Skinner's Ghosts (4 page)

'D'you think the boy's been kidnapped?' asked the old reporter, bluntly.

'Possibly, but I don't know,' snapped the detective. 'What I do know is that we are involved in the biggest search this city has ever seen. If it proves fruitless, then that possibility would harden into a probability.' He picked up the notes on the table before him. 'Now, let's get on with it, shall we?'

As Martin stood up, a hand was raised at the back of the room.

The policeman's eyes narrowed as he recognised Noel Salmon, a tabloid journalist recently declared persona non grata by Skinner.

'Chief Superintendent. . .'

The Head ofCID turned toAlan Royston, the force's civilian media relations manager, who was seated at the table beside him. 'How did he get in here?' he growled, with unaccustomed menace.

'I had to let him in,' Royston whispered. 'He's been accredited by that sleazy new Sunday, the Spotlight - you know, the rag they sell through supermarkets.'

'Chief Superintendent,' Salmon cal ed out once more, a shout this time. 'On behalf of the Spotlight, I have a personal question about DCC Skinner. Is it true that his wife has filed for divorce?'

Every head in the room turned towards the untidy little journalist; then most swivelled back towards Martin, waiting for his reaction.

The detective's green eyes were like ice as he stared at the reporter.

'Not to my knowledge,' he said loudly and clearly.

'Congratulations, Mr Salmon,' he went on. 'You've just been barred from this building yet again. You and your paper.'

'Do you expect her to?' the man shouted across the room.

'No,' Martin barked, losing his temper for the second time that day, just as a photographer rose from the seat next to Salmon and snapped off a series of motor-driven shots. 'Now get out of here, before I run you through the door myself!'

17

5

'Royston did whatT

Skinner roared his incredulous, rhetorical question across the floor of the Chief Constable's office in the Fettes Command Corridor. 'I'll have the stupid bastard's balls for paper-weights! I personal y banned that little shite Salmon from this office. For life, I said, yet our press officer lets him back in - and to represent that bloody downmarket rag at that!'

He turned from Martin to Neil Mcllhenney. 'Sergeant, first thing tomorrow morning, I want you to find out for me al about the procedure for firing a civilian employee. Meantime, Royston's suspended. By the time I'm done with him, he'l be glad of a job on the fucking Spotlight himself.'

It was fifteen minutes after midnight. Skinner, Chief Constable Sir James Proud, ACC Jim Elder, Martin and Mcl henney had gathered in the Chief's room to review progress - or lack of it in the fruitless search for any trace of Mark McGrath, or of his mother's murderer. There had been no easy way for Martin to break the news of Salmon's intervention in the press briefing.

Even so, he had anticipated his friend's reaction, and with the Chief's support had told Royston to stay away from the office until further notice.

'Bob,' said Sir James, as Martin had guessed he would, 'don't you think you should pause for thought, before taking action?'

Skinner looked at him, a thick vein standing out on his right temple. 'Jimmy, Royston reports directly to me. Right?'

The Chief nodded, waiting as his deputy took a deep breath. 'Okay,'

Skinner said at last. 'In deference to you, I'l think about it. Once I have, chances are I'l still sack him, but at least I won't have done it in the heat of the moment.'

Proud Jimmy grunted. 'That'l be some consolation to him.' He paused. 'Bob, why would that bloody man Salmon ask such a question? You and Sarah aren't. . .'

Skinner shook his head, emphatical y. 'Sarah hasn't raised the subject of divorce with me, nor I with her. Now, can we please talk about police business?'

'Of course,' said the Chief, as keen as Skinner to change the 18

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subject, and ushering his col eagues to chairs. 'You too, sergeant,' he said to Mcllhenney.

'Wil I sort out some coffee, first, sir?'

'Good idea, Neil. Good idea.' The big man left the room, leaving the door slightly ajar.

'Well,' said Sir James. 'No luck with our search.'

Skinner shook his head. 'Not that I expected it. I know that wee boy too well. Chances are he'd have defended his mother. If not, and he'd escaped from the house, Mark wouldn't have hidden in fright.

He'd have raised the street.'

'D'you think the kid's dead, then?' asked ACC Elder.

Andy Martin answered for Skinner, reading his mind as he had done a thousand times before. 'No, sir. It's likely that he's alive, still.

