Skinner's ghosts

60

It is the variety of landscapes confined within such a smal country that makes Scotland a remarkable place.

There is the flat industrial spread of the central belt, ever-changing in character as the blackest of the Black Country disappears to be replaced by new clean sunrise industry. There are the rolling uplands of the Borders regions, with their sheep and cattle grazing on their moors and pastures. There are the fertile coastal plains of the Lothians and Fife, their fields yellow in spring with rape flowers, and golden in summer with wheat, and with barley to fill the makings.

And to the north, beyond the foothil s of the Campsies and the Ochils, there stand the Highlands, the mountain country where some say the real Scotland lies, the land which gave its men to rally behind the banner of the Young Pretender.

Bob Skinner was a cynic when it came to the myths and legends of his own country. As he drove through Glencoe, he recal ed that its notorious massacre had been perpetrated by Scot upon Scot, clan upon clan, a family feud reaching a bloody conclusion. He knew that for all of those who had backed Prince Charlie, the Jacobite, there were many others who had maintained their loyalty to the Crown, distant and Germanic though it may have been.

It was the grandeur of the mountains which touched the patriot in him. The suddenness of their approach seemed to give them stature above their measured height. There was no rolling approach to distant heights across a hundred-mile plain, as with the Pyrenees or the Alps.

He had seen both, he had walked in both, yet neither impressed him as did the mountains of his home.

There was something great and looming and threatening about Ben Nevis, approached from the south, and about al the other Munros, the Scottish peaks of greater than three thousand feet. It was small wonder, he thought as he drove on, that someone like Everard Balliol, to all intents as American as the Stars and Stripes itself, should be drawn back to roots which had been physically severed hundreds of years before.

He thought of the American as he drove, and their last meeting, under a gathering storm around the eighteenth green of Witches Hil Golf and Country Club: sallow-skinned, mid-fifties, gunmetal, crew202 y" cut hair, tall and lean. Those intense, ruthless, deadly serious eyes.

The grudging, resentful admission of defeat. The challenge to another encounter.

'Any time,' Skinner had said. 'Your place or mine.'

Balliol's place, Erran Mhor, was such a significant estate that, unlike most private dwellings, it merited its own entry on the map of Scotland. The policeman stayed on the main road towards Wester Ross for almost thirty miles after passing through Fort William, at the base of the great Ben.

Eventual y he came upon a single signpost, pointing westward like a finger and bearing the names Erran Mhor and Loch Mhor. He drove on for miles along the single-track road, with the mountains behind him, and without seeing another car. There were few trees on the peaty plain, and grey boulders and sheep, indistinguishable from a distance, were the only features of the landscape.

He had no clue of whether or not he had passed on to Bal iol's estate, but gradually, the road rose once more towards a horizon above which he could see wheeling gulls. As he crested the rise the landscape changed, before him the land stretched, cultivated and tended, with neat forest plantations, reaching towards the head of a loch. He pul ed his car to a stop in a passing place, and climbed out, picking up a small pair of binoculars, to survey the scene.

On the northern shore of Loch Mhor, Skinner could see the turrets of a castle, an impressive structure even from a distance. This was no historic monument built by feudal lords over the centuries, the policeman could tell, but the folly of a Victorian grandee, indulging himself upon money flowing from the sweat of poor people in Britain and around the Empire.

Beyond Balliol's castle, and beyond a helicopter on its landing pad, there was a green area, with a few trees, and familiar golden patches. Skinner smiled, and sharpened the focus of his glasses. Men were working like ants on a determined mission. There were tractors and mowers, and pick-ups loaded with sand: the billionaire's golf course was nearing completion.

He climbed back into the BMW and drove on towards the mock castle. When he was stil a mile away, he passed through a large gate, a symbolic gesture really, for the place was too large to be wal ed in. Beyond the entrance the road widened out, into newly laid, white-lined tarmac. The detective drove on to the very end, which came as a curve opened into a wide area beside a lawn which stretched from the Castle of Erran Mhor down to the lochside.

Skinner, dressed in crisp blue trousers and a matching polo shirt, drew his car to a halt beside a green Range Rover, climbed out and walked across the parking area and towards the house, climbing a 203 wide flight of stairs set into the lawn, and stepping on to a terrace which stretched for the ful width of the four-storey building, around eighty yards. He crossed it, passing under a portico which arched over the main doorway.

