‘You really hate your daughter, don’t you?’
‘Vehemently. But I love hers. When Inez did her runner, aged eighteen, when Cameron was two, I didn’t chase after her. But I did find out early on that she’d met a Weegie bloke at one of the clubs I had then and gone off with him. I found out also that he’d been dealing drugs there. I had him punished for that, severely, but I left the pair of them to get on with it.’
‘When did she come back?’ Skinner asked.
‘When her son was four. She didn’t want to be stuck with him, so she left him with Bright and his sister. If she had brought him with her, I’d have acknowledged him, but she didn’t. After she came home, I kept her on the periphery of young Cameron’s life; effectively Abby and I were the lassie’s parents. I never met my grandson, ever, but that was the choice that Inez made.’
‘It wasn’t Bright’s choice?’
‘Bob, I could have squashed Raymond Bright, had him sent a lot further away than Australia, but he wasn’t worth the investment. Inez went off with him to Glasgow and her fucking vinegar chips. I’d had enough, so I left her to get on with it. I took her back when she finally ran away from him, to get off the drugs, and I made fucking sure that he was taken off the street by your lot not long after that. The boy stayed with his aunt, but I kept them fed and clothed. He grew up a toerag though; he was in bad company, in and out of court, and eventually . . . You know what happened to him.’
His face contorted with what seemed to Skinner to be genuine pain. ‘Now,’ he exclaimed, ‘you’re going to ask me if I feel guilty about just leaving the kid to it. Yes, of course I fucking do, and when I heard that Bright was finally up for release, I made sure he felt guilty too.’
‘And Inez?’
‘Who knows what Inez feels? Who knows what’s in that woman’s head?’
‘She drives a Renault, doesn’t she?’
‘Yes, a Megane. A company car registered to the radio station. Why do you ask?’
‘Like the one with false plates that picked up Bright in Torphichen Place.’
McCullough’s eyes found his once again. ‘That was a Megane? Oh Jesus,’ he gasped. ‘You’re saying that she . . .’
‘Yes, I am, but the police won’t trace the car now. They haven’t been able to place it in Airdrie either, outside the warehouse where Walter Thomson was crucified. They’ve tried,’ he added, ‘but the false plates were dumped in Edinburgh, having been stolen off a car there. Now why would anyone have done that, before,’ he emphasised the last word, ‘going on to commit another murder? And yet,’ he continued, ‘that’s a crime of which Bright’s insisting he’s guilty. And everybody’s happy to believe him; Lowell Payne the ACC, Lottie Mann, and Sauce too; they’re all happy because it’s a nice neat finish, guilty pleas all round. Even the Lord Advocate’s happy, because it will save her the cost of a trial.’
He reached out, topped up McCullough’s malt and refilled his own glass with a Spanish red that he knew must have cost two hundred euros a bottle.
‘They’re all so fucking delighted,’ he continued, ‘that they’re not looking at you at all. They’re not asking about the missing time between you and Tremacoldi leaving Black Shield Lodge and checking into the Glasgow Airport car park for your private jet to Big Bozo’s bloody stag do. A two-hour journey that took a shade over three hours.’
He raised his glass and took a sip, savouring the quality of the Pesquera Reserva, wondering why one vintage could be so superior to another. ‘And you know what, Cameron?’ he said, ‘I’m not asking either.’
‘You going to tell me why not?’
‘Sure. It’s because I have no wish to lob a missile into young Sauce’s career, or to darken the happiest time of your granddaughter’s life. I’m sure it was you, Cameron; it had to be. Your Inez might be a determined woman, but Bright is not the most subtle guy in the world. Plus,’ he laughed, ‘I question whether, even together, they were capable of nailing a big man to a warehouse wall. Yes, they might have had it in them to burn his balls off with a blow torch, or Inez might, but would either of them know how to bleed someone out through the femoral artery? Maybe not. Tremacoldi would though; he’d have been capable of all of it.’
He drank a little more wine, then replenished it.
