‘Okay,’ said Charles, testily. ‘She was going to the showroom yesterday evening. Carole’s been a working director of our car business from the earliest days. She’s familiar with every aspect of it. We have a book-keeper there, but Carole’s the finance director of the company, and she goes over the management accounts, regularly and often at short notice. She told me that she would be going there at seven, after the salesmen had finished, and that she’d be meeting Donna after she had finished her check.’
‘Would she have driven on to meet Donna?’
‘Possibly, but she could have called a taxi; I don’t like our cars being parked in town overnight.’
‘We can check that,’ said Martin quickly. Too quickly. For the first time genuine alarm showed in Charles’ face.
‘Come on,’ he said, insistently. ‘What the hell is this about?
Skinner sat down in an armchair opposite him. Old, but often-remembered horrors come back to him, and for the first time in his life he felt sympathy for the man who had been his target for so long.
‘Jackie,’ he said, gently, ‘someone torched your showroom tonight. They totalled the place. When the firemen had it controlled, and went in to clear up, they found a body.
‘From what you’ve said, it could be Carole.’
Charles’ jaw dropped open. His eyes widened. The colour left his face. His mouth worked trying to form words, but nothing came out.
‘Jackie, we need to trace this Donna woman. Where does she live?’
The man shook his head. He turned his head away, so that neither policeman could see his eyes. ‘I don’t know,’ he said quietly.
‘What’s her second name?’
‘I don’t even know that.’
Skinner paused. ‘Well, where’s Carole’s yoga class?’
‘Marco’s, in Grove Street. Two nights a week.’
‘Okay, we’ll start there. But first, I want you to look at this.’
Standing up, he reached into the pocket of his jacket and produced the wedding ring found by the body. He stepped towards Charles and held it out for him to see. ‘Could this have been Carole’s?’
The man turned back towards him to look at the buckled band. After a few seconds he held up his left hand towards Skinner and Martin. The two policemen looked and saw that he wore a wedding ring, a close match, for all its distortion by the fire, in width and shade of the one which lay on Skinner’s palm.
‘We bought our rings together,’ he whispered at last. ‘I have fairly slim fingers, so they were interchangeable. ’
Skinner closed his fist on the gold band and touched the man on the shoulder. ‘Sorry, Jackie,’ he said quietly.
‘Appreciated.’ The reply was almost lost in a cough, as Charles struggled to regain self-control.
Andy Martin hesitated for a moment, before speaking, formally once again. ‘Mr Charles, can you give us the name of your wife’s dentist.’
The man stared up at him for a few seconds, with an expression of growing horror as he realised the purpose of the question, and as his imagination went to work.
‘His name,’ Martin asked again
Finally, Charles nodded. ‘John Lockie.’
‘Where does he practise?’
‘Eh? Oh, in Inverleith Row.’
‘Have you been his patients for long?’
Charles shook his head, and shrugged his shoulders, as if he was trying to focus. ‘Carole and I have been his patients for twenty years,’ he said, at last.
‘Thank you. We’ll contact him as soon as his surgery opens this morning.’
The man pushed himself to his feet. ‘Is there anything I can do?’
Martin shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, there isn’t; you just have to leave us to our work. We’ll do our best to trace this woman Donna, but at the same time, if the body is that of your wife, we’ll work to confirm it as quickly as possible.’
‘You’re alone here, Jackie, yes?’ asked Skinner.
‘Yes.’
‘Do you have any live-in help?’
‘No. We don’t go in for them.’
‘In case they see or hear too much,’ the hard-nosed policeman in Martin almost muttered, but he recognised that Skinner had declared a truce in the battle to nail his number one criminal enemy. Instead, he said as sincerely as he could, ‘Would you like us to send someone to be with you?’
From the midst of his grief, the real Jackie Charles shot him a piercing, proud look. ‘You must be fucking joking!’ he said.
Bob Skinner, in spite of himself, smiled. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘but remember, until you hear from us again, do nothing.’ He looked the man hard in the eye, and as he did he saw that the shock was fading, to be replaced by a burning anger. ‘You understand me,’ he repeated, with emphasis, ‘nothing at all.
