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

  Dominic raised an eyebrow and showed her a tiny smile. ‘Will you defend him if he instructs you?’

  She grinned back at him from her chair on the deck. ‘Even if he had the vision to do that, I’d be disqualified because I’d be a prosecution witness in any trial, but I don’t actually believe there will be one. The Crown will accept a plea to the human trafficking and prosecution charges and be content to make a statement at sentencing hanging the murders of Carrie and Heaney firmly round the son’s neck.’

  ‘So that’s it? My peace is restored?’

  ‘As I’m sure you’ll be relieved to hear.’

  ‘Are you moving back tonight?’ She nodded but avoided his gaze; he seized on it. ‘Are you all right about that?’

  ‘I don’t have any choice; I have to go back there sooner or later. And why not tonight? I’ve had a more secure lock fitted, and a deadbolt, and the bastards who broke in are both dead. It’s just that . . .’ She hesitated. ‘Dominic, I’ve never been really scared before. I’ve been in trouble a couple of times, but I always had absolute faith that my father would be there to get me out. This time he wasn’t. Those two guys were facing me; I actually did believe that I was going to die, and I was terrified. It undermined everything I thought I was. That was bad enough; hearing that Carrie had been murdered added another layer. I can’t shake this feeling of being threatened. Look at my job. I mix with bad bastards for a living. What if another of them decides that I know too much?’

  ‘Alex, kid, that’s not going to happen.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘The sensible, rational part of me knows.’ She tapped her head. ‘But there’s a scared woman in here who’s never been there before.’

  ‘Then let me exorcise you,’ he replied. ‘I promised Bob I would keep you safe, and I will, physically and psychologically. You’ve lived with me for the last week; now you can return the hospitality. You’ll move back to your place, maybe tomorrow, not tonight, and I’ll come with you. I’ll stay for as long as you need me, and I’ll work with you until the scared woman’s gone for good.’ He looked at her unblinking. ‘Deal?’

  ‘Deal.’ She held out a hand and they shook. ‘You’ll miss your deck, though.’

  ‘You’ve got a balcony, haven’t you?’

  ‘With barely room for you, let alone both of us. Still, the view’s good.’ She paused. ‘Maybe it’s just as well I’m staying tonight,’ she conceded. ‘I have an important meeting tomorrow with David Brass, the client Carrie and I were acting for. I need to brief him on the outcome of the investigation, including the fact that his ex-wife was a fucking thief all along. He’s due in my office at eleven tomorrow, and since he knows him, my father says he wants to come too.’

  Seventy-Seven

  ‘Mr Brass, welcome, I’m glad you could join us. You remember Clarice Meadows, my PA, don’t you? She’ll be sitting in on the briefing taking notes as necessary. Also, my father thought it would be appropriate for him to be here too, since he started this ball rolling by sending you to me. He’s in his office above; I’ll let him know you’re here.’

  As Clarice ushered her client to a seat at the small table, Alex fired off a text. She was distributing mugs of coffee when her father arrived.

  ‘David,’ he exclaimed heartily. ‘Good to see you again.’

  Pleasantries over, everyone seated, Alex began. ‘I have to report a definite conclusion, Mr Brass. I briefed an investigator to look into the file you left me and follow up on it as necessary. She, and others, spoke to the principal players in the event, and I’m afraid that it’s been established quite clearly that Marcia was guilty as charged. She staged her own arrest and tried to make it look like a set-up by Councillor Stephens, her enemy on the council. Her reason for this? She was concerned that a planning application for a change of use of the LuxuMarket premises was going to put many people out of work. Spurious, because it was only an application in principle, nothing to get excited about, but she wanted her day in court where she could level accusations against Councillor Stephens in what she thought were privileged circumstances that would guarantee them being reported. She never did get that opportunity, though, because she was found dead in advance of proceedings, a death that was subsequently determined to have been suicide. That’s probably not what you wanted to hear, Mr Brass, given your own concerns about the case, and also those of your late son and his aunt, Joan Brown, Marcia’s twin, the pair of them being determined to prove her innocence. Sorry, but that’s the position.’

