A Hint of Death (A Bob Skinner Short Story) (Kindle Single) Read online

  A HINT OF DEATH

  Quintin Jardine

  Copyright © 2014 Portador Ltd

  The right of Quintin Jardine to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  First published as an Ebook by

  Headline Publishing Group in 2014

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  eISBN: 978 1 4722 2083 7

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  An Hachette UK Company

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.headline.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  About the Author

  Also by Quintin Jardine

  About the Book

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Exclusive extract from LAST RESORT

  About the Author

  Over twenty years ago Quintin Jardine abandoned the life of a media relations consultant for the more morally acceptable world of murder and mayhem. More than thirty published novels later, it’s a decision that neither he nor his global network of fans have ever regretted. Happily married, he splits his time between Scotland and Spain, but he can be tracked down through his website www.quintinjardine.com.

  Praise for Quintin Jardine’s novels:

  ‘A triumph. I am first in the queue for the next one’ Scotland on Sunday

  ‘Remarkably assured … a tour de force’ New York Times

  ‘The perfect mix for a highly charged, fast-moving crime thriller’ Glasgow Herald

  ‘[Quintin Jardine] sells more crime fiction in Scotland than John Grisham and people queue around the block to buy his latest book’ The Australian

  ‘There is a whole world here, the tense narratives all come to the boil at the same time in a spectacular climax’ Shots magazine

  ‘Engrossing, believable characters … captures Edinburgh beautifully … It all adds up to a very good read’ Edinburgh Evening News

  ‘A complex story combined with robust characterisation; a murder/mystery novel of our time that will keep you hooked to the very last page’ The Scots Magazine

  By Quintin Jardine and available from Headline

  Bob Skinner series:

  Skinner’s Rules

  Skinner’s Festival

  Skinner’s Trail

  Skinner’s Round

  Skinner’s Ordeal

  Skinner’s Mission

  Skinner’s Ghosts

  Murmuring the Judges

  Gallery Whispers

  Thursday Legends

  Autographs in the Rain

  Head Shot

  Fallen Gods

  Stay of Execution

  Lethal Intent

  Dead and Buried

  Death’s Door

  Aftershock

  Fatal Last Words

  A Rush of Blood

  Grievous Angel

  Funeral Note

  Pray for the Dying

  Digital Short Story:

  A Hint of Death

  Primavera Blackstone series:

  Inhuman Remains

  Blood Red

  As Easy As Murder

  Deadly Business

  As Serious As Death

  Oz Blackstone series:

  Blackstone’s Pursuits

  A Coffin for Two

  Wearing Purple

  Screen Savers

  On Honeymoon with Death

  Poisoned Cherries

  Unnatural Justice

  Alarm Call

  For the Death of Me

  The Loner

  About the Book

  When DS Sauce Haddock visits an old teacher to investigate an alleged jewellery theft, it quickly becomes clear that another, far darker truth, lies beneath the surface.

  With Chief Constable Bob Skinner’s help, Haddock will soon discover that outward appearances are never as they seem, and that no crime can go unpunished …

  ‘There never was a robbery, Mr Christie. Isn’t that the truth now?’

  Detective Sergeant Harold ‘Sauce’ Haddock stood over the man in the chair. He tried to look severe, but gave up the attempt after a few seconds, as the irony of the situation won the day.

  Twelve years earlier their roles had been reversed. Never the most diligent of scholars, he had been caught cheating in a school exam. Many another teacher … Big Bad John Henderson for example … would have emasculated him in front of the entire class, but all that Trevor Christie had done was shake his head sadly, as he picked the badly hidden crib sheet from his pocket and tore it in two.

  ‘I admit defeat,’ he had murmured. ‘You’ll always be crap at Latin, son. The grandeur of Ancient Rome and its language will always be lost on you. Time we both admitted it and you concentrated on the subjects that you are good at.’

  His expression was much the same as he looked up at his former pupil, in the much less formal setting of his own living room. ‘Are you saying that I’m crap at lying, Harold?’ he asked.

  An unprofessional smile forced its way on to Haddock’s face. ‘I suppose I am, sir,’ he agreed. ‘Would you like to tell me why you felt that you needed to? The fact of the matter is that you didn’t call the police. Your daughter did.’

  ‘I didn’t want Josey done for wasting police time.’

  ‘You’re getting worse, Mr Christie. You really should have written some potential answers on a sheet of paper, then taken a quick shuftie to refresh yourself. Why exactly would your daughter get done? Miss Christie volunteered to Jackie Wright, my DC, when she interviewed her here yesterday that you told her that her mother’s jewellery had been stolen.’

  Trevor Christie had been a popular teacher because there was nothing specific about the man that anyone could dislike, not even a fifteen-year-old forced to spend forty-five minutes in his company twice a week. He was so pleasantly mild, Sauce recalled, that he had never acquired a proper nickname, beyond the ‘Old Trev’ bestowed on him by Audrey Shields. (That Audrey: now she had a nickname. They called her ‘Raleigh’; he had been puzzled about that until a more worldly-wise classmate had explained that it had nothing to do with Elizabethan mariners. ‘It’s a bike, Sauce. Work it out.’)

