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

  ‘Was LuxuMarket big enough to have its own security staff?’

  Delaney grinned. ‘They were shelf-stackers really. It was easier to recruit them if we gave them a more impressive title. Look, is all this not in the incident report?’

  ‘It was, but that’s gone missing with Ms McDaniels. All we have to go on is the recollection of Ms Brown’s former husband.’

  ‘Not the son? He made a hell of a fuss at the time. We were sympathetic, of course, but it got to a point when he had to be threatened with legal action if he didn’t stop.’

  ‘The son is no longer alive. He never did stop; now that he’s dead, his father feels an obligation to him.’

  ‘Are you telling me that the Marcia Brown case is now the subject of a police investigation?’

  ‘No, we’re not,’ McClair assured her quickly. ‘Our investigation is into the disappearance of Carrie McDaniels. We’re trying to get an idea of her movements since last week. We knew about this appointment, and were hoping you might point us in the direction of other people she might have seen, or planned to see.’

  Delaney whistled. ‘That’s a tall order; it’s been nine years. I suppose she would want to speak to the security officer who stopped Councillor Brown. I can’t remember his name, but he was a Pakistani boy, on vacation from uni. Then there was Vera Stephens, our fashion buyer. That’s right!’ she exclaimed, as a sudden recollection came to her. ‘Marcia had a beef with Vera’s mother, the notorious Gloria, the queen bee on the local council, and she claimed that Vera had set her up on her mother’s orders, to get her out of the way. Vera denied it, of course; she told the police she wasn’t on the shop floor when the theft happened. She said she was in my office, in fact.’

  ‘Was she?’

  ‘To be honest, Inspector, I couldn’t tell you. Vera’s room was close to mine and she accessed it through my outer office. If she said she was there, she probably was, but I wouldn’t necessarily have known. That’s what I told the detective who investigated the theft.’

  ‘Do you recall his name?’

  She nodded. ‘In fact I do. He was a detective sergeant, which I thought at the time was over the top for a shoplifting. He was a flash bastard, full of himself. I had the impression he might have been trying to pull me.’ She glanced at McClair. ‘You know the type, dear; a white mark on the third finger, left hand. His name was Coats, Terry Coats.’

  The DS turned a vivid shade of pink.

  Thirty-Nine

  The postcode that Skinner entered into Apple Maps took him, as McGuire had said, to Lauder, then a little beyond, to a turning off the main thoroughfare, and half a mile along a slightly narrower road to a wide gateway. It was open, leading him into a gravel driveway with a rose garden on either side. The centrepiece was a square building with a facade that reminded him vaguely of the Taj Mahal, but which was marred by a tall, broad chimney towards the rear.

  He spotted the DCC at once, standing beside his Range Rover, which was parked on the right, in the midst of four other vehicles, including a police car and a large van labelled Forensic Services. He manoeuvred his own as close to it as he could and stepped out. ‘What the hell is this place?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s called Eternal Meadow,’ McGuire informed him. ‘There’s no point in having a gaudy sign out here, but that’s the name on the website. It’s a pet crematorium.’

  ‘I’ve got a fucking dog I wouldn’t mind bringing here,’ Skinner muttered.

  ‘I’m sure Bowser would be treated with respect, but I think they’d prefer him to be dead first. Come on.’ The DCC led the way to the grandiose front of the structure, and through the main door into a reception hall with a plush purple carpet, a dozen upholstered chairs and a three-foot-high rectangular plinth in white wood, set against a curtained opening in the back wall. ‘This is the chapel of rest,’ he whispered.

  ‘You’re having a laugh!’

  ‘No, seriously.’

  A man and a woman stood in an open doorway; they were clad in matching dark suits and white shirts.

  ‘This is Mr and Mrs McGough,’ McGuire said, ‘the proprietors.’

  ‘Val and Michael,’ the woman added, stepping forward and offering a handshake. ‘Can we get on with this?’ she asked impatiently. ‘We need to be able to tell Charmaine’s owners when we can reschedule their ceremony.’

  ‘Charmaine?’ Skinner repeated.

  ‘A very fine Pyrenean mastiff bitch. A big animal; the coffin was a special order.’

  ‘Where is she now?’ he asked lamely.

