Outwardly, she smiled again at Haddock, and took the folder from him. 'Of course I wil ,' she said. 'Anything for Mr English.' He stood there, uncertain of what to do. 'You can go,' she told him. 'I'l send them down to his office when I'm done.'
'Very good, miss ... eh, sorry, ma'am.' The constable left the room much more quickly than he had entered.
Shaking her head as the door closed on him, Maggie opened the folder. By divisional standards, it looked like a light load. A false alarm at a chemist's shop in Fountainbridge, three assorted brawls, two domestic call-outs which turned out to be no more than loud arguments, and one in which a husband had been arrested and charged with assaulting his wife.
'Rubbish,' she muttered, and was on the point of closing the folder when her eye was caught by the last report; there was a photograph clipped to it. She slipped it out and looked at the Polaroid. It had been taken clumsily, and showed only the top half of a man's body, lying flat on a table. He was dressed in a heavy grey wool en jerkin, with a short zip, opened, at the neck. He looked to be in his fifties; he was bald, with a heavy, grizzled beard. Despite his weather-beaten complexion, from the blueness of his lips and cheeks, the Detective Superintendent could tell at once that he was dead.
She picked up PC Charlie Johnston's report and read carefully through his police-speak prose. The man had been identified by Dr Amritraj, who had certified his death, as Magnus Essary, of 46 Leightonstone Grove, Hunter's Tryst, Edinburgh, single, aged forty-nine. Using keys found on the body, Johnston had gained entry to the house and had searched thoroughly for any references to family, or next of kin; thoroughly, the constable insisted, but without success. There was nothing to be found, and the neighbours, delighted. Rose guessed, to have been wakened by a policeman at that hour of the morning, had al described him as a quiet, polite man who kept to himself. The report ended with the simple statement that its author had been unable to trace anyone who could be contacted and asked to take responsibility for the body.
'This is daft,' the Detective Superintendent muttered as she finished the report. 'This man cannot have been a complete loner. He lived at a fairly posh address; he must have had some sort of business life. Even if he didn't have any friends, there must be colleagues. We can't just let the guy lie in the mortuary.'
She picked up the telephone and called Oxgangs office; she was put through at once to the duty inspector, Laurence Gray, an ex-CID
colleague. 'Laurie,' she began, 'I've got a report here on a sudden death on your patch in the middle of the night; man cal ed Essary. It was written up by Constable Johnston.'
'Oh aye, our Charlie,' Gray growled, with a faint chuckle. 'I've been half expecting the Chief Super to cal me about that one. Johnston's a book operator. . . the trouble with him is that he hasnae finished reading the bloody book yet.'
Rose relaxed. 'So you're following it up, not just giving up on it.'
'Come on, Maggie. I was in CID long enough not to be doing that.'
20
She accepted the reproof. 'Sorry. I should have known better.'
'Indeed, ma'am,' the inspector rumbled. 'As it happens, the thing's sorted. Mr Essary was in the wine importing business, in partnership with a woman called Ella Frances. She called Fettes this morning, and they put her in touch with me; I told her to go up to the Royal. She did; they called to let us know she's confirmed the identification and claimed the body. She's had it uplifted from the mortuary already. File closed.'
'That's good. No thanks to Johnston, though. It's just as well for both of you that the Chief Super was tied up.'
'Ach, don't blame Charlie. He didnae make any mistakes; he just focused a bit too hard on his finishing time, that's al . You know what the night shift's like. Short spells of action mixed in with long periods of near-terminal boredom.'
'You're right there. But you wait till you're in my job. There isn't a minute of your life you can cal your own completely, with no fear that the phone'l ring.'
'It'l be double for you from now on then, wi' your man's promotion.'
Maggie Rose was rarely surprised. 'How did you know about that so soon?'
'Hah! You think e-mail's fast? It's got nothing on the force grapevine.
Be sure to congratulate Mario for me, will you?'
'Of course. Thanks, Laurie.'
She hung up, slipped the report and photograph back into the folder, and leaned back in her chair, musing on the curse that Alexander Graham Bell had visited on mankind.
