08 - Murmuring the Judges

by Quintin Jardine

  It was nine-fifty: the avenue was wide-awake now. Small groups of residents stood together in the roadway, others alone in their gardens, staring in shocked wonder at the scene.

  ‘What’s happening in there?’ Sarah asked, pointing at the vehicle.

  ‘Maggie’s co-ordinating the interviewing of all the neighbours,’ her husband replied, ‘now that you’ve given us a time of death to work on.’

  ‘Estimated,’ she cautioned. ‘I won’t be able to go firm on that until we can get the body back to the morgue.’

  ‘I trust you. Between ten p.m. and midnight last night is good enough for me. Can you tell us anything else that might help us?’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know how much help it’ll be, but I think that the woman was hiding from her attacker, and that she was killed where he found her. There was mud on the palms of her hands, and her slacks were dirty from the knees down, as if she was kneeling in the bushes.

  ‘I couldn’t see any marks on her body, save one, a big bruise round the back of her neck. It looks as if it could have been made by a hand, a strong hand, grabbing her there and hauling her to her feet.

  ‘There were no wounds at all, other than the one which killed her. My thought is that something happened in the house, that Miss Bennett evaded her attacker at first, and that she ran out into the back garden. He followed her . . . very definitely a man, from the size of the hand-print on her neck, and the force of the blow . . . found her hiding place, picked her up and hit her with the knife, just once.

  ‘Death would have been instantaneous, given that size of cerebral shock.’

  She looked at Skinner, then Martin. ‘There’s one thing I find strange, though.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked the Head of CID.

  ‘Why did she hide in the garden? Why didn’t she run out into the street, where it would have been safer?’

  ‘Because the back gate was jammed. It would have taken her too long to force it open.’

  ‘I see.’

  Martin nodded. ‘Poor woman had nowhere to run to. She was pretty well alone here too. Number Fifteen and his wife were in the pub till one o’clock, and Number Nineteen, through the wall, is on holiday.’ He turned to Dorward, who was still wearing his white scene-of-crime tunic.

  ‘Do you agree with Sarah?’ he asked.

  The Inspector nodded. ‘Everything inside matches that theory. There were broken dishes in the kitchen when we went in, and there was a rolling pin lying on the floor. I wondered if she hit him with that before she ran outside. The back door was unlocked too, in support of Doctor Skinner’s proposition.’

  ‘Did you find any prints on the knife hilt?’

  ‘No, although it wasn’t easy to dust since the doctor wouldn’t let us remove the weapon from the skull.’

  ‘That must be done under autopsy conditions,’ Sarah explained.

  ‘Fair enough. Did you find any signs of forced entry, Arthur?’

  ‘None at all, sir. I’d say that the victim let her attacker into the house.’

  ‘Couldn’t he have come through the back gate and in the back door?’ asked Skinner.

  Dorward frowned. ‘Looking at the gate, I’d say it’s only been opened once in quite some time, and that was when you came through it this morning.’

  ‘Could he have come over the top?’

  ‘That’s possible, sir, but unlikely I’d say. The thing is two metres high. An agile bloke could scramble over it, but the wood is soft, and he’d be bound to leave a mark. You did, just shouldering it open, but other than that, it’s clean.

  ‘The way it looks to me, he rang the bell and she let him in.’

  ‘Did she have a boy-friend?’ asked Sarah.

  ‘We don’t know for sure,’ Martin replied. ‘But it was her birthday recently, and the cards are still on show. Apart from one from Nathan, none of them is from a single bloke. There are no give-aways in the bedroom either. No Y-fronts in her chest of drawers, no men’s clothes in her wardrobes, no condoms or pill packets in the bedside cabinets.

  ‘We’re asking the neighbours, of course, but so far there’s no indication that this could have been a lovers’ tiff. All of which takes us back to the possibility of a link to her brother, and the team that he was mixed up with.’

  Skinner stood up. ‘Right,’ he boomed. ‘And that’s where we’d better go now . . . off to see him. When he finds out that his sister’s dead, and we can persuade him that one of his associates killed her, maybe he’ll be mad enough to give them up.

