Gallery Whispers Read online

  close, and strode out of the room, followed by Mcllhenney, leaving

  Martin to see the visitors on their way.

  'I don't fancy that Dumfries bloke, boss,' said the sergeant as they

  walked along the Command Corridor.

  The neither, Neil. Give him a hard time when he makes his daily

  reports. Question him; keep him on his toes. Make sure he's checking

  the ferry terminals on his patch. Hawkins could come in from Ireland.'

  'I'll do that, sir.' As the two men stepped into the Chief Constable's

  office. Skinner looked at his assistant.

  'Neil,' he asked, abruptly, 'what's up?'

  'What do you mean, sir?'

  'You know bloody well what I mean. First Andy, now you. You've

  got something on your mind. I know this job can be boring at times.

  Do you want a move back to the action?'

  Mcllhenney's great shoulders sagged, and he seemed to slump into

  himself. 'I'm sorry if I've been letting anything show, boss,' he said.

  'That's not my way.

  'Aye,' he admitted, 'something's up. But it's got nothing to do with

  the job. It's Olive. She's ill and she knows it, yet she won't do anything

  about it. She's scared, boss, and oh by Christ, so am I.'

  'I see,' said Skinner quietly. 'Sit down man, and tell me about it.

  Maybe there's something I can do to help.'

  .

  29

  7

  Although Brian Mackie's patch took in a big rural area, the divisional

  CID Commander's office was in the St Leonard's Police Station, on

  the east of Edinburgh. The detective superintendent did not care for

  the modern brick building, and would have preferred to have been

  based in Haddington, beside his deputy. Detective Chief Inspector

  Maggie Rose, but he kept these feelings to himself, understanding the

  thinking behind Andy Martin's deployment of his CID resources.

  He was at his desk, in mid-aftemoon, reading his way through

  faxed witness statements taken from the neighbours ofGaynor Weston

  in Oldbarns, when there was a light knock on the door.

  'Come in,' called Mackie. He had expected a uniformed officer

  with more statements from Maggie Rose, and so he looked up in

  surprise as Dr Sarah Grace Skinner stepped into the room.

  'Hello, Doc,' the thin, bald detective exclaimed, standing, with his

  unfailing courtesy. 'An office consultation; this is an honour.'

  Sarah grinned at him. Suddenly it struck him that the drab, wet day

  outside was just a little brighter. 'All part of the service in this new era

  of forensic pathology,' she said, as the took a seat at Mackie's

  conference table.

  'Coffee?' he offered.

  'No thanks, and you shouldn't either. I'm trying to cut down Bob's

  consumption just now too. You desk jockeys drink far too much of

  that damn stuff.'

  'Desk jockeys indeed,' Mackie grunted, but with a smile. 'You'll

  wind the boss up if you call him that to his face. 'S not true anyway;

  where was I at six o'clock this morning?'

  'Yeah, I know. I was only kidding with you .. . not about the

  coffee, though. To be serious, I've just finished the autopsy on Mrs

  Weston. My report is being produced right now and should be with

  you before five o'clock, but I thought I'd call in and talk it through

  with you inDamn.' She broke off as her mobile telephone warbled

  its call signal, frowning slightly as she produced it from the pocket of

  her jacket.

  'I'm sorry, Brian. I forgot to switch it off.' She took the call

  30

  nonetheless, pressing the 'Receive' button.

  'Bob, hi. Look I'm in a meeting right now. Yes. Okay.' Mackie

  watched her as she listened, for almost a minute. 'Yes,' she said

  eventually; she was hesitant, and wore worried frown on her face. 'I

  can do that. I'll need to be careful to avoid ethical problems, but .. .

  Yes, okay. I'll do it after this. Give me the address.' She switched the

  phone to her left hand, took a notebook and pen from her bag and

  scribbled a few words, quickly. 'Got that; I know where it is too. See

  you tonight. Bye.'

  She ended the call, switched off the phone and put it away.

  'Problem?' asked Mackie.

  'I hope not,' Sarah replied, the worried look lingering on her face.

  'Something that Bob volunteered me to do, that's all.' She snapped

  her gaze back on to the detective. 'Okay, once more: Mrs Weston.

  'I've done a full postmortem examination and had most of the lab

  work rushed through. The plastic bag over the head was a precaution

  ... or maybe it was meant to distract us, I don't know . .. but it was

  unnecessary. Gaynor Weston died from a massive overdose of

  diamorphine, injected into her left thigh. She would have lost

  consciousness in seconds and died within two minutes. There was no

  question of suffocation.

  'There were no signs of violence on the body, and nothing at all to

  indicate that the subject had been restrained before the injection was

  administered. Shortly before her death, she ate a fillet steak - medium-

  rare - with courgettes and French fries. Also, over a longer period, she

  drank the best part of a bottle of red wine and followed it with black

  coffee.'

  'Any sign of recent sexual activity?'

  'No, Brian, none at all. I can't help you with a DNA trace, I'm

  afraid.' She shook her head.

