Thursday legends - Skinner 10 (44 page)

'If
Heard's been banging her, she's of age, so it's no crime. If she's been
blackmailing him, that is, but there's been no complaint. If there is, we'll
investigate; until then, we leave her alone.'

'Fair
enough, Boss. So we keep up the tail on Heard, then?' 'Until further notice.'

'Do
you think we could get a tap on his phone?' 'Not a fucking chance. You do it
the hard way.' McGurk scowled. 'Great.'

The
Superintendent chuckled. 'It's a hard old life, son. I'll give you some more
bad news. The technical boys reported back on Shearer's electronic organiser.
It's useless; it's been in the water too long. They can't get a bloody thing
off it.

'Right.
You get off and team up with Wilding again, so you can both follow Heard after
he leaves work. And just in case you think I'm doing fuck-all on this
investigation, I'm off up to Harry's Bar, in Randolph Place.

'I
had another chat with the Bryant girl; she told me that Mr Shearer used to look
in there sometimes, if he'd been working late.'

69

Martin
swung the MGF into his driveway, smiling as he saw the raised garage door and
Karen's car inside. 'We'll need to do something about that,' he chuckled to
himself. 'The F-reg Nova lives outdoors.'

As
he eased himself out of the sports car, a voice - a soft, familiar voice -
called out behind him. 'How are you, Andy?' He had hoped to avoid the moment,
but he knew in his heart that it was better faced sooner than later.

'Hello,
Rhian,' he answered. 'I'm fine. How are you?'

'Okay.'
He was relieved when she smiled. 'I can't help but notice, though, that you're
a hell of a fast worker.'

He
looked down, grinning himself. 'No. You're wrong there; it took me far too long
to work out how I felt about Karen. I'd been taking her for granted, behaving towards
her like an absolute shit. I wasn't much of a gentleman with you either; I'm
sorry for that.'

'Don't
be.' Her smile widened. 'I chased you like the strumpet I am. I'm sorry too,
for letting you down like I did with Paul Blacklock.'

'Ahh,
don't worry about that; I was no angel either.'

She
gave him a long, meaningful look. 'I don't mean about fucking him; I mean about
spilling the state secrets. That was a really stupid thing to do and it
compromised you. Look, don't feel guilty about me or anything; it was just a
fling for both of us. You concentrate on being happy; I haven't spoken
to
your lady yet, but she looks terrific.'

He
sighed with a sort of relief, as she turned towards her front door. 'Thanks,
Rhian,' he told her. 'Just don't go calling yourself a strumpet again; not
around me at any rate. Hey, Juliet's not mad with me is she?'

'Only
because you didn't give her a seeing-to,' the girl laughed. 'No. Mum's full of
herself just now. She's making noises about going to live with Spike and
leaving this place to us. I don't know if I fancy being chaperone to my kid
sister, though.' He voice dropped until it became a confidential whisper.
'Between you and me, I fear she prefers girls to boys. She has this pal, Sophie
Heard: I walked into her room one day and caught them doing something very
naughty to each other. Tongues and things
...

'A
few weeks back, Margot got very mopey. Eventually she told me that Sophie's
father had found out about them too; now he's sent her away to sea, or
something, and told Margot to keep away from her when she gets back.' Rhian
gave a mock sigh. 'Blood will out, I suppose. She always was Daddy's little
girl.'

'How
is your father these days?' he asked, casually. 'Do you ever see him?'

'No,'
she replied, a little wistfully. 'He's living happily ever after.' She waved
goodbye and stepped inside.

Andy
scratched his chin as he walked into the garage, closing the door behind him
and entering the house through the internal, fire-resistant door. Karen was
waiting for him at the top of the stairs, in the living-room doorway, smiling
broadly. He dropped his briefcase, took her in his arms and kissed her.

'D'you
still love me then?' he asked, as they came up for
air.

'Too
bloody right. Guess what? I've got a teaching job. It's only a short-term
contract, covering maternity leave for a girl in a school up in Oxgangs, but
it's a foot in the door at least. I start after the holidays.'

'Good
for you. In that case we'd better get down to planning the wedding: it'll have
to be mid-July if we're going to spend a month on honeymoon like we discussed.
That shouldn't clash with Bob's plans. He's taking the family to Spain for the
last week in June and the first half of July.'

He
picked up his briefcase once more and tossed in into the living room, before
going upstairs to change. 'Have you got more work in there?' Karen asked as he
reappeared, in jeans and a white tee-shirt.

'The
latest statements and officer reports in the Shearer case: they're my reading
for tonight. I'll chuck it in an hour or two though. Maybe we can catch a movie
somewhere.'

'Deal.
You get started, I'll whip up something exciting for supper.'

He
opened his briefcase and took out the Shearer folder, homing straight in on the
summary of Dan Pringle's interviews with Janine Bryant and Andrew John, and
Skinner's note of his telephone conversation with Mitchell Laidlaw in Hong
Kong. 'Oh yes, Mr Heard, you're well in the frame,' he murmured.

His
eyebrows rose in surprise as he read Jack McGurk's report of the fund manager's
lunch-time excursion, and his meeting with Margot Lewis at the zoo.
Superintendent Pringle had added a note, recording his theory that a sexual
relationship had existed between Heard and his daughter's friend, and that he
had been forced to buy her silence.

Martin
smiled as he read. 'Close, Dan,' he muttered, 'but no cigar. If Heard was
paying Margot off, he was probably protecting his daughter.'

