Quintin Jardine: Skinner's ghosts

'Hel o, Mr McGrath,' said the DCC, advancing on him with hand outstretched. The two had met for the first time at the scene of the death of the old man's son. On that occasion he had been dignified and purposeful. Skinner guessed that this would prove one bereavement too many. Harold McGrath seemed overwhelmed. Gently the tal policeman slid an arm around his shoulders and led him into the living room.

'Neil,' he said quietly, over his shoulder. 'Whisky. Over there, on the sideboard.' As the heavily built sergeant picked up decanter and glass, the dead woman's father-in-law lowered himself carefully into an armchair.

'Sergeant Mcllhenney has obviously told you what happened,' said Skinner, glancing across at his assistant as he spoke and noticing for the first time the strain in his normally jolly eyes.

'Yes,' the old man whispered.

There's nothing I can say to lessen the shock, or the horror of it,' said the detective. 'We al knew your daughter-in-law; we admired her tremendously. We're stunned too. But believe me, we will catch whoever did this, and we will put him away for the rest of his miserable life.'

'It was a man then?' asked old McGrath, bewildered, seeming to age before their very eyes. Skinner guessed that Mcllhenney had spared much of the detail. 'Beyond a doubt,' he replied, gently.

'Where's my grandson?' said the old man suddenly, urgently.

A sudden desperation hit the DCC, the earlier pang of concern gripping him now with a fierce certainty. 'He's not with you, then?'

The silver head shook. 'No. Leona said she would bring him over before she went to her constituency meeting. When she didn't turn up, my wife and I assumed that she had taken him with her after all.

She did sometimes, like a sort of mascot.

'So where is he?'

'That's just the thing, Mr McGrath. We don't know.' The old man looked up at him, his mouth slightly open.

'Look,' said Skinner. 'Does he have any pals around here? Could Leona have taken him somewhere else, before she was attacked?'

'No,' said the grandfather. 'I don't think so. Al Mark's friends are away on holiday just now. We were supposed to be going too, on Sunday, now that the House of Commons has risen.'

'You're sure there's no-one still at home, no pal where he could have gone?'

'Quite sure. Leona remarked on the fact just last night, on the telephone.'

'How about Leona's parents?' asked Martin. 'Are they still alive?'

Mr McGrath looked round at him, over his shoulder, clutching the whisky which Mcl henney had pressed into his shaking hand.

'Her mother is. Her name's Mrs Baillie, Mary Baillie. She lives in Broughty Ferry. But she's on holiday as well, in Greece with a friend.

They left last Sunday, from Glasgow Airport.'

Skinner turned to his assistant. 'Neil,' he said. 'Fast as you can, get on to the tour operators and trace Mrs Baillie. This is going to break very fast through satellite television. I don't want the poor woman to hear of her daughter's death from a Sky newscaster.

'Andy,' he said quickly to Martin. 'You'd better postpone your briefing till we've contacted the mother. Meantime, we'd better mobilise every available officer, CID and uniformed. I want an inch-by-inch search of the surrounding area. If Mark escaped from the house he could be hiding out somewhere. Whatever, if he's anywhere around here, we've got to find him!'

He stabbed the air with a finger. 'Every available officer remember, whether they're off duty or not. I'll even call the Chief and ACC

Elder. You turn out al your team.' He paused, then added as a seeming afterthought, 'Try and raise Pam Masters again. You never know.

She might be home by now.'

'At this moment,' said Andy Martin, surveying a hushed gathering of reporters and cameramen in the main briefing room of the police headquarters building in Fettes Avenue, 'every available police officer in the City of Edinburgh is involved in an intensive search of an area within a three-mile radius of Mrs McGrath's home.

'That amounts to over a thousand officers, including Chief Constable Sir James Proud, Deputy Chief Constable Bob Skinner and Assistant Chief Constable Jim Elder. We're searching public parks, railway embankments, unoccupied houses and other properties.

Everywhere.'

'Are you asking for volunteers to help widen the search area, Chief Superintendent?' The question came from a reporter in the front row of the audience, representing the city's cable television channel.

'No,' he told the woman, 'because we have to keep things under control. But you and al the other broadcast media can help us by asking your viewing and listening audiences to search their own premises right away, just in case a very frightened wee boy might be hiding there.'

'What can you tell us about Mark, Andy?' asked John Hunter, a freelance, and the senior member of the Scottish Capital's media corps.

'Well for a start, you can all collect his photograph on the way out, although I suspect that most of you wil have him on file from the time of his father's funeral.'

He paused. 'Mark is six years old, and beyond doubt he's the most remarkable wee boy I have ever met. As you al know, undoubtedly, by a miracle he survived the plane crash in which his father was kil ed. Not only that, he was instrumental in helping us catch the man whose bomb brought the aircraft down.'

Roger Quick, of Radio Forth, raised a hand. 'Mr Martin, do you suspect any link between the murder of Mrs McGrath, and her husband's death?'

The Detective Chief Superintendent looked at the reporter for a moment, then shook his blond head. 'No, none at al. We said at the time that we were satisfied that the bomber had acted alone, and that we knew what his motive was. As the man was shot dead at the scene 16 of his subsequent crime, we have to regard the fact that both of Mark's parents were murdered as no more than a particularly brutal coincidence.'

'So,' asked Hunter once more. 'Do you see any motive for Mrs McGrath's killing?'

Martin shrugged his shoulders, rippling the cloth of his navy blue blazer.

'John,' he said, slowly, speaking clearly for the microphones massed around him, 'I've told you al we know for sure at this moment. I'm not going to speculate on anything else, nor would you expect me to. Motive – if there is one – is anyone's guess. I have to deal with established fact. Our thinking might crystal ise once we trace Mark, but until then we're throwing everything into the search.'

'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.