‘I’m aware of that,’ I told him. I stood up, abruptly. A finger moved and the chair rolled backwards for a couple of feet, then stopped when it became clear that I wasn’t moving towards it. ‘I must be going,’ I said. Another finger moved, but on his left hand; a few seconds later the door reopened and the two carers came in.
‘Please show Mr Skinner out, Vanburn,’ Holmes instructed. ‘Do call again, Mr Skinner. You’re an interesting man.’
Takes one to know one, I thought as I left. Even in a wheelchair Perry Holmes ranked as one of the most imposing men I’d ever met. I found myself regretting that I’d never confronted him in his prime, before he’d been wrecked by Billy Spreckley’s bullet. I understood why Tommy Partridge had become obsessed by him. I’d probably have been the same in his shoes. But I’d have had a better chance of nailing him. Even crippled, he was supremely self-confident. When a guy has an ego that size, it’s a weakness. Fuck, I should know.
I headed back into town. The Discovery really was a pile of shit, but it was kept reliable by our mechanics . . . and the radio worked fine. I switched it on; Airburst was still tuned in and Mia was past the halfway mark in her three-hour stint. I felt myself throb at the sound of her voice, and I knew then that I would keep our date. ‘Shit!’ I said aloud, as I remembered something very important. Luckily I spotted a late-hours Boots as I drove through Tollcross. I pulled up, and bought a supply of condoms . . . for the first time in at least fifteen years. Why would anyone want them flavoured? I wondered as I surveyed the range on offer. The answer didn’t come to me until I was on my way out of the shop.
Is there a God?
I’m past fifty now, and no nearer to answering that one to my unshakeable satisfaction, but I do believe, against all logic, that there is a force that guides our daily lives and that it is one perverse son-of-a-bitch. I hadn’t even restarted the car when my mobile sounded. It was six o’clock and Airburst would have been in its news break, so I thought it might be Mia, but a glance at the screen told me different. It was Fred Leggat.
‘Boss,’ he began, ‘are you in the vicinity?’ There was an urgency about his voice.
‘Near enough. Whassup?’
‘Newcastle,’ he replied. ‘It’s blown up in our faces. Milburn and Shackleton have turned up. Dead.’
‘Eh?’ I gasped. ‘How?’
‘Well. It wasn’t an accident. They were found in a hotel in South Shields, on the seafront. They’d been there for a couple of days, sharing a twin room. They were seen last night in the bar, but not today. The “Don’t disturb” sign was left on their door, so housekeeping left them alone until about an hour ago. They knocked, got no reply and went in with a pass key. Both men were in there, dead.’
‘Bugger!’
‘I’ll second that. What do you want to do?’
I didn’t have to consider my answer. There was only one possible. ‘Go there. What else? They’re our prime suspects for Marlon. If we can’t put them in the dock at the High Court, there’ll have to be a public Sheriff Court hearing, and someone will have to give evidence of their death. I’m not bringing Newcastle cops across the border.’
‘Who do you want to send?’
‘Nobody.’ I didn’t realise it at the time, but Perry Holmes’s crack about me ‘delegating the shitty end’ had irked me. ‘I’m going myself. Is Martin still there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then tell him he’s won some overtime. I’ll take him with me. What—’ I was interrupted by a rap on the passenger window. I turned to see a traffic warden glaring at me, book in hand. I was on a yellow line. ‘Hold on, Fred,’ I snapped. The Disco didn’t boast electric windows; I had to reach across to the handle. ‘What!’ I shouted.
‘You’re parked illegally,’ the man replied. It was May, but he had a dewdrop at the end of his nose; for some reason that wound me up even tighter. ‘And don’t use that tone of voice to me.’
I pulled out my warrant card and thrust it at him. ‘CID,’ I yelled. ‘And I’m dealing with an urgent call. Now fuck off before I book you, for loitering.’
