close, and strode out of the room, followed by Mcllhenney, leaving
Martin to see the visitors on their way.
'I don't fancy that Dumfries bloke, boss,' said the sergeant as they
walked along the Command Corridor.
The neither, Neil. Give him a hard time when he makes his daily
reports. Question him; keep him on his toes. Make sure he's checking
the ferry terminals on his patch. Hawkins could come in from Ireland.'
'I'll do that, sir.' As the two men stepped into the Chief Constable's
office. Skinner looked at his assistant.
'Neil,' he asked, abruptly, 'what's up?'
'What do you mean, sir?'
'You know bloody well what I mean. First Andy, now you. You've
got something on your mind. I know this job can be boring at times.
Do you want a move back to the action?'
Mcllhenney's great shoulders sagged, and he seemed to slump into
himself. 'I'm sorry if I've been letting anything show, boss,' he said.
'That's not my way.
'Aye,' he admitted, 'something's up. But it's got nothing to do with
the job. It's Olive. She's ill and she knows it, yet she won't do anything
about it. She's scared, boss, and oh by Christ, so am I.'
'I see,' said Skinner quietly. 'Sit down man, and tell me about it.
Maybe there's something I can do to help.'
.
29
7
Although Brian Mackie's patch took in a big rural area, the divisional
CID Commander's office was in the St Leonard's Police Station, on
the east of Edinburgh. The detective superintendent did not care for
the modern brick building, and would have preferred to have been
based in Haddington, beside his deputy. Detective Chief Inspector
Maggie Rose, but he kept these feelings to himself, understanding the
thinking behind Andy Martin's deployment of his CID resources.
He was at his desk, in mid-aftemoon, reading his way through
faxed witness statements taken from the neighbours ofGaynor Weston
in Oldbarns, when there was a light knock on the door.
'Come in,' called Mackie. He had expected a uniformed officer
with more statements from Maggie Rose, and so he looked up in
surprise as Dr Sarah Grace Skinner stepped into the room.
'Hello, Doc,' the thin, bald detective exclaimed, standing, with his
unfailing courtesy. 'An office consultation; this is an honour.'
Sarah grinned at him. Suddenly it struck him that the drab, wet day
outside was just a little brighter. 'All part of the service in this new era
of forensic pathology,' she said, as the took a seat at Mackie's
conference table.
'Coffee?' he offered.
'No thanks, and you shouldn't either. I'm trying to cut down Bob's
consumption just now too. You desk jockeys drink far too much of
that damn stuff.'
'Desk jockeys indeed,' Mackie grunted, but with a smile. 'You'll
wind the boss up if you call him that to his face. 'S not true anyway;
where was I at six o'clock this morning?'
'Yeah, I know. I was only kidding with you .. . not about the
coffee, though. To be serious, I've just finished the autopsy on Mrs
Weston. My report is being produced right now and should be with
you before five o'clock, but I thought I'd call in and talk it through
with you inDamn.' She broke off as her mobile telephone warbled
its call signal, frowning slightly as she produced it from the pocket of
her jacket.
'I'm sorry, Brian. I forgot to switch it off.' She took the call
30
nonetheless, pressing the 'Receive' button.
'Bob, hi. Look I'm in a meeting right now. Yes. Okay.' Mackie
watched her as she listened, for almost a minute. 'Yes,' she said
eventually; she was hesitant, and wore worried frown on her face. 'I
can do that. I'll need to be careful to avoid ethical problems, but .. .
Yes, okay. I'll do it after this. Give me the address.' She switched the
phone to her left hand, took a notebook and pen from her bag and
scribbled a few words, quickly. 'Got that; I know where it is too. See
you tonight. Bye.'
She ended the call, switched off the phone and put it away.
'Problem?' asked Mackie.
'I hope not,' Sarah replied, the worried look lingering on her face.
'Something that Bob volunteered me to do, that's all.' She snapped
her gaze back on to the detective. 'Okay, once more: Mrs Weston.
'I've done a full postmortem examination and had most of the lab
work rushed through. The plastic bag over the head was a precaution
... or maybe it was meant to distract us, I don't know . .. but it was
unnecessary. Gaynor Weston died from a massive overdose of
diamorphine, injected into her left thigh. She would have lost
consciousness in seconds and died within two minutes. There was no
question of suffocation.
'There were no signs of violence on the body, and nothing at all to
indicate that the subject had been restrained before the injection was
administered. Shortly before her death, she ate a fillet steak - medium-
rare - with courgettes and French fries. Also, over a longer period, she
drank the best part of a bottle of red wine and followed it with black
coffee.'
'Any sign of recent sexual activity?'
'No, Brian, none at all. I can't help you with a DNA trace, I'm
afraid.' She shook her head.
'There were no romantic goodbyes here. When the meal was over,
Gaynor sat in her kitchen chair - placed where it could be seen from
outside, after the event - and allowed herself to be put to death.'
