Skinner's Mission

55

The drive down to Alnwick took just over two hours: because Martin, driving his swift silver Mondeo with McIlhenney in the passenger seat, did not wish to suffer the embarrassment of tripping one of the many speed cameras on the A1; because behind them came a dark blue Ford Transit with black barred windows, and six burly uniformed policemen inside; and because, for the first time in several days, there was, simply, no need to rush.

Martin had never been to the old Northumbrian town before, but street signs took him, without difficulty, to its police station, past its castle and its prison.

Leaving the escort officers outside in the Transit they announced themselves to the Sergeant in reception, and were greeted within seconds by a uniformed Chief Inspector. ‘Howay, gentlemen,’ the forty-something man said, cheerily, ‘I’m Frank Berry. Hope we didn’t spoil your Sunday, but my lads were very pleased at catching your fugitive for you. They couldn’t wait for me to tell you about it, in fact.’

‘You didn’t spoil our Sunday, Chief Inspector,’ said Martin, with a grin. ‘In fact you made it. We’ve had a parade of cock-ups in our investigations this weekend, so we were needing a break like this.

‘Where are you keeping McCartney and Kirkbride?’

‘We’ve got them banged up in separate cells. McCartney’s already been charged with failing to stop for a police signal, and with doing almost a hundred and thirty trying to get away from my guys. We’ll want him back for our magistrates on both those counts.’

Chief Inspector Berry shook his head in wonderment. ‘You wouldn’t have thought one of those big old round-bodied Rovers could go that fast, but it did. We only just got the roadblock in position in time. Just for a second, my lads thought they were going to try to crash through it.’

He looked at Martin as he led the two Scots through to a room behind the reception desk. Its window overlooked the station’s secure car park. ‘That’s the flying machine across there,’ said Berry, pointing to a big white Rover 3500s, reversed into the far corner of the yard. Its registration bore an A prefix, and in another era it might have been a police vehicle.

‘What do you want to do with these two?’ the Chief Inspector went on. ‘You’ll want to caution McCartney formally and arrest him on the attempted extortion charge. You can interview him here if you like, or you can just lift him straight away. I assume we’ll just let his mate go. We’ve nothing to hold him on.’

Martin smiled and shook his head. ‘Oh no, Frank, we want Willie Kirkbride too. We’ve got another matter to discuss with him and McCartney, one that’s far more important than a wee bit of half-hearted intimidation for a loanshark. Let’s have a word with them both now, if we may.’

‘Okay, sir.’ Berry opened the door and barked an order to the Sergeant on reception. One minute later, the door opened once again and two men were bustled into the room, each in the grasp of two Constables.

Ricky McCartney was just under six feet tall, and built like a barrel, with black greasy hair and heavy brows, over dark, brooding, threatening eyes. His jutting jaw was black with a day-old stubble. Beneath his crumpled grey jacket he looked to be massively built, with long arms, which lent a simian look to his overall appearance. His companion, Kirkbride, was an inch or two taller. His pinched face was unshaven like McCartney’s, with a greying beard which looked as long as the remaining hair on his bald head. He had mean, nasty eyes which darted all around the room, save at Martin and McIlhenney.

The escort officers shoved both men down, roughly, into seats at the interview table. McCartney, a heavy hand on each of his shoulders, looked up at Martin, briefly, then across at McIlhenney. ‘You!’ he said, with a snarl. ‘I might have known you’d show up.’

The big Sergeant nodded. ‘Bet on it, Ricky. I’ve never forgotten that time I broke your nose, see. I’d go anywhere for another shot. You’re all right, guys like you and Tommy Heenan, with someone you’ve got outnumbered, or you know you can lean on. But you never fight in your own weight division, because you haven’t got the fucking bottle.’

‘Heenan?’ said McCartney, ‘What about Heenan?’

‘Come off it, Ricky,’ said Martin. ‘You know damn well. As soon as you heard that we had lifted Heenan for Carl Medina’s murder, you did a runner. Because you were with him last weekend at Medina’s house when you went to give him an eighteen hundred-pound message, and because you knew that we’d be after you too.’

The thug looked at him. ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said, shiftily.

Martin smiled, as he and the Sergeant eased themselves into seats facing the two men. ‘Of course you do, but it doesn’t matter. Heenan is no longer a suspect in the Medina case. You would be, only you don’t come anywhere near fitting our eye-witness description of the killer.’

