Thursday legends - Skinner 10 (39 page)

They
carried on until at last they came to a small wicket gate in the fence. Beyond,
a path ran through the wood to a clearing, where stood an old grey cottage.
Mario put a hand on his wife's shoulder. 'If we get into that cottage and
there's an old woman inside, chuck her in the oven and slam the door. I fancy a
piece of gingerbread.'

'Don't
joke; we might find worse than that.'

The
gate opened easily; they stepped through and walked up the path towards the
cottage. When they reached the front door Mario produced Alec Smith's keys from
his pocket. He slid the Chubb into a keyhole, the newer of two, and turned it,
once, twice, then used the McLaren key on the second, brass-faced, lock.

They
stepped inside. The cottage was gloomy, but there was no Hansel-and-Gretel feel
about it. 'No-one's lived here for a long time,' said Maggie, shivering. 'A
heat wave outside and yet in here it's freezing.' She saw a light switch beside
the door and flicked it on. 'Electricity's working though.'

'Okay,'
Mario muttered, opening a door on his right. 'No hide-and-seek games, Alec,
please.'

His
wish was answered at once as he stepped into the cottage's
living-room-cum-kitchen. There in the centre of the floor stood a big, grey,
cubic metal shape. He switched on the light and knelt beside it.

'Bugger
it!' he called out at once. 'He didn't need to hide this thing. This is a
Guardian safe; hand-built, top security, with a combination lock. Whatever the
third key's for, it's not this.'

'Can
we open it?'

'Johnny
Ramensky couldn't have opened this in a hurry, Chief Inspector. I know all
about this bastard; it's got a heat-resistant titanium-alloy outer casing over
a lead lining, making it virtually explosive-proof. You get two shots at the
combination; get it wrong twice and the locking mechanism freezes for good.'

'So
how do we open it?'

'Unless
Alec's left the combination somewhere, or unless we get very lucky, we're going
to have to cut it open; and that'll take something hotter than the blowlamp
that was used on ex-DCI Smith. We'll need to get the thing back to Fettes and
work at it there. Can we get a heavy vehicle in here and the six guys it's
going to take to lift this?'

'There
is a vehicular access on the map, from a road that leads up to Dirleton, but
it's overgrown. Mr McCart suggested that we come the way we did because it's
easier.'

'It
can't be that bad, because this thing was brought here. But if the road has
grown over again since then we'll just have to bulldoze a way through it.' He
sighed, in frustration. 'This is going to hold us back by a couple of days at
least, you know; Alec Bloody Smith's done us again.'

'Maybe,'
said Maggie, 'but he's told us something too. If he invested in this level of
security, then he really did have something to protect.'

60

'I've
just spoken to Mitchell Laidlaw, out in KL,' said Skinner. He was sitting in
his conservatory, holding Seonaid in the crook of his left arm and the phone in
his right hand. The baby grinned up at him and gurgled; he made a point of
spending personal time every day with each of his three children, the infant
included.

He
shifted awkwardly in his big upholstered cane chair. Somewhere inside its
plaster, his lower left leg was developing an unreachable itch which threatened
to drive him to screaming point.

'He
and the Daybelge man have had two days of negotiations with the Golden
Crescent people. The deal's still alive. The Malaysians have given them four
weeks to brief their major clients; if they can hold most of them in, they'll
complete, on adjusted terms.' He laughed. 'Mitch is like a dog with two cocks
in a stand of trees. He loves to win and he's scored big out there.'

'But
what about Paris Simons, sir?' asked Dan Pringle. 'What about the man Heard?'

'That's
one reason why he's so pumped up and it's the reason why I'm calling you. The
Malaysians told him that Luke Heard turned up unannounced in KL last week with
his legal adviser
...
who just
happens to be Mitch Laidlaw's biggest rival. He made a big pitch to replace
Daybelge in the deal. He offered better terms and
...
he told them that Howard

Shearer
was about to be discredited.

'Mr
Rezak, the CEO of Golden Crescent, said to Mitch that he heard him out, then
threw him out. He told him that he had checked Shearer out thoroughly and that
he would have to be dead to be discredited in his eyes. Only then, he said,
would he consider Paris Simons, and even then any deal would be conditional
upon Luke Heard leaving the firm.

'This
didn't faze Heard one bit apparently. He said that the first stipulation was
out of his hands, but that the second was no problem to him, given the sort of
money under discussion. Rezak said, "In that case I pray for Mr Shearer's
good health," and terminated the meeting.'

'Oh
aye,' said the Superintendent, heavily.

'Indeed,
Daniel, indeed. The timing of Heard's visit in itself looked odd, but add in
the remark about the Diddler and it moves up a notch.'

'Should
I get a DNA sample off him, d' you think, sir, to compare with the hairs in the
shower in Coltbridge? He did offer violence to Shearer after all, at that
party.'

'No
point,' the DCC replied. 'Heard didn't kill the Diddler, not no way. I don't
know the guy, but I've seen him around the New Club from time to time. He's got
a withered left arm. Whoever swung that baseball bat did so with maximum force,
gripping it with both hands. Luke Heard has to eat with his fork in his right
hand, the other's so weak.

'No,
Dan. Don't confront Heard; investigate him. Find out everything you can about
him, and most importantly, who his known associates are. Everybody knows
somebody, who knows somebody
...

'Find
out a bit more about the party incident too. Most probably my friend Andrew
John was there; he's an AGM on

the
business side of the bank. Have a word with him and tell him I sent you.'

