Skinner's ghosts

He growled at her, playful y. 'Don't cross-examine me, lady,' he said. 'More skil ed counsel than you have tried and failed. I have many reasons for staying with you.' In a single movement he slid her robe from her shoulders, leaving it lying at her feet. 'Let me show you a couple.' He picked her up and headed for the bedroom.

He was looking down at her, lying waiting for him, and peeling off his shorts when the phone rang. 'For fuck's sake,' he shouted,

'why does this always happen when I've got a hard-on?' He sat, naked, on the edge of the bed and picked up the receiver.

'Yes!'

'Mr Skinner? David Hewlett, here, in Private Office.'

The policeman recognised the smooth tones of the Secretary of State for Scotland's private secretary. 'You're early, David,' he said.

'It's barely gone seven o'clock. Which office are you at?'

'Edinburgh. We took the sleeper up from London,' the civil servant replied. 'Mr Skinner, the boss was wondering it you could come in to see him this morning, to give him a progress report on the McGrath murder investigation. He has a special interest, with Mrs McGrath being a fellow Member of Parliament.'

'Of course,' said Skinner. 'I'll look in before I go to Fettes?'

'That's good. When can we expect you?'

He looked round at Pam. 'Better give me a couple of hours.'

38

'I'm sorry I wasn't available yesterday,' said Graham Ross, the manager of the Haddington Transway supermarket. 'These quality training days are mandatory for al staff. We real y are in the most competitive retail environment these days.

'Anyway, I'm here now. What can I do for you?'

'I need any information that you can give me on a couple of items that I hope were bought from your store,' said Maggie Rose. From her pocket, she removed the foil yoghurt top and the portion of Mars bar wrapper which they had found in the caravan, each now encased in a clear plastic folder. She passed them across Mr Ross' small desk.

The balding manager peered at each through his spectacles. He held up the yoghurt foil. 'This is from a multi-pack, rather than an individual item sale. The only thing I can tell you is that from the

"use by" date, wherever it was sold, it wasn't any earlier than Tuesday of last week.'

'That's a start,' said DCI Rose. 'How about the wrapper? It has a bar code.'

Ross nodded. 'That's more hopeful. Gimme a minute.' He stood up and strode from the office.

In fact, he was gone for almost ten minutes. By the time he returned, DCI Rose was fidgeting impatiently in her chair, but his smile soothed her annoyance at once.

'Yes,' he said, even before sitting down. 'It is one of ours. It was sold at nine forty-three last Wednesday morning, eight days ago.' He handed over a long slip of paper. 'This is a record of the transaction.'

The policewoman looked at him. 'How did the buyer pay?' she asked eagerly.

'By cash. I take it you were hoping it was by Switch or credit card.'

'Can't have everything, I suppose.' She ran her eye down the slip.

'Tinned soup, corned beef, bread. Flora, tinned meatbal s, tinned sweetcorn, four-pack of yoghurt, another tin of soup, milk, eggs, bacon, coffee, six-pack of Coke.'

'It's as if the buyer was going camping, isn't it?' the manager suggested.

'Oh, he was,' said Maggie Rose, forceful y. 'He was.'

39

The zeal that comes from newly acquired but long-anticipated power still shone in the eyes of Dr Bruce Anderson, Secretary of State for Scotland. He stood as Skinner entered his office in St Andrew's House, Scotland's seat of national government, and came towards him, hand outstretched.

'Hello, Bob,' he welcomed him, with a reassuring smile.

' Wonder if this was his bedside manner when he was in practiced Skinner mused. 'Good morning, Secretary of State,' he replied, shaking the proffered hand. He had learned from bitter experience that it was best to keep his relationship with his ministerial boss on a formal footing.

'Politicians are a bit like rottweilers,' Proud Jimmy had warned him, when he had accepted his appointment as security adviser to the Scottish Office. 'Just when you think they 're domesticated, they can turn round and bite your bloody hand off'

'Have a seat, have a seat,' saidAnderson, looking fresh despite his night on the sleeper. 'You'l take coffee?'

'No thank you, sir,' said the policeman, sitting on a low chair facing the Secretary of State's desk. He glanced round the wood-panelled room, which he had come to know so well. 'I've just had breakfast.'

'Okay. Then let's get down to business. I'm real y asking you this as Deputy Chief in Edinburgh, not as my adviser. What can you tell me about Leona McGrath's murder? It's nearly a week now, and still no arrest. My parliamentary col eagues are badgering me about it incessantly… especially the Tories, since she was their last MP in Scotland. So, how are things going?'

Skinner frowned. 'As well as can be expected, I'd say. The kil er didn't leave us any forensic evidence at the scene… none that we've been able to find so far, at any rate… and he's been very efficient in covering his tracks.

'However,' he went on, 'we've had some excellent technical help from an outside agency, and that led to us tracing a caravan where the man held young Mark after the abduction. There was a serial number on the van. It was stolen last week from a dealership near Penicuik.'

'Did it have number plates?' asked Anderson.

'Phoney,' Skinner replied. 'We've put out a country-wide alert for any vehicle with that number, but if the killer had one set of fictitious plates, then he'll have two, and he'l have swapped over by now.'

'How do you know that they were there?'

Skinner smiled, grimly. 'Like the murder scene, the place was wiped clean. However we found two food labels stuffed down the back of a cushion. One of them was foil, and had the boy's right thumbprint on it, very clearly. We're checking, even as I speak, with the supermarket where we hope the items were bought, but I'l tel you now, that it won't help us identify the killer. If he was there, he'll have paid cash.'

'So,' said the Secretary of State. 'Another dead end.'

'Not quite. Now we have an accurate description of the man, and a good witness who can draw a photofit for us. Also, where it's been surmise before, thanks to a fingerprint on an item, we now know for sure that the child was in that caravan, alive. The usual motive for child-stealing is ransom. Whatever the purpose here, I believe that there wil be a further message from the man, and I expect that it wil be addressed to me.'

'Why do you say that?'

'Because of the lengths to which he went to contact me, personally, on Saturday evening. He could have taken his pick from dozens of working phone boxes all over East Lothian or Berwick, yet he came to Gullane to make his cal from my very own doorstep. Whether it was risk-taking for thril s, or simply his way of rubbing my nose in it, it was thought out, deliberate, and directed at me.

'This is personal, I tell you. This man is a ghost from somewhere in my past, only he's a very live one.'

Anderson frowned. 'I take it that you're looking into all the people who might have grudges against you.'

'Of course, but without success so far.'

The Secretary of State nodded. 'I see.' He swung round in his swivel chair and stared out of the window, across towards Calton Hill.

'Bob,' he said, at last, without looking round, 'don't you feel that it would be better if you were able to give one hundred per cent of your time to this investigation?'

Skinner thought of Proud Jimmy, and felt a tightening around his wrist, like the phantom jaws of a rottweiler.

'No, sir,' he replied, evenly, 'I do not. I have an excellent Head of CID, in day-to-day charge and reporting to me. Added to that, if I am a linking factor in this crime, the arguments are all against me being informed personal y.'