Autographs in the Rain

  Autographs in the Rain by Quinten Jardine.

  Book Jacket.

  As BOB SKINNER takes an evening stroll

  with a gorgeous filmstar on his arm, surely the

  worst of his worries is that back at Headquarters,an ambitious new colleague is scheming to enlarge his territory at Skinner's expense. But when a frightening shotgun attack sends Skinner and his old flame Louise Bankier diving for cover,

  seems danger has zeroed in on him once again.

  Returning to her native Scotland to shoot her

  latest film, Louise Bankier is one of Scotland's

  most popular exports - except with the stalker,

  who seems determined to scare her witless -

  maybe worse. For Skinner, tracking down

  her tormentor isn't just business now.

  It's very personal indeed.

  Meanwhile, the case of a pensioner found dead

  in his bath turns out to be anything but an open

  and shut case - especially when one of Skinner's

  closest staff is accused of murdering him. And

  a gang of thieves specialising in stealing items

  of a rather slippery nature are driving more,

  than one police force to distraction.

  On several fronts, Skinner is about to find out

  that nothing is quite what it seems...

  Quintin Jardine is the author of ten previous

  acclaimed Bob Skinner novels: 'Remarkably

  assured... a tour de force' NEW YORK TIMES

  HEADLINE

  FictionCrime

  UK £9.99

  ISBN 0-7472-7399-5

  9 780747"273998

  Quinten Jardine was a journalist before joining the Government Information Service where he spent nine years as an advisor to ministers and Civil Servants. Later he moved into political PR, until in 1986 he 'privatized' himself, to become an independent public relations consultant and writer. He is the author of the acclaimed Bob Skinner crime series as well as the Oz Blackstone mysteries.

  Also by this author

  Skinner's Rules

  Skinner's Festival

  Skinner's Trail

  Skinner's Round

  Skinner's Ordeal

  Skinner's Mission

  Skinner's Ghosts

  Murmuring the Judges

  Gallery Whispers

  Thursday Legends

  Blackstone's Pursuits

  A Coffin for Two

  Wearing Purple

  Screen Savers

  Quintin Jardine

  HEADLINE

  Copyright (c) 2001 Quintin Jardine

  The right of Quintin Jardine to be identified as the Author of

  the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the

  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published in 2001 by

  HEADLINE BOOK PUBLISHING

  10987654321

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

  reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,

  in any form or by any means without the prior written

  permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated

  in any form of binding or cover other than that in which

  it is published and without a similar condition being

  imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious

  and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead,

  is purely coincidental.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Jardine, Quintin

  Autographs in the rain

  1. Skinner, Bob (Fictitious character)

  2. Police 3. Detective and mystery stories

  I. Title

  823.9'14 F

  ISBN 0 7472 7446 0 (hardback)

  ISBN 0 7472 7399 5 (trade paperback)

  Typeset by

  CBS, Martlesham Heath, Ipswich, Suffolk

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by

  Clays Ltd, St Ives pic

  HEADLINE BOOK PUBLISHING

  A division of Hodder Headline

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.headline.co.uk

  www.hodderheadline.com

  This is for Dr George Armour Bell, QBE, uncle, medical adviser, and

  all-round good guy.

  Acknowledgements

  My friend and fellow mysterian, Richard 'Kinky' Friedman, a star in two

  galaxies, who suggested the title, unwittingly, in a Mongolian hut in

  Edinburgh.

  Patsy, at Moonmare, wherever in the world, or on the Internet, that

  be.

  may

  Sylvia Cunningham, MBE.

  William Crowe, a fellow escapee from an institution in Elmbank Street,

  Glasgow.

  A fine man, nameless on this page at least, who tried to teach me chemistry

  in that very institution, but failed through no fault of his own.

  1

  Christmas comes early in London. So does closing time.

  The couple stood on the edge of the pavement and looked along Oxford

  Street; it was just over an hour before midnight, the lights were shining,

  their tableaux stretching all the way along towards Marble Arch. Buses

  and taxis flowed along Regent Street towards the Circus, business picking

  up again as the pubs began to empty.

  'Jeez,' the tall man murmured. 'It's a shallow and inhospitable place,

  this. Damn near two months to Christmas and the fairy lights are on show

  already. Yet try and get a drink after eleven and you've no chance. To

  paraphrase an old Frankie song, London by night is a God awful sight. ..

  even on a Friday.'

