Thursday legends - Skinner 10 (5 page)

Quickly
he let go and stepped back; as he did so the body swung round on the hook, and
more of its guts slipped out. His hands felt odd, he realised. He looked at
them and saw that they were covered in blood. Of course, Alec Smith had been
grey, yet the body's scalp was dark, soaked, and matted. Suddenly, he felt
himself going; he turned to the blind, and closed it once more then stepped
back out of the room.

Dr
Brown looked at him, knowingly. He held up his hands. 'Bathroom?' he asked. DCI
Rose pointed to the middle of the three doors on, the other side of the
landing.

A
couple of minutes later he was back on the landing, knowing from the bathroom
mirror that he was as pale as the medical examiner. 'Was he dead before all
that stuff was done?' he asked.

'I
very much doubt it,' the young doctor replied. 'There was a lot of bleeding
from the abdominal tear, but less than you'd expect from the head wound. I'd
say he was tortured, then battered about the head to finish him off
...
except he may actually have been dead
by then.'

'Did
you see any obvious weapons?' he asked Maggie.

'Not
in there. I didn't look. I didn't spend any more time in there than I had to.'

'No
more did I. Any signs of forced entry?'

'None
at all that I could see.'

He
turned back to Dr Brown. 'Time of death?'

The
Irishman looked at his watch. 'Three to four hours ago.'

'When
was he found?'

'Around
a quarter to eleven,' Rose answered. 'A guy who knew him came out of the Auld
Hoose along the road, and saw Smith's dog barking at the door, wanting in. The
animal roams about North Berwick apparently. The bloke rang the bell, then
tried the door and found that it was unlocked. There was a light on in the
cellar; he called down there and upstairs, got no answer and went to
investigate.

'When
he found him he ran back to the Auld Hoose and raised the alarm. He also had a
very large drink.'

'How
did you get here so fast?'

'I
was working late in Haddington, reviewing the paperwork on a real bugger of a
retail fraud case. I'm proposing to start door-to-door enquiries first thing in
the morning, and to try to track down everyone else who was in the Auld Hoose
during the evening, to see if any of them saw someone arriving or leaving Shell
Cottage.'

The
Head of CID nodded assent. 'Do it; but you know already what we're likely to
find. Sod all. This was savagery, yet it was cold and premeditated too; it was
planned. Whoever set this up is unlikely to have arrived or to have stepped
back out into Forth Street, right in front of a casual passer-by.'

'They
wouldn't need to, sir,' said the DCI. 'There's a door to the front garden, and
steps down to the beach.'

As
she spoke, they heard footfalls on the staircase, and the red head of Detective
Inspector Arthur Dorward appeared in view.

'You
ready for us, sir?' he asked Martin.

'Aye,
sure. I hope you're ready for this.' He nodded to

Brown.
'Thanks, Doctor. Welcome to the force. Mags, about the Boss, I'll tell him in
the morning.' He glanced at Neville. 'Sergeant, let's get back up town.'

He
followed his assistant back into the street and into her car. He asked her to
roll down the windows. 'I need to get the stench out of my nostrils,' he
explained, although she understood. Without warning, he shuddered, violently.
'Jesus, Karen. I knew that man in there.'

'Let's
get out of here,' she said, pressing buttons to lower the front windows and let
the cool night air flood into the car.

He
thought of home, and imagined how it would be if, after all, Rhian was looking
out for his return, her mind on unfinished business. He looked across to the
driver's seat, a question showing through the strain in his eyes.

She
nodded. 'Yes. My place.'

5

It
did not occur to either of them that they might make love. They simply lay
together in the king-size, pine-framed bed, Karen dozing on her side with an
arm thrown across his chest, Martin, on his back, stared at the ceiling, seeing
nothing but the gutted, tortured body of Alec Smith.

He
tried to chase the vision, but it would not go away. He closed his eyes, but
still he saw the shape swinging gently in the half-light as he touched it. The
smell stayed in his nostrils, unforgettable for that time at least. The Chief
Superintendent was renowned for his calmness - privately he prided himself on
it - yet he feared that somewhere, a scream, his own, lurked close.

He
looked at Karen, thankful for his instinctive refusal to allow her further into
the room, guessing what Maggie Rose might make of it, but not caring. He reached
out and traced his finger very softly round the line of her jaw, and was glad
when she smiled, fitting his touch into whatever dream she was having.

Knowing
that sleep was not an option for him, he fought the horror by becoming a
policeman, rather than a terrified onlooker. As a rule, he tried at every crime
scene to imagine it being committed; coldly, dispassionately, professionally.
That skill, learned from Bob Skinner, had been beyond him in the house at North
Berwick, but there, in the night, he used it as a weapon.

Alec
Smith had been a big man and had been known, even in the no-nonsense world of
the police, as a hard man, too. Yet he had been subdued, stripped, strung up
and gutted like a fish. How many people had it taken to do that, for God's
sake?

In
his mind's eye he looked around the big room, developing the subconscious
snapshot which his mind had taken at the scene, using his photographic memory
to recall details. The first and strangest thing: there had been no signs of a
struggle. The room, expensively furnished, everything in its place. Smith's
clothes; not thrown about the room, but laid across an armchair, almost neatly.
A bottle of whisky, on a table positioned against the wall on the right of the
room. A telescope, on a stand in front of the window to the left. And another
stand, a tripod, unadorned. Beside it on Smith's desk, which he had set under
the window, a big, expensive-looking 35mm camera, and a video camera. Shit! The
table, the table. Two glasses. For the killers? Or one for the victim and an
expected guest? Or left from earlier - Smith and someone else altogether?
Prints will tell, Andy, prints will tell.
Back to the desk! The cameras. A hobby?
Photographing, filming shipping moving in and out of the Firth of Forth? Or put
to more recent use? No! No?

