08 - Murmuring the Judges

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘Why shouldn’t I? I’m her dad.’ Bob smiled, a shade sheepishly. ‘It was something Sarah said last night. She thought she was worried about something. Eh . . . she isn’t . . .’

  ‘No, she bloody isn’t!’ Martin snapped back.

  ‘Okay, okay. I’m sorry to be so indelicate.’

  ‘No, my apologies: I shouldn’t have bitten your head off. Sarah’s right, as usual. ’The younger man’s shoulders hunched once more. ‘Alex and I have run into a problem, that’s all.’

  ‘Nothing you can’t sort out, though?’

  ‘I hope not, but . . .’ He paused. ‘Bob, since she and I have been together, we’ve made nothing of the age difference between us. But we can’t kid ourselves, it’s there, and it can make us look at things . . . important things . . . from different angles. If I stick to my guns, I feel like I’m being a bully, but if I capitulate, I feel like I’ve got a ring through my nose.’

  ‘Hey, since this body-piercing craze started I’ve seen guys all over town with rings through their noses.’ Skinner grinned. ‘Listen, there’s a big age difference between Sarah and me, but we’re okay . . . now,’ he added.

  ‘Yes, but Sarah’s . . . Well she’s a few years older than Alex. She’s done more in her life.’

  All at once, the big DCC nodded. ‘I think I can see where this is leading; straight into a bloody minefield.

  ‘Son, the only advice I’ll give the two of you is to ask yourselves whether right now, you’re happy . . . and I know you are. Let tomorrow take care of itself, for now at least. Don’t take up rigid positions about something in the future that you could regret for the rest of your days. You can tell Alex that as well. But sort it out for yourself; don’t get Sarah or me involved.’

  He smiled and replaced the cup in its saucer.

  ‘I’d better go. I’ve got the Director of Social Work coming in to see me this afternoon, and I haven’t got the heart to pass her over to Elder.’

  The two rose from the table and left the dining room together, Martin heading off, still frowning, towards the CID suite, Skinner stepping back into his temporary office through the side door.

  He had been working his way through his in-tray for ten minutes when the scrambled telephone rang. He picked it up, grunted an answer, and heard a reassuring voice on the line. ‘Afternoon, mate, is it winter up there yet?’

  ‘Not quite, Adam, not quite. How’s it going?’

  ‘I’ve been doing that digging you asked me about. Don’t worry, I’aven’t told anyone what it’s about.’ Arrow laughed. ‘What am I saying? I don’t fookin’ know either.

  ‘Your mystery six, the self-styled Paras: I’ve tracked them down, Bob, but I can’t find anything to link them all together. Two of them, Collins and Saunders, were real Paras for about ten years, all through the eighties. They saw active service in the Falklands, distinguished service too, apart from an affair after Goose Green that we don’t talk about.

  ‘McDonnell was in the South Atlantic as well. For some reason, they let a Scotsman into the Welsh Guards, so ’e was on the Galahad when it was bombed. He sustained burns and blast injuries, but he came through all right.

  ‘Clark was an infantryman, again all through the eighties. His unit was in Ireland in ’82, so he missed the Falklands.

  ‘Nathan Bennett was in the RAOC. He never fought anywhere. He lost two fingers in a testing accident in 1986, but stayed in for a while after that. After their injuries he and McDonnell both worked in the Advocate General’s office for a while, but at different times, so they never met there.

  ‘As for Newton, he was a cook. End of Story.’

  Major Arrow took a deep breath. ‘You sure these guys are linked, Bob?’

  ‘Rock-solid certain, Adam. Someone, or something, brought them together.’

  ‘Okay,’ said the soldier. ‘I’aven’t given up yet. There’s another avenue I want to explore. I’ll call you again in another day or so. Give my love to Sarah, now. Cheers.’

  77

  The change in the weather had proved to be only an interlude, and not the end of summer. With the children off to bed, Bob and Sarah sat once more in their new conservatory, watching the sea and the sunset, rather than listening to the rain.

  ‘You were right about Alex, honey.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Last night, when you said you were worried about her. She and Andy have had some sort of a falling-out. He told me today.’

