08 - Murmuring the Judges

by Quintin Jardine

  The man’s mouth fell open in surprise, but quickly his expression changed to one of anger. ‘Oh really,’ he burst out. ‘This persecution is just too much; I thought it was over, but apparently not. We don’t do any harm to anyone out here. Why can’t you leave us alone?’

  ‘David,’ Neville broke in, soothingly, ‘we’re not here to persecute anyone . . . although -’ she nodded her head towards the sea, and grinned ‘- if someone persists in flashing his impressive tackle in a public place we might have to prosecute him.

  ‘We’re looking for help.’

  He looked at her doubtfully.

  ‘Really,’ said Maggie. ‘We are. I’m Detective Chief Inspector Rose and this is Detective Sergeant Neville. We’re engaged in a murder investigation. Didn’t you see our colleagues at the car park?’

  ‘No. We park in Gullane, then walk around the edge of the golf course.’

  ‘Well, don’t you read the newspapers?’

  ‘Never!’ said David vehemently. ‘I can’t stand newspapers: the way they assume the right to pry into everyone’s lives. Television’s just as bad these days. Donovan and I prefer just to run our little gallery and let the world get on with its own business.’

  He looked across at Rose. ‘Where did this murder of yours take place?’

  ‘Here in the Nature Reserve, last Sunday.’ She pointed westwards, across the water. ‘A man was tied up in one of the old submarines out there, and left for the tide to come in.’

  ‘Oh, how awful! The poor chap, what it must have been like. Who was he?’

  ‘Have you ever heard of Lord Barnfather, the judge?’

  David gave a gasp. ‘Oh no, surely not.’

  ‘You knew him?’ the DCI asked.

  ‘Yes. He was a customer of ours, at the gallery.’

  ‘Did you know he was gay?’

  ‘Of course I did, my dear. Oh, the poor old fellow!’

  ‘Were you here last Sunday by any chance, David?’ Karen Neville asked.

  He nodded. ‘Yes. I only open the gallery from Monday to Friday during the Festival, for my business customers. We don’t go in for special exhibitions, so all the private buyers are usually elsewhere at weekends. The weather was fine last weekend, so we came down here on both days.’

  ‘Do you recall seeing Lord Barnfather here, on either day?’

  David scratched his head. ‘One sees so many people here whom one knows. We saw His Lordship in the Reserve quite often.’

  ‘Do you mean on the beach?’ asked Rose.

  ‘Oh no,’ he replied, frowning. ‘He never came here with chums. He may have been an old queen, my dears, but he was also a serious bird-watcher.’

  ‘So, last weekend. Concentrate and think back. Did you see him?’

  The man put his hands behind his head, fingers interlinked, and closed his eyes.

  He sat there, motionless for almost a minute, until at last, his eyes opened. ‘Yes,’ he whispered. ‘I’m certain that I did. It was last Sunday, late in the afternoon.’ He turned and stretched out a hand, pointing westwards. ‘Over there, almost at the point at which the beach bends into the bay.’

  ‘Was he alone?’

  ‘No. He was with a man. They were both wearing outdoor clothes as I recall, and they were walking close together.’

  ‘How near to you were they?’ asked Rose.

  David shrugged his round shoulders. ‘They were thirty, perhaps forty yards away.’

  ‘Did Lord Barnfather see you?’

  ‘No, I’m sure he didn’t.’

  ‘Did you call out to him?’

  ‘No. They seemed engrossed in their conversation.’

  ‘When you say they were close together,’ asked Neville, ‘how close?’

  ‘Their arms could have been linked.’

  ‘Or Lord Barnfather could have been held by an arm?’

  David looked at her. ‘I suppose he could.’

  ‘In which direction were you walking?’ the sergeant asked.

  ‘East. I had been stretching my legs and I had just turned to come back here.’

  ‘And them?’

  ‘Westward.’

  ‘Towards the submarines?’

  ‘If they went that far, yes.’

  ‘And the tide?’

  ‘It was almost fully out.’

  Rose paused. ‘Can you describe the man with Lord Barnfather?’ she asked him.

  ‘He was in his early middle age . . . perhaps about my own age, forty-two . . . tallish, approaching six feet, with dark hair. I think he was clean-shaven.’

