Thursday legends

15

'Have you seen this, Andy?' The Superintendent pushed a folder across his desk, in the Divisional CID Commander's office in Torphichen Place. 'The floater in the Water of Leith.'

The Head of CID looked at the slim file. 'That's it?' he asked, with a faint, but discernible trace of scorn.

'There's your statement, your girlfriend's sister…'

Martin held up a hand. 'What do you mean my girlfriend?'

'One of the detective constables who took Margot's statement saw you and the older lass coming out of Bert's Bar on Friday night.'

'You better ask him if he likes the seaside,' the DCS growled.

'Aw Andy, the lad's good, and I've already lost Stevie Steele to the Eastern Division.'

'I wasn't thinking about sending him to Dunbar; I was thinking about sticking him back in a uniform and having him patrol Seafield!'

'No, really. I've had a word with him about gossip. Christ, you know what he said to me, the cheeky bastard? "But I thought that gossip was the CID's stock-in-trade, sir." He's dead right, of course.'

'You just teach him the meaning of the word "selective", then. Who was it anyway?'

'Jack McGurk.'

'You're right. He is a good lad. How many years has he been with you?' 'Three.'

'And one of your detective sergeants is just going off on maternity leave?' 'That's right.'

'Okay, I'll tell you what. We won't send him to patrol the sewage works, we'll promote him. You can tell him that the vengeful Head of CID was going to give him the shit-kicker job, but that you talked me out of it. That should make you a bloody hero in his eyes, and it should teach him something at the same time.'

He picked up the floater file. 'Two statements; that's all you've got, is it?'

'Them and the post-mortem report. Know what the cause of death was?'

'Drowning.'

'How did you know that?'

'The girl you say I know, she's a final-year medic. I arranged for her to sit in as an observer. She told me that the guy drowned in his own blood.'

'That's right,' said Pringle. 'Every bone in his face was smashed to pieces. His legs and his ribs were pulverised. The cuts across his chest were bone deep. The missing fingers and toes were nowhere to be found in the rug, but it looked as if they had been cut off with scissors or something similar. There were bruise marks around the wrists and ankles; the poor wee guy — he was about five seven, Sarah says — was tied up then slashed and beaten to death.'

'What was the time of death?'

'Sarah fixed it as early Saturday morning. She said that the body had been immersed for about eighteen hours, give one, take one.'

'Give me that again.'

'Time of death early Saturday morning, say three o'clock. Immersed for eighteen hours, give or take. What do we take from that?'

'It puts a limit on where he could have been killed. If he died at three, and was in the water for a minimum of seventeen hours until we took him out at ten, then wherever he was killed is less that two hours travel time from where the body was dumped. If Sarah's spot on with her eighteen, that's one hour. Allowing time to tie the poor bugger up in that carpet, on that basis, he was killed pretty close to here. If the eighteen stretches towards nineteen, then he was killed very close to where he was found.'

'That's true; unfortunately, all of it's true. It still means that the guy could have been killed in Glasgow and dumped here, if it was nearer seventeen.'

'Come on, Dan. Get real on that; who would bring a stiff through here and drop it in something that's not much more than a stream in places when he's got the Clyde on his doorstep?'

'All right,' said the Superintendent. 'I'll have Jack McGurk and a team begin interviews with people living in the vicinity of the Water of Leith, from Roseburn down to Dean Village. Mind you there's a lot more of them now, since all those flats were built.'

'Nonetheless. It'll keep the investigation moving, and you know how important that is.'

Pringle nodded and leaned back in his chair. 'You know, boy,' he whispered, under his breath, 'you're getting more like Bob Skinner every day.'

Martin gazed at the wall, oblivious to the Divisional Commander's scrutiny. 'Why was he wearing a shirt?' he asked, suddenly.

The burly veteran looked at him, puzzled. He tugged, unconsciously, at one end of his heavy moustache. 'Eh?'

'Why was he wearing a shirt and nothing else? They stripped off his trousers, socks and underwear, but they left him wearing a shirt.'

'Maybe they were going to make him eat his willie, but he died on them.'

'He died on them as an indirect result of having his teeth smashed into powder, Dan.'

'True. Tell you what, I'll have McGurk instigate a search for a missing pair of strides, thirty-six waist, twenty-nine inside leg. Maybe they'll give us a vital clue!'

The Head of CID grinned. 'Listen, it was just a thought. It strikes me as odd, that's all. Was there any sign of sexual interference?'

'You mean did they make him dance the Turkish two-step before they killed him? No, the report says that there were no genital or anal injuries. He did have sex at some point though. Sarah found a single pubic hair, not his, trapped under his foreskin.'

'That's something, at least,' Martin conceded. 'Maybe he was only wearing a shirt because he'd just been getting his end away… or maybe the rest of his clothes were traceable. What make was the shirt?'

'Marks and Spencer, collar size sixteen. It could have been bought any-bloody-where in Britain.'

'Could it, though?'

'Aye, I've checked. There is a tab on the inside of M amp;S shirts, near the foot, that has a garment number on it. But this one had been ripped off — although I suppose it could have come away in the wash.'

'Nothing new on the missing persons lists?'

'Aye, plenty as always. But no medium-sized males in their early to mid-forties.'

'How about the e-fit? Did Sarah give us any ideas on that?'

'She's dealing with that today. She gave priority to the post-mortem report, but she's going to take another look at the body and try to fit the facial bones back together. She said that if she could she'd give us something to release to the Evening News tomorrow.'

'Has there been much press interest?'

'Not in comparison to the Alec Smith case. Radio Forth picked it up first, at midnight on Saturday, too late for most of the Sundays.'

'That doesn't surprise me. Spike Thomson was at the party.' 'The disc jockey?'

'That's the boy. He's friendly with Juliet Lewis, Rhian and Margot's mother.'

'Lucky him. She looked quite tasty, from what I saw of her on Saturday while McGurk and Ray Wilding were interviewing the daughter.'

He beamed across the desk at the Head of CID. 'Tell me something, Andy. When you bought that house, did you check out the neighbours first?'