  ‘Ahh,’ said Sarah. ‘She’s not pregnant, then. I did wonder.’

  ‘No, she isn’t. In fact, Andy bit my head right off when I sort of asked him that very thing.’

  ‘Jesus, Bob, you didn’t! You can be as subtle as an avalanche sometimes.’

  ‘Thanks very much. The lassie is my daughter, remember.’

  ‘Too right she is. So it’s just as well you didn’t ask her that question, or after she’d bitten your head off she’d have poured something nasty down the hole in your neck. Did Andy tell you what the problem was?’

  ‘It’s age-related; that’s all I know.’

  ‘That figures. Well, if it’s a big deal she’ll talk to me about it. She always does.’

  She picked up her wine glass, and savoured her ‘FAT Bastard’ chardonnay. ‘This is nice,’ she yawned. ‘It lives up to its name.’

  ‘Yes,’ said her husband. ‘It’s the sort of label that flies off the shelf at you.’

  Sarah nodded towards the folder on the conservatory table. ‘Is that the rest of the Gates case?’

  ‘Yes. I ran into a brick wall with Curly Collins. His wife did some checking on dates. She called me back this evening to say that she didn’t know where he was when Orlach was murdered, but at the time of Archergait’s death he was almost certainly at his work, in an electronics factory near Bathgate, and when Barnfather was done, the pair of them were definitely visiting her parents in Arbroath.’

  ‘Do you believe her?’

  ‘It was the old folks’ forty-fifth wedding anniversary. The whole family was there. I may check it out, but I’ve no real doubt that she was telling me the truth.’

  She laid a hand on his thigh. ‘Never mind, love. I’ll help you go through the rest of the file.’ She leaned over and picked up the heavy folder. ‘Where do we begin tonight?’

  ‘With the interviews and statements relating to the defence case. I don’t imagine that they’ll tell us much though.’

  He picked up the first interview transcript and looked at it. ‘This is a precognition of a sleep specialist, would you believe.’

  ‘Do you think he could have a word with Jazz?’

  ‘Aye, maybe.’ Leaning back on the couch, he glanced through the document. ‘I suppose, having missed the MS, they were struggling for theories to throw at the jury. This guy seems to be suggesting that she might have been sleep-walking.’

  ‘They didn’t introduce that as a defence, did they?’ asked Sarah, incredulously.

  ‘No, this is a pre-trial interview, that’s all. I’d guess that at this stage they were looking for something that might support a plea to a culpable homicide charge, rather than murder.’

  Together they read through the succeeding documents, until they came to a series of newspaper cuttings, mostly from the Courier, Dundee’s own daily newspaper. They were reports of the trial itself, and day by day they presented an unremitting story of gloom for Mrs Gates. Eventually, they turned to the account of the verdict and of the judge’s severe minimum recommendation. Unexpectedly, it was the subject of a critical leader in the Tayside broadsheet, known for its firm views on crime and punishment.

  ‘I guess the real story begins here,’ said Bob, ‘after the conviction.’ He looked at the next document. ‘Yes, this is a copy of the prison doctor’s medical report.’ He laid it aside. ‘And these look as if they’re specialist opinions on Beattie Gates’ condition.’

  ‘What the hell are these?’ asked Sarah as he picked up the last of the reports.

  ‘Thos
e? Oh, they’ll be the photos Richard Kilmarnock mentioned. The defence team had them taken to show how her musculature had wasted.’ He glanced down at the folder, at a colour photograph, shot from directly overhead, of a naked woman, lying full length on an examination table.

  ‘Time is all that was wasted with those,’ his wife retorted, picking up the photographs as he began to read the first specialist’s report.

  He read carefully, noting the heavy qualifications which were made by the consultant in his assessment of Mrs Gates’ condition and capabilities at the time of her husband’s murder. ‘A doubt,’ he thought, ‘but is it reasonable?’

  ‘Bob.’ Her voice came quietly, from his right.

  ‘Mmm,’ he responded, still reading.

  ‘Beattie Gates wasn’t married before, was she?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And she and her husband were childless?’

  ‘Yes. According to Grace Collins, George Gates was sterile.’

