Skinner's ghosts

They played on, chatting occasionally, but largely in silence.

Skinner had been serious about his lack of practice. Putting rather than the quality of his shots kept him in touch with his host's tidy game, but when he missed from ten feet on the seventeenth, the match was over. The sweetness of revenge shone in the American's eye, while the worm of defeat gnawed at the policeman's stomach.

It was late afternoon when they returned to the castle, where sandwiches and drinks were laid out in a great drawing room with a southward view across the loch.

'Okay Mr Skinner,' said Balliol at last, as he and his guest looked out across the terrace. 'So you're steamed up at me about that Spotlight stuff.'

The policeman shook his head. 'No,' he muttered. 'Not steamed up. That's an understatement.'

The American looked at him. 'This is something you'll never hear me say again, so listen good. I'm sorry.'

Skinner looked at him in surprise, but said nothing.

'A few weeks ago,' Balliol went on, 'the chief editor told me that the British edition had been offered a story about a well-known guy in Britain who was two-timing his American wife and diddling this woman who worked for him.

'The guy who claimed to have the story, Noel Salmon -1 thought it was a gal at first with a name like Noel – said he wanted a job.'

'Why did this come al the way up to you?'

Bal iol smiled. 'Spotlight's kinda like my toy,' he said. 'But I'm tight with my business money, see, and the British edition had been swal owing cash, so I said a while back that all new spending had to be given the nod by me. So I was asked about Salmon, and I said if the story holds up, hire him.

'That was the last I heard til someone sent me a copy, and I saw your beefy ass on the front cover.' Something in the American's tone made Skinner guess that Balliol might be homosexual. He wondered if the FBI had its own suspicions.

'I have to admit I laughed, when I remembered how pissed I'd been with you at Witches Hill. I didn't feel too good about your lady friend being' in those shots, though, especial y the ones where it looks like she could be… you know.'

'I'll pass on your regrets,' grunted the detective, sourly. 'She'l be touched.'

Balliol looked away for a second. 'Yeah. Okay. Anyway,' he continued, quickly, 'at the same time as I'm sent the copy, my chief editor says that Salmon has another story, about you, and an illegal payment, a bribe. Our lawyers say though, no way can we use it without more evidence.

'So the chief editor says let's pass the story on to the authorities, announce that we've done it, and act like the good guys. We still sell magazines, but we don't get sued if the story turns out wrong. So I said to go ahead, and that's the way it played.'

Skinner looked at him. 'You know the real reason I came up here, Balliol? I'm a great believer in looking people in the eye. I've never met a man who can do that and tell me a direct lie at the same time.

'So wil you look me in the eye, right now, and tell me that it wasn't you who set me up with that rigged bank account, then tipped off your own man about the story?'

The billionaire turned to face him, fixed his gaze upon him, eye to eye, and smiled. 'Shit, son,' he laughed. 'If I'd been going to set you up, it'd have been with a mil ion, not a miserable hundred grand.

I'd have set you up so you'd have gone away for life.

'But I didn't, and that is the truth.'

There was a long silence. 'Now,' said Balliol, breaking it finally,

'is that al you came for, or is there something else?'

The big detective nodded. 'Yes, there is. Your creep Salmon says that the information about me came to him from an anonymous source, that he doesn't know who it was tipped him off. We don't believe that, my pal and I. We think that he was about to give it up when your lawyer arrived to get him out of custody.

'I'd like you to order him to come clean now, to tell me who his source is. Because that's the person who set me up with this phoney bribery charge.'

Balliol sighed. 'Wel that's a bastard, ain't it? I'd do that for you, Bob sir, only I can't.'

'Why the hell not?'

'Because Salmon doesn't work for me any more. I told my chief editor to fire him as soon as he had sent his information to your Lord guy.'

'What for?'

Balliol looked at him, genuinely shocked. 'What for? Because he was caught with narcotics in his possession and in the company of a prostitoot. Either one of those things would have got him fired from any one of my companies. Both together! He's lucky I didn't set my Koreans on him.'

'Dammit!' cursed Skinner. 'Now you have to turn out to be a closet moralist! And you the owner of Spotlight too.'

'Nothing closet about it, son,' the American protested. 'Spotlight exposes the private sins of public figures. How can you have a higher moral tone than that?'

Despite himself, the policeman laughed. 'I'll tell you a story, Mr Morality,' he said. 'A couple of years back, we had some really bad trouble at our Edinburgh Festival. Someone was after something very valuable, and went to extraordinary lengths to try to get it.

'They didn't succeed, and the people who caused al that mayhem were caught. But they were only the hired help. They had a paymaster, and we never did find out who that was.

'Funny, is it not, that when I showed up here today, you real y weren't a hundred per cent sure what I'd come about.' Skinner leaned over, his face very close to Balliol. 'Am I ringing any bells here?'

The American smiled, cool y. 'Bob, son, I remember reading about that affair. The people who did those things were completely out of control, and they got their just deserts.

'I tell you now, you can dig al the livelong day, and al of tomorrow, and al of the day after that and so on, but you wil never tie me to that one. Believe me on this.'

Skinner stared at him, evenly. 'Oh I do, Mr Bal iol, I do. But digging's my job, and when I get started I'm like the seven fucking dwarfs, all rolled into one.'

61

Arthur Dorward stripped the last of the tape from the underside of the drawer. Hands encased in latex gloves, he lifted the receipt very carefully, and slid it into a large plastic envelope, with a fastening along the top.

'We won't do any tests here, sir,' he said to Cheshire, as his sergeant placed the envelope in a document case. 'I'd much prefer to have my full lab facilities available when we start to look for traces.'

'Fair enough, Inspector,' said the investigator, 'but if you don't mind, Mr Ericson and I will come with you.'

Dorward's face set instantly into a frown, as he sensed an implied slur on his integrity. Andy Martin stepped in quickly. 'That's al right, Arthur,' he said. 'It's necessary to the enquiry.'

'Very good, sir.' The red-haired man nodded but his expression remained frozen.

'Before we go to get on with it,' he said, 'could I have a word with you, and with the Chief, in private?'

'Of course,' said Sir James Proud, who was standing near the door of Skinner's office. 'Come across the corridor.' He glanced, unsmiling, at Cheshire and Ericson. 'Excuse us, gentlemen.'

He led his two officers out of the room, and into his own suite.

The veteran Chief looked confused, angry and very upset. 'I stil don't believe it, you know.'

Dorward sighed. 'Who wants to, sir? But if we find Mr Skinner's prints on that receipt…'

'Then you better hadn't!' Proud Jimmy barked.

The Inspector glanced at Martin, with a look of panic, but the Chief soothed him almost at once. 'Oh, Arthur, make no mistake, I want you to do your job as honestly and as well as you always do. I just hate all this, that's all.

'Now, what did you want to see us about? Here, man, sit down, you're not on report.'

As the Chief Constable ushered them to chairs, Dorward's brows knitted. Looking at him, Martin thought that he might be trembling slightly