Waved on to the tee by the bespectacled starter, he showed his guest the line to the first green with a low straight shot, hit with a two iron. The ball seemed to run for ever on the hard, brown fairway.
Arrow selected Sarah's metal three wood, teed low, and boomed off a drive which headed straight for the far side of the roadway, and for the garden of one of the big white houses which ran parallel to the fairway on the right. But just as Skinner's hand crept up to cover his eyes, the ball drew back in towards the fairway, cleared the waiting sand-trap, bounced, and ran on to finish only twenty yards or so short of the green.
' "Not so's you'd fookin' notice," indeed!' Skinner mimicked.
They each took four, then halved the next three holes, before Arrow's aggression lost him a ball on the difficult, rising dogleg fifth. Skinner was still one up when they climbed on to the seventh tee, the highest point on Gullane Hill. Like all first-time visitors to the famous old course. Arrow was stunned by the finest view in golf. The wide estuary of the River Forth sparkled in the sun, its waters flat calm at ebb tide. The watermark was so low that the grounded wreck of the Great War submarine in Aberlady Bay could be seen clearly.
Bob recited the names of each of the six golf courses which were in view from the hill-top, then pointed his way along the Fife coast opposite, past Kirkcaldy and the Methil rig yard, on to the East Neuk villages. Largo, Earlsferry, Elie, St Mohans, Pittenweem, Anstruther and, in the far distance, Crail.
'By Christ, Bob. Why bother to play fookin' golf? Why not just come straight up here and enjoy it?'
Skinner laughed. 'Many's the time I've wished I had done just that, mate. And it tends to be all downhill from here, in more ways than one.'
Their match continued as tight as it. had begun. Each was fiercely competitive, and Sarah's clubs seemed to suit Arrow perfectly. However Skinner's straighter game gave him the edge, until they shook hands on the green of the short sixteenth, after the little soldier had missed a ten-foot putt for a match-saving half. Both to celebrate and to demonstrate, on the seventeenth tee Bob took out his boron-shafted driver for the first time, and sent a huge shot soaring over the downward-sloping fairway. His body English seemed to give the shot extra yardage as it squeezed over the cross bunkers guarding the approach to the green.
Arrow came very close to following him, but his ball found the sand.
As they walked down the steep slope, the little soldier looked up at his partner. 'Cool bugger most of the time, ain't yer, Bob. It's as well you don't give people the same treatment you gave that fookin' ball there. Tell me something. You've told me one thing that makes you angry, but is there anything that makes you really mad, really blow your stack?'
As he continued down the hill. Bob looked deep into himself, as if searching for the other Skinner, the one whose appearance he dreaded, as if analysing him, working out what brought him to the surface. Eventually, on the ridge above the bunker, he stopped, and leaned on his clubs.
"That's a better question than you know, Adam, and it's a tough one to answer honestly. But I'll try. You say I'm a cool bugger, but you're wrong. I might be controlled, but that's a different thing. There are, I think, just two things that would make me lose self-control. Christ, I hope there are only two. One is any direct threat to my nearest and dearest: to my wife Sarah or my daughter Alex. Most people would say the same. The other one is betrayal. An act of serious betrayal. That gets me. And if that betrayal is bad enough, then – well let's just say I'm not so nice to know.'
Arrow looked at him shrewdly. 'Betrayal. You mean like what that prick of a Secretary of State of yours did to you at your press conference?'
Skinner's eyes narrowed as he took out his putter. 'Who called the prick a Secretary of State, Adam, that's what I'd like to know,' he said softly, with a cold smile, rolling the ball into the hole.
28
The world was still turning on its axis as normal when Skinner ahd Arrow returned to Edinburgh from Gullane.
It looked like any other Festival Monday afternoon as they drove along Princes Street. The hospitality marquee above the Waveriey Centre had been repaired. Banners bearing the sponsor's corporate logo fluttered from poles set on its supporting pillars. A few guests stood in the entrance, drinks in hand, enjoying the summer day.
Skinner rolled down the windows of the BMW. The sunroof had been open all through the journey from Gullane. As they drove along, they took in the sounds of the street. Competing bagpipers, some live, some no more than taped Muzak floating from the open-fronted shops, competed for attention above the noise of the traffic, vehicular and human. The open-air Fringe sideshow at the Mound was in full swing. Edinburgh was alive: full of bustle. The capital was wearing its bright Festival face, as if there was no threat, as if no crisis existed.
Back at Fettes, Arrow headed for the car which had been assigned to him, and drove straight off to Redford Barracks to await the check-in of his SAS unit. His men were travelling north on various afternoon flights from Heathrow, in groups of two or three.
Skinner settled back into his swivel chair, behind his desk, at precisely two minutes before 4:00 pm, just in time for his regular Monday meeting with his deputy and the six Divisional heads of CID. As Commander he needed to know everything that was going on throughout the force's sprawling territory. At the same time these weekly meetings as a group encouraged a healthy exchange of information among colleagues.
Once Ruth had brought in coffee and the obligatory chocolate digestives, he gave his fellow detectives a comprehensive runthrough of the threat and the security operation. The summary briefing took only ten minutes.
"So that's what we've done,' Skinner said finally, ' and that's who's in the anti-terrorist squad. Any questions, gentlemen?'
'One, sir.'
Skinner looked across at Douglas Armstrong, a big, bluff man from Dalkeith. Armstrong was his nominated deputy and, as a Detective Chief Superintendent, a tank above the Divisional heads. 'Whose side are the politicians on?'
'If you mean our own Board, they're solidly behind us, as always. If you mean ministers, they're backing us too, for the moment at least. We've got a job to do. Let's just do it as well as we can, and cam any thanks we get at the end of the day. And when I say we've got a job to do, I mean you too, whatever your Division, aye, even you down in the Borders, Ron. These people must have a home base. For all the high-flown language, and all that crap, this is just another bloody gang. We don't know how big it is, but there has to be a gang-hut somewhere, a place where the boss is, a place where orders are given – a place where these letters are typed. Even if they're so well organised that they never meet as a complete group, there is still movement and contact between them. They communicate through letters, not over the phone, and they use pretend couriers. There's a contact point, when the courier picks up his envelope – unless of course, he's the author, but that's unlikely.
'So we're not just looking for people, we're looking for that place as well. I want you, in your Divisions, to put all your people on the alert, uniform as well as CID, to keep an eye out for any possibility, however slight. The only forensic knowledge which we have is that the notes were produced by a computer or word processor using a fairly obscure typeface called Venice, and that they were printed on Conqueror paper by a Hewlett Packard Desk-jet.'
He handed each man a manufacturer's brochure showing the ugly but functional square-shaped printer, and a sample sheet of Conqueror paper with its clear water mark.
'If any of your people find anywhere where they see those two items together, they should report it back and let us follow it up. I don't care who the owner is, whether it's your wife's brother or the parish priest, each case is to be reported back. We're checking out all printer stockists and paper suppliers. Both these items are sold over the counter, but we already think we know where the printer was bought: a shop in Queensferry Street, last Tuesday.