‘Were any of the prisoners searched before they left the yard?’
‘No.’
‘When you said the MO, I take it you meant the prison doctor.’
‘That’s right. He was on site, so he was there in only a couple of minutes. He took one look at Bennett and said that he’d been shot.’
‘Was any search made of the yard before my people arrived?’
‘Yes, by the escorting officers when they returned. Nothing unusual was found.’
The DCC leaned back and stared at the dirty ceiling. ‘How easy would it be to hide a gun in this prison?’ he asked.
Whiterose sighed. ‘Mr Skinner, in my experience, the inmates could hide almost anything in a prison.’
Piercing blue eyes swept down from the ceiling and fixed him suddenly across the desk. ‘What a pity, in that case, that your officer cleared the yard. If he’d kept the men contained there until he’d found out what had happened to Bennett, they could all have been searched on the spot, with no possibility of concealing a weapon.’
The Governor nodded. ‘I suppose you’re right.’
‘There’s no fucking suppose about it. Still, it’s happened, and it’s your problem. What it means is that my people will have to tear your jail apart looking for a gun. However disruptive that might be, you’re going to have to live with it.’ He looked round at Pringle. ‘Dan, how many men do you have on the scene?’
‘Just the two uniforms so far, sir, and half a dozen CID. They’re making a list of the men who were in the yard, and getting ready to interview them one by one.’
‘That’ll take forever. I want a hundred uniforms here, to begin the search and to help the CID people with the interviews.’
‘On a Saturday, Boss?’
‘I don’t care what bloody day it is. A hundred, I said.’ He paused, as Pringle nodded. ‘What’s happening about the press? Does anyone have wind of this yet?’
‘The Prison Service has its own press office,’Whiterose interrupted.
Skinner shook his head. ‘Not for this, you don’t. Our Media Relations Manager will handle all enquiries about this.’ He turned back to Pringle. ‘Dan, Maggie Rose will have roused Alan Royston by now to deal with press about her investigation. Obviously you and she will need to co-ordinate, and take Royston’s advice on statements and all of that.’
The Superintendent looked puzzled.
‘Sorry, Dan,’ the DCC burst out as he realised his oversight. ‘There’s no way you could have known this. When you called me on the mobile I was at another murder scene . . . Nathan Bennett’s sister, Hannah. Someone killed her last night.’
On the other side of the desk, he heard Whiterose gasp. ‘That’s why your men can’t undertake any searches, Governor. Clearly, this wasn’t a prison feud. Bennett was killed to silence him, as, we believe, was Hannah. He was shot in the head, to make sure of the job. Maybe a prisoner pulled the trigger, but he surely didn’t do it without help.
‘Dan, when you speak to Alan Royston, tell him I want to know everything that’s being said to the press.’
Abruptly, he stood up. ‘Lead on, Governor, take me to visit the scene. I take it that the body’s still there. Andy, you’d better speak to ACC Elder, to soothe his feathers over a hundred of his uniforms being called out. Neil, with me.’
‘Sir.’ Mcllhenney rose from his chair in the corner, to follow Skinner and Whiterose from the room.
Outside the Governor broke into a brisk stride. ‘Is the doctor still there?’ Skinner asked him.
‘Yes. I asked him to remain with the body, until you agreed that it could be taken to the prison mortuary.’
‘It won’t be going there,’ muttered the DCC, grimly. ‘We may as well stack it with the rest. It’s going to be a busy day for Prof. Hutchison.’
As they walked on, towards the exercise yard, McIlhenney tugged gently at his commander’s sleeve, and dropped a few paces behind their escort. ‘Boss, I didn’t like to interrupt in there, but when you get to the yard take a look outside the fence.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘You’ll see.’
They took another corner, and the fenced-in exercise yard was ahead of them. It was unpaved, rough earth, the grass that it had once boasted largely worn away by footsteps. The gate was open, with a prison officer standing just inside. Halfway across the open ground, close to the wall which served as its eastern boundary, the body of Nathan Bennett lay under a blanket. A man in a tweed jacket stood beside it.
‘Doctor?’
The man nodded. ‘Hoy, prison MO.’
‘DCC Skinner. You sure this is a shooting?’
‘Oh yes,’ answered Dr Hoy, immediately and emphatically. ‘Take a look at his face.’ He drew back the blanket. For the second time that morning, the detective summoned up all his self-control. He bent over and looked closely at Nathan Bennett’s head.
Dark blood was matted in his hair, at the back of his cranium, and dried on his temple. ‘Has the photographer done his stuff?’ he asked the sergeant.
‘Aye, Boss. He’s finished.’
Carefully, he rolled Bennett’s corpse on to its back, and winced. There was a ragged black hole in the centre of the forehead. ‘See what I mean?’ said the MO. ‘Exit wound.’
‘And some.’ Skinner straightened up, frowning. He looked around the yard, then remembering McIlhenney’s muttered comment, turned and looked at the fence behind him. The top four storeys of a high-rise housing block rose above its highest point. ‘Of course,’ he whispered, then turned to McIlhenney.
‘How far away are those flats, would you say, Neil?’
The big sergeant smiled. ‘There’s the width of a football field outside the yard, then a hundred yards to the road, then the car park of the block. Four hundred yards, I’d say; five hundred tops.’
‘I see what you mean, Sergeant. It’d be an easy shot from that roof over there for someone with the right equipment. How tall was Bennett?’
‘Looking at him, I’d guess he was about the same height as Mr Martin.’
‘Okay, say five eleven. And with that red hair he’d stand out like a Belisha beacon, even in a crowd.’
Skinner drew the blanket back over Bennett’s body, and stepped over to stand by its feet, with his back to the fence and the high-rise block. He put two fingers to the back of his head, plotting the entry wound, then looked at the ground a few yards ahead of where he stood.
‘Before we start searching for a gun, Neil, let’s look for a bullet . . . a high-velocity rifle bullet, bashed out of shape.’ He pointed to a wide area in front of the entry to the yard. ‘And let’s look over there. When the first of the uniforms arrive, grab them and put them to work sifting through that patch of ground.
‘While you’re doing that, Mr Martin and I will go across and take a look at the roof of that block, to see if we can find any signs of a sniper.’
‘Aye, and if you do, the hundred polis we’ve called out will spend the day interviewing every resident in those bloody flats!’
Skinner smiled. ‘They chose the job, each one of them. Listen,’ he added. ‘That was a good spot, Neil. Just as well that you didn’t mention it in there, otherwise Dan Pringle would have been well embarrassed. He should have seen that.’
The big sergeant shrugged his shoulders. ‘The sun’s over there, Boss,’ he chuckled. ‘I think the Superintendent’s avoiding bright lights this morning. I was at that dance last night, too. I saw the state he was in when the taxi came for him.’
‘You seem to have survived all right.’
McIlhenney looked at him disdainfully. ‘Olive’s mother was baby-sitting for us. Not even you would dare to come home rat-arsed to the Wicked Witch of the West!’
