'No, Bob, no. Those two murders could not have been committed by the same person.'
'Come on, can you say that for sure? The time-frame fits.'
'Maybe it does, but that's all. There are major differences between the two. Look at poor Diddler; let's go with the sex-crime scenario, I accept that it's the likeliest explanation for the nature of the binding. He's tied, has sex, or at least there's enough contact for him to acquire that single strand of hair, then he's battered to death.
'The Smith case was completely different. He was stripped and bound, yes, but that was for torture. There was nothing remotely sexual about it.'
'What about the burning of the genitalia?'
'That's an anti-sexual gesture, a classic'
'This is only theory though.'
'Okay, you want fact, here it is. The blows to Smith's head and the blows which Diddler sustained were certainly not inflicted by the same person. Now that is a hard, under-oath statement. I wouldn't call Smith's wounds superficial, but they were not the cause of death, nor did they contribute.
'Howard Shearer, on the other hand was battered savagely to death, with great force. Different people, Bob, different people. I'm sorry to blow your theory, but look at it from this angle. How many people have played football with your crowd over the years?'
'God knows,' he conceded. 'Dozens of regulars; if you count the guys, and one woman, who have played just once or twice, you could be into the hundreds.'
'And Alec Smith really wasn't there for all that long, was he? Three years or so?'
'True. Okay, I get your drift.'
'Exactly. Two members of your squad of hundreds being killed violently in completely different circumstances is, I grant you, something of a coincidence, but it's not like winning the pools. Whereas, the possibility of their having been killed by the same person does not exist.'
'Right, right, right, I'm beaten. I guess I got over-excited. Give my love to the kids; see you later.'
Skinner replaced the phone and looked across his desk at Neil Mcllhenney. 'Sometimes it's just impossible to argue with my wife,' he said. 'Especially when she's right.' He paused. 'We don't have a sniff of a motive. The Diddler was a wealthy man, he could have been killed for money, or for his Rolex, even; that alone was worth a ton.
'Nonetheless, as soon as we have a positive ID on the body, as we will, I want you to organise a meeting of the Legends, the other seven and us, or as many as are available, in the Golf in North Berwick, six o'clock this evening. I want to tell them all before they read it in the papers. If Grock or Stewart Rees or Andy John are golfing, tell them to cancel it. The poor wee bugger deserves a wake.'
'I'll need to bring the kids,' said Mcllhenney.
'Fine, Sarah will give them their dinner, and they can have a play on the beach with the lads.'
He recalled the night before. 'Here, was Karen okay about you being late?'
'Aye, she was fine,' his exec replied. 'She was a bit strange, I thought, but it was nowt to do with that, I'm sure. Lauren said this morning that she seemed sad, and she has her mother's eye for people's moods.'
'She's a capable woman, is Sergeant Neville; she'll sort it, whatever it is.'
The big Inspector stood and made to leave. 'Oh,' he said, as an afterthought. 'I tried to raise DCS Martin as you asked, but he isn't in yet. I left a message with Sammy for him to call you.'
'Fine,' the DCC acknowledged, just as the telephone furthest from his right hand sang into life… the phone which hardly ever rang. He picked it up, frowning, as the door closed behind Mcllhenney.
'Skinner.'
'Morning, Bob,' said a gruff voice, in a bluff Derbyshire accent. This is Adam. I'm about to get on to a plane at Farnborough and fly up to Scotland. I want you and McGuire to meet me at the General Aviation Terminal at Edinburgh.
'There's something I've got to show you… something fooking messy'
41
'What's the number?' Dan Pringle asked, gazing along Coltbridge Terrace.
'It doesn't have one, sir,' Detective Sergeant Jack McGurk replied as they walked along, between linked bungalows on one side of the road and a small tenement on the other. 'Only a name; River Cottage. I think it might be along there, on the right. I can see a couple of houses on their own.'
They strode on, their car parked at the entrance to the narrow cul-de-sac, past a modern building on their right to the first of the detached dwellings. McGurk read the name-plate. 'No, that's not it.' They moved on to the next. 'Not that either.'
And then, a slight curve in the road, and a single-storey house which until then had not been in their line of vision; it was set back from the street, unlike the others, and had a small rose garden, with a path leading to the front door. It seemed to stand out into the flowing water behind, and as they approached they could see the structure below, built into the river bank.
McGurk's keen eyes read the name-plate from yards away. 'This is it,' he announced. 'River Cottage.'
'Aye,' said Pringle. 'Like Shearer's secretary said, it backs right on to the water. Come on then.' He led the way up the path.
The house looked, even felt, deserted. There were drawn blinds on the two front windows; the frosted glass panels set into the green-painted front door gave no hint of light or life inside. There was no bell, only a big, black knocker. McGurk grabbed it and rapped it hard; once, twice, a third time.
They waited for no more than thirty seconds, before Pringle said, 'Right that's enough. Let's get in there. Let's see what the back's like.' He disappeared round the side of the house, the big Sergeant on his heels, but saw at once that there was no back door. The building stood, quite literally, at the water's edge.
They returned to the front door; it appeared to be secured only by a cylinder lock. McGurk glanced around until he saw a brick in a corner of the garden. He picked it up and, with a single quick blow, smashed a hole in one of the glass panels, reached in and opened it with a single twist.
'Smells in here, sir,' he said, as he stepped into the house. They stood in a dusty hallway, not large, but wide enough to allow a narrow stairway, on the right, to run up into the attic.
Pringle opened a door at the foot of the steps. 'Kitchen.' McGurk opened the door opposite. 'Living room. Looks tidy and undisturbed.' They moved through the hall and past the stairway to the back of the house, where they found a small neat bedroom, and a bathroom.
'Look at this,' the Sergeant called out as he looked inside. 'There are towels lying all over the floor.' He stepped across to the bath; a shower curtain on a rail, hanging inside the tub had been pulled most of the way across. He yanked it back, and took a quick look around.
A pink face-cloth had been thrown over the shower's mixer tap; the sergeant picked it up and saw quickly that it had not always been that colour. He handed it to Pringle. 'No prizes for guessing what that is.' He leaned over and picked up a cake of Dove cream soap; it bore faint red streaks.
'Someone's been cleaning up in here,' he muttered, 'in a hurry, from the way those towels were chucked about.'
'Upstairs,' Pringle barked. He led the way back to the hall, and up the narrow stairs to the attic, to a small landing from which three doors opened. He made for the nearest, the one in the middle: a cupboard. 'Bugger.'
McGurk threw open the door to the left: and recoiled as the sudden stink wafted out. 'Jeez.' He switched on the light, and looked at a slaughterhouse.
There was a bed; a big metal-framed bed, against the far wall. A duvet lay in a corner of the wide spacious room, made larger by the curtained dormer window which the detectives knew must overlook the river. A white sheet and pillows in the far corner. In another, a man's jacket, underpants and trousers, over a chair, socks and shoes on the floor.
But the bed itself… The remaining sheet told a horror story; it was soaked with blood, apart from a patch in the middle, which corresponded roughly to the shape of a man's body, and was stained a different, yellowish colour.
