Skinner's Ordeal (45 page)

`Daddy was. He was the fattest.'

`Did they speak much?'

`Yes, but I couldn't hear what they were saying.'

`When you got to Heathrow what happened?'

`We were stuck in the traffic, so we were late. Mr Davey was getting angry, because he thought we would miss the plane. We got there in time, but we had to hurry. Uncle Marsh got the boxes from the boot and gave them to Victoria and the other man, and we all rushed away to check in.'

Àt the check-in, did the boxes go through the X-ray machine?' `No. The airport men just waved us through, past the queue.' Ànd did you go straight on to the plane?'

`Yes. Mr Davey's man phoned from the car, and told them that we were coming.'

`Right, Mark,' said Skinner's voice from the tape machine. ‘I want you to think very carefully about this. During the flight, was anything said about the Red Boxes?'

`Yes. Just when April was taking me in to see Mr Shipley and Mr Garrett, in the cabin, I heard Mr Davey's man say to Victoria, "Miss Cunningham, I rather think we've got our boxes mixed up." Then the door closed, and I didn't hear any more. Not long after that . .

Òkay, Mark,' they heard Skinner say, quickly. 'We won't go into that.'

He switched off the tape and rewound the cassette.

`Wow,' said Sarah. 'Some kid.'

`What set you on the trail of Elliot?' asked Alex.

Skinner looked at her and shrugged. 'Luck. I was just starting to think, What if . . . but the thing that triggered it was Adam's mate Swift. The telly was on in the corner, without the sound, and he was watching it when he should have been listening to me. There was a by-election report on at the time, and they showed a picture of Leona, out canvassing, with Marsh Elliot by her side. Swift pointed at him. He said, "I know that bloke. He was my CO in the SBS and a right evil bastard he was too!" The whole room suddenly went as quiet as a tomb.

Àt first, we had worked on the assumption that someone had planted the bomb in Davey's box, while it was in Noble's keeping. Then when Andy's raid turned up the leather and the steel in Sawyer's workshop, we turned to the idea that he had made a dummy, and had got close enough to them somewhere to make a switch.'

He stood up, carefully, with Jazz sprawled across his left shoulder. 'But when Swift spotted Elliot, and said what he did, all of our thinking swung right around. What if . . . we all thought at once, and some of us said, ". . the bomb wasn't meant for Davey at all, but for Roland McGrath!" When Swift told us that Elliot had been a Marine before joining the SBS . . . as he'd told me earlier, and that his unit had been involved in mainland sabotage operations in the Falklands and elsewhere, the thing just took wings. I called the Secretary of State and asked him to check on all the Red Boxes in his Office, to see if they were all accounted for.'

`Why?' asked Alex, fascinated.

`Because the boxes are sometimes sent to constituencies with weekend work for the Ministers. And sometimes, there will be more than one box. Hardy often has three or four of the things at one go. He did the check and phoned me back to say that one of the Junior Ministers' boxes was missing.

Àt the same time, Adam Arrow was checking Elliot's military record. That's his report there.' He pointed to the document which Martin had read earlier. 'Summarised, it says that he was indeed in the SBS, but that he was removed from the active list after an operation in Africa, where he and his men were surprised by a family of civilians. Elliot ordered them killed — mother, father, grandmother and three children. His men refused to touch the children, so Elliot killed them himself.

Àfter the operation, his young second-in-command . . Arrow's chum Swift . . .

complained about the incident. There was an investigation. Elliot was retired, but the whole thing was covered up.

`Major Marshall Elliot is still in the Territorial Army, in the Artillery. Periodically, he goes on live firing exercises on the range in Northumberland. On the most recent session he attended, there was an unusually high incidence of faulty shells. Arrow is certain that they were faulty because Elliot removed their explosives. Apparently that's a trick his people used to pull in Ireland if they wanted to take care of someone in an untraceable way.'

`My God,' said Sarah. 'And this man became a political Agent.'

Bob raised an eyebrow. 'You don't think they vet them, do you? They'll take just about anyone who'll work for the money.'

`So you think that Elliot killed McGrath because . . .' Sarah began, until her husband interrupted, with a shake of his head.

`Not "think". We're bloody certain.'

Òkay, whatever . . . killed him because McGrath had been having an affair with his wife?

And blew up the plane in the process.'

