Skinner's Trail - Quintin Jardine

by Quintin Jardine

  Think of it — that wee lad through there left an orphan because his parents humped each other to death!'

  `Christ, imagine the post-mortems!'

  Sarah spluttered with laughter and, as she did, Jazz's hungry, wailing cry rang out, bang on cue through the babyminder intercom, to rescue them from their jeopardy and to signal an end to their siesta.

  Twenty-five

  TANCAT CERRADO. FERMÈ. CLOSED.

  Whether callers were Catalan, Castellano, French or English, the message was the same in all four signs hanging in the glass door. The office of InterCosta, on the ground floor of a high-rise block on the Passeig Maritim, a long promenade looking across the small, windswept Riells Bay to L'Escala's ever-growing marina complex, was very definitely not open for business. Skinner wondered idly whether it was company policy to leave German callers at a loss.

  It was ten a.m. At such an hour on a Saturday morning, even the most indolent of Costa Brava property agents is normally to be found behind his desk. On the first day of June, the peak sales month, absence is unthinkable.

  Skinner re-crossed the sun-washed road and climbed back into his car, which was parked in one of the angled bays opposite the high-rise, its nose facing the sea wall. He sat there for ten minutes reading the sports section of La Vanguardia, watching the weekend windsurfers and looking occasionally in his rear-view mirror, checking for signs of activity at InterCosta. He saw several people stop at the office. One man, carrying a leather document case under his arm, pushed at the door without looking at the signs, and recoiled in surprise from the unexpected resistance. He peered through the glass for several seconds, and banged on the door with his fist in exasperation, before striding smartly back to a red Mercedes and driving off.

  That bloke had an appointment, thought Skinner. Something up here.

  He started the BMW's engine, reversed into the road and drove off, heading round Riells Bay to the marina and La Clota. Kathleen was on duty on the restaurant terrace when he arrived.

  She looked over as his car drew up, surprised to see him. 'Hello, Bob, you're early. Did you leave something last night?'

  Skinner laughed. 'Aye, the baby. We're not used to having him around yet!'

  Kathleen feigned horror. Òch, that's terrible. How could you forget a lovely wee boy like that!'

  `No, seriously, Kath, I'm here to pick your brains . . . again.

  I know Alberni's new pad is in Camp dels Pilans, but do you know where, exactly.'

  She angled her blonde head in thought. 'Yes. Come in and I'll show you.' She led the way into the unlit restaurant. Skinner's eyes had difficulty adjusting to the change from the bright morning outside. He peered in vain at the map which Kathleen held in front of him, until she led him into the neon-lit stainless-steel kitchen, where half a dozen staff were busy preparing the day's first meals. 'Look here,' she said. 'Take this turn here, and on round this road, up the hill. It's on top. You can't miss it: it's painted a horrible pink colour.'

  `Thanks, Kath. I'll just nip up there and see what's keeping the boy off his work.'

  Twenty-six

  The villa was, as Kathleen had said, a truly horrible pink. It stood on an isolated site on the crest of a curving road which defined the limits of Camp dels Pilans, the only suburb of L'Escala to the west of the main road to Girona and Figueras. Set in the awful stucco, the two small windows on either side of the front door resembled, Skinner thought, hooded eyes looking northwards with embarrassment.

  He pulled the BMW to a halt at the garden gate, and stepped out, picking up Pitkeathly's folder from the front passenger seat. He opened the gate and walked up the narrow path to the front door, timing his approach to avoid the sweep of a badly adjusted lawn-sprinkler, which seemed to be watering mainly the path and beyond it — to the right of the house — the driveway up to a single garage integral with the villa. Much of the spray was falling on a big Peugeot saloon, then running down the sides, creating zigzag patterns through the coating of reddish dust which the car had picked up since its last official wash.

  To the left of the front garden, beside a path leading to the rear of the villa, a large mongrel dog was chained. As Skinner approached the door, a low growl in the animal's throat turned into a ferocious, snarling bark. It made towards him, but was pulled up short by its chain a good six feet away. Skinner shot the beast a glance which made it think again. Suddenly its ferocity was spent, and it slunk back to its place in the shade, beside empty food and water bowls.

