14 - Stay of Execution bs-14

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘Nothing, sir, nothing major at any rate; I’ve had a call from Mrs Whetstone, the widow of that bloke that topped himself. She was looking for you. She said that her son’s just arrived home from the States, and that she’d like you to talk to him.’

  Steele sighed. ‘Today?’

  ‘No, sir, it’s okay,’ the young detective constable exclaimed hastily. ‘She said that the lad’s knackered after the flight and that she’s made him go off to his bed. She’s asking if you could see him tomorrow morning.’

  ‘That’s not so bad,’ said the DI, with relief. ‘I’ve got to see Superintendent Chambers at nine tomorrow morning, but ten thirty should be fine. Call her back, Tarvil, and tell her that. I don’t know what I’m expected to say to the boy, though. His dad strung himself up and that’s it. Even I believe that now.’

  35

  James Andrew Skinner had few favourites in his simple, uncomplicated young life. He loved his parents to equal degrees, if infinity can encompass the concept of equality. He looked up to his older brother, admiring rather than envying his skill on his computer, and taking no advantage of Mark’s lack of coordination in the ball games they played. He worshipped the ground his younger sister crawled on, diverting attention whenever he could when her mischief seemed to be heading her towards trouble, and always sharing the blame when she found it.

  Yet whenever Alex came to visit, his heart always seemed just a shade bigger in his chest. He kept a special place there for her; she wasn’t like anyone else. He knew that she was his sister, like Seonaid, yet she seemed to be almost as old as his mum. He had asked her about this constantly in his nursery years, and she had told him that she had had a different mother, who had gone away, although Dad was her father too, as he was his.

  She had arrived that morning, in her funny little car with the round roof that folded back in the summer, just after Mum had gone to work . . . he knew that his mother was a sort of scientist . . . and after Dad had gone off to the golf club for what he called a ‘bounce game’, with his three pals, Ken, Bobby and Eric. Jazz assumed that they would be using softer golf balls than usual.

  To him, Alex shone with her own special light; if he had only known it, their father saw her in exactly the same way. She seemed to smile all the time, and she talked almost as much. She was important, like his mum and dad, a solicitor . . . Jazz never called her a lawyer . . . and had a big job in Edinburgh. She always brought presents too, whenever she came to see her brothers and sister. That morning she had arrived with a doll for Seonaid, a brand new WWE computer game for Mark and a football DVD for Jazz, with all the goals from that summer’s European championship, which they watched together. Alex liked football just as much as he did; that was another reason for him to love her, had he needed one.

  ‘What do you do, Alex?’ he asked her, after the winning goal in the final had been slammed into the net, the champions had celebrated, and the losers had cried . . . James Andrew thought they had looked really silly.

  She gazed down at him, amused, as they sat cross-legged, facing each other on the living-room floor. ‘What do you mean, wee brother, what do I do?’

  ‘In your office, where you solicit.’

  She gave a really loud laugh at that, and he joined in, pleased that he had amused her. ‘We don’t use that verb, Jazz,’ she told him. ‘We practise.’

  ‘You mean so you’ll get even better at it?’

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘So what do you practise at?’

  ‘There’s all sorts of law. There are solicitors who do nothing but family law, that’s buying and selling houses for people, and personal stuff like that. Then there are others who do nothing but criminal law, that’s appearing in court to defend the bad guys that Dad and Uncle Andy and Uncle Neil catch.’

  ‘What do you mean, to defend them?’

  ‘When they’re put on trial, they don’t always admit that they did it. If that happens there are people who have to decide whether they did it or not; they’re called a jury, and lawyers have to try to show them what really happened.’

  ‘Like that woman in Judge John Deed, in the funny wig?’

  ‘Exactly. As well as all of those, there are corporate solicitors . . .’

  ‘Copperate? Something like Dad, d’you mean?’

  She shook her head, stifling a smile. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘I said “cor-por-ate”; that’s what I am. We work with businesses, making sure that the things they do are in accordance with the law, helping them with takeover bids, and big stuff like that.’

  ‘Do you work with famous people?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘Like who?’

