Skinner's ghosts

84

Martin and the two children were waiting at the foot of the hil south of the Gully as Skinner reappeared over its crest, after pressing Heuer's pistol into his hand, and squeezing off one shot into the wall beside the window just as Arrow had told him to do.

Mark came running towards him. 'Uncle Bob! Uncle Bob!' he cried out. 'I told Tanya that it'd be al right. I told her that you'd come to get us.'

Skinner swept him up in his arms, and carried him off back down the hil towards Andy and the white-faced, shocked little girl. 'And you were right, weren't you? Just like you always are.'

'Tanya's awful frightened. Uncle Bob.'

' She's had every right to be. So have you, although I don't suppose you were.'

'Well…' Mark began. 'What about the man, Mr Gilbert?' he asked. 'He won't come back, wil he?'

'No, son. Mr Gilbert's dead. I told him not to do anything sil y, but he did and I had to shoot him.'

'You mean he went back into the kitchen for his gun?' Skinner winced inwardly as he was reminded of the child's astonishing memory for detail.

'Yes, that's just the way it was.'

'What'l happen now?'

'Some Army people will come up to take him away.' In fact, he had begun the clean-up process with a phone cal to Adam Arrow, from the cottage.

And then Mark asked the inevitable question, the one which his remarkable young mind had al owed him to block out until then.

'Uncle Bob…' he began. 'What it said on the radio about my mummy. That wasn't true, was it?'

Skinner hugged the boy to him. 'Let's sit down over here, Wee Man,' he said, 'and let's have a chat.'