  'There were no romantic goodbyes here. When the meal was over,

  Gaynor sat in her kitchen chair - placed where it could be seen from

  outside, after the event - and allowed herself to be put to death.'

  Mackie leaned forward. 'You could state on oath that there was no

  possibility of the injection being self-inflicted?'

  'No. But what I will say is that, even if she fixed the bag over her

  own head first, there was no possibility of the victim injecting herself

  directly into an artery, then disposing of the hypodermic before she

  lost consciousness.

  'You didn't find the tape at the scene, and if you didn't find a hypo,

  or a bottle with traces of diamorphine'

  'which we didn't.'

  'Then that will rule out the possibility of suicide. The minimum

  31

  any jury could possibly do would be return a verdict of culpable

  homicide, dependent on the mental state of the perpetrator, but this

  was so premeditated that you will have about a ninety-nine percent

  chance of a murder conviction in any trial, assuming that you can

  place the accused at the scene at the time.'

  'Excellent,' said Mackie. 'But why? Why did Gaynor Weston let

  herself be switched off?'

  Sarah looked at him, unblinking. 'About two weeks ago, Mrs

  Weston had an operation to remove a growth from her left leg. There

  was another growth on her foot, and the fact,that it hadn't been

  excised indicates to me that it had developed since then. I removed it

  and had it analysed.

  'The woman had a malignant melanoma, a form of cancer which

  offers little prospect of a cure, unless it is discovered at a very early

  stage. In this case, from the depth of the earlier excision, when I

  explored it, if that too was a melanoma - as I am quite certain it was<
br />
  from the nature of the procedure - I would say that the size of the

  tumour removed would have pointed to a prognosis of death within

  three to four months. The disease had already metastasised to the

  spine, liver and lungs. Any treatment would have been purely

  palliative: the most honest course of action would simply have been to

  keep the patient as comfortable as possible for the time she had left.

  That would have meant, in effect, limited chemical treatments

  supported by tranquillisers and increasing sedation. Diamorphine

  would have been used in increasing quantities to keep Mrs Weston out

  of pain. In the event, she took the lot at once.'

  Brian Mackie let out a great sigh. 'Very neat and tidy for her,' he

  said. 'But a right bloody mess for us. Shit, why didn't she top herself

  down in Hawick, say, on John McGrigor's patch. Big John's a

  pragmatist. He'd probably have washed the glasses, planted a roll of

  tape and a syringe at the scene and closed the book on it.

  'We'd better find out where she had this operation two weeks ago,

  then take a close look at her circle of friends.'

  'I can help you with the first part of that,' Sarah offered. 'Normally,

  a procedure like this one would have been performed in the Department

  of Clinical Oncology at the Western General Hospital. I checked with

  them. It wasn't. The Royal Infirmary has no record of it either, nor

  has St John's in Livingston, nor Bangour, nor Roodlands. I asked at

  Murrayfield Hospital, and they said no. But then I checked with St

  Martha's, a little private clinic on the South Side of the city.

  'The administrator there said that she was bound by confidentiality

  and wouldn't talk to me. I told her who I was, and what I was doing,

  but she still would not open her mouth. "Not without a Court order",

  32

  she insisted. So if you want to search her records, you better go get a

  Sheriff's Warrant.'

  'I'll talk to her myself before I go that far,' Mackie replied. 'But

  maybe Andy Martin and I should short-circuit all that and go to see

  the ex-husband. Given his profession, his has to be the main name in

  the frame.'

  'Only if you can place him at the scene.'

  'We can probably do that. According to witness accounts he was a

  regular caller at Oldbarns, so he'll have left traces of himself. The big

  problem is placing him, or anyone else for that matter, in the house at

  the time of Gaynor Weston's last supper.' He picked up the witness

  statements. 'None of the neighbours saw a bloody thing.

  'Even if someone walked in this minute and confessed, we wouldn't

  have enough to go to trial. At the moment our only hope of that rests

  with the clever people in Arthur Dorward's forensics lab, but I can't

  see how even they're going to help this time.'

  33

  8

  Andy Martin and Mario McGuire sat in the Head ofCID's office, on

  the second floor of the Fettes headquarters building, half an hour after

  the visitors had departed. After Skinner and Mcllhenney had withdrawn,

  the chief superintendent had continued the briefing for a few

  more minutes, until he was sure that each of the visiting officers had

  a complete grasp of the situation, and that everyone's priorities in the

  search for the assassin were the same.

  All of Scotland's police forces have points of entry to the country

  within their territory, even Central, which although it has no ferry

  ports or air terminals, does have docking facilities at the BP oil

  installation at Grangemouth. Martin's concern was that every

  possible route into Scotland should be identified and covered as far

  as possible.

  'If you were him, sir,' asked McGuire, 'what would you do?'

  The DCS's vivid green eyes flashed as he smiled grimly at his

  colleague. 'What's the most obvious thing?' he said, throwing the

  question back.

  'Fly into the busiest airport, I suppose, which has to be Heathrow,

  then catch the Shuttle, or hire a car and drive to Scotland.'

  'And if you were Hawkins, where would you fly from?'

