Quintin Jardine's blog

The boss and I enjoyed an excellent Saturday evening, dining at La Terrassa d’Empuries, in the village of Sant Marti, yards from where Primavera’s house would be, if it existed. We know all the restaurants there and visit them by rotation. Last Saturday it was L’Esculapi, next Saturday ….. We’ll see, guys.

It’s been an interesting journey, and not the easiest I’ve ever undertaken, but Skinner 24 is finished, edited, spell-checked and ready for transmission to Headline,when I’m good and ready.

It doesn’t matter how many books I’ve completed, (as it happens, S24 brings the total to 40) I always feel the same wave of relief when it’s done and dusted, just as I feel the same uncertainty whenever I switch on the computer to begin another. The day I take the gift for granted, and stop trying to do better next time, that will be the day I lose it. So far I seem to be pleasing more people than I’m upsetting, (even allowing for the guy who wrote to me today and after beginning by admitting that he wasn’t very far into Funeral Note, proceeded to tell me what was wrong with it) and that gives me great satisfaction.

What’s next? A few weeks’ R&R, then I’m on the road in Central Scotland for the launch of Pray for the Dying. Hopefully, the latest Skinner won’t get in the way , and I’ll be able to speak sensibly about it in Biggar, Edinburgh, Haddington, Glasgow and Newton Mearns. One thing I’ll tell you now, PftD will introduce you two a new detective pairing, of whom I have great hopes.

This morning an 81-year-old man was arrested in Wilmslow on suspicion of raping an under-age girl, in 1967. He hasn’t been charged as yet, just hauled in for questioning. The story would probably have gone no further than the Manchester Evening News, but for one thing. The man involved has been named as Bill Roache, who has played Ken Barlow in Coronation Street for 53 years and as such has earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s longest serving soap actor.

If Mr Roache is eventually charged and convicted, then I don’t care how ‘historic’ the allegation is, he deserves to feel the weight of justice, and I have no pity for him. But if he is not, if he is innocent, what damage will have been done to him? 

I support absolutely, the right to anonymity of victims of sex crimes. However, the present post-Savile climate has led me to wonder, given the extent to which mud sticks and even a disproved allegation can taint, whether accused persons should have the same right, at least until charged, and possibly until they are convicted. Dunno. What do you think?

I’d forgotten about Amanda Knox. I’d have been happier if that state had continued, rather than have to read that she’s made $4m from her book. Regardless of guilt or innocence, it would be nice if she used most of that to set up some sort of foundation in memory of the girl she was cleared of killing. Will she? We’ll see.

Twice a year, I finish a book; yesterday was one of those days.

On Monday, in common with around 10 million other people, I watched the conclusion of Broadchurch. Turned out I’d guessed, correctly who’d done it. When he was unmasked I thought his motive was pretty facile and didn’t buy into that at all. That may have been because the man who played him wasn’t capable of putting it over in a way tahat I believed.

If he wasn’t he was the only one who fell short. I’ll tell you how big an impression it made, and one player more than any other.

I’ve been writing the Skinner stories for well over 20 years now. I’ve done countless public events and I’ve been asked countless times who I see as Bob, if it ever made telly. I’ve given many different answers yet in all that time I have never sat down to write and found any actor’s face forcing itself upon my personal vision of my lead character.

Until yesterday morning,when I sat down to write a first person Skinner chapter and found that David Tennant was doing the talking.

In the wake of the Luis Suarez munch-in, I’ve just watched BBC Breakfast  trying to keep up by running an interview with an ‘Anger management consultant.’ I had a problem with in; the guy looked so smug and self-satisfied that he made me want to thump him.

My closest friend died last week. His funeral took place this afternoon.

Jack Arrundale lived more than half his life in Gullane, but he was always a Glossop lad, and always loyal to Derbyshire. It was odd that he and I should have become friends, as we were polar opposites in many ways. Jack was baptised Catholic, and was an altar boy, I was baptised into a right-footed family at a time when the twain never met in the West of Scotland. Yes, we’d both moved on from those beginnings, but Jack was always one of nature’s Guardian readers, while I had a Telegraph tendency. Less than surprising then, that we argued for much of those 40 years, over things as diverse as whether black was in fact a shade of grey, or whether white was really a sort of meringue colour. Yes, we argued, but we never quarrelled, never exchanged a word in anger. Truly, Jack was like a brother to me, and I’m glad that I told him that while I had time.

Jack was the most popular man I’ve ever known, without ever trying to be, or ever realising it. He made friends as if they were metal, and he was a magnet; people were attracted to him, naturally. With no expectation of return, he gave of himself most generously. For example, to Haddington cricket club in his younger days . . . and beyond them, truth be told. He was involved in the early days of the kids’ Swimming Club, which I believe still exists. He was a scout leader, and he was a stalwart of the five a side group that gave rise to my book, ‘Thursday Legends’. Jack played as he lived, enthusiastically. A heart attack didn’t stop him. The first time he came to the fives afterwards I had to beg him to slow down, telling him point blank that if he keeled over it would be me that got pelters from Bren, not him. Of course he didn’t slow down, or keel over: he played his last game when he was seventy; nobody will beat that, ever. In retirement Jack gave of himself to the village that he had adopted, in the day centre, and latterly in helping Brenda’s work with the RDA. Anything else needed doing, Jack was always up for it.

Through it all, he was also the most modest man I’ve ever known. He was always quick to praise others for their generosity, their deeds and their sanctity, without ever realising that everyone who knew him saw him in exactly that way.

I confess to being angry today, as well as sad. Why? Because Jack’s been short-changed, big-time. Okay he was 75, but he should have had another few decades left. His parents lived to a combined age of around 180 years, and there was every reason to expect that in 2037 he would receive his centenary birthday card from King William the Fifth. But now he won’t. He was not a man given to complaining about personal troubles, so when he came round to see me last November, and said simply, ‘I’m not well,’ I knew that he wasn’t kidding. Yet he handled it with a courage to which we all aspire, and hope to attain when the time comes.

After 9/11, the old lady who reigns over us told the American people, ‘Grief is the price we pay for love.’ That’s a price that I’m privileged to pay for Jack, and it’s a mark of the man that so many people are grieving so deeply for him.