Skinner's Mission

47

Andy Martin, crouched in the shrubbery at the foot of the villa’s long sloping garden, whispered into his walkie-talkie. ‘Brian, you can see the house from your position. Is there any sign that Charles knows we’re here?’

‘No, sir, nothing’s changed. The light’s still on in the downstairs hall and in a room to the side. What can you see?’

Martin peered through the night-glasses, looking eastwards along Ravelston Dykes Road, then down the hill where it swept up from Queensferry Road, the north-western approach to the capital. He could just glimpse the top of one police car, hidden in a lay-by. The other was out of his sight. ‘Bugger all,’ he replied at last. ‘Let’s hope these boys are punctual. They should be here any minute now.’

The team had been in position since 10.30 p.m., awaiting the appearance of the reported assassins from the Midlands. Wearing hard-hats and flak-jackets, they had moved in silently, from vehicles tucked away in the car park of Murryfield Golf Club, making sure that no residents, and particularly not Mr John Jackson Charles, were aware of their arrival.

They had sat and they had waited, for an hour and twenty-nine minutes, alerted by the passage of each car along the road, but given no signal by their watchers, hidden out of sight three hundred yards away in either direction.

The flash of headlights from the side street meant nothing to Martin; at first. But suddenly, a distance away, he heard an engine roar into life, and a squeal of rubber as it took off.

He swung up the night-glasses, just in time to see a long car pull directly out into the path of another vehicle heading towards him along Ravelston Dykes Road. Behind that, he was sure that he could make out the shape of a third vehicle, but without lights.

The first, intruding car slammed on its brakes. Through the glasses Martin saw the shapes of two men as they jumped out, and on the evening breeze, he fancied he heard borne towards him, the cry of ‘Armed police!’ He could see little else for the obstructing vehicle, which he now recognised as a Jaguar, long enough to block the entire carriageway, but he fancied that he saw more movement from the car bringing up the rear.

He sat there, momentarily frozen, until the flash in the night and the bang of the gunshot hurled him into action. ‘Move, move, move!’ he yelled into the walkie-talkie. ‘Murrayfield Road vehicle, head east along Ravelston Dykes Road, fast! The other car block this driveway! There’s something going on along there. Come on everyone. ’

He vaulted over the low wall of the Charles villa and sprinted up the slope and round the curve, towards the Jaguar, following his men in the Ford Granada which had been parked out of his sight. As he ran he could hear, above the noise of the braking police car as the blockading Jaguar’s width brought it to a halt, a heavy engine roar, and tyres squeal as it reversed, spun round and raced off into the night.

Martin reached the scene just after the men from the Granada, who had jumped from their vehicle and taken up firing positions behind the Jaguar. He switched on his hand lamp and shone the broad brilliant beam on to the vehicle beyond, drawing his firearm as he did.

As he had thought, the third vehicle was gone. But facing him, he saw the nose of a blue Ford Scorpio, with its rear doors lying open. He directed the beam on the registration plate and read, ‘M22 FQD’.

‘Bugger!’ he said, softly.

He swung the light back up, playing it around the vehicle. He could see no-one outside, but on the roadway, his eyes caught a reflected flash from broken glass. As Mackie, Donaldson, McGuire and McIlhenney arrived at the scene, panting from the sprint, he walked slowly around the Jaguar and shone his torch into the ambushed car.

The driver was slumped across the passenger seat, prevented by his belt from falling across it. Where his right eye should have been, there was instead a multi-coloured, glistening mess from which blood was pouring copiously on to the fabric of the upholstery. On the floor, in the foot well on the passenger side, Martin could see a pistol. The man’s right hand was still twitching, the fingers clenching as if trying to pull a trigger.

He stood up and turned away wearily. ‘Call an ambulance, someone,’ he called, as the others came round the Jaguar to meet him. ‘There’s a guy in here, and he’s still alive . . . technically. As for the others, I reckon that, technically, they’re as dead as he’s going to be soon.

‘Jackie’s intelligence network must be as good as ours. His guys have beaten us to it.’

He looked at the watcher who had been nearest to the incident. ‘Did you get a good look at what happened?’

‘Not really, sir. I was trying to verify the number of the Scorpio when the Jag pulled out. I just saw a lot of rushing about, then I heard the shot.’

‘Did you get a look at the third vehicle?’

‘No, sir, my view was obscured. I could see two men being hustled into it, then it did a reverse turn and made off. I never saw the number or the model type, only that it was a big light-coloured vehicle.’

‘That’s something at least. Dave,’ Martin called, ‘radio in and order patrols to look out for a large light-coloured car with at least four, probably five men in it. Tell them to treat them as armed and dangerous, and to do nothing other than keep them in sight.’

On impulse he swung up his night-glasses and trained them on the villa which they had been guarding. He studied the upper windows straining to see if anyone was there watching them. There was no-one there, not as much as a shadow on a curtain, but instinct told him that, if there had been, Jackie Charles would have been smiling.