06 - Skinner's Mission

by Quintin Jardine

  He opened the folder. The first document to meet his eye was a letter, to the Procurator Fiscal. He read aloud.

  Sir

  The enclosed is a report into the death of Mrs Myra Skinner in a road accident on the date noted.

  No other vehicle was involved in the incident, and there were no eye-witnesses. It is the view of the attending officers that the accident was caused by a combination of excessive speed and freak road conditions.

  Mrs Skinner was the wife of a serving police officer. Detective Sergeant Skinner arrived by chance at the scene before his wife’s body had been removed from the vehicle and this has added to the natural shock of bereavement. It would cause him further suffering if he were forced to give evidence at, or even to attend, a Fatal Accident Inquiry, and if the full report was led publicly in evidence. It is my view that the circumstances of this death are so clear that an FAI is unnecessary.

  I would be grateful if you would so determine and instruct accordingly.

  Yours faithfully

  James Proud

  Asst Chief Constable

  Skinner turned the page. The second document in the file was a report by the first attending officer. He scanned it, silently.

  ‘Constable David Orr and myself were on patrol near Ballencrieff in our traffic car when we were summoned to the incident by a call made by a passing motorist from the AA box nearby. We arrived within three minutes of receipt of the call.

  On arrival we found the vehicle, a Mini Cooper S, registration number DRN 328J crashed against a large tree on the south side of the A198, at Luffness Corner. Agricultural vehicles had been working in the field to the north of the road and there was a large patch of mud on the carriageway.

  Tyre marks through the mud leading directly to the vehicle indicated that it had taken the corner, skidded on hitting the hazard and failed to respond to steering. The distribution of the mud on the road indicates that the vehicle lost traction as a result of aquaplaning and consequently did not react to braking.

  The severity of the damage caused to the vehicle when it struck the tree indicates that it was travelling at excessive speed.

  On examining the vehicle, we found the driver, Mrs Myra Skinner, pinned behind the steering wheel. We searched for a pulse but found none. She had suffered lacerations to her face and hands, and the steering wheel was crushed against her chest. The angle of her head indicated also that she might have suffered a broken neck. It being impossible to remove her from the vehicle without special equipment, we awaited the arrival of the emergency services, and in the meantime took photographs of the accident scene in general and of the interior of the vehicle.

  The fire and ambulance services had just arrived when another vehicle, a Triumph 2000, stopped at the scene, ignoring police signals to keep moving. The driver got out and rushed over to the crashed vehicle. I recognised him as Detective Sergeant Robert Skinner, whom I know to live in Gullane.

  Sergeant Skinner became hysterical when he realised that the dead woman was his wife. He began to try to remove her from the car himself, and had to be restrained by the attending officers and the ambulance crew. A second police car was summoned to take Sergeant Skinner home.

  In due course, Mrs Skinner’s body was cut from the vehicle by fire service officers and removed by the ambulance for post mortem examination.

  Constable Orr and I interviewed the motorist who had made the emergency call, Mr Nigel Steadman. He said that he was not an eye-witness to the accident, but that the Mini Cooper had overtaken him at high speed a few minutes earlier as he was leaving Aberlady. His formal statement is attached to this report.

  This supports my conclusion that excessive speed and adverse road conditions were the cause of this fatal accident.

  Signed

  Trevor Haig, Sergeant

  Skinner read on. Constable Orr’s report, couched in the same police-speak, agreed with that of his Sergeant in every detail. He turned to the statement of the witness. ‘Nigel Steadman, aged 41, of 12 Tayview Road, North Berwick,’ he read. ‘Wonder if he’s still there?’ He looked at the single page.

  I was driving home on the evening in question, having left work early. I had driven through Aberlady and was just passing the end of speed limit sign, when I was overtaken by a green Mini. The car was driven by a young woman.

  I was travelling at 35 mph at the time, and I would estimate that the Mini was going twice as fast as me. The vehicle was out of my sight before I had reached the end of the first straight out of Aberlady.