  A round brass bell-push was set in the centre of the studded door. Skinner pressed it and stood back, waiting for Alberni, or his wife to answer its call. But no one came. He rang the bell again. Another minute elapsed without a response. He pounded the door with his fist, but with no greater success.

  Exasperation grew in him. 'Come on, you bastard,' he muttered. 'I'm supposed to be on my fucking holidays, and here I am chasing you around L'Escala.'

  He abandoned his assault on the front door and walked around the corner to his left, towards the rear of the house, past the dog, which gave another token growl, then fell silent again quickly.

  The back garden was a shambles. Plastic poolside chairs were gathered around a small white table on which was scattered an assortment of empty beer and wine bottles and half a dozen empty glasses. A cigarette packet was floating in the middle of the pool.

  `You've been on the piss last night, Santi my son.' Skinner spoke the thought aloud. He looked around. The sliding patio doors were wide open and pink curtains as hideous as the house itself flapped limply in the gentle breeze. He walked across to the doors and stuck his head inside. Despite its airing, the villa still smelled stale. He listened, but there was no sound other than, from another room, the soft buzz of a refrigerator motor.

  `Senor Alberni! Senora!' He shouted loudly into the empty room, with unconcealed impatience. He waited and listened for sounds of human movement, but there were none. `

  Senora, Senora!' he bellowed again, and waited once more, but the obstinate silence remained. He thought of searching the place, but decided that Pujol's brief did not extend that far. Angry and exasperated, Skinner retraced his steps through the untidy garden, to the front of the house.

  This time the dog merely whined. The sound was so different to its earlier reaction to Skinner's presence that he stopped. The animal looked up at him and whined again. `Come on, boy,' said Skinner. Ì'm not that fierce.' He knelt down and stroked the mongrel. It whined once more, and this time the sound turned into a keen of distress. He looked at it closely and realised that it was sniffing, its nostrils flared. He followed the direction of its gaze, towards the garage door. It was the type that opened up and over, and it was slightly ajar. Skinner patted the animal's head once more, then stood up.

  He walked over to the garage, grasped the door by its single, central handle, and pulled it up.

  The sudden inrush of air made the body spin slowly round on the end of the rope.

  `Sweet suffering Christ,' Skinner hissed into the garage gloom.

  The man was hanging from a pulley set in the garage ceiling towards the far mall, and close to a heavy work bench.

  The stout yellow rope on which he twisted was fastened into a classic hangman's knot, and was tied securely at its other end to one of the legs of the workbench, which was bolted to the floor. His feet, in hand-stitched brown shoes, were well clear of the ground, and his arms hung limply, hands unclenched.

  One of the white plastic garden chairs lay on its side, on the floor.

  Skinner stood in the doorway, frozen, for several seconds.

  Suddenly the thought came to him that the hanging man might not be dead yet, and he snapped out of his trance. He rushed over to the body, but as soon as he saw the face he knew that it was too late for any heroic rescue. The man was small and lightly built but, even so, the rope was cutting deep into his neck. His face was blue. His eyes bulged horribly, as if about to pop from their sockets. His tongue, black and swollen, protruded
grotesquely between lips and teeth drawn back as if in a last, strangling snarl.

  Skinner's stomach turned. He snatched a single deep breath to bring himself under control, and looked away through the garage window, in which was framed the beautiful, jagged, snow-crested skyline of Canigou and the high Pyrenees.

  When he had mastered himself, he turned back to the body. He touched a hand. It was still as warm as his own. He looked again at the contorted face. The man had a small black moustache, but otherwise was freshly shaved. His thinning black hair was well groomed. He was smartly dressed in expensive blue slacks and a white, short-sleeved Dior shirt.

  Àll spruced up and ready for work, Alberni. I can picture the whole scene. The wife thinks it's business as usual. She goes off to her day job, then you step into the garage and jump into eternity. Very nice. Very thoughtful. A real considerate guy, eh. You stupid bastard!'

  There was something about the suicides of otherwise healthy people that always angered Skinner. The determination and physical courage necessary for the act counted for nothing in his mind against the grief and the hurt that the victims, almost invariably, left behind. It was the sheer selfishness of the deed that enraged him.