  ‘In that case, my darling, how come his wife has a Caesarean scar?’

  ‘You what?’

  Sarah held up the photograph. ‘Look here.’

  He followed her pointing finger, and saw the thin blue line on Beattie Gates’ white abdomen.

  ‘It’s an old wound,’ she said. ‘It was done many years before this photograph was taken, but there’s no doubt about it. See how narrow her pelvis is, too. This woman would have had difficulty delivering a child naturally at any time, and on this occasion she had help for sure.

  ‘George Gates may have been childless, my dear, but his wife most certainly wasn’t.’

  78

  Grace Collins looked at Skinner as if one of them was mad.

  ‘A baby?’ she repeated. ‘Auntie Beattie? Not that I ever heard of.’

  ‘Do you think that if Curly had known, he’d have told you?’

  ‘Yes, of course he would. Curly loved family gossip; he’d never have kept something like that to himself. But she couldn’t have had a kid. George Gates couldn’t . . .’

  ‘How do you know that, Mrs Collins?’ asked the policeman.

  ‘Granny Lewis told us once. Curly’s mum would never have breathed a word about anything below the waist, like, but the Auld Yin never liked Gates. I remember her laughing as she told us about it. George and Auntie Beattie had been married for over five years, when he finally said, “Enough’s enough; we’re going to find out what’s wrong with you, woman.”

  ‘So he sent Beattie to a gynaecologist. The specialist examined her, then sent for George. She took a sample off him and found absolutely zero tadpoles.’

  Grace Collins laughed, mirthlessly. ‘Of course Beattie had told her mother about him sending her to the consultant, so when he got the result of his test, the old warrior made him own up to it.

  ‘She said to Curly and me that Gates started his wandering after that. He always had regarded Beattie as a possession, as an inferior. When he found out that he was sterile, he seemed to blame it on her. It was a marriage in name only after that. He just did as he liked, all over Dundee and he never made any attempt to hide it.

  ‘Beattie’s face was rubbed in it for going on fifteen years, until the morning when she woke up and he didna’.’

  ‘She killed him then?’ The question was in the tone of Skinner’s voice.

  ‘Of course she did, and quite right too. If it’d been me I’d have cut his balls off a long time before that. It was a wonder to me that Granny Lewis never did for him herself. She was a wicked old devil, but her girls meant everything to her.’

  ‘In that case,’ Skinner asked, ‘if Beattie had been pregnant once . . . before she met George, say . . . how d’you think her mother would have handled it?’

  ‘She’d have covered it up. But she was a staunch Catholic, so she’d never have let her have an abortion.’ The killer’s widow paused for thought for a moment or two. ‘I reckon she’d have sent her away to her auntie’s, so to speak, like they did in those days . . . only in this case it would have been her uncle’s. Granny Lewis was from Fraserburgh originally, and she had a brother up there: Uncle Michael, Michael Conran. I only ever met him the once, when he came to our wedding.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘If you’re looking for Beattie’s bairn, you’d be best to start with him.’

  ‘Not quite,’ said Skinner. ‘I know where I’ll look first.’

  He thanked Mrs Collins and left. He had called in on her at 8:30 a.m. on his way into the office, but rather than heading into the city centre, and Fettes, he drove down from Craiglockhart and swung through Longstone, heading for the west of Edinburgh.

  While New Register House, at the eastern end of Princes Street, is the head office of the Registrar General for Scotland, much of his department is based in an out-station in the genteel suburb of Corstorphine. Skinner found a place in the visitors’ car park and strode briskly into the building. A black-suited man sat at the reception desk. ‘Is Jim Glossop in?’ the policeman asked.

  ‘I’ll just find out for you, sir,’ the clerk replied in a sing-song voice. ‘And your name is?’

  ‘Deputy Chief Constable Skinner.’

  He dialled a number. ‘Hello, Mr Glossop. There’s a Mr Skinner to see you, from the police. Yes, sir. Very good.’

  At the receptionist’s request, Skinner signed the log-in book and was given a visitor’s pass. He was just clipping it on to his jacket when the man he had called to see appeared through a door behind the desk. He was in his fifties, stocky, short-necked and thick-chested, conjuring up the image of a barrel on legs.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, extending a hand. ‘I’ve heard of you. How can I help you?’ His accent reminded Skinner of Adam Arrow’s Derbyshire tones, although clearly it had been subject to other influences.