  Brass sat for almost a minute, looking away from the table, taking in what he had been told, nodding occasionally. Finally he turned to face her. ‘You know what, Ms Skinner,’ he said. ‘None of that surprises me. What I told you before about Marcia and me wasn’t completely true. We didn’t stay friends after the divorce. I tried to tell Austin, God bless him, that his mother was a nutcase. If your investigation has proved it, well, it’s a shame it’s too late, but at least it’ll finally shut up Marcia’s bloody sister. Thank you, Ms Skinner, you’ve done well. And thank you, Bob, for introducing me to your very capable daughter.’

  Skinner smiled. ‘My pleasure, David.’

  ‘Mine too, Mr Brass,’ Alex added. ‘I wish I could stop there, but unfortunately, although the original incident was nothing to get excited about, when we started to look into it, a couple of people did. My investigator’s name was Carrie McDaniels; unless you’ve been completely cocooned and isolated from newspapers, radio and TV news bulletins, you’ll know that she was found dead just over a week ago.’

  The elderly dentist’s mouth fell open. ‘Yes,’ he sighed, visibly shaken. ‘I feel terrible guilt that she was working on my behalf. What happ—’

  ‘It’s better that my dad explains. He knows the details better than I do.’

  Skinner nodded. ‘That in-principle planning application, David: Marcia was right to be leery about it, but not for any reason she ever suspected. When LuxuMarket closed, it became a household supplies warehouse that traded respectably but was in fact a front for organised crime. When Carrie started asking questions, the people in the background panicked. They feared that she would draw attention to a very nasty business, and so they killed her. They also broke into Alex’s home and threatened to kill her too.’ Brass was blinking rapidly, his eyes moving from one Skinner to the other. ‘I say “they”, but it was really one man, a Pakistani intelligence officer gone rogue, a man named Wasim Butt. Wasim Butt junior, I should say, for he was the son of the guy who approached Austin and threatened him into temporary silence. Junior didn’t want any witnesses, so he killed his accomplice as well as Carrie, and disposed of their bodies together. Then he escaped to Pakistan, where subsequently, we’ve been told, he died himself. The Pakistani police reported to my former colleague this morning that he was killed resisting arrest. That’s a version I choose to accept, although I don’t believe a fucking word of it. All I care about is that he’s as dead as Carrie.’

  Brass seemed to have shrunk into his chair. ‘That’s awful,’ he whispered. ‘That poor woman; if I had known it would lead to this, I’d never have dug up that piece of ancient history.’

  ‘However hard your ex-sister-in-law pressed you?’

  ‘What? Yes, no,’ he muttered, confused.

  ‘No, you wouldn’t,’ Skinner said. ‘But if you hadn’t done that, the police would never have discovered that Marcia didn’t kill herself at all, that she was murdered. So you did justice a favour, for all the tragedy that followed.’

  Looking across at Brass, Clarice Meadows experienced a sudden fear that his eyes were about to pop out of their sockets. ‘What . . .’ He shook himself. ‘Are you saying that this Wasim man killed Marcia too?’ he asked.

  ‘That would be a neat conclusion, but . . .’ Skinner rose, opened the door and called out, ‘Lottie, Hitch, it’s time for you to join us.’

  ‘Pops?’ Alex said.

  ‘Sorry, kid. I felt it best not to mention this in advance. DCI Mann and DS Cotter
need to interview Mr Brass, and since I knew he’d be here . . .’

  ‘Interview him? About what?’

  ‘About the murder of his former wife. It’ll be under caution, and he’s your client, so it’s as well we’re meeting here.’

  David Brass was staring at him, and past him at the looming presence of Lottie Mann. ‘Murder?’ he exclaimed. ‘Bob, I don’t understand. What lunacy is this? What does it mean, that I’m to be interviewed under caution?’

  ‘It means as a suspect; as the prime suspect, in fact. It means you have the right to legal advice while you’re being questioned. Alex can offer you that, being a criminal specialist, or we take things elsewhere and you can instruct another solicitor. Your choice.’

  ‘Would I find anyone better?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’ve set this up, clearly. Would she be influenced by you?’ he asked, frowning.