McCartney sat in silence, staring down at the desk. Kirkbride continued to gaze shiftily around the room.

‘Well, Ricky?’ asked the Chief Superintendent. ‘Aren’t you going to ask us what it’s all about.’

McCartney’s vicious eyes looked up at him. ‘Aye, okay. What is it then?’

‘It’s about some work you two did for Dougie Terry.’ Across the table, both men flinched, taking Martin momentarily by surprise. ‘A few years back,’ he went on. ‘You and Barney Cogan, now deceased, Willie Easson, and Willie Macintosh, with Evan Mulgrew as lookout, beat up and crippled a young footballer named Jimmy Lee. You did so on the orders of Douglas Terry.’

McCartney’s eyes seemed to go completely blank. Beside him, Kirkbride slumped back in his chair, breathing heavily. Martin stared at them both, his confusion gathering. He had expected the usual denial and bluster, not this.

‘Dougie Terry’s a great singer,’ said Neil McIlhenney. ‘Now we want to hear what sort of a voice you’ve got. You’re going to sing for us, Ricky.’

McCartney nodded, without looking up. ‘Aye okay then,’ he muttered. ‘Get us up the road then, and we’ll tell you about it.’

Andy Martin leaned back in his chair and had a vision: through night-glasses, of a suddenly-appearing Jaguar, a Ford Scorpio and, behind it, a big, light-coloured, indistinct shape.

He sat bolt upright, a huge, triumphant, exultant smile spreading across his face. ‘You’re in a tearing hurry to get out of here, aren’t you?

‘Chief Inspector Berry,’ he asked, his eyes not leaving McCartney and Kirkbride for a second, ‘have you searched that Rover out there?’

‘Well, no sir, not yet. In fact, we were waiting for you.’

Martin cut him off. ‘Get the keys, then, and come with us. And bring these two.’ He jumped up from his seat, and led McIlhenney and the rest out of the room. He looked around until he spotted the exit to the yard, then marched outside, across to the Rover, and round its long nose, to the boot.

He stood there, staring at it, waiting, as Berry ran towards him waving two big car keys, and as McCartney and Kirkbride, ashen-faced, were dragged outside by the four Constables across the car park.

Martin was smiling still as he bent over the tailgate of the big hatchback car, unlocked it and swung it open.

‘Jesus Christ,’ gasped Chief Inspector Berry, as he looked inside. Involuntarily, he took two paces backwards.

The two bodies were crammed into the boot space, their knees forced up to their chest, and their hands tied behind them. Their eyes bulged like organ-stops and their tongues protruded from their mouths.

Andy Martin leaned over the cadavers. ‘Strangled,’ he said in a calm, even, almost friendly voice. ‘Garrotted with wire. Very effective, very colourful.’ He looked around.

‘On our way to Birmingham, were we, gentlemen? To make a special delivery?’

McCartney struggled briefly in the hands of his escorts, then gave up. Kirkbride slumped in a half-faint, staring transfixed into the boot.

‘I think we should have that discussion about Dougie Terry, don’t you?’ said Martin. ‘Only now we’ll widen the agenda. Come on, Neil, let’s take them back north.’

Chief Inspector Frank Berry gulped. He was faced with one of those rare decisions on which a career could hang.

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he said, hesitantly. ‘I can’t let you take these men anywhere. There have been two murders committed on my patch, and I have to hold McCartney and Kirkbride for questioning.’

Martin frowned at him. ‘But man, these two stiffs were abducted from a car in Edinburgh last night, in which a third man was shot dead. We know where they’re from and why they were killed, and I’ll bet the PNC will tell us who they were as soon as we feed their prints into it.

‘It’s our active investigation, not yours.’ But he was playing poker with no cards in his hands, and he knew it. So did Frank Berry.

‘No, sir, I’m sorry,’ said the Northumbrian, ‘but you can’t take the prisoners anywhere unless you can prove to me that those men were actually killed in Scotland, or unless my Chief Constable says otherwise. In fact, you can’t even speak to them. It’d be more than my job’s worth.’ It was the traditional and unmistakable sound of a pension being protected. Martin and McIlhenney knew they had lost.

Berry turned to the four Constables, his arms flapping and pointing all around. ‘Take McCartney and Kirkbride back to their cells. Get the duty CID people out here, pronto. Have this area roped off. Call the Medical Examiner.

‘And call the photographers. We must have photographs! ’