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  Twenty-Seven

  The uniformed officers were guarding the closemouth on Candleriggs when an unmarked car drew into the kerb. Sergeant Robertson was about to move it on when a tall, solidly built woman emerged from the passenger side. ‘DCI Mann,’ she announced, unsmiling, although her self-identification was unnecessary. There were few officers in Glasgow who did not know, or know of, Charlotte ‘Lottie’ Mann, the head of the west of Scotland Serious Crimes Unit. ‘Ma’am,’ the sergeant said, straightening his posture but stopping short of coming to attention.

  ‘Which floor?’ she asked, as she was joined by the driver, a man several inches shorter.

  ‘Second,’ he replied. ‘You’d better get the sterile kit on before you go up there, ma’am. The forensics gaffer’s a right martinet.’

  ‘Red hair?’

  ‘Him and one of the younger ones.’

  ‘That’ll be Arthur Dorward,’ Mann said. ‘The younger one’s probably his son. I’d heard he had graduated and was working out of the Crime Campus.’

  ‘The older one’s a grumpy bugger, whatever he is.’

  ‘He gets away with it by being the best in the business, Sarge,’ she said as she slipped on a sterile overshoe. ‘Maybe you should learn from him before you lecture senior officers about crime-scene procedure.’ She stepped into the close, her colleague following, leaving a grim-faced Robertson to decide that it really had not been his day.

  ‘Arthur?’ Mann called out, as she and DS John Cotter reached the second floor landing.

  Within a few seconds the older Dorward was on the doorway. ‘It’s Lottie and Tyrion,’ he said, dryly as he surveyed the CID team. ‘You’re welcome to this one.’

  Cotter shot him a heavy-browed look. ‘I’m not that fucking short,’ he complained, in a Tyneside accent.

  ‘Don’t take it to heart, John,’ Mann said. ‘Tyrion wound up at the head of the table at the end of Game of Thrones. One dead male, we were told, Arthur,’ she said, briskly. ‘Do you have any more than that?’

  ‘Identifying him is your job, Lottie,’ Dorward replied, ‘but I see nothing in there that’s going to help you. The postie who found the body couldn’t put a name to him either.’

  ‘Where is he?’ Cotter asked. ‘We only saw two uniforms outside.’

  ‘She,’ he corrected, ‘was bitching about finishing her round. The PC took a statement from her and got her personal details so she can be contacted to sign it, then they let her go.’

  Mann scowled, but offered no judgement on the decision. ‘What can you tell us about the deceased?’

  ‘You’re best seeing for yourselves,’ the scientist said. ‘Mind you, it’s tight in there; my people are still at work. We’re still waiting for the pathologist as well, so be careful not to touch the body, not that you’ll want to. You hear about these things but to see one . . .’

  Twenty-Eight

  There were no parking places to be seen on the main street. Rather than cruise around in vain hope, Skinner drove home and put the Tesla in the garage. After checking that Sarah was home from Edinburgh with Dawn, and that Mark still had a semblance of control over his younger siblings, he changed from his suit into chinos, a heavy shirt and boots, took his waxed jacket from its hook and set off back towards the village and Mrs Alexander.

  His emotions were mixed as he walked. He was filled with sadness over the death of Sammy Pye, a friend lost rather than a former colleague. He hoped that Ruth, his widow, would approve of him sharing her number with Maggie Steele, but was confident that she would, and that in time, she would take strength from her. The women were not strangers. Ruth had been his PA during Maggie’s time as his executive officer and they had worked together in efficient harmony. At the same time he was pleased by the radical change in Steele, having freed herself of the burden of an office that he had decided not to seek. Had he made a different choice and had he been appointed, would he have lasted, he asked himself, any longer than she or Andy Martin? Probably not, he conceded to himself. And McIlhenney? How would he manage? Better than any of them, he decided. There was a stolid calmness about the man; he would make each decision logically and, having done so, he would leave it in the office rather than take it home. Bob Skinner knew that was something he had never been able to do, and it had cost him two marriages.