  ‘I’m not allowed to say; our clients are confidential.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Private.’

  ‘Secret?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘I think I’ll be a solicitor.’

  ‘Not a policeman?’

  James Andrew shook his head. ‘Dad doesn’t want me to be a policeman.’

  ‘He didn’t want me to be one either when I was growing up. Dads never want their kids to be what they are . . . unless they’re lawyers. You know, both your granddads were lawyers, and they were both disappointed when Dad and your mum decided to do other things. Come on, tell me. Do you really want to be a policeman?’

  He nodded, with a smile that was just between them. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Unless I’m a sort of a scientist like Mum.’

  She laughed. ‘You’ve got plenty of time to decide, don’t worry too much about it yet.’

  Jazz smiled up at her; sometimes his facial expressions were so much like those of their father that she could hardly believe it. ‘I’m not worried,’ he told her. ‘Alex,’ he continued quickly, ‘you know when your mum went away?’

  She felt herself frown, wondering what was coming. ‘Yes,’ she answered hesitantly.

  ‘Did she go away like Granddad and Grandma Grace went away?’

  Alex nodded. ‘Yes. She died. I was just a wee girl at the time; even younger then than you are now.’

  James Andrew had no concept of the mechanics of death; all he knew was that it made the people who weren’t dead very sad, and as he looked at his sister, he realised that sometimes that sadness never went away. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered, and reached his hand out to her.

  She was saved by the bell, saved from making a sap of herself by having her kid brother move her to tears. Across the room, the phone on the sideboard rang out its loud trembling tune. She jumped to her feet, but she was beaten to it. The boy picked up the handset; ‘James Andrew Skinner,’ he answered, as he had been taught.

  ‘Jazz.’ He smiled when he heard his mother’s voice. ‘Is Dad back yet?’

  ‘No, not yet. Alex is here, though.’

  ‘Good, put her on, please.’

  He handed the phone up to his sister, who had guessed by his tone who was on the line. ‘Sarah? Hi. Wassup?’

  ‘I need to speak to Bob, and it’s kind of urgent. I’m at the new Royal, doing what was supposed to be a routine autopsy, only it’s not. Normally I’d call the divisional CID office, but there’s a restructuring going on, and I don’t know who to ask for.’

  ‘Leave it with me. I’ll phone the club. If he’s in the bar, I’ll have him call your mobile. If he’s not in yet, I’ll ask the steward . . .’ As she spoke, she heard a door open. ‘Hold on, that might be him now.’ She put a hand over the mouthpiece. ‘Pops!’ she called out, and in seconds he was there, his hair ruffled and his face still red from the November chill.

  She held out the phone. ‘Sarah.’

  ‘Hi, love. What is it? You want me to hold lunch for you after all?’

  ‘If only. Bob, this dead Belgian. This is no simple coronary; apart from a rather abused liver there was nothing wrong with this guy until the moment he died. His heart, his lungs, everything else was in fine working order. Tissue tests will have to be run but I don’t need them. This man was poisoned
and I’m damn certain I know how it was administered. I need to know which officer in your great organisation I should inform about this.’

  ‘At this moment, love, you’re talking to him. You wait there; I’ll be with you directly.’

  36

  Brian Mackie’s chief superintendent’s uniform was still new; he looked as awkward in it as Maggie Rose felt in hers. The strangest part of it was the peaked, braided cap, which looked uncomfortable and out of place on his domed head.

  ‘Hello there,’ she called out as she closed the door of the police command room behind her.

  Mackie’s head and those of the two inspectors who were with him turned towards her. ‘Maggie,’ he exclaimed, ‘I didn’t expect to see you today.’

  ‘Sure you did, Brian.’ She laughed.

  ‘Yes, well,’ he admitted, ‘maybe I’d have been surprised if you hadn’t put in an appearance.’

  ‘How’s everything going?’

  ‘No problems to speak of, although they’ve just had a small incident near the east turnstiles. One of the civilian security guys took it upon himself to try to body-search a member of the public for concealed alcohol, and actually laid hands on him. The man took exception to it, shoved him away and called a constable; rightly so, for the security fellow was absolutely reeking of drink himself.’

