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

  ‘What about Vera Stephens? Was she upset?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The fashion buyer; Ms Brown accused her of planting the goods she was accused of stealing.’

  ‘I’ve no idea who she was; I never met her that I know of. Like I said, Sauce, I was an angel, an investor, not a micro-manager. I knew the people in charge of each of the branches, but I wasn’t familiar with the whole bloody payroll.’

  ‘Afterwards,’ McClair said, feeling the need to assert her presence, ‘did Mrs Delaney keep you informed of the publicity about the case?’

  ‘No, why should she? Look, Sergeant, when someone dies like that, she’s going to leave unhappy family and friends behind, but at the end of the day it wasn’t LuxuMarket’s fault, and it wasn’t my fault.’

  ‘Are you telling me that you had no knowledge of the campaign carried on by Ms Brown’s son to have his mother’s case reopened? You didn’t know about the accusation of a frame-up that he trumpeted to any journalist who would listen to him?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Then why did you threaten him?’ she asked.

  Cameron McCullough’s eyes darkened, showing Haddock, if he had ever doubted it, why his fearsome reputation and rumour of his capabilities had persisted through the years. They said clearly, I am a dangerous man, and not to be crossed. They reminded him of Bob Skinner.

  Nevertheless, McCullough’s voice remained quiet, almost gentle. ‘Listen, lady,’ he replied, ‘I’m sitting here being interviewed by the police, who have been after me since I was in my twenties. I’m doing it without a lawyer, because of your boss here, because my granddaughter loves him, and he makes her happy. So don’t you go all Cagney and Lacey on me. Don’t go throwing spurious accusations in the hope I’ll collapse at your feet like some teenage corner boy.’ He looked at Haddock. ‘Sauce, what the hell is she on about?’

  ‘Like I said, Cameron,’ the DI said, ‘this is a police matter; at the moment it’s a missing person investigation, but we are deeply concerned about the lady. We’ve been told that Austin Brass, Marcia Brown’s son, was warned to shut up and go away, and that the warning came from the owner of LuxuMarket. Brass took it seriously enough to take his tanks off LuxuMarket’s lawn, but only ostensibly, for he never really gave up. I don’t doubt the truth of what we’ve been told, and we have to put the question to you.’

  ‘This would have happened when?’

  ‘A couple of months after Marcia Brown’s death.’

  ‘A death,’ McCullough observed, ‘that you have never once described as a suicide. Is that part of your investigation as well?’

  ‘No, it is not,’ Haddock told him truthfully. ‘As I’ve just said, this is a missing person investigation, no more than that. What do you say?’

  ‘I say, Sauce, that less than a month after Ms Brown died, however she died, I went to Russia, where I had and still have business interests. I stayed there for four weeks. From there I flew to Singapore, where I met up with a lady whom you know very well: my granddaughter. She and I boarded a liner and went on a six-week cruise of the Far East, finishing in Hong Kong, where we spent another week before flying home via Los Angeles. It was her graduation present. Hasn’t she told you about it?’

  The DI sighed. ‘She has.’

  McCullough beamed. ‘In which case, thanks, son, for being my alibi.’

  Forty-One

  The display on the monitor blinked for a second, and then a face appeared, that of a woman, her face half covered by huge round spectacles, with short dark hair cut back from her forehead, and long earrings that appeared to Lottie Mann to be matching cameos suspended on gold chains. She started as she saw herself admiring them in a small box on the lower right corner of the screen, seated close enough to John Cotter for the computer’s camera to capture them both.

  ‘Dr Swanson?’ she began.

  ‘That’s me.’ The face broke into a slightly amused smile. ‘Is this how the police work these days?’

  Mann grinned back at her. ‘Skype saves a lot of time and money; we use it for non-caution interviews whenever there’s distance involved and we can’t bring the witness to us.’

  ‘As a taxpayer, I’m glad to hear it. How can I be of service?’

  ‘I’m DCI Charlotte Mann,’ she replied, ‘and this is my colleague DS Cotter. Thank you for agreeing to talk to us. We’re investigating a suspicious death that took place nine years ago. It led to a post-mortem examination in Kilmarnock at which you were present.’

