Skinner's Rules

by Quintin Jardine

  The three senior officers sat in Skinner’s Granada as it turned into the wide driveway, with a uniformed constable, hatless, at the wheel. The search squad, in two anonymous minibuses, remained at the entrance to the cul-de-sac, out of sight of the neighbouring houses.

  ‘Very nice,’ said Skinner, surveying the scene. ‘I don’t see many signs of Japanese influence, though.’

  ‘It’s quite a big house, boss,’ Brian Mackie remarked. ‘I’m glad we brought a dozen with us. Even at that it’ll take a while.’

  The driver pulled up in front of the open garage, and the three detectives crunched round the snowy path. They stepped into the porch, kicking the snow off their shoes as they did so and wiping them on a large doormat. A big brass knocker hung between two stained glass panels set into the upper part of the heavy wooden door. Looking for a bell, but seeing none, Skinner seized it and rapped loudly, twice.

  After perhaps thirty seconds, the door was opened by a black-haired Japanese woman. She was, Skinner guessed, not much more than forty years old but had the air of someone much older, someone who had seen too many sorrows. She was dressed casually, in Western style, her slacks emphasising her height, over five feet six, and a close-fitting black sweater emphasising her slimness.

  ‘Yes, gentlemen?’ The accent was flat.

  ‘Madame Yobatu?’ Skinner asked. The woman nodded. ‘We are police officers; we wish to speak with your husband. Is he at home?’

  ‘Yes. What is wrong? Has something happened at the factory?’

  ‘Please fetch him.’

  ‘Of course. I am sorry. I am being rude. Please come in.’

  They stepped into a wide hall. Rugs were strewn on a polished oak floor. Five glass-panelled doors led on to different parts of the spacious house. From the centre, a stairway rose. The woman left them, they heard voices, and a few seconds later she reappeared.

  ‘Please enter.’

  They stepped past her. Again, the room was furnished in Western style, with an oatmeal-coloured Wilton carpet, and a black leather suite of settee and two chairs ranged around a big stone fireplace, in which sweet-smelling logs burned. At the far end of the long room, two slidin glass doors stood apart, framing a tall broad man.

  ‘Come in, gentlemen.’

  Yobatu turned, and led the three policemen into a spacious glass conservatory, walled to a height of three feet. A door on the right of the room led out into a large garden, enclosed by high fir trees. Shrubs and heathers ranged around a central lily pond, its frozen surface covered with snow.

  The peaceful setting was wholly at odds with the blazing eyes of the man who turned to face them, his back to a gold upholstered swivel chair

  Coolly, Skinner looked around the room, and saw, for the first time, a sign of Japanese influence. At the far, curving end of the conservatory, behind a leather-topped, two-pedestal desk and green captain’s chair, a full set of samurai armour stood on a frame. A short sword was tucked into the sash which was tied around the waist.

  Skinner returned his gaze to the waiting man. Formally, he introduced himself, Martin and Mackie.

  Yobatu nodded his head briefly towards each in turn. Then he spoke, and in his voice, Skinner caught an unmistakeable edge of contempt not far beneath the veneer of courtesy.

  ‘Gentlemen, what is it that brings three so senior policemen to my home on a Sunday? This is my day of rest; I would have thought it was yours also. So tell me, what has happened to my factory?’

  ‘Yobatu san,’ said Skinner. Mackie’s head turned in surprise at the greeting. ‘Nothing is wrong with your factory. We are here to speak with you about other matters.

  ‘In recent weeks there have been a number of violent deaths in Glasgow and in Edinburgh. We have looked for a link between these crimes, and in our investigation certain facts have come to light which indicate that such a link may possibly exist through you. This evidence is sufficiently strong for the Sheriff to have agreed to provide us with a warrant to search these premises for certain items which may have a bearing on these crimes.’

  Yobatu’s eyes burned even more angrily. He drew himself stiffly to his full height. He was almost as tall as Skinner.

  ‘But this cannot be!’ he exclaimed, his voice not far below a shout.

  ‘I am sorry, sir, but it is.’ Skinner turned to Mackie and saw that Madame Yobatu was standing in the sliding doorway. ‘Inspector, please call our people. Madame, where are your children?’

