08 - Murmuring the Judges

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘Fourteen.’

  ‘And ten months. Don’t split hairs. If that’s your timetable, you’re telling me that I won’t be a father until I’m forty-five. That may be okay for Bob, in his second marriage, but this will be my first. Look, if I choose to retire at sixty, our first child will still be at school. I want to be able to play football with him, or go running with her. When they’re at that stage I don’t want to be past it.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, you won’t be past it. Look at you now. You’re fitter than most men in their mid twenties.’

  ‘I’m not as fit as your dad though. He murdered me again on the squash court yesterday. Fuck me, I don’t want to be stuffed by his grandson as well, not until he’s left primary school at least!’

  She came to him, and laid a hand on his shoulder, turning him to face her. ‘Andy,’ she said. ‘Do you want a marriage of equals?’

  ‘Of course,’ he answered, defensively.

  ‘Then surely we have equal career rights. Look at Maggie and Mario. She’s over thirty, and she’s a DCI. There are no signs of babies on the way there.’

  ‘Forget them, this is us. Does this firm of yours not believe in maternity leave, then? I thought that was statutory.’

  She shook her head violently, making her thick hair fly. ‘It isn’t the firm. It’s the clients, and it’s me too.’

  ‘Och, Alex,’ he exclaimed. ‘You change with the wind. A few months ago you were all for getting married.’

  ‘And I still am. It’s what comes after that we need to agree.’

  He looked at her. ‘Okay then. If this is negotiation, you’ve given me your agenda, now I’ll give you mine. I’d like to be a father within five years.’

  ‘In that case,’ she said. ‘Where’s the compromise?’

  ‘That was a compromise, my darling!’

  Alex flared up. ‘That was an ultimatum!’

  ‘No, it wasn’t,’ he replied, quietly and sadly. ‘This is an ultimatum. Either we agree to start a family within five years, or this relationship will be heading for the rocks.’

  74

  He rolled on his back, squealing with pleasure as the strong fingers kneaded his bare stomach. He kicked his legs in the air, reaching out with his hands, grasping at nothing.

  ‘Oooh! Yerghh!’ he bellowed.

  ‘That’s enough, Bob,’ called Sarah from the sofa. ‘He’ll never sleep if you wind him up any more.’

  ‘Hear that, wee man,’ said Skinner, tumbling over to lie on the sitting-room floor beside his younger son, and looking sideways at him, their eyes at the same level. ‘Your mother has plans for you. The Sandman is coming.’ He propped himself up on an elbow, looking down at Jazz, who gazed back, fascinated. ‘You know, son, when you think of it, only the Americans could believe in a fairy who comes round at night and throws sand in weans’ eyes.

  ‘Us Scots, now, we simply believe in slipping a mild opiate . . . or maybe a small whisky . . . into their juice.’

  In spite of the slur cast on one of her National Institutions, Sarah laughed as she bent to pick up the toddler from the floor. ‘Sunshine,’ she gasped, ‘you are getting heavier by the day.’ Jazz grinned and nuzzled his forehead against her. ‘Time for bed now, your late pass has expired.’

  She glanced down at her husband. ‘You go and tell Mark to get ready. Honestly, the time that boy would spend on his computer . . .’

  ‘Let him,’ Bob grinned. ‘It’s what he likes best. He’s no natural athlete is our Mark, but he may be a genius. All the time he spends exploring those CD Roms, he’s learning.’ He reached out and tickled Jazz once more in the ribs. ‘Now this one, he’s just going to be a bear when he grows up . . .’

  He patted Sarah on the tail. ‘Go on then, settle him down if you can and I’ll spend some time with Einstein. See you back here in half an hour and you can help me go through that paper I brought home.’

  In fact it was almost three quarters of an hour before he reappeared from Mark’s room, having allowed him twenty minutes on the Internet, researching Scottish history. He was still shaking his head as he handed his wife an uncapped Becks. ‘When Big Neil moves on, I think I’ll take him on as my exec.,’ he chuckled. ‘He never forgets anything, and his logic circuits are bloody amazing.’

  She squeezed his thigh, as he sat beside her. ‘Don’t forget to let him be a little boy, though.’

  ‘As if I would. Alexis was a very clever child too, you know, and she’s turned out all right.’