  ‘If not,’ he added, with a meaningful glance at Martin, ‘then you and I will keep him sweating in an interview room until he does, however long that takes.You couldn’t scare him enough, and neither could Mackie. If necessary, it’ll be my shot next.’

  He stood up. ‘Sarah, love, you’d better be off to your post-mortem.’ He jerked a thumb in the direction of the back garden. ‘When you get there, see if you can persuade Joe Hutchison to hang on to do another.

  ‘Arthur, you and your team take all the time you need to find any traces that this man may have left behind. DCS Martin and I are off to rattle Mr Bennett’s cage.’

  The two detectives and Sarah had reached the front door when Skinner’s phone rang. He answered it, with an impatient frown. ‘Yes?’ he answered, pausing as the caller identified himself.

  ‘What is it, Dan?’ he asked. ‘We’re in a hurry to be somewhere.’

  As Sarah watched, she imagined that she saw her husband’s face go chalk-white beneath the tan. ‘Jesus,’ he whispered, as Detective Superintendent Pringle finished his urgent message.

  ‘Do we know how?’

  His companions looked at him as he listened to the reply, and saw the effect of the news, as the surprise left his eyes, to be replaced by cold fury.

  ‘Okay,’ he snapped at last. ‘Tell the Governor that DCS Martin and I are on our way.’

  He ended the call, and stared at the wall, the phone still held loosely in his hand.

  ‘What is it, Bob?’ Sarah asked him anxiously.

  ‘A thoroughly bad day for the Bennett family: that’s what it is.’

  18

  A garishly decorated traffic car stood at the entrance to Saughton Prison as Martin drove up the approach road. One of the two uniformed officers who stood beside it stepped forward, holding up a hand, but stopped as soon as he recognised the occupants, and waved them through the outer gates, which, unusually, lay open.

  Skinner identified himself tersely to the prison officer who waited inside, showing the warrant card which hung on a chain round his neck.

  ‘Very good, sir,’ the man replied. Despite the growing heat of the day, he still wore his heavy blue tunic, rather than shirt-sleeves. ‘You’re expected. If you’ll drive through the inner gate and park in the reserved space by the main office block, I’ll let the Governor’s secretary know you’re here. The offices are round the first corner then first on the right. I’ll send someone with you, if you’d like.’

  Skinner shook his head. ‘Thanks, but that’s okay, I’ve been here before.’

  The great steel inner gate slid open, and Martin drove through, taking the turns which the officer had described. The parking space which had been kept for them was beside the door of the administration block, in which Detective Superintendent Dan Pringle stood waiting. As always he wore his bleary-eyed look, the usual signal of a late night.

  ‘Morning, sir,’ he said, as Skinner stepped from the car.

  ‘Hello, Dan. What was it last night then?’

  ‘Masonic dinner dance, sir. We got home at two.’

  ‘That sounds pretty quiet for the masons,’ Skinner grunted. ‘Where’s the Governor, then?’

  ‘In his office. Big Neil’s with him, trying to keep him calm.’

  ‘McIlhenney?’

  ‘Yes. I called him out. I thought you might want him here, and he agreed.’

  The DCC laughed out loud. ‘Too fucking right he did. Big McIlhenney would go dookin’
for turds at Seafield to get out of going to Sainsbury’s with Olive.’

  The grin left his face as quickly as it had appeared. ‘The Governor’s shaky, is he?’

  Pringle nodded. ‘And then some. He’s taking it personally.’

  Martin shrugged his shoulders as he locked the car. ‘So he should, on the face of it. Let’s go see him.’

  Pringle led the way into the office, his business suit contrasting with the casual dress of the senior officers. The Governor’s room was on the first floor, looking out on to the roadway. It was accessed through an outer office, through which Pringle marched, with the briefest of nods to the officer who was seated there.

  Ian Whiterose, the Governor of Saughton Prison, was seated behind his desk as Skinner and Martin entered, his hands clenched together, twisted, wringing. He was in his mid forties, bespectacled, with dark, untidy hair, and wearing a creased grey suit. As he looked up at the policemen his jaw was clenched.

