The Bad Fire (Bob Skinner series, Book 31): A shocking murder case brings danger too close to home for ex-cop Bob Skinner in this gripping Scottish crime thriller

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘How much of this does my father know?’ his stepson asked.

  ‘Well that’s the thing. He was a cop; in his heart he still is. But he was never part of any force investigating me. He was fed the official version – Grandpa McCullough, major player in organised crime – and he had no reason to doubt it. I think he does now, but I can never have a conversation like this one with him. Thing is, I did know about some of the stuff that Goldie was up to – never the detail, but enough, my sources being far more reliable than the police had – and I did nothing about it. I can’t ever tell Bob that. It’s better he still believes the old stories.’

  ‘Why are you telling me?’ Ignacio’s question was a challenge.

  ‘Because I’m married to your mother; you’re my stepson. She knows all about me; she could tell you at any time, so I might as well do it myself.’

  ‘You trust me that much?’

  ‘Yes, I do, not least because you are your father’s son, and however wary he may be of me, and I of him, I know this for sure: if I had to pick one man in the world to fight a battle for me, it would be him.’

  Six

  ‘Now that you’re had some time to study and consider the file – which I now have officially, by the way – what’s your feel for it?’ Alex Skinner asked her investigator. They had reconvened in her office for a working lunch, fetched by Clarice, who had no qualms about KFC.

  ‘I don’t have one, not yet,’ Carrie McDaniels confessed. ‘My assumption is that you’ve hired me to establish her innocence, so that’s how I’ll proceed.’

  The solicitor frowned. ‘No, don’t assume that,’ she countered. ‘My father knows David Brass, he likes the old guy, and yes, that’s where he’s coming from. He could have handled this himself, but for two things. It could turn into an investigation of improper police conduct, even malpractice by the Crown Office, and he wouldn’t want to do that, not with his background. Added to that, he has history with Terry Coats over something that came up during the Austin Brass murder investigation.’

  ‘Do tell.’

  Alex smiled. ‘It doesn’t leave this room, but given Coats being the top name on Austin’s target list because of his mother, he was asked for his whereabouts at the time of Brass’s death. The account he gave wasn’t accurate; when CID checked it out, they found that he wasn’t at work but with a lady friend.’

  ‘So?’ Carrie made a face as she interrupted. ‘Granted, he should have come clean, but these things happen. When I worked in the insurance company, for a while I was shagging a manager in my department. He was married and we got caught, but it was seen as a private matter that didn’t compromise us at work. Why should Coats be grinding axes and how does your old man come to be involved?’

  ‘Reasonable questions. I don’t think Coats’ horizontal jogging caused him any work problem, but his wife happened to be a DS on the Brass inquiry team. She had to be stood down for a while while his real alibi was checked out, and she had to be told why. My dad’s connection? He’s still involved with the cops in an occasional mentoring role. It’s the only way that Maggie Rose, the chief constable, and Mario McGuire, the DCC, could keep him on the team. He led Sauce Haddock, almost literally, to Coats’ illicit bedchamber door. When Terry’s wife found out, she kicked him out, and he turned up at my father’s home in Gullane looking for a fight.’

  ‘I take it he got one?’ McDaniels asked. ‘I’ve seen your old man in action.’

  ‘He did. Pops would probably have calmed him down, given him a drink and sent him on his way repentant, but he made a lot of noise and took a swing at Ignacio, my half-brother. Pops walked in on it and poleaxed him.’

  ‘And now he’s predisposed to cast Coats as a villain?’

  ‘Not necessarily, but that’s how it would be seen.’

  ‘You’re saying that I have to be seen to approach him with an open mind?’

  ‘Approach everyone with an open mind,’ Alex said. ‘To skip back to your earlier assumption, I’ve undertaken to establish the facts of the matter. If they exonerate Marcia, or even establish reasonable doubt that should have been clear to the Crown Office, that’ll be enough. If it turns out she was guilty as sin, so be it.’

  ‘What about the circumstances of her death?’

  ‘No,’ Alex said firmly. ‘That would be a separate investigation, and one for the police. Stick to the brief. How will you go about it? Do you need to see Brass?’

