Beside him, Sarah rubbed her bleary eyes. Whwsat?' she murmured.
`Brian Clouseau calling in from France. I think our game's about to kick off!'
She reached up and pulled him down beside her. 'Well, before it does,' she yawned, 'how about one final training session?'
Seventy
As Skinner's morning unfurled and moved towards midday, his mood grew more and more tetchy. He had given Ruth instructions that he would take no calls other than from Brian Mackie, but as time passed the silent telephone on his desk disrupted his concentration. He could barely read a single page without his attention wandering as he eyed the receiver, urging it to ring.
The mountainous in-tray which he had faced on the Saturday morning of his return had been largely weeded out. He was reduced to reading routine reports from the various divisions on the containment of petty crime, when Ruth buzzed him through. He flicked the intercom switch.
`Sir, if you've got a few minutes, the Chief wonders if you'd join him for coffee. He's just back from his conference in Birmingham.'
`Aye, sure. I'd welcome it. Can't get used to having my backside stuck in a chair again.'
Sir James Proud's office was on the opposite side of the Command Corridor from his own. Skinner preferred his perch over the main driveway, from which he could keep an eye on the traffic to and from the headquarters, to his boss's outlook over the force's modest playing fields.
Mary, the Chief's new secretary, was arranging three cups and a jug on a tray. 'Morning, sir. Go right in, please.'
The unspoken question prompted by the third cup was answered as soon as he stepped into the long, spacious office. Proud Jimmy was sitting in an armchair facing his coffee table. Beside him was Chris Whitlow, the force's Management Services Director. Whitlow was a professional administrator who had been recruited from local government to take responsibility for establishment tasks, and to manage the force's budgets. To make way for him, one of the authorised Assistant Chief Constable posts had been removed from the establishment. Before the appointment had been made, Skinner had expressed private reservations over the principle of appointing a civilian to such a senior post in a disciplined service. 'Theory's great, Chief, but what about the practice? How long will it be before a guy like this starts questioning command decisions and policy on grounds of cost? It could be the thin end of a wedge. Before you know it we could have a chief executive, with powers, slotted in between us and the police board.' Nevertheless he had welcomed Whitlow to the team on his appointment, and had co-operated with him in every way, even suppressing slight feelings of alarm when the new broom had taken over the office next to Proud's own, made vacant by the retirement of Eddie McGuinness, the former Deputy Chief.
Sir James jumped to his feet as Skinner entered the room.
`Bob, good to see you. My, you're looking brown!'
The ACC grinned at his boss. 'So they tell me. I'm thinking about putting in for a transfer to the Guardia Civil. After the last few days I feel like an honorary member anyway.'
`Yes. Some holiday you've had. Roy Old told me about that business with Sarah and the man with the brick. That was bad. Did they get him?'
Skinner nodded, a gleam in his eye. 'Oh yes, I got him,' he said quietly. 'He said he was sorry and he won't do it again. Now I'm going to get the guy who sent him. He's going to be sorry too.'
`Sounds a mite personal, Bob.' If Whitlow's tone was jocular, it was lost on Skinner.
`It is fucking personal, Chris, but it's professional too.' He turned back to Proud. So how was the ACPO conference, Jimmy?'
The Chief pulled a face. 'Ponderous as usual. A sea of silver braid gathered together for the sole purpose of being lectured by civil servants and politicians. Here, sit down while I pour.' Mary had followed Skinner into the room with her tray. Proud Jimmy thanked her, picked up the jug and poured coffee into the three cups. They faced each other around the low table.
So tell me about this business, Bob. Maggie Rose has been keeping me broadly up to date. Your simple fraud investigation seems to have taken wings.'
`Wings and jet engines, Chief.' Quickly, Skinner explained the sequence of events which had stretched the investigation over five countries and half a continent.
So where are things now?' asked Proud.
`Waiting for the phone to ring. Something's happening in Monte Carlo. Our target's getting ready to leave, and it's our bet that he's bringing more than a boat back with him.'
`But it is no more than a bet, Bob, isn't it?' said Whitlow.
Skinner looked at him coldly. 'Maybe, but it's odds on. We've got a million-odd quid in laundered cash disappearing into the Mediterranean. That cash isn't a fucking donation to
Oxfam. We know it's been used to buy something, and given Ainscow's encounter with Cocozza and the three wise men in the Powderhall sauna, our belief is that it's drugs.'
‘But what if you're wrong? What if it's not? What if this man Monklands isn't bringing anything back with him. What if Skinner's trail goes cold? You've had Mackie flying all over Europe. . and you yourself for that matter. At the end of the day, if there's nothing to show for it, how am I going to explain those costs to the police board?'
Skinner flashed a look at Proud. 'What is this, sir? Am I on the carpet here?'
The Chief shook his head emphatically. 'Chris voiced some concerns to me. I told him he'd better put them to you directly.'
`Okay.' Skinner, mollified, turned back to Whitlow. 'Right, Chris. I think it's time I spelled out the rules of engagement around here, because you seem to have misunderstood them. This is an active operation, and I'm in charge. I've been taking command decisions in this force for years and I back my own judgement on what is reasonable and what is not. If I think I'm into major cost, I'll tell you; otherwise I won't.
`As for this so-called bet of mine, we have reason to believe that smack worth one and a half million dollars net is about to be imported into this country. Do you know what that will be worth on the street? Easily over ten million sterling, maybe much more, depending on how it's cut. Do you know something else? It'll sell like hot-cross buns at Easter. Get your accountant's mind round this. Try putting out a rights issue for ten million to private shareholders in your average public company. The odds are that the underwriters will be left with a good chunk. Not with this issue. It'll be fully subscribed within weeks of going on offer. Thousands of people with dependencies will be exploited. Their addictions will be fed and prolonged. Some will overdose and die. Few of these people earn enough to feed their habits. So as soon as this stuff becomes available in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and wherever else it goes, there will be an outbreak, in each of those cities, of petty and not-so-petty crime: burglaries, muggings, the odd armed robbery and so on. All the work of junkies needing readies. The public will be added to the list of victims and police resources everywhere will be stretched. Now, you weigh all of that against a couple of plane fares.
`Through all of this, a few people will get very rich. Vaudan and Ainscow will pick up maybe half the total take. They'll be able to pay off their seed capital loan, set aside more cash for the next buy, and still split a couple of million sterling in profit. The dealers will be awash with surplus cash, ready to invest in whatever other villainy they're into. You follow that, and do you appreciate all the consequences?'
Whitlow nodded, but said nothing.
`That's good. Because it's important that we all operate in harmony along this corridor. So that we can do that, let me spell out a couple more of Skinner's rules for you. The first is that you don't answer to the police board for my actions. I do. You're here to service the force, not run it. The second is that if you've got a concern over any aspect of my operations, the first person you speak to about it had better be me.'