07 - Skinner's Ghosts

by Quintin Jardine

  Then a man’s voice - not so loud, flatter, but sounding just as drunk. ‘Fuckn’ bitch,’ he said.

  ‘Lemme go, ya bassa.’ Another slurred shout. Then a sound, a crack, the noise possibly of palm meeting cheek.

  The hissing resumed once more. Ruth pressed the stop button and rewound the tape. ‘There’s a note with it,’ she said, handing Skinner a folded sheet of paper. He opened it and read.

  ‘This is what we were able to do. The man’s voice was a bonus. I guess your caller used a phone box and that he had the door open.’ Skinner smiled, guessing why he would choose to do that at such an hour on a Saturday night. ‘The mikes on your public phones are very good. The people you hear on the tape could have been up to twenty-five yards away. Good Luck, Caroline Farmer.’

  He looked at Ruth. ‘Some bonuses from my Saturday call,’ he said. ‘It was made from the phone box near my cottage.’

  ‘Mmm,’ she said. ‘You do have the nicest neighbours, don’t you?’

  Skinner grinned at the waspish dryness of her humour. ‘Aye,’ he nodded, ‘and I’m going to find out who they are too. Have a copy made, and give it to me. I’ll send McIlhenney out to Gullane to play it, discreetly, to the pub owners and bar staff in the village.

  ‘He should get a laugh from them, at least, and maybe, a couple of names.’

  27

  Detective Superintendent Brian Mackie’s expression was usually deadpan, and so, as the McGrath investigation team filed into the conference room at the St Leonards Divisional Police Office at exactly 9 a.m. on Tuesday morning, Andy Martin was surprised to note that he looked a shade nervous.

  He strolled up to the head of the table, where Mackie stood. ‘Chin up, Thin Man,’ he whispered. ‘You should be pleased that the boss asked me to have you run the morning briefing, and on your turf too.’

  ‘Sure,’ said the newly promoted divisional CID commander, ‘but it’d be easier if he wasn’t here himself. This is the first time I’ve done something like this, outside Special Branch, and that wasn’t the same at all. You know what the boss is like. He can’t stop himself from jumping in, even when he isn’t in the chair.’

  The Head of CID grinned. ‘Don’t I bloody know it. But don’t worry. I’ve asked him to be on his best behaviour.’

  Mackie, his shiny bald head adding to his cadaverous look, looked unconvinced. ‘Aye, but even at that. I really feel in the spotlight here, considering who I’ve taken over from.’

  ‘You put that right out of your mind. With hindsight, you should have been in this job before him anyway. If you hadn’t been so valuable in SB, you probably would have been.’

  For the first time, the slim detective looked reassured. ‘Kind of you to say that, Andy, true or not.’ He paused, and looked around the room as if searching for a face. Skinner, making his way along the far side of the room, caught his eye and nodded.

  ‘The boss is here, but is your sergeant coming?’ the Superintendent murmured.

  ‘No way,’ replied Martin, quietly. ‘He’s let her come back to work this morning, but I’m going to make sure that they’re never in the same room, not with other officers around anyway.’

  Mackie nodded. ‘Good. Especially not with Maggie Rose. She’s good at studied disapproval, is my second-in-command. ’

  He looked up to see Skinner reach Detective Chief Inspector Rose, his Executive Assistant before Pamela Masters’ brief tenure in the post. ‘Mornin’ Mags,’ said the DCC. ‘How’s the new boss?’

  Rose looked over her shoulder towards Mackie. ‘Strict but fair just about covers it, sir,’ she said with a faint smile. If Skinner noticed that it was less warm than usual, he gave no sign.

  ‘Bit like me, you mean?’ He reached out to shake the Superintendent’s hand. ‘Mornin’ Brian. Christ,’ he said suddenly. ‘Look at the three of you. All graduates from my private office. A certain route to the top, indeed.’ Skinner rarely said anything simply to make conversation, but the words were out before he could stop them. Had he not known Maggie Rose so well he would never have noticed the slight change in her expression.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, quickly. ‘Let’s get on with it.’ He nodded towards a chair at the side of the table. ‘Brian, I’ll sit over there, and I’ll try to keep my mouth shut, honest. Arrange the rest as you like.’

