left,' said Mackie gloomily. `That's what I like about you, Brian,' said Martin. 'If there's a black side, I can always trust you to look on it!'
SEVENTY-NINE
‘Cheerful bugger him!' snorted Mcllhenney as the nightshift watcher shuffled off, stiff and round-shouldered back to his team-mate in their car. He had reported, morosely and without a smile, on another uneventful night in Ariadne Tucker's narrow street, where unrestricted parking made it easy for the pair to keep up observation unnoticed by their subject.
It was just after 7.30 a.m., and the light of day was only just beginning to make its presence felt. Since it was Saturday, most of the curtains in the street remained drawn.
Among the exceptions were those of Ariadne Tucker, in whose living-room window, seventy-five yards along on the other side of the street from their parking place, a light shone.
Our girl's up and about already, then,' said Mcllhenney yawning and rubbing his eyes.
`Could be her mother,' said Donaldson.
`Doubt it, unless she's come back and no one spotted her. She left a couple of days ago, remember.'
Aye, you're right. I'm at the stage on this job where all the days are beginning to merge into one. It's getting bloody cold, too. London can be hot in the summer, but it can be freezing in the winter too, especially when the wind comes whistling up the Thames.
There was a quick knock on the back window, a door opened and Adam Arrow slid into the back seat. 'Morning lads,' he said breezily. 'No action yet?'
'Well, we're still here,' said Mcllhenney, stating the obvious. `Glad about that,' said the soldier. 'I wouldn't have fancied followingyou all in a taxi if she'd got off 'er mark before I arrived.'
'No,' said Donaldson. But you weren't far off it. Look.'
His companions followed his pointing finger, along the street. Ariadne Tucker was standing at her front door, turning a key in the lock. She was dressed in black slacks and a cream jacket, and had a canvas rucksack slung over her shoulder.