  ‘I recall that you gave some valuable assistance to a colleague of mine, Ms Rose, about a year ago.’

  ‘That’s right. Henry Wills, from the University, introduced us.’

  Skinner nodded. ‘I wondered if you could do us another favour, discreetly and informally.’

  ‘Try me. Come on through ’ere.’ Mr Glossop led the way through to a small but bright meeting room, just behind the reception area. ‘Have a seat.’

  As soon as he sat in the uncomfortable tubular chair, the policeman realised that he would rather have stood, but he began nonetheless. ‘My force is investigating a serious crime. We’re on the trail of a potential suspect, but the trouble is we don’t know anything about him, other than his gender. We don’t even know for sure that he exists.

  ‘I need to find out about a birth. The mother was unmarried, her name was Beatrice Lewis; I believe that it may have been registered in the Fraserburgh area, around, maybe just over, forty years ago.

  ‘I stress that it may have been. I don’t know for certain.’

  ‘I see. D’you want to know who the father was?’

  ‘If possible, yes, although it may turn out to be A. N. Other. But I’m really interested in finding out about the child. My guess is that . . . assuming it was a live birth . . . the baby would have been put up for adoption. Could you trace him onwards?’

  Jim Glossop clasped his hands together. ‘Probably. All of us, when we’re born, are given a number; a National Health Service number. It’s a bit like herpes; once you’ve got it, you’re stuck with it for life.

  ‘What else can you tell me about Beatrice Lewis?’ he asked.

  ‘She was born in Dundee. She’s dead, but had she survived she’d be sixty. The birth may have been registered by her uncle, Michael Conran, of Fraserburgh.’

  As Skinner spoke, the man scribbled notes in a pad. ‘That’s enough to be going on with. Beatrice Lewis, Michael Conran, Fraserburgh, mid to late fifties. Leave me your number, Mr Skinner. I’ll call you as soon as I have anything to tell you.

  ‘If this woman gave birth anywhere in Scotland under the name you’ve given me, I’ll find out about it.’

  79

  Alexis Skinner stared through the glas
s wall of her office. The thing which concerned her most was not that she and her fiancé had had a blazing row, but that they had not.

  Andy was one of the calmest people she had ever known. She had never seen his temper raised to boiling point. But she knew that the way in which he had switched off, had become even calmer, and suddenly sad, during their argument over careers and babies, was a much more serious indicator of his feelings than any explosion would have been.

  They had decided to drop the subject for a few days, to give each other time to reflect. The night before Andy had passed on her father’s advice, to put their problem on a future agenda, and concentrate on being happy today. She knew that her dad meant well, yet also that when he and Sarah had hit their crisis, it was guidance which he had been unable to follow himself. This was something on today’s agenda, and it would determine her future, and Andy’s.

  As her mind and her eyes came back into focus, she was aware suddenly of a figure standing in the open office area beyond the glass wall, looking at her intently. It was Mitchell Laidlaw. She gulped inwardly, and went back to the papers on her desk, yet out of a corner of her eye she still saw him move towards her, then heard the soft click of her door opening.

  ‘Grappling with a legal poser, young lady?’ the head of the firm asked.

  ‘No,’ she responded. ‘I understand the issues in the Provincial Insurance matter, and I think I know the best way of approaching them. I’m sorry, Mr Laidlaw. My mind was wandering there.’

  ‘I know,’ he said, kindly. ‘It’s not like you to frown like that, Alex. Is it a work problem?’

  She sighed, and pushed her chair back from her desk. ‘Yes and no,’ she confessed. ‘It’s partly personal, and partly professional. After our discussion the other day about my possible future with the firm, I broached the subject with Andy.

  ‘Let’s just say that he has a different vision of the future.’

  ‘He doesn’t like the idea of you aiming for a partnership here?’

  ‘No, it isn’t that, so much. Andy has his own ambitions, for the two of us. He knows what he wants, but the trouble is that his vision is likely to conflict with my career plans.’