‘It bloody should be.’
‘Who would keep the records of that autopsy? The Crown Office doesn’t have that much detail, only a summary of the fiscal’s findings, and they’re archived.’
‘We’d have them if they still exist; my department, that is. Ayrshire, you said?’
‘Kilmarnock,’ Skinner volunteered.
‘In which case, the post-mortem would almost certainly have been done there, by two pathologists since it was for the fiscal and corroboration would have been required. Going back nine years, I’d have no idea who’d have done it, but I can find out. What was the subject’s name?’
‘Marcia Brown. She was divorced and went back to her maiden name. It’s possible, I suppose, that she was listed as Marcia Brass.’
‘Brass?’ Scott exclaimed. ‘Any relation to the dead blogger, Austin Brass, the guy who made life hell for quite a few police officers?’
‘She was his mother.’
‘Then I know of the case. The guy approached me, what, must be eight years ago. I’d just been appointed to Glasgow, and he wanted me to get him a copy of his mother’s autopsy report. When I found out that it was a suicide, I told him he’d have to go to the fiscal. He said he’d done that but all he was given was a single-sheet summary; he wanted the whole thing, photos, the lot. I told him he’d need a court order for that, and even then he would still have to get it from the fiscal, because it had fuck all to do with me. That was true then, but data storage has got a lot more rigorous since then, and I do have oversight of everything in the west of Scotland, just as your Sarah has in the east.’
‘If I said I wanted to see the full report,’ Skinner ventured, ‘would you still tell me to get a court order?’
‘Too fucking right,’ the professor replied. ‘I’d be in breach if I didn’t. Talk to your daughter, but I doubt that you’d get such an order, not without very serious grounds.’
‘I was afraid of that.’
‘How severe is this itch that you’re trying to scratch, Bob?’
‘It might keep me awake tonight.’
‘Then maybe, since I’m the custodian of the data, I can review it myself and give you a hypothetical overview together with my observations. By that I mean if it wasn’t kosher I’ll tell you, and you can take it from there.’
‘If you can do that, Graham, it would be great. No rush; she’s been dead for nine years.’
‘Nah, my curiosity’s pricked now. As soon as I’ve finished with the poor girl on my table, I’ll get on to it.’
‘What about your Belgians?’ Skinner asked.
‘They’re in no hurry either. I can keep them overnight, to give the police time to complete identification and inform their consulate. I’ll get back to you soonest. Give Lady Skinner my regards.’
Fourteen
‘Lady Skinner indeed!’ Sarah Grace snorted.
‘Don’t turn your nose up so high,’ her husband laughed. ‘Your American blood might set you against honours, but it doesn’t stop you wearing that very nice gold brooch that goes with the title.’
‘I only wear it because you bought it for me,’ she protested.
‘Pull the other one. You never wear anything you don’t like. For example, you never wear the green earrings I bought you for your last birthday. What have you got against them anyway?’
She looked at him in his garden chair, a dark shadow against the glare of the sinking sun. ‘You’ll think I’m crazy if I tell you.’
‘You spend your working life up to your elbows in dead people’s organs, intestines and waste products. I think you’re crazy anyway. Go on, prove it.’
‘Booker T,’ she said, unable to see his confusion because of the sunshine but knowing it was there.
‘Uh? You’ve made your case, now try to show me the thought process behind it.’
‘Booker T,’ she repeated, ‘and the MGs, a great American band famous for one tune and one tune only; it was called “Green Onions”. Every time I look at those dangly emeralds, that’s what they remind me of, and when I do wear them, I have this mental picture of green onions hanging from my earlobes.’
‘Fuck me!’ he gasped.
‘Later,’ she murmured, ‘but let’s enjoy this wonderful evening for a little longer. This weather cannot last. It mustn’t last. Did you see the colour of the golf course when we took Bowser for his walk earlier? Even with the sprinkler system and all the hand watering the greenkeeping staff are doing, it’s turning brown. Our garden, the bents over the wall, so are they. I know the council has banned barbecues, but people are just going where they can’t be seen and ignoring that. There will be a fire, for sure.’