  ‘I don’t think so. You’ve told me as much as I need to know about him, and the Crown Office file has given me the facts. I’d prefer to be impersonal when I look at this, and for all you say you’re only interested in the truth, I reckon you want it to favour him. It’ll be better if I steer clear of him. I plan to begin with Marcia’s solicitor, Cedric Black. As David Brass told you, he’s retired from his firm, but I’ve run him to ground. He lives in Millport, and spends his time playing golf all along the Ayrshire coast. I’ve spoken to his former partner, Mr Grey. He was very evasive about the Marcia case until I threatened him with the Law Society. He did a complete about-turn and has now arranged for Black to see me, tomorrow morning. I’m looking forward to it. I’ve never been to Millport.’

  Seven

  ‘If an autopsy wasn’t done, I’d be wanting to know why not,’ Professor Sarah Grace Skinner declared. ‘The first responders, medical and police, would have been bound to have seen it as a suspicious death. How old was the victim?’

  ‘Fifty-nine, I think.’

  ‘Did she have any adverse medical history?’

  ‘Not that her ex-husband knew about. She played badminton to a good standard, he said, and she celebrated her fiftieth birthday by running the London Marathon in three minutes under four hours. I’d be happy if I could do that,’ Skinner added.

  ‘Who were the first responders?’ his wife asked.

  ‘I don’t know. The file from the fiscal’s office that David Brass was given only dealt with the criminal complaint. Marcia’s suicide was a separate investigation. There was never any sort of inquest or public hearing, as there would have been in England, in a coroner’s court.’

  She speared a lightly curried prawn from the bowl in front of her. ‘Look, Bob,’ she said slowly, ‘have you any reason to believe this woman’s death was anything other than suicide?’

  ‘None at all. She died from a massive overdose of morphine. David says that the police decided she had stolen it from the hospital where she was a manager.’

  ‘There you are then! There must have been an autopsy if the cause of death was determined so precisely.’

  ‘But how thorough would it have been? The pathologist had an apparent suicide victim – with an empty bottle found by her side, I would guess. Tests would confirm lethal levels of morphine in her system. Come on, Sarah, let’s say you’re presented with a victim whose cause of death is seemingly obvious, and you confirm it immediately. How much further are you going to look?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘I can’t speak for whoever did the job. I don’t know what his or her workload was that day.’ She chuckled. ‘Don’t go all Silent Witness on me. If it looks like a duck, it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, then ninety-nine times out of a hundred it’s a fucking duck.’

  ‘Agreed, but one time out of a hundred it might be a guy with a fist up its arse, trying to make you believe that it’s a fucking duck. My question is, would the original pathologist stop once he had an answer in line with the presumption, or would he carry on looking for an alternative? I don’t believe you would simply have sewn her up and stuck her back in the fridge. Did whoever Marcia’s pathologist was do that?’

  ‘If you’re that curious, ask someone who might know the answer.’

  ‘I might just do that,’ he murmured. ‘I might indeed.’

  Eight

  In common with most of those from the eastern side of Scotland, Carrie McDaniels was stirred by the grandeur of the Firth of Clyde and its islands. Great Cumbrae and its only town, Millp
ort, were reached by a small roll-on roll-off ferry, the shortest route between it and Largs. She had heard enough radio weather bulletins to know that the area could be windswept, and so she was grateful for the continuing heatwave as she watched the vessel approach its slipway.

  The strait between mainland and island was narrow and the journey took little time, but even as she drove down the ramp, Carrie knew no more about her destination than she had on leaving Edinburgh. As she followed the slow-moving electric Nissan in front of her, she had a broader view of Largs and Hunterston beyond, but it was not until the road took a long curve that Millport revealed itself – not so much a town as two or three ranks of houses gathered around two long continuous bays, which gave it shelter and an outstanding view to the south of Little Cumbrae, and beyond, the great and spectacular island of Arran.

  The Nissan peeled off into the drive of the third house they reached, making her the leader of a small convoy. In a city she would have speeded up instinctively, but instead she held her steady pace, taking in the scenery. The beaches were less busy than she had expected. Her great-aunt had told her stories of her own holidays here when they, the cafés and the tennis courts had been thronged even in weather that varied most summers between bleak and hostile, and where the most popular items in the small community’s shops were windbreaks and mallets to hammer their poles deep into the sand. But those had been the days before mass air transport had taken holidaymakers off to hotter and more reliable places, and also when there had been more accommodation for rent, before the affluent professionals of Glasgow had taken it off the market by acquiring second homes.

