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  Skinner's trail

  ( Bob Skinner - 3 )

  Quintin Jardine

  Quintin Jardine

  Skinner's Trail

  One

  It was only a small scream.

  Not much of a scream at all, really. Yet it had a profound effect on Bob Skinner.

  His broad shoulders and his ramrod straight spine, which had been rigid with tension, relaxed and sagged. In the same instant his eyes overflowed with hot, sudden, unexpected tears. They ran down his face, mingling with the sweat of the two-hour drama in which, although only a bit player, he had been involved as intensely as the two principals.

  The scream, spontaneous from the shock of the first inflation of the lungs, faltered quickly, became for a second or two a hiccupping splutter, then settled into a long-drawn-out wailing cry.

  Bob Skinner stared in awe at the miracle of new life, at the infant fresh from the womb, held upside-down before him by the young doctor whose white cap and mask seemed to add lustre to the shining blackness of his face. Then, through his trance, Bob felt the pressure of his wife's strong grip and turned towards her. His mouth shaped words, but no sound came. He was for that time, indeed for the first time in his forty-five years, struck quite dumb.

  Sarah said it for him, We have a son.' She looked back towards the baby, as his crying took on added volume with the cutting of the umbilical cord. A few seconds later, he was swaddled and placed in her arms. She kissed the tiny forehead above the slitted eyes, oblivious of the smears of blood and mucus.

  `Welcome to the world, James Andrew Skinner,' she whispered.

  Bob's left arm slipped round her shoulders as she lay propped up on the delivery table, legs still spread in the position of birth. He leaned down and peered at the white bundle of soft blankets, looking into his son's face for the first time. The power of speech returned. 'Yes, wee fella. Hello, there. You'll like it out here, I think, Master JAS. Hope you'll like us.'

  `No doubt about that, copper,' said his wife. 'Hey! JAS — I like the sound of that. James Andrew Skinner, aka Jazz. Spelled J-A-Z-Z. That's what we'll call him. Yes, Bob?'

  The new father threw back his head and laughed. The movement loosened his surgical cap, and he shook it off completely, freeing his thick, steel-grey hair. 'Yes! That's great. Our boy Jazz. It sort of suits him doesn't it. He looks pretty cool already.'

  The baby's crying had stopped. The crumpled face had begun to relax, a wrinkle line across the forehead disappearing as it did. A small right hand forced its way from within the bundle. Very gently, Bob touched the tiny palm with his index finger. The fingers closed in a reflex action on its tip. He was amazed by the strength of the grip. 'My God! Feel that.'

  Sarah nodded. 'I know. I am a doctor, remember. The human animal is proportionately stronger, in relation to body weight, at the moment of birth, than it will ever be again, even suppose it grows up to be an Olympic weightlifter.' She offered the middle joint of her little finger to the bud-like mouth. It clamped on tight, and began to suck voraciously. 'Ow! Jazz, baby, what have I let myself in for?' -

  The young nurse who had handed Sarah her baby for the first time returned and took him back, to have all his regulation parts checked and counted, to be weighed, to be washed and to be spruced up generally for his debut. Bob glanced at the big wall clock, to mark the time in his memory. It was two minutes before midday on Sunday the twelfth of May.

  He helped a second member of the delivery team restore Sarah to a more conventional and comfortable position, with her back propped up on the birth table high enough for her to be able to watch the first nurse at work.

  The new born Jazz Skinner was stretched out on the blanket which had served as his first robe, while the girl washed him gently, from top to toe. 'Look at him, Bob,' said Sarah. Fit as she was, her breathing was still slightly heavy from the exertion of the birth, and its irregularity gave an added edge to the wonderment in her voice. 'Look at him. He's just like you.'

  Bob beamed, then chuckled. 'Hair's a bit darker, though!'

  `Yes but it looks as if it'll lie the same way once it's dried off. And look at the shape of his body; how long and lean he is. Just like you. And his little face: that frown line above the bridge of his nose. That's yours, too.'

