Skinner's ghosts

'The kidnapper made that tape on Thursday. He posted it first class on Friday, although we still don't know from where, the postmark was too badly smudged. So he knew I'd have it on Saturday.'

'So?' asked Laidlaw.

'So if it was him who set me up, through Spotlight, he did that on Thursday at the latest. If it was him, he'd have known that by Saturday I'd be under investigation. Yet there was not the faintest hint of that on the tape, not even the faintest hint of him. Through Mark, he was stil talking to me as a copper, on Saturday morning.

'No, I'm afraid I need a lot more convincing that the kidnapper is behind this.'

He turned to Alex. 'What's Al Cheshire's next move?'

'He's going to interview Noel Salmon, tomorrow midday. Salmon says he doesn't want me there. He says he'd feel threatened.'

'He's catching on, is he?' scowled Skinner. 'Did Cheshire tell him he had a choice?'

'Well he has, Pops. This is stil an informal investigation. No-one's under caution.'

'That's right, Bob,' Laidlaw confirmed. 'However… Alex, find out if Salmon would accept my presence. Maybe he'd find me less of a threat.'

He looked across at Skinner, as he resumed his seat. 'Going back to Christabel for a moment, Bob. In the light of the information which Alex has brought back, I think it would be good idea if we arranged a consultation for Monday. If that's okay with you, I'll set it up.'

Skinner nodded, and Laidlaw made a smal note on a pad on the table in front of him. He looked up again. 'What about this receipt, Bob? What do we do about that?'

The detective shrugged. 'Alex was right. Let Cheshire search wherever he likes. Any sheriff would give him a warrant if he asked for one, with what he's got. There's no point in putting him to the bother.'

'Pops,' Alex intervened, hesitantly, 'he wants to search Pam's as well. You've been living there.'

'Of course he does. I've already discussed the possibility with her. As long as it's done very discreetly, she's okay with it. To be on the up and up, neither of us should go back to anywhere that's to be searched. So Alex, once we've finished here, you go back to see Cheshire and Ericson and take them where they need to go. I'l give you keys to Pam's place.'

Laidlaw leaned across his desk. 'Bob, I have to ask you this. We've got copies of al the documents. Cheshire was good enough to give us them, while he holds the originals. Looking at that receipt, have you ever seen, however casually, it or anything like it?'

Skinner laughed. 'You asking if I mistook it for one of Sarah's Jenners receipts? Oh yes, a hundred grand. Got off light today, didn't we!

'No, Mitch. I have never seen that receipt in my life, anywhere.

Although, the way things are going for me just now…' He stopped in mid-sentence. 'What the hell, let Al Cheshire and his pal – but only them mind. Not one of my own officers is to be used – let them go through my socks, Pamela's knickers, and everywhere else. You go along with them though, Alex, and look over their shoulders, just to keep them on their toes.

'They won't like the business any more than I do, I suppose,' he growled. 'Tell you one thing I real y don't like, though, and that's Jimmy letting them use my office. I know why he did it, to keep them out of sight of the troops as much as possible, but I don't have to enjoy it, even though I would have done the same thing myself.

Because, when this is over and I go back in there, I'l always know.

'It's a bit like someone sleeping with your wife, I suppose.'

'Or your husband,' said Alex, instinctively and as unthinking as her father.

Mitch Laidlaw coughed, to break the silence. 'Look, this will all be over soon,' he said. 'I know it's tough on you both.'

'There'l be more pain,' murmured Skinner, 'before anything starts to heal.' He reached across and squeezed his daughter's hand.

'One thing I was going to ask,' said Laidlaw, casting around desperately for anything that would change the subject. 'Cheshire.

For the record, what is the Al short for? Alan? Alexander?'

Skinner smiled again. 'Hell of a good question,' he replied. 'We've all got a secret somewhere, but in the end no-one's is safe from me.

Algernon, that's Cheshire's secret. He's an Algernon. They say that someone cal ed him Algie once, and was never seen again!'

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58

Pamela shuddered, in Andy Martin's armchair. 'It makes my flesh creep,' she said, 'to know that even as we're sitting here, strangers are searching my home.'

Skinner smiled, glancing across at Martin. 'I suppose it's a sort of justice for a copper. You and I have done the same thing to other people often enough.' He looked round at Pam. 'Maybe you haven't, honey, not yet at least, but it's part of the career you've chosen, part of making a difference, as you put it.

'Perhaps it's only right that we should have a taste of how our subjects feel, not so much the villains we're after, but their families, when we invade their homes and start tearing the most private parts of their lives apart.

'Remember that Japanese bloke, out in Balerno…'

Talking about private parts, you mean?' interjected Martin, from the kitchen door.

Skinner laughed, short and savage, and in that time a gleam came into his eye. Pam started in her chair as she caught a glimpse of a man she did not know, a glimpse, she realised of Bob as he had been before life had cut him so deep. She shivered slightly as she realised also that perhaps it was a man she did not real y want to know.

'Aye, maybe,' he said. 'But I was trying to be serious. I was thinking of his poor bewildered wife, confronted with a team of hard-faced men and women, bursting into her home armed with a warrant. As far as I know she's back in Japan now, picking up her life, but I bet that's one experience she'll never get over.

'We've got it easy, Pammy, compared to her. Our houses are being gone over by a DCC and a Chief Super, not by Tom, Dick and Harriet, or even Neil, Mario and Maggie.'

'But what about yours?' she said. 'Won't they be tearing up the carpets and everything?'

'Nah. They'l be going through the motions. Algernon knows well enough that if I am bent, I've had time and warning enough to hide the evidence where he'll never find it. In a real search, for a single piece of paper, he wouldn't just be under the carpets, he'd be under the floor, and into the ventilation gril es and damp courses.'

'That's right, Pam,' cal ed Martin, in his chef's apron, quartering 197

S

a yellow pepper, ready for the food processor. 'Only he doesn't expect to find it, because he doesn't really believe Bob's bent.'

He stepped back into the doorway. 'Where would you hide a piece of paper?' he asked.

Skinner smiled. 'Same place as you, and I'll betAlgie looks there, too.'

Behind him, the living-room door opened. Alex stood there, smiling. 'Al over,' she said. 'Congratulations, you two. Al three houses are clear. They were very thorough. They even looked among Jazz's nappies down in Fairyhouse Avenue. But they cleared everything up too.'

'Too effing right!' said Bob. 'Did they say anything?'

'About the search, no. Salmon has agreed that Mr Laidlaw should sit in on the interview though.' She looked across at Andy, and at the pepper in his hand. 'Is that as far as you've got with dinner? Here, out of the way.'

The kitchen was too smal for four to work together, and so Bob and Pam went out together, to the nearest Oddbins, to choose the wine for the evening.

They took a conscious decision to talk about golf, music, food and drink over dinner – anything. Bob insisted, but work, politics and sex. But eventually, the meal was over; eventually, the dregs of coffee were drying in their cups.

'I've got something else for you, now,' said Andy to Skinner, at last.