He
had almost finished his reading when Karen reappeared from the kitchen,
carrying a tray with a bowl of cold melon-and-ginger soup, setting them on two
occasional tables which she had placed in front of the sofa.

'Well?'
she asked, as he put the folder back in his briefcase and turned his attention
to their meal. 'Any sign of the big breakthrough today?'

'Not
much. We got into Alec Smith's safe and found, as far as any of us could see,
no more than the sad ravings of an obsessed, lonely man.'

'No
link between the two murders, then?'

'Other
than Bob's football connection, you mean? No, none that I could see. There are
a hell of a lot of threads in this investigation, love, but none of them appear
to be interconnected. It still looks as if that bastard Scotland killed Alec.
As for the Diddler, on the face of it his arch-enemy Luke Heard is the main
candidate but there's no evidence against him, not a scrap.'

They
ate in silence for a while; when the soup was finished, they took the bowls
back through to the kitchen and returned with plates of pasta, with a creamy
forestiere
sauce.

'You're
no closer to an arrest with Shearer, then?' Karen asked, as they neared the end
of their meal.

'No.
The only positive thing that's happened today came from a chat Dan Pringle had
with a barmaid in Harry's. She told him that she saw the Diddler on the Tuesday
before he was killed. He came in on his own, then got into conversation with a
girl. Eventually they left together, she thought she heard Shearer say
something about the Bar Roma.

'The
staff there were pretty vague, but Dan made them check their credit-card slips
and receipts. They came up with an answer; one minestrone, one pasta starter,
two Calzones, two cappuccinos and a litre of house red.'

She
grinned. 'Any garlic bread?'

'Not
that Dan mentions.'

'He
must have scored, then. Fresh breath in the clinches, and all that.'

'Whether
he did or not, we need to talk to that girl. But we have no description, and
the barmaid is sure she hasn't been in Harry's before or since that night.'

He
forked up the last of his linguine, then leaned back on the sofa. 'Okay, enough
shop. You want to go out? Anything you fancy seeing?'

She
slid closer and laid her head on his shoulder. 'There's a new Miles Grayson
movie on at the Odeon
...'
She
paused. 'But to be honest, in the dark I prefer you to him.'

He
laughed. 'Since you put it that way...'

'Oh,
I do. You go and open a nice bottle of wine and we'll just have a quiet night
in, talking and looking at the paintings.'

'Okay.'

He
went back to the kitchen and chose a chunky Thomas Hardy Shiraz from the
wine-rack. When he returned, Karen was standing, brow furrowed, looking
intently at one of the pictures. It was a vivid oil of North Berwick beach,
looking back from the sea.

'How
long have you had this?' she asked.

'It's
one of the newer ones: done by a local artist. I bought it in the Westgate
Gallery. There should be a date on it.'

She
peered at the bottom corner. 'Two years old. So that will be Alec Smith's
house, there, at a time when he was actually living in it.' 'I suppose so.'

'In
that case,' she murmured, pointing at a small, predominantly red, image which,
as his gaze followed the direction of her finger, seemed to spring out from the
painting as never before. 'What the hell's that?'

70

The
young Sergeant's face was split by a yawn, when the phone rang in his pocket.
He answered it almost eagerly; anything to break the boredom of the stake-out.
One day, Dan Pringle might forgive him for whatever it was he had done.

'McGurk,'
he answered.

'DCS
Martin, Jack. Where are you right now?'

'Outside
Luke Heard's house, sir.' Unconsciously, he pulled himself up in his seat. Ray
Wilding, beside him as usual, noticed his reaction and snapped awake himself.

'What's
happening there?'

'Not
a lot, Boss. A girl arrived about half-an-hour ago and let herself in with a
key. I'm pretty sure it's the daughter.'

'Home
is the sailor
...'
Martin murmured.
'Okay, Sergeant, I want you to stay there. Don't let Heard out of your sight. I
may very well want to talk to him later.'

'Sir,
we're due to be relieved by a couple of uniforms in an hour. Mr Pringle okayed
it.'

'Don't
make me repeat myself, Jack.'

'No,
sir.' McGurk rolled his eyes at Wilding as he put the phone back in his pocket.
'Sounds like the DCS has lost patience. Thank Christ for it; so have I.'

Martin
cradled the telephone and looked at Karen; he crossed his fingers and held them
up. 'Honey, have you done a wash since you moved in?'

'Only
a coloured one,' she replied. 'I couldn't work out the programme for a white
wash on the machine; I was going to ask you tomorrow morning.'

'You
beauty.' He turned and bolted downstairs, heading for the laundry room beside
the garage.

When
he returned a minute or so later, he was holding in his left hand a large white
bin-bag, stuffed full. Without a word, he picked up the telephone directory and
flicked through it until he found a single unique entry - there was no-one else
of that name in the Edinburgh area. He memorised the address.

'Listen,
I've got to go out. There's something I have to do and someone I have to see.
If I'm wrong, I'll look like a bloody idiot. If I'm right, I'll have lived up
to all that bullshit of mine on Radio Forth. I tell you, my love, there is one
thing a detective should never take lightly and that's a Bob Skinner hunch.'

She
stared at him, smiling in astonishment. 'Andy, what the hell is this about?'

He
beamed back at her. 'You know, maybe we should rethink your resignation from
the force,' he said, 'because you're playing a hell of a good game tonight.