Martin
lifted Karen's arm gently from his chest and laid it on the duvet, then slipped
quietly out of bed. Naked, he crossed the hall to the living room of the small
flat and picked up the phone, which lay on the sideboard. He dialled 192, asked
for and was given Alec Smith's telephone number, then called Shell Cottage.

Detective
Inspector Dorward answered. 'Arthur. DCS Martin here. There are two cameras on
the victim's desk, yes? Still and video?'

'Yes,
sir.'

'I
want to see what's in them, if anything. If there's a film in the camera, have
your photographer develop it. If there's a cassette in the camcorder, play it
back. Just in case, you understand.'

'Of
course, Boss.' Dorward sounded slightly wounded.

'Sorry,
Arthur. I'm sure you'd have done that anyway.'

'It's
the thought that counts, sir,' the mollified Inspector chuckled. 'Hang on and
I'll look at the video camera now.' There was a pause; in the background,
Martin heard mechanical sounds. 'There's a tape in it, sir.' said Dorward.
'I'll run a few frames back and replay it through the viewfinder.'

'Okay.'
He waited, taking care to stand clear of the yellow light which flooded through
the living room window from the street lamp outside. As he stood there, Karen's
arms wound around his waist. He felt her heavy breasts press against his back
as she hugged him.

'I'm
cold,' she murmured. He gasped as her hands slid downwards, and reached down to
stop her.

'Shh.'
He waved the phone in the air, so that she could see he was on a call. As he
did so, he heard a cry from the handset.

'Fuckin'
hell!'

'What
is it, Arthur?' he asked, although, instinctively, he knew.

'It's
him, sir; Smith. The camera's right in his face. He's alive and he's got no
eyes!'

*Oh
Christ.' Karen was standing beside him now, looking at him anxiously. 'Maggie
will have the mobile HQ unit on its way to the scene, if it isn't there yet.
Lock that camera in there. I'll be back out in the morning, probably with the
big man.' He glanced at his wrist, but his watch was on Karen's bedside table.
'What time is it?'

'Quarter
past five.'

'Okay.
I'll be there before nine.'

He
hung up and ushered Karen back through towards the bedroom. 'They filmed him,'
he told her. 'The bastards filmed him as they killed him.'

'God!
Why?'

'Crazy
people don't need reasons,' he answered as they slid back into bed. 'That's the
only thing I know for sure about this enquiry; we're looking for a complete
fucking lunatic'

Not
for the first time that night, he shuddered; he felt himself on the verge of
losing it again. She held him, drawing him to her. 'Andy,' she whispered. 'Shut
it out. Shut it out.'

He
tried; they both tried, in the only way they could.

6

The
Head of CID slipped quietly out of his sergeant's flat, just off Nicolson Street,
at five minutes before seven a.m., after a wholly sleepless night. He left a
note on the kitchen table; 'Thanks for the safe haven. Call you later.'

He
took a taxi back to Dean Village, where he shaved, showered, and changed
clothes. The thought of breakfast did not cross his mind for an instant;
instead, when he was ready, he stepped into his garage through the internal
door, opened the up-and-over and backed his red MGF into the street. As he
jumped out to close the garage, the front door of the house next door opened,
and Rhian stepped out, in her running gear; sweatshirt, shorts and trainers.

'Morning,'
she said, young and bright; making him feel just the opposite. 'Busy night?'

'God
awful,' he grunted.

She
looked genuinely concerned for him. 'Oh, poor love. Never mind, tonight will be
better, I promise.'

From
out of nowhere he was swamped by a pang of guilt. If that phone hadn't rung
...
If Alec Smith hadn't been
...

'About
tonight, Rhian. I've got a major investigation under way. If we get a quick result,
I could be involved in interviews and so on. Say to Juliet that I might not
make it, will you?'

She
raised herself quickly up on her toes and kissed him, lightly. For an
irrational moment he wondered if she would
catch a
scent of Karen lingering on him. 'Let's just hope you do. Okay?'

She
was infectious; for the first time since midnight, he smiled.

'If
I can, I will. Promise.' He slid back into the tight cockpit of the sports car,
set his cellphone into the hands-free holder and drove off.

The
streets of Edinburgh were relatively traffic-free at that time of a Saturday
morning, an hour or more before the first of the shoppers would head for
Princes Street. He waited until he had cleared Milton Link and turned on to the
Al before he dialled up Bob Skinner's number.

Sarah
picked up the phone on the first ring; in the background he could hear a
baby's cry. 'Morning,' he said, 'I'm sorry it's so early, but I've held off as
long as I could. Hope I didn't wake Seonaid.'

'No,'
the gentle American voice replied. 'She's hungry, that's all. Here, speak to
Bob while I plug her in.'

There
was a pause, then Skinner's voice sounded from the car-phone's tiny speaker.
'Andy, what's this I've just heard on the radio about a suspicious death in
North Berwick?'

'Last
night. I got the call at midnight; I've been to the scene already. I'm on my
way back out now.'