Thursday legends

57

'Damn me: Bob Skinner! Susan! It's Bob Skinner.' He heard a shout from somewhere in the background. 'Susan sends her love, to Sarah as well. What can I do for you? You got some bigwig guests who'd like to play Witches Hill? No problem, if that's it.'

'No, it's nothing like that, Hector,' the DCC told the Marquis of Kinture. The policeman and the wheelchair-bound aristocrat had crossed paths a couple of years earlier, drawn together by crime, and a shared love of golf had cemented their friendship. 'Where the hell are you, by the way? You can never tell, when somebody's on a mobile.'

'We're in the Florida Keys,' the Peer replied. 'Fancied a spot of sea-fishing; got to find other pursuits now that the House of Lords is being put out of business. I'm strapped in a chair with a bloody great rod in my hand even as I speak. D'you fish, old chap?'

'Not me. Haven't got the patience. If I can't hit it, or kick it, then I don't want to play with it.'

Lord Kinture laughed. 'Spend a few years in a chariot like mine. You'll do anything for sport then.'

'Aye, I suppose so. Actually, I am off my feet at the moment; got a leg in plaster.'

'Ah, too bad. What happened to it?'

'It's a long story. Listen, to come to the point; we've got an investigation going on into the murder of an ex-copper named Alec Smith. One of my guys was up in Dundee this morning, interviewing a man who turned out to be your estate factor, and he discovered that Smith leased a cottage from you.'

Even across three thousand miles of ocean, the silence was loaded. Even bounced off a satellite, Skinner could hear the sudden exhalation. 'So someone's done for Mr Alec Smith, have they? About bloody time too. Not in my cottage was it?'

'No, in his own house.'

'How was he killed?'

'In an interesting variety of ways; he was tortured to death.'

'Appropriate,' said Hector Kinture, with undisguised pleasure in his voice.

'Hold on a minute,' Skinner exclaimed. 'If you hated Smith that much, why did you rent him one of your properties, and get involved in the deal personally?'

'Because the bloody man blackmailed me. I met him a few years back, when I had the Queen and Prince Philip at Bracklands and he was involved in the security. Shortly afterwards, he came to see me and told me that he was looking for a property; a safe house, he called it. Said that he'd seen the empty place near Yellowcraigs, that he'd found out I owned it and wanted to rent it from me.

'I told him to bugger off. The place had been promised to my head gardener at the big house as a retirement cottage; I was just about to start renovating it for him.' Kinture let out a half-cough, half-snort. 'The man, your ex-colleague, then produced a series of photographs of my brother-in-law. Don't want to say too much with Susan not far out of earshot; she doesn't know any of this.'

'It's all right; don't even mention his name. I know who he is. These photographs; male or female?'

'Male.'

'So you rented the place to Smith.' 'No choice.'

'You could have come to me. I could have squashed him like a fly.'

'I didn't know you then,' Kinture pointed out. 'So I did what he asked. He used a false name on the agreement; I expected him to welch on the rent, but he didn't. It was always paid on the dot. I couldn't take the chance, Bob; had to protect Susan and her family.'

'I understand that, man,' the policeman said. 'It's what you may have done to others in the process that's worrying me.'

'God forbid that I have, but frankly, Bob, the man intimidated me. Look, what can I do to help you now?'

'Simple. You can let my people enter that cottage without the need for a warrant. We think we have the keys.'

'You've got it. Do you want Gilbert McCart to be there?'

'Absolutely not.'

'Fine…' the Marquis hesitated. 'Bob; when you go in there, if you find anything, anything like… You will be discreet, won't you?'

Skinner let out a quiet, grim laugh. 'Don't worry, Hector,' he promised. 'In this one, discretion is the order of the day.'