Bob laughed. ‘And if there is, it’ll be a bad one.’
‘Yes, it will. What’s the joke about that?’
‘Nothing really. I was thinking about my great-granny and about a discussion I was part of the other day.’
‘Your scary great-granny?’ Sarah asked. ‘The one you get it from.’
‘My great-granny was much scarier than me, trust me on that.’
‘I wish I’d met her.’
‘You don’t; you’re not that crazy. What are you going to do with the earrings?’
‘Alex likes them. We’ve talked about how to break it to you, since you gave them to me.’
He shrugged. ‘As long as they don’t wind up stuck in a box in a drawer, I don’t mind whose earlobes they hang from.’ He broke into a tuneless whistle with a faint resemblance to the ‘Green Onions’ tune. It was overridden by music from his wife’s phone as her news alert tone sounded.
She looked at the screen. ‘Wow!’ she whistled. ‘One of the fatalities in that accident through in Glasgow this afternoon: it’s—’
‘Yeah, I know,’ he said, silencing her as his own phone sounded, glancing at it and taking the call. ‘Graham, hi. I didn’t expect to hear from you tonight.’
‘I said “soonest”, and I meant it, even more now. Bob, I don’t want to talk about this over the phone. Can we meet? Ten thirty tomorrow, my office in Glasgow?’
‘Sure,’ Skinner said, ‘but why the secrecy? I’m sure your phone’s not being monitored, Prof; I’d probably know if it was.’
‘It’s something I need to show you rather than tell you. I think you have a murder case on your hands.’
Fifteen
‘You want to talk to me about a nine-year-old shoplifting case?’ Terry Coats laughed. ‘That’s what all the mystery was about? We could have done that over the phone rather than waste your time hacking out to the airport on a Saturday morning, not to mention the cost of the car park. Pause for a fart on your way back, and it costs you an extra couple of quid.’
‘I took the tram,’ Carrie McDaniels replied dryly. ‘I also took a commission from a solicitor client, and that’s why I’m here. I’d rather be sunbathing in Holyrood Park like the rest of the city.’
‘You might as well; I barely remember the case. Are you sure it was me? I was a DS then, and usually that sort of complaint was handled by uniform.’
‘You know what, Mr Coats? I think you’re bullshitting me. I think you’re hoping that I’m a silly woman who’ll take confusion for an answer and go away. You barely remember it? How would you know that when you haven’t even asked me what the name of the accused was?’
The man looked out of his office window, sighed and then turned back to his visitor. ‘Okay, have your moment. Tell me who it was.’
‘I think you know already, because you’re right, there can’t have been too many shoplifters in Kilmarnock who had the personal attention of a high-flying detective sergeant. We’re talking about Councillor Marcia Brown; the late Councillor Marcia Brown, because she committed suicide shortly before she was due in court. You remember her, Mr Coats, you remember her only too well, because ever since she died, her son and her ex-husband have been trying to find out the truth about the business. You remember the son, too, Austin Brass, because when he started to investigate you personally, bey
ond his mother’s case, his persistence got you kicked out of the police force.’
Coats reddened. ‘I wasn’t kicked out!’ he snapped. ‘I resigned because I’d had enough of the jealousy and back-stabbing.’
‘You resigned rather than accept a posting to the wilds of Argyllshire. That’s the version I heard; also that you were so upset by Brass’s interest in you that you were briefly a suspect in his murder.’
‘You never told me who your client is,’ he growled, ‘but I think I can guess. It’s Alex Skinner, and you’ve been talking to her old man.’
‘Not about this I haven’t. Sir Robert has nothing to do with it.’ She stopped and took a mouthful of the coffee that she had bought in an airside outlet before heading for Coats’ office in the security section of the airport. ‘Look, Terry,’ she continued, ‘I’m ex-police, of sorts; nothing as exalted as you were, but I understand the job. When I took this commission on, I didn’t really have an open mind. I expected to find a thorough police investigation, a case that was rock solid, and a classic tale of self-inflicted death by guilt. But I haven’t. I’ve interviewed two people, and I’ve found that a half-decent lawyer who’d done a proper job for his client instead of assuming her guilt would have torn the prosecution apart.’
