Quintin Jardine: Skinner's rules

Skinner looked at the briefcase. ‘It’s a bugger about this combination. Six digits, three either side. This is a valuable piece of luggage, so I don’t want to damage it. We don’t have any safe-breakers in court today do we?’

‘Sorry, we don’t. I’ve checked.’

‘Right, let’s try some of the obvious ones. What was Mortimer’s date of birth?’

Martin checked a folder: ‘4-6-60.’

‘Let’s try that.’ Carefully, he set the digits in sequence, then tried the locks. They remained immobile. ‘Let’s reverse it.’ He reset the combinations to 06 and 64, then pulled the square raised levers, simultaneously, away from the centre of the case. The catches clicked open. ‘Gotcha.’

He opened the case and, carefully, lifted out the contents. Briefs for two criminal cases in the High Court in Glasgow, one an incest trial, the other arson. Witness statements, and notes on each side. A Marks and Spencer sandwich wrapper. A Mars bar, untouched. Two green Pentel pens.

‘Not a lot here,’ Martin spoke Skinner’s thoughts.

‘No, there isn’t.’ Skinner hesitated. ‘But you know, Andy, there’s just something about this that doesn’t quite square away; something about this situation that raises one wee hair on the back of my neck. It’s niggling away at me, and I’m buggered if I can figure out what it is.’

Martin knew the signs. The Big Man was a stickler for detail. If anything in a situation was out of line with what he considered to be normal, he would gnaw away at it forever. But nothing here seemed out of the ordinary.

‘I’ve got to say, boss, that I can’t see anything odd.’

‘No, and if it’s there, you usually do. Maybe I’m still just a bit sick over this one.

‘All right, let’s get this enquiry properly under way. I want all the taxi drivers covered. Everyone at the Scotsman who was either going off or beginning a shift at that time. All the office cleaning contractors. Railwaymen. Coppers, even. Talk to them all, and I’ll deal with the overtime bills later. We’ve got the Queen here in two weeks, and I don’t want our nutter still on the loose by then!’

It is one of the great truths of crime, that in the majority of murders, the victim is known to the killer. But an exhaustive search of Mortimer’s circle of acquaintances, professional and social, produced not a trace of a lead. And without that personal connection, which in many cases is as direct as the husband sat drunk in the kitchen, while his strangled wife grows cold in the bedroom, any murder is enormously difficult to solve … unless the investigating team has an enormous slice of luck. And luck was in short supply that week in Edinburgh.

In forty-eight hours every one of Skinner’s targets had been covered. None of them had produced a lead towards the identity of the ‘Royal Mile Maniac’, as the tabloids had labelled the killer.

During that period, Skinner directed operations from his command centre in the High Street, interrupted only by a three-hour visit to the High Court to give evidence in a drugs trial.

Three men had been kept under observation in Leith, and a consignment of heroin had been tracked from a Panamanian freighter to a ground-floor flat in Muirhouse. The police raid had been well-timed and wholly successful. The three men had been caught ‘dirty’ and their distribution ring had been broken up. Skinner had been irked, but not surprised by the ’not guilty’ plea. The Scottish Bench was commendably severe on dealers, and the three knew that they could be going away for fifteen years.

So it was that Skinner came to be side-tracked from the Michael Mortimer murder enquiry, and cross-examined by Rachel Jameson for the defence. She was a tiny woman, barely more than five feet tall. Her advocate’s horse-hair wig hid most of her blonde hair, which was swept back and tied in a pony tail. Under her black gown she was dressed in the style required by the Supreme Court of lady advocates, a dark straight skirt surmounted by a high-necked white blouse.

As the Advocate Depute finished his direct examination, she rose, bowed to Lord Auchinleck, the judge, and walked slowly towards Skinner.

‘Your information came from an anonymous source, Chief Superintendent?’

‘That is correct, Miss Jameson.’

She looked towards the fifteen men and women who faced the witness box. ‘Might the jury be told his or her name?’

‘Miss Jameson, I will not reveal that unless I am instructed so to do by the Bench.’

She looked towards the judge, who sat impassively in his wig and red robe.

‘Convenient, Mr Skinner. Mr or Mrs Nobody tells you about a stash of heroin. You kick the door in, and lo and behold there it is. Mr Skinner do you trust your officers?’

‘Implicitly.’

‘So what would be your reaction to my clients’ claim that these drugs were, as they say, “planted” by your detectives?’

‘I would say that it was preposterous, and wholly untrue.’

‘So defend your officers, Chief Superintendent. Name your informant.’

Skinner leaned forward in the witness box. He looked deep into Rachel Jameson’s eyes and held her gaze. ‘Counsel may be aware that I have come to this Court from a highly-publicised murder enquiry. Earlier this week I saw a person who had been brutally killed. If I do as you ask, I might well have to look at another. I don’t want that. Do you?’

Rachel Jameson paled. She nodded to the Bench and sat down. Lord Auchinleck thanked Skinner and excused him. He left the Court feeling a twinge of sympathy for the defence advocate, but only a twinge. Each of them had clients to protect.

The telephone, held in a cradle screwed to a post at the head of Skinner’s pine bed, rang at 6.00 a.m. He struggled out of sleep, cursing softly. The slim figure beside him rolled over, grumbling. His groping hand found the receiver. The caller was Andy Martin.

‘I’m sorry to wake you, boss, but there’s been another murder. Jackson’s Close this time. Some bastard’s set a wino on fire!’

‘Aw, come on, Andy. Those poor sods are always dropping matches on their meths.’

‘No’ this one. He had a gallon of petrol poured over him and was set alight by a piece of paper thrown on to a trail four feet away. Look, I wouldn’t have called you, but with the other one so close by, and so recent … ’

‘That’s okay; you were right. I’m on my way in.’

Martin hesitated. ‘Eh, boss, you wouldn’t happen to know where the duty police doctor might be. I can’t raise her on the phone at home.’

‘Andy, don’t push your luck.’

With a soft smile, he replaced the telephone in its holder. ‘Come on, gal. It’s you and me for the early shift again.’

Sarah Grace sat up in bed and tried to rub the sleep out of her eyes. ‘Shit. Do you want to go first in the shower?’

‘Who says we have to take turns?’

Sarah stripped off Bob’s Rugby World Cup tee-shirt, which had been her night attire, and together they stepped into the shower cubicle in the en suite bathroom. He chose ‘champagne’ from the range of options, and turned the shower to full power.

Her eyes were squeezed tight shut as he soaped her breasts and belly. ‘Is it a bad one, Bob?’ she asked quietly.

‘Not now, sweetheart. Things like that don’t belong in here. I’ll tell you on the road.’

Sarah stepped first out of the shower. She looked back at Robert

Skinner, Detective Chief Superintendent, as he krieaded shampoo through his hair. Her professional eye told her that he had the body of a man younger than his forty-three years. One hundred and ninety pounds was spread evenly over his lean frame. Good muscular definition, there, she thought, clinically. His hands were slender. This, when he was clothed, tended to mask his strength, which was maintained by regular work-outs in the small, well-equipped gym alongside the shower room. Fresh from sleep, fitness shone from the man. Only those creased eyes offered a hint of the pressures of his job.