The Bad Fire (Bob Skinner series, Book 31): A shocking murder case brings danger too close to home for ex-cop Bob Skinner in this gripping Scottish crime thriller

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘Adrian.’

  ‘Yes, the mysterious Adrian. I tried my best to find him, believe me, and I think the police did too, but no trace of him was ever found. The Crown case would have been that she had simply made him up as part of a spurious defence. Without actually producing the wretched man in court, counsel would never have been able to overcome that.’

  ‘Did you advise her to plead guilty?’

  ‘Not directly. But I’m sure you know, because Austin knew – and if your client isn’t Joan Brown, it can only be his father, and it’s bound to be in your notes – that a couple of days before Marcia was due in court, I had a call from the procurator fiscal, Bobby Hough. It was a warning, really, not a threat. Bobby had nothing against her personally. In fact, she was his local councillor and he had voted for her. He told me that he had seen the sheriffs’ rota for that day, and that the one we had drawn was a notorious hard-liner, who would have imposed a custodial sentence for sure if we had gone to jury trial with an unwinnable defence. I relayed that conversation to her, word for word, but I didn’t advise her. She told me to thank Bobby for his concern but that she would take her chances. The only hope I could give her was that if the sheriff ignored sentencing guidelines, any prison sentence might possibly be overturned on appeal, but I added that it was unlikely. That was the last conversation we had. The next day I learned that she’d been found dead.’

  McDaniels peered at him over her glass. ‘Can you remember your instant reaction when you were told that?’

  ‘Very clearly. I was afraid that she’d reflected on my bluntness and decided in the heat of the moment to top herself. Then I found out how she’d done it and realised that she had to have planned it in advance. Between my phone call and her death, there hadn’t been time for her to go to the hospital and steal the drugs she used.’

  ‘I see,’ she murmured, making a note in her book. ‘Can I ask you about the police investigation?’ she continued. ‘I’m told that Detective Sergeant Terry Coats responded in person to the call from LuxuMarket. Did it strike you as unusual that a ranking CID officer would be the first on the scene, rather than the nearest uniforms?’

  ‘If that was the case, then it might have, but I wasn’t aware of it. I was told that a PC Parker was the first respondent.’

  ‘Vera Stephens, the daughter of Councillor Gloria Stephens, was engaged to a police constable. Was that him?’

  ‘Yes, that emerged after the event, but the police attitude was “So what?” I did pursue it for a possible – but very risky – defence of impeachment. Marcia’s assertion was that she was deliberately distracted by this Adrian person, allowing Vera Stephens to attach the so-called stolen goods to her trolley. It collapsed when the police were persuaded that the woman was in another part of the store when the incident happened, and we were unable to prove otherwise.’

  ‘Was Councillor Stephens ever interviewed?’ she asked.

  ‘By the police, no,’ Black told her. ‘I tried. I went to her office at the council chambers. When I told her why I was there, she gave me a two-word response, the second being “off”. Not the nicest woman I’ve ever met; she bore a grudge, too. Up until then, Black and Grey had represented the West Coast Council on a variety of matters. From that day on we never received another instruction.’

  ‘To get to the heart of it,’ McDaniels said, ‘the basis of Marcia’s case was that she and Stephens had a furious argument, and that Stephens used her daughter to set up the theft charge as a way of getting rid of her, or at the very least discrediting her. That’s correct, yes?’

  The solicitor nodded agreement.

  ‘Did you believe that? Do you believe it now?’

  He hesitated. ‘Again, I have to say it doesn’t matter what I believe. You’re right, that was her assertion and most of it would have formed the basis of her defence in a trial. Counsel would never have attempted to impeach Vera Stephens herself, not without absolute proof. The argument would have been that the clothes were put there by an unknown person, a constituent with a grudge, perhaps.’

  ‘What about them being the wrong size?’

  ‘Easily countered, I’m afraid. Marcia was short-sighted and the labelling was in small print.’

  ‘Okay, but I’m going to press you,’ Carrie insisted. ‘Did you believe her?’