  ‘In the cool room, where else?’

  ‘I can’t imagine,’ he said quietly. ‘Mario, what’s going on here?’

  ‘Mrs McGough will explain,’ the DCC told him. ‘It was her who contacted us.’

  ‘Yes, it was,’ she confirmed. ‘We’ve had a break-in overnight. Michael and I discovered it when we opened up this morning.’

  ‘What was taken?’

  ‘Nothing!’ she exclaimed impatiently. ‘Someone’s cremated their pet illegally! Broke in and used our facilities.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘Because the remains are still there. How else?’

  ‘They couldn’t have been left over from the last time the oven was used?’ Skinner asked.

  ‘The crematory, you mean. No, they couldn’t; Michael and I collected and processed those on Saturday evening and sealed them in their casket. The crematory is cleaned thoroughly after every use. It was immaculate when we left it.’

  ‘That was your last cremation? Saturday? Nothing on Sunday?’

  ‘That’s our day of rest. Our last client was on Saturday midday. Jolyon,’ she added, ‘a Staffordshire bull terrier.’

  ‘Okay, I get it.’ He was also beginning to get McGuire’s concern. ‘Apart from the cremated remains, did you find anything else?’

  ‘Nothing, nothing at all. Apart from the remains, whoever it was cleaned up after themselves.’

  ‘Why would they leave the remains? Why not take them and be completely undetected?’

  ‘The crematory would have taken some time to cool, and they’d need to be finally processed – put though the grinder,’ she explained. ‘My guess would be the intruders were in a hurry, or they simply didn’t know what they were doing; didn’t know about that final stage in the process. People talk of ashes,’ she explained, ‘but they’re not really. Tissue is vaporised by the intense heat; what goes in the casket is ground-down bone.’ She sniffed. ‘Gentlemen, how much longer are your people going to be? This really is interfering with our business.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs McGough,’ McGuire replied briskly. ‘We’ll take as much time as we need to, but not a minute more. Bob,’ he murmured, ‘let’s talk to Arthur.’

  He strode past the proprietors and into the space beyond the chapel of rest, a much larger area with a higher ceiling. Skinner looked around; the place was stacked with what he guessed, despite their irregular shapes, were coffins of various sizes, some tiny, one very large, almost human size. Its top was open, revealing a pink satin lining; ready for Charmaine, he surmised. In the centre of the great room were two ovens, again of different sizes and capacity, both vented into a cylindrical pipe that rose up and through the ceiling. The door of the larger crematory was open; a blue-suited technician was crouching inside it sifting through a pile of light grey fragments, varied in size, while another, a red-haired man, stood outside.

  ‘Well, Arthur,’ Skinner called out, ‘you and I have met in some strange places, but this one takes the biscuit.’

  ‘Bakes it, more like,’ the veteran Dorward retorted.

  ‘What have you got there?’ McGuire asked him. ‘What was it?’

  ‘You’re looking at bones,’ he replied, ‘but they’ve been shattered by the heat, so it’s difficult to say what they looked like before they had a couple of hours at two thousand degrees. Because of that, Mario, your guess would be as good as mine, were it not for one fact. I have never seen an animal, not ev
en one of the pampered mutts this place deals with, that would wear one of these.’ He held up a twisted piece of shiny metal. ‘You couldn’t tell now, but this was once a Rolex watch.’

  The DCC frowned. ‘How can you know that?’

  ‘Amazingly, some detail on the back survived the flames; all that heat for all that time, but the name was still legible. So was the serial number; I photographed it and sent it to the office in Gartcosh, and asked them to check whether its guarantee had been registered. I’ve just had a call back; it belonged to somebody called Ben McNeish.’ He gesticulated towards the pile of twisted remains. ‘I’m guessing that used to be him.’

  Skinner sighed, so loudly that his two companions looked towards him in surprise. ‘No,’ he said. ‘For once you’re wrong, Arthur. I know Ben McNeish; he’s the stepson of a friend of mine. He’s still alive, but he’s not around here. He found himself a new career as a United Nations observer at elections around the world. At the moment he’s in Papua New Guinea. Arthur,’ he asked, ‘is that the only ID we’ll ever get?’