  A few minutes later I reached the Luffness corner and saw the vehicle crashed against a tree. I stopped to offer assistance, but I could see at once that the driver was dead. I am an AA member and so I made an emergency call from the AA box a short distance from the scene.

  He had to force himself to read the post mortem report. He had attended many in his career, and could picture the scene, with its awful sights and smells. For a second he thought of closing the folder, but, making an effort to disassociate Myra’s face from the images in his mind’s eye, he began to read.

  The examination had been carried out by Trevor Hutchison, an experienced man whom Skinner knew and respected.

  The body was that of a woman in her late twenties. Examination showed superficial cuts to her face, hand and arms, several of which had windscreen fragments lodged in situ. The right eyeball was pierced by a glass fragment, which was removed.

  The victim had sustained a classic whiplash fracture of the third cervical vertebra and the spinal cord was severed. This injury alone would have proved almost instantaneously fatal.

  There were severe, also classic crushing injuries to the chest, caused by the steering wheel. The sternum was shattered by the impact and bone fragments were removed from the heart. The liver was ruptured and pierced by lower ribs in two places. These injuries would also have proved immediately fatal.

  The victim sustained several non-fatal injuries. Both legs were fractured in several places, as was the right forearm. There was also a depressed skull fracture caused by impact with the windscreen frame.

  Examination of the victim’s brain and major organs showed no abnormality, and there was no indication that she had suffered any form of seizure. In my opinion she was aware and alert at the time of the incident.

  A fully-formed foetus, male, eleven weeks, was present in the uterus. It was perfectly normal, and I do not believe that any complication of pregnancy contributed to the accident.’

  The shock of it washed over him, chilling him suddenly to the bone. Cold sweat spread on his forehead as he dropped the folder, shaking. Proud Jimmy’s warning leapt back into his mind.

  ‘You don’t want to see that report. Take my word on it.’

  ‘No wonder, Jimmy, no wonder,’ he sighed. ‘For eighteen years you spared me the knowledge that I’d lost a son as well as a wife. What a decision for a friend to have to take. What a friend to take it.’

  32

  ‘Good morning, ma’am.’ Mario McGuire, propped on an elbow, kissed his wife as she swam back into wakefulness. ‘And where the hell were you last night? I tried to stay awake, but I don’t think I made it past midnight.’

  Maggie pulled him down towards her and moulded herself against his thick, muscular body. She ran her fingers through the hair on his chest, passing them gently over the scar from his old wound.

  ‘I was with a young man,’ she murmured. ‘We were alone all evening. I got home around one, absolutely done in. I didn’t think it, er . . . appropriate, to wake you.’

  His big hand ran smoothly down her back and gripped her buttocks, squeezing them gently, pulling her even tighter against him. ‘And what were you and this young man up to?’

  ‘We were looking for another man.’

  ‘What, isn’t two enough for you?’ He kissed the side of her neck, and gave it a sudden light bite, sending a shiver through her.

  ‘This is a very special man,’ she said. ‘Carl Medina told us about him. He may have
information which can tie Douglas Terry to a serious assault five years back, on a young Hearts footballer, Jimmy Lee.’ Her hand moved down from his chest, until it found its pathway blocked.

  ‘Indeed,’ he whispered. ‘I thought the Hibs casuals did that. So what’s his name, this very special man?’ He rolled her gently on to her back.

  ‘I don’t know. I only know that he has a big vulture tattooed on his right shoulder.’ She reached up and bit him. ‘Right there.’

  He leaned over her, head still, eyes closed. His hand moved, very slowly, up the inside of her thigh, towards the warmth. She began to move under his touch. He whispered in her ear. ‘Mulgrew. Evan Mulgrew.’

  She sat bolt upright, her eyes suddenly wide. ‘You know him?’

  Mario rolled backwards, smiling at her surprise, looking up at her, smugly. ‘I lifted a guy, name of Evan Mulgrew, a few years back from a flat in Brunswick Street. He was a suspect in an indecent assault case. We got there early doors and caught him in bed with his woman.

