Skinner's Ghosts (3 page)

'You'l find al the DNA you need in other places.'

Astonishingly, he smiled at the detectives, from one to the other.

'The press'11 have a field day with this. I expect I'll be all over the telly when I come to give evidence at the trial.'

Skinner felt himself come to boiling point, but it was the normally unflappable Andy Martin who exploded first. 'Are you enjoying this, Banks?' he shouted. The DCC stared at him in surprise, unable to remember ever having heard his friend raise his voice in anger.

'You know something, you little shit,' barked the Head of CID.

'I've never liked you; nor has anyone else on our team. You turn up late at crime scenes, then you give us half-arsed reports which don't usual y help us one bit. But the worst thing about you is your total lack of respect.

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'We knew that lady lying there, Mr Skinner and I. This is a personal tragedy for us. She was worth a dozen of you, and in death she wil be treated with honour, not as a vehicle to advance your personal

reputation.'

He stepped close to the doctor and prodded him in the chest with his broad right index finger. 'You can bet on this, Banks. You wil not be cal ed as a witness in the trial of Leona's killer. The pathologist's evidence will be enough. And you can bet on this also. You're at your last crime scene in this city, and with this force.

'First thing tomorrow, I will see to it personally that your name is removed from our list of medical examiners. Now, I think you'd better leave . . . before you make me lose my temper.'

Doctor Banks' face went from white to red in a couple of seconds.

'You can't do that,' he spluttered.

Skinner leaned forward, took him by the arm, and led him towards the door, past an astonished Inspector Dorward. 'Too fucking right he can, mate,' he said. 'Too fucking right.' He eased the doctor out on to the landing. 'Send the mortuary people up as you leave,' he ordered, and closed the door in his face. His mouth was set, tight and grim, as he turned back to Martin. 'Good for you, son,' he said, softly.

'Couldn't have done better myself.'

He glanced across at the red-haired inspector. 'Right, Arthur. Let's have your observations.' A sudden thought struck him. 'No, before that. Where are Mcllhenney and Pye?'

'I sent them off to see the grandparents,' said Martin, 'to check whether Mark's with them.'

Skinner nodded. 'Good. You could hardly have telephoned, right enough. Okay, Arthur, sorry. Carry on.'

Dorward coughed, clearing his throat. As he did so, the door opened, and two dark-uniformed mortuary workers, a man and a woman, entered, carrying a brown plastic coffin.

The three policemen stood aside. As the bloody, naked body of Leona McGrath was lifted and placed gently in its makeshift container Skinner turned away and looked out of the bedroom window into the street, lit by the summer evening sun, which shone on a smal crowd of around a dozen onlookers, and on a larger number of reporters, photographers and television cameramen. Their number had doubled since his arrival. He guessed that the tip-off industry had done its stuff once again. As he watched them he saw a camera raised and trained upon him. Quickly he reached across and pul ed the curtains closed.

When he turned back the coffin was gone. 'Arthur,' he said. 'At last.'

'Yes sir,' said Dorward. He paused for a few seconds, then went on. 'The only relevant comment I have to make is that Mrs McGrath must have been surprised in this room. Look over there.' He pointed 12

to a wardrobe door, which lay open. 'And there.' He pointed to a dressing-table drawer from which items of underwear hung. 'And there.' He pointed to a chair, across which denim jeans and a white blouse had been laid neatly.

'There are no signs of a struggle downstairs,' said Dorward, 'and precious few in here. No torn clothes, nothing like that. If you look in the en suite bathroom, you'l find a damp towel. I'd guess that Mrs McGrath was getting ready to go out when she was attacked.

'Her assailant burst in on her and found her virtual y naked. Maybe rape wasn't on his mind till then.'

'Or their minds,' Martin interrupted.

'That's true, sir,' Dorward agreed. 'But semen testing will tell us whether there was more than one rapist.'

'So what was on the kil er's mind .. . singular or plural?' asked Skinner. 'Robbery?'

Dorward shrugged. 'It doesn't look like it, boss. There's a handbag downstairs, in plain view on the kitchen table, so that the intruder must have walked past it. There's about a hundred and fifty quid in there, in cash. There's an antique clock on the mantelpiece in the living room that's worth a couple of grand. There was a diamond engagement ring stil on her finger, and more jewel ery on the dressing table. There's a briefcase in her study, but no papers seem to have been disturbed.

