Last Resort (8 page)

‘Have a seat,’ he began, raising a heavy eyebrow, ‘and tell me what’s so bloody urgent.’ Then he leaned back, giving me an appraising look as I set myself down.

‘No,’ he exclaimed, ‘before you do that, answer me one question. Alexis Skinner: any relation to Bob Skinner?’

I gazed back at him, without blinking, and I’m sure without the hint of a smile, for by that time I was feeling bloody angry.

‘I’m his daughter,’ I replied, just as he broke eye contact.

‘I thought so,’ he grunted. ‘You’ve got his bearing about you. You’re better-looking though, if I may say so.’

‘I’m not sure that you may,’ I replied, icily. ‘Why do you ask about him?’

‘I like to know who I’m dealing with, that’s all. I may as well tell you, Ms Skinner, your father and I don’t get on. He may have told you that.’

‘No, he hasn’t; he’s never said anything about you, one way or the other. What’s your problem with him?’

‘He was bloody rude to me once, back when he was deputy chief in Edinburgh. A high-security remand prisoner killed himself in his cell at Saughton when I was Governor there, and your father bloody well blamed me for it. He told me to my face that it was my fault.’

The incident came back to me; the man had been a rapist, one whose guilt was so easy to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that he intended to admit it, in the hope that the judge would go easier on him for sparing his victim the ordeal of the courtroom. Dad had been pleased about that, but furious when he learned that the brute been able to spare himself too.

‘As you say, Mr Kemp,’ I murmured, ‘you were the Governor; who else would he blame?’

‘I can’t watch every bloody prisoner all the bloody time,’ he protested, ‘not personally. Someone slipped up on the remand wing; he was disciplined for it.’

‘How?’

‘A formal reprimand.’

‘Wow.’

Kemp bristled, and glanced at his watch. ‘You’re using up your five minutes, Ms Skinner, so get on with it. Let me warn you though: if you’re here to ask me for some sort of favour for your client, you’ll be out of luck. Your old man is history now; he’s on his way out of the force, yesterday’s man. He cuts no ice with me, not any more.’

I smiled; if that was how he saw it . . . ‘How about Chief Constable Andrew Martin?’ I asked. ‘He’s very much today’s man. How does he rate in the ice-cutting department?’

The Governor frowned, less sure of himself. ‘Obviously . . .’ he began.

‘Obviously he’s someone you don’t want to fall out with. Then take note: I’ll be cooking his dinner this evening, and he’ll probably make my breakfast tomorrow.’

Kemp frowned, shifting in his chair.

‘If you really want to make this personal,’ I told him, ‘so be it. I can still play that game, but I don’t want to. I expect no favours from you. I expect you to do your job, that’s all. If what happens to that man in Saughton should happen to my client, after the information I’m about to give you, there will be no shuffling off blame, and there will be no token reprimand.’

The man ran his thick fingers though his straggly grey hair. ‘Okay,’ he sighed. ‘We’ve got off on the wrong foot, Ms Skinner. What is it you have to tell me about your client and why do you believe he’s in jeopardy in my institution?’

‘He’s not only my client,’ I said, abruptly. ‘He’s my half-brother.’

Kemp’s mouth hung open for several seconds, before he snapped it shut. ‘He’s what? I’ve got Bob Skinner’s boy in here? Is that what you’re telling me?’

‘Exactly that. Ignacio Centelleos is my father’s son, from a brief relationship almost twenty years ago. He knew nothing of him until a few months ago; his existence was only revealed by the investigation of the crime that put him in here.’

‘Now it’s my turn to say, “Wow”!’ Kemp conceded. ‘Who else knows about this?’

‘No more than a dozen people; outside the family, only a handful of police officers, and three scientific officers. Not even Frances Birtles, his counsel, knew who she was representing.’

The Lord Advocate and the trial judge knew also, but I felt no need to share that with Kemp.

