receipt of the call.
On arrival we found the vehicle, a Mini Cooper S, registration number DRN 328J crashed against a large tree on the south side of the A198, at Luffness Corner. Agricultural vehicles had been working in the field to the north of the road and there was a large patch of mud on the carriageway.
Tyre marks through the mud leading directly to the vehicle indicated that it had taken the corner, skidded on hitting the hazard and failed to respond to steering. The distribution of the mud on the road indicates that the vehicle lost traction as a result of aquaplaning and consequently did not react to braking.
The severity of the damage caused to the vehicle when it struck the tree indicates that it was travelling at excessive speed.
On examining the vehicle, we found the driver, Mrs Myra Skinner, pinned behind the steering wheel. We searched for a pulse but found none. She had suffered lacerations to her face and hands, and the steering wheel was crushed against her chest. The angle of her head indicated also that she might have suffered a broken neck. It being impossible to remove her from the vehicle without special equipment, we awaited the arrival of the emergency services, and in the meantime took photographs of the accident scene in general and of the interior of the vehicle.
The fire and ambulance services had just arrived when another vehicle, a Triumph 2000, stopped at the scene, ignoring police signals to keep moving. The driver got out and rushed over to the crashed vehicle. I recognised him as Detective Sergeant Robert Skinner, whom I know to live in Gullane.
Sergeant Skinner became hysterical when he realised that the dead woman was his wife. He began to try to remove her from the car himself, and had to be restrained by the attending officers and the ambulance crew. A second police car was summoned to take Sergeant Skinner home.
In due course, Mrs Skinner’s body was cut from the vehicle by fire service officers and removed by the ambulance for post mortem examination.
Constable Orr and I interviewed the motorist who had made the emergency call, Mr Nigel Steadman. He said that he was not an eye-witness to the accident, but that the Mini Cooper had overtaken him at high speed a few minutes earlier as he was leaving Aberlady. His formal statement is attached to this report.
This supports my conclusion that excessive speed and adverse road conditions were the cause of this fatal accident.
Signed
Trevor Haig, Sergeant
Skinner read on. Constable Orr’s report, couched in the same police-speak, agreed with that of his Sergeant in every detail. He turned to the statement of the witness. ‘Nigel Steadman, aged 41, of 12 Tayview Road, North Berwick,’ he read. ‘Wonder if he’s still there?’ He looked at the single page.
I was driving home on the evening in question, having left work early. I had driven through Aberlady and was just passing the end of speed limit sign, when I was overtaken by a green Mini. The car was driven by a young woman.
I was travelling at 35 mph at the time, and I would estimate that the Mini was going twice as fast as me. The vehicle was out of my sight before I had reached the end of the first straight out of Aberlady.
A few minutes later I reached the Luffness corner and saw the vehicle crashed against a tree. I stopped to offer assistance, but I could see at once that the driver was dead. I am an AA member and so I made an emergency call from the AA box a short distance from the scene.
He had to force himself to read the post mortem report. He had attended many in his career, and could picture the scene, with its awful sights and smells. For a second he thought of closing the folder, but, making an effort to disassociate Myra’s face from the images in his mind’s eye, he began to read.
The examination had been carried out by Trevor Hutchison, an experienced man whom Skinner knew and respected.
The body was that of a woman in her late twenties. Examination showed superficial cuts to her face, hand and arms, several of which had windscreen fragments lodged in situ. The right eyeball was pierced by a glass fragment, which was removed.
The victim had sustained a classic whiplash fracture of the third cervical vertebra and the spinal cord was severed. This injury alone would have proved almost instantaneously fatal.
There were severe, also classic crushing injuries to the chest, caused by the steering wheel. The sternum was shattered by the impact and bone fragments were removed from the heart. The liver was ruptured and pierced by lower ribs in two places. These injuries would also have proved immediately fatal.
The victim sustained several non-fatal injuries. Both legs were fractured in several places, as was the right forearm. There was also a depressed skull fracture caused by impact with the windscreen frame.
Examination of the victim’s brain and major organs showed no abnormality, and there was no indication that she had suffered any form of seizure. In my opinion she was aware and alert at the time of the incident.
A fully-formed foetus, male, eleven weeks, was present in the uterus. It was perfectly normal, and I do not believe that any complication of pregnancy contributed to the accident.’
The shock of it washed over him, chilling him suddenly to the bone. Cold sweat spread on his forehead as he dropped the folder, shaking. Proud Jimmy’s warning leapt back into his mind.
‘
‘No wonder, Jimmy, no wonder,’ he sighed. ‘For eighteen years you spared me the knowledge that I’d lost a son as well as a wife. What a decision for a friend to have to take. What a friend to take it.’
32
‘Good morning, ma’am.’ Mario McGuire, propped on an elbow, kissed his wife as she swam back into wakefulness. ‘And where the hell were you last night? I tried to stay awake, but I don’t think I made it past midnight.’
Maggie pulled him down towards her and moulded herself against his thick, muscular body. She ran her fingers through the hair on his chest, passing them gently over the scar from his old wound.
‘I was with a young man,’ she murmured. ‘We were alone all evening. I got home around one, absolutely done in. I didn’t think it, er . . . appropriate, to wake you.’
His big hand ran smoothly down her back and gripped her buttocks, squeezing them gently, pulling her even tighter against him. ‘And what were you and this young man up to?’
‘We were looking for another man.’
‘What, isn’t two enough for you?’ He kissed the side of her neck, and gave it a sudden light bite, sending a shiver through her.
‘This is a very special man,’ she said. ‘Carl Medina told us about him. He may have information which can tie Douglas Terry to a serious assault five years back, on a young Hearts footballer, Jimmy Lee.’ Her hand moved down from his chest, until it found its pathway blocked.
‘Indeed,’ he whispered. ‘I thought the Hibs casuals did that. So what’s his name, this very special man?’ He rolled her gently on to her back.
‘I don’t know. I only know that he has a big vulture tattooed on his right shoulder.’ She reached up and bit him. ‘Right there.’
He leaned over her, head still, eyes closed. His hand moved, very slowly, up the inside of her thigh, towards the warmth. She began to move under his touch. He whispered in her ear. ‘Mulgrew. Evan Mulgrew.’
She sat bolt upright, her eyes suddenly wide. ‘You know him?’
Mario rolled backwards, smiling at her surprise, looking up at her, smugly. ‘I lifted a guy, name of Evan