  ‘They are in the playroom in the attic.’

  ‘Perhaps you will go to them. I will send a woman officer to you. She will ensure that you are not disturbed.’

  Mackie left the room, and the house. He trudged through the snow to the end of the drive. Stepping into the road, he waved to the team. Quickly the two minibuses drew into the drive.

  The officers climbed out, and entered the house, wiping their shoes on the mat as they were ordered.

  In the hallway, Mackie split the group into five teams. He sent DC Rose to join Madame Yobatu, with orders to search the playroom without fuss. Then he allocated an area of the house to each team.

  The search began.

  29

  In the conservatory, Yobatu had recovered his composure. He was seated in the gold chair, faced by Skinner and Martin, side-by-side on a Chesterfield which matched the captain’s chair behind the desk.

  Skinner maintained the formality of his tone. ‘Yobatu san, I am required to begin by advising you that you are not obliged to answer our questions ...’

  For the first time the flicker of a sardonic smile crossed the brown face. ‘I know.’

  ‘... but that should you choose so to do, any answers that you might give could be used against you.’

  Yobatu did not react again; Skinner began his interrogation.

  ‘Yobatu san, what were your feelings when the men accused of killing your daughter were acquitted?’

  The man sat bolt upright in his chair, rocking it forward. ‘I was outraged. Those boys were guilty. My daughter was a fine girl, a good girl. She did nothing wrong, and your courts denied me revenge on the animals who took her life.’ Again the voice had risen. The savage eyes were incandescent.

  ‘Sir, what would be your reaction if I told you that one of the two men who stood trial is now dead?’

  ‘I would say that that was just. And I would add that it is a pity that it was only one.’

  ‘And what would you say if I told you that the man was murdered?’

  ‘I would say - justice!’ Yobatu spat the word.

  ‘So you would be even more pleased if I told you that the man was hacked to death with axes and knives. Killed like a dog.’

  Yobatu’s laugh startled both Skinner and Martin. The man clapped his hands, and the eyes twinkled with a terrible pleasure.

  ‘Just so. Before he died he will have shared my daughter’s pain and terror, and known what he had done, and why he was not fit to live.’

  ‘Are you a swordsman, Yobatu san?’

  Again the man stiffened in his chair. He nodded towards the armour.

  ‘I am samurai, like all my ancestors. Of course I am a swordsman.’

  Skinner rose from the Chesterfield and walked across to the display. He took the sword and scabbard from the sash.

  ‘Is this your weapon?’

  Yobatu nodded. Skinner drew the blade, laying the ornate scabbard on the desk. Holding it in his right hand, he picked up a sheet of note-paper with his left and drew it edge-first downwards over the blade. Like two leaves, the paper, split, fell to the floor.

  ‘Has it always been kept so sharp?’

  ‘To do otherwise would be to do it dishonour.’

  Carefully, Skinner resheathed the sword and returned weapon and case to their place in the armour display. He turned again and looked at the desk. A single, framed photograph was positioned on the right of a brass inkstand. It showed Yobatu, his wife, and three children, the eldest a girl in her mid-teens. An ordinary, happy family photograph
. Madame Yobatu looked beautiful, carefree and radiant. Her husband’s eyes were crinkled with laughter.

  Skinner returned to his seat.

  ‘Before the terrible thing that happened to your daughter, Yobatu san, were you happy in this country?’

  Even seated as he was, the man’s shoulders seemed to droop. His voice fell. ‘I came here by choice. I saw Great Britain as a good place to bring my family, so that they could learn of the wider world and escape the insularity from which our culture has always suffered. I came here, I embraced your ways, I tried to become as you. And then my daughter was taken from me in, as you say, a terrible way.

  ‘But I believed what I was told about your justice. I believed the policemen who said to me that the men who did this thing would be punished. I was betrayed. The jury, all-white, saw a Japanese victim and two Chinese, our traditional enemies, in the dock. They were guilty, but the jury was indifferent. Because my daughter was Japanese.

