Quintin Jardine - Skinner's rules

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Well don’t go to Gullane. We won’t be there. Come to Stockbridge. Okay?’

‘Okay, Pops.’ She began to ask what the big mystery was, anyway, but thought better of it. ‘Now, if you promise me that you’re really fine, I’ll get some sleep.’

‘Promise. Love you. Night.’

As he ended the call, he thought, suddenly, that he had been within half a second of never hearing that voice, or Sarah‘s, ever again. He felt hysteria lurking within him. To keep it at bay, he smiled savagely in the dark and fixed his thoughts on Hughie Fulton.

The drive, normally thirty minutes, took fifty. Skinner drove at a steady pace, keeping the pain in his leg to a minimum.

The wound was still leaking blood when he reached Headquarters Mackie’s overcoat lay in the back of the Sierra. He threw it on, and walked, as evenly as he could manage, into the lift.

Sarah was waiting for him in his inner office, seated in the big swivel chair behind the desk. She jumped up when he hirpled into the room.

‘Oh my God, darling. What’s happened? You’re grey!’

He threw the overcoat on to a chair, and she saw his leg. Her hands flew to her mouth. A scream started, but she choked it off.

‘Bob! That’s a gunshot. Who did it? Are you hurt anywhere else?’

Skinner gave her what was meant to be a reassuring smile. To Sarah it resembled the clenched-teeth expression of someone trying very hard to hold himself together.

‘Don’t worry, love, it’s a flesh wound. I’ve had a talk with the bloke, and he won’t do it again. Let’s use the Chief’s bathroom.’

She helped him along the corridor to Proud’s suite. Skinner opened the door with a key from his collection, and motioned her in ahead of him.

In the white-tiled bathroom, she cut off the bloody trousers. Gently, she removed his makeshift dressing. Then, using surgical spirits which burned with a cold fire, she cleaned the wounds, front and back, and washed the leg.

‘Bob, you have to go to hospital.’

‘I know, but not just yet. I have to see this man.’

She took out a syringe and injected anti-tetanus serum straight into his thigh. Then she placed a powdered lint packing over the raw wound, and bandaged the leg from knee to crotch. As she worked, he talked to her continuously to keep his mind off the screaming-pitch pain.

‘Tell me, Doctor, did anything strike you about those two head wounds you examined tonight?’

‘Yes. I meant to ask you about that. They were caused by different weapons. The younger man was killed by a light-calibre bullet. But Al-Saddi’s brains were blown out, literally. He was hit by something heavy-calibre and soft-nosed: the sort of bullet that would make a hole like the one you have in your leg, for example. If that had hit bone …’ She stopped suddenly and looked at him, her eyes widening.

‘Clever lady. You should be careful. That thoroughness could land you in trouble some day. When you write your report, I want you to forget all that detail.’

‘Bob, what are you into?’

‘The biggest, nastiest mess of my life, my darling. But it’s almost over now.’

He saw no need ever to tell her of the danger in which she herself had stood hardly an hour before. She looked into his face and decided to press him no further.

When she had finished dressing his leg, she helped him into the sharply pressed grey slacks which she had brought from the apartment. He kissed her, and as he held her close, he whispered in her ear, ‘I’m so glad I found you. If anything should ever happen to you, I’d be finished.’

Sarah saw the trauma in his eyes. She knew that when he was ready, he would tell her the story.

‘Go, my darling,’ she said, ‘and, as always, do what you have to do. Whatever it is.’ Her eyebrow raised in a familiar movement. ‘And as soo as you’ve done it, have someone drive you straight to hospital. Call me the minute you get there. Doctor’s orders.

‘Oh, by the way, Andy called just as I was on my way out. McGuire was still in surgery, but he’s going to be fine. Andy’s staying there with Sergeant Rose, until he comes round. What’s Maggie Rose doing there anyway?’

Skinner smiled. ‘Let’s just say she’s off duty.’

Sarah kissed him again, and ran off downstairs.

In his office, Skinner took a bottle of brandy and a glass from his cabinet and poured himself a stiff measure. He made to put the bottle back, then changed his mind.

He took off his jacket, draped it over the back of his swivel chair, and sat down, carefully, behind his desk. The Browning was still in his shoulder holster.

He was halfway through his second brandy when Fulton’s bulk swept into the room, full of bluster.

‘Who in God’s name do you think you are, Skinner! You preside over the assassination of a visiting head of state, and then you have the temerity to summon me to your presence!’

Skinner’s hand was rock steady as he took the gun from its holster and slammed it down on the desk. But inside he felt shaky. He knew that sooner or later, shock, loss of blood and brandy would get to him. This had to be done fast and hard.

‘Shut the fuck up, Fulton! I’ll tell you who I am, my non-existent friend. ’m your worst fucking nightmare come true. I’m the man who shot Liberty fucking Valance, that’s who I am!

‘You can fix things, so they tell me. Well you’d better fix this. In my cottage in Gullane you’ll find two stiffs. One of them is our pal Allingham — that’s Allingham of the FO. He was shot by the same gun that killed Al-Saddi, and you can guess who fired it, can’t you. The other stiff is your late colleague Maitland. You know all about Maitland, Hughie, don’t you. You should; I’ll bet you wake up screaming every time you dream of him.

‘Well you can forget him. The hitman got himself hit. Did you know that he was going to kill Sarah? Did you?’ Skinner roared the question at the big man, his right fist grasping the automatic, his finger curled round the trigger.

Fulton’s belligerence had vanished. He shook his head violently. ‘No, Bob. Honestly, I didn’t know that. You must believe me!’

‘God, man, you’d better pray that I do! For that’s what he said to me. He actually stood in my living room and told me that. As matter-of-fact as you like. And he thought that, having heard that promise, I’d let him walk out the front door. Fatal mistake, that was.

‘So your bogeyman’s dead. You’re safe from him. Now here’s the bad news. You’re not fucking safe from me, Hughie. For I know. I know the whole stinking story from beginning to end. I know that Maitland, the state executioner, killed all those people — and I know why. And, with all of that, I know that you were an accessory, after and maybe even before the fact of all those murders.

‘I know what the stakes were in the game, Fulton, and so I know it’s got to stay secret. But it stops here, and it stops now. I have proof that Maitland shot Al-Saddi. I have a copy of the document that Mortimer and Jameson died for. They’re both well secure, but if anything unexpected happens to me, they’ll both go public.

‘And one thing more. If anything, the slightest mischance, should befall my nearest and dearest — Sarah, Alex, Andy, any one of them — then you, fat man, are fucking dead! You’ve lost one bogeyman, Fulton, but you’ve found another. You’ve just as much reason to fear me as you had to fear Maitland. After all, which one of us is lying right now in my living room with a bullet in his head?

‘As far as the Day of Deliverance is concerned, you can mark that down as mission accomplished, in spades. The Syrian is dead, and your master have their Lee Oswald. They’ve even got a bonus. If they ever identify that second dead Arab, they’ll see why. Tell them to try looking in Iraq.’