  He held the body with both hands to still its twisting on the rope, then turned and left the garage, closing the door behind him to hide the sight from any chance passers-by. Outside, he turned off the lawn sprinkler at its tap beside the garage door. Then on impulse he disconnected its hose, fetched over one of the dog's two dishes and filled it with water. The mongrel looked up at him, and Skinner could have sworn that it nodded its thanks.

  He returned to the back of the villa, and entered the living area through the open doors. This time he searched without hesitation. He searched first for Senora Alberni, fearful lest her husband had decided — as he had seen others do before — that life for his beloved would be unbearable without him. He moved swiftly from room to room, but all he found were untidy relics of the previous evening, and signs of a rushed breakfast: an uncleared dinner table set for six, the remains of a selection of pastries set out on a dessert trolley, more glasses, more empty bottles, a single breakfast-sized coffee cup smeared with lipstick lying, with a cereal bowl, unwashed in the kitchen sink. In the Albernis' bedroom, the bed had been hastily made.

  The door of one of two fitted wardrobes lay open, revealing a rail of women's clothing hung inside. On the dressing table, a jar of make-up base lay uncapped.

  Skinner, reassured that Senora Alberni was not in the house, returned to the living room. He found a telephone on a dark-wood sideboard, beside a number of framed family photographs.

  The largest showed a wedding scene. In this picture, the man now hanging in the garage wore a white tuxedo and black evening trousers. He smiled, looking youthful and handsome, and wore the same dark moustache; his hair, not so thin then, was immaculately groomed. The bride was a striking, dark-haired woman, perhaps a year or two older than her husband.

  Skinner would have described her as handsome rather than beautiful. Her eyes were her best feature: dark, oval, warm, and inviting trust. Beneath the pair, on the photograph's surround, the names Santiago and Gloria were inscribed in gold leaf.

  Skinner picked up the telephone and retrieved the Guardia Civil number from his mental filing cabinet. The call was answered by a gruff-sounding man on the fifth ring.

  'Commandante Pujol, por favor. Commandante Skinner, Escocia.'

  `Si, Commandante.'

  A few seconds later, he was put through. Tiola, Bob. '

  Àye, hello Arturo,' he said, wearily. 'Listen, I'm at Alberni's. Not the office — the villa.

  You're in on this one, like it or not.'

  `Why, won't he speak to you?'

  'No. He's having trouble getting the words out, on account of he's hanging from a rope in his garage.'

  `What!' Pujol's tone was incredulous. 'Is he dead?'

  Ìf he isn't fucking dead, then he never will be! It looks like he topped himself as soon as his wife went to work.'

  `Do you think he learned that you were coming to see him?'

  `Could be. Let's see what we can find out. I've had a quick look round, but I can't see anything that looks like a "sorry" note. You and your guys better get up here right now.'

  Twenty-seven

  ‘Arturo wants me to help him?'

  `Yes. Apparently his local doctor's off to Barcelona for the weekend, and the nearest alternative in Girona can't get along here for five or six hours. There was some sort of gypsy war there last night apparently. So our friend the commandant asked me to ask you if you, as a properly qualified person, could see your way clear to come up to Alberni's to state, for the medical record, the blindingly obvious: that the man is as dead as a fucking doornail.

  Because, apparently, until someone does that, the chief of the local police will not allow anyone to take the poor bastard down from his pulley.'

  Sarah looked astonished. 'Why doesn't Arturo . . .?' `Pull rank on him and tell him to piss off?'

  Sarah nodded.

  `He's got to live with the guy. Arturo knows he's an idiot, but he's still carrying the badge, and they have to work in harmony. Will you do it?'

  Òf course. Will you stay with Jazz?'

  `Sure, but I've got to go back up there too, once you've done your bit. I found the stiff, so I'll have to make a formal statement. Arturo wants me to hang around, too. They're going to fetch the widow back from the bank in Figueras where she works, and he'd like me there to explain how the body was found, if necessary. But, before she gets back they have to get him down off that rope.

  Òkay. Jazz is in his cot. He's out like a light. I'll be as quick as I can. Just don't go picking him up to talk football, or anything like that.'

