Quintin Jardine: Skinner's ordeal

`Do you think you'll get him to perform in the witness box like he did for Uncle Bob, Uncle Andy and Auntie Maggie? And even if you do, that defence Counsel will not be able to plant a reasonable doubt in the mind of the jury? You won't be allowed to lead evidence of Elliot's SBS atrocity, you know.'

Bob nodded, looking sombre. 'Daughter, if this is you as a trainee, what are you going to be like once you start to practise?' He reached up and ruffled her hair. I'd be as worried as you if Mark was all I had, for his sake. But fortunately he isn't. There's the Government driver Elliot sent away, and the driver of Davey's car. They'll put him at the scene.'

Suddenly he smiled up at her. 'And then, of course, there's Davey's Red Box.'

Eh?'

He nodded. 'I was getting to that. Brian Mackie phoned me just before you arrived. He, McGuire, and the boy Pye found it, locked in a cupboard in Elliot's house. With that lot, I'd expect even such a murderous bastard as him to see sense and plead Guilty.'

`Let's hope so,' said Sarah vehemently. 'If part of his motive was to take over McGrath's constituency, and Leona has frustrated that, couldn't her life be in danger?'

`We have to assume so. That's why I sent Andy in, mob-handed, to arrest him even before I knew the outcome of the search. Dame Janet said that Leona had won him over. I don't believe that for one second.'

He squatted slowly down on one knee beside Sarah's chair. `Love,' he said, taking her hand in his and kissing it. 'Doctor. With all this sorted, please can I go home? Now?'

She frowned at him. 'Bob, Mr Braeburn said you should stay in until the end of this week.'

`Yes, I know, but Braeburn doesn't know me. I'll grant you I've got a way to go, but I'm getting better by the minute. I promise I won't go running for a while, at least not after dark, and I won't go back to the office until you and he say I can. I'll recover quicker and better around the wee chap there than I will in this room. There are times when I feel that I'm locked in here with all the stuff that Kevin O'Malley pulled out of my head. I can cope with it, all right, but I'll handle it more positively in the real world than in here.

`Please,' he said.

She looked at him with the eye of a headmistress assessing a remorseful pupil. 'Well,' she said finally, 'I'll ask Mr Braeburn.'

`Good,' he said, releasing her hand and standing up. 'While you're doing that, I'll be packing my shaving kit.'

The throng in the Assembly Hall of Stewart's-Melville College was far more attentive, and appreciative, than any that ever gathered there for morning prayers. It was, also, significantly larger.

The majority of the listeners were ladies, but there were a substantial number of men present. This pleased John Torrance as he looked down from the platform, particularly since he knew that the Liverpool versus Manchester United match which was on live television that evening represented a substantial counter-attraction.

He was pleased too with the age-spread of the people in the hall; but most of all, he was delighted by his candidate's confident, assertive and thoroughly pleasant performance.

As they had done at her adoption meeting, her audience rose spontaneously to their feet in applause as Leona finished her speech. As on that earlier occasion, she allowed them to express their enthusiasm for a few minutes before settling them and sending them home with her thanks and a few words of encouragement, to make them feel certain that a vote for her in seventeen days' time would not be wasted.

`Leona,' said Alison Higgins, greeting her friend as she stepped down from the stage, 'no one could have done better than that. Not Roly, not Andrew Hardy, not any of them. That was a terrific start.'

`Thanks,' said the little woman brightly, gathering up her notes and shoving them untidily into her briefcase. 'Now all I have to do is keep up that sort of momentum for two and a half weeks.'

And you will, my dear,' said John Torrance, coming down the steps behind her. Higgins turned to look at him, urbane and handsome in his dark blue tailoring, and felt a crush coming on.

The Vice-chairman linked arms with the ladies, and walked them through the departing crowds towards the exit. As they went, they returned the nods and smiles of Leona's potential constituents.

`Where's Marsh? I didn't see him around,' said Alison, as they neared the double doors leading to the school's wide, floodlit yard. They were standing open.

`He nipped out halfway through the speech,' said Torrance. `To count the collection, I expect. I imagine that he's taking down the posters now, and tidying up the hall. That's the Agent's lot. Anyway,' he went on, I'm glad that Marshall isn't around, or our worthy but tedious Chairman and her husband, because I want to be very rude.'

`Do you indeed?' said Leona, smiling.

`Yes, I do. To celebrate our first meeting, I would like to invite the candidate to join me in a little supper at Rafaelli's. You too, Superintendent, of course.'

`That would be lovely,' said Leona, 'but I have to go home for Mark.'

`No, you don't,' said Alison, at once. 'I'll go back and relieve Maggie. This nice man wants to feed you, dear, and you've bloody well earned it! So go, or else. Here, gimme the keys of your car. We came in it together, after all. I'll take it home and John can drop you later.'

The Candidate sighed. 'I don't seem to have a choice, do I?' She fished the keys of her Alfa Romeo 164 from her bag and handed them over.

`Cheers,' said Higgins. 'See you later.' She turned and walked smartly off through the double doors and turned right, to the spot where Leona had parked earlier. They would have followed her at once, to Torrance's Jaguar which was parked alongside, had they not been stopped by two elderly fur-wearing, pearl-strung ladies who had sat in the front row during the meeting, hanging on the Candidate's every word.

Andy Martin, Adam Arrow and Neil Mcllhenney saw them, bent in conversation, as they strode into the yard, between the heavy iron gates. They saw Alison Higgins climb into the driver's seat of the black Alfa and pull on the seat belt. And to the right of the double door they saw Marsh Elliot running towards his brown Rover 820 SDi, registration number L511 QFT.

`Stop, Major!' Martin's command cut through the evening air. The Agent halted in midstride, looked around, then broke into a renewed sprint, his car key extended before him.

As John Torrance glanced up in surprise at the commotion, the detectives and the soldier began to run too, like hunters towards their prey.

They were sixty yards away, but the blast from the Alfa still took them off their feet, and its heat seemed to sear their lungs.

They picked themselves up, staring in horror at the roaring fireball. At its heart, they could see the outline of the car's skeleton, and of the dark, twisted shape behind the wheel. The Jaguar, which had been its neighbour in the park, lay on its side, with flames licking at its undercarriage.

Alison!' Neil Mcllhenney screamed, high-pitched. He broke into a lumbering run, but Andy Martin floored him with a rugby tackle before he had gone ten yards. As they hit the ground, the petrol tank of the Jaguar gave a dull, muffled 'Crump!' and a second column of flame shot fifty feet into the air.

The two policemen lay on the tarmac yard, with the Sergeant still struggling in the Chief Superintendent's iron grip. Still deafened by the first explosion, they did not hear the sound of Elliot's Rover as its heavy diesel engine barked into life. With eyes only for the horror of the inferno, they did not see it as it bore down on Adam Arrow, standing in front of the gateway.

The little soldier stood his ground, an automatic pistol in his hand as if from nowhere. The Rover, roaring in second gear, picked up speed across the yard. It was almost upon him when he fired three shots, 'Crack! Crack! Crack!' in less than a second.