Quintin Jardine: Skinner's ghosts

'Any surprises for me, Joe?' Skinner asked. 'Or haven't you got that far yet?'

'Oh yes,' said Professor Hutchison, 'I've got that far. As even the good Doctor Banks could work out, death was due to strangulation by ligature. The hyoid bone was crushed. The ligature was so tight that the blood supply to the brain would have been cut off at once, causing unconsciousness, prior to death.' He paused, coughing suddenly.

'I've examined the major internal organs. All healthy and undamaged. I'm just looking at the brain now.' He held it up, so that the police observers could see its swirling surface patterns, slicked with blood and fluid. In spite of himself, Skinner looked away. 'As you can see,' continued the Professor, 'no obvious damage here either, other than that consistent with a sudden stoppage of the blood supply.'

He paused again.

'There were other injuries, of course. Four broken ribs, all left side, ruptured left eardrum, left zygotic bone fractured – all indicative of a severe beating by a right-handed attacker, pounding on her face and body repeatedly with his fist. However, none of these would have contributed to death. They were either gratuitous, or they were an attempt to subdue the victim, prior to the sexual assaults.

'I'd say they were simply sadistic, actually, because the first thing the man did was to tie up the victim. There's a big bruise to the smal 27 of her back, consistent with the attacker having thrown her to the ground, knelt on her, real y hard, as he bound her wrists securely with the electrical cord your people say was used.'

'How about the blood on her fingernails, Joe?' Skinner asked. 'Will we get any joy there?'

'Hah,' said the Professor. 'My first piece of bad news, I'm afraid.

The lab wil have to confirm this, but I surmise that those samples were from the victim herself. There are marks on her back, near those made by the electrical plug, which conform to her nails having been crushed into her own tissue.'

'Damn it!' said the policeman. 'Still, there'll be other traces.'

There was a long silence. 'That is the real y bad news, my friend.

There aren't.'

'Eh? But what about the sexual injuries? Surely to Christ he.. .'

The little pathologist shrugged his shoulders. 'It's frustrating, I know.

'The woman was sexually attacked, by a fairly large man, and repeated penetration took place. She was sodomised first, I'd say, very painful y. Much, but not al of the blood came from the rupturing of vessels around the anus, the rest from tearing around the vagina.

The muscles in these areas were all cramped and constricted, indicating that the victim resisted throughout every attack, even at the cost of added suffering, and even if ultimately unsuccessful y.

'Yet there are no traces of semen,' The little pathologist looked up and across at Skinner. 'That's the trouble with the information superhighway, I'm afraid. Bob. There's far too much information about. Even the stupidest criminals know about DNA tracing, and can work out some fairly obvious ways of avoiding it.

'This one probably used a condom.'

Skinner slapped the wal behind him, in sudden fury, causing both Pam Masters and Sammy Pye to start in surprise. 'Bastard,' he shouted, ripping off his mask. 'The cold-blooded bastard. You sure, Joe? Not a single smear?'

Hutchison shook his head. 'Sorry chum. I understand your anger, but there it is. When you catch the guy, you may find that he has sexual injuries. This was a sadistic attack, extremely vicious, and the perpetrator is likely to show the effects upon his, er, person, for some time.

'Even then, of course, it would be virtually impossible to link such injuries to this attack.'

'Sshitt 'hissed the DCC.

'Is there nothing at all you can do?' Detective Constable Pye asked the Professor, breaking, if not clearing, the tension in the room.

It was Skinner who answered him, suddenly and forceful y. 'Yes,' he said, 'there is. And you're going to do it, Joe, aren't you?'

The pathologist sighed. 'Yes. You know we are. We will search the victim's body minutely, Constable, looking for just one hair that doesn't belong to her. We wil go though the areas in which it could be lodged with, literally, a fine-tooth comb, and we wil examine everything that isn't actually rooted.

'That will be a lot, but there is the real possibility that we will not find a single hair out of place, to be literal about it.' He paused, to look up at Skinner.

'Mind you, this is knock for knock, Bob. You'l have to send Dorward's team back to the murder scene to do exactly the same thing, to collect every loose hair for testing. Then you'll have to eliminate her son, her housekeeper, her late husband, of whom traces wil undoubtedly remain in the room, and any casual callers Mrs McG' ath may have had… sorry to be so blunt… before and after her widowhood.'

The big detective nodded. 'We'l do al that, Joe, and any more that's necessary, don't you worry. Just you go and get out your fine-tooth comb.'

'Can I ask you something, Bob?'

Skinner turned to Pamela and smiled. 'When couldn't you?'

'Oh come on! When I went to work for you at first; I couldn't then. And now, when I see shadows cross your face when you don't know I'm looking at you.'

'That happens a lot, does it?'

'Yes it does. For example, every time I find you looking at your son's photograph, your eyes are thousands of miles away.'

He grimaced. 'Allow me that, Pammy, please. I miss wee Jazz every moment of every day. Missing him's become a part of me, but it doesn't affect our relationship. Come on, what did you want to ask me?'

She looked around the kitchen of Skinner's bungalow in Fairyhouse Avenue, not far from the police headquarters building. 'Why have you never brought me here before?'

He looked her straight in the eye as he replied: 'Because this is the home I made with Sarah. The furniture in it we bought together.

The swing on the tree outside I made for our son.

'Gul ane's different. That's the home I made with Myra, years ago.

You know about her, al about her life and death. It seems natural for you and I to be together there, or for that matter at your place. But I haven't felt right about bringing you here, not until now. That's the truth of it.'

She looked at him, solemnly, and nodded. 'Yes, I thought you'd say that. And I understand it. So why have you brought me here this afternoon?'

He smiled back at her. 'Because this evening I'm going to begin to do what I promised you. I'm going to have dinner with Alex and Andy, and I'm going to tell them that you and I are seeing each other.

'Then tomorrow, I'm going to have lunch with the Chief in the New Club, and tell him the same thing.

'Final y, tomorrow night, I'm going to phone Sarah and talk things through with her. I'm going to ask her if she wants a divorce.'

'What if she says no?'

'At that point, I'l tell her about us. I'm sorry if that seems devious or even cowardly, but I'd sooner that Sarah and I divorce because 30 she's thought it through and wants to than because I'm putting a gun to her head.'

He saw her eyes narrow. 'You're guilty about me, aren't you?'

He shook his head at once. 'I have a clear conscience. My mother might not have seen it that way, but I do. Sarah and I had parted before you came on the scene. But I do care for her, and I want to be as gentle on her as I can.'

'What if she tel s you she has another man?'

'I'll say, fair enough.'

'But you'l hurt inside.'

'If I do, love, that's where it'l stay. Now, let's talk about something else.'

To his surprise, she frowned, and a different shadow crossed her face. 'Remember when I dropped my car off at my place, I went up to check the flat?'