07 - Skinner's Ghosts

by Quintin Jardine

  Anderson stiffened and swung round in his seat. All the earlier bonhomie was gone. ‘Very well. I don’t have to say, I hope, how much I admire you as a policeman, Mr Skinner. Your record of success speaks for itself. Nor can I fault the advice you’ve given me since I’ve been in office.

  ‘However I would prefer it if my security adviser was with me on a fulltime basis.’

  ‘I am honoured to accept your offer,’ said Skinner laconically . . . and lying in his teeth.

  The Secretary of State reddened, as he took the bait. ‘All right,’ he snapped. ‘Your private life, and the way in which it has become public, gives me a real difficulty. My party has a high moral code, and . . .’

  ‘That’s crap too,’ retorted Skinner. ‘I’m in on the MI5 briefings, remember. The Security Service knows of at least fifteen members of your government who are having extra-marital affairs. Two of them are with people of the same sex, and another of them is a junior minister in your own department.’

  Abruptly the policeman stood up, irked by having Anderson look down on him in the low visitor’s seat. ‘Let’s deal with the truth, shall we?’ he said. ‘Your party still has difficulty in Scotland in keeping your left-wingers under control. You can’t afford to give them the slightest weapon to use against you.

  ‘Aggie Maley and her pals - anti-police to begin with - think that my extra-marital relationship with Pam gives them a bit of leverage. She’s painting me as some sort of sexual predator, abusing his position within the force, and within your own party circles she’s accusing you of being pro-sleaze and anti-women by keeping me in post.

  ‘Being new in office, you don’t need that sort of flak. So you want me to let you off the hook by offering my resignation. That’s the truth of it, Dr Anderson, isn’t it?’

  The Secretary of State’s face was redder than ever. ‘I wouldn’t have put it quite so directly,’ he spluttered.

  ‘Well,’ said Skinner, ‘if you’re ever going to fill that chair adequately, you’d better learn to. Express it as you will, but I’m right.’

  Anderson sighed. ‘If that’s how you see it . . .’ Finally he looked directly at the other man. ‘Will you let me have your resignation?’

  The detective, laughed: a short, dry humourless laugh. ‘I’d rather stick hot needles in my eyes than give Maley that satisfaction. If you want me out you’ll have to fire me.’

  ‘So be it,’ said the politician, wearily. ‘How would you like me to frame the announcement?’

  ‘I don’t give a damn. If anything you say is actionable, and not covered by privilege, I’ll sue you. Other than that, say what you like.’ He smiled. ‘There is of course, the matter of my contract.’

  ‘You’ll be paid in full, with a termination bonus of six months’ salary. My announcement will say simply that you’re leaving the job and that I’ve decided to make a fulltime appointment. Actually, Sir John Govan will take up the post when he retires as Chief Constable of Strathclyde in a few months.’

  ‘Mmm,’ Skinner growled, as he rose to leave. ‘It was nice of Jock to call and tell me.’ He smiled at Anderson’s expression of sudden shock. ‘Don’t worry, Secretary of State, he didn’t. I’m afraid I’ve never been very good at sarcasm.

  ‘Tell you one thing, though . . . no two. First, if I ever find out that Councillor Maley put the Spotlight on to me, I’ll fucking crucify her. Second, I had decided not to apply for the Strathclyde job. Now I’ve changed my mind. If that bastard Govan thinks he can fill my shoes, I might as well go after his . . . even though they might be too tight.’

  40

  ‘What’s up, boss?’ said Detective Chief Superintendent Martin as he closed the door of Skinner’s office behind him.

  ‘Fucking politicians, Andy; that’s what’s up. Never again will I have anything to do with them. Our Secretary of State’s concerned about the Aggie Maley Tendency rocking his boat, so he’s thrown me to them as a human sacrifice.’

  Briefly, succinctly, but explosively, the DCC described his meeting with Dr Bruce Anderson. ‘I tell you, mate,’ he concluded. ‘From now on, whenever I meet someone with the words Right and Honourable before his name, I’ll know it’s odds on that both are a fucking lie.’

