Slipping the pistol butt-first into his pocket, Skinner pulled him up with his left hand and punched him, once, very hard, with his right fist, in the middle of the forehead. The Russian’s eyes glazed as he sagged, unconscious.
In the moment that the DCC stood and turned, Malenko, with his back to him, managed to break free of the young Sergeant Steele’s judo hold, and hit him with a head-butt, in the same way that he had incapacitated Pringle. He had barely straightened up before the cold metal of the silencer ground into the back of his head, just above the hairline.
‘I hope your English is really good, friend, and you understand what I’m going to tell you,’ said Skinner. ‘If you make one move, I’m going to blow your fucking brains all over that wall.’ The Russian froze.
‘Search him, Dan,’ the DCC ordered Pringle, as the Superintendent clambered off the floor, his face covered in blood.
He nodded. ‘In a minute, sir.’ With great deliberation, he hit Malenko as hard as he could, a tremendous blow to the pit of the stomach. The air hissed out of the gangster’s lungs in a loud groan, as he doubled over.
‘I never saw that, Dan,’ said Skinner.
‘Naw,’ Pringle retorted. ‘And I never saw what you did to that other fucker either!’
He took a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and secured Malenko’s arms behind his back, then frisked him, roughly, while Skinner helped the young sergeant to his feet. ‘You okay, Stevie?’
‘I’ll live, sir.’ As he spoke, the image of the gun pointing at his heart rushed back into his mind, and he went chalk-white once more, save for the livid red mark on his cheekbone where the Russian’s forehead had connected.
‘Yes, son, you will. With a commendation on your record, at that. If you hadn’t restrained him, I’d have had trouble handling Malenko as well as that monster there.’
Steele looked at the heap on the floor. ‘Ex-monster, I’d say, Boss.’ The giant was still out cold.
‘Malenko’s unarmed, sir,’ Pringle called out.
‘Thank Christ for that. As soon as I get back to Fettes, I’ll be on to Her Majesty’s Customs. Some bugger’s going to have to explain to me how a Russian can bring a firearm through any port in this country. If I had thought for one minute that they’d have been armed. .’
Pringle shook his head. ‘It never occurred to me either, sir.’
He turned to Malenko. ‘Where did you arrive in Britain?’ he asked. The Russian shook his head and spat on the floor at the Superintendent’s feet. The burly man, still bleeding from a cut above his right eye, balled his fists, but Skinner spun the prisoner around and unbuttoned his jacket. He reached into a pocket and found a passport.
He flicked his way through the pages, until he found what he was looking for. ‘Paris,’ he muttered to Pringle. ‘This was stamped in Paris yesterday. Let me take a guess, Ivan. You flew to Charles de Gaulle, then caught the Eurostar to London.’
The gangster glowered at him.
‘What did you do with the gun?’ he asked. ‘Wrapped in tin-foil was it, to beat the X-ray machine, and hidden in a container in your man’s suitcase?’ He shrugged his shoulders, and smiled. ‘Yes, I guess that was probably how you did it. It’s academic now. The fact is, you probably did us a favour. If he hadn’t been carrying, and you two had come along quietly, I’d have had nothing on him. I’d have had to let him go.
‘That’s not a problem now. He’ll go before a Scottish judge, charged with attempted murder. Christ, he’ll probably get longer than you.’
He turned to Sergeant Steele. ‘Stevie, get on the radio and tell the uniformed team to come and pick these people up.’ As he spoke, there was a moan from the man on the floor. Skinner looked down to see him beginning to stir, beginning to push himself to his feet.
Quite casually, the detective kicked him on the side of the head. ‘Just stay quiet now,’ he said, conversationally. The minder’s eyes rolled as he slumped against the wall once more.
36
‘You never told me you were going to pick up Malenko,’ said Andy Martin.
Skinner smiled across the table in the senior officers’ dining room. ‘I had an hour free, so I thought I’d go along and lend a hand.’
‘You might have told Pringle, though. He said to me that he had trouble keeping his face straight when he came out of the back shop to arrest the Russians and saw you sitting there, looking for all the world like a punter in for a present for the wife.’
‘I was. Sarah’s got a birthday coming up soon.’
The Head of CID frowned. ‘From what Pringle told me, it was just as well you were there. Who’d have thought that a Russian would have been armed in this country?’
‘We should have thought of that, mate,’ Skinner growled quietly. ‘You and I should have, as line commanders. We put two officers’ lives in danger. Firearms Act or not, the world’s changing, Andy; every bugger seems to be going armed these days. We won’t make a policy announcement, but from now on, whenever we go on an operation like this morning, we’re going to have armed men on the team.’
He paused as a waitress stepped up behind him to clear his soup bowl. ‘As I promised Pringle,’ he continued after she had gone, ‘I’ve been on to the Customs people, at the top level. There are cages being rattled in London, and in France even as we speak. It’s fucking ridiculous that two Russian hoodlums got through our security with four million dollars and a firearm.’
He grinned, unexpectedly. ‘That’s one advantage of Jimmy’s office. Even as a DCC you only get a certain level of attention from these characters in London, but when you’re announced as acting Chief Constable Skinner, and you come on the line breathing fire, that’s a different matter altogether.’
‘Excuse me, gentlemen. Two ham salads, was it?’
‘Yes thanks, Maisie,’ said Skinner. The rosy-cheeked bustling woman set large, well-filled plates before them and withdrew with a smile.
‘How did Dan get on at his press conference?’ he continued.
‘Fine,’ Martin replied. ‘I didn’t stay all the way through, but he and Royston were well in control when I left. The hacks lapped up the Russian story all right, especially when Dan threw in the bit about the gun.’
‘He didn’t mention me, did he?’
‘No. He said that Malenko’s bodyguard. . He’s called Fydor Ostrakov, incidentally. . had been disarmed by police officers, that one shot had been fired, but that no one had been injured.’
Skinner almost choked on a piece of ham. ‘What? Pringle sat there with stitches in his eyebrow and said that no one had been hurt?’
‘That’s right,’ the Head of CID confirmed, laughing. ‘The woman from Scot FM asked him about it, of course. Big Dan just puts a hand up to his embroidery, touches it and says, “That? Oh that’s nothing at all, my dear.” There’ll be “Hero Cop Tackles Russian Hit Man” headlines all over tomorrow’s papers.’
‘Good. People need to be reminded that our job can be dangerous as well as difficult. Plus, in the middle of the most concentrated crime wave that we’ve ever experienced, we needed a good arrest. It gives me something to throw at Councillor Bloody Topham this afternoon too.’
‘You don’t like that woman, do you?’
‘Don’t trust, Andy. I don’t trust her. She’s got no backbone, and she doesn’t have an opinion to call her own either. Jimmy gets on fine with her, because he can manipulate her. I haven’t the patience for that crap.’
Martin finished his salad and leaned back from the table. ‘Coffee?’
‘No, I’ll have some with the Lady Chair.’ Skinner glanced up at the clock on the wall. ‘I’d better get across, in fact, she’s due in five minutes.’ He stood up. ‘Listen, can you get hold of Mackie and McGuire? I want a briefing on the judges at close of play today. It doesn’t need to be here. I’ll go wherever is easiest for them, but I want a progress report.’