‘We’ll be back to see you as soon as we can, with good news or bad. And when we come back, we’ll want to have a much longer talk.’
3
Bob Skinner and Andy Martin sat in an all-night greasy spoon café just off Leith Walk, beloved of coppers, Chinese waiters and other night people.
Coffee steamed in great white mugs before them, and four freshly-baked rolls, crammed with fried egg and grilled bacon, lay on a plate in the centre of their table.
Skinner looked around at his unpretentious surroundings. ‘D’you remember, Andy, the last time we were here? You were a Sergeant and I was in your job. I was a simple widower with no greater burden than a teenage daughter, and you were a bachelor boy, footloose and fancy free.
‘Now I’m a hudden-doon married man, and you’re engaged to said burden.’
Martin smiled. ‘Come on, Bob, you never thought of Alex in anything like those terms.’
The big man across the table shook his head. ‘No, of course I didn’t. Watching her grow into a woman has been the great continuous joy of my life so far.’ And then, his face darkened. ‘I just wish that Myra had been around to share it with me.’
‘Sure you do,’ said his friend, softly, ‘but she wasn’t. She died, man, eighteen years ago.’
Skinner nodded. ‘That’s right, she died. And through all those years, no-one, not even you, not even Alex, ever realised how much I missed her.’
He looked up, his eyes piercing. ‘You want to know the truth? I still miss Myra, just as much as I ever did. Here I am, I’m married to Sarah, something that I never really imagined in all those lonely years. We have the son I always wanted, wee James Andrew Skinner, and he’s a cracker too. My daughter’s graduated and engaged to be married, and my best pal’s sorted himself out in the process.
‘I’ve got all that going for me, and guess what?’ He tapped his chest. ‘In here, a great part of me is still torn up with grief and longing for Myra, who’s been gone since Alex was four years old.’
Suddenly he reached across the table, grasped Andy Martin’s hand, and squeezed it, hard, momentarily. ‘Yes, Andy; as you said, Myra died: just like - let’s not kid ourselves - Carole Charles did tonight. Villain or not, my friend, I feel for wee Jackie. I’ve worn the shoes he’s in this morning.
‘Eighteen years ago someone tried to kill me, and Myra died instead. Tonight, as I see it, someone tried to kill him, and Carole got in the way.
‘You’re going to find out who killed Carole, and put him away for life. And I’m going to find out, finally, who sabotaged my car and killed Myra. They might have been poles apart as women, with vastly different moral values, but they both deserve the same justice, Andy. Everyone does.’
The younger man nodded, but there was a look of doubt in his eyes. ‘I agree with you one hundred per cent about Carole Charles, but . . .’
‘But what?’
‘Well there’s Sarah to consider, isn’t there. I was there, remember, the night you got home from hospital four months ago. I remember how she reacted when you said to her what you’ve just said to me. I remember the argument and the atmosphere between you. All of a sudden you became a couple I didn’t know.�
�
Bob looked across the table, chewing on a mouthful of egg and bacon roll. ‘You saying you agree with Sarah?’ he mumbled.
‘Come on, man. You two are going to be my in-laws. Ask me to referee if you like, but don’t ask me to take sides between you. What I’m saying is that I can understand what Sarah feels, especially after what you said a minute or two ago.’
Andy looked over his shoulder to ensure that there were no eavesdroppers, but the café’s only other occupant was seated on the other side of the room, deep in an early edition Scotsman. He leaned forward and said, almost in a whisper, ‘Look, you had a terrible experience last year. You were stabbed, and Sarah sat by your bedside for a couple of days not knowing whether you would live or die.
‘Then you had to have hypnotherapy, and all sorts of deeply buried experiences were turned up, including the one from the scene of Myra’s death. Now, on the basis of that recovered memory, you’ve decided that she was murdered, and you’ve announced that you’re on a mission to find her killer.
‘On top of that, you’ve just told me that you miss Myra as much as ever. You think Sarah won’t have picked that up? Or have you told her too, straight out?’