  ‘Was Donovan with you when you saw him?’

  David laughed softly. ‘No, he was off waving his wand at the water for one last time, before we went home. We were having a supper party that evening.’

  ‘Was there anyone else nearby?’

  ‘Not that I can recall.’

  The red-haired detective looked at him. ‘If we showed you some photographs, could you pick this man out?’

  ‘I won’t know until I try . . . but I do have a good memory for faces.’

  Rose reached into her knapsack and took out her business card. ‘In that case, I’d like you to call in at our headquarters at Fettes Avenue, tomorrow, at around twelve mid-day. Ask for the Head of CID’s Office, show them this and tell them I sent you. Detective Superintendent Mackie will be there will let you see some photographs. Maybe one will be the man you saw.’

  49

  Even in his home village Bob Skinner was aware of the need to guard his tongue at parties. During the years of his widowhood he had tended to turn down invitations, but since his marriage to Sarah he had been drawn back into the Gullane social circle, among whose number, he had discovered, the consumption of alcohol seemed to have declined with age.

  Nevertheless, as he mingled among his friends and neighbours, listening to the inevitable golf chat, he kept a mental note of his own score in cans of Boddington’s Draught.

  In a crowd most of whom had been together for twenty years, there were no conversational no-go areas. While he was prepared to discuss his own work in general terms, he had to be careful not to slip into specifics.

  Questions were asked and were answered in general terms or the conversation was politely turned into other areas. Therefore Skinner was not surprised, or disturbed, when during a lull in a discussion of the lack of success of Scottish international rugby, one of the newer arrivals in the village . . . it was only nine years since his move from Newcastle . . . leaned forward and said, ‘Who’s doing in the judges, then, Bob?’

  He smiled, as the other three men in the kitchen coughed and shuffled uncomfortably. ‘Come on, Philip, I can’t tell you that before I’ve told the Fiscal,’ he chuckled.

  ‘Of course you can,’ his stocky acquaintance persisted, as he tore the ring-pull from a bright red can of McEwan’s Export. ‘They’re as good as the confessional, are Gullane parties.’

  Bob glanced at his watch, and laughed. ‘After midnight, maybe when most people are too pissed to remember anything. Until then at least, I have nothing to confess.’

  ‘Saw some of your people today,’ Philip persisted, ‘down at the Reserve. One of them even stopped me; asked if I was there last weekend. Even showed me a photo of the old boy what got done in. Since when did you start employing Africans, by the way?’

  The policeman ignored the question. ‘And were you there?’ he asked.

  ‘As a matter of fact I was. I go there most weekends with the dog.’ He chuckled, looked over his shoulder, then leaned into the circle. ‘Golf in the morning, walk the dog in the afternoon. Anywhere but bloody Tesco. D’you know, lads, if I sit on my arse for one second, that bloody wife of mine’s at me to be doing something. DIY, shopping, anything. Can’t bloody stand seeing me enjoy myself, Mary can’t.

  ‘Think I’ll get a mistress.’ He smiled up at the policeman, conspiratorially. ‘You’ve had some experience there, old lad. D’you recommend it?’

  As he spoke, Sarah appeared behind
him, framed in the kitchen doorway, holding two empty glasses. The grin froze on her face. Two men on either side of Skinner stiffened involuntarily.

  But Bob simply leaned against the worktop at his back, smiling. ‘Not as a general rule, Phil,’ he said, then paused. ‘Mind you, in some cases it can come as a blessed relief to the wife involved.’

  The man’s bonhomie was shaken for a second, as he struggled to interpret Skinner’s comment. Finally he gave a forced chuckle. ‘Take that as a compliment, shall I?’

  ‘Take it any bloody way you like, mate,’ Bob answered, as he leaned over to fill his wife’s two glasses, the second of which was, he guessed, for the long-suffering Mary, with whom he had seen her deep in conversation earlier.

  ‘Yes,’ the indefatigable Philip said, his voice lower now as Sarah departed, ‘I suppose some of us might be too much for the wife to handle.’

  He ploughed on, returning to his original subject. ‘Anyway, as I was saying, it’s quite a novelty, being interviewed by the Old Bill.’

  ‘You didn’t see Lord Barnfather, I take it.’

