Skinner's Festival (12 page)

NINETEEN

'Macdairmid? That bampot? Surely he’s all wind and piss, sir.’
'That was my impression too, Willie, till Five told me different.’
The last of the Chief Constables had driven or been driven away from St Andrew’s House, and the Secretary of State had departed for Charlotte Square. Skinner and Detective Superintendent Willie Haggerty, the new head of Special Branch in Glasgow, were sitting alone in the big conference room, which still reeked of the smoke from Sir John Govan’s pipe. The Glasgow Chief, two months from retirement, had smiled cheerfully through the
coughs and splutters of his colleagues.
The big table was still littered with the debris of the buffet lunch which the Secretary of State had provided. Haggerty munched on the last of the sandwiches as he considered Skinner’s story.
'Christ, that’s amazin’. We listen in tae the guy’s phone and he never as much as breaks wind. Down in the Smoke and he’s off taste a Murder Incorporated smoker! And tae Libya fur his holidays!
Looks like he could be our man, right enough.’

'Not our man, Willie. One of them, perhaps, but not the only one. He was home in Glasgow when the bomb went off, and when the first letter was delivered, and when that biker took a shot at me.’
'How d’you know that?’
'Because I’ve read the transcripts. The tap picked up three calls during that time. One at 11:20 to his wife – they’re separated.
One at 11:30, to his girlfriend. One right on the stroke of midday, to the Chief Reporter of the Sunday Mail. It’s the third one that interests me. Twelve noon on the dot, the same moment that the bomb goes off, and he phones a mate on a newspaper.’
'What did they talk about?’
'That’s the strange thing. He calls the bloke up to ask what time the Rangers game kicks off. Says he thought it could have been one o’clock rather than three, but that his Daily Record hasn’t been delivered that morning, so he can’t check. Says he realises the newspaper guy isn’t a football fan, but could he find out and call him back on his home number. What does that say to you?’
That he could have been trying tae fix himself up with an alibi for twelve noon?’

'Most juries I’ve known would call that a reasonable conclusion. Especially if you tell them that Rangers weren’t playing at all yesterday. Their game’s today.’
Haggerty washed down the last of his sandwich with lukewarm coffee. 'So what d’you want me tae do, Mr S?’
'I want you to be like sticking plaster to him, Willie.
Everywhere he goes, everything he does, everyone he talks to, I want to know. I’ll detail a couple of guys to work with you. If he goes for a shit, I want to know how many sheets of paper he uses.
If he goes to Confession, I want to know how many Hail Marys he gets as his penance.’
Haggerty’s eyebrows rose. 'If he’s a Rangers supporter, he’s hardly going tae Confession!
Skinner laughed. 'That’s the other funny thing about the phone call. Grant Macdairmid’s a Catholic. Not too many Tims at the Rangers end!’

'No’ for long, at any rate!’ said Haggerty with a snort. 'Right, sir. Leave it tae Haggerty’s heroes. Every contact he makes will be reported back to you daily. What about other checks? Can you get us the authority to look into his bank accounts?’
'You’ve got it. Anybody gives you problems, call me. Use this number.’
He picked up a paper napkin and a rollerball pen, and wrote down the number of his mobile. As he did so, as if on cue, the phone itself, which was lying on the table, sang into life. He
picked it up and pressed the 'receive’ button.
'Hello.’
'Boss, it’s Andy.’ At once. Skinner sensed the tension in Martin’s voice. 'I need to see you at the Sheraton – now. Suite 207.’
'What’s the problem?’
'Ballantyne’s bravery. Someone’s bled for it – to the death.’

TWENTY

In fact there was very little blood. Yet Skinner recognised the odours of death as soon as he opened the bedroom door in the Sheraton suite.
The woman lay curled on her left side on the floor, in the centre of the room. Her right arm was thrown out in front of her, the hand palm downward. Her short, greying hair was wet, and plastered to her head. The left side of her face was pressed to the carpet. Her right eye seemed to stare at Skinner’s feet as he stood in the doorway. Her expression, even in death, was one of pure aggression, accentuated by the fact that her top lip was curled back in a snarl from her prominent teeth. Her pale pink towelling robe had fallen open. Beneath her heavy left breast a single puncture wound was visible, dark red and vivid against the postmortem pallor of her skin. From it, a thin trail of blood ran down to form a small scarlet blot on the robe, which was marked also by a second stain, yellow-hued, beneath her hips.

