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

  He nodded. ‘I’ve heard of Alex Skinner. Carrie’s mentioned her in the past – and her formidable father – but not recently. She doesn’t discuss her client business with me; she’s pretty good at confidentiality, always has been. Did she give you my number?’

  ‘No, I was given that by her upstairs neighbour.’

  McDaniels senior grinned. ‘Young Barclay? The little unwashed, Carrie calls him. A good barman, she says, and an idiot in every other way, but there’s no harm in him. Now, to business. You’re looking for Carrie? Well, the truth is, that makes two of us. She was supposed to be here for lunch – indeed, she was supposed to bring it with her – but there’s been no sign of her. Her phone’s off too, but I guess you’ve been trying that yourself. Can I ask, though, why the urgency on your part?’

  ‘I’m not one hundred per cent sure,’ Clarice admitted. ‘All I know is that Alex asked me to contact her, tell her to stop whatever she’s doing on the brief, and get in touch with her.’

  ‘On a Sunday?’

  ‘Exactly,’ she agreed. ‘They were supposed to meet last night but it never happened. Carrie left a message saying she’d be at Alex’s office at five thirty, but she was busy and didn’t pick it up until too late. She wasn’t able to contact her after that, and today she passed the task on to me.’

  ‘She’ll turn up,’ he said. ‘As it happens, she was out of town last night.’

  ‘She was?’

  ‘Yes. She’s a big Gregory Porter fan, and last night he was singing at the Sage in Newcastle. What’s happened, she’ll have given up on Ms Skinner after half an hour or so and belted down there. She’d booked herself into the Malmaison, across the river, and intended to drive up this morning to be here for lunch. If I know her, she had a couple last night, overslept and left much later than she’d meant to. Her phone battery will be flat; she always forgets to take her charger. That’s why I don’t have one,’ he added. ‘The things are so bloody unreliable. Would you like a cup of tea, Ms Meadows? Chances are before we finish it she’ll pull up outside, full of apologies and Coca-Cola.’

  ‘She couldn’t have come home last night? I ask because Barclay said he heard movement in her flat about half past two.’

  McDaniels frowned. ‘Was he sure about that?’

  ‘He seemed to be; he said he was sure he heard her moving around, even though there were no lights showing.’

  ‘Now that does worry me. My daughter would not walk away from a hundred and twenty quid hotel booking; if the boy’s right – and he’s not that big an idiot – I’ve got a problem, I’m afraid. I need to check this out right away.’

  ‘But what about Carrie?’

  ‘We have each other’s keys. If she arrives here, she can let herself in, and be annoyed about me for a change.’

  ‘In that case,’ Clarice declared, ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘You don’t need to do that,’ he said. ‘You have better things to do, surely.’

  ‘Not many,’ she replied. ‘The bowling club afternoons can drag on well into the evening. And besides, as dear old Magnus used to say, I’ve started, so I’ll finish.’

  Twenty-Five

  ‘Where are we going?’ Alex asked her father as he drove along the coast road past the Seton Sands holiday complex. He was at the wheel of her car, having insisted on using it.

  ‘You’ll see,’ he replied affably.

  ‘Bloody man . . . You are so damned annoying when you go all mysterious on me. It’s even more extreme this time, given that you wouldn’t even tell Mario. Gimme a clue, go on.’

  ‘Okay, if you insist. I’m taking you to a friend of mine, someone you’ve never met.’

  ‘Someone you feel safe leaving me with, given that two guys may have tried to kill me last night?’

  ‘One hundred per cent.’

  ‘Then who the hell is he? What the hell is he? Is he ex-special forces? Is it that security service guy, Clyde Houseman? He was SBS, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, he was, and no, it isn’t. Ex-special forces guys are ten a penny; I could have hired a couple of them. The problem with that is that for all I know, the two guys who broke into your place were ex-special forces too.’

  ‘If they were,’ she countered, ‘they didn’t live up to their billing. Once I’d armed myself, they thought better of it and headed for the door.’

  ‘Tactical withdrawal. The truly elite know when not to push their luck.’ He smiled. ‘That said, they didn’t sound top drawer. Plus, special ops soldiers blow doors off their hinges; they don’t pick locks as a rule.’

