Skinner's Ghosts (2 page)

'Come on, what are you saying to me, Pamela? Like I asked you before. Is al this too heavy for you? Do you want us to chuck it?'

She pushed herself out of her chair, knelt on the concrete paving, 4

at his feet, and laid her head in his lap for a few seconds, rubbing her face from side to side against his thighs. Finally she looked up at him, stil shaking her head. 'No I don't want that... although God knows I should. You're the DCC; I'm a sergeant. You're married, even if you are legally separated. Madness, sheer madness.

'But no, what I am saying is that you and I don't have the option of being like Old Christabel and Lord So and So. We can't keep that sort of secret.'

He frowned at her again, knitting his brows heavily, accentuating the deep vertical line above the bridge of his nose, and the scar which ran alongside it. 'Why not? I always tell my troops that their private lives are their own as long as it's consistent with duty and discipline.

We're not working together any more, so why are we different?'

She squeezed his thighs, hard. 'Because we are, man! Look, are you or are you not the Secretary of State's security adviser? Were you or were you not a candidate for the top job in the Met until Sir Derrick Raymond agreed to do another two years? Do you or do you not want Chief Constable rank somewhere? Three Yes's: don't you tell me differently.

'Bob, you've got that ambition, and that potential, and here you are, sleeping with a detective sergeant under your command!'

'Not in the office, I ain't,' he said doggedly. He almost added,

'Besides, maybe I care more about you than about al that stuff,' but something held him back.

She shrugged her shoulders. 'Fine. So why haven't you told your daughter about me? Or Andy Martin? Or the Chief? Or am I wrong?

Have you briefed the Command Corridor, off the record?'

He threw up his hands. 'Okay! Okay! Okay!'

. 'Wel !' She sighed, and paused. 'Look, I'm not asking for a public declaration of undying love. I like it the way it is, as long as you're completely and genuinely separated from Sarah. I love being with you. You excite me more than anyone I've ever known. But your companionship. . . and great sex, of course . . . for now that's enough for me. As long as it doesn't do you harm, and as long as it doesn't compromise your future career. So think about it, eh?'

Skinner sighed. 'Okay sweetheart. I know you're right, and I'l do something about it. I'l tell the Chief, Andy andAlex . . . probably in reverse order. But in my own time . . .' He pointed a finger at her, suddenly,'. . . and mind, I won't be seeking their advice or approval.'

'What if Andy Martin wants me off his staff once you've told him?' she asked him.

'I'll deal with that if it happens.'Abruptly he stood up, gathering her in his arms. 'Meantime . . . what was that you were saying about great sex?'

2

The telephone rang four times, before the automatic answering machine picked up the cal . As she heard Bob's recorded voice giving the response, Pamela sat up in bed, a sheen of perspiration glistening lightly on her back.

A few seconds later, the caller left the invited message. Neither she nor Bob could hear what was said, but both recognised the inflections of Detective Chief Superintendent Andy Martin's even, steady baritone.

She nodded in the direction of the bedside telephone. 'Go on, pick it up,' she urged him.

He grinned at her, tugging at her arm to draw her back down beside him. 'Later. Chances are it's work. If it is, I'm not letting it in here.'

She pul ed herself free from his light grasp, shaking her head.

'No! It's as if he's in the house with us. If you don't answer it, I will.'

As the muffled voice continued to float through to them from the living room, she twisted and threw herself across the recumbent Skinner, reaching out with her left hand. She was smiling, but he took her threat seriously enough to grab her and pull her neat little body back down towards him, holding her away from the phone.

'All right,' he said. 'But you keep quiet. I've said I'll tell him, but in my own time.' He reached behind him with his free hand and picked up the telephone.

'I'll try the mobile,' he heard Andy Martin say, 'but if you get this first, call me . . .'

'Andy! Sorry, mate. I was in the garden. What can I do for you?'

'Did you get any of that?'

Involuntarily, Skinner shook his head. 'No, not a bit of it.' The coiled-spring tension in Martin's voice grasped him at once. Releasing Pam from his grasp, he swung his legs from beneath the duvet and sat on the edge of the bed. 'What's up?' he growled.