Martin stood over the body. Sarah was by his side.
'Who is she?’ Skinner asked.
Martin opened his mouth to answer, but it was Sarah who replied, in a strange soft voice.
'Hilary Guillaum. From Buffalo, New York. The world’s greatest mezzo-soprano. I first heard her sing there, in a summer concert, when I was twelve years old. She’d come back to Buffalo to do a charity recital in an open-air theatre. My dad took me, and I thought she was wonderful. The second time was thirteen years later, at the Met. She sang Norma, and she was just glorious. She was due to sing at the Usher Hall tonight. I tried to get tickets for
us, but they were sold out.’
She shook her head and looked at the floor, biting her lip as she fought to regain her professional detachment.
Skinner stared at the body. He too had heard Hilary Guillaum sing, on the records and CDs of her repertoire which made up a large part of Sarah’s collection. He pictured in his mind the
photographs – on the record sleeves and boxes – of a beautiful, confident statuesque woman with hair piled high and an extravagant cleavage, as he now looked more closely at the fleshy
lump lying on the floor. He saw not the slightest similarity between the two.

“Death doesn’t compromise with dignity, does it.’ Skinner spoke his thought aloud into the quiet room.
'Tell me what happened. Doc.’
Sarah banished all memories of the Metropolitan Opera House from her mind, and went to work. 'You see it there. Skinner. Single knife wound, lower chest area, left of centre. Made by a very sharp, double-edged weapon with a long blade, thrust in and upwards into the heart. Death ensued certainly within ten seconds.
It would have been caused by shock, not haemorrhage. That’s why there’s very little external bleeding.’
'So show me how it was done,’ he said. 'Andy, you be the victim. She couldn’t have been far short of your height.’
'That’s right,’ said Sarah, with an appraising glance at Martin.
'And there’s no sign of any struggle.

'OK, let’s see. Andy, over here, please.’ She led him towards the door to the ensuite bathroom. 'This is where it begins. She’s just had a shower, OK. She’s been across at the Usher Hall doing sound checks. She dries off and plasters her hair back, then goes into the bedroom.’
'Does she hear something that makes her go back in?’ Skinner asked, knowing the answer but looking for confirmation.
'No. She didn’t tie her bathrobe. But whoever killed her was in the room, waiting. Either behind the door, or else it was someone she was expecting, someone whose appearance there was quite normal and didn’t cause her any alarm. Because she still didn’t tie the bathrobe.’
'Do we know if she was here alone?’

Martin answered. 'Her husband travels with her occasionally, but not this time. There’s always a voice coach, male, and a secretary, female. They were both still at the Usher Hall from the time she left there at 1:00 o’clock until the secretary came back across here and found her at 2:15.’
'So,’ said Skinner, 'she was either taken completely by surprise, and overcome quickly and easily by someone very fast and very strong, or she was taken completely off-guard by someone she knew or didn’t regard as a threat. If we look at the second of those options, it brings us back to the fact that she didn’t tie the robe.
That means that she either had a boyfriend – or girlfriend – in town that we don’t know about, or-’
Sarah broke in. 'Or the person in the room was another woman.’

'Would a woman have had the strength to do that?’
'If she took her by surprise, yes, no question. Looking at the wound, the weapon must have been so sharp that a child could have killed with it. It happened one of two ways. Either like
this . . .’
She took a pair of long scissors from her bag, and held them as one would grasp a knife. She beckoned to Martin, and positioned him with his back to the bathroom door, close to where the body lay. Then she stepped up to him, quickly, spun him round with her left hand on his right shoulder, and imitated the upward thrust of the knife, pulling him down by the shoulder and towards her as she did so. Instinctively Martin’s right hand came up and caught Sarah’s shoulder.
' ... or like this.’

She stood Martin with his back to the dead Hilary Guillaum.
She held the scissors inverted and point-upwards against the inside of her forearm, concealed from his sight.
'Let’s assume that the killer was in the room, and that Hilary had just come in from her shower,’ she said. 'He or she could have made as if to go into the bathroom. Then . . .’
Again she stepped in close, grasping Martin by the shoulder, letting the scissors fall into her hand and stabbing upwards.
Again, instinctively, the detective pushed against her with his right hand, but she was able to hold herself close to him.
'Right, I buy that so far,’ said Skinner. 'Now, how did the victim react?’
'You saw how Andy grasped my shoulder? I’d say she did the same. See how the fingers of her right hand are still partly closed.
Rather than break that grip, the killer just let go of the knife and took her weight as she fell to the floor. If it had been pulled out at this point, blood would probably have spurted, but she must have been dead within a second or two of hitting the ground. When it was removed that’s all the bleeding there was, apart from a drop or two from the blade. Look, there’s one here on the sleeve of the robe.’

