Thursday legends - Skinner 10 (46 page)

'I
think he let you in. Maybe he even did say, "Hello, Juliet". Maybe
old Hererro there did mimic him. Maybe he turned to put the blue velvet drape -
the one that we found left in the room - over his cage, and maybe that was when
you shot him in the back with the tranquilliser gun which your kid had borrowed
from the zoo.

'How
much of that have I got right? he asked, conversationally.

'All
of it,' she whispered, her eyes fixed on him. 'Clever boy.'

'I
sure am, just a bit slow, that's all. Anyway, after that, the carnage began.
You stripped him, tied him, taped over his gob, then strung him up like a beast
for slaughter, all while he was still helpless from the shot. Then you went
downstairs, selected a wrench from the cellar and one of Alec's two blowlamps
-I don't understand why he bought two from B&Q on the same day, but he did
- plus a knife from the kitchen, as your instruments of torture, and went to
work.

'As
a touch of flair, to show everyone how clever you were, you found his video
camera and left us a horror movie of yourself at work.'

'Yes,'
Juliet Lewis murmured. 'I only wish I'd been able to play it back.'

It
made Martin shudder, just to look at her. 'You know,' he continued, 'I might
have put you down as a poor sad woman who had been driven mad by what was done
to her husband, but for one thing - the fact that you chose to involve Margot.
I have to believe you knew she was going to kill the Diddler.' She frowned, a
little surprised. 'I know it was her. I took a sample of Rhian's pubic hair
from my laundry and had a comparison done with a hair we found on Shearer's
body. It showed a close resemblance, a family resemblance.

'Yes,
Juliet, involving the kid makes you a real nutter in my book.'

She
seemed to flare at him. 'I did not involve her. Margot insisted; when I told
her what Spike had told me, and that I planned to take revenge for her father.
She insisted; I couldn't have stopped her if I'd tried. The tranquilliser gun
was her idea. The plan for killing Shearer was hers. I didn't know she actually
had sex with him, though.'

'Did
you know what she did to Luke Heard?'

She
looked at him, genuinely surprised. 'Who?'

'Sophie's
father; her lover's father; he told me the story tonight. Luke found out about
them, and tried to split them up. He was in way over his head, though. Margot
knew from Sophie that Howard Shearer was Heard's Private Enemy Number One. She
fed him an idea; she would pick up Shearer in his after-hours pub, lure him
into a honey-trap, tie him up and take compromising pictures of the two of them
together. He went for it; even agreed to pay her. So Margot did all that; only
as you, and she if you say so, had planned, instead of taking bed-time
snap-shots she cut some bits off him with the rose pruners, sliced him a bit
more, then battered him to a jelly with his son's baseball bat.'

He
laughed bitterly. 'Bloody obvious now. When Margot saw the body under the
Belford Bridge. She didn't scream out of shock, but out of fright. She thought
that it would have been long gone out to sea by then.' Her reaction told him
that he had hit the mark again.

'You
know, Heard shit himself when he came back from KL,' he continued, 'and found
that Shearer was dead, not all over the
Sun
as he thought he would have been.
He met Margot; we tailed him. She told him that from now on it would be
business as usual for her and Sophie
...
or else
...
having already called the
girl on her mobile and told her to jump her ship and come home.'

He
nodded. 'Yeah. If you tell me that Margot insisted on being involved, I don't
have any trouble believing you.' Then he paused.

'But
as for Rhian
...
that really hurts.
Why did she try to kill Bob Skinner? Did she insist too?'

Juliet's
voice was almost a snarl. 'No. We did; Margot and I. We told her that she had
to play her part. We told her we'd kill you if she didn't.'

it
might not have been that easy,' he murmured. 'But why, for God's sake? Why kill
Bob?'

The
eyes flared again, wildly. 'Because he had to be the one behind it. Smith
reported to him; he must have known. He must have given the go-ahead.'

'Ahh.
You are so wrong, woman,' Martin shouted at her. 'Bob had no idea of what Smith
was up to. Alec was as crazy as you. He was on a one-man crusade to avenge his
son's death from AIDS. That's why he did what he did. If the Big Man had known
about it, he'd have had him sectioned; put away in a Laughing Academy
somewhere.

'Alec
was so worried about Bob finding out that he made up a story about a knee
injury, so he didn't have to face him at their Thursday night football get-together.
Then, he was so intent on his campaign, he left the force, to pursue it
full-time.

'Bob
was completely in the dark about him.'

She
gazed at him and decided to believe him. 'You say? Well, no matter, Rhian
didn't kill him.'