  To his surprise, Sarah frowned slightly.

  ‘What?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing, nothing. You’re right, she has turned out all right; very much so. But that doesn’t mean you should stop being concerned about her. Alex is a volatile personality, like you . . . and like her mother. Those things you two found out about Myra, they terrify her, you know.

  ‘Right now, I sense things going on behind those big eyes of hers, but I don’t know what they are. Almost for the first time since I’ve known her, I can’t tell what she’s thinking.’

  Bob looked at her. ‘I’ll have a word with her,’ he said.

  ‘Okay, but just you be careful.’ She reached down and picked up the folder of papers which he had brought home with him. ‘So what are these, then?’

  ‘They relate to the judges’ investigation. They’re the papers for a book on the Beatrice Gates case.’

  Sarah grinned, wickedly. ‘Oh yes. I didn’t like to ask you in front of the kids. How was Lord Orlach?’

  ‘Heavily tanned. It must be very hot where he is. His deodorant doesn’t work any more either. Christ, I don’t think I’ll ever forget that smell!’

  ‘I can imagine. I really should have been there, you know. It would have been good experience. Even Joe enjoyed it, so he said when I phoned him.’

  ‘You know the result then?’

  ‘Yes. Clever you, for thinking of it.’

  ‘Stupid me for not thinking of it earlier,’ he retorted.

  ‘Like you said once, it’s a real bastard not being perfect, ain’t it.’ She opened the folder and recoiled involuntarily as she saw the first item. It was a photograph of a dead man, naked on an examination table with the hilt of a knife protruding from his chest.

  ‘That’s Mr Gates,’ said Bob, almost conversationally. ‘He woke up one morning to find himself dead. However hard she tried, Mrs Gates, who woke up alongside him, couldn’t make the jury believe that she didn’t do it. They were childless, so there was no one to back up her story that he must have been killed by an intruder.’

  Sarah peered at the photograph. ‘She must have been pretty strong. That knife is rammed right through the sternum.’

  ‘Yes, and although it wasn’t known during the trial, they reckon she had incipient MS at the time,’ Bob told her, quietly.

  ‘The jury wasn’t told that?’

  He shook his head. ‘Nope.’

  ‘So what do you hope to find in here?’ she asked.

  ‘Somebody who’s capable of carrying a grudge for twenty years before getting even.’ He took the folder from her and laid it on his lap. Discarding the photographs, he picked up a typed document. ‘This is Mrs Gates’ original statement to the Tayside officers.’ With his wife looking over his shoulder he read his way through it.

  ‘That’s just an account of what I told you. The woman claims that she was a very heavy sleeper, and that she had been unaware of the intruder or the attack.’

  ‘It’s possible, I suppose,’ Sarah conceded. ‘What’s next?’

  ‘Copies of all the police, medical and forensic witness statements.’

  ‘Let’s go through them, then.’

  They read on together for almost an hour, studying the overwhelming evidence against Beatrice Gates, as it painted a picture of her certain guilt.

  ‘Down the road, isn’t she,’ said Bob. ‘No way could the jury acquit.’

  ‘Hmmph,’ his wife snorted. ‘I cannot believe that the defence was so incompetent that they didn�
�t uncover and introduce the multiple sclerosis possibility.’

  ‘You’ve just read the reason. After her arrest, Mrs Gates was examined by the police surgeon. He found that she was fit, and the defence accepted that. Two psychiatrists examined her as well, and neither of them commented.’

  ‘They were examining her mind, Bob. I suppose it’s possible,’ she conceded, ‘that the disease only started to motor towards the end of the trial. What’s next?’

  He picked up the next document and looked at the heading. ‘This is a transcript of an interview with Mrs Pauline Collins, Mrs Gates’ sister, not by the police, but by Arnold Kilmarnock, the author of the book.’

  They scanned the document, in which Mrs Collins described her surprise and concern at the depth of her sister’s sleep pattern. She said also that all through her life, Beatrice had been a gentle, friendly woman and that she and her husband had enjoyed a calm tranquil marriage, which, although it had not been blessed with children, had been very happy. Pinned to the back of the report was a photograph of the interviewee, a serious, plain-featured featured middle-aged woman.