  Mackie nodded and rapped the table. ‘Okay, ladies and gentlemen,’ he called out, ‘if you’ll all take seats, please.’ He looked around the room. In addition to Skinner, Martin and Rose, by his side, Sammy Pye and Neil McIlhenney faced him across the table, together with three other officers, two men and a woman.

  Quickly, the room came to order.

  ‘Very good,’ said the Superintendent, flanked in his seat by his deputy and by the Head of CID. ‘This briefing has been called to review progress yesterday in our enquiries in Gullane, where a lead has developed in the McGrath Murder investigation.’ He glanced round at Martin. ‘Of the officers involved in the investigation, sir, only the people in this room know the full story, that Mr Skinner’s call on Saturday was made from Gullane.’

  Briefly, but comprehensively, Mackie related the developments since Skinner’s unexpected telephone call, and since the discovery of its point of origin.

  ‘First of all,’ he said, once everyone was up to date, ‘let’s deal with the follow-up visits to the six telephone subscribers on that BT list. Sergeant Reid, you handled that . . .’

  The second female officer in the room nodded, and sat straighter in her chair. ‘Yes, sir. They’ve all been checked out, as far as possible.’

  ‘How did you go about it?’ asked Martin.

  ‘Discreetly, sir, as ordered. Mr Mackie said that what we really wanted was to get a look at these people. So I told every person I visited that I was investigating reports of nuisance phone calls in the area, and was checking to see whether they’d had any. Just to make it convincing, sir, I called on all the homes around each of the names on my list.’

  ‘Have you excluded everyone?’ asked Skinner from the side. Mackie glanced at Martin and raised an eyebrow, slightly.

  ‘No, sir. One subscriber wasn’t in. However the folk next door told me that he was a seventy-year-old widower, who’d gone off in a hurry on Sunday to visit his sick grandson. Other than that, though, I’ve seen them all. Of the other five, four were middle-aged couples, and the fifth was an old lady in a retirement community.’

  ‘Very good, Janice,’ said Mackie, hurriedly taking back control of the meeting. ‘Sergeant Spring, will you please report on the house-by-house check.’

  Spring, the older Sergeant, nodded. ‘We’re going as fast as we can, sir. Some of the houses we know are a dead loss, but like Janice, we have to be seen to be calling on everyone, so it’s taking a while. There’s been nothing suspicious so far.’

  ‘How about empty houses?’ asked Martin. ‘Have you encountered any?’

  ‘Seven, so far,’ said Spring. ‘Five of them have no known local key-holder, two have a key-holder known to us, and the other is believed to have a local caretaker, but the neighbours don’t know who that is. They keep themselves to themselves in Gullane, right enough, sir.’ All at once the Sergeant gulped, visibly, and glanced across at Skinner.

  The DCC himself broke the ensuing silence. ‘What have you done about the empties, John?’ he asked.

  ‘Had a good look round, sir, as far as we could. There didn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary, anywhere.’

  Skinner nodded and leaned back in his seat.

  Mackie looked at the officer beside Spring. ‘Sergeant Carney, you’ve been doing the pubs. Any feedback?’

  ‘Some, sir. It’s a pity it was a Saturday. During the week the firemen from the Training School would have been around, and they’d have been going home around that time, sober mostly, and potentially good witnesses.

  ‘As it was we found a couple of guys who admitted they were passing the phone box, just before eleven. They were a bit shifty like, so we pressed th
em. One of them finally admitted that he had a piss in it on the way past.’

  ‘And presumably, Phil, there was no-one else in it at the time,’ said Maggie Rose, with a grim, disapproving smile.

  ‘Not that he mentioned, ma’am.’

  Mackie clasped his hands together and leaned forward. ‘So that’s it then, is it? Phone subscribers clear; nothing from the house-to-house; nothing from the pubs. Blanks all round.’

  He looked round the table, from face to face. ‘In that case, we’d all best go back and get on with the house-to-house, as quickly as possible.’

  He was almost in the act of rising, when Skinner leaned forward. ‘There is just one other thing, Superintendent,’ he said. Martin, Mackie and Rose looked at him, their surprise undisguised. ‘McIlhenney has something to report. Go on, Neil.’

  The bulky Sergeant shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He looked along the table at Mackie. ‘We had a tip, sir,’ he began, ‘that two people, man and woman, were near the phone box when the call was made.’ The Superintendent looked back, stone-faced. His Special Branch experience still fresh in his mind, he knew better than to ask where the information had come from if Skinner’s aide had not volunteered the fact.