  ‘So?’ she persisted. ‘This friend of yours, if he isn’t one of them, what is he?’

  ‘He’s an academic,’ Bob said.

  She gasped. ‘An aca-fucking-demic! If these fellows find out where I am and give it another try, what’s he going to do? Set them an exam?’

  ‘They will not break into his place. My friend is uniquely qualified. Do you think for a moment that I would entrust your safety to someone if I had the slightest doubt that he was up to the job?’

  ‘No,’ she conceded. ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Then be patient.’

  He drove on, past the empty ground where once Cockenzie Power Station had stood, then through Prestonpans, taking the roundabout marked by a pub called the Levenhall Arms, but still known as Mrs Forman’s, then braking slightly as a red Citroën Cactus with a Toyota hybrid in close pursuit took their ground.

  ‘Cool it, people,’ Skinner whispered. ‘If I was a traffic car, you’d be done.’

  ‘Hey!’ Alex exclaimed. ‘I think that’s Clarice’s car, the Toyota. What’s she doing here?’

  ‘Whatever it is,’ Bob said, ‘I’m not chasing her to find out.’

  He carried on, past the racecourse and then Loretto School. The convertible’s hard top was down, and he began to regret not having put more sunscreen on the crown of his head, given the closeness of his recent haircut, but carried on regardless. Musselburgh became Joppa, Joppa became Portobello, and eventually, after the unsightly Seafield, Portobello became Leith.

  He crossed the river, and took the first turn on the right.

  Alex’s forehead furrowed. ‘Isn’t this the place where Mario and Paula used to live?’ she asked, looking upwards at a high-rise block.

  ‘It is indeed. Same place, same duplex. It belonged to Paula’s family, but they sold it when she and Mario moved to Cramond. It was bought by an investment trust. My friend is the tenant, officially, but he happens to own said investment trust. One of the attractions is that the place still has all the security that befits a deputy chief constable, just as I have in Gullane. The real benefit you will meet in a moment.’

  He parked in a visitor space, led her into the building, and took the lift. There was only one apartment on the seventh floor, and its door was open, almost framing an enormous man, so big that he blocked out any light that might have been coming from within his home.

  ‘Alexis,’ Bob said, ‘may I introduce your host, my friend Dr Dominic Jackson.’

  Twenty-Six

  ‘Was I seeing things, or did I nearly take my boss out?’ Clarice Meadows asked herself aloud. A glance in her rear-view confirmed her suspicions but told her also that it was Bob Skinner at the wheel, not Alex.

  She had no time to dwell on the incident, for Peter McDaniels continued to regard the thirty m.p.h. speed limit as no more than advisory, and she had to work to stay on his tail. He led her back the way she had come, but instead of turning into the Dynamic Earth car park, he headed beyond it to another just short of the St Mary’s Street junction. They were able to park side by side, the afternoon visitors having begun to head for home.

  ‘That’s where Carrie leaves hers,’ he explained. ‘She leases a space over there. Where she lives it’s the easiest option, and she can offset some of it against tax.’

  The walk was half the distance but every bit as steep; McDaniels was long-striding, and Clarice was out of breath by the time they reached t
heir destination, wishing she had done the sensible thing and left him to it. ‘Chances are this has all been in vain. She’ll be sitting upstairs in her living room and young Barclay will have imagined the mystery intruders; probably had one too many after work.’

  If that’s the case, Clarice thought, wouldn’t he have seen her car in the car park? But she said nothing, simply returning his smile.

  Two minutes later, Peter’s optimism had evaporated; he had rung his daughter’s doorbell three times, without an answer. He reached for his keys.

  The door had two locks, a night latch and a five-lever Chubb Mortice below. He slid in the Yale key first, and when he turned it, the door opened under the slightest pressure. ‘She must be in the toilet,’ he exclaimed hopefully. ‘She never leaves the Chubb unlocked, not even for a quick trip to the shops.’

  They stepped into the flat, into a narrow hallway. The bathroom faced them; its door was ajar, and the toilet was not in use. ‘Carrie?’ McDaniels called out, but the name echoed around the empty apartment. He went into the only bedroom, then the kitchen, and finally into the living room. Clarice waited in the hallway until he called to her.

