Skinner's Ordeal (31 page)

Sarah stood up, her child cradled in the crook of her arm, and came over to the bedside.

'There's no choice, Bob, really — is there? Come on, agree, for our sake'

Skinner sighed, then winced as a shaft of pain from his wound shot through him. 'Okay,'

he said. 'Let's do it. But on one condition, Kevin. There's something in my head that only Sarah knows about. The only other person who was in on the secret died two months ago.

That story is dangerous in a way I can't begin to tell you, and it mustn't become public property. Therefore I will agree to hypnosis on the condition that only you and Sarah are present, and that you agree that anything I may say under hypnosis will be kept as secret by you as if it was a confession made to a priest. Will you give me that promise?'

Òf course. In this situation, anything you say will be in the context of a doctor-patient relationship. It'll be totally privileged. I'd be struck off if I ever breathed a word.'

`Right. I agree. When do you want to do it?'

O'Malley scratched his chin. 'As soon as Mr Braeburn says I can. That should be in a couple of days. Let's pencil it in for Friday. In the meantime, just rest up and keep taking the happy pills.'

`Can I start to look at some paperwork?'

Àbsolutely no way,' said the psychiatrist, anticipating Sarah's open-mouthed protest.

'Listen to music, or read some of that Terry Pratchett on your bedside table, but do nothing associated with work. Don't even watch a crime show on television!'

He moved towards the door. 'See you on Friday, subject to Braeburn'

Sarah settled Jazz into his push-chair and followed O'Malley outside. But when the door re-opened, it was Alison Higgins who appeared.

'Hello, boss,' she said with a smile, holding out a bunch of chrysanthemums. 'Sarah said I could look in for a minute.'

‘Hi, Ali. Good to see you. How are things going?' he asked, weakly but eagerly. 'Has Andy got anyone in the frame yet?'

Higgins frowned. 'Boss, Sarah said that if I even whispered anything about work, she'd throw me out. So don't ask me.'

Skinner sighed. 'That's how it's to be, is it? Okay: how about wee Mark? You can tell me how he's doing, can't you?'

She smiled. 'I think that's allowed. Mark's great.'

'How about his mum?'

'She's fine too. She dropped a bombshell last night, all right.'

'Oh?'

'Yes. Did you know there's going to be a snap by-election?' Skinner looked puzzled. 'Yes, three weeks from tomorrow. Well, Leona had a few of us round for supper last night —

me, Marsh Elliot and the Constituency big-wigs: Over the coffee she announced that she wanted to fight the seat in Roly's place.'

'What did they say?'

'After they recovered from the shock they agreed. There's a special meeting of the Dean Conservative Association tonight to adopt her as the candidate. It'll go through unanimously. She's already been granted leave from her teaching job, for the duration of the campaign.'

Skinner whistled weakly. 'Quite a woman, right enough. Will she win?'

'Bet on it!'

'I don't usually, but on this occasion I might. Just you keep an eye on her though, Ali.

Don't get involved in the politics; just be a friend and make sure she comes through it all right.'

Higgins smiled at him gratefully. 'Thanks, boss, because, Leona dropped another bombshell last night, privately, on me - one that made me realise, as well as I know her, just how remarkable she is. But even at that, she's going to need me around, just in case.'

Òh,' said Skinner. 'What was that?'

Higgins looked at him hesitantly. 'It's rather personal, sir. Oh, what the hell — I might as well tell you the story. You'll keep the secret, and it doesn't half bear out your dislike of Roly!'

SIXTY- SIX

‘So what does a Tory Agent do, exactly?' asked Mario McGuire.

Brian Mackie looked at his colleague. 'Put that question to any ten of them and you'd probably get at least five different answers. But generally speaking they do what the title suggests. They act for the Party in the Constituencies where they're based. They recruit new members and keep the old ones sweet, turn out newsletters, run fund-raising events, collect subscriptions. The other parties might have a few salaried people on the ground in some local areas, but by and large full-time Constituency Agents are a Tory thing.' Mackie wrinkled his nose in what McGuire guessed to be disapproval.

`You seem to know a lot about them,' said the Inspector.

Ìn Special Branch we have dealings with them. You'll have to get to know them too.'

`Who pays them? The MP?'

