Quintin Jardine: Skinner's ghosts

'I am so, so, sorry for the fool I've been. Please, please forgive me. I accused you of being disloyal to me, and I drove you away in the process. But it's me who failed the loyalty test, in a big way.' He set her back on her feet.

'Yeah,' she said, her smile gone once more, 'You sure did. But I have to tell you, husband, we're even on that score.'

He felt a punch, a hard, winding punch, in the pit of his stomach, but he rode out its force. 'This Terry guy, yes?'

She nodded.

'Well,' he sighed, 'you were entitled. As far as I'm concerned it never happened.'

'Oh but it did, lover,' she insisted. 'And you must listen to me.

Like I said, I have to tell you why.

'It had nothing to do with entitlement, or revenge. I was evening the score between us, yes, but with a good motive behind it, I hope.

'I decided I should go to bed with Terry for one reason alone and I'm telling you for that same reason – so that I'l never in the future, if ever I was stupid enough, be able to brandish my fidelity over your head like a club.' She laid her forehead against his chest, and spoke quietly. 'This is what happened.

'I invited him on a dinner date, and I even insisted on paying.

Afterwards, I took him to a hotel room I'd booked, and I said, "Okay, Terry, now give me your best, and I'l give you mine." As it turned out, his was a lot better than mine – you'l be glad to know I'm lousy at casual sex – but it was nowhere, my love, nowhere near as good as yours.

'When we'd done it – once was enough – I got out of bed, took a shower, said "Thanks and Good Night", and went home, feeling guilty about using Terry, but leaving my banner of virtue behind me as I had set out to do. I didn't feel like a whore, though. I was relieved, because I'd been able to do what I believed was necessary, and most of al because I was ready to go home.

'I want to make a fresh start,' she whispered. 'Forgiveness on both sides.' She looked up to find his eyes looking solemnly into hers.

'If Terry had looked in my bag when I was in the shower,' she said, 'he'd have found the plane tickets there: Edinburgh via Amsterdam, one way.'

'Tickets?' he asked, hopeful y.

'Of course we both came back,' she said. 'Jazz is with Alex.' She grinned. 'Hey, your gal's getting a touch broody, Pops. Maybe having her baby brother back will calm her down a bit.'

She hesitated. 'Alex told me all about Pam; she told me the whole story That it was her who tipped off Spotlight? It was her who set 277 you up with the bribe thing? And al because you put her brother away for something or other. How driven can a person be?'

Bob shook his head. 'Alex doesn't know the whole story, love.

Neither does Andy. Only you can ever know it. Sit down.' He took her hand and led her to the couch, sitting her down and facing her along the leather cushions.

'I put Pam's brother away all right, Sarah love. Six feet deep.

'Remember the time we had the President of Syria here, and he was kil ed? Remember the man who shot him, and who was going to kil me, and you too, because I found out the truth?'

Her face went white. She leaned, suddenly and heavily, against the back of the sofa. 'The man you shot dead? That was Pam's brother?'

'Yes, that's who he was. His real name was Ross Masters. Just like Heuer, he was a soldier who'd become a professional assassin, and he worked within the intelligence community. He and Pamela were very close…' He hesitated, and she caught his meaning.

'Incestuous, you mean?'

'That's right,' Bob grunted, grimly 'Incest, the game the whole family can play! Ross called her Polly, by the way. She came to hate it if that name was used by anyone else, even by her poor mug of a husband. The marriage was Ross's idea, she told me. Purely for show.

'The two of them were so close in fact, that she knew what Ross did, and the risks it involved. They had an arrangement. He always contacted her, in person or by telephone, within a three-month period.

He told her that if ever he failed to do that, it would certainly be because he was dead. If that happened, she was to go to a private safe depository in London and present a key which he had given her.

'Just over three months after Ross and I had our fatal encounter, she made that trip. She was given a box which her brother had kept.

Inside, she found a hundred thousand pounds, in Bank of England notes, and a letter.'

He reached into the pocket of his soft brown leather jacket and took out a folded piece of paper. 'This is it.' He began to read.

'My darling Polly

'You re reading this, so I'm dead. You can be sure of that, and you can be sure also that my end will have been unrecorded.

The work I have been doing lately has been so secret and potentially calamitousor those who commissioned me, that if I fail or die in the act, it will be as if I have disappeared from the face of the earth. My real identity died a while back, as you know, in a genuine helicopter crash in Oman, in which Ross Masters was listed among the dead, burned to ashes in the process.

'Yesterday I met a man. His name is Bob Skinner, and he works in Edinburgh. I do not expect to die on this assignment, but if I do, then I know within myself and with a great certainty that it will be Bob Skinner who will kill me. He is a career policeman, but he has a certain quality too, one which only people like me can see in others. He may not even know it himself, but Mr Skinner is a killer, just like me. He is tenacious, he is very good, and it is possible that before this commission is complete, he and I wil have a confrontation. Should that not happen I wil have been in touch as usual. But should Skinner get too close, then one of us wil not survive, and you may have to read this letter.

'Pol y, as you know, I don 'tfear death. But I am proud, as you are, and I am vengeful, as you are also. Take al the money in this box, most of my savings from my career as a contractor.

I would like you to use some of it, at least, to ensure that Skinner accounts for my death in a meaningful way. Don't have him kil ed, though, unless you have no other choice. He does not fear death either, and in any event, you would have to be certain of success, or he would be very dangerous.

'You we always been a creative girl. Use your talents, and this money, to even my score with my executioner. Take Skinner's life from him, not in an instant, but in a way that wil hurt him for as long as he breathes. But be careful, touch none of his, or he wil hunt you down. Hurt him alone.

'There is a man who wil help you. He is an acquaintance of mine, in the same line of work, and he has met Skinner also.

His name is Peter Gilbert Heuer, and he is very bitter. He can be contacted by placing a personal ad in the Northern Echo on any Tuesday, under a Box Number, simply asking PGH to respond. Peter, with you and only three other people, knows my real name: ask him for it, to confirm his identity.

'Do this for me Pol y, as best you can. I leave you my heart and my undying love, for you and I are soulmates.

'Goodbye, Ross'

Bob folded the letter, put it back in his pocket, and looked again at his wife.

'So Polly, or Pamela, rather, took the money, took her marketing degree and experience, and joined the police, my force naturally, as a late entrant. Once there she took the service options which would bring her closest to me. She even had an affair with the Force Press Officer, who knows me better than most, as part of her preparation.

'When the time was right she contacted Heuer. When he heard that it was me she was after, he was only too willing to help her.

'She had her plan al along, and it worked better than she had ever dared to hope. Had it not been for a couple of mistakes that she made, I could have been convicted. As a minimum, if things had worked out, I'd have had to leave the force under a very big cloud.