Skinner
ended the call, then dialled the number of the Special Branch office. DC Alice
Cowan answered, and put him through to Mario McGuire. 'What progress with that
safe?' he asked, without preamble.

'Bloody
nightmare, Boss,' McGuire grunted. 'The vehicle access to the cottage has about
three years' worth of overgrowth on it. It'll take all day to clear that. I'm
using Guardian Security people, all with top clearance, to collect the thing.
I've also spoken to the Guardian division that made the bloody thing
...
and that was where I really got
depressed.

'The
safe was built to Alec's specifications, just after he joined the group. The
way it's built, it's going to take about three days to cut through, if it comes
to that. But this is the real sickener. Alec had a booby-trap device built into
it; if it's ever opened by any means other than the combination lock, every
piece of paper inside it will be incinerated.

'I
asked Guardian to give me a specialist locksmith to get inside. They warned me
that nobody can, but they promised to send someone along anyway.'

'Have
you thought about recruiting your own specialist?' Skinner asked. 'Maybe
there's someone in a jail somewhere, who could open it for a year or two's
remission of sentence.'

'Yes,
sir, I thought of that. But Guardian assured me that no-one's ever cracked one
of these. They know where they all are and every one is still
virgo intacta.'

'Fuck
it,' the DCC whispered.

'That's
my point, Boss. We can't. I've got the Guardian people going through the
detailed drawing of the safe right now, looking for a potential weakness, but
they told me they'd be surprised and disappointed if they find any.

'The
way things stand we will not get into that safe without Alec Smith's personal
combination
...
and DCI Smith was not
the man to leave it lying around for us to find. I'm pretty sure it was stored
away in his head when he died. Stevie Steele's already asked the wife if she
knew; but he never as much as told her what day of the week it was.'

'What
about the usuals? First four letters of pi, wife's date of birth and so on?'

'Pick
any two from a couple of dozen commonly used, sir. We've only got two shots at
getting it right. After that the lock will freeze up and it'll be easier to get
in and out of Chernobyl intact.'

'If
it comes to it, Mario, you may have to take those two shots, and hope that the
magic ingredient's on your side.'

He
put the phone down and shifted the baby in his arms. 'Where's your mummy then?'
he asked her, as he raised her, kicking and chortling above his head 'Cutting
up cadavers? Or making our lunch? Or both?

'Ann.
There she is.' Through the open conservatory doors he saw Sarah, in white shirt
and cut-away denim shorts, pluck James Andrew from the top of his brightly-coloured
climbing frame. She turned towards him, to exchange one child for another, he
guessed.

She
was in the doorway, arms outstretched to take Seonaid, when the phone rang
again. His burden gone, he picked it up, to hear Andy Martin's crisp, sombre
voice.

'Morning,
Bob. How's the stookey?'

'Itching
like hell - which my wife tells me is probably a good sign.'

'For
the sake of all concerned,' Martin grunted dryly. 'I thought I should bring you
up to date on something. We've now completed a full trawl through DVLA and
through all the manufacturers and importers of the sort of vehicle that hit you
on Saturday. There haven't been that many supplied countrywide in black or
very dark blue, with the tint of glass you describe, but there are some.

'Spike
Thomson, for example, has a black Toyota Landcruiser with smoked glass windows
...'

'Spike?'
Skinner snapped. 'He's another Legend!'

'I
knew you'd say that,' the Head of CID countered. 'Forget the Legends link, for
God's sake, and forget Spike. When that car hit you he was broadcasting live to
East Central Scotland, filling in for one of the weekend presenters who's on
holiday. His vehicle also has a factory-fitted alarm and immobiliser system
which makes it thief-proof.

'However,
one other potential suspect car, a black Range Rover with glass to match, was
reported stolen in Barnton on Sunday evening, after the owner and his wife got
back from a weekend away in their other car, and was discovered this morning,
junked in a small gorge up behind Nunraw. It's bashed to hell, but we're going
all over the inside for prints and looking at the body work to see if we can
find anything clinging to it; fibres from your jeans, for example.'

Skinner
sighed. 'Okay,' he said heavily. 'Maybe it was someone with an unconnected
grudge. Maybe Scotland did Alec, right enough. Maybe this man Luke Heard did
hire someone to batter Diddler unrecognisable. Maybe my Legends theory is all
balls.

'But
I want you to do one thing for me, Andy. I heard you on radio yesterday,
selling the concept of the detective as the true forensic scientist. Now I want
you to prove it. I want you to gather together all the evidence in all three
cases, including the attack on me, and I want you to examine it minutely.

'Strand
by strand, boy, strand by strand
...
and see if you can tie just two of them together. If you can, the rest will
fall into place just like that
...
a
web, with a big and very poisonous spider right at the centre.'

61

Dan
Pringle's experience of bank managers had left him unimpressed; but Andrew John
was different. For a start, he was a friend of Bob Skinner, and the Big Man did
not surround himself with tedious or foolish people. But even more significantly
than that, Pringle knew him of old.

More
than thirty years before, the young Constable Pringle had occasionally drawn
what were euphemistically known as crowd-control duties at Easter Road, home of
Hibernian Football Club. He remembered the teenage wing-half who had forced his
way into the side; one-footed but skilled, if not quite in the manner of Baxter
or Puskas, a good passer of the ball and a solid tackier, and capable of
bursting out of mid-field to change the course of a match.