  ‘The identification of DNA from cremated material is a forensic anthropologist’s wet dream, but it can’t be done, Bob, not yet. You’ll have to rely on that watch. It’s a few grand’s worth, so somewhere there’s likely to be paperwork to match the serial number.’

  ‘You don’t need it. Carrie McDaniels wore a Rolex. The first time I encountered her she didn’t have it, but she was involved with a lad – Ben McNeish. Almost certainly,’ his voice faltered; he was visibly upset, ‘that’s her.’

  ‘The poor, poor girl,’ McGuire whispered, shuddering. ‘I’ll get Sauce to check her apartment,’ he said. ‘The guys who dumped her here can’t have thought it through or they wouldn’t have left the watch on her.’

  ‘Further proof, if we needed it, that they weren’t thieves,’ Skinner added, ‘or they’d have taken it. You don’t need to go that far, though; I can get a mobile number from Ben’s mother. If he’s within range of a cell, one phone call could confirm that he gave the watch to Carrie.’

  The DCC looked over his shoulder, towards the doorway, where the proprietors stood, Val McGough and the silent Michael, looking on. ‘Whatever they were, it’s bad news for those two. Their place is now a crime scene. God knows what effect the publicity will have on their business, and there will be pub—’

  He stopped in mid sentence, looking at his friend, and at the distant expression on his face. ‘What’s up?’ he asked. ‘You look as if . . . Nah, of course, you knew this girl; seeing that would upset anyone.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s not that. I was thinking of my great-granny, Mario. “The bad fire” was the threat she used to terrorise kids. It put me off Hansel and Gretel for life, mate; one story I never read to my kids, none of them. Maybe this is what the old witch meant.’ He smiled, sadly and self-consciously. ‘Sorry, guys. Arthur, what’s your next move?’

  ‘I’ll need the full team down here.’ Dorward sighed. ‘There might be no victim DNA in there,’ he nodded at the crematory, ‘but the people who did this will have left some, as always. We’ll need samples from the owners and everyone who’s been here – not you, of course, that’s on file – and we’ll need in situ photography.’ He looked up at McGuire. ‘Is there any point in a pathologist?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say so. She should go to a mortuary, though, even though we won’t be doing an autopsy.’

  ‘No, we won’t,’ the scientist agreed. ‘However, there is one thing they need to do, and it will not make your day, Deputy Chief Constable. They need to weigh her. Was Carrie McDaniels a big woman, Bob?’

  ‘Average,’ Skinner replied. ‘Five six, five seven, solidly built, but fit, not gone to fat. Why?’

  ‘Well, this isn’t my field of expertise, but as I understand it, the remains of a person that size would be around three kilos in weight. I think we’re looking at a hell of a lot more than that. I might be wrong, but that would be unusual: twice in one day, it would be impossible. I don’t think those remains are Carrie McDaniels’ alone; I believe she had a companion. We’re looking at two bodies, gentlemen, not one.’

  Forty

  ‘I swear to God, boss, I did not know,’ Noele McClair murmured. ‘Nine years ago, when Terry was a DS in Kilmarnock, I was a probationer, stationed in Castlemilk. We’d been married for less than two years; it was him that persuaded me to join the force. White band round his finger indeed! A sign of things to come right enough. Since we split up, I’m starting to discover that Mr Coats played more away games than Celtic. That explains why he was so keen for me to use my maiden name at work, so it didn’t tip people off that he was married.’ She looked anxiously at Haddock. ‘This won’t take me off the investigation, will it?’

  ‘Not as it stands. Bob Skinner must have known about the connection. He’d have spoken up if it was a problem. If Terry becomes a suspect, that might be a different matter, but we’re nowhere near that.’

  They were back in the reception area of the radio station. Hazel Delaney had asked them to wait there after their interview had finished, without explaining why. The answer became obvious when the double doors burst open and Mia McCullough strode in, followed by her husband. ‘Sauce,’ Cameron McCullough exclaimed. ‘I hope you realise you’re getting special treatment. I have a standing golf game on a Monday afternoon, but I had a message that my granddaughter’s other half was demanding to see me. I know you like to keep me at arm’s length, but you know where I live; you’ve been there.’

  ‘This isn’t social, Cameron. It was either here or on our ground.’