'Bob, you're going to hate this. I'm at Leona McGrath's place, down in Trinity.' There was a pause. 'Leona's dead. She's been raped, battered and strangled.'

'Jesus!' Skinner shuddered, so suddenly and violently that, to Pamela, the bed seemed to shake. He ran his fingers through his tousled, steel-grey hair, grasping a clump as he fought to control his shock. Behind him, the mattress squeaked as Pam sat up once more.

He waved her to silence over his shoulder.

'When?' he asked, hoarsely.

'She was found about an hour ago. She'd been due to attend a constituency event. When she didn't turn up, the local party chairwoman cal ed round to ask why. There was no reply to the bell, but the back door had been forced. The woman had a look around, and found Mrs McGrath upstairs.'

Skinner sat stunned. As she looked at him, wondering and fearful, Pamela saw that the battle scars on his back and thigh were standing out vivid purple, and realised that he had gone pale. She gripped his arm again, squeezing.

'And her son?' the DCC asked at last. 'Wee Mark. What about him?'

'There's no-one else here. Bob. Neil Mcllhenney, Sammy Pye and I have been over the place ourselves. We've been everywhere. There's no sign of the kid.'

'Mark!' said Skinner sharply. 'His name is Mark.'

He squeezed his eyes tight shut, partly to stem the hot tears which he felt springing up, and partly to try to stop himself shaking with tension.

'After what that woman's endured, and done,' he murmured, when he had calmed himself. 'For it to end like this . . .'

He stood up, stil holding the phone and turned to face Pam, his back to the muslin-draped window. 'You say Neil and Sammy are there?'

'That's right. Sammy was with me when the cal came in. And I thought you'd want the big fella here.

'I tried to raise Sergeant Masters, but she's on day off.' Skinner searched for an undertone in his friend's remark, but found none.

'Forget Pam,' he said. 'She doesn't need to be there. I'l be with you in Edinburgh inside an hour. Meantime, I suggest you contact the grandparents. Mark's very close to Roland's father. Let's pray that he's with him.'

He replaced the phone in its cradle and looked down at Pamela.

'What. . .' she began, before Skinner forestal ed her question.

'A very good friend,' he said. 'Leona McGrath. The MP for Edinburgh Dean. You must remember her. Her husband was kil ed in the plane crash last year. She fought the seat, and won it.' Pam nodded.

'Well, now it's her time to die. She's been murdered.'

He stood there before her, naked, and heaved a huge sigh. 'Oh my girl,' she said, 'when you live with me, you find that some terrible things force their way into your life. Even in the quietest moments, you're never safe from them.

'Think you can cope with it?' He reached for his clothes and began to dress.

3

The house was so familiar to him. He walked past the uniformed officers who stood guard at the head of the driveway, his sandals crunching their way up the narrow gravel path which led from the gate.

The front door was open. He stepped into the hal , pul ing on a white scene-of-crime tunic and overshoes before venturing further.

Properly clad now and knowing exactly where he was going, he strode into the drawing room, then through to the wooden conservatory.

Around him, specialist technicians were bent over their work, dusting down doors, windows and furniture for fingerprints, in the hope that one - even a fragment of one - would have been left by the intruder rather than by Leona or her son. Skinner nodded approval of the team's tenacity, even though experience told him that the chances of their work being rewarded were around one in five.

As he stepped back into the hall he col ided with another white-suited figure, three or four inches shorter in height than his own six foot two, but distinctive, with his shock of red hair.

'Hello Inspector,' he said grimly. 'How's it going?'

'All the mess is upstairs, sir. It looks clean as a whistle down here,'

said Arthur Dorward, confirming Skinner's pessimism. 'The back door's been jemmied, but other than that, nothing's disturbed. Mrs McGrath's in the front bedroom, top of the stairs.

'That's where you'l find Mr Martin.'

The DCC nodded. 'Come with me then. I'l welcome your insight.

ME still here, is he?'

Inspector Dorward nodded. 'Aye, sir. Dr Banks as usual.' He paused. 'He's not a patch on his predecessor, if you don't mind my saying so.'

