Thursday legends - Skinner 10 (36 page)

'I
wanted them to plaster the other leg too,' Sarah chuckled from the doorway, 'to
make sure he stays off it. They wouldn't, though.'

Her
husband looked at her, unsmiling. 'When I find the driver of that car,' he
growled, 'I want at least one good leg to stand on
...
so I can kick his fucking head in with this stookey.'

'You're
still sure it was deliberate?' Martin murmured, gently. 'Couldn't it have been
just an accident? A learner driver out on a back road.'

Skinner
glared at him. 'I'm as sure as you were on Friday morning,' he snapped. 'The
bastard was aiming at me - aiming at us! Christ, when I think of it
...'
His eyes were chilling.

'How
are the boys?' Andy asked.

'Mark
got a hell of a fright. As for the wee fella, he thought it was the best game
I'd ever invented; he wanted me to do it again.' He grinned at the memory,
through his rage. 'He's like a big rubber ball, that one
...'
The smile vanished as quickly as it
had come. 'But he flew right out of the carrier, Andy. He could have hit his
head on a rock or anything; for a moment I thought that he had.'

'Where
are they now?'

'Alex
is with them, out at Gullane,' Sarah answered. 'Alex?'

'Yes.
And yes, Andy, I told her. She sends her very best - to both of you - and she
really means it. She was as surprised as we were at first, but when she'd
thought about it, she reckoned that it was the best thing that could happen to
you.'

Martin
nodded. 'That's good. I was just a bit worried about how she would take it.'

'Me
too. But maybe it's the best thing that could happen to her too. It'll finally
allow her to get over you.'

'Sure,
she will.' He assured her, then turned to Skinner once more. 'But back to this
car. As soon as I heard, I put an "all vehicles" call out for
anything answering that description. I dropped Karen at the office to wait for
any response, but to be honest, Bob, I thought at the time that we were way too
late.'

'Aye,
I know, Andy, but there was no more I could have done. My mobile was buggered
by the impact, and it took me Christ alone knows long to get out of that field.
I had to calm Mark down before I did anything else. Then I found that where we
had landed up, we couldn't be seen easily from the road. I thought about asking
Mark to go out on to the roadside and flag down a car, but he'd have been too
frightened - and anyway, there was the outside chance that bastard might have
come back.

'So
I had to get Jazz back into the carrier, then get myself mobile. Ever tried
hopping on one leg across a ploughed field with upwards of twenty kilos
strapped to your back, laughing all the way because he thinks it's funny?

'Anyway,
I made it to the fence, and then had to wait a quarter of an hour before the
first car showed up. Hardly anybody uses that West Fenton road, not even the
bloody Sunday drivers.

'I
knew fine that the bastard would probably have been back in Edinburgh, or miles
down the
Al,
or anywhere else by the
time I got through to you.'

'About
the car, Bob. You gave a description earlier, but has anything else occurred to
you about it? You haven't remembered the registration number, have you?'

Skinner
shook his head, looking almost guilty. 'I honestly never saw it, Andy. When I
looked back at it, I was dazzled by the sun off the windscreen. After that, I
was too busy trying to save the kids to notice anything else.'

'Did
you see anything of the driver? Anything at all?'

'Not
a thing. The glass was too dark. The car was black, or very dark blue, with
colour coded bumpers; a big four-by-four, not a Range Rover but something
similar. That's all I can tell you about it - apart from one thing.'

'What's
that?'

'It
was parked in Hill Road earlier on.' Martin's eyebrows rose. 'You sure about
that?' 'Abso-fucking-lutely. There were cars parked all the way up; I remember
making a mental note to bollock the local
traffic
people about it. The vehicle that ran me down was fourth or fifth away from my
gate, facing downhill. Its driver was waiting for me; waiting for the chance I
gave him.'

He
took Sarah's hand as she sat on his bed. 'Which means, my darling, that three
members, active or otherwise, of the Thursday Legends have now been the subject
of murderous attacks in little over a week.'

'I
knew you were going to say that!' she retorted. 'Bob, how many enemies or
potential enemies have you made over the years, aside from people you may have
upset at your silly football? If you are still harbouring a theory that there's
someone out there taking revenge on anyone who ever kicked him on a Thursday
night, then let me remind you of what I've told you already.

'Alec
Smith and the Diddler were
not
killed by the same person.'

'No,'
said Martin. 'And Lawrence Scotland wasn't your hit-and-run driver either.
Listen, Bob, Dan Pringle called me just before I got here, to tell me that he
has a strong new lead on the Diddler enquiry, which is certainly not connected
to Alec Smith. We've got less evidence than ever to support the notion of a
link between these crimes.

'I'm
certainly going to treat the attack on you as a separate incident. I'm putting
your house under CID observation - and don't try to countermand me on that, or
I'll have the Chief countermand you.'

'All
right, all right,' Skinner agreed, grudgingly. 'Now here's an order for you;
the Alec Smith investigation stays open, in the meantime at least.' He looked
at his wife.

'I
accept what you say, Sarah, that there were two different killers. However that
does
not
contradict my gut feeling that there's a thread
which ties together the two murders and the attack on me. And you are right
about one thing, Andy; that thread is certainly not your man Scotland.

'If
there is a team working here, mate, then while I'm laid up I want you to find
them. Most especially, I want you to find the one who drove that vehicle at me
and my boys, and lock him up far away from me. That's another interview I dare
not do myself.'