  ‘It’s funny,’ he remarked. ‘When we’re at school our teachers are major figures in our lives, yet we get to know absolutely nothing about them. They’re of another generation, another place entirely. We all thought of you as a middle-aged bloke, but when I was in your class you must have been …’

  ‘I was thirty,’ Christie volunteered. ‘But I felt like a middle-aged bloke. That birthday’s a bloody big milestone, as you’ll find out soon enough, I suspect, and even more if you’re married with a family. You married, Harold?’

  The detective smiled as he shook his head. ‘Not certifiably so, but as good as.’

  ‘Any kids?’

  ‘Not yet; Cheeky says we should wait till we grow up. By the way, her real name is Cameron,’ he explained, ‘but that�
�s been her nickname all her life.’

  ‘I see. Josey … that’s my daughter, that’s her real name, not a short form … was six when I hit thirty.’ He paused. ‘Look, can we make this less formal, Harold? Will you at least take a seat?’

  ‘Sure,’ Haddock said. ‘But you can relax, sir; it’s not formal, and you’re not under caution. The truth is I’m on a day off, and using this part of it to cover my DC’s backside. She slipped up: she should have interviewed you as well yesterday, not just Josey … because of corroboration and all that.’

  ‘Understood, and it’s no problem for me. It’s as well I have a late start this morning, or you’d have missed me. Josey’s left for her school already.’

  The detective eased himself into a chair facing his one-time teacher. ‘What happened to Josey’s mother?’ he asked, casually.

  Something flashed in Christie’s eyes as he replied. ‘Tilda died of a brain tumour, three years ago. It came out of the blue. She was putting some winter clothes away in a high cupboard in our bedroom; she took a dizzy spell and fell off the steps. The same thing happened a few days later in the kitchen. She broke her ankle; when she told the story in A&E some bright young doctor sent her for an MRI scan and they found it. She was gone inside eight weeks,’ he snapped his fingers, ‘just like that.’

  ‘I’m very sorry.’

  ‘Thanks, Harold; in the midst of life, and all that. I hope it never happens to you.’

  ‘Me too,’ the detective replied sincerely. ‘How have you been since?’

  ‘I really have no idea. That might sound like a daft answer, but it’s all I can offer. I function; I get on with my job, and that’s it.’

  ‘I take it you’re still in teaching?’

  ‘Oh yes, I’m there for the duration now. I’m doing okay career-wise; I’m deputy head of Drumdonald Academy; that’s the biggest independent school in Edinburgh, as you probably know. Outside of that, though, I have nothing; just this big empty space where Tilda used to be. I’m still mourning I suppose; for how long, only God knows.’

  ‘Is Josey your only child?’

  ‘Yeah. She’s a brick. She’s very bright; straightforward and a woman of forthright opinions, just like her mother.’ He glanced at a family photograph that stood framed on the sideboard. Haddock had looked at it earlier; Tilda Christie had been a big woman, with strong features and a smile that struck him as being a little forced. Her daughter, who might have been around twelve when the picture was taken, resembled her, closely.

  ‘So what’s the real story about the jewellery?’ he asked. ‘Why did you let her report it as stolen?’

  ‘I didn’t think she would. I should have known better; she’s a volatile girl, just like her mother was. You’re right, Harold, she only repeated to your colleague what I’d told her. And I did that because I didn’t want her to know that I’d sold it. End of story.’

  Haddock almost took him at his word and let the matter lie, but there was something in the teacher’s expression, or perhaps it was the way he had looked away from him as he spoke, that made him press on.

  ‘Not quite,’ he said. ‘That doesn’t add up.’ He looked around the well-furnished room. ‘For openers, sir, you don’t appear to need the money.’

  ‘Who says?’ Christie challenged, looking more animated in that instant than his former pupil had ever seen him. ‘Josey’s going to university in the autumn. Do you think that comes cheap?’

  ‘So why didn’t you tell her that you’d flogged the jewels for her benefit, rather than coming up with an unsupportable cover story?’

  ‘I didn’t want to burden her with the knowledge, I suppose, make her feel beholden to me. What I said, it was on the spur of the moment. I never thought it through.’

  ‘How much did you raise from the sale? You don’t have to tell me, mind. It’s none of my business.’

  ‘No, that’s all right. I got nine thousand. Some of it was old and quite valuable, stuff that Tilda had inherited. It was insured for twenty.’

  ‘Did it go to auction?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Which one? Which auction house?’

  The man frowned, his eyes shifting as he tried to come up with a name, any name, of a city auctioneer. A faint smile signalled his admission of failure, and then, a sigh. ‘Okay, I sold it privately, to a jeweller in Fountainbridge.’

  Haddock whistled. ‘Then it’s as well we haven’t started treating this as a theft yet, or our people would have gone round all the dealers, you’d have been identified and it would have all gone very pear-shaped, beyond my reach.’

