The Roots of Evil (Bob Skinner) Read online

  Copyright © 2020 Portador Ltd

  Extract from The Bad Fire copyright © 2019 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.

  First published in 2020 by

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  First published as an Ebook in 2020 by

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  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.

  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

  Ebook conversion by Avon DataSet Ltd, Arden Court, Alcester, Warwickshire

  Cover credit © Aline Sprauel/Arcangel Images

  eISBN: 978 1 4722 5590 7

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  About the Author

  Praise for Quintin Jardine

  Also by Quintin Jardine

  About the Book

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Forty-Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-One

  Fifty-Two

  Fifty-Three

  Fifty-Four

  Fifty-Five

  Fifty-Six

  Fifty-Seven

  Fifty-Eight

  Fifty-Nine

  Sixty

  Sixty-One

  Sixty-Two

  Sixty-Three

  Sixty-Four

  Sixty-Five

  Sixty-Six

  Sixty-Seven

  Sixty-Eight

  Sixty-Nine

  Seventy

  Seventy-One

  Seventy-Two

  Seventy-Three

  Seventy-Four

  Seventy-Five

  Seventy-Six

  Seventy-Seven

  Seventy-Eight

  Seventy-Nine

  Eighty

  Eighty-One

  Eighty-Two

  Eighty-Three

  Read an extract from THE BAD FIRE

  About the Author

  Quintin Jardine was born once upon a time in the West: of Scotland rather than America, but still he grew to manhood as a massive Sergio Leone fan. On the way there he was educated, against his will, in Glasgow, where he ditched a token attempt to study law for more interesting careers in journalism, government propaganda and political spin-doctoring. After a close call with the Brighton Bomb, he moved into the riskier world of media relations consultancy, before realising that all along he had been training to become a crime writer.

  Now, more than forty published novels later, he never looks back. Along the way he has created/acquired an extended family in Scotland and Spain. Everything he does is for them.

  He can be tracked down through his website www.quintinjardine.me.

  Praise for Quintin Jardine

  ‘The legendary Quintin Jardine . . . Such a fine writer’ Denzil Meyrick

  ‘Scottish crime-writing at its finest, with a healthy dose of plot twists and turns, bodies and plenty of brutality’ Sun

  ‘Another powerful tartan noir that packs a punch’ Peterborough Evening Telegraph

  ‘Incredibly difficult to put the book down . . . A guide through a world of tangled family politics, hostile takeovers, government-sanctioned killing, extortion and the seedier side of publishing . . . Quintin Jardine should be . . . your first choice!’ Scots Magazine

  ‘Well constructed, fast-paced, Jardine’s narrative has many an ingenious twist and turn’ Observer

  ‘Very engaging as well as ingenious, and the unravelling of the mystery is excellently done’ Allan Massie, Scotsman

  ‘Remarkably assured, raw-boned, a tour de force’ New York Times

  ‘Deplorably readable’ Guardian

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

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

  ‘Gritty cop drama that makes Taggart look tame’ Northern Echo

  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

  Hour of Darkness

  Last Resort

  Private Investigations

  Game Over

  State Secrets

  A Brush with Death

  Cold Case

  The Bad Fire

  The Roots of Evil

  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

  Mathew’s Tale

  About the Book

  THE DARKEST DEEDS ARE HIDDEN FROM SIGHT . . .

  Bob Skinner is back in the latest gritty mystery in Quintin Jardine’s bests
elling series, not to be missed by readers of Ian Rankin and Peter May.

  New Year’s Day, and Edinburgh lies sleeping. But two men will never wake again . . .

  When struggling ex-copper Terry Coats was discovered in bed with an air hostess, his excuse that he was ‘going undercover’ cut no ice with the force – or his wife. But now he’s been brutally killed on Hogmanay night, it seems there may have been more to his plea.

  Dragged from the New Year celebrations, Special Constable Sir Bob Skinner is shocked to find Coats’ body alongside that of Griff Montell: his erstwhile protégé, and former lover of Skinner’s own daughter, Alex. Could there be some dark truth under Coats’ cock-and-bull story, after all?

  As the secrets start unravelling, Skinner realises he has gravely underestimated someone close to him – and the effects will cost him, and those he loved, dear . . .

  This book is for Mia Abernethy Teixidor, una llum de la meva vida, and for Rex Masato Jardine, Granddad’s Number One Boy, who is the other.