  Arriving at the street-level door to Mrs Alexander’s flat, Skinner was surprised to find it slightly ajar, but given its age and lack of maintenance he thought no more of it and headed for the stair, donning his Saltire mask as he went. In contrast, her front door seemed to be firmly closed. He rang her bell and waited. And waited. And waited.

  He frowned as he took out his phone and found the old lady’s number. Standing close to the door he heard it ring, once, twice, on and on until he cancelled the call. He tried the door, but it was secure. He assessed the situation: an ordinary citizen would be advised to call the emergency services. What was he but an ordinary citizen?

  ‘Fuck that,’ he murmured, as he raised his right foot and slammed the sole of his boot into the door, just above the handle. His first kick weakened it; the second sent it flying open.

  He stepped inside, pausing for a second to consider the likely lay-out. The living room and main bedroom were on the right, overlooking the street. He checked them both. The bed was made; the central block of a nineteen-fifties vintage Gas Miser glowed in the hearth of the reception room. He crossed the small square hall, checking the bathroom before moving into the kitchen.

  It was a generous size, with ground-level cupboards and shelving above an L-shaped work surface, with a porcelain sink below the window that overlooked the back green. It was big enough to accommodate a little breakfast table, beyond which Mrs Alexander lay, on her back. He knew at once that she was dead, from her pallor and the angle of her neck. A set of aluminium folding steps were on the floor alongside her, open, with the four feet pointing towards the shelves and the work surface, upon which there lay a box of custard powder, open, with some of its contents spilled out.

  Skinner sighed as he knelt beside the body, feeling for a pulse that he knew he would not find, realising from its coldness that the old lady had been dead for some time. Her eyes were slightly open and if there was any expression there, it was surprise. Leaning closer, he saw a mark on her left temple, an odd right-angled wound. The skin was broken but there was very little blood. He looked at the corner of the breakfast table; the shape was a match; the picture was complete. He returned to the hallway and took out his phone again. Rather than go through the police switchboard, he called Noele McClair’s mobile.

  ‘Bob,’ she said. She sounded surprised but also tired, as if she was glad that her working day was drawing to a close. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘Are you still in the office?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, with one eye on the clock.’

  ‘Do you have a car handy for Gullane?’

  ‘Not just now,’ she told him. ‘There’s been an accident on the A1, just past Torness.’

  ‘In that case you might want to attend yourself, and call a medical examiner. I’m at the home of one of our resilience group’s sheltered seniors, Mrs Wendy Alexander, on the main street. I called to drop off some M&S goodies and couldn’t get a response. I kicked the door in and found her dead.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ the inspector sighed. ‘This is turning into an epidemic.’

  Twenty-Nine

  Lottie Mann had been a police officer in Glasgow for fifteen years, but even she stopped in her tracks, when she stepped into the sitting room of the Candleriggs apartment. It stank of death, of human waste, and of copious blood, that metallic slaughterhouse smell that, once experienced, could never be excised from the memory. Automatically, without thinking about it, she extended an arm to keep Cotter back, as if she could protect him from what he was about to see.

  A tall young technician whom she took to be
Dorward Junior, from the wisps of russet hair protruding from his crime-scene hood, was working in the centre of the room, extracting samples of hair and other detritus from a white leather swivel chair, one of a pair on either side of a wall-mounted television. Another man, older, turned to face her.

  ‘DCI Mann,’ Professor Graham Scott, the city’s chief pathologist, said. He appeared annoyed, uncharacteristically. ‘I’m not surprised to see you here, but I don’t quite know why you need me. Standard call-out practice, I suppose, but it’s self-evident that this chap’s dead. My work’s done in the autopsy room at the mortuary. Get him there and I will tell you what I can.’

  She stared back at him, hiding her embarrassment over her momentary loss of composure. Cotter was still behind her, as her bulk was blocking the doorway.

  ‘Are you not even going to hazard a guess at cause of death?’ she growled, stone-faced.

  As if in denial of the horror behind him, Scott smiled as he shook his head. ‘I’ll treat that as a joke. It will all be in my report, Detective Chief Inspector, as usual. Now for goodness sake, Lottie, are you going to let me get out of here?’

