Quintin Jardine: Aftershock

He paused, as the club steward arrived at their table with a coffee for Stallings. ‘I almost carried on, you know, after I found my ball. I noticed the smell right away, of course; you couldn’t miss it.’

‘I know,’ said the inspector. ‘I’ve been up there.’

‘Of course you have. My first reaction was the normal one: that it was an animal, that a dog or a cat had died in there. I was going to play on, and report it to the first green-keeper I saw. . not that it’s the club’s responsibility: that land isn’t ours. . until it occurred to me that to smell that bad it had to be a pretty large creature, maybe something that had slipped out of the zoo over the hill. Then I remembered going to an exhumation once, when I was Lord Advocate, a body that had to be dug up for DNA testing. So I went in for a look.’ He shuddered at the memory. ‘Wish I hadn’t. When I saw that it was indeed human, I confess that I bolted. A photograph in an evidence book, that’s one thing; up close is another matter. What was it? Male or female?’

‘It’s the body of a woman.’

‘Dead for how long?’

‘More than a week; the autopsy will give us a more accurate time.’

‘Post-mortem examination, Inspector,’ he said, gently. ‘We’re traditionalists in Scotland. . at least I am. The influence of Patricia Cornwell has not yet reached my court.’

‘I’ll bear that in mind, sir. Do you often see people on the path at the edge of the woods, Lord Archibald?’

‘Not often. Used to be never, but since all this right-to-roam stuff came in, we get a few. I argued against it, you know, lobbied my successor in the Crown Office, but Aileen de Marco was handling the Bill and she won the day.’ The eyes twinkled again. ‘You won’t report me to Bob Skinner, will you? I imagine that criticism of the First Minister is off limits now.’

‘Politics are none of my business,’ Stallings replied tactfully.

‘Nor mine, constitutionally,’ the judge murmured. ‘But if I see a bad law being proposed, I’m going to try and stop it.’

The detective pressed on: ‘Have you ever seen anyone on the path that you knew or recognised?’

‘No.’ The reply was immediate and unequivocal. ‘I take that to mean that there’s no identification on the body.’

‘Correct.’

‘Do you know how she was killed?’

‘What makes you think she was, sir?’

Lord Archibald looked at her almost benevolently. ‘My dear inspector,’ he said, ‘I was head of this country’s criminal prosecution service for three and a half years. Before that I was in practice at the Bar for more than twenty years. I know a crime scene when I see one. People are not cats; they don’t crawl away to die somewhere they’re not going to be found. When they decide to end it all, they do it in bed or their favourite chair with a bottle of whisky and a handful of pills, or in the bath with a razor, or they go into the garage with the engine running. In my experience, suicides want their body to be found. . unless they chuck themselves in the sea, and that isn’t the case here. No, that poor woman was killed, and somebody put her there.’

Stallings’s silence signalled her agreement.

‘Good luck with your inquiry,’ Lord Archibald exclaimed. ‘But do one thing for me, if you can. When you apprehend the killer, persuade him, if you can, that a guilty plea would be in his interests, rather than going to trial. The last thing any judge wants is to find himself in the witness box; counsel on both sides would have an absolute field day.’

Stallings smiled. ‘I’ll do my utmost, my lord.’

‘Good. Now can you answer the question I’m going to be asked by everyone I meet in this place? When can we have our golf course back?’

‘That’s one I’ll need to pass up the line.’

‘Oh, God!’ Lord Archibald sighed, as she turned to leave. ‘That means McGuire and McIlhenney, and neither of them are golfers!’

‘I’m going to need a list of members,’ Neil McIlhenney told the golf club manager, a prickly little man who had introduced himself as Major Leo Fullbright as he entered the mobile police station that had been set up in the car park. ‘We’ll have to interview everyone to establish whether the woman was seen just before her death.’

‘Am I obliged to provide that?’

‘Is there any reason why you shouldn’t?’

‘Data Protection Act.’

‘And general get-out excuse,’ McIlhenney growled. ‘Technically, Major, this isn’t a criminal investigation, not yet. It’s an inquiry into a suspicious death. However, I could argue in court that the general administration of justice exemption applies here. Do you want me to get a warrant from the court?’

‘For my own protection,’ the man smirked, ‘as well as for the protection of the data.’

‘This isn’t funny, but if that’s what you want, that’s what you’ll get.

Of course, I can’t proceed until I have it,’ he paused as the door opened and Becky Stallings stepped into the van, ‘and until I can proceed, this course stays closed.’

He looked over at the inspector. ‘Did you see Lord Archibald?’

‘Yes, I’ve just left him.’

‘He’s still here?’

‘I think so. He hadn’t finished his coffee.’

‘In that case, I want you to get back in there and ask him if he’ll put on his wig, metaphorically, and hear a formal application for authority to access the membership records of this club for the purpose of interviewing potential witnesses. You can tell him that the club manager’s worried about his personal position.’

‘I’m on my way.’ She headed for the door.

‘You can tell him also that once he gives me the authority I need, and once the forensic people are finished, I’ll cordon off the area around the scene and the course can be reopened. If his lordship has any doubt about being able to hear our application, that should sway him.’ He turned back to the club manager. ‘All that should take about ten minutes, tops. I want those records here as soon as I have the judge’s written order in my hand.’

‘Very good.’ Fullbright followed Stallings out of the office.

‘Well, Jack,’ said McIlhenney to McGurk as they left, ‘how do you see our priorities?’

‘Number one, identify the victim; no question about it.’

‘Absolutely; we have to put a name to her soonest, so get on to Missing Persons, here and nationally. You were at the scene for longer than I was: can you set search parameters?’

‘Dark hair, approximately five feet four, slim build; the doc estimated her age as mid-twenties.’

‘We can’t rely on that, given the state she was in. Ask for details of all women reported missing in the last month, aged between twenty and thirty-five.’

‘The last month? She’s been dead for a fortnight at most.’

‘So maybe she was abducted, and reported missing before she died. Let’s overlook nothing, Jack. If we don’t find her listed we’re in trouble. We’re not going to have a photograph to publish, not without doing a facial reconstruction from her skull.’

‘Can’t we use dental records?’

‘Not until we’ve got a name, or a list of names to match against them. We’ll try that route, sure, and the national DNA database, but I don’t fancy our chances.’

‘Okay, boss. First off, I’ll get on to Missing Persons.’

‘Good. When you’ve done that, there’s another area I want to explore. I hope to Christ I’m wrong, but if the pathologist does say, “murder,” and we are looking at a copycat, what’s the betting he’s continuing to prey on artists?’

‘I was expecting to see Gregor Broughton,’ said Detective Superintendent McIlhenney, surprise written on his face as he stepped into the room.