  ‘I realise that. I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s okay. It hasn’t got that far so no harm done. You know you must tell Josey the truth now, don’t you?’

  Christie nodded, gazing at the carpet, at an old stain left, most probably, by a spilled glass of red wine.

  ‘That’s if it is the truth,’ the detective said, raising an eyebrow as he spoke. ‘But somehow,’ he added, ‘I still don’t believe that it is.’

  ‘If you had been as persistent with your studies, Harold …’ the teacher exclaimed.

  ‘I’d still be a cop today; a graduate entrant, perhaps, but still a cop. I’ve made detective sergeant younger than most, and one of the reasons why is because I can tell when somebody’s telling me porkies. In CID, the gullible need not apply.’

  ‘Is that good, being suspicious of everyone?’

  ‘Oh, I’m not. At home, Cheeky can wind me up no end. But at work, where I ask questions of lots of shifty people on a daily basis, I can tell when I’m being spun a story, or when someone’s being evasive.’

  ‘I didn’t realise that I was.’

  ‘Then take my word for it, you were,’ Haddock chuckled. ‘You’re not a natural liar, but you do have some skill. You didn’t actually tell me you flogged the jewellery to top up your daughter’s university fund; you just threw out the hint and hoped I’d go with it.’ He paused and his expression changed. ‘Look, sir, I don’t need to take this any further. I’ll stop now if that’s what you want. But if you’re in trouble and I can help … well, try me.’

  ‘Will you keep it confidential?’ Christie asked.

  ‘That’ll depend on what you tell me. If you’ve run up a tab with an internet bookie, sure I can, but if a crime’s been committed, I can’t ignore that.’

  ‘It’s a woman,’ the teacher exclaimed, almost before he had finished. ‘I’ve been involved with a woman and it didn’t go as I’d anticipated.’

  ‘Involved? How deeply involved? A little while ago you said you had nothing in your life apart from Josey and work.’

  ‘That was part of the lie … or maybe it wasn’t, for it’s true again; I’m not involved any more.’

  ‘Was it a casual thing or did you see it longer term?’

  ‘I had hopes, I admit.’

  ‘Do you want to tell me about her?’

  ‘I might as well tell you everything now. She’s the older sister of a former pupil, a contemporary of yours, in fact. Do you remember a girl called Hazel McVie?’

  The detective frowned, as he ran a series of faces through his mind, until he found her: a quiet lassie, okay at primary level, but more withdrawn the older she had grown, and undistinguished academically. She had never been one of the in-crowd, and he recalled having to tell Audrey Shields to wind it up when he had caught her bullying the kid during his prefect year.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ he said. ‘We went all through school together, but I never got to know her. Stewie Morrison asked her out on a date once. Being Stewie, he reported back. According to him, she said about three words all night, and when he tried his hand at the bus stop on the way home, she burst into tears.’

  ‘That sounds like Hazel; she had a lot of counselling from Mrs Andries, the guidance teacher. You lot wouldn’t have known about it; it was handled very discreetly, as are all such cases.’

  ‘What’s the sister’s name?’

  ‘Tammy.’


  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard. She told me her dad was into country and western at the time. According to her, Hazel was nearly called Dolly, but her mother drew the line at that. She’s Tammy Jones now; married name, but she’s divorced.’

  ‘How did you meet?’

  ‘She came to a school event for the parents of new pupils, about six months ago. Tammy’s thirty-four, but she married when she was twenty. Her son, his name’s Crawford, is twelve. He’s in my first-year class, which doesn’t help.’

  Haddock sensed that the man was about to withdraw into himself once more. ‘But your relationship was personal?’ he continued, quickly.

  ‘It became so. We talked for a while at the event, and I told her she could always get in touch with me if she had any other questions. She did, a couple of days later. It was more convenient for us to meet outside school, so we did. She mentioned her circumstances, and I mentioned mine. She was very sympathetic. She got to me, emotionally, and it went on from there.’

  ‘How far did it go?’

  Christie looked him in the eye. ‘Do you mean, was it sexual?’

  Haddock nodded.

  ‘It developed that way.’

  ‘At whose instigation?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m really not sure,’ the teacher replied. ‘The first time, we had a weekend away. Was it my idea or hers? I can’t really remember now. We’d both had a couple of drinks; I don’t handle it too well, I’m afraid. I may have made the suggestion first, if the booze made me feel bold enough, or she might. Whatever, she said she knew someone with a cottage in Wooler, in Northumberland, that we could have. I admit that I was very apprehensive on the way there, but I don’t think it was a complete fiasco. We had a couple more encounters after that, at her place when Crawford was away with his dad. I felt comfortable with her, and I was getting ready to break the news to Josey; then Tammy asked me if I could lend her some money.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Haddock said, heavily.

  ‘I thought nothing of it at the time. She told me that her husband was out of the country and had defaulted on his maintenance payments for the boy. She asked if I could lend her a thousand quid to tide her over. I always keep a couple of thousand rainy day money so I gave her half of that. A month ago she asked me for ten thousand.’