  ‘I watched him as he got dressed. He had a big tattoo on his right shoulder. I was fascinated by it. Big vulture. Very realistic.’

  ‘What happened to him? Did he get sent down?’ Her voice was eager, excited.

  ‘I don’t know. I wasn’t involved in the investigation. They just called me in as extra muscle to help arrest him. In the event he came like a lamb. If he was convicted, he’d have gone to prison for sure. I remember one of the lads telling me that the victim was a judge’s daughter.’

  Maggie jumped out of bed, evading his grab for her. ‘What’s the time?’ she called over her shoulder.

  ‘Quarter to nine.’

  She grabbed her dressing-gown from its hook behind the bedroom door.

  ‘Mags,’ he said, more than a little petulantly. ‘It’s Saturday morning.’

  ‘I know, but I’ve got to get back into the Prison Service computer, to see how it responds to the name Mulgrew.’

  ‘But Mags, on a Saturday morning?’ He was plaintive now. ‘We always have French toast on Saturday morning.’

  ‘It’ll still be Saturday when I get home. Probably. Anyway, think yourself lucky. I was going to take you with me. You’ve just earned yourself a morning off!’

  ‘And talked myself out of . . .’

  ‘French toast!’

  33

  Pamela Masters was an early riser. She had done her aerobics routine, showered, dressed and made breakfast, all before the telephone rang at five minutes past nine o’clock.

  She gulped down a mouthful of toast and apricot jam as she reached across from her perch on a high stool, to pick it up.

  ‘Hello, this is Pamela.’

  ‘Good morning, Sergeant. This is DCC Skinner.’ A cold shiver of nerves ran through her. She slipped down from the stool and stood stiffly upright.

  ‘Listen,’ he went on, ‘I know I said report on Monday, but there’s something I want to let you in on, and to get started on myself; something that’s been in the in-tray for far too long as it is.’

  ‘He’s got a nice voice,’ Pamela thought, as her nervousness left her. ‘I hadn’t noticed that before.’

  ‘I’m at a bit of a loose end today, and I intend to go into the office. This isn’t an order, and I wouldn’t want you to cancel other engagements, but if you’re clear would you like to come in and join me at Fettes?’

  She glanced at her wall diary. It showed a hair appointment at 10 a.m., a lunch date at Jenners with a girlfriend, and a 3 p.m. date in the Royal Botanic Garden with an old friend of her former husband, who had called her out of the blue two days earlier. The rest of the day she had left free, just in case. It had been a long time since Alan Royston.

  ‘Certainly, sir,’ she said. ‘When do you want me there?’

  There was a pause. ‘I want to call in to play with my son for a while. Give me a couple of hours, so let’s say eleven thirty. Come straight up to my office.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’ From the other end of the line she thought she caught a faint chuckle.

  ‘Oh, and Pamela, remember. Don’t wear uniform this time, just come as you are. I hate formality at weekends. Come to think of it, I don’t like it much at any time.’

  34

  The little flat was an unexpected find in the heart of the City. It was in the basement of a tall grey Victorian terrace with a small, unadorned but neatly swept courtyard to the front, but opening out at the rear into a large well stocked and lovingly maintained garden.

  It would have been quiet on any morning, but at just after 9 a.m. on a Saturday, birdsong was the only sound to be heard.

  Angela Muirhead was in the garden, sitting on a wooden bench seat, idly throwing scraps of stale bread on to the grass. As each piece landed, a finch, a sparrow or a tit would plummet down from its perch in the bushes against the boundary wall to snatch it up. Occasionally more than one bird would eye the same morsel and there would be a fight.

  She looked up as the policemen approached. She was barefoot, wearing a bulky black sweatshirt, and grey cotton trousers. Her hair was tangled, she wore no make-up and her eyes looked heavy, and slightly puffy.

  ‘Hello,’ she said to Donaldson, dully, as recognition dawned.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Muirhead,’ the Superintendent replied. ‘This is Detective Sergeant McIlhenney. He and I are investigating Mr Medina’s murder, and we have to ask you some fairly detailed questions.’

