`No. Sarah has all your cards at home. You'll find it among them. Anyway, to go back to Elliot for a moment, I think you're right in your judgement of him. I chose my word carefully when I said that he didn't share your enthusiasm for Leona. Dame Janet went on to tell me that they watched her together at the adoption meeting, and Elliot changed his mind on the spot. She won him over, convinced him that whatever her motives, she'll hold the seat.'
Too right she will,' said Skinner. 'That's not me revealing my politics,' he added, 'it's just a statement of fact.' Smiling to himself, he stood up and stretched, gingerly. 'Anyway, enough of the side-show. What about you, eh? Tell me, Chief Constable, when was it that you last arrested someone?'
`God alone knows,' said Proud Jimmy. He grinned at his deputy. 'But at least when I arrest them they're taken away in a car, not a bloody ambulance!'
`Still. Sir Stewart Morelli, and the whole surviving Noble family, save the cat: that's quite an afternoon's work. Andy told me all about it when he and Alex were in earlier. He brought me up to date on the whole investigation. I rather think we've got a problem — an embarrassment of suspects. You were dead right to pass it on to the Fiscal.'
Sir James grunted. 'Morelli. Bloody man! I don't really think he had anything to do with the bomb, but the circumstances indicate that he could have. You know, when I got down to London, he'd got some of his courage back and tried to bluster his way out. Tried to treat me like some backwoodsman. Talked to me as if I was one of his tame Generals!'
`Must be the uniform, Jimmy!'
`Maybe. He's got more respect for it now, anyway. I wound up telling him that he was a suspect and that I was a copper, and that whether or not we were both knights of the same order he was getting no fucking favours from me, and that he and Mrs Noble would be putting their weekend travel bags to good use by travelling up to Edinburgh, under arrest.'
Suddenly he gave a wicked smile. 'You're wrong about the cat, too. The woman insisted on bringing it with her.'
Skinner laughed out loud. 'So what did you do with them last night?' he asked. lock them up in cells in St Leonards?'
`Hardly. I wasn't that tough on them. In fact, I was probably too bloody kind in the end. I put them in rooms… separate rooms… in the Ellersley, with Donaldson and Mcllhenney as baby-sitters. The soldier, Noble's half-brother, spent the night in Redford Barracks, with Arrow and his sidekick.'
Idly, Sir James strolled across the room and picked a handful of green grapes from a bunch on Skinner's bedside cabinet. `Morelli was a deal less bumptious this morning,' he said. 'Arrow sent copies of the tapes of their conversation at Swinbrook to the Cabinet Secretary, as soon as they were transcribed. They can move fast when they like, those buggers in Whitehall. The new Secretary of State for Defence was appointed this morning
… a man from the Northern Ireland Office… and at the same time they announced that Morelli had taken early retirement, because of shock over the murders of Davey and Noble and over his own narrow escape.'
He paused. 'The two lovebirds didn't seem too friendly today, either. She had formed the impression, justifiably, that he was trying to wash his hands of all responsibility, at her expense.'
Is there a Lady Morelli?' Skinner asked. 'And is she aware of any of this?'
`There is, and she is now,' said the Chief. 'He's an evil little bastard, that Arrow, you know. Before we left London, he went to see her, explained the whole situation, and suggested that she should brief the family solicitor!'
‘Huh’ said Skinner, cutting short his sudden exclamation as his wound gave him a twinge.
'That's Adam behaving reasonably. Believe me, Jimmy, you really wouldn't want to know what happens when his evil side shows itself.'
EIGHTY-NINE
‘It’s nice to see so many friends coming to visit me, all at the same time.' Skinner smiled as he looked at the faces gathered around the big table. I'm still amazed that my wife allowed it.
I must thank the NHS Trust Chairman for letting us use his Boardroom.' He turned to Detective Constable Pye. 'Sammy, ask Ruth, my secretary, to type a letter for my signature, please. She'll know what to say.'
He looked from one to the other: at Andy Martin, and on to Brian Mackie, Mario McGuire, Dave Donaldson, Adam Arrow, John Swift, Neil Mcllhenney, Sammy Pye and finally to Joe Doherty, who had flown up both to attend the update briefing and to visit Skinner as an old friend.
`Well..' he went on, with a smile. His face looked drawn, still, but he was regaining his colour, and all the old vitality shone from his eyes. In fact, Martin thought, it was as if there was something extra there: a new certainty, a new assurance, something, perhaps, that came from having lain at the doorway to eternity, and taken a look inside.
Did you have any out-of-body experiences, Bob? he had joked, when he had visited his friend on the previous evening. Not quite, Skinner had replied, entirely seriously, but I did have an out-of-mind experience. When I'm ready, and it'll be fairly soon, tell you about it.
‘ • you lot seem to have been pretty busy, while I've been having my mid-life crisis. The Chief Constable and Chief Superintendent Martin…' the references were formal, as if to emphasise that the DCC was back in business.. have brought me up to date with every aspect of the investigation.
The first thing I have to do is to congratulate you all on some terrific work. Quite honestly, I thought we'd be grinding away at this one for months, years even. Okay, I know we still don't have a conclusion, but as I keep on thumping home, especially for our military pals at the end of the table, that isn't our job.
`My dad used to say that there are two sorts of people in the world, the thinkers and the labourers. We're labourers, to a great extent. We go out there gathering in the bits and pieces of evidence and dragging them all together into a bloody great pile. Once that's done, we hand it all over to the Crown Office, to let them do the thinking and take the final decisions on prosecution. I can't recall an operation in my career where the labouring, the gathering-in of evidence, has been done more effectively.'
He paused, and looked round the table once more. 'In fact, you've been so efficient that I don't begrudge the Fiscal his job. Up to now, all the pressure, all the international attention including the heavy breathing from friend Joe here, has been focused on you lot. Now it's on poor old Davie Pettigrew, and I don't envy him one small piece.
`By now, he should have held the press conference at which he was going to announce his decision on action, after interviewing the various suspects. That's where the Chief is just now.' He pointed between Donaldson and Arrow, to the corner of the room. 'We'll switch the telly on in a few minutes, and catch what he's said. I don't know any more about that than the rest of you.'
`Yes, Bob,' said Arrow, 'but what do you think he'll do?'
Skinner shrugged his shoulders, but carefully. 'It's all about options. I gather that the international possibilities we identified at the start have all been ruled out.'
'That's right,' said Doherty. Yahic is dead, and the Iraqi network seems to be in full retreat.'
And Agent Robin?'
Agent Robin has been traced and deactivated, Bob,' said Adam Arrow carefully. Skinner nodded without comment, but made an unspoken assumption.
In that case,' he went on, 'Pettigrew and the Crown Office have got five suspects on their hands.' Around the table, one or two faces looked at him curiously.
In custody, or at least co-operating with them, they have Morelli, Ariadne Tucker, Lieutenant Richards and the guy Sawyer. They're all heavily implicated by their own actions, and they all qualify in different ways, so let's look at them, one by one. Okay?'
Nine faces looked back at him, expectantly. Several heads nodded.