  ‘She hasn’t been since she was fourteen years old.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ his daughter intervened, ‘but I don’t think it’s appropriate that I continue. Wait one minute.’ She left the room. Its five occupants waited in silence, watching two minutes tick away on the wall clock, then three, until she returned, accompanied by another woman, younger than she was by a year or two. ‘This is my associate, Johanna DaCosta,’ she announced. ‘She hasn’t been involved in the Marcia Brown investigation at all, so it would be far better if she advised Mr Brass, if he’s agreeable.’ She looked at him. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’d prefer you,’ he murmured. ‘But if that can’t be, yes, I will instruct her.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Johanna said. ‘Alex, it’s best if you withdraw, and Clarice too. I doubt the police will want either of you here.’ She turned to the officers. ‘If you prefer to do this at your place with your own recorders, it’s understood, but we have a smaller version here.’

  ‘That’ll do,’ Mann conceded, then looked down at Cotter. ‘We’re here, so let’s do it. Hitch, I’d like you to video this as well on your phone.’

  ‘We have a stand for that too,’ DaCosta volunteered.

  ‘Fine. We’ll set up if you’d like a couple of minutes alone with your client.’

  Brass shook his head. ‘I have nothing to tell her. Let’s get on with it.’ He scowled. ‘I want to get home. My wife killed herself; it was proved, so this is nonsense.’

  DaCosta left the room with her two colleagues, returning with the equipment. As she did, her eyes found Skinner standing quietly in a corner. ‘Sir Robert,’ she ventured, ‘shouldn’t you be leaving us too, since this is a formal police interview, with my client under caution?’

  ‘I have a role, Johanna; oversight, let’s call it. Look on me as the deputy chief constable’s eyes and ears.’

  ‘And voice?’

  ‘Only when appropriate; DCI Mann is the senior investigating officer. It’s her show.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Mann murmured as she and Cotter took seats facing Brass and DaCosta, Skinner remaining in his corner, leaning against the wall. She introduced herself and her colleague for the tape and administered the formal caution.

  ‘Mr Brass,’ she began, ‘nine years ago, your former wife Marcia Brown, an elected independent member of the West Coast Council, was found dead in her home. At the time she was due to face trial on a shoplifting charge, and an assumption seems to have been made that she took the easy way out. A post-mortem examination was carried out, performed by a locum pathologist with a student assistant. A lethal quantity of morphine was found in her bloodstream, Oramorph capsules were found in her flat, and on the recommendation of the pathologist, the procurator fiscal, Mr Robert Hough, determined that she had taken her own life. The case was closed.’

  ‘Why was it ever reopened?’ Brass asked angrily. ‘It was clear that that was what happened.’

  ‘You can blame yourself for that,’ the DCI retorted. ‘If you hadn’t asked Ms Skinner to look into the shoplifting complaint, it never would have been. If you hadn’t done that, Mr Brass, lots of things wouldn’t have happened and a couple of people would still be alive. But sad as that is, it’s the subject of a separate investigation, now concluded, and not relevant to mine. Why was this case reopened? you ask. You can blame the guy standing in the corner for that. It was plain innate curiosity that led Sir Robert Skinner to ask Professor Graham Scott to take another look at the autopsy report. He did so, and came to a very different conclusion than the examining pathologist. He believes that the morphine that killed Ms Brown was not self-administered, but forcibly injected into her bloodstream, while she was being restrained. His view originally was that it would have taken two people to do that, one to hold her, the other to inject her, but since then he’s conceded that one person could have done it, if he was strong enough in the hands and forearms and experienced in using a syringe. As a dentist would be, for example.’ She paused, leaning back. ‘Sir Robert said earlier that this is my show. Maybe it is, but it’s not a solo performance. Detective Sergeant Cotter, you did most of the legwork; you should carry on.’

  The little DS sat straighter, coughed and began. ‘When your wife . . . sorry, sir, your ex-wife died, you and she had been divorced for several years.’ His Tyneside accent sounded out of place among the lowland Scots; the atmosphere in the room seemed to change subtly.

  ‘About five, actually,’ Brass replied briskly.

  ‘That’s right. That meant you weren’t her next of kin.’

  ‘No, my son was.’

  ‘Along with her twin sister. I’m not sure who takes precedence in Scots law, but when they need a formal identification, the police tend to go for who’s handiest. In this case, it was her sister, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose it must have been. Actually,’ he murmured calmly, ‘now that I think about it, Austin was away on a course at the time.’