  The silver-haired man smiled. ‘In a way, I’m pleased to hear that. I dread the day when you come to me and tell me I’m going to be a great-grandpa.’ He jogged his wife’s elbow. ‘I don’t reckon you’d fancy that either, love,’ he chuckled. ‘On you go and get ready for your show, while I answer the officers’ questions, whatever they are.’

  Mia gave them a cool look. ‘Keeping it in the family, eh, Sauce?’ she murmured, then strode off, tight and fit in her designer jeans and sleeveless cotton shirt.

  ‘Let’s go to the boardroom,’ McCullough said. He led the detectives out of reception, along a corridor and into a chamber at the rear of the building. It was more of a den than a meeting place, with a wall-mounted television, two armchairs and a corner bar. There was a table, but it was small, with only four seats.

  ‘How many directors do you have?’ Haddock asked.

  ‘Just the two: Mia and me. The third chair’s for our lawyer – she’s the company secretary – and the fourth, that’s for Hazel when we invite her in to discuss management matters: ad sales, listener figures and so on. The business pretty much runs itself; it’s popular and it’s profitable. Cheeky’s probably told you, Sauce, that she begged me to buy it, eleven years ago, when it was about to go bust. She liked it and reckoned it could be saved if somebody changed its programming and gave it wider appeal. She was right up to a point, but it never did more than wash its face until Mia turned up looking for a job. She’s got class, and she has a history in the business. She’s raised our advertising profile by a mile, and got us international attention, through the live listening facility on our website. I’m still astonished by the number of people who remember her from Airburst FM, and not just Edinburgh folk either.’

  ‘I’m one of them,’ Noele McClair admitted.

  ‘Can we get down to business, Cameron?’ Haddock asked. ‘DS McClair and I are trying to find a woman who’s gone missing. Your station has been covering the story.’

  ‘I’ve heard it. You haven’t volunteered a hell of a lot – name, rank and serial number, not much more. What’s behind it? It’s serious, I can see that if they have a Serious Crimes team looking for her. You can tell me, son; it won’t leave this room without your approval.’

  The DI pursed his lips and made a decision. ‘On that understanding: Carrie McDaniels was investigating the circumstances behind a shoplifting allegation made nine years ago, in Ayrshire, aga
inst a woman called Marcia Brown. It happened in a supermarket in Kilmarnock called LuxuMarket. You owned the business at the time.’

  ‘I suppose I did,’ McCullough agreed, ‘but I was an angel really.’ He smiled. ‘A business angel,’ he explained, ‘is a private investor who puts money into a small business to help it start up, then cashes in when it’s established. LuxuMarket had been a cash-and-carry off-licence that had outlived its time. The owner wanted to sell, so he approached me. I had a look at it and decided the risk wasn’t unacceptable, as long as it could be converted into a full-range food store and supermarket. It worked out, too. I ran it for a while, built up the business and sold out at a very tidy profit – on which I paid tax, in case you were wondering. That was seven years ago.’

  ‘Around the time you offered Hazel Delaney the job here?’

  ‘That’s right. She impressed me in Kilmarnock, and I needed to make a change here, so it worked out. For her too; she’d just got married and her husband worked offshore, so it was handier for her to be in the east, near his base. Poor bastard; he was killed on a rig not long after that.’

  ‘Do you remember the Marcia Brown affair?’

  ‘The way it ended, I could hardly forget it, Sauce. Hazel told me about it. In fact, she consulted me about the decision to prosecute. With the woman being a councillor, she felt she needed my seal of approval. There were elections coming up, and if Marcia Brown had become chair of planning, or even leader of the council, there might have been repercussions. I couldn’t see any chance of either, since she was an independent, and the theft was above our discretionary level, so I told her to go ahead.’

  ‘Did she also tell you about Marcia Brown’s death?’ Haddock asked.

  ‘Yes, she did.’ McCullough gazed at him. ‘Are you going to ask me if I felt guilty, son? Of course I bloody did! So did Hazel, so did everyone in the bloody store. One of the security lads who stopped her had to be counselled; health and safety insisted. The other just quit. Hazel needed counselling too; she was really cut up about it. And so was I; upset enough to get involved and order that the discretionary limit be doubled, but I never told anybody other than store management.’