Quintin Jardine - Skinner's trail

`And when did he go?'

`About twenty minutes ago.'

`It must have been a sudden decision, judging from those mugs in the bedroom. What happened? Did that fat bastard Barratt tip you off? I promised him that if he did, I would rip his balls off. He should have believed me.'

Big Joanne shook her head. Naw, it wisnae Ricky. We ha this call a wee while ago. Just after ten. We've been screenin all the phone-calls — no' that there've been many — leaving the answer machine on all the time. So we taped it.'

`That makes a change,' said Martin. 'A wee bit of luck for once. Play it back for us.'

She stepped over to a low sideboard on which the combination phone and answering machine sat, and pressed the replay button. There was a whirr as the tape rewound. Joanne turned up the volume.

Suddenly the rewind stopped and replay began. After four or five seconds, there was an intake of breath and a voice filled the room: a strange, strained voice, as if the speaker was concentrating very hard on something very important. 'Don't say anything. Just listen. I need to see you right away. It's about Tony's will. It's turned up. Go to the Botanics now, get in the back gate, and meet me at the entrance to the big glasshouse at eleven. Get moving.'

The line clicked as the phone at the other end was replaced. There was a whistle for a few seconds, before the machine switched itself off.

Martin and Mcllhenney looked at each other in astonishment. 'Jesus!' whispered the detective sergeant.

`Do you know who that is?' Martin asked Joanne.

It sounded like that wee lawyer chap, Cocozza — him that was Tony Manson's message boy. Paul knows him. He sounded funny,

'No bloody wonder, Joanne. He's been dead for a day and a half!’

Skinner leapt to the phone and picked it up on the first ring. For one of the few times in his short life, Jazz had been difficult about sleep. Eventually he had succumbed to the cajoling of his parents, and now lay upstairs, fitfully, in his cot.

`Hello: Skinner was unusually curt.

`Bob, sorry, did I wake you?'

`No, but you'd better not have wakened the baby. What's the score?'

`I'm calling from Joanne's. Ainscow was here, but he's gone. Called by telephone, half an hour ago, to a meeting at the big glasshouse in the Botanics at eleven. Right this minute, in fact.'

`Who called him?'

'Would you believe, Richard Cocozza?'

`That's a bloody good trick. A tape.'

`Yes. That must have been why he was tortured. To force him to tape a message setting up Ainscow, and to get Joanne's telephone number out of him.'

`Clever bastard, right enough,' said Skinner, almost to himself.

`Yes,' agreed Martin. Lucan’s English must have been a lot better than he let on. And his brother must have given him chapter and verse on everyone involved at this end. We’re heading off there now, boss. Will you call in back-up?'

`Bugger that! I'm your back-up.'

Martin laughed. 'So much for the family man. See you at the Inverleith Row gate.'

Skinner hung up. He turned, to find Sarah standing in the doorway.

`What was that?'

`Andy.'

`What's up?'

‘Ainscow. Someone's got to him before we did. He's walking into a trap. I've got to go — and I could be a while.'

She crossed the room and kissed him. 'Okay, but be safe.' `Don't worry, love. This one's just a walk in the park. Literally.'

He picked up the sweater which he had discarded earlier while cradling Jazz, and pulled it on as he went out into the cool night air. The garden was flooded by the light of a full moon as he walked to his car, reversed out into Fairyhouse Avenue, and headed towards Inverleith, and Edinburgh's famous Royal Botanic Garden. He was driving fast up East Fettes Avenue, past the headquarters building, when his car-phone rang. He pushed the receive button.

`Bob, my friend. It is Arturo Pujol. I know it is late, but Sarah said it was okay to call you with my news. We have had a great excitement again in L'Escala. The man you are looking for in Britain, Lucan, the brother of Vaudan. He is here in Spain, in jail.'

Skinner smiled to himself in the dark of the car, a satisfied smile — the sort that comes with the final piece of the jigsaw. What happened?' he asked.

It was this afternoon. Young Joaquim — the officer who was with you and whose shot killed Vaudan — he was leaving the Gala, the bar across from my barracks, when he was attacked

by a wild-eyed man with a knife. The man was dirty and had been days needing a shave. It was Lucan, and he had in his pocket a page torn from our local newspaper, the Empordan, describing Vaudan's death, and with a photograph of the man who shot him. Joaquim was cut, but he fought him off, and was able to stop him with two shots in the leg. He said later that he had been aiming for his head.' Pujol paused. 'It seems that. Joaquim's shooting has returned to its normal form. Does all that interest you?'

As Pujol finished his tale, Skinner drew his car to a halt beside the side entrance to the Botanic Garden. 'Arturo,' he said, 'it's fascinating. I'm a bit busy right now, but I'll call you back tomorrow. We'll talk further and, who knows, I may have an even stranger story for you.'

Martin took the roundabout at high speed, and swung back towards Ferry Road, the shortest route from Leith to the Botanic Garden.

The colourful sparkling of the moonlight on the petrol spill gave him advance warning of the hazard, but far too late for him to take any evasive action. He hit the slick as he exited from the roundabout, and the car went into an uncontrollable spin. He steered into it, but with absolutely no effect. Mcllhenney, in the front passenger seat, braced himself for the impact which he saw coming, but which Martin did not, as he fought for control.

The off-side of the car slammed into the base of the solid iron lamp-standard, wrapping itself around it like a sleeping lover in the night. Maggie Rose, in the back seat, was held in place by her retaining strap. Mcllhenney was pulled up short by his belt, as it cut into his chest and side. But Andy Martin, taken unawares, slammed sideways into the arch of the driver's door, his head hitting the tightly padded metal with a definitive thud. He rebounded back against Mcllhenney, unconscious, and with blood beginning to trickle from a cut above his right

eye.

The engine stalled. Rose and Mcllhenney sat in the shocked silence, until Martin's weight against him triggered the sergeant into action. Gently he straightened the other man on his seat, with his head against its restraint.

`Sir,' he said urgently. 'Andy?'

Martin gave a faint groan, but that was all.

`He's spark out,' said Mcllhenney to Rose, over his shoulder. 'See if the phone's still working.'

The inspector obeyed her subordinate's order and took the instrument from its cradle between the front seats. Its dial showed that it was still operational. She keyed in the Fettes number. 'This is DI Rose. I'm at the foot of Ferry Road at the Leith end, in DS Martin's car. There's been an accident. One injured: unconscious. Get an ambulance here fast.' She ended the call and searched her diary for Skinner's car-phone number. She dialled it in and waited.

`I don't believe it,' she said to Mcllhenney. The boss's car-phone is engaged!'

She dialled another number: her own. A sleepy-voiced Mario McGuire answered. Thirty seconds later he was wide awake and calling Brian Mackie.

‘Come on, people, you should have been here first!'

Skinner voiced his exasperation in the darkness of his car as he sat at the end of the short roadway off Inverleith Row, which led to the smaller of the two gates into the Royal Botanic Garden. He glanced at the computer-set time display on the LCD panel of his cassette player. It showed seven minutes past eleven.