  He squeezed her shoulder. 'Sarah, love. He's like all new shy;born babies. He's got a face like a well-skelped arse, and he will have until he opens his eyes properly. Talking of arses, when the doc held him up there, something looked familiar. That's "one thing of yours he's got, at least.'

  `Bob!'

  `Come on; girl. That's a compliment. You've got the nicest arse in Edinburgh!'

  ‘Hmm. Wonder if you'll still say that when you see the effect carrying young Jazz has on it?'

  "Course I will. Anything on you is the best by me. You're a wonder, Doctor — sorry, Professor — and you've just proved it again.'

  From the breathless moment when they had confirmed it, using an over-the-counter test kit, through to the uncomplica shy;ted delivery, two days early, in the grandly-named Simpson Memorial Maternity Pavilion within the crowded precincts of Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, Sarah's pregnancy had been a model — without major upsets for either mother or father. Bob had been outraged on one occasion by a junior doctor's description of his thirty-year-old wife as an 'elderly prim', but had been mollified by Sarah's explanation that the term was medical jargon for first-time mothers over twenty-five.

  Alex, Bob's daughter by his all-too-brief first marriage, had been born over twenty years before, in an age and under a regime in which fathers were excluded as a matter of policy once their biological task had been completed. So the growth of Sarah's bump, and the gestation process of the individual who had just emerged from the dark chrysalis of the womb as his son Jazz, had been in effect as new an experience for him as for his wife. He had shared in the preparation every step of the way, attending all of Sarah's training classes, and the consultant's sincere inquiry as to whether he wished to attend the birth had been greeted with a sternly raised eyebrow and a curt, 'Of course.

  Even Bob's work had seemed to co-operate in allowing him to spend as much time as possible at his wife's side. After a terrible twelve months, with drama following drama, life had become, since the previous September, even quieter than was normal in Edinburgh. It was as if the city's criminal underclass had been awed by the grand scale of the crises of the previous year, and cowed also by the force with which Assistant Chief Constable Robert Skinner had dealt with each one. As a result, Skinner had been able to establish a normal working routine for the first time since his promotion to Executive Officer rank. Even the demands of his 'second job', as security adviser to Andrew Hardie, the recently appointed Secretary of State for Scotland, had slackened off, through a general lessening in the terrorist threat.

  So marked had been the change that, in addition to sharing the routine tasks of Sarah's pregnancy, Bob had been able to resume his stewardship of his police force's karate club and rejoin the squash ladder. He had even entered, for the first time in five years, the spring knockout golf tournament, where his path to the final had been blocked by a suspiciously good fourteen-handicapper who would now find it difficult as a result, or so it was hinted by colleagues, ever to escape from the humdrum of the traffic department. The new routine had been badly needed therapy for Bob Skinner, after a year during which he had faced the greatest challenges of his life, shocking himself at times by the things of which, in hours of need, he had proved capable, encountering an inner self whose exist shy;ence he had never suspected, and whose ruthlessness he feared.

  But now, as the young nurse put his son into his arms for the first time, the questioning voices within him were stilled. Perched carefully on th
e table, he looked down at tiny Jazz, looking for his own likeness, and finding it, as Sarah had said he would, in the quiff of hair which fell over the child's forehead, and in the strange deep vertical line between his eyebrows. The baby blinked, and Bob was sure that he was peering at him, trying to focus on his face, adjusting his eyes to these strange new phenomena of light and movement that had come into his world.

  For months, Bob had anticipated this moment when first he would cradle his son in his arms. He had thought of many profound, wise, and probably pompous things that he would say to him. But, now that the time had come, there were no words. Only the widest smile of his life, only the happiness of journey's end, only the private thought: 'If you can do this, Skinner, you're okay. You're okay.'

  He kissed the tiny forehead. 'And you're okay, too, Jazz my boy. . and how!' he said softly.