‘Don’t be daft! What d’you take me for?’
‘For a confused man, and maybe for an obsessive.’
‘What do you suggest I do about it?’
‘I suggest that you try to think objectively. Okay, a long time ago you suffered traumatic amnesia. Now you believe that under hypnosis you experienced a complete recollection of the scene of your wife’s death. Maybe, just maybe, you were wrong about the details at least. Why not focus on that possibility, and get your life back in perspective?’
Bob shook his head. ‘It’s not a possibility, Andy. I’m not wrong. You want to try regressive hypnotherapy, mate. It’s a virtual reality helmet, only it isn’t playing a movie or a game. It’s replaying your life.
‘Remember, son, I was at the scene of the accident where Myra died. That was one of the things that Kevin O’Malley showed me in his treatment. I arrived not long after the Mini Cooper S - the car I would have been driving, not her, on any other day - hit the tree. I knelt beside the car and I looked inside.
‘I looked at every detail of that car. Myra’s handbag with her Chanel bottle broken. The bag of chocolate raisins that I had left on the shelf, strewn all over the place. The Cooper’s front end smashed in, and most of the car’s works in the passenger compartment.’ He paused and looked Martin straight in the eye.
‘And the hydraulic brake fluid pipe, cut about halfway through. Not broken, not snapped, but cut so that the fluid would leak out, until all of a sudden, with no warning, the car would have no brakes. I looked at all that, and being a bloody good Detective Sergeant, I made a mental note of every detail.
‘Then, when there was nothing else in the car that I hadn’t inspected and logged in my mind, nothing else to distract me and when I couldn’t avoid it any longer, I looked at my wife and I saw her, covered in blood and glass, with her chest smashed in by the steering column, and her face wrecked by the wheel.
‘I looked at that scene, I went into shock, and the trauma closed my mental notebook, closed it tight until Kevin O’Malley reopened it for me four months ago.’
He looked across again at his friend, and Martin saw a plea for understanding in his eyes. ‘There’s no mistake, Andy. I don’t think it’s even possible to dream things up under that sort of treatment.
‘The trouble is that Kevin told me that once the memories were opened up I’d be able to live with them.’ He smiled sadly and shook his head. ‘He was wrong about that one, though. I’ve carried every detail of that scene at the front of my mind ever since, and it won’t go away.’
His voice grew even quieter, and became hoarse. ‘But there’s something worse. I can remember too, the way Myra was when I kissed her goodbye that morning. How beautiful she was, how much I loved her, and how horny I got every time I took her in my arms. It wasn’t just Alex or you who didn’t know how much I missed her. Neither did I.’
His gaze dropped to the table. ‘Sarah and I don’t have sex any more, Andy. Two months ago we had a huge fight. In the course of it, she told me that when we were in bed, I was making love to someone else, and just fucking her as part of the process. Know what? She was right, and we haven’t touched each other since.’
Martin shifted in his seat, embarrassed by the revelation. ‘Bob,’ he said hesitantly, ‘have you thought about going back to Kevin O’Malley for more treatment? ’
Skinner gave a short, harsh laugh. ‘The only time anyone’ll get to look inside my head again will be at a post mortem. There’s only one course of treatment that’ll do me any good, and that is to track down the evil bastard who cut that brake pipe.
‘I’ve been itching to start my mission, as you call it, since the day I got out of hospital. I’d have begun a month ago, but when I was signed off the sick list, I found out that the Chief, silly old bugger, had booked me on a month-long crime symposium trip to Cali-fucking-fornia without consulting me.’ He shook his head. ‘Imagine, sentencing me to thirty days in LA without the option. We had words, I’ll tell you. First time ever, but we had words, did Sir James and I.’
He paused. ‘Now. Am I going to have words with you too?’
Martin frowned. ‘I hope not. But think for a moment, will you, about what it is that you’re asking me, your Head of CID, to support. We’ve got ten major crimes on our hands, not counting the new imperative we’ve been landed with this morning, and you’re asking me to commit resources to an investigation opened eighteen years late, on the basis of no evidence other than a single, uncorroborated recovered memory which, as your lawyer daughter told you, the greenest advocate could demolish if it was given in evidence.