  Black sighed. ‘To be honest, no. The fact was, Marcia could be just as difficult and confrontational as Gloria Stephens. I only took on her defence at the request of David Brass. He was my real client; I represented him during their divorce, sorting out the property split. She was a real bugger then, I can tell you, excuse my language.’

  She smiled. ‘Excused.’

  ‘If I read this right,’ Black went on, ‘David is so upset by Austin’s death that he’s raised Marcia’s case in his son’s memory rather than in hers. To be frank with you, Carrie, the best thing you and Alex Skinner could do for him would be to persuade him to forget all about it, and let mother and son rest in peace.’

  Nine

  ‘Nice one, Maggie,’ Skinner murmured.

  ‘I still think it should have been you doing Jimmy’s eulogy,’ Chief Constable Margaret Rose Steele replied, crisp and neat, clutching her uniform cap in her hands. Without it, the grey strands in her red hair were more noticeable, he observed. Her job came at a personal price, as he knew well.

  He shook his head. ‘No, it’s not my place any longer. Besides, I hate bloody theatre, and that’s what this is.’ He glanced around St Giles’ Cathedral as the congregation filed out, loose chairs scraping on the ancient stone floor. ‘There’ll be nothing like this for me when I peg it. Sarah knows and Alex knows what I want, and nobody will persuade either of them to do otherwise.’

  She winked at him. ‘Not even your ex, the prime minister in waiting?’

  ‘Aileen?’ he grunted. ‘For all her Italian Catholic heritage, she’s a bloody atheist. It won’t even occur to her to have a wingding like this, for me or anyone else. Nobody asked Jimmy, you know, nor Chrissie either, not that she’d have understood the question, poor old lady. The justice minister decreed it should happen and wouldn’t listen to anyone who suggested it might be over the top.’

  ‘You being one of them?’

  ‘I sent a message,’ he admitted, ‘through my friend the Lord Advocate, but it was ignored. Bugger him.’

  ‘Seconded,’ Steele whispered, ‘but I never said that. Sarah’s looking well,’ she observed briskly. ‘Alex too.’

  ‘Thank you, Mags. You’ll note they raced each other to the exit. Sarah has someone on the table, and Alex has a meeting with a client, one of your customers, an alleged embezzler.’

  ‘Have we got a solid case?’

  ‘She doesn’t think so. It came from the financial crimes unit in Gartcosh. I’m wary of these people; they can do the numbers, but they’re not so good when it comes to mundane stuff like intent. If I was still involved, I’d recruit a few football referees and promote them up the ladder. They’re always fucking right.’

  ‘Hey, you are still involved,’ she reminded him. ‘You promised Mario and me that you’d act as a mentor for rising stars, like you did with Sauce Haddock not so long ago. As a matter of fact, I have someone in mind.’

  ‘Oh yes? Who would that be?’

  ‘Someone you know. Lottie Mann.’

  ‘Are you serious?’ Skinner exclaimed. ‘Lottie would eat me if she thought I was trying to mentor her.’

  ‘Mario doesn’t think so. In fact he put it to her and she was all for it. She’s just been promoted to DCI, Serious Crimes West, in place of Sandra Bulloch. For all her success, she’s young in the rank, and she doesn’t have Dan Provan to guide her any longer.’

  ‘I heard that she does, even though he’s retired.’

  The chief constable laughed. ‘Domestically she does, but Dan was seriously old school as a cop.’

  ‘And I’m not?’

  ‘Of course you’re bloody not! You modernised the service, more than anyone I
ever served with. Lottie has a new DS, Dan’s replacement; his name is John Cotter, and he’s newly promoted as well, transferred down from Aberdeen. He has great promise; he’s the sort who would benefit from your oversight and wisdom.’

  ‘Bullshit. He’s a kid who’s been fast-tracked; you’re worried that it’s maybe a bit too fast and that he’s going to take Lottie’s eye off the ball. You want me to introduce him to the real world.’

  ‘More or less,’ Steele admitted.

  ‘Okay, but not to the detriment of my other work. When?’

