Deadlock

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘Not yet. The DCC’s looking at a few names.’

  ‘But you’ll have input when the selection’s made, yes?’

  ‘I would hope so.’

  ‘If Noele McClair was interested . . .’

  ‘I’d take her like a shot,’ Haddock retorted.

  ‘In that case, Sauce, you should give her a call, then put her name in the frame.’

  ‘I will do that as soon as I can, tonight if possible. But, gaffer, why don’t you call DCC McGuire yourself and tell him?’

  ‘Let’s just say I’d rather not. They’re big boys and girls now, they don’t need their hands holding, and certainly not by me. Have you met the new chief yet, by the way? Officially, that is?’

  ‘This morning. He called me to headquarters at Falkirk to confirm my promotion. The DCC was there too. He asked me about the DI vacancy then. He ran some candidates by me. To tell you the truth, I didn’t fancy any of them, and one least of all, but we didn’t discuss them.’

  ‘You can talk about it now, Sauce, but do not, repeat not, mention my name.’

  ‘Have you and Neil McIlhenney fallen out, gaffer?’ the new DCI asked.

  ‘No, and I want to make sure that we don’t. Get it?’

  ‘I think so. Cheers, my opponent’s on the tee.’

  Skinner returned to McClair, beckoning her out of the bedroom. He had seen enough of Mrs Alexander in death, and preferred to remember her as she had been, a bright chirpy personality who had cheered him up. ‘You should be getting a call from Sauce,’ he told the inspector. ‘Not within the next three or four hours, and maybe not even until tomorrow, if it’s his turn to change the baby, but it’ll happen.’

  ‘Thanks, Bob,’ she said, gratefully. ‘Do you think I have a chance?’

  ‘I wouldn’t bet on anyone else.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Talking about babies, it’ll be Dawn’s bedtime soon. I have to say goodnight to her or she won’t be happy. Are you all right here on your own?’ His eyes widened and he laughed. ‘Listen to me! I’m a bloody civilian; you’re the cop.’

  McClair smiled. ‘Your presence is always comforting, Bob, but on you go. Dawn comes first. I have a bit of a time constraint myself,’ she added. ‘I can’t leave Harry with my mother for ever.’

  He moved towards the door, nodding towards its shattered lock. ‘Have you got . . . ?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I’ve got a joiner coming to make the flat secure. Benjamin can stay on her to take care of that. We brought separate cars so I could go straight to Mum’s.’ She looked up at him. ‘Can you give me a statement for my report to the fiscal?’

  ‘Sure,’ he promised. ‘I’ll knock something out tonight, Docusign it and email it to you.’

  ‘You’re happy with what my report will say? Accidental death?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ he frowned, ‘although I blame myself to an extent. I was in Mrs Alexander’s kitchen and I saw the things she had on those shelves. If I’d persuaded her to move everything within reach, she wouldn’t be lying in that bedroom now.’

  ‘You can’t think that way, Bob,’ the inspector countered. ‘If your auntie had balls she’d be your uncle, and so on.’

  ‘In this day and age,’ he snorted, ‘that’s not necessarily true, but never mind. Yes, Noele, you write it up as accidental, non-suspicious. I can see nothing untoward here. The old lady’s purse is in the living room. I took a look in it; her bank card’s still there along with the balance of the cash I drew out for her last week. Bottom line, we can shield the vulnerable from Covid, but we can’t shield them from themselves.’ Skinner grinned again. ‘It is good that you’re asking, though. It shows that your CID instincts are still there. Question everything, that’s the rule.’

  ‘And all your questions have been answered?’

  ‘Nearly,’ Skinner replied. ‘I called here twice before today. Each time Mrs Alexander had the door on its chain. When I kicked it in today, it wasn’t or I’d have ripped it out along with the Yale lock keeper. But that’s not enough to declare a suspicious death, and get a team of SOCOs in here. Not even at my most paranoid would I have done that. Write it up and write it off, Noele, but one thing, please,’ he added. ‘When you locate the next of kin, let me know. I’d like to tell them what a pleasure it was to have known the old dear, if only briefly.’

  ‘Will do, Bob.’ As she spoke they heard footsteps on the stairs.