  He held the baby proudly, as the nurses eased Sarah into a wheelchair, and he followed as they pushed her back along the corridor to the private room in which she had been installed on their arrival at the hospital three hours earlier. She climbed-into bed gingerly, but still smiling. Without waiting to be asked, Bob bent and passed their child, from the cradle of his arms, to his mother. He stripped off his green robe and tore open the Velcro fastening of the face mask which hung around his neck, forgotten until that moment. Throwing both on to a chair beside the window, he walked over and retrieved his leather jacket from the small wardrobe facing the bed. 'Let's tell some people,' he said, and took his mobile telephone from the right-hand pocket. He switched it on and punched in an American number, handing the small instrument to Sarah as he pushed the SEND button. 'Your father.'

  The call was picked up on the fourth ring.

  `Dad? Sorry, that's Granddad!' She cried a few happy tears with her father in New York State, then, promising to write, said her goodbyes.

  Bob took back the phone, and called his daughter. As he had anticipated, Alex was at home in her Glasgow flat studying for the last of her university Law exams, in hot pursuit of a first-class honours degree.

  `I am sorry, Pops,' she said, after he had broken his news. 'I am twenty-one years old, and I just cannot get my head round the idea of having a baby brother. He's going to have to call me Auntie — that's all there is to it.' She laughed at the other end of the line. 'Seriously, I am so pleased for you both. And so proud. He's a new chapter in all our lives, and you know what? We deserve him.' Her voice sounded suddenly wistful, almost vulnerable.

  Bob's third call was to another mobile. It rang out several times; then, just as a puzzled look began to creep across his face, the ringing stopped.

  `Martin.' The man on the other end sounded testy, annoyed at the interruption.

  `Skinner.'

  Detective Superintendent Andy Martin's tone changed in an instant. 'Bob! News?'

  `Aye, news indeed, uncle. James Andrew Skinner checked in around half an hour ago. He and his mother are both A1 — repeat A1, my boy.'

  `Bob, that's wonderful. No problems?'

  `None at all.'

  `Smashin'. Hey, did you say Andrew?'

  `Yes. . Sarah's idea, of course. I don't know which is more dodgy: naming him after two coppers or after two saints. Anyway, we're not going to call him either one. His using name's going to be Jazz — that's spelt as in Acker Bilk. It sort of suits his American half. He's a well-behaved wee chap too; hardly a murmur since he was tidied up.'

  `Terrific. When can I come to see him?'

  `You can come today, if you like.' He glanced at Sarah for confirmation, and saw her nod vigorously. 'They're in the posh parent ward, so visiting hours aren't a problem. Come this evening if you like.

  `Fine. I should be clear by then.'

  `Okay. Where are you just now? You sounded a bit grumpy when you answered.'

  `Looking at stiffs still gets me that way. I'm at a murder scene.

  Skinner frowned. Since his promotion at the beginning of April, following a three-month secondment to the Los Angeles Police Department, Andy Martin had been in command of the force's Drugs and Vice Squad, two formerly separate units combined by Skinner into a single department because of the strong link between narcotics and prostitution, and the AIDS-related dangers which this trend had created.

  `What are you doing at a murder?'

  `Ah, boss, this isn't any old murder. The stiff here's a celebrity.' Martin paused, and Skinner's eyebrows rose. 'But you don't want to know about this just now, do you?'

  `Come on, boy. Who've you got there?'

  `Well, if you insist. Tell Sarah you forced it out of me, though. The guest of honour here is only Mr Tony Manson, that's all.'

  Skinner's surprise expressed itself in a low, drawn-out whistle. 'Terrible Tony! Murdered? There's no doubt it was murder?'

  `If it wasn't, he's made a bloody good job of hiding the suicide weapon.'

  `Where are you?'

  `At his place, out in Barnton. I'll show you the pictures tomorrow.'

  `Trinity? Oh yes, I remember. I knocked that house over a few years back, when I was doing your job. Found bugger all, of course.' Skinner paused. He glanced over at the bed. 'Listen, Andy. Stuff the pictures! Keep him on ice. This one I've got to see for myself. Sarah and wee Jazz will probably go for a sleep soon. I'll be down then.'

  Two

  The dead ones bothered him so much more now.

