Thursday legends - Skinner 10 (42 page)

'Bingo!'
she whispered. Given its bulk, it was surprisingly small on the inside; all
that it contained was an Apple lap-top computer, complete with manuals,
transformer, cable and plug, and a green metal strongbox. 'That spare key,' she
said. 'Betcha that's what it's for.'

'Let's
take these into my room and find out.'

He
picked up the computer and the box, one in each hand and carried them into his
office, laying them on his table. Maggie plugged in the transformer and
attached it to the laptop, then pulled up a chair and sat down. She released
the catch and swung the screen into position, then pushed the start-up button.

As
they waited for the Apple to boot up, Mario took out Alec Smith's key ring and
slid the third key into the lock of the strongbox. It clicked open and he
lifted the lid. 'Envelopes,' he muttered, as he stared at the contents. 'It's
full of numbered envelopes.' He picked one up and looked inside. 'Photographs,'
he told her, 'and negative strips. There are some computer disks here too.'

'Software,
maybe; or copies of files.' Maggie smiled as the computer desktop appeared; the
background pattern was an array of blue cats. 'Animal lover, eh,' she said.
'Let's see what's in here.' She double-clicked the hard-disk icon to reveal the
machine's contents. 'Three folders; System, Applications and one that's called
"John". John?' she wondered.

'Alec's
son,' Mario whispered. 'The boy who died of AIDS.'

She
opened the folder, to find a list of twenty-eight documents, twenty-seven of
them titled with a number and one word. She looked at the first: 'Barnfather,'
she read.

Her
husband looked over her shoulder. 'I've only ever heard of one person of that
name,' he said.

'Yes,'
she agreed, 'and I've made his acquaintance. Not that he was aware of it at the
time. He'd been dead for a couple of days.' She paused.

'Mario,
I've got a feeling about this.' She opened the 'document and began to read.

'The
subject is a senior Supreme Court judge whose proclivities have been rumoured
around Edinburgh for many years.

'Barnfather
was observed on several occasions cruising in Leith, striking up conversations
with young men. (See photographic evidence) On more than one occasion the
contacts accompanied him to his flat in Tevendale Street and remained there for
several hours. 'Barnfather was also observed (See photographic evidence) frequenting
an address in Cockburn Street, immediately above retail premises which operated
as a homosexual gathering place. I attempted to have Drugs and Vice raid the
premises, but was told that there were no grounds, since the premises were
private and there was no evidence of soliciting nor of prostitution.'

She
stopped and looked up at Mario, as he shuffled through the photographs. 'I make
it seven shots,' he told her finally, 'each with the number one on the back, in
accordance with the file number, of an old geezer chatting up what looks like
the rough trade in Leith, or taking boys into a New Town flat. There are a
couple of shots of him going into an entryway in what could be Cockburn Street
and a blow-up of him shot through a window, presumably in the same place.
'What's the second document?'

Maggie
turned back to the screen. 'Number two. Raeside. Jesus,' she hissed, 'this
one's a Deputy Procurator Fiscal.'

Her
husband picked up the envelope numbered two, and slid out the photographs
inside. 'Is that right?' he exclaimed. 'He should be prosecuting himself in
that case. Getting a blow-job off a bloke in a beach car park is definitely
lewd and libidinous conduct in my book.'

He
took another envelope at random and looked at its contents; then another; and
another. 'They're all the same; Alec's been gathering information on gay men.'

'But
not just a random selection. A judge, a Fiscal.' She scanned the files, picked
one and clicked it open. 'Yes,' she murmured. 'Thought I recognised that name;
this one's a Minister in the Scottish Parliament.

'And
that one,' she said, opening another document. 'Oh my! This one's a woman. The
Chair of the Police Committee.

'Mario,
what are we going to do with this?'

In
answer he picked up the phone and dialled Ruth McConnell's extension. 'Ruthie,'
he asked, 'is the Boss in today?'

'No.
He called to say that Sarah's making him stay at home for the rest of the
week.'

'Okay.'
He hung up and looked at his wife. 'That settles that. We're going to Gullane.'

66

Jack
McGurk snapped into wakefulness; he had been on the verge of dozing off as he
leaned back in the passenger seat of the anonymous Vauxhall as he watched the
building across Rothesay Terrace. He sighed, deeply; 'Ah, bloody hell, Ray,'
he said, to the man behind the wheel, 'I hate this sort of duty. Sometimes I
wonder if Dan Pringle's still blaming me for that crap my brother-in-law
printed in the
News'

'Come
on, Jack, you've still got your stripes, haven't you?' said DC Wilding. He grinned.
'No-one ever held that against you
...
at least not for long, anyway.'

'Maybe
so, maybe so. Someone's got to do this, I know. It's just
...'

'It's
just that you thought that once you became a sergeant you could leave this sort
of crap to poor bloody foot soldiers like me.'

McGurk
laughed. 'Aye, I suppose so. Whereas all that's happened is that I get to sit
on this side of the car, not in the driver's seat.' He glanced at his watch.
'Five to bloody one. Chances are they'll be having a boardroom lunch in there,
and you and I'll be stuck here till fuckin' six o'clock or later.'

'Or
maybe not,' said Wilding. 'Look.' McGurk followed the direction of his nod, and
saw a man trotting briskly down the steps which led from the offices of Paris
Simons. He
seemed to move awkwardly, an
impression created by his twisted, stunted left arm, undisguisable even by his
expensively cut suit.