  ‘Wouldn’t know him if I found him in my soup, old son. I never see anyone I know down there. The place is full of odd bods with gaiters and field glasses . . .’ He paused. ‘No. I lie. I did see someone I knew last Sunday: chap I played squash with when I was a member of the Grange Club. Bumped into him . . . literally . . . on the path through the bushes. Didn’t talk to him, though. He just nodded and hurried off.

  ‘What was his name again? Christ I’m bloody awful at putting names to faces.’ He shook his head.

  ‘It’s the first sign of dementia, you know, Phil,’ said Bob.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘I forget.’

  He reached for another Boddington’s and turned to the man next to him. ‘On the links today, Eric?’ he asked, as he ripped the top off.

  ‘Aye,’ said his neighbour. ‘The usual three-ball. We all played quite well for a change. Were you out?’

  ‘Yes, Sarah and I played Witches Hill this afternoon.’

  ‘Did you tame it again, then?’

  Bob laughed. ‘No such luck. It took an expensive revenge. I had two in the water.’

  ‘Got it!’ Phil’s cry of triumph turned every head back towards him.

  ‘King; that’s his name. Norman King.’

  50

  ‘How are Maggie and Neville getting on at the beach, by the way?’ asked Neil McIlhenney. ‘Are they picking up a tan, then?’

  ‘They are that,’ McGuire replied. ‘They slogged up and down the beach for a bit, then Karen worked out that if they just got the cossies on and lay on the sand, most of the punters would come up to them. She was right, apparently.’

  ‘How are Mags and she getting on?’

  ‘Fine. A lot better than Maggie thought they would in fact, given her reputation. I told her it’d be okay. I said to her that anyone who’d proposition you was more to be pitied than anything else.’

  McIlhenney threw the Inspector a look of the deepest disdain. ‘She’s a very nice girl, is Karen, and she has excellent taste. She has all sorts of qualities, in fact,’ he added, slyly.

  Mario’s dark eyes narrowed. ‘Here, you didn’t . . . did you?’

  The big sergeant looked at him for a long time, in silence, a grin flicking around the corners of his mouth.

  ‘You didn’t . . .’

  ‘No,’ said McIlhenney, at last, beaming. ‘But if I’d been as pissed as she was . . .’

  ‘. . . You’d have regretted it till your dying day.’

  ‘Which would have been the day that Olive found out. Aye, I know.’

  ‘So what are these other qualities she has, then, big fella?’

  ‘Everything that goes to make a bloody good copper; because that’s what Sergeant Karen is, behind the flashing eyes and the splendid tits.’

  McGuire nodded. ‘That’s what DCI Rose says too.’

  ‘What? That she’s a good copper or that she’s got splendid tits?’

  ‘Both, in fact. They found a witness, a gay bloke who’d seen Barnfather with a man last Sunday. Apparently Karen handled him like a natural. Later on, when they were lying on the beach in their bikinis, the other two things came into play. Like fucking magnets they were, Maggie said. She just lay there propped up on her elbows and smiling and the punters came up to them in their droves.’

  ‘Were there a lot of gays out there, right enough?’

  ‘A few; even they seemed to be drawn by Neville’s orbs. They were all very co-operative. A couple of young chancers did try to pick them up at one point, but Maggie saw them off with only a single flash . . . of her warrant card.’

  ‘So what sort of a result did they get overall?’

  ‘Not bad. Four people thought they had seen the old boy with someone, but couldn’t describe him. David, the gay bloke, though; he’s another story. He’s coming into Fettes today, so that Brian Mackie can show him some mug shots, including one of King.’

  ‘Ah, I saw the Thin Man coming in. That’s why he’s here, is it, and not with the new bidey-in.’ McIlhenney grinned. Mackie’s new domestic arrangements were still the subject of much internal discussion within CID. ‘How about the guys in the car park?’ he went on. ‘Any result there?’

  McGuire shook his head. ‘Nothing. I said to Maggie that maybe they should get their tits out today.’

  ‘Somehow,’ McIlhenney muttered, ‘I don’t think our Sammy would impress too many people in that way.’

  He smiled. ‘We do have another lead, though.’

  ‘Oh?’ McGuire looked at him, curious.