  Before. . well, before it had been part of the job. He had been called in and there they were: carcasses, no more than that. It didn't matter whether they had been men, women or children. At the moment of his first contact, they were all just victims, and Skinner had been able to deal with them on that basis, however bloody the remains, however cruel the killing.

  Oh, he had been righteously angered on many occasions. There had been a child killer a decade ago; Bob had seen to it, with a word to an assistant governor, that the man's first night as a convicted prisoner had been spent in open association with the rest. His next three weeks had been spent in hospital, and all the years since then in segregation. Yet, on the whole, Skinner had coped dispassionately with the nasty side of the job. It was, after all, an essential part of leadership. It had helped him take the fast track to his present exalted position as Assistant Chief Constable and head of criminal investigation in Scotland's capital, a city whose cruel streak is never shown to the tourists but which lurks there, nonetheless.

  Yet Bob Skinner, like the great majority, had reached his forties without ever having seen another human being actually die, without looking into a person's face as the last breath was drawn. Now he had been there, done that. In fact, he had done more — much more. Now, every time he was called to a murder scene, the centre of attraction was more than just a victim. Skinner found himself stepping into that person's mind, thinking their thoughts, forming a picture of that last moment, not as an observer but as a participant experiencing the rage and terror of the life as it was stolen.

  `Theft. That's what murder is.' As he opened the heavy brass shy;bound front door, flanked on either side by a row of four granite curling stones, Skinner recalled a sombre speech made to a police-force dinner party by a senior judge. 'The most serious theft of all: the theft of life, of time, of years unfulfilled. And for what? Once it's stolen, it can't be used. It has no resale value, no value to anyone other than its owner, to whom of course it is beyond price. Mostly, the theft takes place without thought, in a moment of anger, and is regretted the instant it is done. But life isn't a magazine filched from a rack, or a can of beans from a supermarket shelf. You can't sneak a stolen life back to the shop and pretend that nothing happened.'

  The eyes stared at Skinner, upside-down, as he climbed the staircase. The head lolled backwards over the landing; the dark hair looked as if it was standing on end, the mouth hung open, grotesque and oddly obscene, the tip of the tongue licking out over the top lip. The banisters hung by shreds of wood. They were solid mahogany, yet they had been smashed by the bulk of the body and the force with which it had crashed
backwards through them.

  The tableau of death offered a surreal and stark contrast to the scene in which Bob had been involved only four hours before, and the private room in the Simpson where he had left mother and son asleep. From birth to death in twenty minutes, he thought. His mind swam for a second, and a violent shudder ran through him.

  Andy Martin was waiting for him in the upper hallway at the top of the staircase, with Alan Royston the force press officer.

  If Martin had noticed Skinner's reaction, he gave no sign. `Stone cold, boss. There's hardly any blood. Single puncture wound straight into the heart. Whoever did this either knew exactly where to hit, or they were dead lucky.'

  `Whoever did this didn't rely on luck. How long has he been dead?'

  The doctor's first guess was that he was done between one and two a.m. The cleaning lady found him. She lets herself in around nine every morning.'

  `He lived alone, still, did he?'

  `Always has done. He's never been married. The odd girlfriend, but mostly he used the tarts from his saunas.'

  Skinner grunted. ‘Hmm. A man of simple tastes, then. Who's the senior bod here from Division?'

  The answer came from a room off the landing. 'So far, it's me, sir. DI Donaldson's on leave, and Miss Higgins is over in the west, crewing her brother's yacht on the Clyde.' The husky shape of Detective Sergeant Mario McGuire appeared, framed in the doorway.

  `Where's Roy Old?'

  `Away in Hawick with the Chief and Brian Mackie, looking after the Princess Royal,' said Martin.

  Skinner nodded. 'Of course. Right, Mario, what have we got, then?'

  `Here, sir?' said McGuire. Not a lot, you might say. Only a very dead Anthony Manson. Owner and operator of a dozen housing-scheme laundrettes, eight takeaways, six dodgy lock shy;up public houses, four saunas of ill repute, and one curling club complete with blue-chip membership to make Tony there look halfway respectable. The ideal setup for the biggest drug baron in Scotland.'