  She had expected more people, she had expected the Crocodile Rock, Millport’s only landmark, but she had not expected the palm trees that lined the second beach she reached as she followed the instructions of the voice of Apple Maps. They took her by surprise and for the first time she drew an impatient beep from the car behind. Annoyed, she flicked him a one-finger salute, but picked up her pace, moving on past the original jetty, where her great-aunt might have disembarked, and beyond, following the directions that her Bluetooth speaker recited until she was in West Bay Road, where it announced, ‘You have reached your destination.’

  She looked to her left, appraising it. No holiday home, surely; a substantial two-storey grey sandstone villa looking imperiously down a long garden with bay windows on either side of a double storm door, which stood open. She pulled her key from the ignition, unclipped her seatbelt and stepped out of the car. As she did so, she realised that the vehicle that had been behind her, the one whose driver had run out of patience, had pulled into the driveway.

  ‘Miss McDaniels.’ Its owner, a slender man in a pale blue short-sleeved shirt, exclaimed as he approached. Her first thought was that he must have taken early retirement, until she noticed that the skin around his elbows was beginning to lose its elasticity, a sign of ageing that she had seen in her vigorous father. ‘Cedric Black. I’m sorry, both for my bad manners on the road back there and for not guessing it was you in the queue back in Largs and introducing myself. I had a very early dental appointment this morning down in Stewarton. I’ve gone to the same practice for thirty-seven years; my long-term dentist retired a few years ago, but it’s never occurred to me to look for someone closer to home.’

  ‘No worries,’ she said, accepting his handshake. ‘I’ve always meant to come here to see the place for myself.’ She added a smile. ‘Plus, I’m on expenses.’

  ‘That’s good. It means I don’t need to feel guilty about not meeting you on the mainland. Come on in; hopefully my other half will have coffee on the go.’

  He led her up the long pathway to the front door. As they approached, it was opened by a woman in shorts and a halter top. ‘You cut it fine, Ced,’ she called out. ‘Come in, Miss McDaniels. There’s a table in the back garden if you’d like to talk there, but it’s baking hot.’

  ‘Indoors will be fine, Mrs Black,’ Carrie said. ‘I’d always thought I was daft buying a car with air con, until these last few days.’

  ‘Same here. It’s not Mrs Black, by the way; Mrs Morgan, Eileen. Ced’s widowed and my husband’s living with another man these days: his cellmate in prison. He was one that Cedric couldn’t get off. I had no idea what a long firm fraud was until Skip got eight years for setting one up very badly.’

  Carrie was taken aback by her openness. ‘Skip?’ she repeated.

  ‘His real name is Jeffrey, but he was always known as Captain Morgan, after the rum. Inevitably, that was shortened to Skipper, then further to Skip.’

  She was fascinated. ‘Does he know about you and Mr Black?’

  ‘Hell yes. He’s relieved; it means he’ll have some money left when he gets out. He was afraid I’d have sold our house and spent the lot.’ She pointed to a door at the end of the hallway, through which Black had disappeared as they spoke. ‘Go on through there; it’s Ced’s study. I’ll bring you coffee, unless you’d prefer something cool.’

  ‘Iced coffee would be great.’

  ‘So shall it be.’

  Like the rooms to the front, Cedric Black’s study also had a bay window, overlooking a landscaped garden with a central water feature. It was more of a man cave than a work room, with a pool table and a wall-mounted TV. There was a desk, but Carrie suspected it was used rarely.

  Her host had taken a chair by the window and offered her its twin. ‘So,’ he murmured, ‘the ghost of Marcia Brown has risen.’

  ‘Are you surprised?’

  ‘Not in the slightest. I’ve been expecting it for the last nine years, truth be told.’ He paused. ‘Earlier you said you were on expenses. Who’s paying them?’

  She frowned. ‘Can I tell you that?’

  ‘I’m not asking you who your client is, although I have a shortlist of two. I’m asking who’s your instructing solicitor. No confidentiality applies to that relationship.’