  His pointing finger stabbed the air. ‘And as for Jock Govan! I never had him down as such a slippery bastard, that’s for sure.’ He picked up his direct line and dialled in a number. ‘Hello,’ he barked. ‘Is that Sir John Govan’s office? Good. DCC Bob Skinner here, Edinburgh. Put me through please, if he’s in.’

  Martin stared at him, screwing up his eyes, and making ‘calm down’ signals with his hands, but Skinner turned away.

  ‘Jock. Bob. I hear congratulations are in order.’ The younger man waited for the explosion, but none came. Instead, he saw an incredulous look spread across his friend’s face. ‘You did?’ he heard him say. ‘He told you that!’

  Skinner shook his head. ‘Jock, in the time that you’ve known me, when have I ever walked away from anything?’ There was a short silence. ‘Exactly, well it’s the same this time. I refused to quit, so Anderson fired me.’

  The DCC held the earpiece of his phone a little away from his ear. From its bowl, Martin heard the sound of shouting. ‘No, Jock,’ said Skinner. ‘Don’t do that, please. Take the job. MI5 must have an experienced hand up here, someone with common sense. Just make sure that you use the power that you’ll have to protect yourself against this sort of rubbish.

  ‘Good luck. I mean it. Thanks, I’ll be all right.’

  Skinner hung up the phone and looked up at his second-in-command. ‘Would you believe it! Govan says that when Anderson offered him the job yesterday, he said that I’d asked to be relieved of my duties in view of my compromised position. He says that he told Anderson that he’d only accept after he had made one more determined effort to persuade me to stay on.

  ‘Half an hour ago, Anderson called him back and said that he’d flung himself at my feet but that I was adamant about going.’

  Martin looked serious. ‘You believe Govan, do you?’

  ‘Come on, Andy. I’d take the word of a chief police officer over that of a politician ten times out of ten. I tell you, I wish I had something on Anderson himself, rather than his sidekick. I’d bloody use it.

  ‘As for Maley! By God . . .’

  It was Skinner’s friend, not his junior officer, who sat on the edge of his desk. ‘Bob,’ he said. ‘Let it go.’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘Because with all this lashing about you’re in danger of forgetting one thing. Bruce Anderson didn’t walk out on his wife, weeks after she nursed him back to health. You did. Aggie Maley isn’t sleeping with Pam Masters. You are.’

  Skinner glared at him, ready to erupt once more.

  ‘Sure, Anderson’s behaving badly. Okay, Maley’s using your situation to score points. But they’re only doing so because you made it possible. No-one else did, Bob. Only you.

  ‘I . . . no, not just me . . . Alex and I are begging you to forget all this shit, and get on with your career, before you blow it.’

  Gradually, the fire faded from Bob’s eyes as he looked across the desk. Gradually, he seemed to sag, to slump back in his chair.

  ‘You’re right, of course, Andy,’ he muttered quietly. ‘I can get as angry as I like with those characters, but I’m really only trying to shift the blame for my problems away from my own doorstep. I’m their architect, beginning to end, not Salmon, Maley, or anyone else.’

  He smiled suddenly. ‘You know if one of my divisional commanders was in a pickle like this, I’d send him on a couple of months’ sabbatical to sort himself out.

  ‘I dressed it up as “irreconcilable differences” when Sarah and I separated, but you’re right. I just walked out. I exploded, accused her of disloyalty and manipulation, and didn’t make the slightest effort to reconcile anything. Now it’s too late.’

  He glanced up, suddenly and sharply. ‘So what does that make Pam? Are the Maley clique righ
t? Is she a victim?’

  Andy shook his head. ‘No, she isn’t. You’re clearly attracted to each other.’ He stopped. ‘But if you are asking me,’ he resumed abruptly, ‘I’d say you might be using her as a shield, a barrier to prevent you facing up to how much you’ve lost in Sarah, and how much you miss her and Jazz.’

  Bob rose from his chair, and went to the window. He stood with his back to his friend, looking out, oblivious of the people coming and going below. ‘D’you think this is my mid-life crisis, boy?’ he asked.

  ‘If it is,’ replied Andy, ‘I hope it’s your first and last, and I hope that it’s over soon.

  ‘I can suggest one cure, though. Some good old-fashioned police work. Arthur Dorward called me, sounding fair pleased with himself. He says he’s found a potential lead, and he wants to come to see me about it. He’s due in my office in ten minutes.