‘Wait a minute,’ Coats shouted, rising to his feet. ‘You can get the fuck out of here right now!’
McDaniels raised a hand. ‘No, you wait a minute. I am not saying that you did a shoddy job, or were part of anything, but I’m beginning to suspect that woman was set up. I’m only at the beginning here, and I’ve no idea where it’ll take me, but I need you to help me by telling me everything you can remember about the case.’
The ex-cop still bristled with anger, but he resumed his seat. ‘I remember next to fuck all about the case,’ he said, more calmly. ‘Her death, though, that’s all too clear in my memory. If you really have police experience, you’ll know that you never forget a body.’
‘That isn’t part of my remit,’ she replied. ‘I’ve been asked to determine if the police case was flawed. It’ll be up to Alex’s client to give her further instructions after that. Can I begin by going back to the first question? How did you get involved?’
‘Through the station commander,’ Coats told her, ‘a uniform chief inspector called Mason, Shereen Mason. She rang me and said she’d had a shout from the manager of LuxuMarket about a thief they’d caught. There was a plod on the scene, but he was nervous about it because she was a local councillor and making a big fuss about being stitched up.’
‘It’s a long shot, but can you remember the name of the plod, the PC?’
‘Funnily enough,’ he retorted, ‘now that you ask me, I can. It was Spidey; Police Constable Peter Parker. Everyone in the station called him Spidey, for obvious reasons.’
‘Not obvious to me,’ Carrie admitted.
‘In that case, you’ve got no kids and don’t go to the movies much. Spider-Man, aka Spidey, is a comic book character, a superhero, and his real name is Peter Parker. Things like that, you can never escape. There was a legend about a traffic cop down in the old Dumfries and Galloway force whose name was Clark Kent, gospel truth. The local wide boys found out and he kept getting bogus calls to phone boxes; they’d to take him off the cars eventually and put him in Special Branch. Anyway, Spidey, he told the store manager to call CI Mason. Why her directly, and not just his sergeant, I don’t know, but he did. Mason asked me if I would do her a favour, get down there and write it up, so that if there was any political heat, she could say it had been dealt with at a high level. I agreed, as long as she signed off the report to the fiscal.’
‘She didn’t. I’ve seen the Crown Office file. Her name isn’t on it, just yours.’
‘What a bitch!’ he exclaimed, shaking his head. ‘Fucking typical of the woman. You’re telling me that she hung me out to dry, just in case something like this ever came up?’
‘That’s a reasonable conclusion. Whatever, Chief Inspector Mason called you after the store manager called her, on Spidey’s advice, and you went to the scene. Alone?’
He frowned. ‘I guess, because I’d have assumed Spidey was there.’
‘Was he?’
‘Now you mention it, no, he wasn’t.’
‘What did you do?’
Coats paused, gazing at the wall behind McDaniels as he searched his memory. ‘I took statements from the two security guys – don’t ask me what they were called, but one of them was an Asian kid – from the store manager, from the checkout girl, to confirm that the stolen items weren’t with the stuff she’d paid for, and obviously from the woman Brown herself. She said it was a stitch-up. She was effing and blinding about another councillor called Gloria Stephens having set it all up. I put that to the store manager, who said it was all nonsense, as you’d expect.’
‘When you arrived, did you see the stolen clothing?’ McDaniels asked.
‘Obviously.’
‘Where?’
‘In the room where I interviewed Brown.’
‘Did you check the size against her own?’
‘No, but I didn’t see the need. She could have been stealing the stuff for her sister. Size wasn’t relevant.’
‘How did you know she had a sister?’
Coats’ face darkened. ‘She identified the body, after the suicide. They were twins, identical.’
‘They were?’
‘Yes. Spooky.’
‘I can imagine. Did you interview the security guys in any depth?’ she continued.