‘Don’t you—’
‘Go!’ I roared. He did, shuffling away, grumbling to himself. God help his next victim. I should have regretted the incident, but like many of my colleagues, I had a sneaking dislike of our street-walking counterparts. ‘The custard cops,’ Alf Stein had labelled them, for the colour of their hatbands, and the name had stuck.
‘Okay, Fred,’ I said. ‘I’ll be ten minutes. Tell Martin to fire up his pussy wagon. He’s driving; I want to get there tonight, and my car won’t do that.’
I drove back to Fettes as quickly as I could. Mia was still on the radio. As I parked, she cued up a music track, and I called her mobile. I told her that I couldn’t make our date. ‘I’ve got to go and look at two stiffs in Tyneside. I’m sorry.’
‘Work happens,’ she said, sympathetically. ‘When will you be back?’
‘God knows. Probably midnight, earliest.’
‘I’ll wait up for you. Call me from the road.’
‘We’ll see,’ I told her. ‘If I haven’t rung by eleven, turn out the light and go to sleep.’
Martin’s Mazda probably wasn’t designed with guys our size in mind, but we squeezed in, and the engine was certainly juicy enough. The traffic was light, so we made good time, but there was so much road noise in the passenger compartment that I had given up trying to talk to him before we reached Dunbar. We were through the Tyne Tunnel by eight o’clock. The Northumbrian CID had faxed through detailed instructions on how to reach our destination. I navigated, along a route that kept us close to the river, until eventually we reached its mouth. We couldn’t have missed the hotel if we’d tried. There was a crime scene van right out front, and an ambulance. The entrance to its car park was partially blocked by a traffic car.
I badged the uniform who was on guard duty. He peered at my warrant card, and came to something approaching attention when he saw my rank. ‘Who’s in charge?’ I asked him.
‘That would be DI McFaul, sir. He’s probably in the van.’
Martin parked the Mazda as far away from the action as he could. Getting out was a damn sight harder than getting in had been; it struck me that maybe I needed to change my exercise routine and work on staying supple. We walked across the car park, to the mobile office. Steps led up to a door in the side. Martin stood back, to let me lead the way, but I told him to go first. ‘Don’t be shy. You’re a cop too. Recognise rank, but don’t defer to it all the time.’
I followed him inside. The unit was little different from ours in Edinburgh: untidy, smelly and badly lit. There were two people, seated at desks, a man in plain clothes, thirties, tubby, dark, greasy hair, plain clothes, and a woman, younger, neater, uniformed. ‘Excuse me,’ Martin said to the detective. ‘We’re looking for DI McFaul.’
He looked up; his stress was evident. ‘And who the fuck are you?’ he drawled, annoyed by our interruption.
I saw my young DC’s shoulders flex very slightly, inside the leather jacket. ‘We’re the pros from Dover,’ he replied, calmly. ‘I’m Trapper John and this is Hawkeye; in his case it’s Detective Superintendent Hawkeye. Now who the fuck are you, please?’
The man peered up at him, dumbstruck; behind him the woman smiled, discreetly.
I laughed. ‘Most people only know Mash from the TV series, Andy, not the movie. But you’re right, I’m definitely more Donald Sutherland than Alan Alda. My name’s Skinner,’ I told the bloke, ‘and this is DC Martin; he’s got a weird sense of humour, but he’s a nice lad really. I’m not; I’ve had a two-hour drive in a matchbox, I’m stiff as a chocolate frog, and I’m not nice to know. We’re from Edinburgh and we’ve got an interest in your two stiffs.’
Finally, the Geordie stood. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘I thought you were press.’ In certain circumstances, there are standard cop excuses; that is one of them.
‘I take it you’re not the force PR officer, then.’
The
uniformed woman snorted, and put a hand over her mouth.
‘As a matter of fact I am,’ he replied. ‘Detective Constable Ranson.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ I whispered. The guy made Inspector Hesitant look like Bernard Ingham.