‘Here’s what I’m saying. You never acknowledged Alan as your grandson, but nonetheless he was; he was your blood. When he died in the way he did, I see you consumed by guilt, and determined that those who were behind his killing should pay. That included the cop who used him. It might have included Austin Brass too, the blogger who named him as a grass, but he had enemies all over the place and one of them got to him first.’
His gaze seemed to drill into McCullough. ‘You weren’t going to do it yourself, though,’ he continued. ‘No, you waited for Alan’s father to finish his prison sentence so that you could use him to get even. Cameron, I believe that everything Raymond Bright did was at your prompting. There will be nothing on paper, no orders given, just hints and indications, but nonetheless, I reckon you set it in motion, everything. Apart, that is,’ he added, ‘from the death of Griff Montell. That was a major complication, one that you couldn’t influence; I doubt that you’d have approved that. God, I hope not!
‘As for Walter Thomson,’ he continued, ‘the world knew he killed Alan Mason. It couldn’t be proved, but that didn’t bother you and Raymond Bright. I believe that Bright picked up Thomson at the weekend before Hogmanay, after the warehouse had closed for the holidays, that he abducted him and left him there, tied up and helpless, waiting for whatever was going to happen to him. And I’m suggesting that turned out to be your man Vito Tremacoldi, your mercenary, with you parked out of sight all the while, maybe listening to the screams but knowing that on Hogmanay, that night of all nights, the polis would be elsewhere, keeping drunks in order, and knowing too that you wouldn’t be leaving any trace of yourself on the premises, and that Vito wouldn’t either, because he’s a professional.’
McCullough raised his eyebrows and stared at him, with a trace of mockery in his eyes. ‘And here was me believing,’ he chuckled, ‘that cops’ greatest weakness is that they have no imagination.’
‘I’m not a cop any longer,’ Skinner replied. ‘I was always a bit more than that anyway. None of that is imagination; it’s a logical conclusion. It fits you too, Cameron. I have you sussed as a guy who’d always wait outside while the bad stuff was being done. It’s part of the reason why you’ve been Teflon all these years: you had that fearsome reputation, and secretly you liked it, I’ll bet, but inside you were just a wee bit Chicken Little, afraid that the sky would fall on you. The manner of Thomson’s death fits that to a T.’
‘You believe that and you’re just going to let it lie? You? The mighty, incorruptible Bob Skinner?’
‘Yes, I am, as much as I fucking hate it. But,’ he added, ‘only because it’s unproveable, and because Bright’s already confessed to killing Thomson, being done beyond redemption for Coats and Montell. It would fit my scenario if he’s been incentivised by whatever you’re going to pay his sister.’
He turned his attention back to his glass.
‘I could, of course,’ he murmured, ‘tell the whole story to my editor at the Saltire and let her use her judgement on whether to run it or not. She’s a brave woman, June, so she would . . . and I doubt that a defamation action would follow. Man, you’ve spent decades building your reputation, but it would be gone in the time it took your bankers and business associates to read the Saltire article.’
‘So fuck off and do it!’ McCullough shouted, anger fuelling his bravado.
‘I’m prepared to,’ Skinner said, ‘but before we get there we have one more thing to discuss.’ He paused. ‘Cameron, it would be nice to think that your granddaughter might never get to hear of her brother, of how he was treated and what happened to him, but I fear it’s inevitable that she will. There’s one person who would tell her, if ever she feels guilty enough or, more likely,
vindictive enough . . . and that I can well imagine. It’s probably a miracle she hasn’t done it already.’
‘You’re talking about Inez.’
‘Exactly. So you see, Cheeky has to be told, and I reckon that if you want your relationship to survive, you should be the one to do the telling, rather than Sauce, or me, or my newspaper, if that’s how this plays out. Are we agreed on that?’
‘Yes,’ McCullough said, quietly. ‘Yes, we are. I’ll tell her about her dad too; I might as well get it all over with. She’ll explode, but she’ll get over it eventually. She’s as pragmatic as me in her own way.’ He glowered at Skinner. ‘Now are we done?’