  ‘If that’s the mortuary team,’ Skinner said, ‘I’m off. I’d rather not see her being carried out of here. Good luck with the transfer, Detective Inspector.’

  Thirty-One

  ‘Are you getting ahead with your investigation, Chief Inspector?’ Mario McGuire asked as he emerged from his car into Candleriggs.

  On the pavement, Lottie Mann stared at him.

  His grin verged on Satanic, rather than merely sardonic. ‘Oldest and worst CID joke in the world,’ he said. ‘Someone was bound to crack it eventually, so I thought I’d get it over with.’

  ‘I’m sure I’ll hear it from Dan as well when I get home . . . if I get home any time soon that is.’

  ‘How is Mr Provan?’ the DCC asked.

  ‘In prime form,’ Mann replied. ‘He’s started jogging, would you believe, although he insists on calling it running.’ Until his retirement from the police service, her partner had been her detective sergeant, Cotter’s predecessor. ‘No disrespect to John, but I could do with Dan here,’ she admitted. ‘I’m at a dead end before I’ve begun. I have no idea who the victim is, and no means of identifying him. Arthur Dorward took his prints with a scanner and sent them for a search of every criminal database there is, even bloody Europol, but there are no positive matches. We’ll see what results we get from his DNA when we have a profile, but based on that I’m not hopeful.’

  McGuire frowned. ‘Who’s paying the council tax?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. I haven’t been able to dig up anyone from the City Council; even working from home they clock off at the back of four.’

  ‘How about the utilities?’

  ‘So far that’s a blank too. We’ve tried all the major power companies, but this property isn’t on any of their lists. Yes, there’s any number of small suppliers these days, but it’ll take us a while to go through them all. There’s nothing upstairs to help us either, not yet. The SOCOs are finished and I have my own search team in now, but so far all they’re telling me is how clean the place is.’

  ‘What about the victim himself?’ McGuire persisted. ‘Does he have any distinguishing marks?’

  ‘Nothing that’s apparent from the bits of him we’re left with. The rest will be for Graham Scott when he gets to work in the mortuary.’ She gave a rare thin smile. ‘And as for dental records . . .’

  ‘Don’t you start!’ McGuire contrived to growl and chuckle simultaneously. ‘Okay, Lottie,’ he continued, ‘let’s accept that we’re stuck for an ID of the victim, at least until we have a DNA profile, but that doesn’t mean we can’t trace the perpetrator. Glasgow’s city centre CCTV coverage is pretty comprehensive. It’s early, I know, but have you had time to assess that?’

  ‘DS Cotter checked with the monitoring unit half an hour ago,’ she replied. ‘All he’s been able to establish so far is that Candleriggs is a bit of a dead zone, no pun intended. There’s a camera at the junction with Argyle Street, but nothing that covers the entrance to the crime scene.’ She turned and surveyed the street. ‘Looking around I don’t see any private systems either. But even if the coverage was perfect, sir, we’d be hamstrung, as we are with a door-to-door canvass, until Professor Scott gives me a time of death.’ She glanced back towards him. ‘Do you want to take a look upstairs, sir, at the crime scene? The body’s still in situ.’

  ‘Most of it is, you mean,’ he grunted. ‘I’ll leave it thanks, Lottie. I know you have to but I would rather not carry that image home with me tonight. Ran
k does have its privileges. If you’ve been waiting for me before you moved the victim, that’s appreciated, but get him off to the morgue as quick as you can.’ The DCC paused for a second. ‘In the flat,’ he continued, ‘have your people or the SOCOs found a possible murder weapon?’ he asked.

  Mann considered her reply for a few seconds. ‘Not obviously so,’ she ventured. ‘As in, there wasn’t a machete with blood all over it. But I did see a knife block in the kitchen. One of them? I’m assuming that Dorward’s team will have examined them. Any blood or tissue traces, they’ll find them. But someone went there to commit that murder, sir. It wasn’t spur of the moment, not with that level of violence. I’d be surprised if they didn’t go prepared.’

  ‘Me neither,’ McGuire agreed. ‘Lottie, I want you to report this to ACC Payne. This crime could fall into several categories; terrorism has to be one of them and that’s his field. Brief him, please, as soon as you can.’

