'I know what he did,' Martin acknowledged, 'but I only found out this week. I took over Alec Smith's job, but I never knew about it then. Alec never told anybody anything they didn't need to know, not even his family. He was the world's most secretive man and all of his secrets may have died with him.
'We only found out what he did to you because Tommy Gavigan was leaned on after his death. He told us all about it. He's out now, by the way; retired early, sent on down the road.'
'You mean he's got a fucking pension for that?' Another flash of anger.
'Which he'll never enjoy spending for looking over his shoulder. Unless… maybe we'll get him your job at Guardian.'
Scotland smiled, a cruel grin of power. 'You forget,
Detective Chief Superintendent… you won't be getting anything for anyone after tomorrow.'
'As you say, we'll see about that.' Move on, quickly. 'How did you know who Smith was? What he was?'
'Come on, Mr Martin. Our intelligence wasn't that bad: I don't mean my Irish friends, I mean Tony Manson's intelligence. He always knew who all the coppers were, including the Special Branch people. Tony got me involved in Ireland, you know. Some contacts of his needed an outside worker to take on a special job; somebody very big in Sinn Fein, someone they couldn't get near. He could have sent big Lenny Plenderleith, only he didn't want to risk losing him; so, since I had done a few things for him by that time, he volunteered me. The job got done, and I got asked back for the tricky ones. I got paid, of course; I was strictly a mercenary.'
'So why the straight job now? What took you to Guardian?'
'I am straight… or at least I was. Tony's dead, big Lenny's in the nick for ever, Jackie Charles is banged up and his wife's a gingerbread woman, Dougie the Comedian's dead; all of it, or most of it, thanks to Skinner and you. I was a hired gun; now there's no-one left to hire me.
'So I took a job at Guardian. The money was good, the work was easy enough — on-site night-security work mainly, offices, the university, the zoo, even. Then, bugger me, what happens but big Smith gets appointed General Manager. I thought I was for the off right away, but no, he kept me on. He told me that he liked having me where he could see me. But then, after a year, he left. They wanted to make him a star down south, so the story went, but he wouldn't have it.'
'It wouldn't have suited his plans.'
'What do you mean?'
'I don't know, but he was up to something. Until last Friday night, that is,' Martin added, quietly.
Lawrence Scotland laughed. 'So you're finally getting round to what you came to talk to me about, are you? I knew somebody would, after that. I hoped it would be Tommy Gavigan, but you'll do. Oh aye, you'll do. A Detective Chief Superintendent, indeed.'
'How did you find out where Alec lived? Did you look at the personnel records at Guardian?'
'Don't be daft. I'm a shooter, not a safecracker. No, I just followed him home; back to his lair, the fucking animal, there on the beach with just him and his fucking dog. I thought about grabbing it off the street, you know, throttling it and dumping it on his doorstep
… just so he'd know.'
'He'd probably have killed you, if he thought you were threatening him.'
'I worked that one out for myself, pal. Anyway, what harm had the poor bloody dog done?'
'So ten years on, you decided to kill Alec himself. The thing that surprises me is that I never really fancied you for it. That's why I was stupid enough to come to see you alone; just for a chat about Alec, to find out what you knew about him back then.'
'You mean you didn't come to apologise,' said Scotland, scornfully. 'No, I never thought you would. You don't really mind what Smith did to me, do you? Come on, be honest, admit it.'
'No, I don't really mind; I can't approve of it, but I can see why he did it. There were no cries of outrage when we found out.'
'Naw, I didn't imagine there would be. I can see why myself, truth be told. I made big Alec angry by slipping his surveillance that last time I went to Ireland, to Armagh. I don't think he was a man who liked to get angry. He was all about control, and anger signifies a loss of control.
'He must have planned it very carefully, and looked at all the reports of the jobs I did. All of them shot in the head, standing up, facing the gun, no blindfold, no bag over the head, nothing like that. He did the same thing to me; exactly the same, on purpose.
'There's an added element to being on the other end of it, you know, when you've done it yourself. I realised right then that of all the people I'd dealt with, the people who were the most terrified — they all were at the end, but I mean the most of all, crying, begging, pissing themselves, all that stuff — were the ones who'd actually killed people themselves. They'd seen the brains coming out too, and when you've seen that the last thing you want is that it should be your brains flying all over the place. No, you don't want that.
'Big Alec knew that; so he did what he did to me, and in a strange way I respected him for that. But it was way over the top. I hurt his pride, but he terrified me, almost to death, and he humiliated me in the worst possible way. Being left sat in your own shite miles from nowhere is worse than being dead. You might say that you have no sympathy for me, but you couldn't have done what he did, could you? Load the gun, spin the chamber, pull the trigger. Then do it again.'
He frowned at Martin. 'No, you couldn't have done that, not you.' Then he laughed.
'I saw your guy in the papers, saying that you were looking for a seriously disturbed individual over Alec Smith's death.
Fucking hell, that's ironic; big Alec was a seriously disturbed individual himself.
'I looked into his eyes, behind that big gun that he pointed at me, just like this one…' He waved the big pistol in the air, '… and I could see something in there that was plain fucking crazy. That scared me as much as the thought of my brains flying out the back of my head.
'I will tell you one thing… just one thing. I could not think of anything worse in the world than being that man's enemy.'
'I can.'
'What's that?'
Martin gazed straight at the other man. 'Being mine,' he said quietly, '… as you will find out.'
'Big talk,' Scotland sneered. 'But no more talk now, no more till morning. We sit the Death Watch in silence; you with your thoughts, me just watching you. There's something incredible about studying a man who knows he's going to die in a few hours.
'I haven't done it for a long time.'
36
'Sure,' said Sarah. 'I keep copies of all my autopsy reports here, on my lap-top computer and in hard copy.' She looked at her husband and at Neil Mcllhenney standing in the conservatory, where she had been reading when they arrived. 'What's the panic anyway?'
'No panic,' said Bob. 'It's a thousand-to-one chance, but it's something we have to check. Will you get us a copy of the report on the second post-mortem you did at the weekend?'
He turned to Mcllhenney. 'Neil, you'd better get home for your baby-sitter.'
'No, it's Karen. I'll call her; she'll understand.'
'Okay, but first let's try to knock this thing on the head. Let's just phone the Diddler just in case he's been at home all the time, let's not look any dafter than we have to.' He picked up the local telephone directory, a commercially-produced listing of village numbers, found the entry for 'Shearer, H', and dialled it.
The phone rang four times, before the Diddler answered. 'Hello,' he said. 'Howard and Edith are away from home right now, but if you'd like to leave us a message, or even send us a fax, we'll get back to you.'
'Bugger,' Skinner swore. 'Come on, Neil,'he said. 'He lives just up the hill; let's check out his house for signs of recent occupation.'