'Our
man,' the Sergeant muttered. He made to open the car door, until his colleague
laid a hand on his shoulder. 'Wait, Jack, wait.' As they watched, Luke Heard
strode along the pavement and turned into an alleyway at the side of the
building. 'There's a car park back there.'

'He
can drive? With that arm?'

Wilding
nodded. 'He's got an S-type Jag. Automatic, with adaptations, I suppose.'

The
two detectives sat for a minute, watching, until a silver Jaguar with Heard at
the wheel, appeared in the alleyway and turned left into the road, heading
eastwards. The Constable slid the Vauxhall into gear and set off after him.

The
fund manager took a right turn at the end of Rothesay Terrace, not noticing,
apparently, the vehicle following. He headed downhill, and across Belford
Bridge, the temporary resting place of Howard Shearer, then up Belford Road,
until he turned into Ravelston Dykes.

'Where's
he going, d'you think?' Wilding mused.

'Maybe
he's off to the casino to lose another couple of grand. We'll see.' They tailed
Heard down to Western Corner and then along the Corstorphine Road, out of the
city. 'Aye,' McGurk muttered as they swept past Murrayfield Hospital, 'Looks
like the tables right enough.'

The
right turn took them completely by surprise. 'Fuck me, he's going into the
zoo!' snapped Wilding. 'He'll twig if I follow him in there.'

'Pull
into the filling station opposite,' the Sergeant ordered. 'We'll leg it.' His
colleague did as he was told, swinging off

the
road and parking on the forecourt, well clear of the pumps, and flashing his
warrant card at the attendant, before following McGurk across the road to the
grey-walled zoo.

'Police,'
the Sergeant barked at the girl on the admissions kiosk. 'Let us in, quick.'

Inside,
they looked around, until Wilding spotted the sleek form of the Jaguar,
brake-lights shining as it pulled into a car park beside a stone building.
'Look; the bastard's going for his lunch, Jack,' he gasped, breathlessly.
'There's a club out here, and he's probably a member. He must be, to be able to
park there.'

'Let's
just wait and see.'

The
two detectives stood at the top of a rise, a hundred yards distant, watching Heard
as he climbed out of his car. Before he closed the door he reached across to
the passenger seat, picked up an object, and slipped it into his pocket. Then,
instead of heading for the building he turned on his heel and strode out of the
park, into the zoo itself.

'Going
to throw buns to the elephants, d'you think?' murmured McGurk.

'Not
in that direction. He's heading for the penguins; first place my kids make for
when I bring them here.'

Edinburgh
Zoo's penguins are its star attraction. At weekends or during holiday periods,
their enclosure would have been surrounded by spectators, but on a midweek
afternoon it was deserted, except for a tall girl in dungarees and green
Wellington boots; she was brushing the pathway around the pen. Heard walked
straight up to her and stopped. She was as tall as him. As the detectives
watched, maintaining a safe distance, she smiled and leaned forward as if to
kiss him, but he swayed back.

'Now
who the hell's she, I wonder?' the Sergeant whispered, under his breath.

'Bit
on the side? Lucky him if she is.'

'He
doesn't fancy it today, then; even from this far away, he does not look like a
happy man.'

Their
target stood stiffly, facing the girl. His voice was raised as he spoke to her,
for fragments of incomprehensible sound seemed to drifted across on the light
breeze. She was in no way intimidated; instead she stared at him, eyes bright,
lips moving in a retort. All at once, Luke Heard seemed to slump down into
himself. He reached into his pocket, took out the packet which he had brought
from the car, and shoved it roughly down the front of her overalls. Then he
turned on his heel and walked away, back down the rise. McGurk and Wilding
watched him, all the way back to the car park.

'What
the fuck d'you think that was about?' the Constable exclaimed as they watched
him slide back into the Jaguar.

i
don't know, Ray,' McGurk answered. 'But I think we should find out.'

'Will
we brace the girl?'

'Not
without checking with Dan Pringle; we don't want to blow our surveillance of
Heard just yet. She works here. We can find out who she is, and talk to her any
time we like.'

'I've
just remembered who she is, Jack,' said Wilding, quietly. 'I recognise her from
this distance, even if you don't; you and I took a statement from her the
Saturday before last. She's the girl who spotted Howard Shearer in the Water of
Leith.'

67

Skinner
put down the telephone and stared out of the conservatory, across the wide
Firth of Forth. There was something unsettling about Lennie Plenderleith; even
when he spoke to the man by telephone, as he just had for the first time in his
life.

Big
Lennie, when he was Tony Manson's first lieutenant, had maimed or murdered God
knew how many people; later, after his mentor's death he had taken revenge in
savage and terminal fashion. He had even tried to kill Skinner himself.

And
yet, in spite of it all, against all logic, he found himself liking the giant
in Shotts Prison. 'Why?' he asked himself, yet inwardly he knew the answer. In
his own way, Lennie understood the meaning of loyalty and obligation as well
as anyone he knew and had practised them, even though it had led to his
imprisonment for life.

Those
were the virtues which Bob Skinner valued above all others and if, in Plenderleith's
case, these were accompanied by awesome, pitiless violence when he perceived it
to be necessary
...
the DCC knew that
the same streak ran through him. They came from different backgrounds, they had
taken different paths through life, yet as Skinner sat in his comfortable
home, he wondered whether, had their circumstances been reversed, it might have
been him who had ended up in a cell.

Forcing
himself to shove the thought to one side, he picked
up
the phone again, dialled the Torphichen Place police office and asked for
Detective Superintendent Pringle.