he replied. ‘He took me to work with him one day, when I was fourteen. I didn’t say so to Dr Grace, in case the comparison offended her, but a post-mortem’s nothing earth-shaking compared to that.’
‘Jesus, Sauce,’ Jack exclaimed, ‘are you saying that animals mean more to you than people?’
‘Of course not, ya daft. .’ He shook his head. ‘The big difference is that in an autopsy, you don’t see the thing that’s going to be carved up walking in through the doorway. Try watching what happens to it and see how you react.’
I shuddered. ‘Are you trying to put me off black pudding for life?’
He laughed. ‘Boss, if you saw that being made. .’
‘Enough,’ I declared. The boys weren’t to know it, but I’d been sick that morning. . and I was nearly four weeks late. ‘Come on; tell us what we want to hear. What are we dealing with?’
‘Nothing, boss; this is officially not a suspicious death. The man died from natural causes, namely a spontaneously ruptured artery in the brain. There were no contributory factors, no signs of trauma and he was in perfect health otherwise. A man in the second half of his twenties in an athlete’s body with just one fatal weakness, Dr Grace said.’
‘Did she tell you what his name was?’ McGurk grunted.
‘Sorry, no. She’s a remarkable woman, but she’s not that good. Tracing him is still down to us.’
‘Did she tell you anything at all about him, other than that he’s male?’
‘His blood type was O positive,’ Sauce replied, ‘the most common there is. His last meal looked as if it had fish in it and some other stuff, washed down with mineral water, and he ate it no more than a couple of hours before he died. Analysis will tell us exactly what he had. His prints are being emailed to my address, for checking with NCIS, and the lab’s going to give us his DNA profile, to be run through the national database. That’s as much as we have to work on, but don’t get too excited about that.’
‘Why not?’ I asked, catching up with him. My mind had paused to reflect on ‘remarkable woman’.
‘Because Dr Grace suspects he isn’t British.’
‘Remarkable indeed,’ I muttered, dryly. ‘How does she work that out?’
If he caught my sarcasm, his face didn’t betray it. ‘His teeth are too good. She told me that she’s never done an examination in this country, or in America, where the subject’s been dentally perfect. This man was; she reckons he had a sugar-free diet because there’s no sign of decay, and that he never drank tea or coffee because there’s no staining.’
‘So,’ McGurk boomed, stretching his absurdly long frame in his chair, ‘why the hell are we dealing with it? In case you’ve both forgotten, CID stands for Criminal Investigation Department. The chief constable himself said he doesn’t believe that a crime’s been committed, and now we know that for sure. It’s a sudden death. Okay, someone chose to park him in a grave, temporarily. It’s not a homicide, and it wasn’t concealed. So? One for our colleagues in the furry tunics, surely.’
I picked up the phone on his desk and handed it to him. ‘Give the chief a call,’ I challenged. ‘Tell him that.’
He wasn’t up for that, so I went into the office and phoned Bob Skinner myself. Gerry Crossley, his civilian doorkeeper, told me that he had someone with him, but asked me to hold on. A couple of minutes later he came on line. I started to brief him on Sauce’s report from the post-mortem, but he knew already.
I asked McGurk’s question, but less bluntly. ‘Where do we go with this, sir?’
‘Good question, Becky. As far as you can; that’s all I can ask.’
That wasn’t quite the answer that I wanted. I’d been hoping that Jack was right and that the weird problem would be dumped on a uniformed colleague’s desk. My fingers had been crossed for that. I’m like any other punter; I’m only interested in backing winners, and I didn’t see much chance of a result with Mortonhall Man.
Deputy Chief Constable Margaret Rose Steele
I’ve stared into the pit, and a couple of times, I’ve fallen in, only to be caught by strong hands and pulled back to safety. My life has been saved twice, once figuratively by Mario McGuire, my first husband, then literally, by a surgeon called Aldred Fine, who operated on me when I contracted ovarian cancer, removed the tumour, and saw me through the follow-up therapy.
Now I am, officially, in remission; I’m not sure when I’ll be pronounced cured, but I must behave as if I am.
If it wasn’t for Stephanie, I don’t know if I’d have made it. Indeed if it wasn’t for my daughter I don’t believe I’d have tried too hard, after Stevie was killed on duty. But now I have her, and I must keep well for her sake; regression isn’t an option.
I never thought I’d have a child. To be honest with you, when Mario and I were going through the motions of trying to conceive I was privately relieved when my period came along, month after month. There was the possibility of adoption for a while, but when that fell through, it didn’t bother me either. That was just as well, for by that time our marriage was broken beyond repair.
He and I split up and I concentrated on my job; that I could do, very well, much better than marriage. Then out of the blue, Stevie happened, and I fell pregnant, and the world was wonderful, for a few precious weeks.
I should have known better.
I did something bad in my life, something I saw and still see as justifiable, but I crossed a line. Mario, God bless him, cleaned up after me and nobody ever found out about it, but afterwards I carried this foreboding around with me that one day, Nemesis would tap me on the shoulder and say, ‘Excuse me, Margaret, there’s something we have to discuss.’
But she didn’t stop at me, that vengeful old Greek cow; as well as giving me cancer, she fingered Stevie as well. His tragedy happened and that bottomless pit opened up under my feet again, until. . she relented and I was saved.
It used to be that there wasn’t an hour went past without me thinking about it, remembering the shock, and then the horror, when they told me Stevie was dead. It was the darkest, darkest time. Having Stephanie, recovering from my surgery, and then going back to work all combined to bring me into the light once more, not least since I was secure in the knowledge that Bet, my sister, is happy as Larry (whoever he was) combining the roles of Steph’s carer and freelance designer. Being promoted into the deputy chief vacancy helped a little too; now I find that several hours can go by without me finding myself staring at the wall, remembering.
That’s what I was doing when the intercom buzzed and my secretary told me that DC Montell had arrived for his scheduled appointment.
Bob had given me his file, and, he said, carte blanche to proceed as I thought appropriate. But he’d also reminded me why he couldn’t deal with the matter himself, knowing full well, I believe, that I’d feel constrained. The man Skinner is many things. He’s bold, he’s brave, he’s brilliant. He’d have made a great soldier, but a lousy general, for he can only lead from the front; those are some of his strengths, but make no mistake, he has his weaknesses.
The one that’s quoted most often is his eye for the ladies, and I can see why, but I’ll defend him on that front. He has never made a pass at me in all the years I’ve known him or offered me a single improper word, glance or suggestion. But I doubt if he ever has with any woman; from what I’ve seen he’s much more prey than predator. The truth is that Bob’s a sucker for a pretty face, as long as a powerful personality goes with it. I doubt if he’s ever shagged a bimbo in his life.
You couldn’t pin that label on Sarah, no way; oh no, she is smart. He was the head of CID and she was the new pathologist, when she sized him up, saw he was ripe, and flashed the lashes at him. A few of his colleagues saw what was happening, but nobody had the stones to tell him.
When the marriage first hit the skids, and another scheming woman sank her claws in, briefly, that might have finished him, in every respect. It didn’t, and he moved on, until eventually it was him and Aileen, and he
