Quintin Jardine - Skinner's rules

Licorish nodded. ‘Fair enough. You won’t be able to keep it tight any longer than that anyway. Your man’s gone to the Royal with gunshot wounds. You know what that place is like.’

‘Yes, you’re right.’ Skinner shook his head. ‘Christ, what a bloody night! You try to plan for every possibility, but there’s no way you can. If a determined fanatic with a gun has luck on his side …’ His voice trailed off for a second, then snapped back to normal.

He called the superintendent over and told him that the next detectives to arrive on the scene should take statements from the media. Then he turned back to Michael Licorish. ‘Right, let’s talk to the photographers and the TV guys.’

The press were gathered in a group between the two television cameras They included two stills photographers.

‘Did you two get any pictures of the action?’ Skinner asked.

The taller of the two shrugged his shoulders. ‘I might have. When it all started, I ducked. But I stuck my camera up, held my finger down, and let the motor-drive run out the film. I won’t know until I process it.’

He looked at the other photographer, who nodded. ‘I did the same, but I doubt if I got anything. Denis is a lot taller than me, and I ducked bloody low, I’ll tell you!’

‘Let’s see what you have, then,’ said Skinner. ‘You two grab a CID man, tell him I sent you. Give him your names and office numbers, tell him you didn’t see anything, then get back to your darkrooms and process those films. But send any stuff you have back up to me by midnight. Fair enough?’

‘Fair enough, Mr Skinner,’ the taller and older man replied for both. They set off in search of a detective.

Skinner turned next to the television crews. ‘What about you gentlemen? Do you have anything in there?’ He gestured towards the cameras, As he did so, he realised for the first time that the strong blue television lights were still switched on.

‘Turn those things off, someone.’ Two lighting engineers threw all the switches. The Hall seemed suddenly dingy, and much cooler.

‘We can take a look right now,’ said one of the cameramen. ‘I had a fair view from this position.’ The cameras were set a few yards back from floor level, two or three feet above the head height of the passageway that had recently become a shooting gallery.

‘Ray here was a bit naughty, of course. As usual he took his camera off its fixed position. He was right behind you lot when the shit started to fly.’

The other cameraman looked sheepish. Skinner threw him a mock glare. ‘I’ll let you off with a yellow card this time … if you’ve got some decent footage. Let’s have a look — but on my own, if you don’t mind.’

One of the technicians plugged a cable into the back of Ray’s camera, which had now been returned to its tripod. He linked it with a monitor and checked the battery levels at each end of the line. The cameraman rewound his cassette at high speed, as the technician switched on the monitor.

The first pictures, taken as the camera was balanced on the man’s shoulder, were shaky, but soon they steadied. Skinner found himself watching a side view of the procession as it snaked its way out of the Hall. A dark shadow moved across in front of the lens, blacking out the screen for a second. That was probably me, he thought.

The angle of view changed as the cameraman stepped out into the passageway, looking almost directly towards the door. Skinner saw Deirdre O’Farrell step away to the right, to allow her guests to depart, her Reeboks contrasting garishly with the bulky robes of her office.

And there he was.

Fazal the assassin.

The fusillade began.

The burr of the Uzi sounded louder through the monitor’s speaker, and Fazal’s cry in Arabic was almost completely drowned out.

Even as he watched the shooting start, Skinner saw himself, staring intently up into the crowd to the right, then reaching into his open jacket for his Browning.

He made himself concentrate on the main action. He saw David McKnight as he crumpled and fell to the floor, his talent, his charisma and his life all snuffed out in a second.

He saw Mario McGuire leap across in front of Al-Saddi, then slump backwards as the bullets hit him.

And then three things seemed to happen simultaneously.

He saw himself snap off two shots towards his target in the audience.

He saw the President’s head jerk back as it was devastated by the bullet.

He saw Fazal begin his dance of death as Martin and Mackie, stand ing up in the face of the Uzi, concentrated their return fire upon him.

And he saw something else.

‘Stop!’ Skinner shouted. The cameraman was startled, but after a second the image froze. ‘Rewind, please.’ The picture zipped back. ‘Stop. Now forward again, please, but frame by frame, if you can do that.’

Again he viewed the trilogy of death, but this time in slow motion. Almost simultaneous, but not quite.

His shots seeming slow and deliberate this time.

Mario McGuire taking his hits, and going backwards like a man beginning a complicated high-board dive. A fine red spray from his back, below the right shoulder, as one of the bullets exited.

Fazal’s first contortion as a red hole appeared in his chest, the Uzi beginning to droop in his hand.

Al-Saddi’s head dress jerking up, as it filled with the bone and brain tissue blown out by the bullet.

And, surely in the same moment, a flash in the darkness of the doorway.

‘Stop.’ This time the order was more controlled. ‘Back one frame, and freeze.’

The picture wound back, like a reversing snail.

‘Yes!’

There it was.

A light in the darkness and a puff of smoke. And behind it, framed for that millisecond in time by the tiny flare of the gunshot, alone in the entrance hall, was a black shape: a tall, slim, short-haired, perfectly balanced silhouette.

‘Maitland!’

The name escaped from Skinner’s lips in a whisper.

He sat and stared, as frozen as the image on the screen, his gaze unmoving and unblinking. Even as a shadow picture, the grace of the man was unique. The perfect killing machine.

Michael Licorish, a decisive man by nature, did not know what to do. He gazed at Skinner as he sat there wide-eyed and suddenly white-faced. For a moment, the poetic thought came to him that the Assistant Chief Constable looked like a man who had seen something so horrible that it had turned him to stone.

Skinner stayed motionless until Licorish, his resolve regained, began to move round from behind the monitor. And then Skinner’s right hand shot up, palm outward, in a sudden clear command to halt. For one of the few times in his life Licorish was suddenly, and irrationally, afraid.

Skinner reached forward with his left hand and switched off the monitor. Then he stood up and looked at Ray, the cameraman. ‘I must have that tape.’

Something in his voice forbade argument. Without a word, Ray removed the Betacam cartridge and handed it over.

‘Yours too,’ said Skinner to the second cameraman. The second cassette was also handed over. The two men looked to Licorish, testing his willingness to intercede for them. But they found no response.

‘You will square it with our bosses, won’t you,’ said Ray. ‘And we’ll get them back sometime?’

Skinner looked him straight in the eye. ‘Forget that these ever existed. You’ve already sent film out of here tonight. And if your editors ask if you have film of the assassination, then blame Michael here. Tell them he wouldn’t let you move to follow the procession, so you didn’t have a view. But, from this moment, forget these tapes.’

The two men stared at Skinner, reading his deadly serious expression, and they nodded.