Gallery Whispers Read online

  outgrow me. I'm afraid that's starting to happen already. When we got

  together you were a student. Now you've been marked out for stardom

  within your firm. And I can see the effect it's having on you.

  'For the last few days, there have been times when I've had the

  feeling that you've been trying to distance yourself from me in some

  way. Deny it if you will, but that's how I see it. and I can only blame

  it on one thing; Curie Anthony and bloody Jarvis.'

  He shifted his weight on his elbow. 'Listen, I do my job damn well,

  I think, and I'm completely committed to it, but I'm not in love with

  it. You are with yours. One day you may feel that you have to choose

  between it and me, and maybe that day's coming close. That's what

  keeps me awake at night.'

  She leaned over and kissed him. 'Would it help if we got married

  next month?' she asked.

  He looked sadder than ever. 'No, love, it wouldn't. If my fears are

  real, it wouldn't change a damn thing. You have to be all you can be,

  with, or if it has to be, without me. You're your father's daughter, and

  I can't change that.'

  'So what are you saying?'

  He gave a sigh so deep that her hair moved on its breeze. 'I suppose

  I'm asking myself whether it will hurt even more later than it would if

  we split now ... if I backed off to let you concentrate full time on

  your career.

  'I know how I would feel about it. But maybe for both our sakes,

  you should ask yourself the same question.' He looked at her solemn

  face, at her averted eyes. 'Yes, maybe you'

  As if it had been waiting for the perfect moment to intervene,

  the bedside phone burst into life. 'Fucking thing has a mind of its

  own,' Martin snarled, but still he turned to pick it up. 'Yes!' he

  snapped.

  'Sorry Andy,' said Brian Mackie, on the other end of the line, 'but

  I've just had a call out to a suspicious death, in a steading development

  out near Whitekirk. From what I've been told it's a murder for sure.

  I'm just leaving for the scene. Do you want to turn out?'

  The Head of CID looked at his fiancee, hating what he saw in her

  eyes. 'Aye,' he answered. 'I think that would be a good idea.'

  3

  James Andrew Skinner had always been, by any reasonable measurement,

  a considerate child. But cutting back teeth can upset the calmest

  temperament, so Sarah and Bob had shared floor-walking duties until

  finally, at around five am, their younger son had settled down.

  They had been asleep themselves for little more than an hour when

  Brian Mackie had called, to ask Sarah if she could attend the scene of

  the Whitekirk death.

  Bob sat at the kitchen table, nursing his first coffee of the day,

  watching his wife as she fed frozen bread into the four-slice toaster.

  He grinned at her. 'I never fail to be impressed by the way you can eat

  breakfast before you go out to look at a body.'

  She turned towards him, returning his smile. 'Ah, but it doesn't

  always stay down,' she countered. 'Remember that one in Advocates'

  Close, before we were married?'

  Skinner shuddered as the vision of that wet November morning

  reprinted itself in his mind's eye, for the thousandth time. 'How could

  I ever forget it? I was perfectly okay at murder scenes up until then,

  but from that moment on I haven't looked at a victim without feeling

  queasy.' ''

  'Think yourself lucky then. Now you're Deputy Chief Constable

  . . . acting Chief, even .. . you don't have to do that any more.'

  He knew that her remark was bait, but he rose to it nonetheless.

  'Not so. I'll always lead from the front as long as I'm in this job, you

  know that. I might be past my sell-by date when it comes to looking

  at people who've been burned to a crisp or had their brains blown all

  over the walls, but it doesn't mean I'll run away from the duty if I

  think that it's required of me.

  'It doesn't matter what office I'm in, if I think it'll help the effort or

  if I feel that it's expected of me, I'll be there.'

  Her eyes narrowed, very slightly. 'What? "It doesn't matter what

  office I'm in",' she threw back at him. 'Hey, what happened to all that

  stuff about you not wanting to be a Chief Constable? Are you getting

  to enjoy sitting in Jimmy's chair?'

  He smiled again, this time at her sharpness in leading him onto her

  hook. He accepted the slice of buttered toast which she offered him,

  and took a bite. 'I'll never enjoy sitting in Jimmy's chair,' he said

  finally. 'Precisely because it is his chair. I want to see him make a full

  recovery from this heart scare, and come back to work. Then I want

  him to stay in post ... health permitting .-.. right up to retirement

  age.

  'When it is time for him to go, I'll think seriously about my own

  ambitions; and my obligations even, to my force and my family. But

  just between you and me, over the last couple of weeks, I've been

  asking myself how I'd feel about someone else doing the job.'

  'And how would you?' Sarah asked.

  'Well,' he answered. 'I've been thinking through the likely candidates.

  There's not one of them couldn't get both feet into one of Sir

  James's shoes, far from filling them both. It would be very difficult

  for me to work with anyone else, apart maybe, from Willie Haggerty

  in Strathclyde .. . and there isn't a cat's chance of him getting it.'

  'So you will go for the job when Jimmy retires?'

  'Unless I decide to quit at the same time as him.'