  ‘They believed the lies that were told about her. They listened to the tricks and deceits of the two lawyers. They chose to accept the fairy story of those two men. They seemed to overlook the fact that she had been murdered. If it had been a white girl who had been slaughtered by those Chinese pigs, do you believe that they would have been found innocent? Do you believe that for a single moment?’

  Skinner accepted the challenge. He returned Yobatu’s stare. ‘In all honesty, sir, having studied the evidence I think it unlikely.’

  The frankness of the admission seemed to take Yobatu by surprise. For the first time, his anger softened slightly.

  ‘But are you saying, Yobatu san, that the advocates who defended John Ho and Shun Lee used your daughter’s racial origins to secure their clients’ acquittal?’

  The anger in the eyes flared again. ‘I am saying that they invented stories about my daughter. If they had suggested that a white girl of good family would go off with three Chinese boys, the jury would not have believed them for an instant. I am saying that the lawyers of my daughter’s murderers conspired to deny me justice, and revenge for her death.’

  ‘Yobatu san, where were you last Thursday?’

  Skinner caught what could have been a flicker of comprehension in the eyes.

  ‘I was in the Court in Glasgow, watching one of the people who cheated me trying to free another guilty beast.’

  ‘How did the case end?’

  ‘This time the victim was white. This time the jury did not believe the lies.’

  ‘How did you return to Edinburgh?’

  ‘By railway.’

  With an effort, Skinner managed to conceal his surprise.

  ‘By which train?’

  ‘The 5.30, but it was delayed by an accident in the station.’

  Now Skinner’s eyes grew hard.

  ‘Not an accident, Yobatu san. Not an accident. A woman was pushed in front of the train.’

  ‘I did not hear that said.’

  ‘Do you know who that woman was?’

  Yobatu sat motionless and impassive for several seconds.

  Eventually Skinner filled the silence in a hard-edged voice. ‘I believe that you do. I believe that you know that she was the woman whom you had watched that day, and throughout the trial.

  ‘And where were you on the night of November the seventh, and on the next night, and two nights after that?’

  Yobatu sat silent as a statue.

  ‘Where were you on the night that the other advocate in your daughter’s trial was butchered-with a sword-and on those other nights when three other people were done savagely to death?’

  Still the man sat, and silent, but the anger in his eyes seemed to be joined by something which, Skinner thought, resembled frustration.

  ‘I will tell you how it looks to me, Yobatu san. It looks as if you were so thirsty for justice that you decided to administer your own. That you killed Shun Lee and made it look like a Chinese quarrel. That you killed Michael Mortimer, and then, in the same part of the city, you slaughtered three other people, at random, to make it all look like the work of a maniac. And, finally, that you killed Rachel Jameson, quickly, in a moment of opportunity, and made it appear like suicide.

  ‘That is how it looks to me, Yobatu san. Perhaps to you it looked, and still looks like an honourable thing to do. Perhaps those three random victims, being Westerners, and one a policeman, you saw as sharing the guilt.

  ‘I have sympathy for someone who has lost as you have. I have a daughter myself. If you killed Shun Lee, I will lock you away, but I will understand. But if you killed those five other people- three, simply to help you avoid detection - then I will lock you away as I would a dangerous animal, one with nothing in its heart but death. What do you say, Yobatu san? Are you such an animal?’

  Yobatu sprang out of his chair. Skinner, who had been leaning forward, his right forearm on his knee, fixing the man with his glare, was on his feet in a flash. He stared into the eyes and saw something beyond comprehension, something that seemed to transcend fury. Martin was on his feet too, watching, waiting, as lightning seemed to flash between the two men.

  Now the challenge was in Skinner’s eyes, facing down the flame in Yobatu’s.

  And then the silence was broken.

  ‘Excuse me, sir.’ It was Brian Mackie, stiff and formal, but insistent. ‘Would you come with me, please.’

  The tension did not evaporate; it was too high for that. It simply eased a little, and Martin found to his relief that, after all, he was still able to breathe.

  Skinner nodded. ‘You too, please, Yobatu san,’ he said, curtly this time. ‘Andy.’ He signalled Martin to bring up the rear.

  Mackie led the way into the hall and out through the front door. They walked in single file towards the double garage, with its door still raised.

