Skinner's festival

67

Everything that evening happened on cue – even the weather. Thef storm broke, finally, at 8:45 pm, just as Skinner and Maggie rosch were driving up the deserted Castle esplanade between the high-H tiered temporary grandstands, which on another night would have been filling with spectators gathering for the Military Tattoo in the3 wide parade ground which they Hanked. But fireworks and orchestra had taken precedence over marching bands and military gymnastics, and for that. Skinner guessed, as the first flash of. lightning lit up the gloaming, six thousand potential ticket-holdersg should feel truly grateful.

Heavy raindrops pounded on the roof of the car as he swung if into the tunnel which takes vehicles into Edinburgh Castle, resuming their bombardment as he drove back into the open, anc up to the parking area between Butts Battery and the Castl Hospital, which had once been, ironically, its powder magazine.

He felt glad of the long Burberry waterproof coat and hat whic he had thrown on to the back seat as he had left home.

Maggie Rose was clad for wet weather, too. In knee-lengti boots, jeans and a hooded Barbour jacket, she looked for all th world like a countrywoman on a week-end walk, not a detective engaged on life-or-death duty.

Skinner opened the boot of the car and produced from it two pairs of odd-looking, heavy binoculars.

'Here, take these,' he said, handing one set to Maggie Rose.

'They're light-intensifying, infra-red or some such. However, they work; they'll help you see in the dark. You're going to need them before much longer.

'Are you armed?' he asked casually as they walked up to their vantage point on the Mills Mount Battery.

'No, sir. I didn't see the need for it up here.'

The neither. This is an army garrison, after all. There's guns enough all around us.' i The adjutant of the Castle garrison regiment, the Royal Scots, was waiting for them on the Battery. He held a large blue umbrella over his head. Soldier's bravado, thought Skinner, as lightning cracked across the sky, searching for a route to earth.

'Taking a chance. Major Ancram, aren't you?' he said, pointing at the umbrella.

The big, middle-aged officer laughed. 'Rubber soles, old boy!

Anyway, if the bloody Argies couldn't hit me, what hope is there for this lot!'

Skinner shook his head and smiled. Daft as a brush, he thought.

He introduced Major Ancram to Detective Sergeant Rose.

Then, moving forward to the edge of the Battery, he raised the night-glasses and swept his gaze along Princes Street, from the Mound to Lothian Road. Without its street lighting, the famous street, with its shops on one side, Gardens and Castle on the other, was beginning to resemble an island of darkness in the midst of the dramatic illuminations which show off historic Edinburgh by night.

In the deepening gloom, the north pavement was already well filled with people, braving the rain for the sounds and spectacle of this unique evening. Above the pedestrians was a second tier of spectators, those privileged ones with access to upper-floor windows, or to the wide galleried fronting of some of the buildings – memorials to an architectural eccentricity decades earlier which had envisaged the eventual creation of a first-floor walkway running the length of Princes Street.

The lights of the New Club, of which Skinner was a member, caught his eye. Through its high windows he could see clearly that the Fireworks drinks party was gathering momentum. He was suddenly glad that he had persuaded the Chief to make the Club his vantage point, out of harm's way yet able to observe the crowd. Further along, others, with glasses in hand, peered out of the upper apartments of the Royal Overseas League. Business was good, he noted, in the two-storey Burger King, bright on its corner in contrast to the gap site on the opposite side of Castle Street, where the Palace Hotel had once stood, and where rebuilding work was still far from completion.

'Past food's selling well,' he muttered to no one in particular, as he registered that McDonald's too was packed.

From Princes Street, Skinner swung the glasses down into the Gardens, to the Ross Theatre itself. He checked his watch. It was still only 9:15, too early for ticket-holders, especially on a night like this. But already Arrow and his black-suited men were deployed there in waiting, hooded and with bulky automatic weapons in their hands.

The stage was hidden from his view, but twenty feet away from it, behind two seats in the centre, he saw two bulky figures, grotesque in their helmets, with rain tunics over their flak-jackets, but standing there solidly as human shields. Skinner was suddenly very touched by the loyalty of his team, and very proud of them.

His moment of reverie was broken by Major Ancram •Everything OK, Mr Skinner?' •Yes, Major, so far. So far.'

'What do we do now?'

'We wait and we watch. And, if you're into it, you might like to do a wee bit of praying for those boys down there, and for the two clowns they're looking after.'