  Thirty-Two

  ‘He’s fucking joking, isn’t he?’ Matthew Reid exclaimed. ‘Sunny!’ he called out to his dog. ‘Fetch.’

  Obediently the Labrador trotted after the yellow ball, which had rolled ten yards past his owner when he had released it at full gallop. ‘Thank you,’ Reid said, as it was dropped, more carefully, at his feet. He picked it up, fitted it into a long slinger device and with a flick of his forearm tossed it fifty yards along the beach, skirting the breaking waves of the outgoing tide. Bob Skinner watched, smiling, as Sunny tore off on his recovery mission.

  ‘Very impressive,’ he said, admiring the power of the throw. ‘No, he’s not fucking joking. Procurators fiscal are not given to taking the piss. In fact, I’ve met a few who were so dry I doubt they ever had any piss in them. Sarah had a call yesterday evening, about ninety minutes after I got home, asking if she could fit in a post-mortem examination of Mrs Alexander.’

  ‘Even though the police said there was nothing suspicious about the death?’ Reid asked.

  ‘Even though.’

  Skinner had spotted owner and dog walking across the park below his house, heading for the steps that led down to the bridle path. He had texted his friend. ‘Hold on a minute, I was just going for a run. I’ll change my footwear and join you.’

  ‘Why is he overruling them?’ the author asked.

  ‘It’s not a matter of overruling anyone, Matthew. All we . . . sod it . . . all the police do is report the circumstances. Subsequent action is determined by the Crown Office, usually through the local fiscal’s office.’

  ‘After fifty crime novels I should know this, but at what level?’

  ‘Usually it would be a deputy but in this case the word came from the top man in Edinburgh. After Michael Stevens died, Maria Mullen, the depute, had her ear bent by his daughter and was more or less bullied into ordering an examination. My guess that she kicked this one straight upstairs as soon as it hit her in-tray rather than be waylaid by another next of kin.’

  Reid frowned. ‘Isn’t . . . ?’ He paused as Sunny returned with the ball, timing its release perfectly. Picking it up, he launched it again further along the shoreline. ‘Isn’t there an issue here?’ he said. ‘If the Crown Office gives in every time a relative asks for an autopsy, it would be cheaper just to make them mandatory for every sudden death, and what sort of an effect would that have on the public purse . . . not that I’m grudging Sarah her fees, mind. Or should we change everything and adopt the English system, having a coroner with judicial power?’

  ‘In Line of Duty they thought we have already,’ Skinner observed. ‘That one would never have got past you, Matthew, would it?’ he added.

  ‘Being Scottish, no it wouldn’t,’ the crime writer agreed. ‘That said, I’m sure there are umpteen things about the English judicial system that I’m liable to trip over. Have they traced Mrs Alexander’s next of kin?’ he continued. ‘Nobody I’ve spoken to ever heard her mention any.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘Where would they start looking, Bob? I’m interested professionally, you understand.’

  ‘If it was me,’ the ex-cop replied, ‘I would begin by going through her personal papers; there might be a lead there. For instance, there might be correspondence with a lawyer. What about Mr Alexander?’ he continued. ‘This is assuming that he’s dead and didn’t run off years ago with a cocktail waitress, but assuming he is, was there a will lodged with the Sheriff Court? If so by whom and who were its beneficiaries? Or, find the lawyer who lodged it and maybe through them you’ll find the old dear’s will.’

  ‘The cat and dog home doesn’t count as next of kin,’ Reid grunted. ‘A lot of charity income comes from bequests from the likes of Mrs Alexander.’

  ‘Granted, but before I even looked for a lawyer, I’d go through her Christmas card list. Every household, even when it’s one person, has one of those. Unless the poor old lady, nice though she seemed, was completely estranged from her family . . .’

  ‘I get it.’

  ‘What about you, Matthew?’ Skinner asked. ‘Who’s your next of kin? You never talk about them either, come to think about it.’