  ‘When something appropriate comes up. Don’t worry. I won’t involve you in anything that looks like it’s going to be twenty-four seven, long-running. We’ll need to work out a remuneration package, of course. As we agreed, the theory is that you’re a special constable, to put a warrant card in your hand, but we don’t expect you to do it at a PC’s pay grade.’

  ‘I won’t be doing it at any pay grade, Mags. I’m drawing a police pension; if I took on any sort of paid work for you lot and it came to light, some tosser would be bound to make an enormous issue of it. Worse still, another tosser might post it on social media and that would compromise me with the Saltire. We’ll call it pro bono – not that there’s too many bastards in your outfit that speak Latin.’ He looked around the great cathedral, feeling its history overwhelm his cynicism and seep into his bones, thinking of John Knox and Jenny Geddes, and all the others from his nation’s past who had created their legends under its arched roof.

  He shook himself. ‘Time we were both off. You’ve got a country to protect, and me, although I wouldn’t speak at Jimmy’s memorial, I still have to walk his bloody dog!’

  Ten

  Carrie McDaniels was no stranger to prison security procedures. In a former life, as a member of the Territorial Army military police, she had been ordered to collect serving soldiers from civilian jails and deliver them to their barracks. She had always had a male companion, but the missions had all been uneventful, their charges being sober and contrite by the time they arrived. Most had been in their first year of service, young men – and on one occasion a young woman – who had believed, wrongly, that they had an image to project, then protect. The fact that they had been remanded to prison rather than being stuck anonymously in a police custody cell for the night was likely to lead to their discharge from the service, but she had never allowed herself to feel sympathy for them. She had seen enough on foreign postings to know that a reckless soldier was far more dangerous to those around him than to any enemy.

  Her Majesty’s Prison Saughton was as impressive as any she had visited. Its secure public entrance was of fairly recent construction; visitors were tightly marshalled and efficiently searched for contraband. She was no exception, even though her visit was for a specific purpose and had been arranged at short notice. Experience told her to leave most of her possessions locked in her car – her phone, her wallet, her make-up, even the prized Rolex watch that had been a gift from a departed boyfriend – taking with her only her identification and her notebook. She placed them in a tray for X-ray, then walked through the scanner gate before being patted down by a female prison officer.

  As soon as she was cleared, another woman in uniform, at least ten years older than the first, came towards her. ‘Ms Daniels? I’m Roberta Forrest, assistant governor; Bobbie. Come with me and I’ll take you to see Morgan.’

  ‘Thanks. This is all very official,’ Carrie remarked, ignoring the slip-up over her surname. ‘I was expecting just to go into an open visiting area.’

  ‘This is official. Your request for a visit to Prisoner Morgan was made through Alexis Skinner’s office, so you will be treated as if you were the lady herself . . . or her father, for that matter. He was a regular visitor, over quite a few years. I imagine he’s sunning himself somewhere exotic these days.’

  ‘In sunny Gullane, normally, from what Alex has told me. I’ve met Mr Skinner professionally too; he’ll never be one for the quiet life.’

  ‘Sir Robert now, I believe.’

  ‘Yes, but he’s almost shy about it, so Alex said. He discourages people from using the title.’

  As they spoke, Bobbie Forrest led the visitor along a series of narrow corridors, connected by solid metal doors, each of which she unlocked then secured behind them. Carrie found herself hoping that in a fire emergency there would be an automatic override. Eventually they arrived at a small room with a window on to a courtyard; it was the first sight of daylight since they had left the prison entrance. Inside, two men waited, one light-skinned, the other dark, larger and younger, in prison officer uniform. Jeffrey ‘Skip’ Morgan looked to be in his late fifties; he was clad in russet trousers and a green sweatshirt, the mark, Carrie recalled from an earlier visit, of a long-term prisoner.

  ‘Prisoner Morgan,’ the assistant governor announced. ‘You still consent to this meeting, Skip?’ she asked.

  ‘Absolutely, ma’am,’ he replied, in a smooth accent that hinted of a privileged education. ‘It’s my pleasure.’