  Twenty-eight

  The garage was full of policemen. Pujol and his Guardia were in immaculately pressed green uniforms. The local police, under the command of their impressively hatted chief, wore shapeless blue tunics which would have been unacceptable, Sarah thought to herself, on a garage forecourt.

  Pujol introduced her to the local chief with impressive formality, referring to her as Senora Profesora Skinner. The man's heavy grey eyebrows bristled with scepticism, until she disarmed him by congratulating him in fluent Spanish on the efficiency of his local force.

  Sarah never went anywhere, not even on holiday, without the basic tools of her trade. She stepped across to where the body hung, policemen moving aside deferentially as she did. She took hold of Alberni's right hand, which was already cooling. Her fingers moved quickly and expertly to confirm the absence of any pulse. She climbed up on the white plastic chair, which had been righted. She took a small torch from her shoulder bag and shone it in the bulging eyes. Finally she produced a stethoscope and, unfastening the second button of the Dior shirt, held it to the hairy chest.

  She jumped down from the chair, and stepped back towards Pujol and the Policia chief. The man is dead,' she said formally, in Spanish, to the grey eyebrows. He nodded emphatically as if to confirm her finding. Ì'd say around two hours,' she explained to Pujol in English. She glanced at her watch. 'That would make it nine-thirty: about an hour before Bob found him.'

  `How long would it take?' Pujol asked, wincing. He was pale; clearly, Sarah realised, unused or — odd for a policeman — unreconciled to violent death.

  `Not long. He looks to have made a good job of it. That's a heavy knot, and the rope's been oiled to make the noose as tight as possible. I'd say he gave it some thought. Although he looks grotesque, all that facial stuffs reflex. He'd have lost consciousness in only a few seconds, not through strangulation but through pressure on the arteries, and he'd have been brain dead within five minutes. You can tell his wife, if she asks, that it didn't involve much pain . . . apart from the mental pain that drove him to do it.'

  Pujol took Sarah's hands in his. 'My dear, you have been most kind. The Guardia Civil will, of course, pay you a proper professional fee for your services.'

&
nbsp; She smiled and shook her head. Old Pals Act, Arturo,' she said. For a second the dapper commandant looked puzzled, until he worked out the meaning of the saying. 'In that case, perhaps I offer you something in return. Would it interest you, professionally, to attend the postmortem? To see how we do things here? We have a good pathologist in Figueras, and I know he would be delighted to meet you. It will be on Monday morning at ten o'clock.'

  Sarah's eyes widened with pleasure. Ì'd be delighted, Arturo.' Suddenly a thought struck her.

  'But what about . . .?' She jerked a thumb surreptitiously toward the Policia chief, who had gone across to direct the untying of the knot and the lowering of Alberni's stiffening body from the pulley.

  Pujol shook his head. 'No problem. As soon as that body crosses the L'Escala municipal limit, it's all mine. That clown has nothing to do with it from then on.'

  Ìn that case, I'll see you on Monday.'

  Èxcellent. I will collect you at nine-thirty. Let us hope that Bob does not mind.'

  Sarah laughed. 'Don't worry. Minding the baby's still a novelty for him! Long may it stay that way!'

  Twenty-nine

  Skinner could barely believe what he saw when he returned to the Alberni villa.

  There was movement in the garden as he came to the crest of the road. He drew the BMW to a halt a few yards away from the gate. Before him, as he stepped out into the street, stood a white ambulance, its back doors open wide. Closer to him was a police car from which a trim, well-dressed dark haired woman was emerging. And as she did, the local police chief led his men away from the garage, carrying the body of Santi Alberni, covered over, on a stretcher.

  Skinner looked on, incredulous at the crassness of the man, as the Policia commandant signalled to the bearers to halt, and as he beckoned the woman towards him. Theatrically he drew back the sheet. 'Su marido, si?'

  The woman stared at the contorted face on the stretcher and shrieked. Her knees began to buckle but, before she could fall to the ground in her faint, Skinner stepped up behind her and caught her, his arm round her waist. She clutched him and leaned against his chest, sobbing.