  ‘Marcia Brown? Graham Scott called me last week to ask me about that one. There wasn’t a hell of a lot I could tell him, other than that Banks, the pathologist, was a dickhead. What’s your interest? And what was suspicious about the death? The blood analysis showed fatally high levels of morphine, and Banks said he was signing it off as suicide.’

  ‘Would it surprise you if I told you we now believe that Marcia Brown was murdered?’ Mann asked her.

  ‘Given Graham’s suddenly renewed interest in it,’ Swanson murmured, ‘no, it wouldn’t.’

  ‘Did you have suspicions at the time?’ Cotter interjected.

  ‘I can’t say that I did, but I was only a student, there as the legal requirement for a second pair of professional eyes – not that old Banks let me close enough to do anything other than photograph the victim and take the blood sample to the lab. Really, what he did was unprofessional at best, maybe borderline illegal, but like I said, I was only a student at the time, plus he’d promised me a hundred quid – which I never saw, incidentally.’

  ‘There was a police officer present,’ Mann resumed. ‘Detective Sergeant Coats. Did you have any interaction with him?’

  ‘Personally, no. Banks did when the guy handed over the stuff he’d brought from the scene: the empty morphine capsules and the boxes they’d been in.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘I can’t be sure, but a lot, more than enough to see the poor woman on her journey with no return ticket.’

  ‘Do you remember him handing over anything else? Specifically, syringes?’

  ‘I don’t, but that’s not to say he didn’t.’

  ‘Did Coats stay to witness the examination?’

  ‘I think he was up in the viewing gallery, yes.’

  ‘You were in the room?’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘but I wasn’t assisting as Banks had told me I would. He made me stand well away from the table, almost against the wall. I was nothing more than a gofer, but to be honest, I wasn’t too bothered. My presence was recorded, so I got to put it on my CV.’

  ‘How long did the examination take?’

  ‘Less than an hour. Looking back it was a shocking performance. It was as if everyone had decided in advance that it was a suicide: the police, the fiscal, Banks himself.’

  Mann saw herself frown in the onscreen box. ‘When he was finished,’ she continued, ‘did Banks say anything?’

  ‘All I remember is him looking at the lab analysis of the blood, laughing and saying, “That confirms it, suicide,” or words to that effect. Oh yes, he looked up at the CID man and said, “You can go now, Sergeant. I’ll sign the fiscal report myself.” I think that was all. I don’t think he said anything to the other man at all.’

  ‘The other man?’ Cotter exclaimed.

  Marguerite Swanson’s eyes seemed to widen behind the large spectacles. ‘Yes, didn’t I say? Sorry. There was another witness present for the whole thing. In fact, when I arrived, he was already in the examination room, talking to Banks.’

  ‘Who was he?’ the DCI asked.

  ‘I have no idea. He didn’t have to identify himself to me, and Banks didn’t bother to enlighten me.’

  ‘Did you overhear their conversation?’

  ‘If I did, it didn’t stick. I mean, it wasn’t a row or anything. It wasn’t animated.’

  ‘This fella,’ Cotter ventured, ‘could he have been police?’

  The pathologist shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. He never spok
e to Coats, not at all.’

  ‘But he stayed for the whole examination?’

  ‘Yes, until Banks made his pronouncement. Then he just nodded and left. Separately from Coats,’ she added.

  ‘Can you describe him?’ Mann asked her.

  ‘Not really. Older chap, but not as old as Banks, or as worn. Slim, well dressed; that’s about it.’

  The DCI sighed. ‘Okay. Thanks for your help, Dr Swanson. We might need a formal statement from you at some stage, but if we do, I can ask an officer from your local force to take it for us. Are you sure that’s all you can tell us?’

  ‘Yes, I . . .’ She frowned. ‘Shit,’ she whispered. ‘Of course,’ she said more loudly, ‘there was the woman.’

  ‘What woman?’

  ‘She burst into the viewing gallery just as Banks made the Y incision. I heard her shout, “Why wasn’t I informed?” Coats replied, “Because we’re not required to, madam. Because you have no right to be here.” Then he took her by the arm, firmly but not roughly, and escorted her outside. Banks waited until he came back before going any further. He wasn’t bothered, though; he didn’t even ask who she was.’