Martin
nodded, grimly. 'I'll steer clear of that one too, for the same reason; that'll
be another one for Maggie, I think.'

He
headed for the door. 'I'd better get back to Fettes to let Karen off the hook
...
and help her clear her desk.'

'She's
not going back then?'

'No.
I've told her she's on leave from Monday. I'll formalise her resignation with
the Personnel people.'

Bob
smiled. 'I should be mad with you for costing us a damn good officer, but in
the circumstances
...'
He broke off.

'Oh,
by the way, it's amazing the things that come to you as you're lying in an
ambulance. Remember I had a niggle about Alec Smith's room?'

'Yes.'

'Well,
I worked out what it was. That hook - the one Alec was strung up on.' 'What do
you mean?'

'It
was a big shiny, steel hook, driven into the beam, and fairly recently by the
look of it. Let's assume that the killer didn't put it there himself, but saw
it and used it.'

'Fair
enough. So?'

'So
Alec Smith was one of the most methodical men I ever knew. Everything I saw in
that room had a purpose; even the ornaments were functional. That's what set me
wondering. What the hell was that hook for?'

55

Detective
Sergeant Steve Steele had been to Dundee three times in his life; once to play
football, twice to watch it in that strange place where two arch-rival clubs
and their grounds glower at each other across the street.

'The
city is looking up,' he said to himself as he drove across the silvery Tay,
over the road bridge, glancing occasionally at its neighbour, successor to the
notorious structure which had caused the great rail disaster of the nineteenth
century. The modern, redeveloped Dundonian waterfront shone attractively in
the midday sun as he drove to the toll booth and paid the anachronistic levy.

He
glanced quickly at his road map, trying to plot a way to the offices of Biggins
and McCart in Albert Street. Eventually he gave up, drove to the nearest
off-street car park, then set out to walk.

It
took him some time to find the solicitors' premises but, eventually, he spotted
their brass plate; it looked badly in need of the sort of face-lift which the
rest of the city had received. He walked up three flights of stairs and, it
seemed to him, back a hundred years. As he opened the glass-panelled door with
its legend 'Biggins and McCart' written in discoloured gold leaf, he stepped
into Victoriana.

Every
piece of furniture in the room, even the tall wooden filing cabinets, looked
like a genuine antique. The only item which did not fit that description sat
behind a high-fronted
desk, chewing gum. She had dull
eyes and a small mouth above an even smaller chin; her dyed blonde hair had a
pinkish tinge and she wore a tight-fitting white Lycra sweater chosen, beyond
doubt, to display her best features.

Hello,
girls,
the detective
thought.

'Miss
Malone,' he said. 'DS Steele, from Edinburgh. We spoke on Friday.'

'Oh
aye,' said the girl, disinterested. 'Mr McCart's no' here.'

Steele
glared at her. 'Now look
...'
he
began. But just at that moment the door behind her opened.

'Sergeant,'
a voice said. He turned to see a small, impish, elderly man dressed, regardless
of the weather, in a three-piece brown tweed suit. A watch chain hung across
his waistcoat; he seemed to fit the room perfectly. He waved a brown paper bag.
'So sorry, so sorry. Saw you going up the stair ahead of me. I just nipped out
for doughnuts; must have something with the tea. Molly, put the kettle on.'

The
sullen girl nodded and did as she was told, pulling back her shoulders slightly
as she rose. The little man threw her the bag and offered his visitor a
handshake.

'Gilbert
McCart,' he introduced himself. 'Come through to my private office.'

Steele
followed him into a second smaller room, furnished in the same way as the
first. He glanced around at tall glass-fronted bookcases, low door-fronted
cabinets and a big inlaid desk, finer, even to his inexpert eye, than the one
in Alec Smith's house. 'Does that have a secret drawer?' he asked, intrigued.

Gilbert
McCart's eyes twinkled. 'Can't tell you that,' he replied, 'it's a secret.

'You
like my furniture? Geoffrey Biggins, my late partner,
and
I built up the collection over the years. When I snuff it, my practice won't be
worth anything, but this lot will.'

'You're
a one-partner firm?' Steele asked as he handed over his business card, a Bob
Skinner innovation.

'For
three years, I have been; since Geoff went to the Great Conveyancer in the sky.
It's just me and the slattern Molly outside. Her real name is Gabrielle, but
she suits the moniker I gave her better. I can just see her selling cockles and
mussels.'

At
that moment the girl came in with a tray holding a teapot, china cups and
saucers, milk and sugar and a plate with four doughnuts. She laid it on
McCart's desk, on top of a copy of the
Courier.
'Yes,' said the solicitor. 'Cover
that damn rag up.' He frowned at the policeman. 'That publication has never
been the same since they put news on the front page rather than advertising.'

They
waited as Molly, nee Gabrielle, poured the tea then sashayed out of the room,
her third-best feature moving in her tight skirt like two cats wrestling in a
bag.

'Now,
Sergeant Steele,' her little employer began. 'To business. I apologise for
dragging you up here, but one of the main qualities which I offer my principal
client is discretion, and I never discuss his business over the telephone.'

'Your
principal client?'

'Kinture
Estates. Biggins and McCart - Geoffrey and I and our fathers before us - have
been factors to the Marquis of Kinture for the last sixty-three years.
Geoffrey's old man, Gilbert, and mine, Geoffrey, were both at Strathallan
School, and St Andrews University with the father of the present Marquis. He
inherited the title when he was still a student and set his two friends up in
this practice pretty well as soon as they qualified.