  The author retrieved the ball yet again and flung it, even harder, on a low trajectory. ‘I don’t have any,’ he replied, quietly, his eyes following Sunny as he sped along the beach in pursuit. ‘No siblings, no wife, no nothing. I was divorced thirty-five years ago . . . you know what they say about divorce, Bob, it’s like having your balls ripped off through your wallet . . . and unlike you I never sought to repeat the process. I had an uncle on either side, my father’s brother in Lanarkshire, my mother’s in Canada; neither of them was fecund. In fact, you could say that my family has proved to be fecund useless. I’ve left barely a footprint on the planet—’

  ‘Other than having your name on a few million books,’ Skinner pointed out.

  ‘There is that,’ Reid conceded, ‘but I’m hardly Robert Louis Stevenson. I’ve never analysed it, but maybe I got involved in the village stuff to make a meaningful contribution to society for a change.’ He grinned wryly as his dog pounded back towards him through the surf. ‘And look how that’s going.’

  Thirty-Three

  ‘The DNA profile of Homo Candleriggs, to give him a provisional name, should be on its way to you,’ Professor Graham Scott said. ‘I hope it helps identify him, for I can’t think of another way you’re going to do it quickly, not without finding the missing piece. I expect that’s in the river,’ he added gloomily.

  ‘Cheers to you too, Prof.’ Lottie Mann sighed as she looked at the face on her computer screen. ‘Your report’s just hit my email, but would you like to give me a quick summary?’

  ‘I’ll be quick because there isn’t a lot in the report,’ Scott retorted. ‘The subject was a mixed-race male, white and Afro-Caribbean; he was aged in his thirties, I’d say, but I can’t be any more definite. The head was removed roughly with what I surmise was a knife, rather than a sword. If you look at Caravaggio’s depiction of the beheading of John the Baptist, that’s all he thought necessary. This one probably had a clean, non-serrated edge, from the lack of marking on the spinal column.’ He smiled. ‘I’m sorry if that’s too graphic for you, Sergeant Cotter,’ he added, as if he had seen the DS blanch. ‘The victim was in excellent physical health and shape,’ the pathologist continued. ‘His major organs were all clear and his musculature was very impressive. His last meal was a pizza, heavy on the pepperoni, last drink a small black coffee, possibly Colombian from the odour. There were no surgical scars on the body, but there was evidence of a couple of healed wounds, a slash on the left forearm that had been stitched and a jagged cut on the right calf muscle. Neither was recent. The only other distinguishing mark was a tattoo that looks like a military symbol or crest. My assistant thought it might be the Royal Marines, but she wasn’t sure. She said she’d seen one like it, but she was vague, so I didn’t press the point. I’ve attached a photograph.’
/>   ‘All that’s fine,’ Mann said. ‘What about time of death?’

  ‘I can’t be too precise,’ Scott said, ‘but I’m thinking Monday evening. Has this made the press yet?’ he asked, suddenly. ‘I heard nothing about it on the Radio Scotland news this morning.’

  ‘In normal times they’d have been all over it, Graham,’ the DCI told him. ‘But lockdown conditions mean that the city centre’s ghostlike just now. The pubs are shut and most folk that aren’t furloughed are working from home. On top of that, I’ve been cracking down on anybody caught passing tips to the news desks, cops or civilian staff, or posting sensitive information on their social media accounts. We’ll possibly make a public announcement this morning, but I’ve been waiting for you before briefing the press office.’

  ‘How much are you going to tell them?’

  ‘If we tell them anything at all, it’ll be the least we can get away with. “A male body was found yesterday in a Glasgow city centre flat. Police are treating the death as suspicious and are asking for information about anything unusual seen in the Candleriggs area.”’

  ‘For example, somebody carrying a heavy weight in an Aldi bag with blood leaking out of it?’

  ‘That would be helpful if it got us a good description. Otherwise, we’re offering no more detail than that. The last thing I want are horror stories in the media, mainstream or social. I hope your assistant’s aware of the need for secrecy.’

  ‘Utterly. As for myself, I wonder what the Sun are paying for exclusives these days.’

  ‘Not enough to make up for the pain that would ensue, I promise you. But Graham, one thing more. You’re describing the victim as youngish, strong, possibly with a military background, and yet . . . You were in that flat too; there were absolutely no signs of a struggle. Can you explain how a man like that was overpowered? Were there any signs of restraint on the body? How many people would it have taken to hold him still while somebody else hacked his head off?’