Kemp nodded. ‘I can see the risk to the boy if it becomes known in here that he’s Skinner’s son, but if the loop’s so small why should that happen?’

‘There’s a chance that we’ve had a leak, that’s all I can tell you.’

‘What do you want me to do?’ Kemp asked.

‘I want you to keep him safe,’ I answered. ‘How you do it, that’s your business, but if there’s as much as a scratch on him, there will be consequences, and not only for the scratcher.’

‘I could put him in isolation this morning,’ he suggested, then paused. ‘The problem with that is, he’s got another nine months to do. Whenever we take an inmate out of the general population, the rumour mill starts, so if you’re happy with it, my inclination is to do nothing until I have to.’

‘I’ll accede to your judgement on that, Governor. Hopefully you’ll never need to take action.’ I frowned. ‘Can I take it that you’re not recording this conversation?’ I asked.

He recoiled at my question. ‘Ms Skinner . . .’ he protested.

‘Fine, just thought I’d ask. I haven’t known my brother for very long, but I want the chance to get to know him better.’

‘You will, don’t worry. I’m pleased you’ve chosen to confide in me. Is there anything else I can do for you?’

I nodded as I rose from my uncomfortable chair. ‘Yes, two things, if you would. I’d like to see Ignacio now, and also, if anyone asks for a visiting note other than his mother or me, or asks for any information about him, I want to know, soonest.’

‘Are you saying I should refuse all visits other than the two of you?’

‘Not necessarily. I want to know about them, that’s all.’

‘How about his father? Will he be visiting?’

‘No, because that would raise eyebrows in security, and people would talk.’

I didn’t need to go any further.

‘Understood, understood. Let me set up your visit, Ms Skinner. We’ll call it a legal consultation, shall we?’

In his new spirit of cooperation, Mr Kemp arranged for me to see Ignacio in a small room in the office area of the institution, rather than in the hall where visits normally take place.

As he stepped through the door, my half-brother wore an expression of puzzlement, which changed to surprise when he saw me. ‘Alex,’ he exclaimed, as his escort closed the door behind him, waiting in the corridor outside. We were really favoured; privacy is a rare privilege for people visiting prisons.

The Governor had even arranged for coffee; two mugs and a plate of biscuits had been delivered on a tray a few minutes earlier. ‘This was not expected,’ Ignacio said, as he took a mug in one hand and a Jaffa cake in the other. He frowned, as he added, ‘There is no bad news, is there?’

‘No,’ I replied. ‘Something’s come up, that’s all.’

‘The screw said that it was legal business.’

I laughed. ‘The screw, indeed; you’re picking up the slang quickly enough. They prefer to be called prison officers.’

‘Not by us. Prisoners call them Sir or Miss . . . apart from me; to me they are Se
ñ
or or Se
ñ
ora.’

Ignacio was born in Spain and raised there, but his mother made sure that he grew up bilingual. His English is excellent, but a little over-formal, and his strong accent gives away his roots.

The meeting room had a window with a view of the area beyond the prison; he stood by it, mug in hand, looking at a world he was not due to see again for months. His profile still gives me goosebumps; I could be looking at a younger version of my dad, as I remember him from my childhood. He’s the same height, a couple of inches over six feet, slimmer, although it struck me that his frame seemed to have thickened a little since the first time I’d met him three months before in the Polmont remand wing following his extradition.

‘How is
mi madre
?’ he asked me, quietly, still gazing through the window.

‘Your mother’s fine,’ I assured him. ‘Her new radio show is very popular.’

‘That is what she said when she was here at the weekend; we can’t get her station here. I have heard her on radio in Spain; she is like another person. On air she is very . . .’ he looked for a word, ‘confident, but not so much at home. There she is much more anxious.’

That struck a chord with me; on the few occasions in my teens that I’d seen my father in a professional situation, it struck me that he wasn’t the man that I knew at home, but another, more confident, assertive, at ease with himself.

