Quintin Jardine: Skinner's ordeal

There are few things in life as stomach-tugging as the ringing of a telephone at an unusual or unexpected hour.

Professor Sarah Grace Skinner lived with the phone in a state of watchful neutrality. For years, in medical practice in New York and in Britain, and more recently as a policeman's wife, it had been her constant companion.

Yet, even in the few weeks since she had taken up her new post at Edinburgh University, she had come to regard her small study in the old building as an island of peace. No one bothered her there. In all that time she had received precisely three telephone calls; one, internally, from the Principal to wish her luck with her first lecture, and the others from her husband, warning her that he would be late for dinner.

Now, when the phone rang in the second that she hung her overcoat on the tall stand in the corner of the room, she jumped involuntarily. She glanced at her Giorgio watch. It was 8.17 a.m., on the last Friday in October.

She stared at the flat cream instrument in surprise, and in apprehension. As she took the three paces from the coatstand to her desk, fingers of fear ran through her. The baby had been asleep when she had left him, twenty minutes earlier, in the nanny's care, lying in the recommended position, the one which was credited with such success in the reduction of cot deaths.

Her husband had left home half-an-hour before her, bound for a snap and unannounced inspection of the CID office in Hawick, where there had been a consistent decline in detection rates over the previous six months. He would still be driving, down the fast, sometimes difficult A7.

Her step-daughter, only ten years younger than her, at twenty-one, had been back at university in Glasgow since mid-October, pining for the recently discovered love of her life. He, in his turn, was at an anti-drugs liaison meeting in Cambridge.

Her father? He had just turned seventy-two, and his health was far from robust, although he had declared himself hale and hearty when she had called him the weekend before.

She steeled herself and picked up the phone.

None of her personal-disaster scenarios had come true, but as she listened to the shocked voice on the other end of the line, she felt her hand shake, and the blood drained from her face.

Of course,' she said, very quietly. 'I'll cancel today's lectures and tutorials. I'll be there within the hour.'

He was on the outskirts of Galashiels when the car-phone's trembler sounded over the droning voices of Good Morning Scotland.

`Bugger!' he said aloud, annoyed that the call had interrupted an item on the Radio Scotland news magazine reporting on the contrast in drug-related fatalities between Glasgow, where the previous year's record high had been surpassed before the end of the tenth month, and Edinburgh, where the incidence had fallen yet again.

Deputy Chief Constable Bob Skinner tolerated his earphone as a necessary evil, something that went with his job. But every time it rang he resented its intrusion. He valued drive time as an opportunity to think, away from interruptions, or as he was doing on the journey to Hawick, to catch up on the news of the day. Just as his wife enjoyed the sanctuary of her office, so he regarded his car as a place of peace.

Frowning, and with a slight shake of his steel-grey mane, he pushed the button to take the call. 'Skinner,' he snapped into the microphone clipped into the panelling above his head.

`Bob. It's Jimmy here.' Chief Constable Sir James Proud's voice was distorted by static, but still Skinner could hear the tension in his friend's tone. 'Where are you just now?'

`Just coming into Gala. Why?'

There was a pause. Uncharacteristically, Skinner felt anxiety grip him. He glanced at his car clock. It showed 8.19 a.m.

The silence extended, and Skinner realised that the connection had been broken in his hilly surroundings. For a second or two, as he drove on into the small Borders town, he fretted about whatever it was that had shaken his imperturbable boss.

But then the presenter of Good Morning Scotland, her voice sounding as unsteady as Proud Jimmy's, overrode the drugs story. As the woman read the newsflash, the DCC drew his car to a halt at the side of the road and sat there, listening in horror.

By the time the phone rang again, he had turned the car around, and was heading back north up the A7, filled with fear of what awaited him.

‘Mario, enough! Okay, the boss is away today, but that makes it worse. It means I have to shift all the crap in the in-tray myself, and sort out for him only the things I reckon he has to see.'

The grin on the big, swarthy face widened into a broad smile. `So this is the reality of marriage! When we were living in sin you wouldn't have said "no" to a spot of morning glory.'

Maggie laughed. 'Dream on, Detective Sergeant McGuire. Sunday, maybe, but not through the week!'

She stood up from the breakfast table and dropped her cereal bowl into the dishwasher, holding out her hand for her husband to pass his across. The smile was still there, full of mischief. He caught her wrist, drew her to him gently and kissed her, ruffling her red hair.

'Okay then, Inspector Rose, let's go and put in another day towards our pensions.

She chuckled at his sudden sombre tone. 'You really are up for the job this morning! Has Superintendent Higgins been rattling your cage?'

Alison? No, she's fine. It's just the way things have been since we got back from our honeymoon. On this shift I've been catching the shittiest, most boring shouts, that's all. I feel more like a road-sweeper than a CID man. I'm thinking about putting in for a transfer to Andy Martin's outfit.'

His wife's eyebrows rose. 'Drugs and Vice? Indeed, you will not! That might be all right for Neil Mcllhenney, but I'm not having you mixing with all those whores and junkies!'

The last traces of McGuire's grin vanished. 'I'm serious. Car thefts and shop-lifting, that's all I'm doing these days. I've been in that office long enough.'

Maggie straightened his tie, and kissed him, quickly. 'Maybe you have. I'll let you into a secret. There's an acting Detective Inspector vacancy coming up in Special Branch. The Boss asked Brian Mackie yesterday if he'd like you posted to him.

And the Thin One said "Yes please". I wasn't going to tell you, but..

He looked at her, incredulous. 'Are you serious?'

`Never more so. But just you remember, when the Boss Man tells you, it comes as a complete surprise — okay? I like being the DCC's personal assistant, and I'm not after a transfer, except on promotion.'

He nodded, the customary smile back in place. 'Trust me. I'll give Big Bob my best

"bewildered Italian" look.

When'll he tell me, d'you think?'

At the beginning of next week, probably. The vacancy's there already. It's Joe Brady's job. Remember, he won a million or soon the pools. Now, McGuire,' she said firmly, 'let's go. I do not like being late.'

Mario gave her rump an affectionate squeeze and picked up his jacket. 'Okay. You go and run the world. I'll go and stamp out shop-lifting.'

He was about to close the front door behind them when the phone rang. Maggie looked up at him in surprise. 'Yours or mine, d'you think?'

`Who knows?' he said. 'Let's find out.' He stepped back into the hall and picked up the phone.

`Hello,' he said. 'You're connected to Mario and Maggie's answering machine. If you'd like to leave a message, please speak after the tone. Beep.'

Watching from the doorway, Maggie saw him stand suddenly bolt upright, to attention.

'Sorry, sir. Yes, she's still here. The radio? No, we didn't have it on.' He fell silent and as he listened his face grew grim.