One half of the great double door swung open before he reached it, and a man stepped out. Korean, Skinner guessed, dressed in a black teeshirt and slacks, balanced lightly on his feet, with brown muscles oiled and rippling. The bodyguard stared at him, impassively, without offering a word.

'I'm here to see Mr Balliol,' said the policeman. 'I reckon he owes me a game of golf.'

The Korean stared back. 'Mr Balliol, please,' Skinner repeated.

Stil the man did not move or speak.

'Okay,' sighed the detective, at last. 'I'l play the game.'

He took a step towards the doorkeeper. As the man leapt forward to grasp him in what would have been a judo hold, the policeman pivoted with exceptional speed and hit him on the temple. It was a short, hooking, right-handed punch, hard but wel short of ful force.

The Korean's eyes glazed. As he slumped to his knees, Skinner seized his right arm and twisted it round behind him, jerking him back to his feet.

'Did I get the password right?' he asked, looking towards the open door.

'Not bad,' said Everard Balliol, stepping into view. 'Not bad at all for a guy your age.' The policeman had met the American four times, and had spoken to him twice. This was the first time that he had ever seen him smile.

Skinner released the Korean, and patted him on the shoulder. The bodyguard nodded, without any sign of animosity, and went inside.

'Just my rich man's game,' Bal iol grinned.

'Pretty risky game. I might real y have hurt that bloke.'

The billionaire shook his head. 'Not you. I guessed you wouldn't damage the guy too bad for just doing his job.'

He stretched out his hand in a friendly greeting, which Skinner accepted. 'Come on in.' He turned and led the way into a surprisingly small hal way from which a staircase climbed. 'You want the grand tour?' he asked.

'Maybe not this time.'

Bal iol led him through the hal and into a study, behind the stairway. It had a big picture window which looked out across the golf course. Skinner could see two greens, cut and prepared, although only the one on the right had a flag in position.

'So what brings you to see me, Mr Skinner?'

'I'd have thought you'd have worked it out.'

Bal iol looked at him, his expression guarded. 'Should I?'

'Come on, now. You going to tell me that though you own it, you don't actually read Spotlight

'Shit, man,' drawled the Texan. 'Of course I don't read that stuff.

Would you?' He smiled. 'But sometimes they do tell me what's goin' in it.'

He walked over to the window. 'You serious about that golf game?'

'I heard you were building a course, so I stuck my clubs in the car.'

'Go get 'em then. I've only got nine holes in play so far, but they're good ones. Tiger Nakamura advised me on the layout. Come round to the first tee, just outside the window. I'll call out the caddies.'

When Skinner arrived on the tee, Balliol was waiting for him, with a huge bag holding a set of brand new Callaways, and with two more Koreans, dressed in black like the doorman, but with white golf shoes on their feet. The American handed over a map of the course, and a hole-by-hole yardage chart.

'We're playing ten to eighteen,' he said. 'The earth moving took longer on the front nine. You still off seven?'

'Down to five,' Skinner replied. 'But I'm out of practice.'

'You get a shot, then.' Bal iol grinned, hugely. 'The practice is your problem.'

He took out his Great Big Bertha driver and split the first fairway.

Skinner took a few practice swings, then tugged his tee-shot left, into heavy rough.

'Let's play for now,' said the billionaire, as they moved off, their black-clad caddies lugging their bags, 'and talk later. Tell me one thing though. How d'you know about the golf course? Only Tiger and me and a few others know about that.'

'More people must know than you think,' said Skinner, 'if a simple copper like me can find out about it. Have you got planning permission?'

Bal iol laughed. 'Don't need it. You gotta know that. Al I'm doing is landscaping my own back yard!'

They played on, chatting occasionally, but largely in silence.

Skinner had been serious about his lack of practice. Putting rather than the quality of his shots kept him in touch with his host's tidy game, but when he missed from ten feet on the seventeenth, the match was over. The sweetness of revenge shone in the American's eye, while the worm of defeat gnawed at the policeman's stomach.

It was late afternoon when they returned to the castle, where sandwiches and drinks were laid out in a great drawing room with a southward view across the loch.

'Okay Mr Skinner,' said Balliol at last, as he and his guest looked out across the terrace. 'So you're steamed up at me about that Spotlight stuff.'

The policeman shook his head. 'No,' he muttered. 'Not steamed up. That's an understatement.'

The American looked at him. 'This is something you'll never hear me say again, so listen good. I'm sorry.'

Skinner looked at him in surprise, but said nothing.