He did mind, very much, but he let it pass. There was no point in taking his bitterness out on an honest soldier like the scene-of-crime Inspector, especial y when he knew that he was speaking no more than the truth. Dr Sarah Grace Skinner was the best murder-scene examiner he had ever encountered, gifted with an uncanny ability to paint compelling pictures of events from the very slightest of clues. As he and Dorward climbed the stair a huge pang of regret shot through him.

Detective Chief Superintendent Andy Martin, Head of CID, was standing in the doorway of the bedroom as they reached the upper landing, leaning against its upright, his broad back to them in its white suit.

Skinner stepped up behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder, drawing him out into the hal . 'Hi, son,' he said quietly. 'Is Banks nearly finished?'

Martin nodded. 'You know him. He's taken forever, but he's just about done now.'

'Mmm,' said the DCC. 'I suppose I'd better take a look then.' He made a conscious effort to brace himself as he stepped into the room.

Skinner believed deeply that every good police officer had a tolerance limit when it came to viewing the bodies of murder victims.

He knew that he had passed his own a long time before. One of the benefits of Chief Officer rank was the ability to delegate, to opt out personal y from the messy end, where once he would have attended automatical y.

Yet some circumstances, like the murder of a public figure, and this, the murder of a woman who had come to be a very close friend, stil demanded his presence. And of course, once there, on view

himself, he could show no weakness.

He thought that he had prepared himself mentally for what he would see, but a moan still escaped his lips as he looked at the body of Leona McGrath.

'Oh, no,' said Bob Skinner, out loud for al to hear. 'You poor wee lass. What bastard did that to you?'

And then the rage - cold, blind, savage rage - took over. 'When I lay hands on you, whoever you may be . . .' he hissed.

'I think we all feel like that, sir,' said Martin, his green eyes narrowed slightly and his shoulders bunched.

Skinner knelt beside the body. The little woman ... she had been not much over five feet tall... lay on her back. Her arms were twisted under her and the policeman knew without looking that the wrists were bound together. She was naked, save for a brassiere, still fastened, but forced up above her breasts. She was covered in blood.

From her vagina, it was matted in her thick growth of pubic hair, and smeared across her thighs and belly. From her nose and mouth, it was spread across her face, shoulders and chest, staining the white bra. From her left ear ran a single crimson line. Before her heart had stopped pumping, it had flowed into a puddle, congealed now on the fawn-coloured carpet.

Great vivid bruises and welts showed all over her pallid, yellowish skin. The most vivid were on her face, and on her side, just below her left breast, as if a fist had pounded on her, time and time again.

Her face was swol en grotesquely, from the beating and from the white garments - panties, he guessed, possibly more than one pair 10

which had been stuffed into her mouth. A single black nylon stocking had been wound around her neck, more than once, as a strangling ligature, then tied off, ferociously tight. The flesh around it was blue and puffed.

Finally, when he could avoid them no longer, Skinner looked at her eyes. They were bulging, staring up at him, and so ful of anger and remonstration that he winced and looked away for a second, before closing them, almost reverently, with his right hand.

Gently, he turned her on to her side. Her wrists were indeed bound, with the electric cord of a black hair-dryer. Just above the blood which

was caked on her buttocks, there were vivid red marks where its plug had been crushed into her flesh. He leaned closer, to look at her hands.

Her fingernails were long, and appeared to be painted with a hard clear varnish. On the tips of three, on her right hand, he could see what appeared to be blood.

He glanced up at Martin. 'Andy,' he said. 'Untie her hands, while I hold her, would you.' Without a word, the grim-faced Head ofCID

did as he was asked.

'Plastic bags on the hands, please Doctor,' said Skinner to the Medical Examiner, who stood a few feet away. 'There's blood on her nails, and it might not be hers.' He rol ed the body over, and laid her face down, partly to help Banks cover her fingers and partly to hide her poor battered features from the others in the room. Almost without thinking, he unfastened the bra.

The doctor set the clear plastic covers in place over the dead fingers, securing them with elastic bands, snapped into place around the weals left in the wrists by the binding cable. He stood up, beside the DCC.

'Well?' asked Skinner.

'Whoever did this wasn't messing about,' said Banks. 'She was raped, and sodomised, pretty savagely, thumped around a bit, then strangled. Don't worry about fingernail scrapings,' he said dismissively.