  She nodded and stood to one side. ‘Let the professor past, John. He’s wanting home for his tea.’ She looked back at Scott, serious once again. ‘Soon as you can, Graham, please. God knows where this one’s going to lead.’

  ‘Agreed, Lottie. When you find the missing piece, let me know.’

  ‘What?’ Cotter exclaimed.

  ‘You’ll see. Or rather, you won’t.’ He headed out of the flat, stepping quickly along the raised walkway that the forensic team had laid down.

  The two detectives stepped into the room. As Mann had done, Cotter recoiled then gathered himself. ‘Fuck,’ he whispered.

  Dried blood stained the wall that faced them like an abstract painting. Its spray could be seen on a mounted television screen and a wood-burning stove; on the parquet flooring it formed a dark circle, a pool of horror. Its source lay at their feet. It was human and it was male. He had been exsanguinated but still it was apparent that he had been a person of colour. However, that was all the detectives could tell on first examination, for he had been decapitated.

  Mann turned to call for the senior Dorward, but he was close behind her. ‘Where’s the head, Arthur?’ she asked, her voice hoarse and not much above a whisper.

  ‘It’s not here,’ he replied, ‘and we’ve looked everywhere that it could be, short of taking up the floor. Whoever did this must have taken it away with him. To mess us about? As a trophy? Who knows why?’

  ‘Have you found anything that’ll identify him?’

  ‘We haven’t done that kind of search, Lottie. You know that; it‘s not what we’re here for. You need to get your team in here, but not until my three are finished, please. Even in sterile suits there’s always some contamination. All that I can tell you is that we’ve seen no personal items as we’ve been working. No photographs, no mail, no holiday postcards.’

  ‘Phone?’

  ‘No, but we haven’t looked in his pockets. There’s a jacket over there.’ He pointed across the room to the far wall and a gateleg table with a chair on either side. On one of those hung a light tan leather jacket. ‘I’ll look,’ Dorward said, as Cotter took a step towards it. ‘John, I would rather you stayed out of here, and you too, Lottie, until we’re finished. It’ll save time in the long run if we don’t have to eliminate either of you.’

  ‘Go on then,’ Mann agreed.

  The scientist crossed the room and searched the garment, looking into each of its four pockets. He shook his head as he finished. ‘Nothing at all,’ he announced. ‘Not only is there no phone, there’s no wallet either, no keys or anything else. Also,’ he added, ‘we’ve seen no computer or laptop. There doesn’t appear to be a landline phone, but there is internet, high-speed fibre to the house.’

  ‘That doesn’t tell us who the victim is, though, does it?’ Cotter said. ‘I spoke to the plonk downstairs, who took the postwoman’s statement. According to her there’s nothing on the incoming mail to identify him.’

  ‘Somebody’s paying the bills,’ Dorward countered. ‘Somebody’s paying the council tax.’ He nodded at the blood-spattered television above the stove. ‘Someone’s paying the TV licence.’

  ‘But not necessarily the victim on the floor,’ Mann pointed out.

  ‘You might be able to find him, Lottie, if his prints and DNA are on a national database. Go on now,’ he continued ‘let us finish our work then your people can tear the place apart.’

  ‘Okay, Arthur,’ the DCI sighed. ‘I won’t bother asking you to hurry up. I know that’s not in your DNA. We’ll be outside if you do find anything useful.’

  She ushered Cotter back to the landing. ‘What do we do in the meantime?’ he asked.

  ‘You get a team assembled,’ she replied, ‘ready to do a search as soon as we can. Then you can locate the folk on the stair that aren’t at home. I don’t imagine that’ll be too hard. When they find they’re shut out of their own flats they’ll come looking for you. While you’re doing that, I’d better call DCC McGuire. Graham Scott was right; this one could lead anywhere and maybe right to his door. So he’d better know, soonest.’

  She left the sergeant and walked downstairs, pausing on the first-floor landing to tear off her sterile garments. Outside, in Candleriggs, four people were engaging with the uniformed officers. She moved away quickly, leaving them for her sergeant to deal with, crossing the street before calling the deputy chief constable. When he answered her call, she heard road noise.

