Quintin Jardine - Skinner’s round

They walked from the tee together, as before. Skinner resumed his narrative. The first thought that came to me, as we bathed the baby one night, was "Why is Darren rubbishing this course quite so hard?" I mean it's brand-new, but it's well over seven thousand yards long, and to any normal human being, even a seasoned pro like Tiger Nakamura, it looks bloody difficult. Suddenly, among all the rubbishing, I caught a whiff of something unpleasant, and potentially, dangerous. I caught the scent of envy. And then, to add to that, I remembered something else. I wasn't able to confirm it until this morning, but once I did, that part of the story was pretty well firmed up.'

He fell silent for a while as they reached the green, as he watched Atkinson line up his putt across the difficult, slanting surface, and hit it, to stop two inches above the hole. The champion tapped in and stood back, applauding with the rest, as Skinner two-putted safely for his par. 'You're doing well, partner,' he said, coolly. 'Keep up the good work.'

`Thanks,' said Skinner as he tossed his putter to Mcllhenney, and began the twisting walk to the next tee. Anyway,' he went on, 'as I was saying, another recollection had come to me.

Last Sunday, Lord Kinture was telling me about all the people who wanted to invest in Witches' Hill. "Everyone and his brother literally" he said.'

`When I asked him again, this morning, he confirmed what I had guessed. He told me that, originally, you and your brother Rick had wanted to be major players in Witches' Hill. In fact you wanted to be the majority players, and to have sway over architecture, management and everything else. He said that you two realised that Witches' Hill had the potential to become the world's top golfing resort in the world's finest golfing country. He told me that you offered him all the development capital and your input on design, assuming that he'd jump at the chance.

But he and Mickey White didn't want you or your money. They had their own, and their own ideas and plans for Witches' Hill. Lord Kinture said that when he turned you down, you and Rick were… "incandescent" was his word.'

He paused as they reached the tee, and looked down the narrow sixth fairway. 'So Darren, I added all that up in my nasty detective's head, and I was forced to a conclusion that I genuinely hate… that as well as Mafioso Mike Morton, another potential bidder, but a man who tends to pick fights in public with people who have crossed him, I've got two other people with just as strong a motive for killing Michael White.'

Skinner broke off, as Atkinson hit a careful three-wood to the heart of the fairway, away from any of the inviting bunkers. His own shot, a full drive, edged perilously close to a sand-trap on the right, but bounded just beyond its clutches. They marched off together once more.

`Where was I?' said Skinner. 'Yes, White. As I picture it, you and Rick saw him as the barrier to your involvement in Witches' Hill. You knew that Kinture needed his cash. So you reckoned that if he was dead, you and Rick could buy out his widow. You had the motive, you two, and your behaviour with Sue Kinture, plus your comment to me that you'd like to invest, proved that you had thought about it after the event. So why not before it?'

He paused and looked at Atkinson. The champion was striding along beside him, head down, unsmiling, looking for all the world as if he was concentrating on his next shot. 'That brought me to the heart of it, Darren. Could I picture you, you of all people, as someone who would murder, who would take lives in pursuit of gain or ambition?

And the terrible thing is, man, and it pains me, I can.' He shook his head.

`Hundreds, thousands of people, maybe more, have the motivation to murder. The questions which follow are, "Is it worth it?" and "Are they the sort of people who would kill for their own gain?" Whatever the answer to the first question, the answer to the second is almost invariably — and fortunately — a loud "No!"

`Premeditated killers, as opposed to the spur-of-the-moment domestic variety, are totally ruthless in their pursuit of an objective. They are totally determined. They are dedicated.

They are mentally very, very strong.

I've just described the qualities which go to make business tycoons, fighting soldiers, successful policemen and many others, including champion sportsmen. The difference between all of them and the sort of person who killed White is that they possess compassion.

They have the conscience gene that's missing from the killer's DNA make-up.

I've dealt with people like that, Darren. I can pick them out. My method's pretty crude, but I've never known it to fail. I choose my moment, and I just look into their eyes!'

They stopped at Skinner's ball. He beckoned McIlhenney towards him, and selected a wedge.

His shot was high and sure, to the back of the green, not flirting with the bunker on its front edge, behind which the hole was cut. Atkinson, emotionless, called for his sand-iron, and floated a soft, delicate shot. If the putting surface had been a dartboard, it would have been a bull.

They approached the green and the champion looked stonily at the ground ahead. 'I've looked into your eyes, Darren. I did it again, just now. Every time you concentrate on a golf shot, and hit it, the real you is there to be seen. You can't hide it. I look, and I see ruthlessness, determination, dedication and strength. But I don't see a trace of compassion.

I've looked in your eyes, my friend, and I believe. You could do it. You've got deadly eyes, Darren, the kind I've seen in dozens of interview rooms and, once or twice, in people standing over their victims. None of them have ever walked away from me.'

He lined his putt and hit it straight and sure, to the edge of the hole. Atkinson's attempt, from fifteen feet, stopped on the edge. Characteristically, he slapped his thigh, the only form of emotion he had shown since the round began.

They walked off the green together. 'I can read your mind as well,' said Skinner. 'You're thinking, "I'm all right. He can't prove a thing. I was in England when White was butchered, in the midst of a crowd at Bracklands when Masur was drowned, and at the dinner last night when Morton was set alight."'

Skinner looked quickly at him, sideways as he spoke. Atkinson's expression stayed stony.

`That's it, Darren,' the policeman said quietly. 'That's the last piece of proof, and all the confession I'll ever need. The fact that I told you about Morton, whose death is still a secret to everyone except my people, Lord Kinture, and Arthur Highfield, and you never even twitched… because you knew!'

They stepped in silence on to the seventh tee. Atkinson looked down the length of the 575-yard hole, reached out a hand to McGuire for his driver and crashed out one of the longest drives that Skinner had ever seen. The ball carried for over 300 yards and bounced on for another fifty.

As he bent to retrieve his tee, for an instant the real Darren Atkinson looked up at Skinner. He spoke not a word, but in a flashing moment, his mask of affability was ripped away and a driven fury shone in his eyes.

The policeman stared back at him, unblinking, before turning away to concentrate his mind on the shot ahead. His drive was as straight as Atkinson's, but finished sixty yards shorter.

It's right, though,' said Skinner as they jumped down from the slightly elevated tee. 'You do have alibis for each crime. But Rick, your brother, he doesn't.'

They walked in silence to their second shots. Skinner's three-wood approach left him fifty yards short of the green, but Atkinson's sweetly struck two-iron soared unerringly to its heart.

`You might not believe this,' said Skinner, on the move once more, 'but the fact that you and Rick are twins might have escaped me, but for my friend Henry Wills. He saw you yesterday, in the exhibition tent, and he thought you were Rick.