Skinner's festival

45

The two soldiers had been gone for only ten minutes when Brian Mackie returned with blow-ups of the six Mary McCall fingerprints. He brought too the opinion of the technicians that a fragment of a print taken from the chambermaid's trolley in the Sheraton Hotel could have come from her right hand.

'That's a start,' said Skinner. 'Now let's see how far our luck will run.' He led the way along the corridor to the Special Branch suite, past the duty officer in the outer area, and into Martin's empty office. A fax machine with a scrambled line sat on a table iii the corner. Skinner picked up its telephone handset and dialled in a London number.

'FBI.'

Skinner was always struck by the frankness of the Americans.

They knew and valued the respect in which the Bureau was held around the world, and were never shy of announcing its presence, even in foreign countries.

Joe Doherty was the FBI's senior man in Europe, based at the Embassy in Grosvenor Square. He had looked Skinner up on a tour of Special Branch heads when first posted to the UK in 1989, and they had been in touch ever since.

'You dragged yourself in, then,' said Skinner.

'Yup; I said I would. But this better be worth it.'

'Let's hope so. Joe, I'm going to fax you down six fingerprints.

I'd like you to scan them into your magic machine, the one that connects back to the States, and see what it tells you – if it tells you anything at all, that is. I'll wait here. You'll get me on Andy Martin's direct line.' He gave him the number.

'OK, Bob,' said Doherty. 'Go for it.'

Skinner loaded the fax, selected half-tone quality, and keyed in the FBI's London number. The six pages took just over five minutes to transmit. He settled down to wait.

'Brian, this could take a while. You can go home if you want.'

'No way, boss. I want to see what he turns up.'

On Martin's office television, they watched the remainder of 'News at Ten', then midweek football. Rangers were two down in a League Cup tie to Motherwell, Skinner's team, when the telephone rang.

'Bugger it,' he swore, but switched off the television set as he picked up the receiver.

'Bob!' Doherty's excitement rang down the line, taking Skinner by surprise. 'Know who you've got there? Typhoid friggin' Mary, that's all.'

'And who the hell is she?'

'Typhoid Mary Little Horse. One of the most celebrated members of the American underclass. Hit-woman, bank-robber, political activist, terrorist, highly skilled with firearms, knives and explosives. You name it, that's Typhoid Mary. Deadly is her middle name. She styles herself a native American freedom fighter, but she's just a plain killer. We lost sight of her when she broke out of jail in Kansas last year. So what's she into over here?'

As quickly as he could. Skinner explained the detail of the Music Hall bomb, and summarised Adams' story. When he had finished, Doherty whistled loudly down the line. 'That's Mary, both times. She's great with explosives, and she likes to kill people. But I'll tell you this. Bob. If she has Scotch blood, then you're a friggin' Sioux Indian.' Doherty paused, then went on.

'Couple of things for your Mr Adams. First the moderately good news. Not everything she told him was a lie. She was indeed raped by her step-daddy when she was sweet sixteen, and she did indeed run away from home. The detail that she left out was that, before she ran away, she cut his heart out… and I mean that literally, my friend.'

'Sounds like our friend Frank might have been lucky.'

'Well, no. Bob. You can't exactly say that. For now comes the really bad news for the Adams family. Mary can kill you in a whole lot of ways, but in one that's the most certain of all. She can kill you with her snatch, without you even being there – like she's probably killed Mrs Adams by now, through her poor sap of a husband. Her nickname's an understatement. We've got Mary's prison medical records. Bob, she's HIV positive. Look, I'll fax you up her picture. Better find her, man, before she screws the whole of Scotland to death!'