  ‘Noted, sir. Fact is, we know that her sister did the identification.’ Cotter paused and took a tablet from the document case he had brought with him. He set it on its folding cover and switched it on. ‘I got in touch with her myself, just to confirm that; it wasn’t easy, but I was able to set up a video call and our technical people helped me record it. Just as well, eh? I’m rubbish at that stuff, me. This is it.’

  He hit a button and the screen image vanished, replaced by the face of a middle-aged woman, and in a small box in the corner, that of Cotter himself. ‘Are you ready, Ms Brown?’ His voice sounded metallic, but the Tyneside twang was still there.

  ‘Yes, Sergeant. I’m fine. Two police interviews in as many days. Have you found out who killed that woman?’

  ‘I’m on another team, but I believe that’s progressing. I want to ask you specifically about your sister’s death, and about you identifying her body.’

  ‘Something I will never forget. Nor the autopsy. I went there to make sure it was done properly, but the policeman said I couldn’t stay. Black was there, though, the lawyer who did the settlement. I’m afraid I had a go at him.’

  ‘Going back a step, what did you do after you made the formal identification? Did you try to contact your nephew?’

  ‘I did, but without success. He was away. The police had to locate him.’

  ‘You didn’t think of calling his father?’

  She frowned at the camera. ‘Not for one second! David and Marcia had been at daggers drawn, Sergeant. Relations between them were never great, not even when they were married – he liked a drink after work – but by then they were very bad. Marcia had learned that he was selling his dental practice. She realised that its value hadn’t been included in her divorce settlement – that’s what happens when you’re stupid enough to let your husband’s lawyer act for both of you – and she told him in no uncertain terms that she’d be expecting fifty per cent of the proceeds. I know this because she called him from my house.’

  ‘You’re sure about that?’

  ‘I’m certain, Mr Cotter; she put the phone on speaker mode. He called her words I didn’t know he knew.’

 
‘Was her claim realistic?’

  ‘Oh yes. She hadn’t taken legal advice at that stage, but I consulted my solicitor on her behalf; she told me it was a sure thing. A claim to an equal share would be successful, for there had either been negligence or deliberate deception at the time of the divorce settlement. The latter more likely, in my book, although it couldn’t have occurred to Marcia. When she was arrested for the shoplifting, she actually called the same man, the one who’d stitched her up over the settlement. She was bloody naïve when it came to lawyers. I don’t know what she was thinking.’

  ‘Could she have been thinking that it didn’t matter who she called?’ Cotter suggested, from his onscreen box. ‘Wasn’t it the case that her sole purpose was to use her court appearance to release the bees in her bonnet over that planning application? From what I’ve heard, Ms Brown, your sister was a volatile woman, and very determined.’

  ‘She was all of that,’ she admitted. ‘It was never diagnosed, but with hindsight I’d say she could have been bipolar. There was the respected, capable hospital manager and there was the Marcia who beat off all opposition to win and hold her council seat as an independent, fearless, unquenchable champion of the underdog against the system. That was her at home too: always confrontational. David’s never been my favourite man, but I must admit she gave him a hell of a time, during their marriage and after it. The claim to a share of the practice sale was the latest in a . . .’ She stopped and took a breath, ‘Oh, I suppose you’d call it harassment. After the divorce, she broke up at least two of his relationships that I know of, by calling the women involved and spilling what she called the truth about him. I’ve no idea whether it was the truth or not, and maybe she hadn’t either. She could be vindictive.’

  ‘Hold on a minute,’ Cotter intervened. ‘If Marcia gave Mr Brass all that trouble, why did he engage a solicitor to take another look at the theft allegation, years after the event?’

  ‘Because I insisted. David still had the folder that Austin’s friend in the fiscal’s office gave him. With poor Austin dead, there was no one fighting for his mother. I told David I wasn’t having that, and that I wanted the case reopened. Marcia might have been all the things I just told you, but she was still my crazy twin, and I didn’t believe she was a thief. It seems I might have been wrong about that, but now it’s been established that she didn’t kill herself, if what you’re telling me is right, that’s actually more important to me than the theft charge. It’s daft, but I’m grateful to David. I hope he can find some peace after this and that he can mourn his son properly, even if he never shed a tear over Marcia’s death.’