  Both men heard the first chimes of midnight . . .

  but neither heard the last.

  One

  ‘Happy New Decade, my love,’ Sir Robert Morgan Skinner murmured to his wife, as the fireworks lit the darkness outside, and he had finished shaking hands with everyone around him, as tradition demanded. ‘May it bring you all you wish for.’

  ‘The last one did pretty well in that department,’ Professor Sarah Grace replied. ‘It brought a few surprises too.’ She inclined her head towards a pair who stood a few feet away from them, watching the scene through the bay window of the golf club’s first-floor dining room. ‘For example, if you’d told me this time last year that those two would be here, let alone as a couple, I’d have sent you for a cognitive test.’

  ‘How many times?’ he murmured. ‘My daughter and Dominic Jackson are not a couple. They are house-mates, no more than that.’

  ‘So you say.’

  ‘So Dominic assures me.’

  ‘Are you telling me you asked him?’ she chuckled.

  ‘I didn’t have to. Before Alexis moved in with him full-time, he came to me and asked if I had any objection. He told me something she’d kept from me herself, that she hadn’t been able to settle back into her flat after she was attacked there. More than that, he said that psychologically she was on the edge. He believed she had never had a really close friend outside of family, and that it was telling on her. The more success she had in her career, the more it contrasted with what she perceived as failure in her private life. She felt empty inside.’

  ‘But everybody loves Alex,’ Sarah protested.

  ‘Everybody but Alex herself, it seems,’ Bob murmured. ‘I said what you just said, but Dominic was adamant, that her self-esteem was at a critical point. “She’s never failed at work,” he told me, “so when she perceives that she’s a failure as a person, she has no idea how to cope with it. Let her move in with me, Bob, and I will be the friend she needs so badly . . . but nothing more than that, I promise you.” Given that the man has an honours degree, a masters and a doctorate in psychology, I wasn’t about to argue with him, so I agreed. And it’s worked. Look at her, for Christ’s sake! Compared to how she was, she’s blooming.’

  Sarah looked again at her stepdaughter. ‘I’ll grant you that,’ she admitted. ‘Why didn’t you share this with me at the time?’ she asked.

  ‘You were away at that forensic pathology conference in Paris when it happened. By the time you came back she’d moved in. I told you then what the arrangement was.’

  ‘And I doubted you then. This is Alex, remember.’

  ‘Her mother’s daughter? Is that what you’re saying?’ His voice was low; his smile was not reflected in his eyes.

  ‘No, I didn’t mean that at all,’ she said, hurriedly. ‘But I do know her; we are close.’

  ‘Not so close you can’t accept that she’s capable of sharing a house with a man but not a bed?’

  ‘And can you? Really?’

  ‘I believe her. So should you. End of story.’

  ‘That story, okay.’ As the fireworks climaxed, she glanced once more at Alex’s huge companion. ‘I wonder what this crew here would say if they knew his history, that all those qualifications of his were gained in prison doing a life sentence for murder, under another name?’

  ‘They would say nothing, because he’s here as my guest. God knows what they would think,’ he conceded, ‘but trust me, nobody would utter a word.’

  ‘Not in your presence,’ she said, ‘but as soon as you left the building, the place would be chattering like a tree full of starlings. This is a golf club, for heaven’s sake. Rumour and innuendo spread faster than on Facebook in places like this.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe they do, but nobody is going to find out this secret. Dominic keeps a low profile professionally, and the circles he moves in, nobody’s likely to link him with Lennie Plenderleith.’

  ‘Until Alex calls Dominic as an expert defence witness in a High Court trial,’ Sarah suggested. ‘There are still plenty of advocates and a few judges who were around when he was there last.’

  ‘Yes, but he’s changed a lot since then; the beard, the change in body shape since he stopped pumping weights.’

  ‘He’s still two metres tall.’

  ‘That’s not as exceptional as it used to be.’

  ‘Isn’t there a parole officer who knows who he is, or was?’ Sarah argued.

  ‘They would be bound by confidentiality,’ her husband countered, ‘but Dominic doesn’t have to check in anymore. Yes, he’s still on licence as a life-sentence prisoner, but the terms of that licence are as limited as they can be. He has a passport; he can go anywhere he likes without asking permission or informing anyone.’