  She was rarely surprised by him, not any more, but as she looked at

  him astonishment shone in her big hazel eyes. 'You wouldn't do that.

  You're wedded to the force.'

  He stood up, laughing lightly and took her in his arms. 'Wrong,

  Doctor Sarah Grace Skinner. I am wedded to you and no one else, and

  from now on I will do what's best for us and not me. For all I might

  chunter on to big Neil about being tied to a desk, I have never been as

  happy with my life as I am right now. That's because of the rock it's

  built on, namely you and the kids.'

  'Mcllhenney, eh,' she mused. 'I'll bet you're giving him a hard

  time just now. How's he doing? I haven't seen him for a few weeks.'

  'I'm not giving him a hard time at all. Mind you, he has been a bit

  quiet lately; probably feeling as desk-bound as me. I'll cure that,

  though; I've got a job lined up for him.'

  'What, out of your office?'

  'No. Representing my office. It'll mean guaranteed nine-to-five

  working for a while so Olive will like it too.'

  'Sounds like a departure for Neil. You'll have him carrying a

  briefcase next. What is it?'

  'Just something I've cooked up with the other chiefs. It's a national

  problem but it's been agreed that we'll co-ordinate it. I'm going to

  talk to him and Andy about it today.' He squeezed her bottom, then

  turned her towards the door. 'That's all I can tell you about it: it's

  cloak and dagger stuff. So now, you'd better take your wee bag and get

  off to certify Mackie's stiff.

  'If Andy turns up at the scene, tell him I want to see him this
<
br />   morning; ask him to tie up a time for a meeting with Gerry.'

  'I'll do that,' she said, nodding as she spoke. 'Are you sure you're

  okay to stay here until the nanny arrives?'

  'Yeah, that's fine.'

  'Good, because if the guys want a quick postmortem, I might just

  go straight on into Edinburgh and do it myself.'

  10

  4

  Even in the dark of the late autumn morning, Sarah reached Oldbams,

  finding her way along the twisting country roads which she knew so

  well, in only fifteen minutes. Nestling on the edge of a wood a mile

  south of the hamlet ofWhitekirk, it was one of a number of previously

  abandoned steadings throughout East Lothian which had been rescued

  by private developers and returned to use as homes.

  In its transformed existence, the occupants were no longer farm

  workers; instead they tended to be city dwellers who had developed a

  middle-aged hankering for country life.

  She could see the blue lights of the ambulance and the police

  vehicles ahead other as she steered her Preelander carefully along the

  narrow, tree-lined approach way from the A 198. She came to a halt

  next to a patrol car, its Day-glo flashes shining in her headlights until

  she switched them off.

  The death house was at the end of one of three rows of terraced

  cottages, built of red stone blocks, with black slate roofs. Lights

  shone in all but one of the dwellings, which formed three sides of a

  rectangle, around an open green space. The fourth was a long barn,

  which had been adapted to provide covered parking. As she glanced

  around the small community, faces looked back at her from several

  windows.

  Detective Superintendent Brian Mackie stood in the doorway as

  she walked up the path. 'Hello Sarah,' he said, nodding his bald,

  domed head in greeting. 'They always seem to happen at night, don't

  they. Your client's through in the back.'

  She stepped inside, following him across the entrance hall and

  through a door at the other side, into a big farmhouse style kitchen.

  There a figure sat, slumped in a varnished captain's chair, drawn up to

  a heavy oak table.

  The woman had her back to Sarah. Her head, which lolled on her

  right shoulder, was covered by a clear plastic bag. Like the hood of a

  hanged man, it was tight around the neck; secured not by a rope, but

  by heavy black adhesive tape.

  'When was she found?'

  11

  Mackie glanced at his watch. 'Just over two hours ago. They have

  a milk round out here, believe it or not. The guy was putting the pinta

  on the front doorstep, and looked through the window.' He nodded

  towards closed double doors behind him. 'Those lead through to the

  dining room. They were open, and he could look right through. There

  was enough light from that table lamp over there to let him see what

  had happened.

  'Milkmen have mobile phones these days, so he called us right

  away. The two officers from the car outside broke in through the back

  door and found her.'

  'So what made you ring the bell for a full-scale murder investigation?'

  Taken by surprise, Sarah and the superintendent looked back

  towards the kitchen door, through which Andy Martin had come

  silently into the room. 'I've seen suicides that looked like this, plastic

  bag and all.'

  'The black tape, sir,' said Mackie. formal in the presence of the

  uniformed woman constable who stood behind the Head of CID.

  'Bright young PC Cowan here reckoned that if the woman had fastened

  the tape round her own neck, there would have been a roll of the stuff

  and scissors, lying on the table in front of her.

  'As you can see, there isn't. PC Cowan even put on her gloves and

  had a look in all the drawers and cupboards. It's not there either.'

  'Fair enough.' The chief superintendent nodded. 'Good work,

  constable,' he said to the girl at his side. 'Mr Mackie will make sure

  that your divisional commander hears of this.' He turned back to the

  other detective. 'Are Arthur Dorward's lot on the way?'

