‘Bob, this is not good.’
‘Please, love, don’t give me hassle. I have an important meeting very soon, and I need to focus on it.’
‘Yes, and you have an important family, and you need to focus on it too.’ He slammed the phone down, but she had beaten him to it.
When Adam Arrow knocked on his door, Skinner was ready, shaven for the second time that day, and wearing a fresh shirt. ‘Smart,’ said the major. ‘It’s as well, for this is posh.’
He led the way down to Les Quatre Saisons, the hotel’s premier restaurant, and through its wide-open doors. The head waiter seemed to glide over to them. ‘Yes, gentlemen?’
‘We’re dining with Lieutenant Colonel Winters,’ Arrow told him, in the formal accent that he could don like a well-fitting jacket.
‘Ah yes, he is here.’
They were led across to a booth in the furthest corner of the restaurant, set well apart from the nearest table. As they approached, a tall man rose to greet them. ‘Adam,’ he exclaimed, ‘it’s good to see you.’
‘I’ll bet it is,’ the Englishman replied. ‘You always like an excuse to entertain here.’
‘It’s the nearest thing we have to one of your London clubs.’
‘This is a bit upmarket from the best of them. Pierre, this is my friend Bob Skinner.’
The two shook hands, as the waiter fussed around, anxious to help if any of them had difficulty pulling his chair into the table. Lieutenant Colonel Winters frowned at him and he withdrew, returning a moment later with three menus and a thick wine list, which he handed to the Belgian.
‘We eat, then we talk business, agreed?’ Skinner and Arrow nodded in unison.
The restaurant, the Scot had to admit as they finished, was pretty damn good, although he had a niggling worry about the garlic in the pâté. The older he grew, the less tolerant of it he was becoming. ‘And so,’ said Winters finally, as the wine waiter removed the Armagnac decanter, ‘what brings you to Belgium?’
‘Death,’ Skinner told him.
‘Hanno and Lebeau?’ asked the Belgian.
‘You know about them?’
‘I read the newspapers. Two of the Bastogne Drummers die in unfortunate accidents and it makes the press here. The military notice too.’
‘I thought the Drummers were a civilian group.’
‘They are, but since Colonel Malou took them over, they have been operating under a degree of army patronage. We provide their uniforms and their equipment, and we give them a very small grant. We didn’t before, but old Auguste pulled a couple of strings.’
‘I see,’ said Skinner. ‘I notice that you described the deaths as accidents. Is that how they were reported here?’
‘Yes, it was. The first one, Hanno, certainly. Lebeau’s death was said to have been the work of some madman poisoning toothpaste.’
‘We don’t think he was that mad. My colleagues in England don’t think Hanno was killed by accident either, and I tend to agree with them.’
‘So how can I help you?’
‘I’ve spoken to Colonel Malou; I understand that the two dead men served under him in the Belgian Army, that they were all members of the band of the First Guides Regiment.’
Winters laughed. ‘That is something of an exaggeration. The band is very important, world famous we like to think; it is more of an orchestra, actually. If you have the idea that it is anything like the Bastogne Drummers, forget it. And as for Malou, Hanno and Lebeau being members, forget that also. I pulled their files when I knew you were coming. The band has an administration and a support team. . I think the word in modern music is “roadies”. . who are serving soldiers. That’s where those three spent their careers.’
‘All of their careers?’
‘We all do basic training, even those who are non-combatants, but they all spent the best part of thirty years with the band. When Malou retired, he was its senior administrator.’
‘When they were serving, were there any suspicions about any of them; of improper behaviour in any way?’
‘Absolutely not. The band is pristine; its reputation is above reproach and the same is true of anyone involved with it.’
‘If there was anything in civilian life that might have got them into trouble, would you know about it?’
Winters smiled. ‘Not necessarily, but I could find out. As Major Arrow is your friend, so I have contacts in our civil police. I will do so. If you come and see me tomorrow, at my office, I will tell you anything there is to tell. Eleven should be time enough, if Adam will bring you.’
‘Thanks,’ said Skinner. ‘There’s something else I need to pin down, about Malou. You know why the Drummers are in Edinburgh, I take it?’
‘Yes, to play for the Pope. We Belgians regard it as a great honour, I don’t mind telling you; it goes back to his time as a young curate in the Cathedral of St Michael, or Saint-Gudule, as we call it.’
‘It may be more personal than that. Did you know that Auguste Malou and the young Gilbert White were close friends?’
Winters’s eyes seemed to narrow, very slightly. ‘You must not believe everything Malou tells you, Bob.’
‘I believe this, though. It’s true and I know it. But I don’t know how that friendship began, and I need to. Two men have been killed; they form a line of acquaintance and personal history that leads to the colonel. Now I find that the line extends to connect with the Pope himself. Malou didn’t boast of this; he wouldn’t have told me of it at all, but for a slip of the tongue. Once he had, he refused to discuss it. You can see, can’t you, that if he’s keeping a secret and Hanno and Lebeau were a part of it, then I need to know about it?’
‘I can see that,’ the Belgian acknowledged. ‘Again, I will see what I can do. When you visit me tomorrow, I may be able to tell you more.’ He rose. ‘I must go. There is an excellent piano bar in this hotel, gentlemen; you may care to end the evening there. It’s called the Waterloo. The French hate it; I can’t imagine why.’
67
Detective Chief Inspector David ‘Bandit’ Mackenzie was glad that he was one of nature’s early birds. So was his wife; when the kids in their turn were very young and woke with the dawn, screaming to be changed or fed, in whatever order, David would always attend to them without complaint, leaving her to grab the extra hour or so of sleep that she needed to get her through the rest of the day.
The Bandit was proud of his nickname. He liked to claim that he had acquired it by locking up his own brother, but there was more to it than that. Throughout his CID career, his clear-up figures had spoken for themselves, but he had given the impression, through his relentlessly cocky demeanour, that they might have been achieved by cutting the odd corner, and sometimes the even one as well.
This was not true: in fact, he was guilty of nothing less orthodox than backing his own judgement and of relying on instinct first in pursuing a suspect, knowing that the necessary evidence would fall into place later. Almost invariably he had been right.
One of his few failures, however, had brought him briefly into conflict with Bob Skinner. He had been shown, forcefully, the error of his ways, but then, to his surprise, had found himself being taken under the wing of the Edinburgh DCC, whose legend as Scotland’s hardest copper was well enshrined in the west, from which he had sprung.
Still, he had been surprised when his former boss, Mary Chambers, had whispered word in his ear that her job would be falling vacant and that it might be worth his while applying for it. He had been pleased too, because he had guessed that the hint had come indirectly from Skinner, who had actually cut far more corners in his time than Bandit would ever have dared.
He had been interviewed privately for the job by a panel that had included Skinner himself, Dan Pringle, and the formidable iron-drawered Maggie Rose, the most intimidating woman officer he had ever met. All his answers must have been right, for he had found himself transferred, on promotion, from the delights of Cumbernauld into a new office in Edinburgh.