Skinner's Mission

59

Like most modern prisons Shotts is not built in a suburban environment. It sits on the edge of a small town, on a plateau approximately halfway between Edinburgh and Glasgow, but definitely not on any tourist route.

A few relics of its mining past are scattered around the landscape, but in the modern era the Department of Social Security is its principal paymaster.

Winter was unleashing the icy sting in its tail as Skinner drove through the double gates of the jail. Snowflakes were falling and beginning to lie on the ground as he parked and walked across towards the administration building.

Charles Hall, the Governor, was waiting for him in his office, coffee at the ready.

‘Welcome, Bob,’ he said. ‘Long time no see. Good to see you looking so fit and well after what I read about you a few months back. Fully recovered, yes?’

The policeman smiled. ‘Just about, thanks, Charles. My family had a hell of a fright at the time, but once I was through the first couple of days, the physical side of it was stabilised. It was just a matter of recuperating, then working at getting back into shape.’

He smiled. ‘How’s things with the Prison? I haven’t heard anything of you recently, so I take that to mean that all’s well.’

The bright-eyed young Governor shook his head. ‘Fingers crossed, but yes. The place seems to be under control these days, and as far as I can tell, it’s me who’s running it, not the prisoners.’

Skinner laughed. ‘That’s good to hear.’

‘The man you’ve come to see may have a lot to do with that,’ said Hall. ‘He’s an awesome figure among the inmates. He keeps himself very much to himself, reading, studying - writing now I hear - but you sense that no-one would dare to do anything that they thought Lennie might not like. And so far he’s been a model prisoner.’ He paused.

‘He was intrigued to hear that you wanted to see him. He agreed to it at once. I’ve set up an interview room in this block, so that none of the other prisoners see you together. I’ll have two of my biggest lads sit in with you.’

Skinner laughed again, even more heartily. ‘Two! Double it and it still wouldn’t be enough.

‘No, Charles. Big Lennie and I have had our go at each other. He won’t want a return match any more than I do. I’ll see him alone if you don’t mind. What I want to talk to him about has to be off the record.’

Hall stared at him, doubtfully. ‘You sure?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Well, in that case . . . he’s waiting for you now.’ He led the way out of his office and down a short corridor, stopping outside a brown varnished door. He rapped three times with his knuckles and stepped inside, Skinner following behind.

Lennie Plenderleith was standing at the window, looking out at the snow, his back to the door. At least Skinner assumed that there was a window there. Big Lennie lived up to his nickname so well that he blocked it out. He was six feet seven and built like an elephant. The strapping guards who flanked him looked puny by comparison.

He turned at the sound of the door opening, and smiled: the slow, contented smile of a man at peace with himself. ‘Hello, Mr Skinner,’ he said. ‘What brings you here on such a bloody awful day?’

He offered out his right hand and Skinner shook it, awkwardly, since Lennie was handcuffed.

‘Take those off, please,’ the policeman asked the Governor. ‘There’s no need for them.’ Hall nodded, and one of the guards unlocked the cuffs. ‘That’s good. Now if you’ll leave us alone . . .

‘Sit down, big fella,’ said the DCC as the door closed, taking a seat himself, with his back to the window so that his companion could still see the day outside, putting himself deliberately at a disadvantage by leaving the prisoner between him and the door. He looked across at the giant and smiled. Lennie Plenderleith, multiple murderer, convicted the year before of three killings, including that of his wife. Lennie Plenderleith, millionaire, heir to the fortune of the late Tony Manson. Lennie Plenderleith, hooligan turned intellectual, Open University graduate and now doctorate candidate. Lennie Plenderleith, the only criminal Skinner had ever met for whom, against all his basic instincts, he had formed a genuine liking and respect, the only one in whom he had ever recognised a code of honour similar to his own.

‘The Governor tells me you’re writing now, Lennie.’

‘That’s right.’ The huge man’s voice was soft and gentle, in complete contrast to his physical appearance.

‘Am I going to be in it?’

‘Maybe. It’s a book about Tony’s murder, what led up to it, and what followed it. But I haven’t decided yet whether to write it as my memoirs or as a novel.’

‘It should be a best seller,’ said the detective, ‘whether you do it as fact or fiction. If I can help with anything, you only have to ask. I know the story too, from the other side of the road, so to speak.’

Lennie smiled. ‘That’s kind of you, Mr Skinner. I’ll take you up on that.’

‘Done. Listen, the name’s Bob. Our professional dealings are behind us.’ He paused. ‘You all right, in here?’