  'Yes.'

  'In that case we'd all better get our big feet out of here and avoid

  contaminating this scene any further. Doctor, can you certify death

  without disturbing the plastic bag? I want to leave her until she's been

  photographed.'

  'Sure.' Sarah laid her small case on the table, opened it and took

  out a pen-light. What's wrong with Andy? she thought as she crouched

  down beside the body. He hasn 't called me 'Doctor'in years.

  The dead woman's eyes were open. There was no flicker of reaction

  when she shone the torch on her pupils. 'There's no fear in her

  expression,' she said, quietly, to the two detectives as she worked.

  'She looks perfectly calm.' She held her wrist for a few moments,

  confirming the absence of pulse, then looked closely at it, and at the

  other. 'No marks on her either; at least none that I can see. Nothing to

  indicate that she's been restrained while this was done, then untied

  afterwards.'

  Sarah looked into the woman's face once more. In life she had been

  12

  attractive, in her early middle age, with dark hair showing only a few

  strands of grey. Then something caught her eye; something so

  incongruous that she kicked herself mentally for not noticing it right

  away.

  'Andy. Brian. She's wearing make-up.' She lifted one of the dead

  wrists and sniffed at it. 'And perfume too. If you look in her bedroom,

  you'll probably find a bottle or a spray of a fragrance called Joy.

  'Whatever happened to this lady, she got herself dolled up for it.'

  She leaned forward and peered closely at the plastic bag. 'Oh yes,' she

  whispered, 'that tells me a lot.'

  She stood up and closed her bag. 'Okay,' she pronounced, her voice

  sharp and professional once more. 'You have formal certification of

  death. About four hours ago, I'd say; subject to autopsy confirmation.'

  'The cause of death will turn out to be asphyxiation, I assume,' said

  Martin, as Mackie ushered them from out of the kitchen, to await the

  arrival of Detective Inspector Arthur Dorward and his squad of crime

  scene technicians.

  'Don't assume,' Sarah replied. 'I could see no marks on the plastic

  bag. If she'd suffocated, I'd expect to find lipstick smears, from where

  she'd tried to suck in air.'

  'Maybe she didn't try,' the Head of CID suggested.

  'She didn't: but not because she had willed herself to stop breathing.

  You can't do that; it's a reflex. There's something else here. I'd say that

  this woman died, or at least became deeply unconscious, before she

  had a chance to suffocate.

  'I'll tell you the whole story after the autopsy. D'you want me to do

  it, or do you want Joe Hutchison in on this one?'

  'You do it, Sarah,' said Martin. 'If you feel you need a second

  opinion, call him in, but you handle it in the first instance. You've

  picked up the ball, so run with it as far as you can.' He turned to

  Mackie. 'Who was she, Brian?'

  'The owner of the cottage is a Mrs Gaynor Weston. I'
m assuming

  that's her in there. But that's all I have for now. Maggie Rose should

  be here soon, with some CID reinforcements. She'll direct the

  interviews with the neighbours and so on. Once Arthur's people have

  dusted the place fully, I'll look for personal papers, and see what they

  tell me.

  'The first thing we'll need to do is locate a next of kin.'

  'Too right; the Head of CID agreed. 'When we do we'll need to be

  careful how much information we give. From the way this looks, the

  next of kin, or another close relative, could be the prime suspect.

  'This woman was killed by someone close to her; someone she

  trusted.'

  13

  'And . ..' said Sarah, quietly, 'she was a willing victim.'

  'So that means ...'

  She cut Mackie short. 'Yes, it means that this looks like an assisted

  suicide.'

  'I agree.' Andy Martin frowned. 'But that's not what the Procurator

  Fiscal will call it. There's no such thing in the eyes of the law. The

  charge here will be murder, and the penalty will be life imprisonment.'

  14

  'How did it look out at Oldbams, Andy?' Skinner asked, as his Head

  of CID settled into a low chair around the coffee table in the Chief

  Constable's office, just after midday.

  'Very neat and orderly, boss,' Martin replied. 'The victim is a forty-

  three year old woman, Gaynor Weston. She was a training consultant,

  self-employed. Lived alone; divorced from her husband, Professor

  Nolan Weston, seven years ago. Next of kin is Raymond Weston, her

  only son, aged eighteen, just started his first term at Aberdeen

  University.

  'Mrs Weston was seated at her kitchen table with a bag over her

  head, secured tightly by black tape.

  'There was no sign of forced entry to the house, and nothing

  appeared to have been disturbed. Dorward's people found two plates,

  cups, saucers and cutlery in the dishwasher. It had been run, though;

  every damn thing in it was fingerprint-free. There were two long-

  stemmed wine glasses on the draining board, and an empty bottle of

  Mouton Cadet on the table. Each of the glasses still had traces of wine

  in them, and one had lipstick on the rim, the same shade as Mrs

  Weston's. The team tried to lift prints from them, but they were too

  badly smeared.'

  'What about the bag?' Skinner grunted.

  'It was strong, clear polythene, unmarked. No brand name on it, no