Mackie leaned forward. 'You could state on oath that there was no
possibility of the injection being self-inflicted?'
'No. But what I will say is that, even if she fixed the bag over her
own head first, there was no possibility of the victim injecting herself
directly into an artery, then disposing of the hypodermic before she
lost consciousness.
'You didn't find the tape at the scene, and if you didn't find a hypo,
or a bottle with traces of diamorphine'
'which we didn't.'
'Then that will rule out the possibility of suicide. The minimum
31
any jury could possibly do would be return a verdict of culpable
homicide, dependent on the mental state of the perpetrator, but this
was so premeditated that you will have about a ninety-nine percent
chance of a murder conviction in any trial, assuming that you can
place the accused at the scene at the time.'
'Excellent,' said Mackie. 'But why? Why did Gaynor Weston let
herself be switched off?'
Sarah looked at him, unblinking. 'About two weeks ago, Mrs
Weston had an operation to remove a growth from her left leg. There
was another growth on her foot, and the fact,that it hadn't been
excised indicates to me that it had developed since then. I removed it
and had it analysed.
'The woman had a malignant melanoma, a form of cancer which
offers little prospect of a cure, unless it is discovered at a very early
stage. In this case, from the depth of the earlier excision, when I
explored it, if that too was a melanoma - as I am quite certain it was<
br />
from the nature of the procedure - I would say that the size of the
tumour removed would have pointed to a prognosis of death within
three to four months. The disease had already metastasised to the
spine, liver and lungs. Any treatment would have been purely
palliative: the most honest course of action would simply have been to
keep the patient as comfortable as possible for the time she had left.
That would have meant, in effect, limited chemical treatments
supported by tranquillisers and increasing sedation. Diamorphine
would have been used in increasing quantities to keep Mrs Weston out
of pain. In the event, she took the lot at once.'
Brian Mackie let out a great sigh. 'Very neat and tidy for her,' he
said. 'But a right bloody mess for us. Shit, why didn't she top herself
down in Hawick, say, on John McGrigor's patch. Big John's a
pragmatist. He'd probably have washed the glasses, planted a roll of
tape and a syringe at the scene and closed the book on it.
'We'd better find out where she had this operation two weeks ago,
then take a close look at her circle of friends.'
'I can help you with the first part of that,' Sarah offered. 'Normally,
a procedure like this one would have been performed in the Department
of Clinical Oncology at the Western General Hospital. I checked with
them. It wasn't. The Royal Infirmary has no record of it either, nor
has St John's in Livingston, nor Bangour, nor Roodlands. I asked at
Murrayfield Hospital, and they said no. But then I checked with St
Martha's, a little private clinic on the South Side of the city.
'The administrator there said that she was bound by confidentiality
and wouldn't talk to me. I told her who I was, and what I was doing,
but she still would not open her mouth. "Not without a Court order",
32
she insisted. So if you want to search her records, you better go get a
Sheriff's Warrant.'
'I'll talk to her myself before I go that far,' Mackie replied. 'But
maybe Andy Martin and I should short-circuit all that and go to see
the ex-husband. Given his profession, his has to be the main name in
the frame.'
'Only if you can place him at the scene.'
'We can probably do that. According to witness accounts he was a
regular caller at Oldbarns, so he'll have left traces of himself. The big
problem is placing him, or anyone else for that matter, in the house at
the time of Gaynor Weston's last supper.' He picked up the witness
statements. 'None of the neighbours saw a bloody thing.
'Even if someone walked in this minute and confessed, we wouldn't
have enough to go to trial. At the moment our only hope of that rests
with the clever people in Arthur Dorward's forensics lab, but I can't
see how even they're going to help this time.'
33
8
Andy Martin and Mario McGuire sat in the Head ofCID's office, on
the second floor of the Fettes headquarters building, half an hour after
the visitors had departed. After Skinner and Mcllhenney had withdrawn,
the chief superintendent had continued the briefing for a few
more minutes, until he was sure that each of the visiting officers had
a complete grasp of the situation, and that everyone's priorities in the
search for the assassin were the same.
All of Scotland's police forces have points of entry to the country
within their territory, even Central, which although it has no ferry
ports or air terminals, does have docking facilities at the BP oil
installation at Grangemouth. Martin's concern was that every
possible route into Scotland should be identified and covered as far
as possible.
'If you were him, sir,' asked McGuire, 'what would you do?'
The DCS's vivid green eyes flashed as he smiled grimly at his
colleague. 'What's the most obvious thing?' he said, throwing the
question back.
'Fly into the busiest airport, I suppose, which has to be Heathrow,
then catch the Shuttle, or hire a car and drive to Scotland.'
'And if you were Hawkins, where would you fly from?'
