Skinner's Ordeal Read Online Free PDF

in a car and send him up to Brian Mackie. Tell him he's to give him a statement, repeating everything that he's just told me. Then get word to Brian that no journalists are to be allowed within a mile of the bloke. Got that?'
    Radcliffe looked at him, wide-eyed. 'Got it, sir. Every word of it!'
    NINE
    Sir James Proud rarely used a police driver if he could avoid it. `Policemen are trained for policing,' he said often to Bob Skinner, 'not for driving pompous sods like us around, just so that we can be seen in our big cars.'
    On the other hand, the veteran Chief Constable was rarely seen out of his impressive uniform on public occasions. The boys and girls on the beat like to see their Chief wearing the silver braid, Bob. It makes their uniforms feel that bit more important. Besides, it makes me feel that I really am in command of this outfit. When you drive a chair for as long as I have, you need to reassure yourself on that score.'
    But, on this day, when Proud Jimmy's car crested the rise and pulled into the impromptu police carpark, he was in the back seat. When he stepped out, Skinner saw that he was clad in a heavy navy-blue pullover and baggy old flannels, their legs tucked into thick grey woollen socks worn inside tan hiking boots.
    For a moment, Skinner's anger over Sarah's involvement threatened to burst to the surface, but it evaporated as soon as he saw his friend's shocked, drawn face. 'I came to help, Bob,'
    said the Chief quietly. 'But on the way, I received this over the car fax.' If Skinner disliked his car phone, he loathed the very idea of a fax on wheels, but in the official vehicles reserved for chief officers they were standard equipment.
    With an expression of distaste he took the sheets of paper which Proud Jimmy held out to him. 'What is it?'
    Ìt's the passenger list, row by row. D'you see the name against Row 1 seat E?'
    Skinner glanced at the first page and saw the name of Colin Davey MP. 'I know about him. Wee Adam Arrow called me a few minutes back. He's flying up here.'
    `Mmm,' said the Chief. To the DCC's surprise, he sounded almost uninterested. 'Now look at the fourth page. Row 28, seat A.'
    Skinner thumbed through the pages until he found the reference. He stared at it, and as he did so he paled, and his shoulders sagged. 'Oh Jimmy, no. Surely not! Not Roy Old. Not nice, amiable, easygoing Roy.'
    Ì'm afraid so,' said the Chief sadly.

    `What the hell was he doing on that plane? I spoke to him yesterday. He was going to the conference dinner last night. It was a black-tie do, port and cigars and all that. A real
    "AlkaSeltzers at Oh Nine Hundred" job. Why the bloody hell did he have to be so damned conscientious that he dragged his hangover on to the seven o'clock shuffle?'
    Detective Chief Superintendent Roy Old was Head of CID, Skinner's immediate deputy in the criminal investigation hierarchy, and once upon a time Detective Inspector to his Detective Sergeant in the Gayfield Police Station. He was a quiet, self-effacing man, to the extent that he had been in a backwater job in West Lothian until Skinner's accession to Chief Officer rank. One of the first acts of the newly appointed Assistant Chief Constable had been to install his former boss as his number two — the ideal man, he had thought, to maintain stability while he formulated his long-term plans. Those plans were in place.
    Now their implementation would have to be brought forward.
    Skinner turned his back on the Chief and leaned against the roof of his car. 'I put him there, Jimmy!' It was almost a howl. 'I could have gone to that bloody conference, I should have gone. But I sent Roy instead. And why? Because I looked at the programme and thought, "Christ what a bore! A three-day inter-Force conference on fraud! No way I'm sealing myself up in that. Roy can go. Good old Roy. It'll help him while away some time till his retirement."
    `Now good old modest Roy's lying in bits down in the heather, because the great Bob Skinner was too