Quintin Jardine - Murmuring the Judges

The two policemen had decided to take a break from their offices, and from their telephones which had been ringing all morning, reminding each of them that the two investigations which had been dominating their lives were only a small part of their respective workloads.

‘What have you got on this afternoon?’ Martin asked.

‘I’ve got to prepare for the Police Board tomorrow. Councillor Maley and her clique are bound to try to ambush me with a few awkward questions in Jimmy’s absence. I’m damned if I’ll give them the satisfaction of catching me out.’

‘Send ACC Elder.’

Skinner laughed. ‘He’s a nice guy. How could I do that to him?’

They left the American tourists frozen in their little world, and moved through to the next room. ‘You any further forward on Mr Hamburger?’ asked the DCC.

‘I’m afraid not. Kwame Ankrah and Sammy have finished the tapes. Apart from Ankrah spotting some bloke he met with me in another context, and who’s got fuck all to do with this, they came up with zero. How about your source?’

‘He’s come up with nothing so far other than confirmation that, apart from Saunders and Collins, who fought in the Falklands, the six didn’t soldier together.’

‘I thought Bennett was there too.’

‘No, he must have been bullshitting about that. He lost his fingers in a training accident.’

‘That doesn’t take us any further forward, then does it,’ mused Martin. ‘I did have one odd phone call this morning,’ he said, ‘from Mitch Laidlaw, of all people.’

‘What was that about?’

‘Apparently Alex had mentioned to him that the investigation had stalled. He had her call me up, just so he could ask me if I was old enough to remember the original Perry Mason television series. That was all. I asked him what he was on about, but he just laughed, and said it was only an idea.’

Skinner stopped and looked at him. ‘And are you old enough?’

‘Hardly. Haven’t a fucking clue what he was on about. That series was early sixties stuff, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes. Even I barely remember it. I don’t get the joke either. It’s not like Mitch to waste chargeable time kidding on the telephone. He’s probably told Alex; she’ll put you out of your misery.’

He paused. ‘Speaking of Alex. .’

‘There’s still tension in the air, Bob.’

‘Knowing my lass, I didn’t think it would go away overnight. One thing though, Andy. I know she’s well mature beyond her years, but part of her is still a kid. You’ve got to let that bit continue to grow.’

‘Sure,’ Andy retorted. ‘But what if she grows into. .’ He stopped short.

‘. . into her mother, you were going to say. I don’t think there’s a cat’s chance of that. Looking back, I can see now that there was always something secretive, and manipulative too, about Myra. The first party we were at as teenagers, I beat the crap out of some lad because of her. I never realised at the time, but she set it up.

‘Alex isn’t like that. I never knew her to keep a secret for more than half an hour. She looks like her mother, but that’s it.’

His friend’s laugh was heavy with irony. ‘That’s supposed to have cheered me up, is it? She doesn’t have her mum’s nature: in that case she must take after you.’ He nodded. ‘That figures. She’s good at drawing a line in the sand then daring you to step over it.’

‘D’you know what you do then?’ asked Bob, quietly.

‘Tell me.’

He reached out with his right foot and moved it from side to side, in an odd gesture. ‘Rub out the line.’

Skinner had been back at his desk for an hour, studying the papers for the next day’s meeting, when the memory came to him, bursting in his head like a firework.

He picked up the phone and dialled Martin’s office number. ‘Hey, Andy,’ he said, laughing. ‘I know what Mitch Laidlaw was talking about. I remember now: in the original Perry Mason stories, the District Attorney, the guy who lost every time, was called Hamilton Burger.’

‘That’s a big help,’ the Head of CID chuckled. ‘The DA done it, eh. Where does that take us?’

‘Back to Norman King?’

‘You mean if we can’t get him for one, we’ll nail him for the other? I don’t think so somehow.’ He laughed again. ‘Wait till I see that so-and-so. Wasting police time, that’s what he was doing!’

Skinner hung up and returned to his Board papers. Another hour had gone by without interruption, when Gerry’s light knock sounded at the door, and he stepped into the room. ‘Sorry to interrupt,’ he began, ‘but there’s a man at the reception desk asking to see you. He says his name’s Jim Glossop, and you’ll know what it’s about.’

The acting Chief laid down his pen. ‘I do indeed, Gerry. Go and fetch him please, I’ll see him right away.’

He had tucked his papers away in a deep desk drawer by the time his secretary returned with the stocky statistician.

‘I’ope you don’t mind me coming up to see you, Mr Skinner,’ said Jim Glossop. ‘To be honest with you, I’d have felt a bit uncomfortable talking about this over the telephone.’

‘I understand. Have a seat. . over here, in the comfortable area. Has Gerry offered you something to drink.’

‘Yes, but I won’t, thanks.’

He lowered himself into a chair, and opened his briefcase. It was black leather, with a gold crown stamped on its front. ‘I’ve traced your birth.’ Glossop laughed, self-consciously. ‘Well, not yours. . the one you were after, know what I mean.’

He drew out a sheaf of papers, in a clear plastic folder. ‘There’s copies here of everything you’ll need.

‘To sum it all up, Miss Beatrice Lewis gave birth to a son forty-three years ago, at the age of seventeen. . I checked her birth records as well. . in the maternity hospital in Fraserburgh. The father’s name is not shown on the birth certificate. As you guessed, registration was done on the mother’s behalf by Michael Xavier Conran.

‘The child’s name is shown on the birth certificate as Bernard Xavier Lewis.’

‘That’s excellent, Mr Glossop. Have you been able to go on from there?’

‘Yes. And we’ve had a stroke of luck. These days, adopted children are able, if they wish, to trace their natural parents. I thought I’d try a shortcut, so I checked to see whether that had been done in this case.’ He paused, leaned forward, and said, with emphasis, ‘It’ as.

‘About three years ago, a man called at New Register House. He had an adoption certificate with him, and he said that he wanted to trace his natural parents. I spoke to the officer who dealt with the case. She remembered it in particular because the chap said it was his fortieth birthday on that day, and this was how he had decided to celebrate it.

‘He said that he knew that he had been born in Fraserburgh, and christened Bernard. Well it was easy, wasn’t it. He asked for, and he was given, copies of his own birth certificate, of his mother’s, and of his grandparents’.’

Mr Glossop looked across at Skinner. ‘We were able to trace his mother on for him. That were when his birthday present turned sour on him. It turned out that she had died years before, of multiple sclerosis, and that her address at the time of her death was shown as care of Her Majesty’s Prison, Cornton Vale.

‘My colleague still remembers how upset the poor chap was.’

He went on. ‘I’ve given you copies of all the certificates that he bought. Last but not least, we took a copy of his adoption certificate, for our records too; I’ve made another for you. Beatrice Lewis’ son was adopted at the age of five months, by a couple in the second half of their thirties. They were from Shawlands, in Glasgow; by the name of Grimley. According to the adoption papers, he was a publican.’