  'Come on now,' his companion laughed. In her high heels she stood

  only three or four inches shorter than his six feet two. She was golden

  haired, stunningly beautiful in classic contrast to his rugged, life-formed

  features, and her pale blue eyes seemed to reflect the sparkle of the pageant

  light. Her voice was full and mellow, that of a contralto in her prime, refined

  and with the faintest trace, if one listened closely enough, of a Scottish

  accent. 'Glasgow was just the same when we were youngsters,' she said,

  'but without the bright lights.'

  'I never cared, when you were around.'

  'No,' she countered quickly, a chuckle in her throat, 'nor when the other

  one was, either. You made your choice; and from the way you were talking

  about your daughter tonight, you've never regretted it.'

  Suddenly, for the first time that evening, he was sombre. He hunched his

  broad shoulders inside his Barbour jacket, his sigh expelling a great cloud

  of breath into the frosty night. 'Regret is your enemy,' he said. 'If you give

  in to it, it can destroy you. It's a waste of time anyway; you can't change

  the past.'

  'But would you, if you could?' she asked him.

  'Why? Would you? The way you say that makes it sound as if I dumped

  you, yet I've always understood that our breaking up was a joint decision.'

  She reached up and adjusted his tie, looking at the knot, rather than into

  his eyes. 'Then, sir, that just shows you how good I am at my job. Oh, I

  didn't make a fuss when it happened. I was a big girl; I put on my mature

  face and agreed with all the common sense you talked.' She put a fingertip

  betwe
en her breasts. 'But in here, my little heart was breaking.'

  'I'm sorry. I really am,' he replied sincerely, 'but I still think it was for

  the best.'

  'So do I, now; no doubt about it. But back while it was happening

  She smiled up at him, with a flash of mischief in her eye. 'Did you love me,

  then?'

  He nodded, his steely hair glinting under the street lights. 'Yup.'

  She opened her mouth to respond but broke off as a pedestrian paused,

  and turned to stare at her. The man seemed to hesitate, then carried on his

  way. She looked back at him, the interruption over. 'But not as much as you

  loved her?' It was a statement as much as a question.

  'It wasn't just that. I loved her, sure... although to be absolutely truthful,

  I liked you more. Ahhh ...' He paused for a few seconds, gazing up at the

  night. 'Look, Lou, I don't care about religion or any of that stuff, just about

  what's right and what's wrong. My first personal commandment is loyalty.

  I've broken it twice in my life, and found that I hated myself for it, on both

  occasions.

  'The way I came to see it back then was that I made a promise when I got

  engaged. If I had broken it off, I couldn't have hacked the guilt, and sooner

  or later, I'd have blamed it on you.'

  'And I'd have hated that, for sure,' she conceded. She chuckled again,

  deep and warm, at his frown. 'Don't worry, I haven't spent the last twenty

  five years pining for my lost love. I've found a few since then: two marriages,

  three serious affairs . . . not bad for a wee girl from Bearsden. I've never

  felt a pang of guilt, either. We're totally different personalities, you see:

  yours is set in concrete and mine's tossing about on life's restless ocean.

  'I'd have left you by the time I was twenty-one. For sure.'

  She paused as a red bus roared by, close to the kerb. 'When was your

  other fall from grace?' she asked him.

  'A couple of years back,' he answered. 'My second wife and I had a

  major fall-out; she went back to the States, and I got involved with someone

  else. We got over it, though. We found out that we mattered too much to

  each other to let go.'

  AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN

  She smiled again. 'So there's no point in my asking you back to my

  place for a nightcap?'

  He raised an eyebrow at her question, and glanced away, out into the

  street. 'That would depe

  In mid-sentence, he stopped, threw his left arm round her waist and

  flung himself sideways, pulling her with him as he dived behind an

  abandoned newspaper stand. They heard the blast behind them before they

  hit the ground, and the scream of tyres as a dark coloured saloon accelerated

  away down Regent Street.

  He was on his feet again in a second. 'Wait here,' he told the woman,

  then ran off down the street after the car, trying to catch a clear view of its

  number-plate, only to see it disappear round the curve in the broad street,

  heading for Piccadilly Circus. She too was standing once again as he returned

  to their safe haven. No one had come to her aid; indeed, none of the few

  people who had been passing at the time were anywhere to be seen.