  ‘Come and see. She’s had burglars.’

  She followed him into the reception room. It was small, but there was an alcove – once a bed recess, she guessed – big enough to accommodate a bureau with a fold-down front, a chair and a filing cabinet, on top of which there sat a printer. The room was in a state of chaos. The lower drawer of the filing cabinet was open, as were the doors of the bureau. Papers were strewn over the floor, a chair lay on its side, the television had been turned through ninety degrees, and the drawer of the Blu-ray player was open.

  ‘The bedroom and the kitchen are the same,’ he said. ‘The place has been gutted.’

  ‘Has anything been stolen that you can see?’ Clarice asked.

  ‘Yeah. Her laptop. And her iPad. Bastards.’ His face twisted and she saw a different side of Peter McDaniels. ‘And that damn clown upstairs heard them and did nothing! Wait till . . .’

  He turned and strode from the room, with Clarice following instinctively, out of the flat and up the stone stairs to the landing above, where he pounded on the blue door. ‘Barclay!’ he shouted. ‘Are you in? It’s Peter McDaniels, Carrie’s father.’

  ‘Haud on! Haud on!’

  The cry came as the door was opened as far as its security chain would allow. ‘Minute! Minute!’

  The chain was freed; the young man stood there in boxer shorts and a green shirt. His hair was tied back, and for a moment, Clarice had a vision of Dylan, the Magic Roundabout rabbit. ‘Mr McDaniels, where’s the fuckin’ fire?’ he wailed.

  ‘You might be the fire, son. Carrie’s flat’s been burgled, and from what I’m told, you heard them and did nothing.’

  For a second, Barclay squared up to his visitor, then thought better of it. There might have been forty years in age between them, but it would still have been a mismatch. ‘How was I tae ken?’ he moaned lamely, looking at Clarice for support. ‘It was the middle o’ the fuckin’ night.’

  ‘Exactly!’ McDaniels boomed. ‘It was the middle of the night.’ He paused. ‘Let’s go inside,’ he said. ‘There’s no point in doing this in front of the neighbours.’

  ‘Well naw, wait a minute,’ Barclay protested, but he was brushed aside.

  Clarice followed the two men. The layout of Barclay’s flat was different from the one below. It was an attic flat; the ceilings were lower and the floor space was restricted, but when she counted the doors off the hall, she saw one more. The place smelled stale, as much in need of deodorant as its occupant.

  He led them into the kitchen; the window was open, but for all the height of the building, most of the view was of the rear of another tall tenement in Jeffrey Street below. ‘See? Ah wis just hingin’ out, ken. It wis that fuckin’ hot.’

  ‘But you heard noises?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘What kind of noises?’

  ‘Stuff gettin’ moved aboot like.’

  ‘And it never occurred to you as odd that Carrie might be moving the furniture at half past two in the morning?’

  ‘Well mibbe, but—’

  ‘Did you hear voices?’

  Barclay frowned. ‘I might’ve; no’ words, but voices mibbe.’

  ‘Male voices?’

  ‘Mibbe.’

  ‘But you never thought to check, or to phone the police?’

  ‘Naw, Ah never did.’

  ‘Because you didn’t want to disturb your granny?’ Clarice suggested.

  He seized the question like a lifebelt, turning to look at her as she stood in the hall, just outside the kitchen, putting her exceptional sense of smell to work.

  ‘Aye, aye, that’s right,’ he agreed. ‘She’s auld, ken; needs her sleep.’

  ‘I hope we’re not disturbing her now, with all the noise Peter was making. I’ll just check on her, shall I?’ She moved towards the only door in the hallway that was not slightly ajar.

  ‘Naw, naw!’ Barclay yelled. He made a sudden rush for her, trying to thrust Peter McDaniels aside but failing, and finding himself instead in the grip of two remarkably strong hands.

  Clarice opened the door, and as she did so, the smell that she had separated from the rest of the funk in the apartment intensified, becoming distinctive, becoming something that she had encountered once before, as a much younger woman, visiting a farmer friend of her father who had been forced to put down an aggressive Rottweiler, and who had buried it not quite deep enough.

