Skinner's Rules (32 page)

When the ‘limbo’ tag had disappeared from the screen, he checked the size of each document. They ranged in size from 15K to 88K. He totalled them. In all, the ’Israel’ series occupied 327K of memory, more than one third of the disk’s respectable storage space.

He sent the cursor to ‘Israel 1’, and pressed E for Edit followed swiftly by the Enter key. After eight long seconds of clicks and hums from the computer and its printer, the screen changed.

Martin yelled aloud. Skinner grinned broadly, but stayed in his chair. The two detectives read, incredulous, Skinner moving the cursor to scroll the pages.

The green lettering was clear and precise, to match the language of the document.

It began:

 

Warmth was beginning to return to the room from the log-effect gas fire set in the fine, high, marble-topped fireplace. Skinner took off his jacket, draped it over the back of his chair, as he and Martin settled down for a long read.

Long before it was over, their eyes were smarting from the strain of the screen. Martin removed his contact lens and put on his spectacles. They were mesmerised by the detail which was spread out before them. Each had a policeman’s grasp of the law, and could follow the complex arguments.

Through them all, there emerged with clarity, a powerful case for the eviction of the Israelis from the government and domination of the land they now called home, and for the right of settlement and enfranchisement to be extended to all Palestinians as well as to all Jews, leading to free elections in time.

The conclusion of the document was that since the Israelis had followed a systematic policy of oppression of the Palestinian population, and since it was clear that they would never grant this right of free settlement, or amend their constitution, the just solution of the Palestinian problem, on the basis of the precedent established in 1948, could be enforced by the nations in the region, acting in concert.

After three hours they finished reading. The documents, in total, were over three hundred pages long.

When they had finished, Skinner leaned back in his chair. His face was drawn. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he whispered to Martin, ‘this is dynamite!’

He looked at the dot matrix printer. It had a tractor feed for loading fan-fold paper. He looked around the room, and found eventually, under the desk, a deep box of computer paper. It was almost full.

Clumsily he fed the first sheet into the machine. He pressed the key marked ‘Printer’ and found a new menu. He set the printer to run on continuous stationery.

It took almost five hours to run the full series of documents. Throughout that time, Skinner sat by the printer like a father-to-be in the labour ward. It had been dark for two hours by the time the print-run came to an end.

They looked at it in wonder. Could this be the Holy Grail? Could this really have cost all those lives? It was, at the end of the day, no more than an excellent piece of research, and a seemingly sound, if controversial, legal view, which any one or two among hundreds of advocates in Scotland, and thousands beyond, might have prepared. Yet, it seemed, it could kill. It had killed. It was still killing.

In a desk drawer Martin found some brightly-coloured Christmas wrapping paper. Neatly he packaged the discovery. Skinner withdrew the disk from the drive and slipped it, with the system disk, into his pocket.

They left the flat ostensibly as they had found it, but in fact relieved of an awesome secret.

It was 7.00 p.m. A hard rain drummed against the window of Skinner’s office.

‘Either Mortimer hid the files himself, or whoever broke into the flat thought that he had wiped them out. Whichever it was, this is the link. That’s what the twenty grand was for.’

‘It answers that question,’ said Skinner, ‘but it throws up others. Just for a start, why them?’

‘Probably because Fuzzy knew that Rachel was loyal to the cause. Mortimer gets involved because he was loyal to Rachel.’

‘Some machine, this Fuzzy. He comes back into the lives of Rachel and the Harveys after all these years, and he uses them. Now they’re dead, and it looks as if he may have killed them all.’

Martin broke in. ‘But why kill anyone over this. It’s a good piece of work, but other people could do this research and reach the same conclusion. It’s been written for use, not to be kept secret, so why kill the authors?’

‘I don’t know. I’m not convinced that friend Fuzzy did that anyway. But they are dead, and they sure were killed. Maybe the Israelis found out and decided to clean out the whole house. Maybe Fuzzy’s on the run from them.

‘No, my guess is that this is only part of something very big indeed. When we find Fuzzy we might find out what it is.’

But finding Fuzzy was easier to order than to achieve, with no photo to aid identification, and only Marjorie Porteous’s thirteen-year-old description to go on. ‘Slim, quiet, good-looking chap. Brown skin, dark hair, dark moustache. That’s all I can remember.’

The hotels yielded nothing. The few bed-and-breakfast houses open for business in January reported only sales reps as overnight guests.

‘Check them again, and every day from now till Friday,’ Martin ordered.

Skinner briefed the team on Tuesday morning on the discovery in Mortimer’s files.

Mackie looked embarrassed. ‘Sorry, boss,’ he said. ‘I should have found that.’

‘Bollocks,’ said Skinner dismissively. ‘You’re a copper not a computer man.’

To keep the team active, Martin sent them out to make their second round of checks in person, rather than by telephone. ‘Remember that cover story. We’re trying to trace him because of trouble at home.’

After the four had left, Skinner picked up his jacket, and motioned to Martin to follow.

‘Where are we going?’

‘We’re going to the airport to meet a man. We wear these so he’ll recognise us.’ He pinned a small gold lion badge into his lapel, and handed one to Martin, who fastened it to his tie. The lions were sometimes used by Special Branch and protection officers to indicate to each other that the wearer was armed.