‘DI McFaul’s inside,’ he continued. ‘Interviewing,’ he added.
‘What were you saying about not deferring to rank, sir?’ Martin chuckled, once we were back outside.
‘Don’t. I was taught to be careful with other kids’ toys, in case I broke them, but sometimes it’s hard when it’s so clear they need fixing.’
I took my first good look at the hotel. It was a two-storey building, probably not that old, but in need of refurbishment. It was called ‘The Seagull’, but the second ‘1’ was missing from the sign above the door; also the paintwork and a couple of windows were streaked by offerings from the birds whose name it bore. It was no better inside; a mix of smells that I’d rather not have been experiencing, cigarette and cigar smoke that had probably become part of the fabric of the building, the unpleasantness of stale beer in an empty bar, kitchen odours that made me forget how hungry I was, and lurking in the background, but evident, drains.
My distaste must have been showing. ‘It’s not our finest, I’m afraid,’ a man exclaimed as he walked towards us, mid-thirties, same as me, slim, grey-suited, hand outstretched. ‘Detective Superintendent Skinner?’
‘Correct,’ I said as we shook. ‘And this is DC Martin.’
‘Ciaran McFaul. You guys made good time. I saw you coming out of the van and guessed who you must be. Did Scoop send you in my direction?’
‘As in DC Ranson? Yes.’
The DI must have picked up something in my tone, for he smiled. ‘He’s best avoided when he has a press statement to prepare.’
‘You actually let him do that?’
‘After a fashion. He does the draft and I rewrite it. He has a brother-in-law on the police committee. Need I say more?’
‘No, I get the picture. Milburn and Shackleton,’ I went on. ‘Are the bodies still here?’
He nodded. ‘Yes. The SOCOs are done, but we kept them here till you arrived. Come on, I’ll show you.’
He led the way to the upper floor then headed right, along a corridor, towards a constable, on guard outside the last door but one. He saluted and stood aside as we approached. McFaul opened the door, carefully, then held it ajar for us. A short narrow passage led into the room; its curtains were drawn but every available light had been switched on. A man was lying on his back, bare feet towards us, eyes open, arms by his sides. He wore jeans and a black crew-necked jersey. In life he’d been large and probably menacing; in death he was just an ugly pile of meat. I looked for blood, but there was none. I looked for wounds, but saw none, only what could have been a tear in the middle of the sweater.
‘That’s Warren Shackleton,’ the DI told us. ‘A man without a single redeeming feature, until now, his first one being he’s dead.’
I felt something odd beneath my feet; I realised that I was standing in dampness. ‘The chambermaid,’ McFaul explained. ‘Poor woman wet herself. Go on inside.’
We stepped past the body, carefully, into an irregularly shaped area, furnished with twin beds, two small armchairs, and a dressing table. At first there was nothing to be seen. ‘Beyond the beds,’ our tour guide said, pointing. We followed his sign. The second body lay on its right side, head turned, face pressed into the dirty russet carpet, clad in black trousers and a red check lumberjack shirt.
‘And that was Glenn Milburn. You know his story. Small-time, muscle, cruel bastard, would have done anything to anyone for money. Anything he’s ever been involved in, Shackleton’s always been close by.’
I crouched beside him. Again, at first sight the body was unmarked, but when I looked more closely, I spotted a small pool of blood beneath it, flowing from a wound in the centre of his chest. I stood up and stepped back, allowing Martin to look.
‘You get the picture?’ McFaul asked.
‘It’s pretty plain. Shackleton opened the door and died where he stood. No blood, so he was killed instantly. Milburn might not even have known till the intruder reached him, for there are no signs of defensive wounds on him. What does your pathologist say about time of death?’
‘Nothing for the record,’ he told me, ‘but he guesses between eleven last night and one this morning. He won’t even go firm on the murder weapon until he’s got him on the table. Either a knife or a silenced gun with a small-calibre soft-nosed bullet; that’s all he’s giving us for now. I’ll go a bit further myself on time of death, though. The front door is always locked at midnight. If anyone wants to come in or go out, they have to call the night porter. So it stands to reason it had to be before twelve.’