'No,' said Mackie, 'the local Party employs them. A Constituency doesn't have to have a Tory MP to have its own agent, but the smaller associations can't usually afford one.'

`So what sort of people are they?'

À mixture, as far as I can see. Some of them are ex-servicemen, like Marshall Elliot, the guy in McGrath's Constituency. Others have some sort of private income and can afford to live on the dodgy salary that the job pays. There are quite a few women among them, proportionately far more than you'll find in Parliament.'

`So what about this one down here? What's she like?'

`Miss Paula Whittingham? Haven't a clue. I could have asked one of our friends at Central Office to give us a pen-portrait, but I thought it'd be better to keep our enquiries discreet.

you phoned her to make the appointment. How did she sound to you?'

McGuire grunted. 'Brisk. A bit like my wife, in fact, when she's got things on her mind.'

`Christ,' said Mackie, with a rare flash of humour, 'we'd better be on our best behaviour, then. Here, what's this about Maggie going to work for Alison Higgins?'

McGuire shot the DCI a glance. 'It's just for a few days, while Flash Donaldson's away. It was Mr Martin's idea, but no one was ordered, or anything.'

Ìs she all right about it?'

`Sure. She rates Miss Higgins, even though they've had a couple of dust-ups in the past.'

Mackie nodded. 'That's good. How was Mags after last Friday? That was a pretty important job she did.'

Àch, she was okay. Her job was co-ordinating recovery and keeping track of numbers, rather than picking up bits and pieces of people. She was a bit quiet at first, when she got home, but we poured a fair bit of drink into ourselves and were able to talk about it, just like we do after a normal day.'

`That's good. That sort of experience can affect different people in different ways. I heard that Major Legge's sidekick, the young Lieutenant, had to be packed off on sick leave on Monday.'

`Like I told Maggie,' said McGuire, 'as I see it, the only way to handle something like that is to say out loud what everyone says inside themselves, "Thank God that wasn't me or one of mine", and not to feel guilty about it.'

°Yes,' said Mackie, 'that's probably true. Anyway, where's this bloody office?'

They had reached the main street of Chindersford, the Berkshire market town which lay at the heart of Colin Davey's rural stronghold, and which gave the Constituency its name.

There were no modern buildings in the thoroughfare. Most were half-timbered, in mock-Tudor style, and some looked as if they might even be authentic.

The Chief Inspector scanned either side of the street, as his Sergeant drove slowly along in a car borrowed from the local Force. At last he saw, fixed to one of the buildings on the left, a sign bearing the multi-coloured ice-cream cone which the Conservative Party uses as its logo, in the quaint belief that it resembles a torch.

There, Mario. Another hundred yards on. Look — a space. Let's pull in here.'

McGuire pulled into the empty bay, and the two policemen climbed out. Autumn was turning into winter, but the weather was still mild, and neither felt the need of the overcoats which lay across the car's back seat.

The office of Chindersford Conservative Association was a double-fronted shop unit. In the window to the left a huge framed portrait photograph of Colin Davey sat on an easel, draped in black. He was smiling, yet McGuire grimaced at the picture, as something in him recognised a touch of cruelty, buried deep in those shining eyes.

A bell rang out as Mackie opened the door. Four elderly ladies, seated around a table at the back of the room, looked up as the policemen stepped inside. Each of them was sticking labels on envelopes taken from a huge box in the centre of the table, and replacing them in another on the floor. None of them spoke. They simply eyed the men up and down, then returned unsmiling to their repetitive work.

`Gentlemen,' boomed a deep, yet female voice from a dark doorway at the back of the office. 'I'm Paula Whittingham. Can I help you?'

As she stepped into better light, they could see that the woman looked around fifty-five.

She was almost rectangular in shape, with the short neck of a rugby prop forward and a torso which seemed to by-pass her waist and merge directly with her hips. She was dressed in badly faded jeans, and in a sweat-shirt. Its sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, revealing thick, ink-stained forearms.

`Miss Whittingham: I'm Chief Inspector Brian Mackie, from Edinburgh. This is Inspector Mario McGuire, who called you earlier.'

She nodded — briskly, as if to confirm Mario McGuire's description a few minutes earlier.