Às for his motive, honking his wife would certainly be a main reason for Elliot deciding to kill him, but there was another. We know how zealous he was as a soldier, but according to Dame Janet Straw, he was just as big a fanatic as a Tory Agent. He was convinced that McGrath was going to lose the seat, and desperate about it. Finally, there was something else Dame Janet said to the Chief — that every Agent thinks he can do better than his MP.

Àdd them together: a cold-blooded killer, a politically driven fanatic and someone who believed that Roland McGrath was a loser. My guess is that Elliot is so unbalanced, that those three things alone would have tripped him into deciding to kill the man. Then sexual jealousy . . . which the Fiscal was ready to accept as Maurice Noble's motive . . . was added in. We've got Mark's clear evidence to vouch for that.'

He paused. 'But there's something else. Think back to the tape. According to Mark, Elliot said, "It's not just that you had her, but what you've done to her." Remember?'

`Yes,' said Alex. 'I wondered about that. What do you think he meant?'

Skinner glanced across at her. 'I hesitate to discuss this subject with my daughter, but it ties into something that Leona told Alison Higgins. About five years ago, Roly McGrath went on a swansong rugby tour of Europe with his old team. They were away for a couple of weeks, and when they got back, Roly brought Leona a nice wee present, just the thing for a chap to give his wife . . . genital herpes.'

Òh God,' said Sarah. 'That's awful. I've had patients whose lives have been ruined by that complaint. In terms of pain, incapacity and embarrassment, it's the worst sexually transmitted disease of them all. It's incurable, and when it flares up it's crippling for the patient. It's soul-destroying for a doctor, too. You feel so helpless in the face of your patient's suffering, because there's so little you can do. If Leona McGrath has that, she's marvellous to be doing what she is.'

Skinner nodded. 'Leona has it, and so has Margie Elliot. She admitted it to Brian Mackie this evening. Roly McGrath was generous enough to pass it on to her. That's how Marsh found out about them. When it broke out, she had to tell him.

`For all his other motives, I reckon that's why he decided to kill McGrath rather than just wait for him to lose Edinburgh Dean then stand for it himself at the first opportunity.'

He paused, letting his pronouncement sink in.

Ìt isn't necessary to ask a jury to believe that he meant to cause the accident. Ministers don't work on their papers on public aircraft. He would expect that the box would travel safely to Edinburgh under McGrath's seat, and would have been opened later, either in the car that picked him up from the airport or back in the office.

Ànd that's what would have happened, had he not switched the wrong box in the rush at Heathrow and had Maurice Noble not noticed it during the flight. But I reckon, even if he had considered the possibility, he'd still have gone through with it.'

Alex stepped up to him and lifted her brother from his cradling arms. 'Look, Pops,' she said quietly, breaking the enveloping silence which filled the room. 'I don't want to put a damper on things, but after all, I am a lawyer, even if I'm still wet behind the ears.

`Your whole evidential chain is predicated upon the word of a five-year-old, okay a remarkable one, but a five-year-old nonetheless, and one who has just survived the trauma of an air accident.

`Do you think you'll get him to perform in the witness box like he did for Uncle Bob, Uncle Andy and Auntie Maggie? And even if you do, that defence Counsel will not be able to plant a reasonable doubt in the mind of the jury? You won't be allowed to lead evidence of Elliot's SBS atrocity, you know.'

Bob nodded, looking sombre. 'Daughter, if this is you as a trainee, what are you going to be like once you start to practise?' He reached up and ruffled her hair. Ì'd be as worried as you if Mark was all I had, for his sake. But fortunately he isn't. There's the Government driver Elliot sent away, and the driver of Davey's car. They'll put him at the scene.'

Suddenly he smiled up at her. 'And then, of course, there's Davey's Red Box.'

Èh?'

He nodded. 'I was getting to that. Brian Mackie phoned me just before you arrived. He, McGuire, and the boy Pye found it, locked in a cupboard in Elliot's house. With that lot, I'd expect even such a murderous bastard as him to see sense and plead Guilty.'

`Let's hope so,' said Sarah vehemently. 'If part of his motive was to take over McGrath's constituency, and Leona has frustrated that, couldn't her life be in danger?'

`We have to assume so. That's why I sent Andy in, mob-handed, to arrest him even before I knew the outcome of the search. Dame Janet said that Leona had won him over. I don't believe that for one second.'