Christ, Pops, I thought, was I that much of a burden?

‘Is everything okay in here?’ I asked.

He turned and looked at me, eyebrows raised, with a light, quizzical smile.

‘They lock me up every night, and four times during the day too; that is not okay. But the food is better than I expected, the uniform,’ he glanced down at his blue shirt and brown trousers, ‘is clean and it fits, and they change the sheet on the bed once a week. I am in Dunedin Hall so I am allowed outside for an hour every day, and I exercise in the gymnasium too. There is education, so I am studying chemistry, physics, English and maths, to sit the Scottish examinations next year. Our father said I should, even though I did my baccalaureate in Spain last summer. I have a television in my room, and I watch the news to learn about Scotland. I even watch
River City
to learn about Glasgow.’

‘That’s more than I do,’ I laughed. I have never quite taken to the BBC Scotland soap, or any other for that matter.

‘Alex,’ he said, ‘I am here; I have no choice but to be okay, as you say. If it wasn’t for you and Se
ñ
ora Birtles, I might have been here for many years, not just one.’

‘That’s good,’ I told him, ‘and I’m glad to hear it, but do you feel physically safe? You’re a stranger here, in a way; an outsider in the midst of some bad young people.’

‘Hey,
hermana
, I know where I am. Yes, when I came here I was worried. I’ve heard stories of prisons in Spain. They say that in some, half the people have AIDS and the rest will have soon. It’s not like that here. Yes, there are a few guys here who are not nice, but most of them are like me, just trying to get through with no trouble.’

He smiled. ‘I am not a pussycat, Alex,’ he said. ‘I am not yet nineteen but I can bench press one hundred and fifteen kilos, that’s about one and a half times my body weight. That means something in here. And besides,’ he frowned for a second or two, then grinned, ‘I am just a little bit of a legend among the inmates, even though it’s for a terrible reason. I’m the kid who killed his own granny.’

As quickly as his smile had come, it disappeared. ‘Not that I ever talk about it. People have asked me; I tell them all politely to fuck off. I don’t tell them that it was her or my mother, and maybe me too. I don’t tell them that she was a crazy woman or that
mi madre
had nightmares all the time I was growing up, about her and the life she had left in Scotland.’

‘You understand why Dad can’t come to visit you?’ I asked.

‘Of course. Alex, I would understand if he didn’t want to know me, ever. Jesus, he hardly knew my mother, yet here I am.’

As I looked at my brother, I felt a great sadness for him. He was a nice lad made older than his years by his casual parentage and by an upbringing over which he had no control, and which had led him to a terrible place. I felt the guilt that I know is within my father.

Ignacio moved away from the window, drained his tea and put the empty mug back on the table. ‘Now,’ he continued, ‘what is the legal matter the screw . . . sorry, the officer, told me about?’

I decided not to tell him the whole story; if Linton Baillie or anyone else leaked the truth about him he would know soon enough, but by that time Kemp would have taken action.

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I said that so that it won’t count against your monthly visit ration; I was passing on my way to a meeting and I blagged my way. Otherwise I wouldn’t have got to see you before Christmas.’

I gave him a sisterly hug, and opened the door to call his escort. Less than five minutes later I was pulling out of the car park, knowing that I’d put Ignacio’s security in Kemp’s hands, and trusting that the Governor’s ego wasn’t so big or his enmity towards my father so great that he would be unable to resist the temptation to talk about it.

Nine

S
top one hundred people and give them one hundred seconds to tell you what deoxyribonucleic acid is, and you will receive at least ninety-five blank stares.

Ask the same hundred what DNA is, and most of them will tell you in a variety of ways that it’s a long molecule from which every individual’s genes are made, the architectural drawing that determines what we are. It contains the hereditary information that’s handed down from one generation to another.

That’s the signature that we leave behind us everywhere we go, every time we lay down a fingerprint, or leave a follicle behind on a hairbrush.