‘I took statements to confirm they were witnesses to the theft; that was enough.’
‘From both? But only one of them was there at the time, Zaqib Butt, the Asian kid. The other was called from another part of the store after Ms Brown had been apprehended.’
He frowned. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Zaqib Butt is. He’s also sure that when he stopped Councillor Brown, there was a discount sticker on the clothing, pricing it below the level at which the shop would have prosecuted. Your statement makes no mention of that; it quotes the item at full price.’
‘Then there couldn’t have been a discount sticker.’
‘Not when you saw the clothing, no. But between her detention and your arrival, anyone could have removed it.’
Coats eyed her with undisguised cynicism. ‘Do you have anyone in mind?’
‘Vera Stephens, for one.’
‘Who the hell is Vera Stephens?’
‘Councillor Gloria Stephens’ daughter. She was an employee at LuxuMarket at the time. Then there was the checkout girl. If you’d pressed him, Zaqib Butt would have told you that it was her who told him to stop Marcia Brown. You assumed that the security alarm went off, but it didn’t. It was broken.’
‘I assumed no such thing. I was told that it had been activated.’
‘Told by whom?’
‘By Spidey, when I found him, eventually. Yes, he was there right enough.’
‘Good, that’s established, but when did he arrive? Before or after you? Can you say with any degree of certainty?’
Coats frowned and shook his head. ‘No, but the store manager made the call to Mason on his advice, remember.’
‘Can it be proved that Parker was actually there when the theft took place?’
‘Not fucking now it can’t! But why would he be involved with something like I think you’re suggesting? A false accusation?’
‘Because he was engaged to Vera Stephens, Councillor Gloria’s daughter, the LuxuMarket employee nobody told you about.’
He stared at her, sinking into his chair. ‘Sum it up for me,’ he murmured. ‘I get what you’re saying, but put it into words for me.’
‘My pleasure,’ Carrie said. ‘I’m suggesting that Marcia Brown could have been falsely accused of shoplifting as a result of a plot executed by Vera Stephens, the daughter of a bitter council rival, with the active co-operation of her fiancé, Constable Peter Parker, and possibly a third party . . .’ She paused. ‘
Try to recall this. When you and Spidey finally met up, was he in police uniform?’
‘Now you mention it,’ Coats said, ‘he wasn’t. He was in plain clothes.’
‘In that case . . . Marcia Brown’s defence relied on her story about being waylaid by a constituent called Adrian, with a complaint about a council matter. Adrian was never traced, but now I believe he could have been Peter Parker.’
‘Dressed as bloody Spider-Man?’ Coats exploded desperately.
‘Dressed as a civilian. Come on, Terry. Drop your guard and think as a cop. On the basis of what we both now know to be true, were you fooled or were you not?’
He buried his face in his hands, and rubbed it, vigorously, then threw back his head. ‘It’s possible, goddammit,’ he hissed. ‘It’s possible. And then she died.’ He paused. ‘It couldn’t have been Parker that waylaid her, though; not if he was going to be a possible witness against her.’
‘True,’ McDaniels admitted. ‘Do you know if he’s still a serving police officer?’ she asked.
‘He may well be,’ he replied, ‘but not in Scotland. A few months after the LuxuMarket incident, just before I was promoted and posted to Glasgow, he got married and emigrated to Adelaide. The word in the station was that he’d been accepted for the South Australian Police Service. Natural, I suppose; Australia’s notorious for its bloody spiders.’
Sixteen
As Skinner had anticipated, the death of a Premier League footballer in a shattering car crash dominated the Saturday-morning news media. As always, the Saltire story was sharpest and carried the most detail, possibly because of the head start that he had given June Crampsey in one of those hypothetical discussions that never took place.
Heading for Glasgow along a less crowded M8 with his youngest son in the passenger seat beside him, he frowned as he thought of the families of the girlfriend and of the Belgian tourists, who had been reduced to bit players in some of the coverage. ‘Also among the dead were,’ he growled, repeating the words of the radio news announcer.
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 Page 9