  ‘What about the other man? Did he get involved?’

  ‘That’s the thing,’ Swanson replied. ‘Now that I think about it, I’m sure she was shouting at him.’

  Forty-Two

  ‘What do you have for us, Jackie?’ Haddock asked Detective Constable Wright as he strode into the Serious Crimes suite in the building that had once been the headquarters of an autonomous police service. ‘Sorry I didn’t call you from the road, but I’ve spent the best part of the day behind the wheel, and to be honest, I wanted a break from business, knowing that this place was in your capable hands.’

  She grinned. ‘Can I have that in writing for when the next DS vacancy comes up? I’ve got quite a bit,’ she added. ‘For openers there’s Marcia Brown’s twin sister; Joan Brown teaches French and Spanish at Houndswood Secondary in Lenzie. She lives in a flat in Bearsden, she’s fifty-nine years old, as Marcia would have been, and she’s single. But if you’re hoping to talk to her, you’re going to have to wait. The schools have broken up for the holidays; when I tried her phone, I got an answering machine. I gave her an hour and tried again, but got the same result, so I asked for a call-in by the nearest patrol vehicle. The uniforms spoke to an elderly neighbour, who told them that Ms Brown’s gone off to walk the Camino de Santiago with a crowd of friends. She had no idea when she’ll be back. I suppose we could ask the Spanish police to find her and get her to contact us.’

  ‘We will ask,’ the DI agreed, ‘but whatever “fuck off” is in Spanish, don’t be surprised if that’s what they tell us. Hundreds, no, thousands of people make that pilgrimage throughout the year. If you do the whole route, it takes a month. Did you leave a message on her phone?’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  ‘Then the best we can hope for is that she checks her machine remotely and picks it up. What did you say?’

  ‘That it had to do with a reopened investigation into her sister’s death.’

  Haddock nodded. ‘That’ll get her attention. What else?’

  ‘I checked with Carrie McDaniels’ bank and credit card provider. She drew out a hundred quid last Friday evening, but the ATM wasn’t far from her home, so that gets us nowhere. However . . .’ she paused, ‘her Barclaycard was used at twenty past midday on Saturday to buy fuel in a petrol station in East Kilbride.’

  ‘East Kilbride?’ McClair repeated. ‘I wonder what she was doing there.’

  Wright shrugged. ‘Buying petrol. You don’t have to be doing anything in East Kilbride to make a fuel stop there. You pass through it on the way to anywhere south-west of Glasgow.’

  ‘When she stopped there,’ Haddock asked, ‘was she alone?’

  ‘That’ll need to be checked with the filling station, assuming it has CCTV.’

  ‘Most of them do these days. Are you on it?’

  Wright peered at him from beneath furrowed eyebrows. ‘Again, I’ve asked for uniformed assistance. I’ve given the East Kilbride office the registration number and the time of the purchase so it should be easy enough to find.’

  ‘She could have had company that never got out of the car,’ McClair pointed out.

  ‘Let’s see what the CCTV shows us, okay,’ the DI snapped testily, regretting it at once. ‘Sorry, Noele. I’m still smarting from being made to look a clown by Grandpa.’

  ‘That’s okay, Sauce. You weren’t to know about the trip.’

  He winced. ‘That’s the thing, I did. Of course Cheeky told me about it; I just never put the dates together. That’s good work, Jackie,’ he continued.

  ‘I’m not done yet,’ the DC replied cheerfully. ‘We reckon Carrie’s phone’s a goner, but I checked with her provider, BT, and they told me that she backed up her personal data to their Cloud service. Her diary will be on it for sure.’

  ‘And if we really get lucky,’ McClair added, ‘so will any notes she made of interviews and meetings.’

  ‘Maybe so,’ Haddock agreed, ‘but we’ll need to get access to find out.’

  ‘Surely that won’t be a problem.’

  ‘It might, though; this isn’t a criminal investigation, so data protection restrictions will apply. I can ask, but it might be better if I report to the fiscal and ask him to do it, lawyer to lawyer, for you can be sure any request will be referred to theirs. I’ll do it right now, before they’ve all knocked off for the day.’