  ‘This depth of sleep could well have had a medical cause,’ said Sarah. ‘Was there any professional evidence led by the defence?’

  ‘Not that I can see.’

  ‘Jesus! Why ever not?’

  ‘You’ve never met Richard Kilmarnock, have you?’ Bob remarked casually, as he picked up the next document. ‘This is an interview with Mrs Collins’ son, Charles.’

  The transcript was brief and not entirely relevant to Mrs Gates’ defence, other than as a glowing testimonial to a loving aunt and a faithful and benevolent uncle. As with the notes on Mrs Collins, there was a photograph of the subject clipped to the back. Skinner gave it the briefest glance and was about to discard the document, when suddenly his whole body stiffened.

  He stared at the photograph. ‘Good God,’ he whispered. ‘Good God Almighty.

  ‘I’ve seen this man’s face before. Dan Pringle’s met him, too, only he was dead at the time. This is Curly Collins, one of Andy’s armed robbery gang!’

  75

  ‘Look, Mrs Collins,’ said Skinner, evenly. ‘Please don’t get aggressive with me. I appreciate that you’ve lost your husband in terrible circumstances, but that’s not my fault.’

  He paused. ‘I think you should face the facts here. Last night, our search team found one hundred and seventy thousand pounds and a shotgun buried under your garden shed. Curly was a member of a particularly vicious gang, and he was almost certainly a murderer too.

  ‘Our laboratory has determined that the gun in his possession killed a man called Harry Riach during the bank robbery in Galashiels. The one we found hidden in his pal Rocky Saunders’ van was used to murder Police Constable Annie Brown outside the bank.’

  His voice hardened. ‘If your old man hadn’t got himself shot, he’d have been locked away for the rest of his life, be in no doubt about that.’

  ‘But who shot him, though?’ Grace Collins shot back, running her fingers through her straggly, dyed-blonde hair, and drawing heavily on her cigarette. ‘I’ll bet it was your lot, with that policewoman being killed. That’s why you’re going on about this guy Hamburger, who probably doesn’t even exist.’

  ‘Oh, he does, lady, he does. And sooner or later we will find him, just as we’ll find Newton, Clark and McDonnell. Wherever they are, it isn’t far enough to be safe from us.’

  He stood over her, his back to the fireplace in the compact living room of her semi-detached bungalow. ‘Anyway, that’s not what I want to talk to you about.’

  ‘Why are you here, then? Are you going to offer me a job as a traffic warden or something?’

  The DCC grinned at her defiance. ‘I don’t think so, Mrs Collins. You’ve got too nice a nature. No, I want to ask you about Curly’s auntie. I’m taking a look at the case of Mrs Beatrice Gates, which has become relevant to another inquiry we’re involved in.’

  For the first time since she had opened the front door, something other than hostility showed in the woman’s face. ‘Auntie Beattie? I thought that was all dead and buried, like her.’

  Skinner nodded. ‘It was, but I’ve dug it up again. You speak as if you knew her. Did you?’

  ‘Yes, I did. Curly and I were going together before . . . before that thing happened.’

  ‘Did you like her?’

  ‘Well enough. She was round at Curly’s mum’s quite a lot. She never had much to say for herself though. Quiet woman, a bit starchy, stiff-knickered. Know what I mean?’

  The policeman smiled and sat down. ‘I can guess. Let me ask you something. Do you think she did it?’

  Grace Collins threw him a shrewd look. ‘If Curly was here, I’d have to say “No way”. He wouldn’t hear of it but the truth is, I reckon she did. She was a bit odd, Beattie, in the way she looked at folk. It was as if her expression was painted on. As for Uncle George, her husband, he was a slippery bastard. According to Curly’s mum, he couldn’t have kids, and that was why he was so free and easy. Beattie just smiled her way through life while he was out with his birds.

  ‘I reckon that the police were right. When yon girl turned up at her house and told her she was the new love of George’s life, I think she just went quietly mental, waited until he was asleep and knifed the swine.’

  ‘There’s some doubt that she could have done it, physically, with her disease.’

  ‘Hah!’ she said. ‘That was patchy. She’d complain about being helluva tired, sure, but other times she was okay. Curly and I went round to see his granny the week before it happened, and we found Auntie Beattie there chopping up logs for the fire.’