‘There must be emergency exits,’ Martin pointed out. I noticed that he was paler than usual.
‘All secure.’
‘They must have been expecting him,’ I said.
‘You reckon?’ the Northumbrian mused, scratching his chin.
‘For sure. There’s a spyhole fitted. If you’re in a hotel room, and someone knocks on your door at that hour of the night, I don’t care who you are, you’re going to take a look to see who it is before you let them in. Shackleton did that and, bingo, he was dead. Look at his face. He didn’t even have time to be surprised. Milburn, he was round the corner, and didn’t see or hear anything. There’s no sign of him having reacted when the man appeared, no signs of him struggling either. These are two fucking bruisers, Inspector, who killed a man on my patch, killed him brutally, and yet they’ve been despatched like sleeping children.’
‘You’re speaking in the singular,’ he noted. ‘Could it have been only one man?’
‘The way I see it, yes. There isn’t room in that entrance area for more than one. Here’s my scenario, overall: these men were hired to extract information from a man in Edinburgh called Marlon Watson, probably about his boss, an organised crime figure. They may have been told to kill him, no, scratch that, they probably were. After the job was done, they were told to burn the van they’d used to destroy any forensic evidence, then get out of sight. When did they check in here?’ I asked.
‘Saturday evening. They paid cash for four nights. They used the names Hughes and O’Brien.’
‘Right. They planned to leave on Wednesday, latest. My belief is that they thought their visitor was coming to pay them off. He did, permanently.’
‘That late at night?’
‘Yes. That bar downstairs, is it public?’
‘Sure, it can be quite busy.’
‘And the visitor didn’t want to be seen. I don’t even need to ask if there’s closed-circuit TV in this place, because I know there isn’t. I bet you’ve got no witness sightings either.’
McFaul sighed. ‘No, Superintendent, we’ve interviewed all the staff, and nobody saw a damn thing. Clean as a whistle,’ he murmured. ‘We’re stalled already.’
‘Not quite. There’s one place we can go. The NCIS computer puts these two close to a man called Winston Church.’
‘The Prime Minister?’ I raised an eyebrow; he grinned. ‘This is Tyneside; we don’t do subtle nicknames. Yes, they run for him, but not exclusively, not any more. But I’ll grant you, they could have been hired out through him.’
‘Then let’s pay him a visit.’
‘Now?’
‘Right now,’ I said, ‘before he finds out about this.’
‘I’m game for that,’ the DI agreed. ‘I don’t see the old guy having had anything to do with these two being killed, but I’m going to have to talk to him anyway.’
‘Where does he live?’
‘Morpeth. It’s the right side of the city for you; once we’ve heard what he’s got to say, you can head home.’
‘Depending on what he tells us.’ McFaul’s affability seemed to lessen, fractionally; I didn’t really blame him. A couple of guys from the Met had turned up on our patch a few years before, with attitudes s
o bad that it had almost come to pistols at dawn. ‘Not that I expect him to tell us a fucking thing,’ I added. ‘For the record, my interest in this is in finding the person who set Milburn and Shackleton on to Marlon Watson. I’ve got enough on my plate without getting involved in this mess.’
‘Fair enough. Look, I know the way to Church’s house. I’ve been there often enough. You come in my car, and my DS can go with DC Martin.’
His detective sergeant turned out to be a woman called Wilma Easton, a veteran of twenty years’ service, with short, salt and pepper hair and a sturdy build, but small enough to fit more comfortably into the Mazda than I had.
We headed back the way we had come, to the Tyne Tunnel. We were heading into it when my ringtone sounded, then stopped as the signal was lost. As soon as we were on the other side, I checked ‘missed calls’. Alison.
Bob Skiinner 21 Grievous Angel Page 24