‘What do you imagine the bean-counter back at HQ would make of that? Do you see the councillors on the Police Board agreeing that it would be a proper use of resources?’
‘It’s got fuck all to do with the councillors,’ Skinner growled. ‘And the day the bean-counter gets in my way, I’ll shove his beans up his arse, while they’re still in the tin!’ Then he paused, and nodded an acknowledgement.
‘Still,’ he said, reluctantly, ‘I take your points, every one of them. I wouldn’t dream of asking you for manpower or other resources. This investigation will be conducted by my office alone, and my first priority will be to prove that my memory is accurate.’
Martin looked relieved. ‘Thanks for that, at least,’ he said, then his expression changed as a sudden thought struck him.
‘Here, speaking of your office, you’ve got a decision to make, haven’t you?’
Skinner nodded. ‘Aye, that’s right. With Maggie Rose promoted DCI, I’ve got to find myself a new personal assistant.’
‘You created your own problem. It was you who promoted her.’
‘Aye, I know. But losing Alison Higgins the way we did forced me to make some changes that I’d have preferred to leave for a year or two.’ He smiled.
‘I’ve got someone in mind though.’ Martin’s forehead furrowed into a frown of curiosity, in which Skinner detected a hint of apprehension. ‘Don’t worry,’ he added. ‘it isn’t one of your people . . . although I’d like to give young Sammy a run in the job one day.
‘I’ll do something about it today.’
He drained the last of his coffee. ‘I’ll be available to you as well, whenever we need to go back to see Jackie Charles. In all the circumstances you’ll want to lead this investigation personally, but having seen him together once we should both be in at the follow-up. Bring McIlhenney along if you like, though, with continuity in mind.’
He glanced at his watch. ‘We should have something from Mr Lockie in a couple of hours. Meantime, you can drop me off at home, then have yourself a shower and a shave.’
‘And sleep,’ said Martin mournfully. ‘What about sleep?’
Skinner smiled and looked out of the window of the greasy
spoon, into the black, wet, late winter’s morning. ‘You’re forgetting,’ he drawled. ‘I’ve been in bloody LA for a month and this is only my second day back. As far as my body’s concerned it’s still a beautiful evening.’
4
‘If the fire was that strong, then for once I don’t blame Banks for reserving his opinion.’
Sarah Grace Skinner was not the greatest fan of her professional colleague, but she nodded in grudging approval as Bob described the scene of the blaze and the discovery of the body.
‘Once the pathologist has a look inside, though, he’ll be able to tell the gender right away. Add to that the fact that Mrs Charles has been with the same dentist for twenty years, then if it’s her you should know as soon as he sees her records.’
Bob nodded. ‘I expect so. On top of that there are the wedding rings. Jackie gave us his. Our lab people will look at the hallmarks under a microscope. If they match, that’ll back up the identification.’
He gave a small involuntary shiver. ‘What a subject to be discussing when I’m holding my only son, for almost the first time in a month.’
He thrust James Andrew Skinner, known by one and all as Jazz, high above his head. The child squealed with delight. ‘Boy,’ said his father, ‘but you’ve grown since I’ve been away.’ He looked sideways at his wife. ‘That’s what annoyed me most of all about Jimmy booking me for that American trip; the fact that I would miss a whole month of this fella’s first year.’
‘He missed you too,’ said Sarah with a smile, looking in her full-length bedroom mirror and adjusting her grey business skirt. ‘I had nothing but “Da-da-da” out of him every time the phone rang. I think he’s held back his first steps so that you would see them.’
‘He’s ready to walk, you think?’ he said, surprised. ‘I mean, he’s not a year old yet. Alex didn’t stir off her arse till she was about sixteen months.’
‘Asse,’ Jazz shouted, gleefully, relishing the sibilance of the sound.
‘Bob! I’ve told you to watch what you say around him. He’s like a parrot!’
Skinner's Mission bs-6 Page 3