'Sure. Come through here. She ushered them into a back office, and closed the door behind them.

`Special Branch, I guess,' she said, waving blue-black fingers to deter Mackie's offered handshake. 'Looking into poor old Colin's past, right?'

The DCI gazed at her solemnly for a second or two, then nodded. 'Yes, you're right, on both counts. It's a routine part of a very large investigation, but it has to be done.'

Òf course it has,' said the woman, almost impatiently, as if she was letting them know that she was quite able to suck eggs. `So, if Colin's public or private life might be an issue,' she went on, 'that rules out the mad Bosnian-Serb General we were all warned about a few months ago.'

`He's been ruled out permanently,' said Mackie quickly. 'No, there are no obvious links with terrorist organisations, yet we do have evidence that Mr Davey was the target. So we have to look for domestic motives.

Miss Whittingham nodded. 'Understood. Look, before we go any further, I should tell you I'm ex-job myself. I was a Superintendent in West Mercia CID, before I took retirement a couple of years ago.'

`Mmm,' said Mackie, taken slightly aback. 'What brought you into this post?'

Ìt was vacant, I needed something to do, and I'm a Tory,' she said. 'Colin asked me if I would take it on. He said he needed somebody with a loud bark to herd the sheep. I haven't passed all my Agent's exams, so they call me Organising Secretary, but the job's the same.'

Ì see,' said the DCI. 'You knew the victim, and you know this place. As one copper to another, should we look here for our murderer?'

Paula Whittingham shook her head slowly. 'Not a chance. Colin was a bullying, slave-driving son of a bitch, but they all loved him here.'

`How about Mrs Davey, Superintendent,' said Mario McGuire, directly but courteously.

'Did she love him?'

There was a pause, while the woman considered his question. In her way, I think she did.

She certainly loved the prestige of being a Cabinet wife. She and Colin got on well enough. They respected each other, and she gave him the leeway he needed.'

`Leeway?' asked Mackie.

`The most suitable word, I think.' She looked the detective directly in the eye. The Secretary of State for Defence was homosexual Chief Inspector. Not actively, at least not since he became a member of the Government, but it was a part of him, One which went right back to his days at public school.'

`Did he admit this to you?'

`He didn't have to. I was in Special Branch too, once upon time, and before he was a Minister. We kept discreet surveillance on all our rising political stars, and we had a file on him,'

`You had? Do you know what happened to it?'

She smiled. 'At a certain point in his political career, it was shall we say, "swallowed", by another part of the security apparatus. The fact that you two are here asking me questions, and in these circumstances, tells me that either it's been shredded or that it's kept under lock and key by someone in a very senior position indeed.

`Congratulations, boys. You've unlocked Colin's secret, or at least the one I knew about.

But if I were you, I wouldn't count on being allowed to uncover any more!'

SIXTY-SEVEN

‘These should be enough to keep you going for the rest of the week.'

Shana Mirzana stood in the open doorway of Arrow's cramped office, carrying a small mountain of files. Her voice was muffled, as the heap was held secure in her arms by the point of her chin.

`Let's hope not,' said the soldier with a smile. 'I have to keep some time for you.'

She dropped the pile on his desk. 'In that case, can I help you go through them?'

`Not really, love; you wouldn't know what to look for.' She pouted. 'You could tell me.'

`Not so easy, that. I don't know what I'm looking for myself, you see.' He reached up and took a file from the top. 'Are these all in date order?'

`Yes. It's what you asked for. Copies of every submission put before the Secretary of State since his appointment, with a note on his decision in each case. Good hunting . . . or whatever it is you're doing.'

`Thanks. I wish you could help me on this, honest.' `What about Lieutenant Swift?

Couldn't he?'

Arrow shook his head. 'John's on other duties just now, otherwise he would have.' She turned to leave. 'Hey, not so hasty!' he called. 'How was your concert last night?'

Èxcellent.' She smiled. 'Wish you could have been there'

Ìf you'd told me about it, I would have been. I haven't heard Van the Man in years.' He looked at her mischievously. `What' my competition tonight, then?'

She tutted and pointed to the files. 'Looks as if that's mine!' Ònly until seven-thirty, after that I'm calling it a day. My place tonight?' She nodded. 'Stay over?'