  ‘Want to sit in?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Skinner, the DCC once more. ‘Why not. You head back along. I’ll round up McIlhenney and join you directly.

  ‘Oh, and Andy,’ he added, as Martin headed for the door. ‘Thanks for making me face up to myself, at last.’

  41

  The red-haired Inspector was already in the Head of CID’s office when Skinner and his assistant arrived. Both men sat relaxed, as if waiting for him, as they had been.

  ‘Morning, Arthur. No, don’t get up,’ said the DCC, as he and McIlhenney took the other seats that Martin had drawn up to his desk.

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘The DCS said you had made a breakthrough. Let’s hear about it.’

  ‘Very good, sir,’ said Dorward, sitting more upright in his chair.

  ‘The first thing I have to report is that the pathologist’s staff have completed their examination of Mrs McGrath’s body. There was nothing there, nothing at all, that shouldn’t have been. The tissue under the fingernails was her own, right enough, and there were no stray hairs lodged anywhere.’

  ‘Certain?’ asked Skinner.

  ‘One thousand per cent, sir.’

  ‘So where’s your breakthrough?’

  The Inspector fought to suppress a smile of self-satisfaction. ‘Well, sir, it started with a bit of luck, really. One of my team was talking to the cleaning woman, and she mentioned that Mrs McGrath’s en suite bathroom had only been fitted a few months before, with some of the insurance money she received after her husband’s death.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ said the DCC. ‘I remember her mentioning that she’d made some improvements to the house. So where does that take us?’

  Dorward’s smile broke through, irresistibly. ‘Well, sir, that made me wonder. Like, how many people would have used the shower, or the handbasin since they were installed? And like, did the killer wash away the blood and stuff after the rape and murder?’

  ‘So I got in a plumber to strip out the piping and examine the traps.’ He paused. Skinner and Martin each nodded approval.

  ‘There were some hairs trapped in the shower,’ he continued. ‘All Mrs McGrath’s. Some head, some pubic, but all hers, no doubt about it.

  ‘But in the S-bend of the basin, there we got lucky. We found hair samples from six different people. We’ve identified four of them. The lady herself, Mark, his nanny, and the cleaner. The other two, we don’t know about, other than that they’re from different people. With your permission - ’ he looked from Martin to Skinner then back again - ‘I’d like to start DNA testing.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Skinner, ‘but before you get too excited, remember that Leona had been a widow for quite a few months. There may have been other people in her bedroom, apart from the killer.’

  Martin shook his head. ‘Not since the new plumbing was installed. We’ve spoken to the close family members and to her friends. None of them can remember having used that basin.

  ‘As for man friends, we don’t believe that we’re in the plural there. We spoke to a close woman friend of the victim. She said that the two of them had a drink together on the Sunday evening before the murder, at Leona’s place. Once they’d had a few, it got down to girl talk, and Leona confessed to her that since her husband’s death she’d had sex just once.’

  ‘Did she mention a name?’ asked the DCC.

  ‘No, sir,’ Martin answered: ‘only that it had happened at her place, in her bedroom, and just on the one occasion.’ He smiled. ‘According to the pal, she did say that the guy had a bigger cock than her husband, but that’s all she told her about him.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s admissible in evidence,’ said Skinner. ‘Okay, Arthur. Run your DNA tests. The budget will stand them. It’s a long shot, but you never know your luck.’

  42

  ‘The cashier remembers him, sir,’ Maggie Rose told DCS Martin. ‘Youngish men shopping alone early in the morning tend to stand out in supermarkets, so it seems. The girl’s name is Lesley, and I’d say she’s a reliable witness.

  ‘Her description matches the one Mr Carr, the farmer, gave us.’

  ‘What about accent?’

  ‘Lesley said she doesn’t remember him saying anything other than “Thank you” when she gave him his change.’

  ‘Anything strike her as odd about him?’

  Martin heard Rose laugh at the other end of the line. ‘I asked her that. She said that she noticed that he didn’t buy any cat food, or any Beck’s. Apparently guys his age shopping for themselves nearly always buy cat food and Beck’s.’