It’s the means by which Ignacio Centelleos was determined, not once but twice, to be the son of Robert Morgan Skinner. The first test was done in Spain, when Mia managed to get hold of samples of Dad’s DNA . . . she’s a cunning and devious woman.

The second he commissioned himself, although he was in no real doubt given the likeness between Ignacio and him. There is no such thing as certainty in a positive DNA test, only in a negative, but he chose a lab that offered the smallest possibility of error.

Forest Gate Laboratory Services is in the centre of Glasgow, close to the university of which I am a graduate. It’s existed for decades and in its earlier days was the go-to place for people accused of driving under the influence, to have their half of the blood or urine sample independently tested.

Those customers declined in number with the introduction of breath testing, but the drop-off was more than replaced by the DNA business.

I found the office without difficulty. It’s just another name on a brass plate in a long Victorian terrace where residential use has given way almost exclusively to commercial.

The lady receptionist gave me a sweet, comforting smile as I approached her desk. Her hair was just too jet-black to be natural and she wore spectacles with an ornate winged frame. Her face seemed familiar, until it struck me that she had a strong resemblance to an auctioneer I’ve seen on daytime telly since leaving CAJ.

‘Good morning, madam,’ she greeted me, in what I recognised from my Glasgow student days as the twisted twang of a Kelvinside accent. ‘How can we help you today?’

She glanced at my capacious shoulder bag. ‘I hope you haven’t brought samples for testing . . . because if you have, you might have had a wasted journey. Many people do, but for security, our technicians have to take them personally from the people involved, or they have to be certified by a lawyer.’

‘I am a lawyer,’ I told her. ‘Does that mean I can certify my own sample?’

‘Well, eh, no, eh,’ she drawled, the smile still in place.

‘Maybe that’ll be useful knowledge at some point in the future,’ I said. ‘But it’s not an issue right now. My father commissioned a test here, three months ago. He arranged it through your director, personally, and delivered two DNA samples . . . which were not taken by your techies, incidentally, because the identity of the donors was confidential. You were asked to confirm the relationship between them.’

‘Did that happen?’ she asked.

‘Yes, it did; you certified that the two were father and son, with a margin of error of no more than one in one hundred thousand.’

‘Very good.’ She nodded, pleased with herself. ‘How can we help you today? Do you want to commission another test?’

‘No, but I do need to speak with your director. I’m sorry to turn up on the doorstep like this, but it is urgent.’

Kelvinside Woman smiled again; I sensed that it wasn’t just painted on, that there was genuine kindness behind it. ‘Then let me see, dear, what I can do. Dr McGrane is very busy, but I can usually twist his arm if I have to. You haven’t given me your name yet.’

‘It’s Skinner, Alexis Skinner.’ I took a business card from my bag and handed it to her. I had them printed the day after I left the firm, my first gesture of independence.

‘Take a wee seat then, dear, I won’t be long.’

I settled into a leather bucket chair in the small waiting area; there was a table littered with past copies of
OK
,
What Car
, and some golf magazines, the kind I’ve seen in every doctor’s or dentist’s surgery I’ve ever been in. I settled on a year-old copy of
Golf Monthly
, because Rory McIlroy was on the cover and he has a nice smile.

I hadn’t made it past the first few pages of ads for equipment that was already outdated, before the lady returned, with a cup of coffee . . . a cup, note, not a mug . . . and the good news that Dr McGrane would see me as soon as his meeting was over. ‘About ten minutes, he thinks,’ she added.

I thanked her and tried the coffee. It was pretty damn good; my guess was Nespresso, the brand George Clooney advertises.

I looked out of the window as I waited. The city skyline has changed considerably in the ten years since I lived there, and for the better. Some of the new buildings I could see were offices; another was an arena, the massive new Hydro, but most were blocks of flats, much like mine in Edinburgh.