  ‘What did you do with him?’

  ‘I told the officer on the scene to arrest him, and to note the address of the complainer, so that we can take a statement later. I’m of a mind to charge him with assault; I won’t have these people behaving like that.’ He smiled. ‘Apart from that it’s just another day at the office. These events are not quite like the Hearts-Hibs derby games. They attract just as many prats, but a different sort, if you know what I mean, plus there’s never any aggro between the rival supporters. The main problem we have is with pickpockets. They’ve been known to work in organised groups on days like this; I think they see all these half-cut Watsonians and Academicals as easy game.’

  ‘Can that not be a bit risky?’

  ‘It certainly can,’ Mackie agreed. ‘At the last match, a couple of weeks ago, one of them picked the wrong pocket and got his jaw broken.’

  ‘What did you do about that?’

  ‘I’d have charged them both, but the pickpocket wouldn’t make a complaint, so only he got done. A pity in a way; the lad involved was a judge’s son. That would have been fun had it come to court.’

  Rose frowned. ‘The judge wasn’t Lord Mendelton, was he?’

  ‘As a matter of fact he was. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because his son’s car was torched outside his house last week. George Regan’s still looking for the guy that did it. I’ll pass that on to Mary when I see her on Monday.’

  ‘Be my guest,’ said Mackie. He led her over to the window of the command room, and together they looked out across the great bowl of the Scottish Rugby Union’s national stadium. With thirty minutes remaining until the scheduled kick-off time, it was less than half full; on the field a pipe band was playing and the New Zealand squad, massive in black tracksuits, was warming up.

  ‘It won’t look like this in a few days,’ Rose murmured, ‘when the Pope comes here. I am more than happy that you’ll be in charge of that one.’

  ‘Cheers, pal,’ her colleague grunted. ‘As you say, the stadium will look a bit different then,’ he told her, pointing out on to the field. ‘The main platform will be on the pitch, just beyond the centre spot.’

  ‘What’s the programme?’

  ‘Let’s go outside and I’ll take you through it.’

  The two chief superintendents left the room and walked down the long staggered stairway that led, eventually, into the tunnel that would be used by the players in twenty minutes or so. As they stepped out of the huge west stand, on to the green, white-laned synthetic running track, the purpose of which was one of the great unsolved mysteries of Scottish sport, Mackie pointed towards the vehicle entrance to their left.

  ‘It’s relatively simple,’ he said. ‘The papal convoy, the glass bubble thing in front, and limos behind, will enter through there, and drive up to the platform. The youngsters will be in the west, north and south stands; the east won’t be used. His Holiness will get out and will be received at the foot of the steps by the Prime Minister, the First Minister and Lord Provost . . . if they don’t fall out over the order of precedence. Then they’ll all mount the steps where some other people will be presented, the three wives of course, then the deputy First Minister and his wife, then the Justice Minister and her partner, then the Moderator of the Church of Scotland and his wife, and finally the chief and Lady Proud.’

  Maggie was surprised by the last-named dignitary. ‘It’s not like him to put himself forward.’

  ‘The Pope insisted,’ Mackie told her. ‘They’re old friends. After all the introductions,’ he went on, ‘there’ll be the entertainment; the bands, the dancers and the singers. Once that part of the programme’s complete, they’ll all line up, and the Pope, the Prime Minister and the First Minister will come down from the platform and review them.’

  ‘All of them?’

  ‘Every last one. His Holiness wants to bless them all, personally. Once that’s done, he goes back up on stage and says mass, preaches a sermon, and closes the rally.’

  ‘At which point,’ said a voice behind them, ‘you all breathe hearty sighs of relief and head for the Roseburn Bar.’

  They turned to see Mario McGuire behind them, looking even more solid than usual in a sheepskin-lined bomber jacket, flanked by Neil McIlhenney and Colin Mawhinney.

  ‘We should be so lucky,’ said Mackie.

  ‘It’ll be a cakewalk, Brian, don’t you worry.’ He smiled at Maggie in her uniform. ‘Suits you, ma’am,’ he chuckled.