  ‘Can we do it out here?’ she asked. ‘I don’t like being indoors just now.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Donaldson. ‘Let’s sit at the patio table.’ She nodded and led the way across to a small grouping of plastic furniture arranged on the paved area on to which the flat’s French doors opened.

  ‘This isn’t an interview under caution,’ said the Superintendent, ‘but I’d like to tape it for convenience.’ The woman nodded; he placed a small cassette recorder before her.

  ‘What was your relationship with Carl Medina?’ he began.

  ‘He was my partner. We lived together,’ she said in a voice that was almost a whisper.

  ‘Could you speak up, please,’ said Donaldson. ‘For the tape.

  ‘Were you intending to marry?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, when we were in a position to start a family.’

  ‘What was stopping you?’

  ‘Money. Carl hasn’t had a full-time job since he left the garage. Our idea was that if I had a baby, I’d go part-time afterwards, but with Carl out of work we just couldn’t afford to lose half my salary.’

  ‘What sort of man was Carl?’

  ‘Lovely. Kind and gentle; quite serious, yet he could be funny when he wanted.’

  ‘Did it come as a shock to you when he lost his job with Jackie Charles?’ asked the detective.

  Angie Muirhead nodded again. ‘Yes, it did. He seemed to be getting on well there. He liked the salesmen, and the company liked him enough to give him the same Christmas bonus as they got.’

  ‘Are you sure the company knew about the bonus?’

  She looked up, offended. ‘Yes, quite sure! There was a letter of thanks with it, from Mr and Mrs Charles.’

  ‘When he was fired, he told you he’d been made redundant, yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did you think when you heard us say that he’d been dismissed for fiddling the books?’ Donaldson looked at her, trying to read her expression.

  ‘I didn’t believe it,’ she said, at once. ‘Carl was on a good salary, and there were the bonuses. He didn’t need to steal anything. I still don’t believe it. After you left on Thursday Carl explained everything that happened. He said that he made up the redundancy story because he was too embarrassed to tell me what Mrs Charles had got up to.’

  ‘You accepted that?’ A harder tone came into the policeman’s voice. ‘He told you a respectable woman nearly twenty years his senior made a crude pass at him, and you believed it?’

  ‘Yes. I believed it. I do still. The world’s full of spoiled ri
ch bitches.’

  ‘And Carl would never have been unfaithful of course.’

  ‘That’s right,’ she said, defiantly.

  ‘How about you, Miss Muirhead? Were you faithful to him?’ To the detectives’ surprise the woman flushed, and looked away.

  ‘Answer, please,’ said Donaldson.

  ‘Yes.’ It was a whisper. ‘Apart from one time.’

  ‘When? Speak up, remember.’

  ‘At an office party.’

  ‘Your office?’

  ‘No. Carl’s, the Christmas before he left the company. It was at Mr Charles’ house. Everybody had a bit to drink, and I got talking to Mr Charles. He seemed very nice and he made me laugh. It’s a big house, and before I knew it we had sort of drifted away from everyone. There was a back bedroom. All of a sudden, I just felt out of it, completely gone, absolutely helpless. I’ve always suspected there was something in my last drink. When he came on to me, I knew what was happening, but . . . I was just numb; couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything.’ Her voice was barely audible, but instead of interrupting her, McIlhenney picked up the tape and held it close to her. ‘He did it, then he helped me into a bathroom, and left me there.’ Her eyes were filled with tears.

  ‘And afterwards? You didn’t think of making a complaint? ’

  She shook her head, helplessly. ‘How could I? I mean, I’d let him, hadn’t I? Oh I felt so dirty, yet if I’d said that my drink had been spiked, who’d have believed me?’

  ‘We would have, love,’ said McIlhenney, quietly. ‘But proving it would have been another matter.’

  ‘Did Charles contact you again after that night?’ asked Donaldson.

  ‘No. Never. Not once. A few months later, Carl was fired. I haven’t seen Mr Charles since that night at his house.’