He pushed himself up slowly from his chair, and walked over to a bureau beside the bay window of his bungalow. Skinner looked out through the lace curtains; the day had begun brightly in the east, but now the sky was overcast by grey cloud. It was Mother well as he remembered it.
Mr. Falkirk fumbled around in his desk, until he found a thick, well-thumbed reporter's notebook, and a fountain pen. A flash of memory came back to Bob from his copy-boy days as he watched the old editor resume his seat; he always wrote in green ink. "Just give me the basics," Mr. Falkirk instructed; suddenly there was a professional tone in his voice. "I know your family background well enough. What was your brother's full name?"
"Michael Niven Skinner; after my grandfather."
"Age?"
"Fifty-six."
"He'd have been educated at Knowetop Primary and Dalziel High, wouldn't he?"
"Yes. He played rugby for the school, and he won the English prize in his sixth year."
"Thank you, I'll mention both of those. He wouldn't have had far to walk to Dalziel," Mr. Falkirk grunted as he made the notes, 'since your house was just across the road, in Crawford Street.
"And after that," he continued, 'he was awarded a place at Sandhurst; that's right, isn't it?"
"Yes. He went straight from school. I was only about eight then,"
Skinner mused. "I remember him coming home on leave, with this wee swagger stick." He winced inwardly, but declined to mention that he had often been beaten with the same stick.
"Where did he serve, after he was commissioned?"
"At home, initially, then Germany, and finally Honduras; he saw action there."
"Yes. I remember your father telling me that it had a telling effect on him. He resigned his commission after that, didn't he, and came home?"
"Yes."
"But he couldn't settle down, could he?" the old man probed, gently.
"No. He was a lost and troubled soul."
"I know. I used to see him hanging around Mother well Cross with his cronies, going in and out of the Horseshoe Bar, or into the bookmakers' across from my office, and I used to grieve for your poor parents. I'll gloss over that part of his life, don't worry. I'll just say that he moved to… Where was it again? I only knew from your father that he was committed for a while."
"Gourock. He spent the last thirty years of his life in a Jesuit hostel in Gourock, overlooking the Clyde." Bob felt the great sadness grip him again.
"And how did he die?"
"We don't know for sure yet. His body was found in Perth on Saturday; he had been in the river. The police there are treating his death as suspicious, for the moment, pending post-mortem findings. He managed to find some sort of peace in Gourock, he managed to find true friends, and he lived there in what passed with him for happiness, until someone from his past turned up and lured him away."
"My, but that's awful. Do they know who this person was, the one he went away with?"
"No they do not, Nicol; or, rather, we do not. But you can be damned sure we're going to find out." Skinner looked across at the veteran.
"Those cronies you mentioned; can you put names to them?"
"I'm sure I can. Let me see, there was Cammy Winters and Willie Day, our printing press men, and wee Benny Crainey, and Waggy Roughhead … they called him that because of the way his head bobbed when he walked.
Then there was Jim Fletcher, the ex-policeman, and Pat Smith, the bookie's son."
"Are they still about the town?"
Mr. Falkirk scratched his chin. "Let's see. Cammy and Willie are dead; I know that. So is Fletcher. Benny and Waggy are still around, but they're old men now and no threat, I'd say to anyone. Pat Smith sold his betting shop as soon as his father died and went off to Canada with the girl who used to work behind the counter. He left his wife more or less penniless. If he ever comes back her brothers will do for him; a rough lot they were."
"Does the name Skipper mean anything to you?"
The old man frowned with the effort of recollection. "Skipper?
Skipper? Yes, of course," he exclaimed. "There was Skipper
Williamson. Do you not remember him? He was a foot baller played for Mother well, in the reserves mostly, unless they had a lot of injuries."
Skinner sent his mind scanning through the line-ups of early nineteen-seventies football teams. "Centre-half?" he asked. "Good in the air, but not too great on the ground?"
"That's him. I think his real name was Cecil; but everyone called him Skipper after they made him captain of the reserves. He liked a drink too, but not in the pubs. The foot ballers used to go to the Ex-Servicemen's Club. They thought it was more discreet. And come to think of it, that was another of your brother's hang-outs."
"Is he still around?"
"Very much so; but he's not in Mother well any more, other than at home games, in the hospitality box he keeps at Fir Park. He was a part-timer, and had a good job in the steel works so he was able to save up all his football money. Like a lot of players in those days, when he retired he bought a pub, the old Gaslight Bar in Windmillhill
Street. He refitted it, changed the name to the Bluenose Lounge, and attracted all the Rangers fans in the town. Since there are far more of them than there are Mother well supporters, he made a fortune. So he bought another old pub, in Wishaw this time, and did the same again.
Eventually, about fifteen years ago, he sold both places to one of the big brewers, and bought a hotel. He's done very well in that too, I hear."
"Do you know where?"
"Pitlochry."
Skinner felt a tiny chill ripple down his spine. "He won't find many bluenoses up there," he murmured.
"Oh, he isn't after that crowd any more. He's gone up-market. These days his clients are fishermen."
Twenty-Nine
"As I see it, Maggie, we don't have anywhere else to go after this," said Stevie Steele, keeping his voice low, even though he and the detective superintendent were alone in the small waiting room.
"The girl was there when the picture was unpacked. She was there when the device was ignited, even though she hadn't been invited to the ceremony, as George Regan has just confirmed with the practice manager at Candela and Finch. Okay, we don't actually have her on camera pushing the button on the remote, but we've got solid grounds for bringing her in, regardless of what this guy's going to say to us."
"Maybe so. No, certainly, you're right," she answered, 'but for safety's sake I still want to speak to him. The girl's still an outpatient in terms of the Mental Health Act. If this thing ever does wind up in court, I want to make sure there's no chance of our being accused of ignoring her rights as such. And there's something else too."
"What's that?"
"I'm not a one-hundred-per-cent book operator, Stevie. I have instincts and I pay heed to them until they prove unfounded. My instinct here is that this solution is too bloody easy. I cannot shake the feeling that there's a bigger picture… excuse the bad analogy.. and that we're not seeing it. Now tell me honestly; don't you feel that too?"
The young inspector flicked a white flake of dandruff from the lapel of his blazer. "Show me an angle we haven't covered, ma'am," he challenged. "Did she have an opportunity to plant the device? Yes, she did. Once Cahal O'Reilly had verified its arrival in safe condition, he and his secretary had to hurry back to George Street from the RSA for an evening committee meeting. They left Andrea there. No one at the gallery can remember her leaving, or can say for sure that she didn't have access to the picture alone. That part of the building isn't covered by cameras either. As for the device, it wasn't large; she could have had it in her handbag. And to top it all, she asked if she could go to the arrival of the container from Bilbao."