  Even with two cars inside, there was still room for a wide workbench, with four drawers running along its length. The third of these was lying open.

  ‘Nothing has been touched, sir,’ said Mackie. Wearing a pair of cotton gloves, he slid the drawer from its runners and placed it carefully on the workbench.

  To the front of what was now a wide shallow box, Skinner saw a jumble of twine and two tins without lids, each full of nails. To the rear, he saw two short-handled axes and a heavy hunting knife. Mackie withdrew each object in turn for inspection, held it up before Skinner, Yobatu and Martin, and replaced it carefully in its original position.

  Along the back of the drawer was a black bundle, tied with string. Mackie withdrew it and released the slip knot. The bundle unrolled into a lightweight one-piece tunic, topped off by a balaclava-style hood. As it did so, a pair of black woollen gloves fell to the floor.

  Again, Mackie held the objects up in turn for inspection. Again he replaced them, bundled and tied, in their original position.

  And last, pushed into a corner of the drawer, they saw a small cardboard box, the kind used to gift-wrap special confectionery. Skinner saw Mackie’s hand tremble as he reached out to pick it up. For the first time, he noticed that his assistant was deathly pale.

  Oh Christ, he thought, as the box was lifted from the drawer, knowing - without needing to see - what it contained. Mackie raised the lid and held it out towards them. And as Yobatu looked into the box, so Skinner looked at him. For the merest second he thought that he saw a flicker of confusion in the eyes. Then as quickly as it had come, it was gone, replaced by a look of terrible exultation.

  Finally, Skinner forced himself to look, and as he did so, he became aware of the odour of decay, dissipated by time. Shun Lee; or at least the missing pieces. Martin turned away and retched. Still trembling, Mackie returned the box to its position in the drawer.

  30

  When Skinner spoke he was suddenly hoarse. ‘Toshio Yobatu, I am arresting you in connection with the murder in Glasgow of one Shun Lee. You have already been advised of your right to remain silent. You will accompany Mr Martin and me to police headquarters at Fettes Avenue, to assist us with our enq
uiries into several incidents which we believe are related to this murder.

  ‘Let’s go, now. Mackie, complete the search and advise Madame Yobatu of what has happened.’

  Without a word, Yobatu accompanied the two men to Skinner’s car. He sat silent in the back, between them, as the capless constable drove back into the centre of Edinburgh. It was Sunday, and so they arrived unobserved.

  Martin signed them in, with their prisoner.

  ‘Sergeant,’ he instructed the duty officer, ‘take Mr Yobatu to the interview room. He is to be accompanied by two men at all times. And make sure they’re big guys.’

  He and Skinner went upstairs to the Chief Superintendent’s office, where they collapsed into chairs.

  ‘Good thinking down there, Andy. I don’t want an escape, and I don’t want any bloody hara-kiri either. This man has to be as dangerous an individual as we’ve ever seen, so make sure that the guys on guard duty are up to it.’

  Suddenly Skinner sighed. ‘Let’s have a coffee, and wait for Brian to get back. Then he and I will get a statement out of the guy. You can get back to spycatching.’

  Martin noticed a change in Skinner. With the adrenalin surge of the confrontation dissipated, he looked spent.

  ‘Boss, I should be saying “well done”, but instead I’m thinking, “what’s up”. You should be doing handsprings, but you’re not. Don’t tell me that bloke got to you.’

  Skinner shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don’t know. It’s just a bit of an anticlimax, I suppose. I was expecting some master criminal, and all we wind up with is some poor bastard who’s been driven stark raving mad by his kid’s murder. He is a loony, Andy. After all that, he’s a loony. He just sat there and took it. No bluster, no denial, no nothing. I’ll bet you he’ll turn out to be unfit to plead.

  ‘I didn’t expect that. My famous instinct told me that if we found anyone at the end of the day, it wouldn’t be someone like that. An evil sod, yes, but sane, and with some sort of a purpose. Well, I was wrong.’ He shook his head. ‘I shouldn’t care. It’s catching him that counts. But I feel let down. Maybe I wanted him to have a go, to have a physical confrontation with the dark beast. As it is, I just feel empty. We’ve got him bang to rights and I don’t feel a thing.’