‘No, not quite,’ he replied, ‘because this goes along with it: it absolutely sticks in my throat that your daughter should walk away from three murders. In fact, I can’t allow it.’
‘Jesus, are you asking me to kill her?’ he exclaimed.
‘Don’t be daft, man,’ Skinner laughed, ‘I’m not a barbarian. Just listen, will you: the only thing I don’t believe about this business is that you knew that Bright would use an accomplice, even less that you knew who it would be. You proved that to me a few minutes ago, by the way you reacted when I told you about the car.’
McCullough sat silent, waiting.
‘What I haven’t told you yet,’ he continued, ‘is that forensics recovered a viable DNA sample from the second firearm that was found at Bright’s house, the Luger that killed Terry Coats. There’s no match for it yet, but that’s only because my friend Arthur Dorward hasn’t compared it with the profile of Alan Mason and found that there’s a maternal match. Whether I tell him to do that, or whether we run the Saltire story instead, that’s down to you. So, Cameron, this is my question. Does Inez pay the price for your continuing good name, such as it is and will be? Does she go to jail for the murder of Terry Coats, and for Montell and Thomson?’
‘Is this blackmail, Bob?’ McCullough asked.
Skinner gazed at him, contemplating his feelings about the man. He knew that he was more than a legitimate businessman, but was he capable of such savagery? He was convinced that he had procured Coats’ murder and, unknowingly, Montell’s, but his vision of how Walter Thomson had died was no more than a theory, and he was much less sure of it than he had let McCullough believe.
‘Hell, no,’ he replied, quietly. ‘It’s only this. Most of your life’s been a closed book, Cameron. Just this once, I need you to open it, and get your hands dirty, because it’s the right thing to do. Well? Do I call Dorward?’
Grandpa McCullough drained his malt and nodded.
Read an extract from THE BAD FIRE
Read the previous gripping mystery in the Bob Skinner series . . .
Nine years ago, divorcee Marcia Brown took her own life. A pillar of the community, she had been accused of theft, and it’s assumed that she was unable to live with the shame. Now her former husband wants the case reopened. And Alex Skinner has taken on the brief . . .
When tragedy strikes and his daughter comes under threat, Skinner steps in. His quarry is about to discover that the road to hell is marked by bad intentions . . .
‘Skinner’s lost none of his hard edge when he steps up to the plate after his daughter Alex, a legal eagle, is in trouble when a cold murder case explodes red hot and dangerous. Someone’s going to meet his match in Skinner’ Peterborough Evening Telegraph
Turn the page to read the opening chapters . . .
Then . . .
Threat and danger come with the territory I patrol, the place where I make my living.
It’s the nature of my work. Scottish criminal defence lawyers are guided by a professional principle that we can’t pick and choose our clients, and I have to adhere to that rule, difficult as it may be on occasion. Some of the people I have represented in court have been as utterly reprehensible as the crimes of which they have been accused, but even beasts have a fundamental right to the best defence available. Sometimes that’s been me, Alexis Skinner, Solicitor Advocate. Sometimes I’ve gone home and stepped straight into the shower to wash off the taint of the creep I’ve been doing my level best to return to society.
It wasn’t always like this. When I left Glasgow University with my brand-new law degree (Honours), I wasn’t bound for the high court, or any other level of the justice game. My first port of call was Scotland’s top corporate law firm, Curle Anthony Jarvis. It was headed at the time – still is – by my dad’s friend Mitchell Laidlaw. (Everyone knows my father; my father knows everyone. I’m sure that if Lloyd George was still around, they’d be acquainted.) Don’t go thinking, though, that I was the teacher’s pet; Mitch is a tough dude, and with him, the reputation of the firm is head and shoulders above any other consideration. My success as a corporate lawyer was down to my ability and the hard work that made them shedloads of money. And I was successful; the youngest partner in the firm’s modern era, and winner of a couple of legal awards along the way. I was a rising star, with a glittering and lucrative future set out before me.