  ‘You might want to hold off on that.’ The trio turned to see DCC Mario McGuire framed in the doorway. ‘Your rights of access have just improved. We’ve made a positive identification of remains that were discovered earlier on today, Carrie McDaniels is no longer a missing person. She’s a murder victim.’

  Forty-Three

  ‘This is a first,’ Sarah Grace declared, looking at the viewing window behind which her audience of three stood. ‘For me and maybe for any other pathologist.’ She pointed at a camera on a tripod, in the corner of the examination room in Edinburgh’s city mortuary. ‘Which explains why I am having this autopsy – if I can call it that – filmed. It’s not unusual for us to be presented with the remains of fire victims, from houses, auto accidents and such, but normally there’s more left than this: fragments of fabric, for example. The intense heat of a crematory vaporises all tissue and clothing, and reduces the bones to the condition that you see here.’

  ‘Cut to the chase,’ Bob Skinner exclaimed. ‘Was Arthur Dorward correct? Were there two victims?’

  ‘Almost certainly,’ his wife replied. ‘Post cremation of an adult you’d expect to have two to three kilos of remains.’ She turned to the examination table on which the skeletal remains were laid out. ‘We’ve weighed these and they come to around five and a half.’

  ‘That’s assuming these are human,’ Sauce Haddock pointed out. ‘This lot did come from a pet crematorium, and as I understand it, the oven was big enough to handle large animals. Okay, okay,’ he exclaimed, ‘I know about the Rolex that’s been identified as belonging to Carrie McDaniels, but I don’t want you – or me, for that matter – to be asked that question by a top silk defence counsel without being able to answer unequivocally. We need to be able to discount any other possibility.’

  ‘We can,’ she assured him. ‘I haven’t begun my detailed examination yet, but I did take a look as we were putting the remains on the scale. There are other gold deposits apart from the Rolex.’

  ‘Could they have come from the watch?’ Noele McClair asked.

  ‘No. They were attached to a charred piece of bone.’ She reached out for a folder on a table close by and brandished it. ‘Thanks to the very efficient DC Wright, I have Ms McDaniels’ dental records. They show that she had gold fillings implanted into her lower wisdom teeth, not in Edinburgh but during a period of military service in Afghanistan. The field clinic was run by Americans, by the way; if it had been British, they’d have used amalgam, and I suspect there
would have been nothing left. Your top silk defence counsel might persevere, but unless he can produce a dental vet who uses gold to fill the teeth of ponies, I’d say we were beyond reasonable doubt.’

  ‘Sarah, you and I discussed this last night,’ Skinner said, ‘but for the benefit of the recording, can we talk about DNA recovery?’

  ‘Yes. I know that Arthur Dorward suggested it was impossible to extract DNA from cremains, and in any normal circumstances he’d be correct. If the crematorium gives you an urn and says this is Granny, you have to take their word for it. However, these are not normal circumstances. The surviving skeletal remains were not ground into powder as they would be in a conventional human cremation. I’m not going to tell you that it’s possible to get an identification from what we have here, but I will ask Arthur to give it a damn good try. Now, I will begin.’

  McClair, Haddock and Skinner fell silent as she went to work, watching as she picked up each fragment and studied it, trying to fit together the pieces of the most bizarre jigsaw any of them had ever seen. She worked in silence for fully ten minutes before pausing and turning to look at them.

  ‘This will take some time,’ she announced, ‘not less than an hour. You three might as well go get a coffee. There’s a Caffè Nero round the corner in Blackwell’s, the bookshop.’

  They took her at her word, leaving the mortuary and climbing the hill that led towards the South Bridge. Halfway to their destination, Skinner paused at the building that had once housed the Infirmary Street Public Baths. As he surveyed it, his eyes seemed to glaze over, and his attention moved elsewhere. ‘That place was a crime scene once,’ he murmured, loud enough for his companions to hear him but in a tone that suggested he was talking to himself as much as to them.

  ‘Major?’ Haddock asked, breaking into his trance.