He squatted slowly down on one knee beside Sarah's chair. `Love,' he said, taking her hand in his and kissing it. 'Doctor. With all this sorted, please can I go home? Now?'

She frowned at him. 'Bob, Mr Braeburn said you should stay in until the end of this week.'

`Yes, I know, but Braeburn doesn't know me. I'll grant you I've got a way to go, but I'm getting better by the minute. I promise I won't go running for a while, at least not after dark, and I won't go back to the office until you and he say I can. I'll recover quicker and better around the wee chap there than I will in this room. There are times when I feel that I'm locked in here with all the stuff that Kevin O'Malley pulled out of my head. I can cope with it, all right, but I'll handle it more positively in the real world than in here.

`Please,' he said.

She looked at him with the eye of a headmistress assessing a remorseful pupil. 'Well,' she said finally, 'I'll ask Mr Braeburn.'

`Good,' he said, releasing her hand and standing up. 'While you're doing that, I'll be packing my shaving kit.'

NINETY-THREE

The throng in the Assembly Hall of Stewart's-Melville College was far more attentive, and appreciative, than any that ever gathered there for morning prayers. It was, also, significantly larger.

The majority of the listeners were ladies, but there were a substantial number of men present. This pleased John Torrance as he looked down from the platform, particularly since he knew that the Liverpool versus Manchester United match which was on live television that evening represented a substantial counter-attraction.

He was pleased too with the age-spread of the people in the hall; but most of all, he was delighted by his candidate's confident, assertive and thoroughly pleasant performance.

As they had done at her adoption meeting, her audience rose spontaneously to their feet in applause as Leona finished her speech. As on that earlier occasion, she allowed them to express their enthusiasm for a few minutes before settling them and sending them home with her thanks and a few words of encouragement, to make them feel certain that a vote for her in seventeen days' time would not be wasted.

`Leona,' said Alison Higgins, greeting her friend as she stepped down from the stage, 'no one could have done better than that. Not Roly, not Andrew Hardy, not any of them. That was a terrific start.'

`Thanks,' said the little woman brightly, gathering up her notes and shoving them untidily into her briefcase. 'Now all I have to do is keep up that sort of momentum for two and a half weeks.'

Ànd you will, my dear,' said John Torrance, coming down the steps behind her. Higgins turned to look at him, urbane and handsome in his dark blue tailoring, and felt a crush coming on.

The Vice-chairman linked arms with the ladies, and walked them through the departing crowds towards the exit. As they went, they returned the nods and smiles of Leona's potential constituents.

`Where's Marsh? I didn't see him around,' said Alison, as they neared the double doors leading to the school's wide, floodlit yard. They were standing open.

`He nipped out halfway through the speech,' said Torrance. `To count the collection, I expect. I imagine that he's taking down the posters now, and tidying up the hall. That's the Agent's lot. Anyway,' he went on, Ì'm glad that Marshall isn't around, or our worthy but tedious Chairman and her husband, because I want to be very rude.'

`Do you indeed?' said Leona, smiling.

`Yes, I do. To celebrate our first meeting, I would like to invite the candidate to join me in a little supper at Rafaelli's. You too, Superintendent, of course.'

`That would be lovely,' said Leona, 'but I have to go home for Mark.'

`No, you don't,' said Alison, at once. 'I'll go back and relieve Maggie. This nice man wants to feed you, dear, and you've bloody well earned it! So go, or else. Here, gimme the keys of your car. We came in it together, after all. I'll take it home and John can drop you later.'

The Candidate sighed. 'I don't seem to have a choice, do I?' She fished the keys of her Alfa Romeo 164 from her bag and handed them over.

`Cheers,' said Higgins. 'See you later.' She turned and walked smartly off through the double doors and turned right, to the spot where Leona had parked earlier. They would have followed her at once, to Torrance's Jaguar which was parked alongside, had they not been stopped by two elderly fur-wearing, pearl-strung ladies who had sat in the front row during the meeting, hanging on the Candidate's every word.

Andy Martin, Adam Arrow and Neil Mcllhenney saw them, bent in conversation, as they strode into the yard, between the heavy iron gates. They saw Alison Higgins climb into the driver's seat of the black Alfa and pull on the seat belt. And to the right of the double door they saw Marsh Elliot running towards his brown Rover 820 SDi, registration number L