Skinner's Mission

7

‘D’you think he knows who did it, Boss?’ asked Andy Martin as he turned off Comely Bank towards the headquarters building.

Skinner, in the passenger seat, shrugged his shoulders. ‘You can never be sure with Jackie, but I don’t think so. I’ll tell you one thing though: we’ll have started him thinking.

‘We’d better find that guy Medina before Jackie. Otherwise, guilty or innocent, he’s liable to find himself being cremated by a blowlamp from the toes up!

‘You’re in charge of this investigation,’ he said, ‘but you’ll need more than your own staff.’

‘That’s right,’ said Martin, holding his pass out of the window for inspection by the officer on the main car park gate. ‘The crime was committed on Dave Donaldson’s patch, so he’s up for it. I’ve called him and Maggie in to see me at midday.’ He glanced at the Mondeo’s digital clock. ‘They should be here by now.’

‘Mmm,’ muttered Skinner, thoughtfully. ‘That reminds me. Andy, when’s the next Senior Command Course at the College?’

‘Next September. Why?’

‘Because I want Maggie on it. She’s come up through the ranks nearly as fast as you have . . . it’s been faster than I intended for both of you, but you can never foresee the way things will work out. She’s got Command Corridor written all over her, and we should prepare her for it.’

‘What about Donaldson? Won’t he be huffed if we send her?’

Skinner shook his head slightly. ‘He’s got it in him too, but he’s more openly ambitious. He’ll see you lined up for the next ACC slot, when Jimmy finally hangs up his baton, or if Elder moves somewhere else . . . which he won’t, with only seven years left to retirement. He’ll have figured out that, by that time, Maggie’ll be ahead of him in the queue. We’ve got a woman High Court judge in Edinburgh now, and Maggie will be this force’s first woman ACC.

‘Believe me, in a couple of years, Dave’ll be looking for chief officer rank with another force. He’ll get it too. He’s a good tactician, is Donaldson.’

Martin steered his car into his allotted space, near the building’s basement rear entrance. ‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ he said. ‘Now I’d better talk tactics with him myself.’

‘Aye, and I’d better run our Chief Constable to ground. There’s something I have to sort out with him.’

But when Skinner returned to the Command Suite, he discovered that Proud Jimmy was locked in the safety of an Appropriations Committee meeting, a task which would have fallen to Skinner had he not been returned so recently to active duty.

‘He should be clear around four thirty, sir,’ said Gerry, the Chief’s secretary. Like Ruth McConnell, whom Skinner shared with ACC Elder, he was a civilian. The DCC thanked the young man and stepped across the corridor, looking in on Ruth to announce his return.

‘I got this for you, as you asked,’ she said, holding out an orange folder, the colour which denoted personnel files. She smiled what seemed her usual smile, but Skinner wondered for an instant whether, within it, he could see the faintest hint of disapproval.

He put the thought from his mind as he sat behind his desk and opened the file. He recalled the last occasion on which he had seen it, at a promotion board the year before, and remembered the very attractive, dark-haired woman with the huge, wide brown eyes.

He looked down at the file and saw those eyes smiling up at him, from the photograph clipped to the first page. He read sections of the report’s summary aloud, in a murmured tone.

‘Detective Sergeant Pamela, known as Polly, Masters, promoted and transferred to Haddington six months ago, after a short spell in the press office.

‘Late entrant to the force four years ago, then aged thirty. Born in Motherwell,’ Skinner grunted at the connection with his own home town, and that of his late first wife, ‘educated at the local schools. Religion Protestant. Degree in marketing from Strathclyde. Worked in-house for an insurance company in Glasgow, and latterly for a consultancy in Edinburgh.

‘Parents still alive, one older brother, one younger sister. When aged 24, married David Somerville, in Motherwell. Divorced four years later, and moved to Edinburgh.

‘Exemplary service record. Passed Sergeant and Inspector examinations at first opportunity. Good reports from senior officers in every posting.’

Skinner laid the folder down at the side of his desk. He smiled as he remembered his question to WPC Masters at her promotion interview.

‘What made you chuck a lucrative job, in which you were well qualified and experienced, and the Vauxhall Cavalier which undoubtedly went with it? What made you do that to put on one of these stiff, itchy uniforms and pound the streets in thick-soled flat shoes, carrying a damn great side-handled baton as your only protection against the real possibility that someone is going to come at you with a weapon?’

And her answer, in a clear, strong West of Scotland accent.

‘I did it because I wanted a career where what I did made a difference for the better in the way people live, rather than one in which I used my skills to persuade them to buy products which were no different from any other on the market, and which were probably bad for them in the long run.’

He tapped the folder. ‘Could be, Sergeant Masters, that you’re the one.’