  ‘How about the USA? My home country is very choosy about who gets in. He’d be required to declare his personal history, and withholding information from US immigration is never a good idea.’

  Bob grinned. ‘We let your president into the UK.’

  ‘Our president doesn’t have any murder convictions.’

  ‘There are those who would say he doesn’t have convictions of any sort.’ His attention was caught by the three-piece band shuffling back into position. ‘Come on, kid, let’s dance the night away.’

  ‘Give my feet a break, Twinkletoes,’ his wife groaned. ‘They’ve suffered enough for one night.’

  ‘Are you suggesting I’m not a Strictly candidate?’

  ‘I’m not suggesting anything, I’m telling the world out loud: cops can’t dance.’

  As she stepped away from the window, Alex heard her. ‘That’s a given,’ she agreed. ‘I did my level best with him, but my old man has no sense of rhythm, none at all.’

  ‘How about you, Dominic?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘I don’t think that dance floor’s big enough for me,’ he laughed as they approached. ‘Besides, I think it’s time to run the gauntlet and drive home. If I’m not pulled over between here and Edinburgh, at one a.m. on January the first, it’ll be a sad reflection on the state of policing in modern Scotland.’

  ‘But don’t let us drag you away, Pops,’ Alex insisted. ‘This shindig still has a while to go, by the looks of things.’

  ‘No, I think we’re done.’ Bob glanced out of the window. ‘All of a sudden it’s chucking it down out there. If you are going, maybe you could drop us off at home, and wish your brothers a Happy New Year in the process.’

  ‘Brothers?’ she repeated.

  He grinned. ‘You don’t think Jazz is going to be in bed, do you? Mark certainly won’t be, and Ignacio doesn’t have the clout to make them. Trish would lay down the law if she wasn’t spending Christmas with her folks in Barbados, but the boys won’t take it from him. Besides, I promised him that we’d be back in time to let Pilar and him catch up with some pals at a party.’

  ‘I haven’t met the girlfriend yet,’ Alex observed. ‘They’re on the same uni course, yes?’

  ‘That’s right, she�
��s a would-be chemist too. She’s from Madrid; her father’s a banker, and her mother’s Norwegian. The mum did her degree in Edinburgh too; she got a two one in chemical engineering at Heriot Watt.’

  ‘Do you think it’s serious between them?’

  ‘Ignacio’s in love,’ he conceded, ‘and the lass seems smitten too, but everybody does when they’re twenty. You’ve heard me talk about my old Uncle Johnny . . . he wasn’t really my uncle though; he was my dad’s best pal. He was a man of many sayings and one was that you shouldn’t look at your girlfriend, you should look at her mother, because that’s what she’s going to look like in twenty-five years or so.’

  ‘He sounds like a real old sexist pig,’ his daughter declared. She glanced towards her stepmother, who was making her way to the toilet. ‘Mind you, if that’s true, my little sister’s boyfriends will be impressed when that time comes. Sarah looks fantastic with the new silver hair. I’m still getting used to it.’

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘me too . . . and it’s natural!’

  ‘You’re kidding me!’

  ‘No, she’s been covering grey streaks for a few years now. One day, after we’d been out for dinner with Mario McGuire and Paula, on a whim she copied her and spent a small fortune having all the dye removed. What you see is pretty much how it looked.’

  ‘Maybe I should try it,’ Alex mused.

  ‘No way!’ her father said. ‘You’re far too young. Plus, your Grandma Graham didn’t start to go grey until after your mother died, and you’re very like her. If you did have the tint taken out, you’d be wasting your money.’

  ‘I’m also very like you,’ she pointed out, ‘and you were grey in your mid-thirties.’

  ‘True,’ he conceded, ‘but I still say don’t do it. One’s enough.’ He nodded towards the door where Dominic was waiting. ‘Let’s go . . . once I’ve said goodnight to the Captain. Got to observe the formalities.’

  ‘When will it be your turn for that job?’

  ‘Never. I was a cop for thirty years, love, and I finished at the top of the tree. I’m an autocrat to my bootstraps, not a committee man. In fact, I rage against those, like Jimmy Proud did, God bless and keep him.’

  Skinner said his farewell to the golf club captain and his party, joining his own on the back stairway that led out to the car park. He recovered an umbrella from his locker, sheltering his wife and daughter from the bite of the cold rain as they bustled back to Dominic Jackson’s massive SUV.