  The DCS grunted. ‘That’s the sort of sweeping generalisation that forms gender stereotypes.’

  ‘High rank’s teaching you diplomacy, all right,’ said Rose. ‘A couple of years ago you’d have said, “That’s bloody women for you!”.’

  ‘That’s funny,’ said Martin with a smile. ‘I thought that’s what I just said. Thanks, Mags, see you.’ He hung up and turned to Skinner. ‘The man bought enough food for two days,’ he said. ‘Quick-cook, easy-dispose stuff. Corned beef, meatballs, yoghurt, the stuff he’d expect a kid to go for.’

  ‘Two days,’ said the DCC. ‘So if he brought Mark back to the caravan on Friday, and called me on Saturday, unless he went shopping again, it’s a fair bet that he moved him again on Sunday.’

  Martin nodded.

  ‘One thing more,’ Skinner added. ‘He bought enough tinned food for two days, but he bought it on Wednesday morning. Which tells us . . .’

  ‘. . . suggests to us,’ broke in the Head of CID, ‘that he didn’t live in the caravan between Wednesday and Friday, otherwise he’d have bought more food.’

  ‘Aye. So let’s add to our file on this guy the possibility that he has an address in the Edinburgh area. Let’s try and read him, this clever bastard who thinks he’s thumbing his nose at me. Let’s try and picture him planning this crime.

  ‘Forget about motive, for now. He’ll tell us what that is, when he’s good and ready. Let’s try to read his mind. He’s very meticulous, is our man. I think he must have watched Leona for a long time. He must have known her routine: when she’d be at home from Parliament, and so on. He must have known that Mark’s au pair . . .’ Skinner paused and smiled. ‘The wee chap gets very offended if you call her a nanny. He was thirty when he was born, that one.’

  He continued. ‘He must have watched for long enough to know that the girl always had Friday afternoon off. Mark might have called her his au pair but she’s from Perth. She went home to her parents as soon as Leona got back from London on a Friday, and came back on Sunday night.

  ‘He planned everything in the almost certain knowledge that the two of them, mother and child, would be together, and unprotected. He stole the caravan - no big deal, he’d just cut the chain on the gate to the dealership yard and helped himself - then set it up on this man Carr’s land in the middle of fucking nowhere, provisioned and ready for a two-day stop-over. Once it was ready, he went home and waited for his moment.’

  He paused, his eyes distant. ‘So where’s home?’ he asked himself, aloud.

  ‘The
kidnapper decided to take Mark out of town - somewhere near enough so that he wouldn’t have to spend too long on the road getting there, but far enough off the beaten track to be safe. The moors are perfect, and they were even close enough to my place to allow him to pull his telephone stunt with me.

  ‘But why did he go to all that bother? Answer, because he wanted to keep the child, to use him for some purpose, yet to be revealed. Next question. Why not just take him home? Possible answer: because he has a family, or lives with a parent. Yet all my instincts are crying out to me that this man is a loner. Better answer: because he knew that in the period immediately after the murder we would make Edinburgh very hot indeed, far too risky a place to hide the boy. I think this guy lives in our city, Andy. Do you agree?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the Head of CID, ‘I do. I think that’s more than likely.

  ‘But Bob, there’s one thing that’s still eating at me. Clearly this guy knows you, and knows of your bond with Mark. He’s targeting you, somehow, through this crime. But to come to Gullane to make that call. Why would he do that?’

  ‘Because he’s crazy, Andy, that’s why, and he’s a gamester. This guy is as mad as a fucking hatter, and he thinks that he can play with the stupid policeman.’

  Skinner went on. ‘Let’s consider something else. He only planned to stay in the van for a couple of days. Why?’

  ‘He wouldn’t want to outstay his welcome with Carr, I guess,’ Martin offered.

  ‘Right. So where did he go, when he left on Sunday, after he and Mark had finished their food supply?’

  ‘If I knew that,’ said the younger man, ‘I’d go and get him.’

  ‘If I knew where he lived,’ said Skinner, ‘so would I. If he guessed that we only have the manpower to keep the real pressure on for a short period, what was to keep him from just going home?’

  The Chief Superintendent looked at the Deputy Chief, and simply nodded his silent agreement.