If he'd been kil ed, he'd have been left at the scene. Why should the murderer take him away, to kill him later? There's a better than even chance that he's been kidnapped.'

'Why would anyone in his right mind . . .' Elder began.

'Who says he is?' Skinner growled. 'Andy's right. We have to look at this as a kidnapping.'

'How did he get away with it, then, in broad daylight?' asked Proud, shifting uncomfortably in his uniform and running his fingers through

his silver hair. 'Did none of the neighbours see or hear anything?'

'No, Chief,' Martin replied. 'The fact is that with the time of the day and the holidays there were damn few neighbours about. There were none on either side of the McGrath house, or across the street, and only a few at the end of the road. One of them thought he saw a silver or grey car in Leona's driveway, but that's the only lead we have. Leona's car's grey so when he drove past, the man thought nothing of it. Only the McGrath car was locked in the garage at the time.'

The DCS paused. 'As I see it, the kil er drove right up the path.

Unlike the footpath to the front door, it's tarmac, so he wouldn't have made much noise. In any event, Mrs McGrath was in the shower, getting ready for her afternoon meeting.

'Once he'djemmied the back door, I suspect that the intruder made sure of Mark right away. When the first officers arrived they found the television on in the living room. It was tuned to the Cartoon Network, on cable, the sort of stuff that kids watch all day, when they're not at school.

'After he had secured the boy - tied and gagged him, maybe - I guess the man went upstairs, for the mother. As Arthur Dorward pointed out, she must have been taken completely by surprise in her bedroom, still barely dry from the shower, wearing her bra and nothing else.'

Sir James Proud frowned. 'If kidnap was his motive, why would 19

he do that? If he could have got away quietly, why attack the mother as well?'

Skinner sighed. 'There's a difference between purpose and motive, Chief. This bastard may have gone there with the purpose of kidnapping the child. Or he may have gone there with the rape and murder of the mother on his mind.

'In either case, the kidnap, or the kil ing, may have been spur-of-the moment action. Alternatively there could have been a single game plan from the start. But none of that takes us any nearer the kil er's actual motive. It stil doesn't tel us why.'

'What do you think, then, Bob?' asked the chief. 'Do you have any notion of what's behind this?'

The DCC looked at his only superior officer. The closer he had come in rank to James Proud, the more he had come to value the man, and to appreciate his humanity. He knew how much the brutal death of a woman, and the disappearance of her child, would be affecting him, and the effort he would be making to keep his emotions in check. He knew also, and made al owances for the fact, that the Chief Constable's career path had been one of administration rather than investigation, and that, as good a leader as he was, he lacked the detective's instincts.

'Maybe we coppers place too much stress on motive sometimes,'

Skinner replied, eventually. 'Genuine evil doesn't need reasons to be. Sometimes it just is. That's a difficult concept for normal, balanced people to grasp, and so it's easy to discount it.

'But it could be that al this man sought was gratification; from the rape, torture and murder of a vulnerable, defenceless woman, and from the taking and terrorising of a child. If that's the case it's awful.' His voice rose suddenly and he slammed his right fist into his cupped left palm. 'Not just for what happened to Leona, but for what could be happening to that poor wee boy right now.'

'And presumably,' continued Proud Jimmy, in an ominous tone,

'because he could do it again.'

Skinner shot him a quick glance. 'Not could. Jimmy,' he said, quietly. 'I'd say wil .'

He paused. 'And of course, he may have done it before. At the moment, our best hope is that DNA sampling will give us a match to a known offender, a sociopathic rapist, perhaps, with a previous conviction, who's done his time but hasn't exhausted his urges.'

The Chief shook his head. 'It's a nightmare, right enough.'

'But there's something else that we mustn't forget,' broke in Andy Martin, as Mcl henney returned with a tray of steaming mugs. 'This was no ordinary single parent, but a very high-profile lady. A Tory MR That gives us the possibility also that this crime could have political involvement.'

20

'Terrorism?' said ACC Elder.

'Who can say at this stage?' growled Skinner. 'The only certainty just now is that here we all are, as we've been a hundred times before, in the middle of the night, without a bloody clue.'

21

6

Pamela stirred and looked at the bedside alarm. Its red digits told her that it was 1.34 a.m. as Skinner slid into her bed.

