Skinner's ghosts

He stood on the middle step and rapped the door firmly with the knuckles of his left hand. His jacket was open, giving him instant access to his pistol in its holster, beneath his left armpit.

The silence from within the caravan was unbroken. He knocked again. Finally, he waved a hand in the air, as a sign to the hidden watchers, reached up and tried the handle of the door. To his surprise and that of Rose, it swung open, outwards, at his touch.

Instinctively, both officers drew their guns. 'I'm going in, Maggie,' said Mackie, and a moment later launched himself through the doorway, into the living area inside.

The caravan was empty, or so it seemed. There was a toilet cubicle in one corner, and a tall cupboard beside the door. Mackie opened both and looked inside, then checked the sliding doors of the storage areas under the window seats.

'Okay, Maggie,' he cal ed out at last. 'It's empty. Signal Andy, would you please.'

Outside, Rose waved both arms above her head in an al -clear gesture. Twenty-one men, all but one in uniform, stood up awkwardly from their concealment in the heather. Handing his carbine to the man closest to him, Martin bounded down the slope towards her, and together they joined Mackie in the suspect van.

Martin looked round, careful y. 'It's as clean as a whistle, isn't it?

There's not a sign of occupancy.'

Mackie lifted the metal lid which covered the burners of the gas hob. 'This has been cleaned,' he said. 'You can still smell the Flash.'

So have all the other work-surfaces,' said Rose. 'Within the last couple of days, probably. There's barely a sign of dust.' She opened the cubicle door once more and checked inside. 'The chemical toilet's been emptied too, but there's bleach in the pan, so it has been used.'

'Radio communications are hopeless up here,' said Martin, stepping back to the door. 'Inspector,' he called outside. 'Send someone back to the farmhouse. Use Mr Carr's phone to order a team of technicians up here.' He turned back to Mackie and Rose.

'This guy's been very efficient, but let's turn the place over quickly ourselves, just in case he's missed something.'

Each taking one third of the caravan, the three detectives began to search quickly and efficiently, looking inside empty drawers, behind curtains, inside the oven, under the movable squabs of the window seats for any scrap which might lead them eventually to the identity of the man who had brought the vehicle to its isolated parking place.

'Nothing this end,' cal ed Maggie Rose from near the door, after ten minutes.

The neither,' said Mackie, from the kitchen area.

'No,' said Martin. 'Nowt here either that I can see.' As he spoke he made to pick up the squab of the seat beneath the end window, but it was secure. He tugged either end to make sure that it was indeed immovable, and was about to turn away when his eye was caught by a glint, just where the upholstery nestled against the wall. He leaned forward and forced a gap with his right index finger, working away until he freed an object.

'What's this, then?' he muttered to himself. It was in fact a piece of foil, folded over double. As he straightened it a slip of brown waxy paper fell out.

He picked it up and spread out the foil. 'Look at this,' he said to his col eagues. 'Transway. It's the cover off a "rich and creamy" yoghurt, complete with best-before date, five days hence.' He looked at the paper. 'Haifa Mars bar label. And,' he said, almost triumphantly,

'there's a bar code on it.'

'Where's the nearest Transway supermarket?' asked Mackie.

'Haddington,' said Martin and Rose in unison. The DCS handed over both items to the Superintendent, holding each careful y by the corner. 'I suggest,' he said, 'that you take the wrapper down there, and find out what they can tell you from that bar code.

'I don't imagine it'l identify the transaction, but it should tel you whether they sold it and when. The technicians can have a look at the yoghurt top. If they can get a print off it, I'l bet you it was left by Mark McGrath.'

Maggie Rose looked at him, astutely. 'D'you think Mark planted those deliberately, hoping that we'd find them eventually?'

'God knows,' said Martin. 'He's a clever and resourceful wee boy, no doubt, but that might be expecting too much of him.'

Rose smiled as she remembered her first encounter with the missing child. 'I only hope,' she said earnestly, 'that we have a chance to ask him.'

37

'What's wrong?' Pamela asked from the kitchen doorway. She was leaning against the jamb, wrapped in her short dressing-gown, looking anxiously at Skinner.

He was reading the Scotsman, which he had picked up from the corner newsagent's towards the end of his early-morning run. His teeshirt and shorts were plastered to him, soaked with sweat.

'Hey, Bob,' she called, as he failed to answer her. 'Remember me, the woman you sleep with? I live here. Now, what's wrong?'

He glanced over his shoulder at her and smiled apologetically.

'Ach, it's the bloody press again, love. They didn't like being kicked out of the Police Board meeting yesterday, so they're having another indirect pop at me.'

'What are they saying?'

He folded the paper, and threw it down on to the work-surface.

'They've given some space to Aggie Maley's beef about the way the meeting was run, and her criticism of the Topham woman. In the process they've rehashed al that shite from the weekend, and said that my position remains "difficult", as they put it.'

She crossed the kitchen and took his arm, squeezing it. 'Don't let it get to you. It was predictable that they'd carry something. What page was it on?'

'Five.'

'There you are then,' she said, in an encouraging tone. 'Alan was right. The story's running out of steam. We're not Page One news any more.'

He frowned. 'I don't care to be Page Anything news, thanks. Not in this way, at least.'

'I know. I'm sorry.' She took a deep breath. 'Look Bob,' she ventured, hesitantly. 'Would it be better for you if we were to call it a day?'

'No it would not,' he retorted sharply. The frown turned into a scowl. 'That would make me look like an even bigger shit. I run into some embarrassing personal publicity, and I react by giving you the elbow. Even I'd hate me if I did that.'

'We wouldn't need to make a public announcement about it,' Pam argued. 'I could get a transfer to another force, and be gone from out of your hair.'

Skinner looked down at her. 'I agree with you about a transfer. To tell you the truth,' he said apologetically, 'I've already put out feelers in Fife and Central. I was choosing my moment to talk to you about it. It would be much more… How do I put it?… Much more, comfortable, if we were with different forces, and, frankly, it's easier to transfer a sergeant than a Deputy Chief.'

'I understand that, and I don't mind, real y. Make it Central if you can, though. I'd prefer a more urban force than Fife.' She paused.

'But don't duck the main issue. It isn't about how you'd look, it's about what's best. We always said that this arrangement had no strings, and that it was based on mutual physical attraction rather than anything deeper.' She turned him round to face her. 'Would it be better for you then, if I called it a day?'

He smiled at her, lightly, for the first time that morning. 'That's what you want, is it?'

A silence hung between them, as Pam gazed at him, solemnly. At last her eyes dropped to his chest. 'No,' she whispered. 'No it's not.

I want you; and I don't feel any guilt about it, either.'

'Then enough of such talk. As for me, I'm not going to do anything to satisfy the likes of Aggie Maley or Noel Salmon.'

She frowned. 'That's your main reason for staying with me? Not giving them satisfaction?'