  ‘In that case, I’ll leave you to it. Skip, Ms Daniels is an investigator, but we’ll afford you privacy, as we would if Ms Skinner was here herself. Officer Brathwaite will wait outside; when you’re finished, he’ll call me. Ms Daniels, are you happy with that, or would you prefer Officer Brathwaite to be in the room?’

  Carrie smiled. In addition to being the best part of thirty years older than her, Morgan was no taller, and his flabby jowls suggested no physical threat. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said.

  As the door closed behind the assistant governor and the guard, Morgan appraised his visitor. ‘Nice to see you,’ he began, breaking the short silence. ‘I confess that I’ve never heard of Alexis Skinner, and I don’t have the faintest idea what either of you want with me.’

  ‘That being so, why did you agree to this visit at a moment’s notice?’

  He smiled. ‘That’s very simple. I’ve got a parole hearing in three weeks. It’s in my interest to be the most co-operative man in this prison. How can I help you?’

  ‘I’m hoping that you can put me in touch with someone who used to work for you, a woman called Joan Brown.’

  For the first time, his expression changed, the mix of curiosity and self-confidence giving way to sudden concern. ‘Joanie? Why? Is she in trouble? Is her nephew after her? You’re not representing Austin Brass, are you?’

  ‘You know about him?’

  ‘I know he’s a boy on a mission who won’t stop until he finds someone to blame for his mother topping herself. It took Joanie long enough to get over that, if she ever did. I wouldn’t want him stirring things up and putting her back to square one.’

  ‘You don’t have to worry about Austin, Mr Morgan. You’re behind the times; he’s dead. He was murdered a few weeks ago. The man accused of killing him is in this very jail, but he’s in the remand section, so your paths won’t have crossed.’

  Morgan gave a soft whistle. ‘Are you serious? I haven’t heard a whisper and the grapevine in this place is usually pretty good. The man on remand wouldn’t be a police officer, would he? Austin Brass was obsessive about police misconduct after Joanie’s sister died. There are a couple of people in here that he brought down and who were jailed as a result. They’re pretty much in solitary. Even if they made them part of the protected population, there could be guys in there who would have a go at them. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if one of his targets turned on him.’

  ‘No,’ Carrie said. ‘The man in the remand wing isn’t a cop. If he was, I’m sure you’d have heard about that on your grapevine. We would like to talk to Ms Brown, though, if you can help us. It’s about her sister’s case; my boss, Ms Skinner, has been asked to take a look at the evidence against her.’

  ‘Why come to me?’ Morgan’s eyes narrowed very slightly. ‘I had nothing to do with it. Neither did Joanie for that matter, not directly.’

  ‘Possibly,’ she admitted. ‘But I didn’t know of her existence until yesterday
. I need to talk to her, just in case she has insight that nobody else has.’

  He nodded. ‘I get it. You’ve been talking to Ced Black. He sent you to me.’

  ‘Not quite. It was your wife who suggested I talk to you. She seems to think that your relationship with Ms Brown might have been more than professional.’

  ‘Delicately put,’ he chuckled. ‘I suspect she was a little more specific than that. How is she, by the way? Are she and Ced getting along?’

  ‘They seemed very happy,’ Carrie replied blandly. ‘Was Eileen right? Can you put me in touch with Joan Brown?’

  ‘Not directly,’ he replied. ‘I have a number. I can call it and give her yours; if she wants to talk to you, she will.’

  ‘How much does she know about her sister’s death?’ Carrie asked.

  ‘Good question. More than she ever told me, I think. She was well on board with Marcia’s conspiracy theory, that’s for sure. She thought there had been stuff going on that had made her an embarrassment who had to be removed. Ced Black thought it was all bluster, but Joanie bought into it, one hundred per cent.’

  ‘Was she implying that her sister’s suicide was faked, as well as the theft?’

  Morgan snorted. ‘Implying? She flat-out believed it. She even thought that Ced Black was involved.’

  ‘You don’t believe that, do you?’ Carrie exclaimed.

  ‘Put it this way. There is nothing about that whole business that I would rule out one hundred per cent.’