6
She was calm by the time she heard the big Dodge Caravan crunch its way up the gravel driveway. She opened the heavy front door to greet them; three of them, Andy Martin, Neil Mcl henney, and his wife, Louise, picked up on the way to Gul ane.
The two women embraced. 'Neil called to tell me what had happened,'
Lou murmured. 'He and Andy thought you might welcome a woman's company, and since Bob's daughter is working on secondment in London . . .' Her voice faltered for a second. 'Oh, I am so sorry,' she exclaimed, hugging her again.
Sarah felt herself begin to go again, but held on to her composure, steeling herself not to fold in front of the two men, however close to her and Bob they might be.
'Thanks, Lou,' she replied. 'Come on through to the conservatory.'
She led the way from the entrance hal of the modem bungalow, towards the big glass-walled room, which looked out over the Forth estuary, drab and grey in the dul spring day.
'Can I do something?' asked Louise, making a conscious effort not to sound as if she wished she was somewhere else. 'What about the children?'
Sarah gave her a weak smile. 'They're fine. Mark's at school, James Andrew's dismantling his toys in the play room, and Seonaid's having her afternoon sleep. Tell you what, though; you could pour the coffee.
I've made some in the filter.'
'Of course. What does everyone take in theirs?' She glanced at Martin.
'Nothing. Black, please.'
'Right now, I'll take brandy,' said Sarah. 'You'l find the cooking stuff in the cupboard above the coffee pot.'
'That's a done deal.' She turned and walked through to the kitchen; she had visited the Skinners on several occasions and knew her way around.
Left with Sarah, the two detectives looked from one to the other. It was she who broke the awkward silence. 'Sorry I was useless when I 22
cal ed you, Andy. But the phone cal came as such a shock; it just floored me, I did the little woman thing, went into complete hysterics, and upset the kids in the process.'
'Okay,' he murmured. 'Now sit down, and tell us exactly what happened.'
She nodded and settled into one of the cane-framed conservatory chairs. 'It happened just after one o'clock. I was clearing up after lunch with the kids when the phone rang . . . It's Trish the nanny's day off,' she added, irrelevantly.
'It was the New York State Police. A gruff-sounding guy asked me if I was Sarah Grace, the daughter of Leopold and Susannah Grace, of Buffalo, New York. The sound of his voice was enough to scare me right there. I said I was and he went right into it.' Her accent seemed to roughen. 'No messing about. "I'm sorry to have to tell you, ma'am, that I'm at the scene of a double homicide, at your folks' lakeside cabin. It appears they've been murdered."
'I didn't say anything for a long time; I remember holding on to the kitchen table, and hearing the guy ask if I was al right. Eventual y I said that I was far from al right. I asked him to repeat what he'd just said, and he did. I asked if he was sure of the identification, and he said
"Yes, ma'am." He suggested that I should maybe cal a doctor. I shouted into the phone, "I am a doctor", and hung up. That was when I folded up. I was just scared witless, Andy. I tried to phone Bob, but I got al confused by the international dialling code. So I cal ed you on your mobile.
'Once I knew you were on your way, that helped. That and James Andrew; he just begged me to stop crying, so I did.'
'What did you tell him?'
'I said I'd had a nasty p
hone cal from a bad man.' She shuddered. 'He frowned at me, with the same expression Bob has when he's angry, and said, "He'l be in trouble when Dad gets home." The look on his little face was almost as scary as the phone call.'
She glanced up at them. 'Could you cal them back for me? Could you find out exactly what's happened?'
Mcl henney shook his head. 'We don't have to cal them, Sarah.
They've already been in touch with us. I guess the guy who cal ed you was a detective. He also reported in to his headquarters and they passed the news to the local police force in Buffalo.'
Sarah nodded. 'That would be the Erie County sheriff's department,'
she murmured.
'It was reported to the sheriff himself,' the inspector continued. 'He knew your father well and he knew all about you. So he called the office, looking for the Boss; he wound up speaking to me.'