  ‘That’s true. It’s Alexis Skinner.’

  His eyebrows rose and his lips pursed. ‘Indeed? The Crown Princess?’

  ‘Eh?’ Carrie exclaimed.

  ‘That’s what a couple of friends of mine at the Bar call her,’ he explained, ‘the Skinners being Scotland’s royal family of crime-fighters, and her being the heir to the throne. She’s using you to do her leg work this time, is she? I know that Sir Robert has given her some help in the past.’

  ‘He’s a busy man, and Alex’s practice is growing.’

  ‘And he doesn’t want to upset his friends on the force and in the Crown Office.’ Black stopped short and grinned. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I may think so; you couldn’t possibly comment.’

  ‘A shortlist of two,’ Carrie ventured, moving the conversation back a notch. ‘Let’s assume we both know who one is. Who’s the other?’

  ‘I’m thinking of Joan Brown,’ the solicitor replied. ‘Marcia’s sister.’

  ‘She had a sister?’ she exclaimed, unable to disguise her surprise.

  He nodded, then paused as his partner nudged the door open and came into the room, carrying their refreshments on a tray. She laid it on a table by the window. ‘I’ve given you ice in a glass,’ she said, ‘in case you change your mind and prefer your coffee hot.’

  ‘Thanks, Eileen,’ Black said, then added, suddenly, ‘Joan Brown. You remember her, don’t you? You and Skip introduced her to Catherine and me, one night we were out for dinner as a foursome. Must be what, seven years ago?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ she agreed. ‘It was in Rogano; the night Skip’s credit card bounced and I had to use mine. Her sister was a client of yours, a councillor who was caught nicking stuff from a supermarket and killed herself rather than face the music. Joan was taken aback when she realised who you were. I thought she might have made a scene; she blamed everyone involved in that incident apart from her sister. She didn’t, though; she was icily polite, as I remember.’

  ‘How did you come to know her?’ McDaniels asked.

  ‘Through Skip. He had an el
ectrical goods business in Shettleston at that time; she was his office manager. She was a teacher really, but had had her fill of lazy, disinterested teenagers. The business went bust not long after that, he moved on to another flawed enterprise and she went back to teaching, I assume. He never mentioned her again.’

  ‘Would he know where she is?’

  ‘He might. At the time I suspected he was sleeping with her, although I could never catch him out. Not that I tried too hard, mind you. My daughter worshipped the ground he walked on; if I’d made a fuss, it would only have upset her.’

  ‘Would he talk to me?’

  Eileen Morgan laughed. ‘You’re an attractive woman; of course he would! He’s in Edinburgh Prison if you want to pay him a visit. Coffee’s getting cold,’ she added. ‘You won’t need the ice in a minute; I’ll leave you to it.’

  ‘Ms Skinner didn’t tell you about Joan?’ Black asked as the door closed.

  ‘No, she didn’t,’ McDaniels admitted, opening a notebook as she spoke. ‘That can only mean that nobody told her, for Alex is very thorough. It probably means nothing, but I will need to interview her. Councillor Brown and her husband were divorced by the time of the case. It may be that her sister was closer to her than anyone, other than her son Austin, and he’s dead.’

  ‘Yes, I read about his death; the trial of his alleged killer must be due very soon. It wasn’t connected to his mother’s case in any way, was it?’

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘Not at all. It was linked to another miscarriage of justice, as I understand it.’

  ‘Does that mean you’re convinced that Marcia’s was too?’

  She smiled. ‘No, it means that I’m getting ahead of myself. Alex’s instructions are to approach the case with an open mind. How did you feel about it at the time?’

  Cedric Black watched as she poured coffee from a cafetière over the ice. As she added milk, she was aware that he was giving himself thinking time. ‘That doesn’t really matter, Carrie, does it? Yes, my client protested her innocence and insisted that she was a victim of a vindictive rival. Her son was as vociferous as she was; he was almost out of control. But the only way to overcome the Crown’s case against her would have been for counsel to prove either that the key witnesses were liars, or that an unknown person, who was never seen, had added the bag of stolen clothing to her trolley while she was distracted by someone who chose that precise moment to lobby her, and who was never seen either.’