'No sir. Not robbery. That's pretty certain.'

'Then what?' Skinner barked the question, not at Dorward, but at the ceiling, feeling an uncomfortable nagging knot forming in the pit of his stomach as one possible answer grew larger in his mind.

He glanced across at Martin. 'Who was it found her?'

'Her constituency chair, a woman cal ed Marks. She was just babbling nonsense when I got here. Banks gave her a sedative, and I had her taken home. With luck we'l get sense out of her tomorrow.'

'Let's hope so. We've got people interviewing neighbours, yes?'

'Yes. Clan Pringle's people are doing that.' Skinner nodded approval. Detective Superintendent Clan Pringle was Divisional Head of CID for the greater part of the City of Edinburgh. With him in charge there would be no chance of sloppiness.

'Where will you base the investigation?'

The DCS shrugged. 'Headquarters, I thought, rather than the Divisional Office. We've got everything we need at Fettes, plus we have more room to handle the press. With the political involvement, this wil be no ordinary murder enquiry.'

'I can't argue with that,' said Skinner. 'When are you going to see the press?'

'I've told Alan Royston to set up a briefing for seven thirty. Do you want to take it?'

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The older man shook his head. 'No. You're Head of CID. That's your job.'

'They'll expect you,' said Martin doubtfully.

'Well they're not fucking having me, and that's an end of it. You take the first press conference, then leave the later briefings to Royston. That's what he's paid for.'

'Okay.'The DCS paused. 'Here,' he asked, casually, 'd'you know if Royston's still involved with Pam Masters? I know he was for a while. Did she mention anything when she worked for you?'

Inwardly, Skinner gulped. He stared at Martin, looking for anything devious in his eyes, yet seeing nothing. 'That finished a long time ago,' he said at last. 'What made you bring that up?'

Martin smiled. 'Plain old-fashioned curiosity, that's all. I've never known an officer who keeps her private life as private as she does.'

'So much for Pam s notions about Alex and Andy's shared conclusion,' he thought. He might have told his friend the truth there and

then had not Neil Mcllhenney's shout drifted up from the hal way.

'Sir? You still up there?'

'Yes,' Skinner called out in reply, suddenly relieved by the interruption. 'We're on our way down though.'

Leaving Dorward to carry on his painstaking work in the bedroom, the two senior officers descended the staircase. Detective Sergeant Mcllhenney, Skinner's personal assistant, stood waiting in the hall with Detective Constable Sammy Pye, one of Martin's staff officers. The two flanked a tal man in his seventies, silver hair, pale and shaking.

'Hel o, Mr McGrath,' said the DCC, advancing on him with hand outstretched. The two had met for the first time at the scene of the death of the old man's son. On that occasion he had been dignified and purposeful. Skinner guessed that this would prove one bereavement too many. Harold McGrath seemed overwhelmed. Gently the tal policeman slid an arm around his shoulders and led him into the living room.

'Neil,' he said quietly, over his shoulder. 'Whisky. Over there, on the sideboard.' As the heavily built sergeant picked up decanter and glass, the dead woman's father-in-law lowered himself carefully into an armchair.

'Sergeant Mcllhenney has obviously told you what happened,' said Skinner, glancing across at his assistant as he spoke and noticing for the first time the strain in his normally jolly eyes.

'Yes,' the old man whispered.

There's nothing I can say to lessen the shock, or the horror of it,'

said the detective. 'We al knew your daughter-in-law; we admired her tremendously. We're stunned too. But believe me, we will catch whoever did this, and we will put him away for the rest of his miserable life.'

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'It was a man then?' asked old McGrath, bewildered, seeming to age before their very eyes. Skinner guessed that Mcllhenney had spared much of the detail. 'Beyond a doubt,' he replied, gently.

'Where's my grandson?' said the old man suddenly, urgently.

A sudden desperation hit the DCC, the earlier pang of concern gripping him now with a fierce certainty. 'He's not with you, then?'

The silver head shook. 'No. Leona said she would bring him over before she went to her constituency meeting. When she didn't turn up, my wife and I assumed that she had taken him with her after all.