McGuire stroked his chin. His black beard grew fast; a dark shadow
always showed by mid-aftemoon, for all that he had a wet shave every
morning. 'Anywhere but South Africa,' he answered eventually.
'Right. But if you were South African and your real name was van
Roost, maybe your natural inclination might be to route through
Holland. The Low Countries' airlines are making a real effort to pinch
travellers from Scotland away from London. You can access just about
anywhere in the world out of Glasgow, Edinburgh or Aberdeen,
through Schiphol and Brussels. That works in the other direction too,
so you'd better check out Kim and Sabena landings. Their computers
should tell you the origin of each passenger's journey, even if they
were onward travellers from outside Holland or Belgium.
'Damn it,' Martin scolded himself. 'I should have come up with
this clever thought that at the briefing. Mario, make sure that big Neil
34
passes that on to McGuigan and Macintosh, so that Glasgow and
Aberdeen landings are checked too.'
'Ach, I'll tell them myself
'No. The boss has set up the chain of communication through
Mcllhenney so that he can keep in touch with everything that's
happening. Let's do it his way.'
'Very good, sir. I'll nip along and tell Neil now.'
'You do that.' The detective inspector started for the door. 'Hang on
a minute,' the DCS called out. 'Are you happy that you've got enough
manpower for this job?'
'Well,' McGuire answered, slowly, 'since you ask. Another set of
legs with a sharp brain to drive them wouldn't do any harm.'
'Okay. I'll lend you Karen Neville or Sammy Pye from my personal
staff. Take your pick.'
The DI frowned, considering his choice. 'Are either of them
firearms trained?'
'Both. First class shots, the pair of them.'
'Then it's hard to choose between them. But I'll take Neville;
Maggie's worked with her, and rates her pretty highly.'
'Okay, you've got her. Pick her up on your way out and brief her.
Remember, though, she only needs to know that we're looking for this
guy. She doesn't need to know why.'
McGuire nodded and turned towards the door once more, only to
hear a knock, then see it open, as Brian Mackie stepped into the room.
Martin looked up, surprised. 'Hello, Thin Man,' he said. 'What
brings you here?' He waved a hand in farewell as the Special Branch
Commander left. 'Cheers, Mario. Good luck.'
'With what?' asked Mackie, casually, as the door closed.
'His Lottery ticket. So what's up?'
The tall detective looked up, glumly. 'This Oldbarns investigation,
that's what.' He handed a folder to the Head of CID. 'That's Sarah's
postmortem report. The woman was full of cancer: undoubtedly she'd
have died within months. Someone helped her on the way with a great
big dose of pharmaceutical heroin.'
'Any thoughts on who?'
'I don't want to jump to any conclusions here. I've sent Maggie
&n
bsp; and young Stevie Steele, from Clan Pringle's Division, out to interview
the boyfriend, to see how he reacts. However, someone performed an
operation on Mrs Weston two weeks ago. There's no record of it in
any of the main hospitals, or at the Murrayfield, but Sarah found a
wee private clinic on the South Side that's acting a bit shifty. They
clammed up when she asked them about it.
'I'm wondering whether her ex-husband, who's a surgeon,
35
remember, did the exploratory op, and then'
'did her a favour when she asked.' Martin finished his colleague's
supposition for him. 'He'd have had access to the drugs, I suppose.
Ach, I'd be heart sorry for the poor bastard if he did that . . . even
although it's against my principles.'
'Unless.. .' Mackie began, hesitated for a few second, then gathered
his breath and went on. 'Unless we succumb to a rare burst of
professional incompetence and close the book on this one: write it up
for the Fiscal as a suicide.'
The Head of CID looked at his friend in silence for around thirty
seconds, then he opened Sarah's report and read it, still without a
word. Finally, he looked up.
'Brian, I'd hate to see this man lose his career and his liberty for
doing something that he wasn't cruel enough to refuse. But we're only
investigators, mate; not judge, not jury, not even prosecutors. Whatever
our different private feelings, we have a public duty to establish facts
and report them to the Fiscal, and we can't neglect it. Not ever.
'Let's you and I follow this for a bit, one step at a time. First, let's
pay a joint visit to this clinic that obstructed Sarah and give them a
hard time until they tell us whether Mrs Weston was a patient there,
and if so who treated her.
'We'll see where we go from there.' Martin paused. 'What have you
done about the press?'
'Royston's told them that we're waiting for the result of the PM
before reporting to the Fiscal. Sarah's still waiting for a small piece of
lab work, so technically that's still true.'
'Fine. It can stay like that overnight. Let's go and see this clinic.
What's it called, by the way?'
'St Martha's.'
Andy Martin grunted, with a grim anger which surprised his
colleague. 'She won't be much help to them if they get in my way.'
36
9
Olive Mcllhenney was not an easy woman to take off guard. Her
Gallery Whispers Page 5