My eye settled on one of them, one that I knew. Aileen de Marco, the more recent of my two official stepmothers (there were a couple of unofficials during my childhood and adolescence) has an apartment there. She kept it even when she was married to Dad, and even though she’s gone from Scottish politics now, to a safe Westminster seat in the north-east, I’ve no doubt that she’ll have kept her foothold in the city where her personal power base still lies.

‘I wonder who’s kissing her now,’ I hummed, quietly, then realised that I was scowling and drove further thoughts of the Witch from my mind, concentrating on Sarah, the one stable presence in my father’s life since Mum died . . . although even she’s had some pretty flaky moments. I forgave her those a long time ago, though, as she’s the mother of my younger brother and sister, who may be the reasons I have never felt the need, as yet, to raise kids of my own.

‘Ms Skinner?’

A voice broke into my contemplation. I turned to see a tall man, in a perfectly tailored charcoal-grey suit that any football pundit would have been proud to wear, standing beside the reception desk.

‘Roger McGrane,’ he announced. ‘I run this place. Please, come through to my office.’ There was no Kelvinside about his accent; it was pure Oxbridge.

Aesthetically speaking, Dr McGrane was a bit of all right. His hair was dark, but with the kind of natural highlights that I pay my stylist hundreds to fake, he was clean-shaven and so clean-cut that he could have advertised a coffee brand on television any day of the week.

His features were fine, but the hand that shook mine was broad and strong, and used for something more energetic than placing slides under a microscope. As for his age, there’s ten years between Andy and me, and I guessed that he slotted in somewhere around the mid-point.

‘What’s your doctorate?’ I asked as he ushered me through the door behind reception. ‘Medical?’

‘No, it’s a PhD: genetics. I did it at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, after I graduated from Cambridge.’

‘Cambridge England to Cambridge Mass,’ I said, ‘That was a nice move. What lured you to Glasgow?’

‘The climate.’ He smiled as I stared at him. ‘Not! I was going to add.

‘This place is American-owned,’ he explained. ‘I worked for the parent company in Atlanta, and was more or less inserted here when the vacancy arose.’

‘You were drafted?’

He grinned, flashing a couple of gold fillings. ‘You could say that. The Forest Gate group talent-spots in several universities. It contributes research funding and gets the inside track on recruitment. They chose me from MIT, and got me a Green Card straight away. Other foreigners can wait years.’

‘Can you go back?’

‘Oh yes, and I will, in a couple of years probably, once I’ve got our new premises up and running. We’re expanding, moving across the river to a purpose-built centre on Pacific Quay.’

We’d reached his office; he opened the door and showed me into a small room with a window that looked out across a back yard and beyond to the spiky Gothic building that is Glasgow University.

I pointed to it. ‘That’s my alma mater,’ I said. ‘I lived not far from here for four years; hall of residence for a while, then Dad bought me a flat.’

I took a seat, facing across the desk, but he joined me on the same side. He picked up my business card and peered at it.

‘Not very informative,’ he ventured. ‘Just “Alexis Skinner, LlB, Solicitor”, and a mobile number.’

I explained my career move, and told him what I’d been doing before.

‘I know,’ he murmured. ‘I read the business press, Alexis . . . may I call you that?’

‘That’s my Sunday name, Roger. It’s Alex on the other six days. I only use the full version on my card to avoid the assumption that I’m a bloke.’

‘I imagine that could be a disadvantage in law these days. Aren’t most new graduates female?’

‘So I believe.’

‘And you’ve been a trailblazer. Why should the “Dealmaker of the Year” decide to change tack? You’re not following in your father’s footsteps, are you, joining the police force?’

‘They call it “Police Service” now,’ I tutted. ‘They’re very precious about that.’

‘Is that why your father did what he did? Was the new set-up too touchy feely for him?’

‘The opposite, funnily enough; he thinks it’s divorced from the people.’