  McGuire stroked his chin. His black beard grew fast; a dark shadow

  always showed by mid-aftemoon, for all that he had a wet shave every

  morning. 'Anywhere but South Africa,' he answered eventually.

  'Right. But if you were South African and your real name was van

  Roost, maybe your natural inclination might be to route through

  Holland. The Low Countries' airlines are making a real effort to pinch

  travellers from Scotland away from London. You can access just about

  anywhere in the world out of Glasgow, Edinburgh or Aberdeen,

  through Schiphol and Brussels. That works in the other direction too,

  so you'd better check out Kim and Sabena landings. Their computers

  should tell you the origin of each passenger's journey, even if they

  were onward travellers from outside Holland or Belgium.

  'Damn it,' Martin scolded himself. 'I should have come up with

  this clever thought that at the briefing. Mario, make sure that big Neil

  34

  passes that on to McGuigan and Macintosh, so that Glasgow and

  Aberdeen landings are checked too.'

  'Ach, I'll tell them myself

  'No. The boss has set up the chain of communication through

  Mcllhenney so that he can keep in touch with everything that's

  happening. Let's do it his way.'

  'Very good, sir. I'll nip along and tell Neil now.'

  'You do that.' The detective inspector started for the door. 'Hang on

  a minute,' the DCS called out. 'Are you happy that you've got enough

  manpower for this job?'

  'Well,' McGuire answered, slowly, 'since you ask. Another set of

  legs with a sharp brain to drive them wouldn't do any harm.'

  'Okay. I'll lend you Karen Neville or Sammy Pye from my personal

  staff. Take your pick.'

  The DI frowned, considering his choice. 'Are either of them

  firearms trained?'

  'Both. First class shots, the pair of them.'

  'Then it's hard to choose between them. But I'll take Neville;

  Maggie's worked with her, and rates her pretty highly.'

  'Okay, you've got her. Pick her up on your way out and brief her.

  Remember, though, she only needs to know that we're looking for this

  guy. She doesn't need to know why.'

  McGuire nodded and turned towards the door once more, only to

  hear a knock, then see it open, as Brian Mackie stepped into the room.

  Martin looked up, surprised. 'Hello, Thin Man,' he said. 'What

  brings you here?' He waved a hand in farewell as the Special Branch

  Commander left. 'Cheers, Mario. Good luck.'

  'With what?' asked Mackie, casually, as the door closed.

  'His Lottery ticket. So what's up?'

  The tall detective looked up, glumly. 'This Oldbarns investigation,

  that's what.' He handed a folder to the Head of CID. 'That's Sarah's

  postmortem report. The woman was full of cancer: undoubtedly she'd

  have died within months. Someone helped her on the way with a great

  big dose of pharmaceutical heroin.'

  'Any thoughts on who?'

  'I don't want to jump to any conclusions here. I've sent Maggie

&n
bsp; and young Stevie Steele, from Clan Pringle's Division, out to interview

  the boyfriend, to see how he reacts. However, someone performed an

  operation on Mrs Weston two weeks ago. There's no record of it in

  any of the main hospitals, or at the Murrayfield, but Sarah found a

  wee private clinic on the South Side that's acting a bit shifty. They

  clammed up when she asked them about it.

  'I'm wondering whether her ex-husband, who's a surgeon,

  35

  remember, did the exploratory op, and then'

  'did her a favour when she asked.' Martin finished his colleague's

  supposition for him. 'He'd have had access to the drugs, I suppose.

  Ach, I'd be heart sorry for the poor bastard if he did that . . . even

  although it's against my principles.'

  'Unless.. .' Mackie began, hesitated for a few second, then gathered

  his breath and went on. 'Unless we succumb to a rare burst of

  professional incompetence and close the book on this one: write it up

  for the Fiscal as a suicide.'

  The Head of CID looked at his friend in silence for around thirty

  seconds, then he opened Sarah's report and read it, still without a

  word. Finally, he looked up.

  'Brian, I'd hate to see this man lose his career and his liberty for

  doing something that he wasn't cruel enough to refuse. But we're only

  investigators, mate; not judge, not jury, not even prosecutors. Whatever

  our different private feelings, we have a public duty to establish facts

  and report them to the Fiscal, and we can't neglect it. Not ever.

  'Let's you and I follow this for a bit, one step at a time. First, let's

  pay a joint visit to this clinic that obstructed Sarah and give them a

  hard time until they tell us whether Mrs Weston was a patient there,

  and if so who treated her.

  'We'll see where we go from there.' Martin paused. 'What have you

  done about the press?'

  'Royston's told them that we're waiting for the result of the PM

  before reporting to the Fiscal. Sarah's still waiting for a small piece of

  lab work, so technically that's still true.'

  'Fine. It can stay like that overnight. Let's go and see this clinic.

  What's it called, by the way?'

  'St Martha's.'

  Andy Martin grunted, with a grim anger which surprised his

  colleague. 'She won't be much help to them if they get in my way.'

  36

  9

  Olive Mcllhenney was not an easy woman to take off guard. Her