Skinner's rules

101

In his office, Skinner took a bottle of brandy and a glass from his cabinet and poured himself a stiff measure. He made to put the bottle back, then changed his mind.

He took off his jacket, draped it over the back of his swivel chair, and sat down, carefully, behind his desk. The Browning was still in his shoulder holster.

He was halfway through his second brandy when Fulton’s bulk swept into the room, full of bluster.

‘Who in God’s name do you think you are, Skinner! You preside over the assassination of a visiting head of state, and then you have the temerity to summon me to your presence!’

Skinner’s hand was rock steady as he took the gun from its holster and slammed it down on the desk. But inside he felt shaky. He knew that sooner or later, shock, loss of blood and brandy would get to him. This had to be done fast and hard.

‘Shut the fuck up, Fulton! I’ll tell you who I am, my non-existent friend. ’m your worst fucking nightmare come true. I’m the man who shot Liberty fucking Valance, that’s who I am!

‘You can fix things, so they tell me. Well you’d better fix this. In my cottage in Gullane you’ll find two stiffs. One of them is our pal Allingham — that’s Allingham of the FO. He was shot by the same gun that killed Al-Saddi, and you can guess who fired it, can’t you. The other stiff is your late colleague Maitland. You know all about Maitland, Hughie, don’t you. You should; I’ll bet you wake up screaming every time you dream of him.

‘Well you can forget him. The hitman got himself hit. Did you know that he was going to kill Sarah? Did you?’ Skinner roared the question at the big man, his right fist grasping the automatic, his finger curled round the trigger.

Fulton’s belligerence had vanished. He shook his head violently. ‘No, Bob. Honestly, I didn’t know that. You must believe me!’

‘God, man, you’d better pray that I do! For that’s what he said to me. He actually stood in my living room and told me that. As matter-of-fact as you like. And he thought that, having heard that promise, I’d let him walk out the front door. Fatal mistake, that was.

‘So your bogeyman’s dead. You’re safe from him. Now here’s the bad news. You’re not fucking safe from me, Hughie. For I know. I know the whole stinking story from beginning to end. I know that Maitland, the state executioner, killed all those people — and I know why. And, with all of that, I know that you were an accessory, after and maybe even before the fact of all those murders.

‘I know what the stakes were in the game, Fulton, and so I know it’s got to stay secret. But it stops here, and it stops now. I have proof that Maitland shot Al-Saddi. I have a copy of the document that Mortimer and Jameson died for. They’re both well secure, but if anything unexpected happens to me, they’ll both go public.

‘And one thing more. If anything, the slightest mischance, should befall my nearest and dearest — Sarah, Alex, Andy, any one of them — then you, fat man, are fucking dead! You’ve lost one bogeyman, Fulton, but you’ve found another. You’ve just as much reason to fear me as you had to fear Maitland. After all, which one of us is lying right now in my living room with a bullet in his head?

‘As far as the Day of Deliverance is concerned, you can mark that down as mission accomplished, in spades. The Syrian is dead, and your master have their Lee Oswald. They’ve even got a bonus. If they ever identify that second dead Arab, they’ll see why. Tell them to try looking in Iraq.’

Skinner picked up the Browning and waved it at the man before him, seeing him cringe backwards as he did so.

‘My most sincere advice to you, Hughie, is this: retire. Go away. Get the fuck out of the sewer you work in. I’d rather not see you again, because if I did, I’d start to think again of all those dead people. And the devil inside of me that wants to shoot you where you stand might just win the argument next time. So quit, Hughie. Piss off. But before you hang up your cloak and dagger, there’s just one more thing you have to do.

‘I’m going back to my cottage on Sunday. That’s tomorrow now. When I do, I want to find it clean and spotless. I want Allingham gone. I want his blood and shit off my sofa, and I want his brains off my wall. Maitland, too. I want his mess cleaned up. That shouldn’t be too difficult, should it, Hughie, since he’s like you: he never existed anyway.

‘Spotless, man, spotless. I don’t want Sarah or Alex ever to find anything that might have been a bullet hole, or a bloodstain. I love that house. I’ll never forget what happened there tonight, but I don’t want anything left to remind me. Except for the shaky shelf in the kitchen. Leave that as it is, for luck!’

Skinner heaved himself to his feet, the ^gun still in his hand.

‘And now, my fat friend, as Fazal Mahmoud might well have said.. imshi!’