Quintin Jardine - Murmuring the Judges

‘But if that’s right,’ he whispered. ‘Why the hell would he. .’

‘I envy you this beautiful country, Andy,’ said the Ghanaian policeman. ‘I have never seen anything like this, not at this time of a summer day. . so cool, so moist, so pleasant.’

‘Summer’s almost over, Kwame. Soon the wind will be lashing the rain across the fields; after that the snow could come.’

‘I’ve heard about snow. I’ve never seen it, though.’

Martin laughed. ‘You might get the chance. If this man winds up going to trial, it’ll come up in late December, or early January. You’ll be a witness to the arrest, so the Crown Office may well fly you back to Scotland to give evidence.’

Ankrah stopped, mock-horror on his face. ‘In that case, I think I’ll go now. I didn’t actually say I wanted to see snow. I think Scotland might be too cold for me at that time of year.’

‘Too late to back out now, friend,’ said the DCS. ‘You volunteered for this caper, remember.’ He locked the door of his Mondeo, which was parked on the verge by the side of the A 6137 as it ran through the hamlet of Humbie. To their right a side road led away from its few cottages.

‘I’ve checked this out. Grimley lives up there, in a farm cottage up a lane a couple of hundred yards back off the road.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘It’s six-fifty-five just now, and he works in Wallyford, so even if he starts at eight, he should still be in.

‘Let’s go and interrupt his breakfast.’

He led the way down the curving side road. As he had predicted, they soon came to the opening of a rough, grassy lane, with thick scrubby woodland on either side. A silver Toyota was parked close by. A little further along, close to the first of a row of two-storey houses, stood a green Mercedes, the first in a line of half a dozen other vehicles. Martin looked down the lane. A hundred yards distant on the right he saw a single-storey, stone-built cottage. ‘That’s the place. Come on.’

The Scot and the African walked together down the pathway. As they approached the little house, they saw that it stood on its own, isolated behind a low privet hedge. It was freshly painted, roses grew in its small front garden, and honeysuckle hung around and over the door.

‘I read The Railway Children when I was young,’ said Ankrah. ‘Afterwards I dreamed of living in a place like this.’ He laughed. ‘There are not too many stone cottages like this in Ghana, though.’

They stopped for a moment at the little wooden gate, then Martin raised its latch, walked into the garden and up to the single low step at Bernard Grimley’s front door. He looked around for a bell push, but found none, only a heavy brass knocker. He seized it and rapped it hard, once, twice, three times, against its keeper.

There was no answer, no sound from within the cottage. The Head of CID knocked again, three times. Still there was no sign of Grimley. ‘Fuck this,’ he said. He tried the handle, but the door was locked.

‘Kwame, you stay here. I’ll try round the back.’ As Ankrah nodded acknowledgement, Martin turned and walked around the cottage, following a path which led off to the left. The door at the rear of the house was painted green also. Like the other it had two glass panels set in its upper half; but one of them was broken. He turned the handle and the door swung open.

He looked around the small kitchen. Dinner plates, a mug, and a pint glass lay in the sink, unwashed. Two lager cans, their tops punctured, lay on the table. Across the room, another door lay open.

Noiselessly Martin crept into the hall. There were four doors off; two to his left, one to his right and the front door. They were all closed save the farther on the right, which was slightly ajar. Through it he could see lace curtains, a dining chair and part of a gateleg table. At the far end of the corridor, he became aware of Kwame Ankrah’s dark shadow as he leaned forward, peering through one of the glass panels of the entrance door.

He stepped across to it and turned the knob of the Yale, opening it and admitting his companion, who looked both puzzled and tense. The silence in the cottage was almost palpable. The DCS answered the question in the Ghanaian policeman’s eyes with a shrug of his shoulders, then pointed towards the single open door.

Feeling suddenly very vulnerable, almost naked, he stepped through it and into the living room.

Bernard Grimley was there: on the floor. He knew that it was Grimley, even though he had no face. He knew it by his build, and by the fact that it was someone else who stood, ten feet away, in the sunlight which flooded through the uncurtained side window, a single-barrelled, pump-action, sawn-off held securely in his hands.

‘What the bloody hell are you. .’ exclaimed Andy Martin, as the man raised and levelled the gun. And that was as far as he got.

Skinner sat up in bed, a feeling of unease gripping him.

‘What’s wrong, Bob?’ asked Sarah, sensing his mood even through her drowsiness.

He swung his legs out of bed and stood, naked, running his fingers through his tousled hair. ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘Just someone walking over my grave, I guess.’

‘Don’t say that, it scares me. It must be more than that.’

He slipped on his bathrobe and stepped over to the big window, drawing the curtains aside to look out across the Bents, still in shadow, and at the great river, as it caught the first rays of the morning sun.

‘I suppose I’m still wondering who Bakey Newton might have phoned, before he did his runner, and why.’ He glanced at the bedside clock, which showed one minute before seven a.m. ‘I think I’ll take a quick shower, and get into the office.’

He was no more than halfway to the bathroom when the phone rang. He reached it in two strides and picked it up. ‘Skinner,’ he barked.

‘Fookin’ ’ell, I knew I shouldn’t have called this early.’ The tension broken, Bob laughed.

‘You’re dead right,’ he said, sitting on the edge of the bed. ‘What’s the story?’

‘I didn’t have much choice but phone you now, I’m afraid. I’m off to the Gulf wi’ the Defence Secretary in an hour, and I thought you’d want this before I got back, rather than after.’

‘Go on, then.’

‘Well, after I sorted out those names for you, I did a bit more checking into their service records, and something interesting came up.Two of ’em, Clark, the infantryman, and Newton, the cook, had black marks on theirs. They were both court-martialled around the same time, and for a short spell they were in detention together.

‘Clark was done for insubordination, and Newton for beating the crap out of a junior NCO. They were both fined and reduced in rank. However, they both did deals. They pleaded guilty, and the prosecuting officer put forward mitigating circumstances on their behalf, so they stayed in the service.

‘Another connection between them was that they were both prosecuted by the same bloke in the Advocate General’s office.’ As Arrow paused for breath, Skinner’s right eyebrow rose, very slightly, as two thoughts converged in his brain.

‘I’d have made nothing of that,’ the major went on, ‘had something not made me run a check on the prosecutor. He’s long gone from the service. . left seven years ago. . but it were the Army that sent him to St Andrews University. They did that after he was wounded in the Falklands, as a very young officer.’

He paused. ‘You keeping up with me?’

‘I think so. You’re going to tell me that Bennett and McDonnell worked for him in the Advocate General’s office. . not together, a couple of years apart. Then you’re going to tell me. .’