He paused, as Louise returned with the coffee pot and cups, on a green plastic tray. She caught the moment and laid it on the glass table without a word. 'I'm sorry,' her husband continued. 'But there really is no doubt about the identification. They were found in their cabin, just before seven a.m., local time. They had been strangled, both of them.
Going by the information that Sheriff Dekker had from the men at the scene, it looks like a robbery. The cabin was ransacked, money, credit cards, watches, jewellery all taken. The investigation's still in its early stages, of course. A technical team from Albany were on their way there when Dekker cal ed.'
Strangled, you said.' Her voice was a whisper.
Yes. Expertly, according to the sheriff. He spoke on the phone to the ME while she was still at the scene; she told him that there were no signs of a violent struggle, which indicates that they were both taken by surprise. Your father was kil ed on the veranda of the cabin, your mother in the kitchen. The doctor said that a ligature was used .. .'
What type?'
Meil hesitated; he wanted to avoid the detail, but one look at Sarah's face told him that he could not. 'Wire. They were both garrotted, from behind. It must have been over in seconds; your father didn't even make it out of his chair. They don't know how many perpetrators there were, but the police at the scene said that from the disposition of the bodies and the strength required, they're looking, at least, for a tal man.'
Her mouth, normal y soft and sensual, seemed no more than an opening carved into her face. 'For a few dol ars and a few baubles . . .'
she hissed. 'Let's hope they try to fence them. I have a date with these people, whoever they are; I plan to be there when they strap them on to the execution table. However long it takes, however many years the appeal process drags on, when they inject the bastards, I'l be there. If there's a place worse than hell, I'll send them there.' Her voice cracked and she leaned forward in her chair, her face buried in her hands, her shoulders shaking.
Andy Martin dropped to a crouch in front of her, and put his arms around her. 'Okay, love, okay,' he said, softly. 'Let it out, there's a girl.'
He waited, until her sobbing began to subside. 'Listen, why don't you take some time on your own. Take a sedative and lie down for a bit. Neil and I wil phone Bob; he needs to be told.'
24
She nodded, and rose from her seat; Louise slipped an arm around her waist and walked her out of the room.
'You got that hotel number?' asked Martin, taking out his cellphone.
Mcl henney nodded, took a piece of paper from the breast pocket of his jacket and handed it over. He watched as the Chief Superintendent keyed it in, then waited.
'Hel o,' he said at last. 'I want to speak with one of your guests, Mr Skinner. Yes, I'l hold.'
The voice that sounded in Martin's ear a few seconds later was wide awake, if more than a touch irritable. 'Yes?' it barked.
'Bob? It's Andy'
'What's up?' The testiness vanished, replaced by concern.
'Some very bad news, I'm afraid.' Speaking carefully, almost formally, he told his friend what had happened to his parents-in-law, setting out the detail of Mcllhenney's conversation with Sheriff Dekker. When he was finished, there was silence. For one of the few times in his life, Bob Skinner was lost for words.
'How's Sarah?' he asked eventual y, sounding strained and older, Martin thought, than he had ever heard him. 'How's she taking it?'
'As you'd expect; she's devastated. I'm at Gul ane now, with Neil.
Lou's here, looking after her.'
'And the kids?'
'They're okay. Mark's at school, Jazz is being man of the house and the baby's asleep.'
He heard Skinner take a deep breath; when he spoke again it was as if he was at a crime scene himself. 'Right,' he said. 'This is what's going to happen. I'm on the first flight out of here to New York, whether there's a seat on it or not. Tell this man Dekker that I want to be met at JFK, either by the State police or his guys, and transported straight to the cabin.
After that I want to be taken to Buffalo, to meet with him and with the officer in charge of the enquiry.
'If it sounds to you like I'm pul ing rank here, Andy, well, that's because I am. Just to reinforce that, I want you to cal my FBI pal Joe Doherty in Washington and brief him. Joe'l smooth the way if it's necessary; I want to be at that scene within twenty-four hours and I do not want anything to be touched that doesn't have to be. I'l call Dekker once my travel arrangements are made.'