  ‘DCI Mann,’ his voice boomed in her ear, ‘please don’t tell me I’m going to have to turn around and head for Glasgow.’

  ‘Head,’ she repeated. ‘That’s not a word that sits well with me right now, sir, but when you hear what I have to tell you, I think you might want to.’

  Thirty

  ‘Poor wee soul,’ PC Benjamin sighed as she looked at the body. ‘That could be my granny lying there.’ Mrs Alexander had been pronounced dead by one of the doctors from the village medical centre. Together, he and Skinner had carried her through to her bed, where she lay on her back with her eyes closed. The GP had folded her arms across her chest, a clear sign that rigor mortis had passed, and that she had been dead for some hours.

  ‘Do we know who her next of kin are, Bob?’ Noele McClair asked Skinner. ‘Tiggy,’ she added, ‘go downstairs please and wait for the mortuary hearse.’

  ‘I don’t,’ he admitted, as the constable left. ‘To tell you the truth I know nothing about her other than that she was a nice old dear. I called Matthew Reid—’

  ‘The writer?’

  ‘Yes, he’s one of the coordinators of the resilience group that I help out with. I wondered if he had a list of next of kin, and thought I should tell him anyway. He doesn’t. You should say hello,’ Skinner suggested. ‘He likes to meet cops and ex-cops; he uses us as a resource base if he’s ever concerned about a procedural point. Not that he’s too bothered about procedure, he says. Don’t let it get in the way of a good ending, that’s his philosophy. Truth be told, it was mine too when I was a detective.’ He smiled as he glanced at the inspector. ‘You’re missing it now, Noele, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘The buzz of CID.’

  ‘Is it that obvious?’ she asked.

  ‘It comes off you in waves. Let me hazard another guess,’ he added. ‘With Sammy, God bless and keep him, having passed away as a serving officer rather than one who was retired on health grounds, certain things will follow, among them the creation of a DI post in your old unit in Edinburgh. Sauce’s promotion to DCI Serious Crimes will be confirmed, and that’ll leave a gap to be filled. I don’t see Tarvil Singh stepping up.’

  ‘Why not?’ she interrupted. ‘Tarvil’s a solid operator.’

  ‘He is,’ Skinner agreed, ‘and he could do a DI job. But these days, in the brave new world,
the Peter Principle’s a thing of the past.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Promotion to the level of the individual’s incompetence,’ he explained. ‘It happened all the time in the old days. Maybe not so old; I’ve heard that levelled at Andy Martin, although in my opinion, his problem was never ability, it was management and temperament. Whatever, those being promoted detective inspector these days have to be perceived to be able to function competently at least two ranks higher. That’s not Tarvil, capable though he is today.’ He fixed her with his gaze. ‘It’s you, though, Noele. You wouldn’t be expected to stop at DI.’

  ‘But I chucked it, Bob,’ she sighed. ‘When Terry and Griff were killed, I was determined that I never wanted to see another crime scene. I’d have left the police altogether had it not been for Chief Constable Steele persuading me to stay on and fixing me up with a promotion into the Haddington job. That’s not much more than a year ago. I can’t stick my hand up and say that I want to come back. If the judgement’s whether I’m likely to rise to detective super, there’s no chance of that.’

  ‘There’s every chance,’ he insisted. ‘I’m not just saying this as a friend. I did fitness reports on officers for years; I’m qualified to say how qualified you are.’

  ‘That’s kind of you,’ she said, gratefully, ‘but how would I even go about it?’

  ‘Stay here,’ he instructed, and moved into Mrs Alexander’s living room, taking out his phone. He scrolled through the contacts until he reached ‘H’, and called the first number.

  ‘Gaffer,’ a familiar voice exclaimed. In the background Skinner could hear the sounds of open air. ‘You just caught me. I’ve got a golf tie; on the tee in ten minutes.’

  ‘Is your club still doing competitions?’ Skinner asked, surprised. ‘Ours are Covid affected.’ Without waiting for a response he pressed on. ‘Quickly then. Has your DI slot been filled yet, DCI Haddock?’