Skinner's ghosts

23

Martin and Mcllhenney had barely left Skinner's office before he picked up his secure telephone and dial ed a London number.

'This is Skinner, in Scotland,' he said, curtly, to the man who answered his cal with a simple 'Yes?'. 'The technical people are analysing a tape for me. Have them cal me back with a progress report, within ten minutes.'

Six minutes and four seconds later, the direct line rang. He picked it up quickly, laying down the file he was reading. 'Skinner.'

The voice on the other end of the line answered in a middle-American drawl. Skinner knew that the special relationship which had sprung up between the new Prime Minister and the US President had led to promises of greater co-operation between the security services for which each was responsible. He wondered if the caller was early evidence of their sincerity.

'Good morning, sir,' said the woman. 'My name is Caroline Farmer. I've been working on your tape.'

'Good to hear from you, Ms Farmer. Been with us long?'

'Three weeks, sir, on secondment from Langley.'The Scot smiled, his supposition answered. 'What's your background?' he asked.

'I'm a graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, been with the Company for four years. I'm over on the new information exchange programme.'

'That's good. How about my mystery voice, then? You got anything for me?'

Caroline Farmer hesitated. 'Yeah, we've got something,' she began.

'I'll start with the accent. We have people here who reckon they can place the origin of UK citizens by the nature of their speech.'

'Yes, I know. What are they saying?'

'They believe that your caller is Scottish, sir.'

'Hah,' laughed Skinner, 'that's very good. Now carry on please: Scotland's quite a big place.'

'That's it, sir,' said the American. 'They can't do any better than that. They say that the basic cast of the voice indicates that the caller is Scottish. But his speech is absolutely flat, other than that. Listening to you, sir, I can detect a pronounced accent which I assume is regional Edinburgh.'

'Mostly Lanarkshire, actually,' the DCC grunted.

'Okay, but distinctive none the less. This guy is either disguising his voice, or he's been subject to so many influences that he cannot be pinned down. They did say, though, that he could have spent some time outside Scotland, or have a non-Scottish parent.'

'That's something at least. Now how about the tape itself: any joy from that?'

Caroline Farmer paused once more. 'I'm not sure whether you'l find it joyful, sir.'

'Try me.'

'Okay,' she said, 'but first I have to ask you something? When the cal came in, was there an open door or window in your home.'

Skinner frowned, searching his memory. 'Yes,' he said at last. 'It was a warm night. We had the window open a little.'

'Good. Now think again. Can you remember, as you listened to the man, whether you could hear anything else?'

He closed his eyes, and tried to place himself back in the bedroom.

His anger still burning over Salmon's taunting cal. Undressing in the dark, beginning the process of unwinding, of relaxing, of making love. Then the ringing of the phone, and his fury erupting once more.

He stopped and concentrated on the moments before the interruption.

Pamela, kissing, licking, nibbling her way down his body…

'Geese!' he said suddenly. 'Through the window I could hear geese.

It's no big deal for us, part of the sound furniture, you might say.

There's a wildlife sanctuary near my house. In summer, they go over in flocks at al hours.'

'Okay,' said Caroline Farmer. 'That was on the tape: the sound of geese. You couldn't hear it on the cassette we sent up, but when we built it up, it was there.

'Now to the interesting part. The equipment that we use to tape telephone calls records each half of the conversation on separate tracks. This is the sound we took from the background of your track.

Listen.'

She broke off, and suddenly Skinner heard in the earpiece the familiar squawking sound of a large flight of wild geese, as he had heard it thousands of times, as he had heard it less than forty-eight hours before. There was a click as the player was switched off.

'Now,' the woman resumed. 'Hold on while I switch cassettes.

Okay, ready. This is the background from the caller's track.'

Another pause. Another click. Once more the sound of flying geese filled Skinner's ear. He listened, puzzled, for a few seconds. 'Wrong tape,' he said, at last. 'You're playing my track again.'

No sir,' said Farmer, emphatically. 'I am not. That is the background from the cal er's track.'

'Well, surely the sound from my phone must have fed through to his.'

'It did. There was feedback sound on both tracks. We've stripped that off. You, and this guy, sir, you could both hear the same flight of geese, at the same volume, at the same time. Which means that the cal was made from very near your home.'

Skinner sat at his desk, stunned. 'There's no possibility of the equipment being faulty?'

'No, sir, there is not. You live in a vil age, I understand.'

'Right.'

'That might make it easier for you. We were able to match the sounds on each track exactly. The recording levels on each were almost exactly the same. I would say that you and your cal er were no more than a quarter of a mile apart.

'Can I ask you, sir, in which direction do the geese fly?'

'Westward; by evening and night, they fly westward.'

'Good, that tells me from the sound pattern that the cal er was to the east of your home.'

'Anything else?' asked Skinner, eagerly. 'Was there anything else on his track? Can you tell what type of telephone it was?'

The American chuckled on the other end of the secure line. 'We ain't that good, sir. It was a touchtone telephone, and the cal er disabled your 1471 tracing service, but you knew that already. There were other sounds though, faintly, beneath the geese. An automobile passed close by during the call travelling in a straight line at about forty miles per hour. And there was music playing nearby. Further away, there was the sound of a woman, shouting angrily. Does any of that help?'

Skinner grunted. 'It might. Listen, Agent, or whatever I should cal you, that's great work. I want copies of al these tapes sent up here for my people as soon as possible, like today. Can you isolate that woman's voice?'

'Sure. I'll put that on a separate tape. I'll have everything with you by courier by mid-afternoon. Meantime, we'l keep on working.

We can take resolution up practically to the level of an individual goose. You never know what else we might turn up.'