  ‘Good morning, Governor,’ said Skinner extending his hand as the man stood up. Whiterose shook it, limply.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Skinner, Mr Martin. I can’t tell you how sorry I am that you’ve had to be called here. It’s appalling. I know that things like this aren’t unprecedented in prisons, but it’s never happened to me before.’ The man’s voice rose as he spoke, accentuating his tension and distress.

  ‘Sit down, sit down,’ the DCC insisted, putting a hand gently on the man’s shoulder and pressing him back into his chair. He looked round at his assistant, who stood impassively beside the desk. ‘Sergeant, if you’ve been here more than two minutes, you’ll have sorted out the coffee. See if you can find some for Mr Whiterose and us.’ McIlhenney threw him a dubious look, but said nothing as he withdrew to the outer office.

  ‘Okay, Governor,’ Skinner began as he took a seat facing the man across his desk. ‘First things first. What’s the state of the prison as of now? Where are the inmates?’

  ‘Locked up,’ answered Whiterose. ‘Every one of them. My staff are conducting a detailed search of every cell.’

  ‘Oh? Well, stop them at once, please.’

  The Governor’s eyes widened and his eyebrows rose. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because that search must be conducted by the police.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Do I have to spell it out? If this thing was planned, we can’t rule out the possibility that one of your officers might have been involved. If that was the case, you could be helping them recover and conceal evidence.’

  ‘You don’t believe that, surely?’

  ‘I don’t believe anything yet, but I don’t discount anything. Now issue the order, please. Get your men out of those cells.’ Whiterose nodded, picked up the telephone, pressed a button and spoke to the man in the outer office, just as McIlhenney returned with a tray of coffee. Skinner took a mug, sipped from it, and knew at once why the sergeant had given him the doubtful look. It was the sort of brew that went straight to the heart. ‘No wonder he’s shaky, drinking that stuff,’ he thought as he looked across the desk.

  ‘Tell us, then, Governor, what happened.’

  ‘It’s all very confused,’ the man began, sounding apologetic. ‘We exercised the remand prisoners at nine-thirty as usual, separately from the convicted men. We give them an hour.’

  ‘How many do you have on remand?’ asked Martin.

  ‘Sixty-seven.’ Whiterose paused, then continued.

  ‘No one seems actually to have seen what happened. Some of the men were circling the yard, some were standing smoking, others had a game of football going on. Bennett was with a group walking the yard, when all of a sudden he went down.’

  ‘None of your officers saw him fall?’ Skinner queried.

  ‘No. I had eight of them on supervision, but most seem to have been watching the football.’

  ‘Did any of them hear anything?’

  ‘No, but it was very noisy in the yard, with the game going on.’

  The detective nodded. ‘I appreciate that. How did the men nearest to Bennett react, when he hit the ground?’

  ‘As it was described to me, they backed off and stood in a circle, looking down at him.’

  ‘And what did your officers do, once they’d torn themselves away from the football?’

  Whiterose hesitated. ‘Well, as it was told to me, when it became clear that Bennett wasn’t going to get up, the senior officer in charge approached him. Carefully, you appreciate, just in case it was some sort of a ruse. The man was lying on his side, motionless, with his head bent and his face almost touching the ground. The officer spoke to him without response. Eventually, he bent over him and shook him. It was then that he noticed the blood running down his temple, and realised that he was badly hurt.’

  Skinner nodded. ‘That’s clear up to now. What did he do next?’

  ‘He cleared the exercise yard. All the men were escorted back to their cells. Then he sent for the MO.’

  ‘Were any of the prisoners searched before they left the yard?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘When you said the MO, I take it you meant the prison doctor.’

  ‘That’s right. He was on site, so he was there in only a couple of minutes. He took one look at Bennett and said that he’d been shot.’

  ‘Was any search made of the yard before my people arrived?’

  ‘Yes, by the escorting officers when they returned. Nothing unusual was found.’

  The DCC leaned back and stared at the dirty ceiling. ‘How easy would it be to hide a gun in this prison?’ he asked.

  Whiterose sighed. ‘Mr Skinner, in my experience, the inmates could hide almost anything in a prison.’