  ‘On the boss’s instruction, I did some asking around. I’m assured that they’re a couple called Grayson, Michael and Rose, of 12 Carnoustie Terrace, in the village.’

  The DCC leaned forward again. ‘I know you’re hard pressed with the house-to-house, so I thought Neil and I would check them out. Just to keep our hands in, so to speak. That all right with you, Brian?’

  ‘Of course, boss,’ said Mackie, managing to suppress his sigh.

  28

  ‘Watch this bend, Neil.’

  Sergeant McIlhenney believed that, if you were any good at the business of life, you would learn something new every day. For him, Tuesday’s unexpected lesson was that Bob Skinner was a nervous passenger in a motor car.

  All the way along the coast road, the DCC had shifted uneasily in the passenger seat of the unmarked car which his personal assistant had drawn from the pool, the DCC having reasoned that his own car was too well known in Gullane not to be noticed if it was parked outside a strange house. It was the first time that the Sergeant had ever driven his commander.

  Now, as McIlhenney took the Luffness corner at scarcely more than fifty miles an hour, he pointed at the curve of the road, and barked his warning.

  ‘No problem, boss. I’ve driven this road before, you know.’

  ‘Of course you have, Neil. Sorry. I just have this dislike of being driven, that’s all. Especially there. It’s where my first wife was killed.’

  ‘Ah,’ said McIlhenney, understanding at once. ‘You should have said. I just assumed that I’d be driving.’

  ‘Quite right,’ grunted Skinner. ‘It’s what personal assistants are for. Anyway, you have to confront your dislikes every so often, or they can become phobias.’

  As the police car swung round the right-hand bend into Gullane, he began to give the Sergeant a series of directions. Finally, they turned a corner, into Carnoustie Terrace, McIlhenney crawling along the kerbside until he spotted Number 12. ‘There we are, boss,’ he said cheerily. ‘Ordeal over.’

  The two policeman stepped from the car, into the warm sunshine of the summer day. There were no more than two dozen hoses in Carnoustie Terrace, linked, as its name suggested, in groups of six. From the roughcast exterior Skinner’s assistant guessed that they were Council-built, although he guessed by the variety of window and door styles that most were now in private ownership.

  Number 12 did not have new UPVC windows. Its were wooden, modern enough, but matching only a few others in the street. He held the rusty metal gate open for Skinner and followed him into a short driveway. The house was fronted by a dark green privet hedge, in need of a trim, and by weedy grass on either side of the path, in need of cutting. The blue-painted, half-glazed front door was scratched, and marked at the bottom, as if it was kicked regularly.

  ‘No’ exactly house-proud, sir,’ muttered McIlhenney, as he pressed the white plastic bell-push.

  They saw the figure approach through the obscured glass, seeming to shamble rather than walk. The door opened, slowly. Although the name had meant nothing to him when he had heard it first, Skinner recognised Rose Grayson at once. Part of the street furniture of the village; a presence on his occasional visits to the local pubs.

  She was a big woman, aged anywhere between forty and fifty, five feet eight and fat, hipless, with a thick waist. Despite the fine weather, a nylon housecoat hung loosely round her shoulders, covering a dirty pink sweater and a crumpled grey dress. On her feet were carpet slippers, trimmed with grey-pink artificial fur. A cigarette hung loosely between the first two fingers of her right hand. At once Skinner formed a mental picture of her husband, Michael, skinny, badly suited, with a shock of greasy dark hair, and the permanent scowl of an evil disposition. The Graysons were a couple whom the rest of the village left to themselves.

  Rose Grayson sighed, as if the unannounced appearance at her door of two strange men in suits was not an unusual occurrence. ‘Aye?’ she asked, wearily, with a permanently defeated tone to her voice.

  ‘Police, Mrs Grayson,’ Skinner announced. ‘We’d like a word. Is your husband at work?’

  ‘You must be fuckin’ jokin’, mister. He’s out the back. Yis’d better come in.’ She turned and led them into the house. The embossed wallpaper in the hall had been painted over, but a long time before. Dirty curls made their way up from the skirting board. The living room looked like a war zone, littered with discarded newspapers, empty beer cans and full ash trays. Automatically the policemen breathed as gently as they could, trying to deflect the smell of the woman and of her shabby surroundings.