'Sorry, pet,' he whispered. 'I didn't mean to wake you.'

She kissed him, feeling the harsh stubble on his chin. 'That's all right. I wasn't sure whether you'd come here.'

'I almost didn't. I thought of going to Fairyhouse Avenue. I even thought of crashing out in the office. But then I thought of you. and I realised that I needed to be with you.'

In the dark, she stroked his cheek. 'Was it bad? In the house, I mean.'

She felt him shiver, although the summer night was hot. 'I've never been good at a murder scene,' he muttered. 'But this one - someone I knew; someone I admired; someone who's had enough tragedy in her life.' She felt the touch of his forehead on hers, and his arm slip around her.

'I tell you, lover. When we catch this guy, I hope I'm there, and I hope he resists arrest. Because I want the privilege of personally tearing out his heart.'

'Shh! Shh!' she whispered, quickly. 'Don't say that. I hope you never get near him, in that case. You're too good a man to have anyone's blood on your hands, even his.'

She was shocked, even a touch frightened, by his sudden ironic laugh in the darkness. 'You think that, do you, Pammy? God, lass, but you don't know me as well as you think!

'Andy, now. He's shot someone dead, and it's broken his heart.

Brian Mackie: he's had to do it, and never given an emotional twitch.

But me, now: I've had to kil in the course of my career, more than once. And each time, when I've looked at the body at my feet, this person inside me, this voice, has said clear as you like, "Quite fucking right too!"

'Believe this, if you've ever believed anything. Whoever killed poor wee Leona had better never give me a clear shot and legal justification, or I'l shoot him like a dog and say "Got you, you bastard".'

She leaned away from him, trying to see his face in the faint light which crept into her bedroom from the city outside. 'Bob,' she said, 22

with surprise in her voice. 'I'd never have put you down for a supporter of capital punishment.'

She saw the gleam of his white teeth as he smiled. 'That's the thing,' he muttered, more gently now. 'I'm not, in the judicial sense.

I couldn't hurt a fly in cold blood. But in the heat of action, there's something in me that takes over. Between you and me, it scares me shitless. I'm just glad I'm on the right side of the fence.'

He drew her to him once more. 'But enough of this black talk. Let me feel the warmth of your body, and let's both get some sleep. For at six thirty, we're both off out again, in the vain hope of finding wee Mark.

'I saved his life once before, you know. I pray that I or one of Skinner's finest gets the chance to do so again.'

23

7

'I've sent Pamela to be an observer at the post-mortem,' said Martin, casual y. The search for Mark McGrath had just been declared exhausted, and the Head of CID and Skinner were sharing an early lunch in the senior officers' dining room.

The DCC felt his stomach churn, involuntarily, but al that his col eague saw was the raising of his eyebrows.

'It's part of the job. Bob. She has to take her turn. Young Pye's gone with her.'

'Fair enough,' said Skinner. 'She's on your team.' He took a deep breath.

'Listen Andy,' he began. 'Wil you andAlex be free this evening?'

Martin looked at him. 'Aye, sure. Are you fed up eating alone? Is that it?'

The DCC shook his head. 'No. There's something I've got. . .'

'Excuse me, sir.' The voice came from the doorway. Both detectives glanced across, to see a tal thin man in a sergeant's uniform. 'You told me to let you know, Mr Martin, when the media were ready,'

said William Rowland, Alan Royston's deputy.

The DCS stood up at once. 'Yes, thanks Bil .' He looked down at Skinner. 'I'm going to carry on taking the briefings, sir, until you've resolved the Royston situation. It wouldn't be fair to leave it to Sergeant Rowland.'

'Fair enough. Listen, will you get someone to tell Royston to be in my office at ten on Monday morning. I'd better have it out with the guy.'

Martin nodded. 'I think that's best.' He headed towards the door, where Rowland still waited.

'Come to dinner tonight, why don't you?' he paused, and said,

'Our place; make it around half-seven. That'll give us time to get ready. To tell you the truth, I think Alex has been working herself up to talk to you about . . . wel , everything. I know she's not happy about the situation between you and Sarah. Those two are like sisters, you know.'

Skinner grunted. 'Tell me about it! That's part of the problem. But my daughter's right, I haven't been talking to her nearly enough.' He picked up his coffee. 'Okay. I'l see you then.'