Thrusting the thought from his mind, he took a last look around his office before settling down to work. It was comfortably furnished, and well decorated, in slightly old-fashioned hessian. The paintings on the walls, all originals, were his own. His favourites faced his desk. One was a big, blue, arrogant cockerel, painted in oil by Rhoda Hird, an East Lothian painter who lived close by his cottage in Gullane. The other was a colourful, slightly bewildered torero with a lazy right eye, and the expression of someone who carries the certainty that one day, something very bad is going to happen. It was the work of Miguel Morales, a Catalan artist with a burgeoning reputation. Skinner had bought it on a whim, and on a credit card, one night in a bar-cum-gallery in Spain.
He smiled again, nodded ‘Good morning’ to his two old friends and settled down to work.
He was almost through his allotted half-hour when Ruth buzzed him through. ‘It’s Sir James. If you’re clear, can he come in?’
‘Sure,’ said Skinner. ‘I’m a captive here.’
He had hardly spoken before the door, rosewood to match his desk, swung open. He stood up in automatic deference to a senior officer, and to greet a friend. ‘Bob,’ said Proud Jimmy, ‘you don’t know how good it is to see you back behind that desk.’
Such was the sincerity in his voice that Skinner spluttered in his surprise. ‘Christ, man, that you can say that! After you sentenced me to a month on the most useless jolly I’d ever seen!’
‘Och, Bob,’ said the Chief, suddenly mournful, ‘you’re not still angry about that?’
‘I never was angry, Jimmy, just astonished. It was a waste of time, and we both know it. Not blowing my own trumpet, but if I had to go there it should have been to teach, not to sit on my arse and be lectured at for a month. The FBI are sincere guys, but they’ve got no real coppers left. Joe Doherty was the last of the breed, and now he’s out of it.’
He shook his head. ‘But look, that’s history, let’s not discuss it any more. We’ve got more than that to worry us.’
‘I agree, Bob,’ said Sir James. ‘But my decision was wrong, and in hindsight I have to admit that much to you. It’s just that we thought . . .’
Skinner’s eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed. ‘What do you mean “We”?’ he demanded. ‘Was Andy Martin in on it, or Jim Elder?’
Alarm showed clearly in the Chief Constable’s eyes, but the moment was broken by a diplomatic cough from the doorway. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Skinner,’ said Ruth McConnell, ‘but Chief Superintendent Martin asks if you could join him right away. He said that it’s time to pay your second call on Jackie Charles. We have a positive identification of his wife as the body in the showroom.’
‘Okay,’ said Skinner. ‘I’m on my way.’ He moved out from behind his desk. The Chief Constable stepped aside, almost eagerly, to make way for him, with a sigh which sounded to his deputy like one of relief.
6
Martin Charles was with his son when the two policemen arrived. Skinner had asked Ruth to telephone the Ravelston villa to warn of their arrival, and the old man had opened the front door before they had even made it far enough up the brick driveway to trigger the security light.
He led them not into the main reception room, but to a smaller apartment to the left off the hall. It was small, and furnished only with two expensive leather recliner chairs, a cocktail cabinet, a nest of occasional tables and a huge television set with cinema-style speakers set around it.
As they entered, Jackie Charles was seated with his back to the door, watching a repeat showing on a satellite channel of the previous evening’s football match at Ibrox, the one which he had been watching in person as his showroom had exploded into flames. Martin had already confirmed with his hosts that Charles had been in their party, and that he had been collected from and delivered to his home by a hired limousine.
Mr Charles tapped his son on the shoulder. ‘John. The police are here.’
Charles used a remote control to snap off the television picture, in the same movement which brought him to his feet. He was freshly shaved, and neatly dressed in pale grey slacks, a blazer with gold-crested buttons, a white shirt, and a silk tie that was almost luminous in its blueness.
‘That’s it, is it?’ he said in a calm, measured tone. ‘You’ve identified her.’ Not a question: a statement.
Skinner nodded. ‘I’m afraid so, Jackie.’ Beside him, the old man buried his face in his hands. ‘We didn’t really expect anything else, did we?’
The man’s square shoulders slumped for the merest instant, then straightened once again. ‘No,’ he said. ‘When she didn’t show up at home by nine I knew for sure. When she did stay at her pal’s, Carole was always back by then, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, without a hint that she’d been rat-arsed just a few hours before. Yes, she had great recuperative powers, did my wife.’ He smiled, grimly.
‘This morning I sat through in the kitchen, waiting for her. I made coffee for two. I got the cereal bowls out and fetched the milk off the step. I put the eggs on to boil at twenty to nine, and defrosted some rolls from the freezer. I sat there hanging on to whatever doubts I had left, counting down the minutes, and finally the seconds to nine o’clock.’
Jackie Charles patted his father on the shoulder. ‘As soon as nine struck, I knew that there was no possibility that it could have been anyone else in the showroom last night. I phoned my father and told him what had happened.’
He looked up at the two policemen. ‘Would you like some coffee? Don’t worry, it hasn’t been stewing since half past eight. I made some fresh stuff.’
Skinner and Martin nodded.
‘Okay, let’s go through to the kitchen.’ Martin Charles made to lead the way. ‘No, Dad,’ said his son. ‘I need to talk to the officers alone. Once I’ve done that, I’ll have to pay a call on Carole’s mother. You can come with me then.’
Skinner and Martin followed Charles out of the television room, across the hallway and into a spacious Smallbone-fitted kitchen, with a lime-washed table and four chairs in an alcove at the far end. The policemen sat down, side by side, as the bereaved husband poured coffee into white Wedgwood cups.
Skinner looked around. ‘Real Edinburgh upper-class,’ he whispered to Martin with irony in his tone. ‘You’d never guess he’s a bloody gangster.’
The man laid cups before them, and took a seat opposite. He was pale, and grim-faced, but undoubtedly he was in control of himself - the cold, hard Jackie Charles they both knew. Clearly he had come quickly to terms with his loss.
‘Right, gentlemen,’ he said, briskly. ‘What do you want to ask me?’
‘There’s something we have to tell you first of all,’ said Martin, quietly, ‘though maybe, just maybe, you’ve worked it out for yourself given the circles in which we all know you move. We believe that your wife’s death may have been more than a tragic accident in consequence of a wilful fire-raising.
‘We believe that the fire may have been, in fact, an attempt to kill you.’
Jackie Charles looked at the policeman, his face dark with sudden rage. The smooth, civilised shell within which he normally lived had vanished in an instant. ‘What makes you say that?’ The sound was a hiss.
‘The door to the office, where your wife died, was locked. From the outside. Your car, with its very distinctive and very well-known registration number was parked right at the entrance to the showroom. Someone walked into the premises, set the fire, quietly, though maybe not so quietly since the radio in the office was on quite loud, but very efficiently. Then he turned the key in the office door and lit the fuses, leaving you, as he thought, to burn to a crisp among your rare and exotic motors.’