'What wil you do about the conference?'
'Fuck the conference! Mary Chambers can read my paper. She's sound and she's not the nervous type; I trust her to do that, no problem.'
'Okay. Do you want to speak to Sarah?'
'Let her rest for a bit. I'll call her in a couple of hours, maybe from the airport, if we can move things along that fast.'
'Right.' Martin paused. 'You know, Bob, I thought Sarah's parents lived in Florida.'
'They did, for a while; at least, they had a condo there, as well as the house in Buffalo. But Susannah didn't like the climate in Florida, so last autumn they sold the place and bought the cabin in the Adirondacks National Park instead. It was going to be a surprise for the kids next time Sarah took them over. Shit; some surprise!'
His anger seemed to flow down the phone. 'I tell you one thing though, Andy; it'l be nothing on the shock this man has coming . . .
however flicking tal he is. Oh boy, does he have grief heading his way!'
7
'You know,' said the newly promoted Detective Superintendent Mario McGuire, 'we should do this more often.' He glanced along the length of Umberto's Restaurant, surprisingly busy for a mid-week evening. 'For a dinky couple, we definitely do not put ourselves about enough.'
His wife shot him a puzzled look. 'Dinky?'
'Come on. Dual Income No Kids.' .
'Ah,' she exclaimed. 'You mean we've moved up in the world from being Yuppies?'
'Nah. We've just got too old. The acronym game keeps moving along, and personal y I'm looking forward to being a Bobo.'
'What the hell's a Bobo?'
'Burnt Out But Opulent. I've always fancied making it to that level.'
She chuckled softly as she sipped her Chablis. 'We're well on the way to the opulent bit now, with two superintendents' pay packets coming into the house, not to mention two superintendents' pensions at the end of the day. We'll be the envy of every copper on the force .. . apart from Big Bob and the Chief, who've both filthy rich anyway.'
'Aye, I suppose we wil be. Mind you, I'd stil chuck it just to be able to ditch the second part of dinky.'
Maggie frowned at him across the table. 'Wel that's not a runner, is it, so don't brood about it.'
'Sure I know, but...'
'Makes you feel less of a man, does it?'
'Something like that,' he muttered.
'Well don't let it, for it's nonsense. That's a fine piece of ordnance you've got there, officer; it's not your fault that it shoots blanks. It's not a sin not to have babies, you know. Looked at from a certain angle it's an advantage; we can pla
n our future in the knowledge that it's only the two of us on the payrol and always wil be. Plus, we can concentrate on making life miserable for the bad people. Who knows? Maybe that's what we were put here for.'
The arrival of their starters forestalled his answer. He sat in silence as the waiter set a warm goat's cheese salad before Maggie, and served his pasta and bean soup from a tureen.
'... Put here for?' he exclaimed, as the young man headed back to the kitchens. 'This is Planet Earth cal ing Superintendent Rose. This is Houston cal ing Maggie. In case you've forgotten, I became a copper because if I didn't there was a fair chance that I'd have ended up on the other side of the fence, or at the very least in regular skirmishes with the VAT man, like the rest of my family.'
'Come on,' she retorted, 'your family's very respectable, specially your mother. If you weren't a police officer you'd probably be in her business.' The light smile left her face, and her eyes flickered down for a moment. 'The fact is I've always envied you your family.'
He caught something in her expression, and in her tone.' Sure, because they're alive . . . but why do you say it like that? Mags, you've been ifiy for a couple of days. Have you got a problem?'
She opened her mouth to reply, then stopped, staring at the table as if she was considering something very important. Final y she looked up and into his eyes. 'I've had a letter from my sister,' she told him. 'She's had a birthday card from my father.'
'Your father?' he exclaimed, astonished. 'You told me your father was dead.'
'Oh how I wish . . .' The words came out in a long, malevolent hiss. 'I thought he was,' she continued. 'No, I hoped he was, I prayed he was, and eventual y I let myself believe he was. Now it turns out. ..'
Quintin Jardine - Skinner Skinner 12 Page 3