‘Sure. I’ve been here before, remember. This time, I’m philosophical about it. Tony left me all his money. The things I did to get in here I see as having done to earn it. I regard it as a pension fund, and when I’m released from here, I’ll still, hopefully, be young enough to enjoy it.

‘I’ve never had a chance to say this, but I’m grateful to you for persuading the Crown not to ask the judge for a minimum sentence. That gave me a chance of seeing the outside again.’

He looked across at Skinner. ‘Why did you do that?’

The detective returned his frank stare. ‘Between you and me? Because I didn’t think that what you did was all that bad. Your wife committed a form of suicide in my book. As for the others, I’d have put them away for life. You put them away for good. Part of me wanted to let you go, you know, to let you walk away.’

Lennie guffawed with sudden laughter. ‘Too bad about the other part,’ he chuckled at last.

‘Now, Bob. What’s brought you out here?’

‘Okay,’ said Skinner, ‘let’s get to it.’ He reached into the pocket of his jacket, produced Tom Whatling’s eight by six print and handed it across to Plenderleith. ‘Know what that is?’

The giant peered at the picture. ‘It looks like a broken fluid pipe in a crashed car.’

‘Not broken, Lennie. Cut. Eighteen years ago. My Mini Cooper. My car, but my wife was driving at the time. They hadn’t even taken her body out of the car when that was taken. The photo’s been hidden since then, for all those years. Now I’ve found it, and I have to know who cut that pipe, who it was that killed her.’

Plenderleith looked across at him, genuinely stricken. ‘Your wife? Instead of you? That’s awful, for both of you.’

Skinner grimaced, as he nodded. ‘I’ve been checking the investigations that I was involved in around that time, and in the period leading up to it. From those files, the name that jumps out highest is Tony Manson. If it was him, he’s dead, and he can’t answer for it. But that doesn’t matter; I still have to know.’

He paused. ‘This thing may have happened before you went to work for Tony, but I have to ask you this. Did he ever mention anything to you afterwards, about me, or about this? And if he did, will you tell me now?’

Lennie Plenderleith closed his eyes and threw his head back, so that his thick brown hair fell on his shoulders. He sat like that for almost three minutes, as if he was searching his memory, or weighing up a decision.

At last he looked at Skinner once more, full in the eye. ‘This is between us, Bob, yes? No hidden mikes or anything. Nothing leaves this room?’

‘On my honour.’

The great head nodded. ‘Okay then,’ he said. ‘You got your timing wrong as far as I was concerned. In fact, eighteen years ago, I had just gone to work for Tony. Eighteen years ago you were indeed giving him grief. Everything was shut down, the girls, the drugs everything.

‘One day Tony called me in to see him. He said that he had had an ultimatum from his major drug supplier in London. Reopen the market or else, the guy had told him. Tony told him that he should sit tight, that the informant who was spilling his guts to you would be taken care of, and that you would run out of leads and patience. But the London man said no. He told Tony to have you killed, or else.’

Lennie smiled. ‘Tony Manson had very definite views about things, you know. He wasn’t as powerful in those days as he became, but even then, no-one threatened him, or gave him “or else” orders. Also, he had very definite views about harming policemen in general, and you in particular. He knew that if you were hit then there would be nowhere for him to hide; no, not even him.’ He paused. The smile faded and he took a deep breath, as if he were about to dive into a very deep pool.

‘Tony gave me my instructions. He sent me to the man in London to make him see sense. So I went down there, I followed the man home one night, I broke his bodyguard’s neck, and I made him see sense, the fool who had threatened Tony Manson, by driving a big knife right through his brain.’ He reached across and tapped the left side of Skinner’s head. ‘Right here.

‘I felt like a million dollars. I was just a lad, and Tony had trusted me that much, to give me such an important job.’

Skinner sat, motionless and silent, as Big Lennie in his soft voice, finished his story. ‘Tony Manson didn’t try to kill you, Bob. He saved your life. Between the two of us, you have my word upon it.’

It was the policeman’s turn to throw his head back. He hissed out a long sorrowful sigh. ‘Sssshit!’ he whispered. ‘This doesn’t get easier.’

Lennie frowned. ‘You believe me, don’t you.’

‘Hah!’ said Skinner. ‘That’s the trouble. I do. It’s just that for the second time in as many days, I haven’t had the answer I wanted. I was hoping that it was Tony, and that I could have closed the book on it.

‘Now, I have to go on, and I’m left with only one obvious alternative. My problem is, I can’t make myself believe that it was him either.’