Thursday legends

'They all came back blank, except for Cathay Pacific; they had nothing for the period Jack asked about, but they volunteered the information that they flew a Mr L. Heard to KL last Tuesday — three days before we identified Howard Shearer's body, and even before that e-fit appeared in the press.'

57

'Damn me: Bob Skinner! Susan! It's Bob Skinner.' He heard a shout from somewhere in the background. 'Susan sends her love, to Sarah as well. What can I do for you? You got some bigwig guests who'd like to play Witches Hill? No problem, if that's it.'

'No, it's nothing like that, Hector,' the DCC told the Marquis of Kinture. The policeman and the wheelchair-bound aristocrat had crossed paths a couple of years earlier, drawn together by crime, and a shared love of golf had cemented their friendship. 'Where the hell are you, by the way? You can never tell, when somebody's on a mobile.'

'We're in the Florida Keys,' the Peer replied. 'Fancied a spot of sea-fishing; got to find other pursuits now that the House of Lords is being put out of business. I'm strapped in a chair with a bloody great rod in my hand even as I speak. D'you fish, old chap?'

'Not me. Haven't got the patience. If I can't hit it, or kick it, then I don't want to play with it.'

Lord Kinture laughed. 'Spend a few years in a chariot like mine. You'll do anything for sport then.'

'Aye, I suppose so. Actually, I am off my feet at the moment; got a leg in plaster.'

'Ah, too bad. What happened to it?'

'It's a long story. Listen, to come to the point; we've got an investigation going on into the murder of an ex-copper named Alec Smith. One of my guys was up in Dundee this morning, interviewing a man who turned out to be your estate factor, and he discovered that Smith leased a cottage from you.'

Even across three thousand miles of ocean, the silence was loaded. Even bounced off a satellite, Skinner could hear the sudden exhalation. 'So someone's done for Mr Alec Smith, have they? About bloody time too. Not in my cottage was it?'

'No, in his own house.'

'How was he killed?'

'In an interesting variety of ways; he was tortured to death.'

'Appropriate,' said Hector Kinture, with undisguised pleasure in his voice.

'Hold on a minute,' Skinner exclaimed. 'If you hated Smith that much, why did you rent him one of your properties, and get involved in the deal personally?'

'Because the bloody man blackmailed me. I met him a few years back, when I had the Queen and Prince Philip at Bracklands and he was involved in the security. Shortly afterwards, he came to see me and told me that he was looking for a property; a safe house, he called it. Said that he'd seen the empty place near Yellowcraigs, that he'd found out I owned it and wanted to rent it from me.

'I told him to bugger off. The place had been promised to my head gardener at the big house as a retirement cottage; I was just about to start renovating it for him.' Kinture let out a half-cough, half-snort. 'The man, your ex-colleague, then produced a series of photographs of my brother-in-law. Don't want to say too much with Susan not far out of earshot; she doesn't know any of this.'

'It's all right; don't even mention his name. I know who he is. These photographs; male or female?'

'Male.'

'So you rented the place to Smith.' 'No choice.'

'You could have come to me. I could have squashed him like a fly.'

'I didn't know you then,' Kinture pointed out. 'So I did what he asked. He used a false name on the agreement; I expected him to welch on the rent, but he didn't. It was always paid on the dot. I couldn't take the chance, Bob; had to protect Susan and her family.'

'I understand that, man,' the policeman said. 'It's what you may have done to others in the process that's worrying me.'

'God forbid that I have, but frankly, Bob, the man intimidated me. Look, what can I do to help you now?'

'Simple. You can let my people enter that cottage without the need for a warrant. We think we have the keys.'

'You've got it. Do you want Gilbert McCart to be there?'

'Absolutely not.'

'Fine…' the Marquis hesitated. 'Bob; when you go in there, if you find anything, anything like… You will be discreet, won't you?'

Skinner let out a quiet, grim laugh. 'Don't worry, Hector,' he promised. 'In this one, discretion is the order of the day.'

58

'You mean you don't plan your own programmes?' Andy Martin asked, gazing at a computer monitor screen in a small, second-floor office in the Forth Street radio headquarters.

'No way,' Spike Thomson replied with a dismissive grin. 'We have what we call music co-ordinators, two of them, who do all the programming for all the presenters. I'm one; although my show's on Forth AM now, I do all the programming for our FM station.'

'Christ, how much of your day does that take up?'

'Less than you think, Andy. We have our toys, you see. Watch.' He turned to the keyboard on his desk. 'We have software that does most of it for us. We load all of our play-list — that's all the music currently selected for airing — and the computer makes a random selection for each hour, with everything timed. Three tracks then a break, then another three and so on…'

He hit the Enter key and a programme schedule appeared on the screen.

'My skill is in knowing where the computer's wrong. Some artists just don't fit together. Look there, for example,' he pointed at the monitor, 'We're not going to have two rap tracks on the trot.'

'One on the trot's too much for me,' the detective chuckled.

'Ah, but you're a red-neck polisman… not that I disagree, mind you.' He pulled another title from the play list and substituted it for Puff Daddy. 'There're other things too,' he went on. 'The computer hasn't seen our research; it doesn't know that if you play three female artists in succession, your audience starts to switch off.' He saw Martin's surprise. 'Don't ask me why, but that is true. Doesn't matter who they are, either, and it doesn't work the other way around.'

Thomson made a few more adjustments, then said, 'Fine. That's tomorrow's breakfast show done. I'll print it out now, and Madge, our production assistant, will put it on the presenter's desk.'

He stood. 'Come on. We're on air in five minutes; we'd better get down to the studio.' He led the detective back down the stairs and past the entrance hall, to the basement nerve-centre of the building. As they walked, he explained the format of their on-air discussion. 'I'll play three music tracks at the top of the programme, past the news and traffic, go to commercials, then I'll introduce you.

'We'll talk about police work in general; the overall role of the force; about five minutes of that then I'll play another three tracks, more commercials, then back to discussion of the role of the CID. No live cases — I'll make that point on air — just general. How a typical investigation runs.

'Our discussion will split into three segments, and after about forty minutes, we'll be finished, and I'll cue you out.'

'Fine,' said Martin. 'Do I have to keep my mouth shut in there, other than when I'm speaking?'

'Hell no,' said Thomson. 'It's not like that any more. Nothing is as it was any more.' He stopped at a solid wooden door with a single small glass panel and punched in a code on a small keyboard.

'You should change the code. Three, one, four, two.'

The presenter looked at his guest, puzzled. 'How could you see? I had my hand over the panel.'

'First four digits of the decimal form of pi. Most common office-security code in the business.'

Spike gasped. 'Hey. I wonder if I can work that into the discussion?'