She did sometimes, like a sort of mascot.

'So where is he?'

'That's just the thing, Mr McGrath. We don't know.' The old man looked up at him, his mouth slightly open.

'Look,' said Skinner. 'Does he have any pals around here? Could Leona have taken him somewhere else, before she was attacked?'

'No,' said the grandfather. 'I don't think so. Al Mark's friends are away on holiday just now. We were supposed to be going too, on Sunday, now that the House of Commons has risen.'

'You're sure there's no-one still at home, no pal where he could have gone?'

'Quite sure. Leona remarked on the fact just last night, on the telephone.'

'How about Leona's parents?' asked Martin. 'Are they still alive?'

Mr McGrath looked round at him, over his shoulder, clutching the whisky which Mcl henney had pressed into his shaking hand.

'Her mother is. Her name's Mrs Baillie, Mary Baillie. She lives in Broughty Ferry. But she's on holiday as well, in Greece with a friend.

They left last Sunday, from Glasgow Airport.'

Skinner turned to his assistant. 'Neil,' he said. 'Fast as you can, get on to the tour operators and trace Mrs Baillie. This is going to break very fast through satellite television. I don't want the poor woman to hear of her daughter's death from a Sky newscaster.

'Andy,' he said quickly to Martin. 'You'd better postpone your briefing till we've contacted the mother. Meantime, we'd better mobilise every available officer, CID and uniformed. I want an inch-by-inch search of the surrounding area. If Mark escaped from the house he could be hiding out somewhere. Whatever, if he's anywhere around here, we've got to find him!'

He stabbed the air with a finger. 'Every available officer remember, whether they're off duty or not. I'll even call the Chief and ACC

Elder. You turn out al your team.' He paused, then added as a seeming afterthought, 'Try and raise Pam Masters again. You never know.

She might be home by now.'

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4

'At this moment,' said Andy Martin, surveying a hushed gathering of reporters and cameramen in the main briefing room of the police headquarters building in Fettes Avenue, 'every available police officer in the City of Edinburgh is involved in an intensive search of an area within a three-mile radius of Mrs McGrath's home.

'That amounts to over a thousand officers, including Chief Constable Sir James Proud, Deputy Chief Constable Bob Skinner and Assistant Chief Constable Jim Elder. We're searching public parks, railway embankments, unoccupied houses and other properties.

Everywhere.'

'Are you asking for volunteers to help widen the search area, Chief Superintendent?' The question came from a reporter in the front row of the audience, representing the city's cable television channel.

'No,' he told the woman, 'because we have to keep things under control. But you and al the other broadcast media can help us by asking your viewing and listening audiences to search their own premises right away, just in case a very frightened wee boy might be hiding there.'

'What can you tell us about Mark, Andy?' asked John Hunter, a freelance, and the senior member of the Scottish Capital's media corps.

'Well for a start, you can all collect his photograph on the way out, although I suspect that most of you wil have him on file from the time of his father's funeral.'

He paused. 'Mark is six years old, and beyond doubt he's the most remarkable wee boy I have ever met. As you al know, undoubtedly, by a miracle he survived the plane crash in which his father was kil ed. Not only that, he was instrumental in helping us catch the man whose bomb brought the aircraft down.'

Roger Quick, of Radio Forth, raised a hand. 'Mr Martin, do you suspect any link between the murder of Mrs McGrath, and her husband's death?'

The Detective Chief Superintendent looked at the reporter for a moment, then shook his blond head. 'No, none at al . We said at the time that we were satisfied that the bomber had acted alone, and that we knew what his motive was. As the man was shot dead at the scene 16

of his subsequent crime, we have to regard the fact that both of Mark's parents were murdered as no more than a particularly brutal coincidence.'

'So,' asked Hunter once more. 'Do you see any motive for Mrs McGrath's killing?'

Martin shrugged his shoulders, rippling the cloth of his navy blue blazer.

'John,' he said, slowly, speaking clearly for the microphones massed around him, 'I've told you al we know for sure at this moment. I'm not going to speculate on anything else, nor would you expect me to. Motive - if there is one - is anyone's guess. I have to deal with established fact. Our thinking might crystal ise once we trace Mark, but until then we're throwing everything into the search.'