The visitor approached them quietly as they stood at the bookstall opposite the British Midland arrival point.

‘Mr Skinner, Mr Martin? I’m Maitland.’ He spoke in flat clipped tones, with no trace of a regional accent.

The man stood just over six feet tall. He might have been around thirty years old. He was clean-shaven, and his dark hair was close-cropped. His eyes were blue, as clear as a bell, and he wore the fading tan of someone recently returned from a spell in a seriously hot place. He wore a well-tailored, double-breasted suit of navy-blue worsted, with a thin vertical stripe.

He did not give the impression of physical power, but when the two policemen shook his hand they found a grip like a vice. His carriage was his most impressive feature. He walked out of the terminal building, between Skinner and Martin, with lightness, grace and perfect balance, as if his feet were hardly touching the ground.

Maitland had introduced himself in a confidential fax to Skinner as the commander of the Special Air Services detachment which had been assigned to provide cover for the Syrian President during his visit. He had not mentioned his rank, but Skinner knew that in the SAS, that was not important.

Martin drove to the Norton House, where the three were met by the manager, an immaculate man named Adrian Doyle. Skinner described Maitland as ‘a security adviser who will be here during the visit’. Doyle, who had previous experience of VIPs, asked no questions.

He guided them round the hotel. In the first-floor suite which had been set aside for the Syrian President, Maitland made a careful check of the angles of view through the double window as they related to the position of the main items of furniture. He opened a window and checked for drainpipes or other climbing aids, and found nothing. Leaning further out, he surveyed the roof above. He confirmed that there were no points of access to the
en suite
bathroom, other than the door from the bedroom.

Eventually he turned to the expectant Doyle. ‘It looks secure, but I’d like you to move the bed to that wall. We legislate for everything, even the sort of fanatic who will empty a magazine through a curtained window if he can’t find a better opportunity. At the moment the bed is in the line of fire from those trees over there.’

Doyle smiled. ‘There will be no difficulty about that.’ He took them back to the entrance hall and left them to explore the hotel grounds alone.

The grass and trees were wet from the previous night’s rain, but Maitland was prepared. He produced a nylon coverall from his bag in Skinner’s car, discarding his jacket before slipping it on. His black leather shoes were replaced by trainers.

‘No need to come with me, gentlemen. All I’ll be doing is checking the terrain, and identifying all the possible firing points.’ the disappeared into the woods.

When he emerged silently behind Skinner and Martin fifteen minutes later, the coverall was dripping wet.

‘You’ve made a very good choice,’ he said, as he stepped out of the garment. ‘I will have twenty men here. With that number, I could keep a fly out of this place.

‘When are the technical people installing the listening devices and cameras?’

‘Thursday,’ Martin replied.

‘Good. I’ll advise them on siting the video cameras. My men arrive on Thursday too. I’d like to do a rehearsal of the whole operation that evening, including the Hall. Can we check that out now?’

Their visit to the MacEwan Hall was quickly concluded. Henry Wills was there to greet Maitland, but he left as soon as the welcome was over, with what Martin read as a tiny shudder of distaste for the man and his business.

The SAS leader checked the outside of the building for entry points. Then he inspected all the doorways leading into the Hall itself.

‘Piece of cake. You clear the building a few hours in advance and the specialists do the bomb search. No admission until an hour before the kick-off. Everyone entering is frisked, and all bags are searched. But no metal detectors.’

Martin was surprised. ‘Why not?’

‘This is a student audience. They’ll be wearing all sorts of odds and ends. Big belt buckles, bracelets, all sorts of stuff that would set the alarms ringing. We’d never get them all in in time.

‘You put four good people here doing thorough body and bag searches. If anyone tries to smuggle a gun in they’ll find it.

‘My unit will cover this place easily. We’ll cover all entrances to the building, and doorways to the Hall itself. None of the students will know we’re there. Even you won’t notice us.’

They drove Maitland to Redford Barracks, on Edinburgh’s southern outskirts, where he and his men were to be billeted. As Maitland jogged the few yards from the car into the long imposing building, Skinner looked after him for several seconds.

‘That, Andy, is probably one of the most dangerous men you will ever meet.’

Suddenly Martin was aware of his own lack of experience. He began to understand the reason for Henry Wills’s quick exit.

Skinner was packing his briefcase when his door opened. He looked up, surprised, as the bulky figure of Hugh Fulton came into the room.

‘Well, Bob, having a good week?’ The big man’s voice was heavy with sarcasm.

Skinner was needled into responding in kind. ‘I didn’t think you could find your way into a police office any more. What can I do for you?’

Fulton’s tone softened. ‘You can listen to me. I’m worried about you. Look, man, there are times when singlemindedness and dedication can be bad for you. You certainly didn’t do the Harveys a lot of good, did you?’

Skinner’s face was impassive.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know what I mean. Andrew and Joy Harvey, the couple who were shot dead in Fife on Sunday. You had them under observation. Your people were spotted and the Harveys were popped. Fife CID are, as they say in the tabloids, baffled. But we’re not, are we?

‘Bob, when I asked you to drop it, I had my reasons. You ignored me. Now two more people are dead. I’m asking you again. Let it go. Please.’