  ‘Aye. The Boss called me this morning. He was at some local piss-up last night, when out of the blue, one of his neighbours said that he’d seen Norman King in the Reserve last Sunday afternoon. The Big Man said that he managed not to bat an eyelid at the time, but he’s going round today to talk to the guy again.’

  ‘Christ,’ exclaimed McGuire, ‘that makes what we’re doing all the more important.’ He looked across his desk in the Special Branch suite, then down at a sheet of paper which lay before him. ‘That place this morning in Wallyford was the last of the metal finishers on our list, and not a lead out of any of them.

  ‘The only two other registered keepers of cyanide, that we know about anyway, are these two farms. One’s down near Peebles, and the other’s out by Linlithgow. Which do you fancy visiting first?’

  McIlhenny twisted his massive trunk around in his seat and looked out of the window. ‘Looks like a nice day for a trip to Peebles,’ he said.

  ‘Fine, sergeant,’ McGuire agreed. ‘In that case, you can drive, and I’ll enjoy the scenery.’

  Fortunately, most of Edinburgh’s Sunday drivers head for the coast. By the time they had escaped the city and slipped under the by-pass heading for Penicuik and the A703 to Peebles, the traffic was relatively light. McIlhenney drove dead on the limit, forcing his companion to view the scenic woodlands and fields as they zipped past them.

  The Borders countryside south of Edinburgh is lush and very accessible. Barely any time seemed to have passed before they were bearing down on the attractive county town of Peebles. With McGuire navigating, they drove through and found the B-road leading to Traquair.

  ‘The place is a mile or so along here,’ said the Inspector. ‘As far as I can see there’s a right turn off this road. Look for a sign saying Craigmark Mains.’

  ‘Okay. What’s the farmer’s name?’

  ‘I’m not sure. It’s listed as Maclean Farms Limited.’

  ‘What do farmers need cyanide for anyway?’

  ‘Some of them use it to poison vermin.’

  ‘Maybe that’s what the guy who spiked Archergait’s carafe thought he was doing,’ the big sergeant mused.

  Less than a minute later, McGuire pointed ahead, at a sign which hung out on the far side of the road, beside an opening. ‘That’s it, look. Slow down now, don’t overshoot.’

  ‘Teach your granny.’ McIlhenne
y braked smoothly, indicating a right turn, and pulled up short of the Craigmark Mains sign, to allow an oncoming car to pass. Yet as they watched it, the vehicle, a silver Volvo S40, slowed down and swung ahead of them, without indicating, into the farm entrance.

  Something made the big sergeant look across at his colleague. McGuire’s face was a picture of astonishment. ‘Did you see who that was?’ he gasped.

  McIlhenney shook his head. ‘No, I was watching the car, not the driver. Who was it, then?’

  ‘Clarissa Maclean, that’s who. Norman King’s lady-friend. ’

  51

  Brian Mackie was a conscientious officer, and the police service had always been the most important thing in his life. Therefore it was a novelty for him to feel irritated, as he parked his car in the staff spaces beneath Police Headquarters.

  Having spent the previous day in conference with Dan Pringle, comparing notes on the murders of Archergait and Barnfather, and beginning the preparation of a report to the Lord Advocate, he had been looking forward to spending Sunday with Sheila, much of it horizontally.

  Instead, Maggie Rose’s telephone call had plucked him from their bed and sent him into Headquarters, to meet her star witness, and show him a range of photographs. He had thought of delegating the task, until he had realised that there was no one to whom he could pass it on.

  So, grumbling for almost the first time in his adult life, he had answered the call of duty. Using the duty CID man he had combed the police library for a series of photographs of present and former customers, not the classic numbered full face and profile of dour, bewildered, and occasionally savage faces taken on arrest, but a collection of half a dozen other shots from the Serious Crimes section, some formal, some snatched by surveillance units.

  He had taken his rogues’ album up to Andy Martin’s office suite, where he had added a glossy black and white photograph of Norman King, given secretly to Skinner by the Lord Advocate himself.

  Happily, David Beaton prided himself on promptness. Mackie glanced up at the clock as the call came from reception to announce his arrival. It showed twelve noon, exactly.

  ‘Bring him up,’ he said.