Skinner's ghosts

62

'It's grim, isn't it?' asked Alex.

'No, love,' Andy replied, sincerely. 'It's much worse than that.'

'What'l they do now?'

'They'll continue to look into every aspect of your dad's recent investigations to try to find a link with the bank account.'

'Okay, and they won't find it. So doesn't that make it a stalemate, at worst?'

He reached out and turned her face round towards his. 'Alex, this afternoon Proud Jimmy had to remind me to think like a policeman.

Now I've got to remind you to think like a lawyer.

'Al Cheshire doesn't need to find any more. There needn't be any link to a past enquiry. The Crown can argue that the money was a down payment for future services. Finding that receipt hidden in Bob's desk was a real kil er. They can go back to Lord Archibald any time they like and recommend prosecution.

'Cheshire said he'd let me know when they final y decided to do that. He said he'd keep me informed of anything else they turn up.'

'Anything else! Such as?'

'Who knows, after today?'

Tears of helplessness sprang into her eyes. 'Andy, this is a nightmare. I know Pops has had a terrible time over the last few months, but he hasn't changed that much. This is my dad and he's still one of the two best men in the world.'

He drew her to him, and hugged her, as they stood in the window of the Haymarket flat, looking up towards Princes Street, and the Castle. 'I know, sweetheart. The Chief may tell me to think like a policeman, but I just can't in this case. I don't give a bugger about the evidence, Bob didn't do it, and that's that.'

Alex was sobbing now, in his arms. 'But Andy, what if he's convicted?'

'Then I'll leave the force, if necessary, to prove his innocence.'

'You mean because he won't be able to, where he'll be?'

'Shh, Wee One. Don't imagine that even for a second.'

'I try not to, but… The thing you told me about last night, about Pops and Leona. How much harm can that do?'

'Probably none, injury terms. I doubt if it would be admissible in evidence. No, its damage is in the way that it makes Cheshire and Ericson see Bob: as being flawed, vulnerable. Open to offers, if you like.'

He squeezed her shoulders again. 'Listen, you're one of his team.

You have to keep fear at bay. You're seeing old Christabel tomorrow.

She should be good for morale.'

'I never asked you,' said Alex. 'D'you know her?'

Andy smiled. 'I don't know how to answer that. She isn't an acquaintance, yet I know the old witch al right. She cross-examined me once in the High Court. I was only a baby DC then, in some breaking-and-entering thing. I'd only been involved in interviewing the minor witnesses.

'The Advocate Depute took me through it, a bit casually, maybe, then it was her turn. She stood there over her papers, and by God did she put a spell on me. She started going on about Witness A, Witness B and Witness C, and by the time she was finished I hadn't a bloody clue who was who.

'Every question she asked, her voice got louder and louder, until she was bawling at me like an old cow across a field. My mother was there, too, to watch me give evidence in the High Court for the first time. So proud she'd been.' He laughed. 'Afterwards, outside in the corridor, I'd to stop her from tearing into Christabel, for bullying her boy.

'I tell you, with her on his side, Bob's got a chance, whatever the evidence that's been set up against him.'