Skinner stepped up to the body and bent over it. He examined it closely, comparing its posture in his mind against Sarah’s description. Suddenly, as he looked at the victim’s right hand, his brows tightened and he bent closer.
'Andy, look here.’ He spoke without looking up.
Martin crossed the room to his side.
'Look at this.’
Very gently Skinner lifted the right hand. Stiffness had not yet set in. Indeed the body was still warm, as well as supple. He turned the hand so that Martin could see the fingers.
The nail on the third finger was split. A small piece of lemon-coloured cloth was lodged in the tear.
'At least that’ll give the technicians something to do,’ said Skinner. 'The place looks clean as a whistle otherwise.’
Martin was still examining the fragment. 'Boss, I know that’s only a wee bit of cloth, but it looks to me like the same colour as the uniform the hotel’s domestic staff wear.’
'What, the chambermaids, you mean?’
“Yeah.’

'Right, I want the whole place searched, top to bottom. When are we getting some manpower here? I saw young Macgregor at the door when I came in, but no one else around. How come
you’re here, Andy, but not the divisional CID?’
'Dunsmuir, the general manager, knows me. When the victim’s secretary found the body, she managed to control herself, and called him straight up to the suite. He all but shit himself, and then called me – or at least he phoned Fettes and asked for me. Young Barry out there called me on my mobile. By that time, I was dropping Julia back at Filmhouse, just next-door. I rang Sarah first, then you. I thought you’d want to decide how we handle this one.’

'Fair enough. Before I do that, call down to your pal Dunsmuir. Ask him to line up his chambermaids, count them, and see if they’re all present and correct.’
Martin picked up the telephone at the side of the bed, and carried out this order.
As he finished. Skinner said, 'That florid remark of yours earlier, about Ballantyne’s bravery – were you just assuming that poor Hilary over there relates to the other thing?’
'No, sir. Come next door and I’ll show you why I said it.’
He led the way to the suite’s sitting-room. A small coffee table was placed amidst a semicircle of four armchairs, arranged to face a picture window which offered a panoramic view across Festival Square to the Usher Hall, then, above and beyond its copper roof, to the western ramparts of Edinburgh Castle, rising from the vertical face of the great rock in which their foundations were set.

An envelope lay on the low rectangular table. Even before he picked it up and read the white label. Skinner knew what it was. It was addressed in the same way as its predecessors. Skinner opened it carefully and drew out the letter inside. He then read it aloud to Martin and Sarah.

To the so-called Secretary of State for Scotland.
From the Fighters for an Independent Scotland.
Code word Arbroath.

The fact that you are reading this letter means that you have
chosen to ignore our ultimatum, and that an innocent person
has suffered the consequences of your folly.
After this demonstration, you will not be able to keep from
the world our just demand that you and your cohorts quit
our beloved country and restore to us the democratic rights
which were stolen from us almost three hundred years ago.
This lady, an international celebrity, has died so that world
attention will be focused on our struggle, and so that
international pressure will be brought to bear upon you, to
force you to withdraw from our land.
Accede now, and no more blood will be spilled. Force us to
continue, and you will find us resolved to take whatever
action we believe to be necessary during this global Festival,
and thereafter, to drive England and its institutions from our
beloved Scotland.

As he finished reading. Skinner looked up at Sarah. 'Same author as the one you read yesterday, d’you think?’
'Certain.’
'Single author or more than one?’
'Probably just one. Give me some time and I’ll try to work up a profile. There’s something odd about the language, though.’
'What d’ you mean?’
'I don’t know exactly. It’s very formal. These people are on a jihad, yet there’s something dispassionate about their language.’
'Well think on it some more, and see what guesses you can make about the kind of person our writer is. Andy, we keep this one in-house for a while. No flashing blue lights, please. Get the
technicians in now, and bring in Divisional CID to help interview everyone we can find who was in the hotel from midday to 2:30.
What have you done with the voice coach and the secretary?’
“They’re in their own rooms. Neil and Maggie are with them.’
“Good. Keep them on ice for now. I’m going across to tell the Usher Hall manager that he’s got no show tonight. Then I’m off to tackle Ballantyne. We can’t put a blackout on this one.’