  She stepped into the room. It was lit by a window in the sloping ceiling, propped half open for the constant ventilation that she realised was very much needed. The room was furnished: a dressing table, a wardrobe, a chest of drawers, a commode chair and a bed, made, and with something lying on top of its quilt, rather than beneath.

  It could have been taken for an ordinary parcel, but for its shape, but for the fact that it was between five and six feet long, wrapped in discoloured sheets and bound tight with wide brown tape, and that it was, unquestionably, the source of the smell.

  Clarice had been around Alex Skinner, and her father, for long enough to know to step back out of the room immediately and close the door. Barclay was still in the kitchen, still restrained in McDaniels’ powerful grasp. His face had gone ashen, and he stared at the floor.

  ‘What?’ Peter whispered.

  ‘Hold him,’ she replied; then the fear in his face registered. ‘It’s not Carrie,’ she added, ‘for sure. I’ve got this, I’ll deal with it.’

  She closed the kitchen door and went into Barclay’s living room, which was only marginally tidier than the one below.

  She took out her phone, opened her contacts at the letter A, and made a call. It was answered almost immediately. In the background she could hear seagulls, normal when Alex was at Gullane.

  ‘Clarice, have you run her to ground?’

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ she replied. ‘But I’ve found something else, and I’m going to need the police; not the bobby on the beat, you understand, but someone a little more senior and a little more specialist. And a pathologist, and a doctor; a psychiatrist, possibly. There’s a situation, and dammit, I’m afraid I’ve come out without one of your business cards, for there’s a young man here who most certainly needs you.’

  Twenty-Seven

  ‘This will be your room,’ Alex’s host said, opening its door. ‘The previous owners used it as guest quarters, I believe. I’ve never used it for anything, but it’s clean and the bedding is brand new, like everything else in the place. It’s en suite, and there’s a small fridge and a kettle, so you’ll have complete privacy. We don’t even need to see each other, if you don’t want to. I’ll fit a bolt on the inside of the door if it makes you feel more comfortable.’

  She smiled, imagining how much use that would be against a man of his size. ‘If my father thought I’d need a bolt on the bedroom door,’ she chuckled, ‘I wouldn’t be here.’r />
  He stood aside, allowing her to step into a large, well-lit bedroom, facing east. The curtains were drawn back; the building was taller than its neighbours, giving her a view of North Berwick Law, twenty miles away by crow-flight. ‘This is beautiful,’ she murmured, sincerely. ‘You and I have at least one thing in common, Dominic. We both like high living. My place is a duplex too; my view is the Salisbury Crags.’

  ‘Which makes it remarkable that you were burgled,’ he remarked.

  She looked up at him, unsmiling. ‘They weren’t burglars. I think we both know that.’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, your dad told me. Do the police know why you were targeted?’

  ‘No, they still have to figure that out. The obvious place to start looking is my client list, but Sauce and I agreed that it’s unlikely to lead anywhere. Without flattering myself, I’ve never had a dissatisfied client. I never tell them things I don’t believe myself or make them promises that I have any doubt about keeping.’

  ‘Sauce?’ Jackson queried.

  ‘Detective Inspector Harold Haddock, aka Sauce, because that’s what we put on our fish and chips in this part of the world.’

  ‘Ha, I should have guessed,’ he laughed. ‘Yes, I’ve heard of him; he’s a rising star, they say, on a fast track that he’s laid out for himself.’

  ‘That’s the boy. He is favoured, you’re right, but only because he’s exceptionally good at his job. Many another guy would be back in uniform, given his . . . domestic arrangements.’

  ‘Those being?’ he asked, intrigued.

  ‘His partner is Cameron Davis, known as Cheeky. She’s named after her grandfather, a man with a reputation.’

  ‘But no convictions.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘No, but if I’m guessing right, I’ve heard of him. If Grandpa McCullough is everything they say, he’s extremely clever, for he must have contracted that side of his business out. Everything you’ll find his signature on is legitimate. His late sister Goldie, on the other hand, was a hoodlum, pure and simple.’