uniform cap, and his bright blue eyes, he spelled out reassurance to the public that they were in safe, sure, hands.
It had once been said by a critic that the Chief was the incarnation of PC Murdoch, one of the many great creations of the cartoonist and genius Dudley D. Watkins, whose comic strips were part of the Scottish culture. The wit had gone on: ‘Bet if his father had been Lord Provost of Edinburgh, and a member of the New Club, PC Murdoch would have made Chief Constable too!’
But Skinner knew that there was far more to the man than that.
Proud the Provost’s second son, with no head for figures and no desire to enter the family bakery, had joined the force on leaving Edinburgh Academy. He had pounded an upper-class beat in the New Town for four years, before becoming, at twenty-three, one of the force’s youngest ever sergeants. He had risen steadily through the ranks and had become Chief Constable on the long-awaited retirement of the venerable worthy to whom his career development had been entrusted by his father long before. Once in the post, he had been a staunch public defender of the traditional values of law and order, and an advocate in private of his force’s case for more money, against a local authority whose commitment was to spending on social workers to treat the effects of crime and indiscipline, rather than on policemen to cure the problems at source. Yet while his views had irked the councillors, they had not filtered through to his men, to many of whom he seemed a remote, austere figure.
Skinner was a traditionalist at heart. He was grateful for the added resources which Proud had won through his battles with the Police Committee, and he had more respect than most for his instincts as a policeman.
Once he had defended him in public against a critic within the force. ‘There may be things that the man hasn’t done in his career, but he’s done all he can in the job to learn about them, and to understand the problems of the guys on the ground. And he’s made a point of going alone, on foot in uniform into every one of the toughest places on his patch, places where I would think twice about going. He may not have the sharpest mind on the force, but he’s bloody shrewd, and he’s loyal to his men.’
Proud’s least noticed virtue was the skill with which he spotted potential in his officers, and advanced them, if necessary, ahead of the normal police promotion timetable. He had first noticed Skinner sixteen years earlier, as a recently promoted Detective Sergeant, when Proud himself had just become Chief Constable. He had been impressed by the young man’s intellect, judgement, and most of all by his devotion to the job. He had sensed the driving force which set him apart from his contemporaries. He had made discreet enquiries into his background, and had learned of his widowhood, and the task with which he had been left, of bringing up his young daughter. From that time on Skinner had been his unsuspecting protege.
Proud had determined that he should become Head of CID at the first opportunity. When the time had come for Skinner’s predecessor, old Alf Stein, to retire, the Chief’s tentative suggestion had met with a ready endorsement, although Skinner was still a relatively newly promoted Detective Superintendent, with only two years seniority in the rank.
‘If you want CID to be tight, efficient and effective, Jimmy, then you’ll give the job to young Bob, no doubt about it.’ Proud had been happy to have his own judgement backed up.
So Bob Skinner had been appointed Head of CID, and as Stein had predicted it had run like clockwork, maintaining the highest detection rate of any Scottish force, and achieving reductions, against the national rend, in the crime figures.
But it was a rattled Proud Jimmy who now took Skinner for a walk in Market Street. ‘Bob, what’s the score here? What have we got on our hands?’
‘Look, Chief, let’s get into my motor. I don’t want the
Proud nodded and the two men climbed into Skinner’s Granada. The Chief was white-faced. Skinner was sympathetic, understanding that viewing the remains of butchered people was out of his normal line of duty.
‘On the face of it, Jimmy, we have what the Yanks like to call a serial killer. My lads prefer to call him a fucking loony. He’s killed four times inside a week, in the same area, in different ways, with no apparent motive other than bloodlust.
‘I won’t try to kid you about our chances of catching this guy from the evidence that he’s left behind him. At best they’re bloody slim. All that we can do for now is make sure, as best we can that he can’t do it again, and be ready to nab him the moment he gets careless. But so far all the luck has been on the bastard’s side; luck, I’m afraid to say, matched with some highly developed killing skills.’
‘What are we going to tell the public?’
‘We’re not going to lie to them. But at the same time we have to try to keep them calm. I was only a wee lad in Lanarkshire when Peter Manuel was on the loose, but one of my earliest memories is of the fear in the air at that time. You remember what Gary Player said about luck? “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” That’s all we’ve got to show the people. Hard work by the police. Every door in this part of town is being knocked. Everyone who lives here, and who works here is being interviewed, then if necessary interviewed again. I’ll have men on the street all night and every night, and I’ll let it be known that some will be armed. The pubs’ll hate it but I’m going to ask the punters to stay away from this area in the late evening, for their own security and to make our job easier.’
‘What if he does it somewhere else?’
‘We’ll spread our resources as wide as we can, and bugger the overtime, and we’ll appeal for general public vigilance, but we’ll concentrate our effort here.’ He looked the grim-faced Proud straight in the eye. ‘Between you and me, I’ve got a funny feeling about this whole business.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ve seen a lot of bad bastards in my time, and more than a few mad ones as well. There’s something about this guy that makes me feel that he’s in a category of his own. Something, but I can’t figure out what it is.’
Proud looked at him for a long silent moment. ‘So what’s the next step?’
‘I’m going to call another press conference, a full-scale one, back at Fettes Avenue this morning. We’ve got to make the media work for us all the way on this one; if they turn on us we’re in real trouble. I was going to chair it, but if you like, I’ll defer to your rank.’
‘No, Bob, you’re Head of CID; you do it... unless you want me up front, that is.’
Skinner smiled for the first time that morning. Suddenly, when the chips were down, he felt closer to this man than ever before. ‘No, Chief, you trusted me when you gave me this job. I won’t drop you into this one!’
10
Skinner’s press conference began at twelve noon precisely, in a large conference room in the police headquarters, a 1970s building in Fettes Avenue.
Skinner, with Andy Martin for company, sat at a brown formica-topped desk, facing the biggest media audience of his life. With the double murder, media interest in the sequence of killings had mushroomed from the few reporters who had covered the Mortimer death five days earlier.
There were four television crews in the room, four radio reporters, and journalists from every daily newspaper and news agency in Scotland.
He held nothing back. He listed the four murders, beginning with Mortimer, on through the nameless derelict, ending with that day’s news, the killings of Mrs Mary Rafferty, a Scottish Office cleaner, and PC Iain MacVicar, from Stornoway, just twenty-two years old.
For the first time, he described the injuries to each victim, choosing his words with clinical care. He explained that certain forensic evidence had linked the first two killings, and that there was no doubt that all four were the work of the same man. Every avenue, he said, was being explored. Mortimer’s client list had offered no indication that a jailed villain might have sought revenge. He did not believe that the killing of a policeman had been planned by the attacker. MacVicar had been simply unlucky.
He repeated his plea to the public for any information that might be relevant. And he ended with a solemn warning. ‘Until this man is caught, the Royal Mile area is not a place to go after dark without good reason. Avoid it if you can, and if you must go there stick to the broad, well-lit streets.’
Questions flew at him. The first which he took was from an old friend, John Hunter, a veteran freelance. ‘Mr Skinner,’ John was suitably formal, although they were occasional golfing partners, ‘are you consulting other forces in the course of your enquiries?’