  She beamed back at him. ‘So does yours. I can just see you smoothing around the pubs in Leith in that, making your ominous presence felt.’

  They turned and headed back towards the tunnel. ‘I wasn’t kidding,’ he said. ‘You really do have a spring in your step in your nice blue suit . . . or is it just you?’

  ‘Maybe it is me. Maybe I’ve got what I want at last.’

  ‘In that case, love, I’m happy for you. Just don’t put all your cash on one horse.’

  ‘Sometimes we have to, Mario. Your trouble is that you’re scared to bet at all.’

  37

  If there was one place in the world that Bob Skinner preferred not to be it was an autopsy room. While in the main he missed the day-to-day contact with criminal investigation that his rank denied him, attendance as a witness at post-mortem examinations was a duty that he was happy to leave to others.

  When he arrived in the suite in which his wife had been working, still in the sweater, shirt and slacks that he had worn for golf, the late Bartholemy Lebeau was still on the table . . . at least, those parts of him were that had not been consigned to slides and jars for transfer to the police laboratory at Howdenhall, and examination by a toxicologist. He tried not to look at him.

  Sarah was sitting on a workbench, waiting for him, as he swept into the room. ‘What have you got?’ he asked her, before the door had even closed behind him.

  ‘At first examination,’ she began, ‘I had some of the signs that I’m used to seeing in massive and instantaneous heart-attack victims, a little vein suffusion, mainly. It was only when I looked in the mouth that I saw something unusual, a violent irritation of the gums. After I opened him up and found no signs of cardiac malformation or malfunction, I went looking for something else, poisoning.’

  ‘Any specific poison?’

  ‘In a case like this, it’s usually cyanide, because it’s easy to administer and because it’s lethal in very small doses. The man who first isolated hydrogen cyanide in the eighteenth century died when he broke a jar of the stuff and inhaled it. It kills by inhibiting the ability of tissues to metabolise oxygen, and in sufficient quantity it will shut down the brain in seconds. Its most famous appli
cation was in the suicide capsules that were given to secret operatives in wartime, and used by some of the Nazi high command, like Goering and Himmler, to beat the executioner to the punch, but there are many examples of its criminal use, most notoriously, the Tylenol case in the US, twenty years ago.’

  ‘Can it happen accidentally?’

  ‘In theory it can, but this man did not have a large quantity of apricot or peach stones in his stomach, and he hadn’t eaten half a ton of chickpeas either. Forget accidental, Bob. Every case of cyanide poisoning I’ve heard of has involved the spiking of food . . . apart, that is, from the people who were executed in gas chambers . . . and apart from this one. I’ve sent the stomach contents for analysis, but there hardly were any. This man hadn’t eaten for several hours before he died.’

  ‘So how was it administered, if he didn’t swallow the stuff?’

  ‘Cyanide can be absorbed through the skin; the more tender the surface the quicker the absorption. That takes me back to the irritation of the subject’s gums. When he died, he was brushing his teeth. You’re looking for toothpaste, Bob. Take, say, three grams of hydrocyanic acid, about an ounce, and inject it into a tube; you have just laced it with sixty times the lethal dose. From the extent of the rash, and the rate of ingestion it implies, he’d have been dead before he’d even had time to wash his mouth out. Your friendly local undertaker did that for him but, fortunately, he left a trace between two of the back teeth. That’s one of the samples that’s going to Howdenhall.’

  Sarah raised herself up and jumped down from her perch. ‘I may have been a little over-confident about that banker suicide the other day, Bob, but if this guy wasn’t murdered, I will quit and take up landscape gardening.’

  Her husband threw back his head and let out a great sigh. ‘Just what I fucking needed,’ he exclaimed.

  ‘It’s not for you, is it? You delegate it to Division like everything else. I suppose that in this case it’s East Lothian, since the death occurred in Haddington.’

  ‘No way,’ said Bob, emphatically. ‘Greg Jay’s getting nowhere near this one. This man was due to play before the Pope in a few days’ time. That alone moves it on to a different level altogether, and makes it one I will definitely be keeping my hands on. But there’s another consideration too, one that makes my blood run cold.’