restaurants and pubs, and, as a rule, bitter weather, fit to freeze the bronze balls off the Duke of Wellington’s horse, rearing on its plinth in front of Register House. But as December draws near, and the parsimonious merchants and benevolent City Fathers dig into their pockets to illuminate the Christmas message, ‘Spend, spend, spend’, the old grey city sparkles into life.
Looking along the mound from the pavement opposite the Bank of Scotland’s modest front door, PC lain MacVicar, preparing for his first Christmas away from Stornoway, thought that the silver-lit tree on the slope in front of the Assembly Hall of the Church of Scotland was just about the brawest thing he had ever seen. It gave Edinburgh character, he thought, marked it out as a good Christian place after all. PC MacVicar was a Free Presbyterian by descent and upbringing, but his months in the city had shown him that there were other things in life than the grim island Sabbath, and colours other than dark blue.
Surely God can’t take exception to that, thought PC Iain, gazing at the silver tree.
The single scream seemed so out of tune with the moment that he almost thought that it had been a product of his young imagination, or the voice of God rebuking sinful thoughts. But as his attention returned to the job in hand, he knew that it had been real enough, and that it had come from somewhere down below.
The News Steps, a long open stairway turning through ninety degrees, run from the Mound down to Market Street. They are steep, and those who are less than fit think not twice but several times at the foot before beginning to climb.
PC MacVicar’s heart was in his mouth as he rushed to the head of the stairs, straining his eyes for movement in the orange-lit shadows below. It did not occur to him to think that there might be danger ahead, and even if it had, he would still have leapt headlong down the Steps. That was a woman’s scream and he was a policeman.
Iain screamed himself when he saw what was lying at the foot of the stairs. The woman had been short and dumpy, in her middle years. She still clutched a straw shopping bag in her right hand. The fingers were twitching slightly as the last motor messages reached them as she lay on her back.
A big kitchen cleaver had silenced the scream. It was embedded in the woman’s skull, from between her eyes to the top of her head. A woollen hat, split almost in two, had fallen away from the grey hair. There was, he observed, feeling ludicrously proud of his professional reaction, very little blood.
PC lain found that as much as he wanted to, he could not move his gaze from that awful sight. And so he only heard the slight sound as the black figure leapt from the shadow on top of the fence behind him. And he only felt the wool of the hard, gloved hand across his mouth, drawing his head back, and the cold of the knife across his throat. Somewhere he may have imagined that he heard the gulls crying over a far-away harbour, but all he saw, as he slumped to his knees, were the pretty Christmas lights, away up in Princes Street, as they winked and went out, one by one.
9
This time Skinner was alone when Martin’s call came through. The Detective Inspector had just been told himself of the double murder, but the sergeant who had telephoned had neglected, amazingly, to inform him that one of the victims was a policeman.
Sarah arrived at the scene after the two detectives. She had been contacted while seeing a cardiac emergency to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, not far away. She parked her Fiat in Market Street and turned into the Steps. When she saw Skinner there was a strange glaze in his eyes, and she recognised the tears held back.
Then she saw the policeman’s cap on the ground and her gaze swept past the terrible thing that had been the woman, to the ginger hair, innocent eyes and opened throat of young MacVicar. She looked at Bob and was in tears herself.
She put her head on his chest, sobbing. ‘Why am I crying for him, when I didn’t for the others?’
‘If you weren’t, I’d have something to worry about. It’s always worst when it’s someone you know, or can relate to. It doesn’t happen often, but it happens.’
Skinner realised that he had enfolded her, quite naturally, in his arms, and that one or two of the uniformed officers were glancing furtively in their direction. Then, because life is hard, and because coppers have to be even harder, he broke the mood and became Chief Superintendent Skinner once more.
‘Come on, Doctor, let’s go to work.’
And Sarah did just that. Her first, quick examination told her that both the woman, an office cleaner on her way to work she guessed - correctly as it turned out - and MacVicar had been taken completely by surprise. The woman might have had time to cry out as her attacker appeared in front of her, but the blow had killed her instantly. There were no marks on MacVicar’s body other than the throat wound, which had been caused by a knife or a razor, indicating that he too had been taken completely unawares.
She looked up at Skinner. ‘The way the wound is, I’d say that the man pulled his head back from behind and cut his throat.’
Skinner nodded. ‘That’s how it looks. There are no other marks that I can see, or any other signs of a struggle. The poor laddie can’t have had a chance to defend himself at all.’ He looked at Sarah, a glance of enquiry. ‘Can we make any assumptions about this guy’s height?’
‘I’d say that he would have to have been as tall as MacVicar to have cut him at that angle. He needn’t have been a Superman though. If he caught him completely unawares it would all have been over in a second.’
Skinner shook his head sadly. He looked round towards Martin. ‘Andy, what was the boy’s last reported position?’
‘He radioed in from the top of the Mound, boss. Said it was all quiet and didn’t the Christmas tree look nice.’
‘Well, my guess,’ said Skinner, ‘is that he hears something, maybe the old lady gets a shout off, and charges down the News Steps. Being MacVicar, he doesn’t think to call in first for assistance.
‘Now from past performance we can assume that our pal — or does anyone want to tell me that it could be someone else — is pretty agile, quick enough to have got off his mark before a big, blundering bobby, whose feet he must have heard from a mile off, could have got anywhere near him.
‘That says to me that he was looking for, or at least wasn’t afraid to chance, a double act. As you said, Sarah, our poor lad barely knew what happened to him.’
He looked around the scene, and at the high fence behind which the bulk of the Festival Office building cast a dark shadow.
‘He probably hid up there after he whacked the woman. Maybe he heard MacVicar up there on the Mound. Maybe she did scream, and he decided to hide until he could be sure that no one had heard. Whatever it was, MacVicar appears and he jumps down and does the boy in.’
Anger blazed in Skinner’s eyes.
‘If that’s right, then we surely don’t just have a random loony here. We’ve got someone who moves and kills like a professional. Maybe a martial arts freak who’s seen one too many Kung-fu movies, who knows. But whatever he is, he’s here, and he’s leaving the proof all over the Royal Mile!’
As Skinner finished, the Chief Constable arrived, called to the scene by Martin. One of his men had been killed. He should be there.
‘Good morning, Bob, Inspector.’ He nodded and smiled courteously at Sarah. Skinner took the cue. ‘Chief, may I introduce Dr Sarah Grace, the duty Police Surgeon. She’s picked the wrong month to be on call!’
The Chief Constable bowed slightly and removed his heavy glove to shake hands.
The Chief turned to Skinner. ‘A word in private please, Bob.’
The two men, one heavily uniformed, stepped out into Market Street. Skinner had never managed to feel the bond of comradeship with Chief Constable James Proud that he did with other senior officers. He had always put that down to the burden of the highest rank in the police force, and he had afforded the man every respect, insisting that those under his command do the same. But he knew that many of his colleagues disliked the Chief, taking the view that he had reached his office by a political rather than by an active route.
James Proud, known universally as ‘Proud Jimmy’, was three years short of the official retirement age. He had been in the job for sixteen years, and even his critics still marvelled, grudgingly, at the skill with which he had achieved it. Cynics said that he had been picked because he looked the part. For that he surely did. In his heavily braided uniform, Proud Jimmy represented authority. And with his crinkly silver hair, peering from the sides of his