‘I can understand that view.’ He smiled again. ‘Your father is a very impressive man, Alex. He seemed to fill this room when he was here. I was taken completely by surprise when he turned up and asked to see me. Strathclyde Police has always been, or rather was when it existed, our biggest client, but in the five years I’ve been here I had never met the chief constable, not until then.’

‘Another reason why he’s opted out,’ I told him. ‘He’s a hands-on guy.’

‘Even so, I was surprised, when he explained the commission, that he should be bringing it to me personally. I still don’t know why he did; my assumption has always been that state security was involved, hush-hush stuff, because he did impress on me the need for confidentiality. Even the invoice had to go directly to his office, so marked.’

I shook my head. ‘No, Roger, it wasn’t security, nor was it counter-terrorism, nor any police matter: it was personal.’

For the first time, Dr McGrane looked unsure of himself. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said.

‘It was a family matter; that’s all I need to tell you. However, the need for secrecy, yes, that was about security: the personal security of an individual. And now that may have been compromised. That’s why I’m here.’

‘Do you think we’ve breached it?’ he exclaimed. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’

‘No, I’m saying no such thing. I’m here on my father’s behalf to eliminate that possibility, that is all.’

‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘I’ll help you do that if I can. But Alex, I have to point out that it would be difficult for us to leak a secret when we don’t know what it is. The samples that we analysed were anonymous.’

‘You can remember the detail of every single test?’

‘I remember that one because of the man who commissioned it; plus, I looked up the details while you were waiting in reception. That’s what the ten minutes were about.’

‘That being so, what can you tell me about it?’

‘Your father visited me twice: the first time was to give me the commission, and the second was to deliver the samples. When he did, he told me that they had been taken by a medical professional.’

That made me smile. I enlightened him.

‘My stepmother: she’s a forensic pathologist.’

‘Then she’s very good; they were presented and labelled perfectly. Chief Constable Skinner asked for a minimum fifteen loci analysis. You probably know that we can test to various levels and various degrees of certainty; the more loci, the greater. I did the comparison myself, and I have no doubt that I was looking at father and son. There’s always a statistical possibility of error, but at that level, it’s utterly remote.’

‘Especially if the two individuals have a close resemblance?’

‘That underlines it.’

‘How were your findings delivered to my father?’ I asked.

‘Mrs Harris, the lady you met in reception, delivered them to his office in Pitt Street, by hand. His personal assistant came down and took possession.’

‘No other links in the chain?’

‘None at all; and let me head off your next question by telling you that Yvonne Harris is absolutely trustworthy; she’s been here for fifteen years, and worked for three directors, me included. The invoice for our services was included with our report. I see from the record that your father called our account department that same afternoon, and made payment. I didn’t know until today that he used a personal debit card.’

‘How are your records kept?’ I asked.

‘For DNA testing, the reports are filed electronically. The samples are destroyed unless there’s a specific request that they’re retained; there was none in this case and so all the slides were incinerated.

‘For added security, reports are always filed under the client’s number rather than his name, or its, if it’s a corporate entity. Without that key, suppose some genius was able to hack into our system looking for a specific file, he wouldn’t know where to begin.’

‘You must keep a record of client names surely, otherwise you won’t know which is which yourselves.’

Dr McGrane grinned. ‘Very true. It would be a shambles otherwise. Our numbered client list is kept the old-fashioned way, on paper, in a safe in this building: in this room, as a matter of fact,’ he pointed to the wall behind me, ‘behind that large photograph of President Obama, which my bosses in Atlanta display in all our offices to make our parentage clear. We’ve had no break-ins here, ever.’

‘Suppose someone did hack into your server, what would happen?’

‘It would set off a huge alarm. Alex, we are paranoid about security; given the nature of much of our work, we have to be. I have an IT security consultant; she earns nearly as much as I do . . . and I don’t come cheap.’

‘Thank you, Roger,’ I said. ‘I have no questions left.’