  She stared at him, bewildered, but apparently not in the least frightened.

  'You swept me off my feet once before,' she exclaimed, 'but never like

  that. What was that about?'

  He glared back down Regent Street. 'When someone shoots at me,' he

  said, tersely, 'I tend to get out of the way!'

  Her hand flew to her mouth, and her eyes seemed to flash as they widened.

  'Someone shot at you?'

  'It's happened before,' he told her dryly. 'Didn't you see the gun?'

  'I heard a bang, but that was all. What was it?'

  'The guy in that car had a shotgun. I just happened to be looking that

  way as he stuck it out the window and took a bead on me.'

  'But who would want to shoot you?'

  His mouth twisted in a grimace as he unfastened a pocket of his jacket

  and took out a hand-phone. 'More people than you could shake a stick at, my dear,' he murmured as he punched in the police emergency number.

  'Do you ever get enraged about anything, Sammy?'

  'What?'

  'Enraged, I said. As in, really steamed up with anger.'

  He looked at her as she stood there, all lips and legs. 'Enraged? No, not

  so's you'd notice, anyway. Now if you'd said engorged ...'

  'But I didn't.. .' Ruth frowned at him severely.

  He grinned back. 'Why d'you ask, anyway? Am I beginning to bore

  you, Ms McConnell?'

  She shook her head, making her long, glossy hair ripple like a shampoo

  commercial. 'Not yet, Sergeant, not yet. All the same, you are getting

  predictable. You're the easiest going man I've ever been out with.'

  'A typical copper, in other words.'

  'Absolutely a-typical as far as I've seen. Where I work it's like a

  madhouse at times; I've never seen so many stressed-out people.'

  He looked at her with a touch of scepticism in his eyes. 'Such as? I know

  the Big Man can go a bit stratospheric from time to time, but the Chief's an

  even-tempered sort, and DI Mcllhenney's okay too, isn't he?'

  'Up to a point.' She hesitated. 'I shouldn't tell tales out of school, but

  She frowned. 'No, better not.'

  'Aw, come on, Ruthie,' he exclaimed. 'You can't do that to me. Honest

  to Christ, I don't know. You seem to be making a career out of leading me

  on then slamming the bloody door in my face.'

  'What do you mean by that?' She raised an eyebrow, provoking him

  even further.

  'You know bloody well what I mean.'

  'No. Spell it out?'

  'You know.'

  'No. Tell me.'

  'Okay, we've been going out for... how long? ... six months now, yet

  we've never

  AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN

  'So?' she asked, archly.

  'So most people, most couples

  'Shag on their first date?'

  'No, I wouldn't go that far . . .'

  'Well neither would I.'

  He drew the car to a halt in a lay-by and switched off the engine. 'Fine,'

  he murmured, turning to her, 'but after this long, I'd have thought that our

  relationship might have ... moved up a gear, shall we say.'

  'You can say it if you like, Detective Sergeant Pye. But can you tell me

  why it should? Do you think you're God's gift or something?'

  'No,' he protested, 'but it's not as if you . . .' He stopped himself short,

  and bit his lip. Fortunately, she laughed.

  ' ... as if I haven't been round the block a few times? Was that it?'

  'No! I wouldn't be that crude, Ruthie. But you've had other relationships,

  okay: that's all I was going to say.'

  'I didn't jump into bed with any of them either, no one long-term, at

  least. Sammy, the first time I screwed someone on a first date I was nineteen.

  Two days later I realised that I didn't really fancy him that much, but it

  took me six months and a lot of hassle to get shot of him. Ever since then,

  I've been careful to distinguish between short- and long-term things.

  'There was a time when I had the hots for Andy Martin; given the chance

  I'd have shagged his brains out, but that's all he'd have wanted anyway. If

  I'd slept with you righ
t at the start, then most probably it would have been

  all over by now. The fact that I'm still making up my mind; well, that's got

  to be good hasn't it? Unless, of course you're only after a quick legover

  yourself?'

  'Which I'm not, as you well know.'

  'In that case, trust me for a bit longer; being friends is more important

  than the other, believe me.'

  'I know that,' he conceded. 'Karen and I were only ever pals, for all that

  half the force seemed to think.'

  She laughed. 'Which is maybe just as well, given that you work for DCS

  Martin and that she's Mrs Martin now.'

  He capitulated. 'Okay, I apologise,' he said. 'You are not a tease, and