Quintin Jardine: Skinner's ghosts

The detective's green eyes were like ice as he stared at the reporter.

'Not to my knowledge,' he said loudly and clearly.

'Congratulations, Mr Salmon,' he went on. 'You've just been barred from this building yet again. You and your paper.'

'Do you expect her to?' the man shouted across the room.

'No,' Martin barked, losing his temper for the second time that day, just as a photographer rose from the seat next to Salmon and snapped off a series of motor-driven shots. 'Now get out of here, before I run you through the door myself!'

'Royston did whatT

Skinner roared his incredulous, rhetorical question across the floor of the Chief Constable's office in the Fettes Command Corridor. 'I'll have the stupid bastard's balls for paper-weights! I personal y banned that little shite Salmon from this office. For life, I said, yet our press officer lets him back in – and to represent that bloody downmarket rag at that!'

He turned from Martin to Neil Mcllhenney. 'Sergeant, first thing tomorrow morning, I want you to find out for me al about the procedure for firing a civilian employee. Meantime, Royston's suspended. By the time I'm done with him, he'l be glad of a job on the fucking Spotlight himself.'

It was fifteen minutes after midnight. Skinner, Chief Constable Sir James Proud, ACC Jim Elder, Martin and Mcl henney had gathered in the Chief's room to review progress – or lack of it in the fruitless search for any trace of Mark McGrath, or of his mother's murderer. There had been no easy way for Martin to break the news of Salmon's intervention in the press briefing.

Even so, he had anticipated his friend's reaction, and with the Chief's support had told Royston to stay away from the office until further notice.

'Bob,' said Sir James, as Martin had guessed he would, 'don't you think you should pause for thought, before taking action?'

Skinner looked at him, a thick vein standing out on his right temple. 'Jimmy, Royston reports directly to me. Right?'

The Chief nodded, waiting as his deputy took a deep breath. 'Okay,'

Skinner said at last. 'In deference to you, I'l think about it. Once I have, chances are I'l still sack him, but at least I won't have done it in the heat of the moment.'

Proud Jimmy grunted. 'That'l be some consolation to him.' He paused. 'Bob, why would that bloody man Salmon ask such a question? You and Sarah aren't…'

Skinner shook his head, emphatical y. 'Sarah hasn't raised the subject of divorce with me, nor I with her. Now, can we please talk about police business?'

'Of course,' said the Chief, as keen as Skinner to change the 18

"sr subject, and ushering his col eagues to chairs. 'You too, sergeant,' he said to Mcllhenney.

'Wil I sort out some coffee, first, sir?'

'Good idea, Neil. Good idea.' The big man left the room, leaving the door slightly ajar.

'Well,' said Sir James. 'No luck with our search.'

Skinner shook his head. 'Not that I expected it. I know that wee boy too well. Chances are he'd have defended his mother. If not, and he'd escaped from the house, Mark wouldn't have hidden in fright.

He'd have raised the street.'

'D'you think the kid's dead, then?' asked ACC Elder.

Andy Martin answered for Skinner, reading his mind as he had done a thousand times before. 'No, sir. It's likely that he's alive, still.

If he'd been kil ed, he'd have been left at the scene. Why should the murderer take him away, to kill him later? There's a better than even chance that he's been kidnapped.'

'Why would anyone in his right mind…' Elder began.

'Who says he is?' Skinner growled. 'Andy's right. We have to look at this as a kidnapping.'

'How did he get away with it, then, in broad daylight?' asked Proud, shifting uncomfortably in his uniform and running his fingers through his silver hair. 'Did none of the neighbours see or hear anything?'

'No, Chief,' Martin replied. 'The fact is that with the time of the day and the holidays there were damn few neighbours about. There were none on either side of the McGrath house, or across the street, and only a few at the end of the road. One of them thought he saw a silver or grey car in Leona's driveway, but that's the only lead we have. Leona's car's grey so when he drove past, the man thought nothing of it. Only the McGrath car was locked in the garage at the time.'

The DCS paused. 'As I see it, the kil er drove right up the path.

Unlike the footpath to the front door, it's tarmac, so he wouldn't have made much noise. In any event, Mrs McGrath was in the shower, getting ready for her afternoon meeting.

'Once he'djemmied the back door, I suspect that the intruder made sure of Mark right away. When the first officers arrived they found the television on in the living room. It was tuned to the Cartoon Network, on cable, the sort of stuff that kids watch all day, when they're not at school.

'After he had secured the boy – tied and gagged him, maybe – I guess the man went upstairs, for the mother. As Arthur Dorward pointed out, she must have been taken completely by surprise in her bedroom, still barely dry from the shower, wearing her bra and nothing else.'

Sir James Proud frowned. 'If kidnap was his motive, why would 19 he do that? If he could have got away quietly, why attack the mother as well?'

Skinner sighed. 'There's a difference between purpose and motive, Chief. This bastard may have gone there with the purpose of kidnapping the child. Or he may have gone there with the rape and murder of the mother on his mind.

'In either case, the kidnap, or the kil ing, may have been spur-of-the moment action. Alternatively there could have been a single game plan from the start. But none of that takes us any nearer the kil er's actual motive. It stil doesn't tel us why.'

'What do you think, then, Bob?' asked the chief. 'Do you have any notion of what's behind this?'

The DCC looked at his only superior officer. The closer he had come in rank to James Proud, the more he had come to value the man, and to appreciate his humanity. He knew how much the brutal death of a woman, and the disappearance of her child, would be affecting him, and the effort he would be making to keep his emotions in check. He knew also, and made al owances for the fact, that the Chief Constable's career path had been one of administration rather than investigation, and that, as good a leader as he was, he lacked the detective's instincts.

'Maybe we coppers place too much stress on motive sometimes,'

Skinner replied, eventually. 'Genuine evil doesn't need reasons to be. Sometimes it just is. That's a difficult concept for normal, balanced people to grasp, and so it's easy to discount it.

'But it could be that al this man sought was gratification; from the rape, torture and murder of a vulnerable, defenceless woman, and from the taking and terrorising of a child. If that's the case it's awful.' His voice rose suddenly and he slammed his right fist into his cupped left palm. 'Not just for what happened to Leona, but for what could be happening to that poor wee boy right now.'

'And presumably,' continued Proud Jimmy, in an ominous tone,

'because he could do it again.'

Skinner shot him a quick glance. 'Not could. Jimmy,' he said, quietly. 'I'd say wil.'

He paused. 'And of course, he may have done it before. At the moment, our best hope is that DNA sampling will give us a match to a known offender, a sociopathic rapist, perhaps, with a previous conviction, who's done his time but hasn't exhausted his urges.'

The Chief shook his head. 'It's a nightmare, right enough.'

'But there's something else that we mustn't forget,' broke in Andy Martin, as Mcl henney returned with a tray of steaming mugs. 'This was no ordinary single parent, but a very high-profile lady. A Tory MR That gives us the possibility also that this crime could have political involvement.'