  She pursed her lips. ‘That’s just my humble opinion, mind. Curly, and his mum, and his granny; they all defended her to the last. “No’ our Beattie”, they were always saying.’

  ‘Did Curly talk about the case much?’ Skinner asked.

  ‘At the start of it, he could talk about nothing else. It was a real obsession with him.’

  ‘Did it ever go away?’

  ‘No’ really. Every so often he would bring it up. Even although he was in the forces, another uniformed service, he had a real down on the police because of it. And the Courts too.’

  ‘Look, did he ever threaten over it?’

  She frowned. ‘What’s this leading up to?’

  ‘Let’s wait and see. Did he?’

  ‘Not threaten as such. But every so often he’d come out with something like, “See those bloody judges. I’d like to put them away and see how they get on.” Now you’re telling me he shot someone. D’you think he’d have done them in too?’

  ‘Someone has, Mrs Collins,’ said the DCC quietly. ‘That’s the problem.’ She looked up at him in disbelief.

  ‘Do you have children?’ he asked.

  ‘Two girls.’ Grace Collins pointed to a series of photographs in a glass-fronted display cabinet near the window. ‘Una and Amy. One’s starts Uni next month. The other’s at school.’

  ‘Ah. It’ll be hard for them, losing their dad . . . whatever he was, or did. I don’t want to make it harder, but I want you to be straight with me, because another man’s liberty might just depend on it.

  ‘I’m going to write down three dates and times for you. I’d like you to search your memory, wall calendars, diary, anything you have, and see if you can tell me where Curly was on each of those occasions. When you’re ready, I want you to phone me at my office.

  ‘Will you do that?’

  She gazed at him, her mouth drawn in a tight line, twin red spots on her pallid cheeks. ‘You’re saying someone else could be in bother?’

  ‘No. He is in bother, but he may very well be innocent. You can’t harm Curly now, Mrs Collins.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said at last, ‘write them down. I’ll do it.’

  76

  ‘The pieces are coming together, Bob,’ said Andy Martin, emphatically. ‘We recovered a third shotgun from Tory Clark’s flat, stuck in a cup
board beside his golf clubs. I don’t know where Newton kept his . . . maybe it’s buried in his garden . . . but he didn’t make a very good job of hiding the mask he wore at the George Street robbery. We came across that in his attic, together with some cartridges.’

  ‘How much cash have we recovered?’ asked Skinner, leaning back to allow the dining-room waitress to pour his coffee.

  ‘Just over a quarter of a million in total; from Saunders’ van, under Collins’ greenhouse, and from Newton’s wife. We’ve got a slight problem with the third lot, actually. I’m sweating slightly in case Mrs Bakey goes to a lawyer. She might challenge us to prove that it came from a robbery.’

  The DCC added a touch of milk to his cup. ‘Don’t worry about that. If it comes to the bit, hand the money over to the Fiscal and let him sort out.

  ‘The thing I’m most pleased about,’ he went on, ‘is knowing Collins and Saunders shot Riach and PC Brown. And the reason I’m so chuffed is that the bastards are lying in the morgue.’

  Martin hunched his shoulders. ‘You don’t suppose, do you, that Hamburger executed them because they killed by-standers?’

  ‘What, the noble criminal? Come on, Andy, you don’t really believe that. Hamburger wiped them out to protect himself, that’s the way of it.’

  ‘Why didn’t he take their money, then?’

  Skinner snorted. ‘Because he didn’t have a squad of coppers to help him look for it. He’s got at least half the proceeds stashed away himself, remember, and probably all of Raglan’s diamonds.

  ‘Any trace of any of our fugitives so far?’

  The DCS nodded. ‘One, this morning. Arlene Regan’s father called Stevie Steele to say that they had a card from her in today’s mail. It was posted in Paris six days ago. The message was “All well, don’t worry, love Arlene”. I’ve alerted the French police.’

  ‘Don’t hold your breath. There are more illegals in Paris than you’ve had chocolate biscuits.’

  Skinner picked up his cup once more, cradling it in both hands.

  ‘How’s my daughter, Andy?’

  The sudden question took his friend by surprise. He looked up sharply. ‘Why d’you ask?’