‘It
isn't no matter to him, I promise you. It won't be no matter to Spike either,
when he learns that she used his car. He told me that she drove him to the
studio on Sunday, then picked him up afterwards.

'You've
used that poor innocent guy, haven't you?'

'Only
out of necessity; I really am very fond of him, you know. As was Rhian, of
you.'

She
sighed, with a hint of sadness. 'So, clever Andy. What happens now?'

Martin
was about to tell her, when he heard a sound from behind. He turned and saw Margot,
wild-eyed, a big kitchen knife clasped in both hands, running at him across the
room. Adroitly, he avoided her lunge, and hit her a big, back-handed blow on
the side of the head, sending her sprawling on the floor.

'Don't
even think about getting up, girl,' he warned her. 'Don't even think about it.'

He
looked back at Juliet. 'We'll pick you up in the morning,' he told her, 'when
we're ready for you. Don't try to do a runner. You're all effectively under arrest
now; the place is under surveillance, front and back.

'Margot's
done; that's for sure. So's Rhian; we will find damage and fibres on Spike's
car. You may doubt that, but our man Arthur Dorward will, if I know him.

'As
for you? Yes, I think I have a strong enough circumstantial case against you.
As for me? I'm going to grab a few hours well-earned rest. You have the same
few hours to do some thinking
...
and
packing. We'll be here for you early.'

He
turned, trotted downstairs, and hurried back into his own house, to Karen. Back
to sanity.

73

It
was just after three a.m. when he slipped silently into the moonlit bedroom.
The window was open slightly and a draught of air was wafting the curtain
gently, in and out, in and out, yet the room was still oppressively warm. Karen
was sleeping on her back; she was naked, half-covered by a single sheet, having
thrown or kicked the duvet to the floor.

As
he undressed, he smiled at her, at the woman who had saved his life, and who
had enriched it since with her unconditional love, bringing him a kind of
tranquillity which he had never imagined before, yet for which, he knew now, he
had been searching through all of his adult days.

He
slipped under the sheet beside her, trying not to touch her, not to waken her.
He felt a desperate need to look at her in the night light, to savour the
statuesque lines of her body, to imprint the perfection of her profile in his
mind for ever. And he needed something else too; he needed her once more as a
shield, to force away the horrors of the last few hours, as long shots and
far-out suppositions had turned into terrible, chilling certainty, as he had
finally seized the separate strands of the multiple investigations and woven
them into the blackest cloak of truth.

From
somewhere in the sleeping Village outside came a muffled sound, as a car engine
barked into life, then settled into a steady ticking-over throb. But nothing
could have broken into his reverie as he lay there, imagining the life that he
and
Mrs Karen Martin would have together.

'Well?'
she whispered softly. She had not moved, and he wondered for how long she had
been awake. 'Do you look like a right bloody idiot?' She turned her face
towards him on the pillow, smiling, gently. 'Or did you live up to the bullshit
you fed Spike Thomson?'

She
saw his grin, and through it to the trauma which lay behind it. 'Andy...' she
said, sitting up, anxious now.

'Yeah,'
he said, slowly, laying a hand on her thigh, his eyes softening, beginning to
lose their haunted look. 'We are the true forensic scientist, you and I
...
We are, together at least, the great
detective
...
We have, when we need
it most, the magic ingredient...'

'You
got a result, then?'

'Oh
yes, I know who slaughtered Alec Smith, and I know who diddled the Diddler, and
I know who tried to kill Bob
...
and
I know why.'

She
was wide awake now, intent. 'Well? Who?' she demanded.

His
smile widened further. His eyes shone in the dark. 'The answer's downstairs,'
he told her. 'In my briefcase, in our living room.

'Go
on,' he challenged her, mischievously. 'Work it out for yourself.'

Epilogue

They
were found next morning. Mother and daughters, in the back seat of the
Vauxhall, in the garage, holding hands, their faces suffused and pink from the
carbon monoxide asphyxia. There was no note, or at least
...

 
Dean
Village Tragedy

by
Paul Blacklock Evening News City Reporter

'There
was no note found,' reported Detective Chief Superintendent Andy Martin, the
tragic trio's next-door neighbour, who raised the alarm and was first into the
neat, terraced house, nestling beside the gentle Water of Leith.

Mr
Martin refused to speculate on what might have prompted the Lewis family's
triple suicide. 'They were very good friends,' he commented at the scene,
deeply affected by his discovery.

'I
know that Juliet never really got over the death of her husband,' said Forth AM
presenter, Spike Thomson, a close friend of Mrs Lewis. 'I am devastated.'

There
was no note.