'A few weeks ago,' Balliol went on, 'the chief editor told me that the British edition had been offered a story about a well-known guy in Britain who was two-timing his American wife and diddling this woman who worked for him.

'The guy who claimed to have the story, Noel Salmon -1 thought it was a gal at first with a name like Noel – said he wanted a job.'

'Why did this come al the way up to you?'

Bal iol smiled. 'Spotlight's kinda like my toy,' he said. 'But I'm tight with my business money, see, and the British edition had been swal owing cash, so I said a while back that all new spending had to be given the nod by me. So I was asked about Salmon, and I said if the story holds up, hire him.

'That was the last I heard til someone sent me a copy, and I saw your beefy ass on the front cover.' Something in the American's tone made Skinner guess that Balliol might be homosexual. He wondered if the FBI had its own suspicions.

'I have to admit I laughed, when I remembered how pissed I'd been with you at Witches Hill. I didn't feel too good about your lady friend being' in those shots, though, especial y the ones where it looks like she could be… you know.'

'I'll pass on your regrets,' grunted the detective, sourly. 'She'l be touched.'

Balliol looked away for a second. 'Yeah. Okay. Anyway,' he continued, quickly, 'at the same time as I'm sent the copy, my chief editor says that Salmon has another story, about you, and an illegal payment, a bribe. Our lawyers say though, no way can we use it without more evidence.

'So the chief editor says let's pass the story on to the authorities, announce that we've done it, and act like the good guys. We still sell magazines, but we don't get sued if the story turns out wrong. So I said to go ahead, and that's the way it played.'

Skinner looked at him. 'You know the real reason I came up here, Balliol? I'm a great believer in looking people in the eye. I've never met a man who can do that and tell me a direct lie at the same time.

'So wil you look me in the eye, right now, and tell me that it wasn't you who set me up with that rigged bank account, then tipped off your own man about the story?'

The billionaire turned to face him, fixed his gaze upon him, eye to eye, and smiled. 'Shit, son,' he laughed. 'If I'd been going to set you up, it'd have been with a mil ion, not a miserable hundred grand.

I'd have set you up so you'd have gone away for life.

'But I didn't, and that is the truth.'

There was a long silence. 'Now,' said Balliol, breaking it finally,

'is that al you came for, or is there something else?'

The big detective nodded. 'Yes, there is. Your creep Salmon says that the information about me came to him from an anonymous source, that he doesn't know who it was tipped him off. We don't believe that, my pal and I. We think that he was about to give it up when your lawyer arrived to get him out of custody.

'I'd like you to order him to come clean now, to tell me who his source is. Because that's the person who set me up with this phoney bribery charge.'

Balliol sighed. 'Wel that's a bastard, ain't it? I'd do that for you, Bob sir, only I can't.'

'Why the hell not?'

'Because Salmon doesn't work for me any more. I told my chief editor to fire him as soon as he had sent his information to your Lord guy.'

'What for?'

Balliol looked at him, genuinely shocked. 'What for? Because he was caught with narcotics in his possession and in the company of a prostitoot. Either one of those things would have got him fired from any one of my companies. Both together! He's lucky I didn't set my Koreans on him.'

'Dammit!' cursed Skinner. 'Now you have to turn out to be a closet moralist! And you the owner of Spotlight too.'

'Nothing closet about it, son,' the American protested. 'Spotlight exposes the private sins of public figures. How can you have a higher moral tone than that?'

Despite himself, the policeman laughed. 'I'll tell you a story, Mr Morality,' he said. 'A couple of years back, we had some really bad trouble at our Edinburgh Festival. Someone was after something very valuable, and went to extraordinary lengths to try to get it.

'They didn't succeed, and the people who caused al that mayhem were caught. But they were only the hired help. They had a paymaster, and we never did find out who that was.

'Funny, is it not, that when I showed up here today, you real y weren't a hundred per cent sure what I'd come about.' Skinner leaned over, his face very close to Balliol. 'Am I ringing any bells here?'

The American smiled, cool y. 'Bob, son, I remember reading about that affair. The people who did those things were completely out of control, and they got their just deserts.

'I tell you now, you can dig al the livelong day, and al of tomorrow, and al of the day after that and so on, but you wil never tie me to that one. Believe me on this.'

Skinner stared at him, evenly. 'Oh I do, Mr Bal iol, I do. But digging's my job, and when I get started I'm like the seven fucking dwarfs, all rolled into one.'