  ‘Haud on a minute,’ she said. ‘Ah’ll get Mick.’ She stepped across to the window, white on the outside with what looked like a seagull’s message, and rapped on the glass. Outside the policemen saw a man in a deck chair, as he started, as if from sleep. He was wearing the crumpled trousers of a dark suit, braces and a blue-striped shirt. He was barefoot. Rose Grayson waved her husband into the house, and turned towards her visitors. In the light from the window, they noticed for the first time a bruise beneath her left eye.

  A few seconds later, Mick Grayson came into the living room, tripping over the frayed edge of the carpet and stumbling as he entered, cursing softly. ‘Who’re you?’ he began, then looked at Skinner for the first time. ‘Here, don’t ah ken you? What d’yis want?’

  ‘You might know me by sight, Mr Grayson,’ said the DCC, ‘but that’s all. My name is Skinner, and this is Sergeant McIlhenney. We’re police officers.’

  The man’s chest puffed out aggressively. ‘Ah havenae done anything.’ He turned suddenly on his wife. ‘You havenae been nickin’ fae the Co-op again, have ye, ya bitch?’ he said, loudly. He made towards her, raising his right hand, as if to hit her. Before he had taken more than two steps McIlhenney grabbed him by the wrist and swung him round.

  Grayson made the merest of gestures towards him with his free hand, bunched into a fist, but stopped abruptly, as common sense, or self-preservation, took over. ‘Wise man,’ said the sergeant, giving the wrist a quick, painful squeeze before releasing it.

  ‘Look,’ said Skinner, ‘for once we don’t want to talk to you about anything you’ve done. We’re looking for help with an investigation.’

  Mick Grayson, subdued, looked at him. ‘That’s a’right then,’ he said, managing, amazingly, to sound condescending. ‘Whit is it?’

  ‘We’re told that you two were out on Saturday night, and that at around eleven you were having an argument just outside the village hall.’

  Grayson looked blank. ‘Were we?’ he said.

  His wife narrowed her eyes, her hand going to the bruise on her cheek. ‘Aye,’ she muttered, fiercely. ‘We were.’

  Her husband’s eyes dropped. ‘Oh aye, so we were.’

  ‘What w
as the barney about?’ McIlhenney asked.

  Rose Grayson glowered. ‘That yin bought himself a pint and . . .’ Her voice soared with indignation, ‘. . . a whisky wi’ the last of our money, and never got anything for me. Honest tae God, he’s a miserable wee toerag wi’ a drink in him, so he is. Come tae think of it, he’s a miserable wee toerag a’ the time.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Skinner, ‘but he’s your miserable wee toerag, isn’t he?’

  He went on quickly. ‘Right, we’ve got you two at the foot of the hill between the Post Office and Bissett’s, having a ding-dong. Now think carefully. On your way past, and while this was going on, did you see anyone in the phone box?’

  Mick Grayson shook his head. ‘Naw,’ said his wife.

  ‘Think carefully, I said. This is important.’

  Husband and wife, reproved, knitted their brows. But eventually, they shook their heads. ‘Naw,’ said Mick, ‘Ah honestly cannae remember.’

  The DCC sighed. ‘Well, did you see anyone at all in the area?’

  There was a pause. Rose looked at her spouse, a new hesitant look in her eyes. ‘Well,’ she said finally, more to Mick than to the policemen, ‘there was yon man.’

  Grayson nodded, briefly, but it was enough. She looked back to Skinner and McIlhenney. ‘We were havin’ a barney, like you said. I shoved Mick and he hut me. Just after that, this man appeared, doon the hill, well-dressed like. Ah said tae him, “Did you see that, mister?” He nodded his head and just went on. “Some fuckin’ gent you,” Ah shouted after him.

  ‘He stopped at that, and he said tae Mick, “Don’t hit the lady, then.” He’d have walked on again, but Mick took a swing at him.’

  ‘So what did he do, this man?’ urged Skinner.

  Grimly, unexpectedly, Rose Grayson smiled. ‘He flattened the wee toerag, didn’t he? Only hit him the wance, but he laid him as broad as he was long.’ The smile broadened into a grin.

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘He turned away, got intae a motor in the village hall car park, and drove off, back up the hill. He just missed runnin’ Mick over. More’s the pity,’ she added, sincerely.