Occasionally I would stare at the ceiling and ask myself, ‘Alex, why did you do something so profoundly fuckin’ stupid as walk away from all that?’
But I know the answer. It was my dad, wasn’t it?
I have met, but not for long, a couple of people – men, simpletons – who asserted that the legal avenue I chose at the beginning of my career was an act of rebellion against an authoritarian upbringing. Nothing could be further from the truth. My father, Sir Robert Morgan Skinner, QPM, remains the coolest guy I know. Yes, he had a ferocious reputation as a serving police officer. He scared the shit out of some very hard men. But at home he was Huggy Bear. My mother died when I was four, and he raised me to adulthood on his own. There were a few ‘aunties’ along the way, and one had some clothes in his wardrobe for a while, but he remained resolutely single until I was grown and flown. There are those who would say that he might have been better staying that way, for in the last twelve years he’s had three marriages, to two women, and another unfortunate relationship that did him no good at all, but he has settled down now, for good, I am certain.
He is growing older gracefully. I am thirty-one, which makes him mid fifties, but he has the look and bearing of a younger man. He acts like one too, and that worries me. He’s always had a tendency to draw trouble, and I suspect that in times past he’s gone looking for it. He has an image of impregnability, but he’s been shot, and sustained a near-fatal stab wound in a random attack; and he has a cardiac pacemaker installed as a result of a condition called bradycardia, which makes the heartbeat drop suddenly and without warning, in his case to zero. Not long ago, he was mugged in a garage by a Russian thug. It didn’t end well for the guy, but not before Dad had sustained a heavy blow to the head. He said it was nothing, but Sarah, my stepmother, confessed to me that it’s had an aftermath: occasional but severe headaches and a couple of dizzy spells.
When I was young, I wanted to be a teacher when I grew up, as my mother had been. Somewhere along the line that changed, and I wanted to be a cop. The motivation for my switch was Pops’ girlfriend, Alison Higgins, who was a detective inspector. She showed me that women could be significant players in a service that was evolving rapidly, moving away from the sexist, bigoted outfit that my father had joined, emerging as one where merit was rewarded and where the glass ceiling, while it still existed, was moving higher and higher. He was one of the drivers of that change, and so it was only natural that I expected when I announced my future career choice, with the unshakeable self-assurance of a fourteen-year-old, that he would beam with delight and support me.
‘Like hell you will!’ he barked at me across the dinner table. To say that I was taken aback, that’s putting it mildly. I couldn’t remember him ever raising his voice to me in anger, not even when I was at my most wilful – and I had been wilful, after Mum’s death and again as puberty crept up on me, a period of my life that her sister, Aunt Jean, had helped me through. It wasn’t only the vehemence of hi
s reproof that startled me; there was something in his eyes that I had never seen before.
One of his team in the CID Serious Crimes squad, Mario McGuire, a detective constable on whom I had a small crush, had told me a story about being in the room when ‘the Big Man’ (Mario was huge himself) had interrogated a suspect in an armed robbery. ‘He never said a word, Alex. He sat there and looked at the suspect, stared at him across the table, never blinking, drilling holes in the guy with those eyes. It went on for minutes: Christ, I was scared, and I was sitting next to him. He never moved, never lifted a finger. The prisoner, who was no pussy, let me tell you, tried to stare him out, for maybe thirty seconds, but he couldn’t hold it, couldn’t look at him. The tension built and built until you could have cut in into blocks and built a house with it, until finally the prisoner threw both hands up and said, “Okay, okay, Ah was there! But Ah jist drove, mind. The other two had the shooters.” Then he told us where to find them, gave us a full statement and earned himself a couple of years off his sentence in the process.’
I had doubted that story – Mario was one of my father’s fan club, and I thought he was exaggerating – but that look, that glare made me a believer.
That’s not to say I was as compliant as the armed robber. I fired back at him. ‘It’s what I want, Pops! I want to be a police officer and you can’t stop me.’
The Roots of Evil (Bob Skinner) Page 30