  Piercing blue eyes swept down from the ceiling and fixed him suddenly across the desk. ‘What a pity, in that case, that your officer cleared the yard. If he’d kept the men contained there until he’d found out what had happened to Bennett, they could all have been searched on the spot, with no possibility of concealing a weapon.’

  The Governor nodded. ‘I suppose you’re right.’

  ‘There’s no fucking suppose about it. Still, it’s happened, and it’s your problem. What it means is that my people will have to tear your jail apart looking for a gun. However disruptive that might be, you’re going to have to live with it.’ He looked round at Pringle. ‘Dan, how many men do you have on the scene?’

  ‘Just the two uniforms so far, sir, and half a dozen CID. They’re making a list of the men who were in the yard, and getting ready to interview them one by one.’

  ‘That’ll take forever. I want a hundred uniforms here, to begin the search and to help the CID people with the interviews.’

  ‘On a Saturday, Boss?’

  ‘I don’t care what bloody day it is. A hundred, I said.’ He paused, as Pringle nodded. ‘What’s happening about the press? Does anyone have wind of this yet?’

  ‘The Prison Service has its own press office,’Whiterose interrupted.

  Skinner shook his head. ‘Not for this, you don’t. Our Media Relations Manager will handle all enquiries about this.’ He turned back to Pringle. ‘Dan, Maggie Rose will have roused Alan Royston by now to deal with press about her investigation. Obviously you and she will need to co-ordinate, and take Royston’s advice on statements and all of that.’

  The Superintendent looked puzzled.

  ‘Sorry, Dan,’ the DCC burst out as he realised his oversight. ‘There’s no way you could have known this. When you called me on the mobile I was at another murder scene . . . Nathan Bennett’s sister, Hannah. Someone killed her last night.’

  On the other side of the desk, he heard Whiterose gasp. ‘That’s why your men can’t undertake any searches, Governor. Clearly, this wasn’t a prison feud. Bennett was killed to silence him, as, we believe, was Hannah. He was shot in the head, to make sure of the job. Maybe a prisoner pulled the trigger, but he surely didn’t do it without help.

  ‘Dan, when you speak to Alan Royston, tell him I want to know everything that’s being
said to the press.’

  Abruptly, he stood up. ‘Lead on, Governor, take me to visit the scene. I take it that the body’s still there. Andy, you’d better speak to ACC Elder, to soothe his feathers over a hundred of his uniforms being called out. Neil, with me.’

  ‘Sir.’ Mcllhenney rose from his chair in the corner, to follow Skinner and Whiterose from the room.

  Outside the Governor broke into a brisk stride. ‘Is the doctor still there?’ Skinner asked him.

  ‘Yes. I asked him to remain with the body, until you agreed that it could be taken to the prison mortuary.’

  ‘It won’t be going there,’ muttered the DCC, grimly. ‘We may as well stack it with the rest. It’s going to be a busy day for Prof. Hutchison.’

  As they walked on, towards the exercise yard, McIlhenney tugged gently at his commander’s sleeve, and dropped a few paces behind their escort. ‘Boss, I didn’t like to interrupt in there, but when you get to the yard take a look outside the fence.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  They took another corner, and the fenced-in exercise yard was ahead of them. It was unpaved, rough earth, the grass that it had once boasted largely worn away by footsteps. The gate was open, with a prison officer standing just inside. Halfway across the open ground, close to the wall which served as its eastern boundary, the body of Nathan Bennett lay under a blanket. A man in a tweed jacket stood beside it.

  ‘Doctor?’

  The man nodded. ‘Hoy, prison MO.’

  ‘DCC Skinner. You sure this is a shooting?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ answered Dr Hoy, immediately and emphatically. ‘Take a look at his face.’ He drew back the blanket. For the second time that morning, the detective summoned up all his self-control. He bent over and looked closely at Nathan Bennett’s head.

  Dark blood was matted in his hair, at the back of his cranium, and dried on his temple. ‘Has the photographer done his stuff?’ he asked the sergeant.

  ‘Aye, Boss. He’s finished.’