Gallery Whispers

61

Bob Skinner smiled at his wife as, lying sprawled on the sofa, he pressed the television remote. 'You're getting too sure of yourself, doctor.' BBC Scotland's trademark red balloon drifted across the big wide screen for a few seconds, before the portentous signature music of the Nine O'clock News boomed out into their living room.

'What do you mean?'

'I mean, my love, that postmortem evidence isn't the only sort.

There is a way of proving whether the late Mr Murray topped himself with the poly bag, or had someone do it for him.'

'What's that, Mr Detective?'

'The scissors. The roll of tape. The poor chap wasn't wearing gloves was he?' Sarah shook her head, quickly. 'Right then. If his fingerprints don't show up on those scissors — or even better, if they're clean — most juries will accept that as proof that he didn't cut off the tape roll.'

'Wait a minute,' she argued. 'That doesn't prove that he didn't secure the bag himself, though. Conceivably, he could have wound the tape tight round his neck then the person who injected him could have cut it off. I can't rule that out.'

Bob grinned hugely, ignoring the latest political drama from America which was being played out on the television screen. 'That's fine,' he exclaimed, with a touch of delight in his voice. 'In that case, we'll still charge the accomplice with murder; he took part in the act of securing the bag, an act which killed Mr Murray, as you will state under oath. That's enough for me and it'll be enough for the Crown Office.'

'Will it be enough for a jury to convict on, though?'

'As long as we have other evidence that places the person in the house at the time, then it probably will be. Of course if he's left us a print on the end of the tape roll as well, and there are none of Mr Murray's, that'll be game, set and match.

'I doubt if we'll be that lucky though. Assuming that this is the same person who was with Gaynor Weston-'

'You are sure?' Sarah interrupted.

'Ach, of course I am; and so's Andy, and so are you. Look at the similarities; clear poly bag — it would be undignified to end your life in something with "Tesco" printed on it would it not — secured by black tape, victim injected; there's no doubt about it. As I was saying, on that assumption, the way I see it is that the helper assumed that the Weston death would simply be seen off as a suicide. When we started to make ambivalent noises after the body was found, he realised just how sloppy he'd been.

'That's why you've got a different pattern with Mr Murray's death.

This time the tape, scissors and syringe have been left there. He's getting better, but there are still flaws in the setup.'

Bob picked up the remote once more and snapped off the television picture, then swung himself into a sitting position. 'Actually,' he said, 'you and I can sit here having a detached, professional discussion about this thing, but I've got to remind myself at the same time just how serious this is.'

'How come?'

'How come?' he repeated. 'Listen, if someone walked into a bank, shot a teller and ran off with a pile of money, we, and every tabloid newspaper in the country would go bananas about it. But if the same person walked into another bank a few weeks later and did it again…

Christ, love, just imagine the reaction! 'Yet that's what we're dealing with here. Forget the semantics, forget our clever technical debate about the whys and wherefores of Murray's death. We have a double murderer loose in our city, we made a porridge of catching him first time up and now he's done it again.'

Sarah frowned. 'Yes, I hear what you're saying. But what about the moral issues involved? In that respect, the two situations are completely different.'

'You say that to Andy Martin, who tends to be our collective conscience in situations like these, and he'll tell you that there is only one black and white moral issue involved — the taking of a human life by another person. Maybe in personal ethical terms you can argue that there might be shades of grey, but in legal terms you can't.

'It doesn't matter whether someone gets on their knees and begs you, "End my life, I can't stand it any more." If you do that you're breaking the law — and it's the oldest law that our society has. Now the fact is that when we didn't get a quick clear-up on the Weston case, some of us weren't too sorry. We saw it as a one-off, and maybe our private beliefs let us sympathise with Mrs Weston, and even with whoever helped her.

'But it isn't a one-off any more, Sarah. I'm… we're faced with clear evidence that same person has done it again, and our duty is just as clear. Catching him goes right to the top of our priority list. Consider this: Gaynor Weston and Anthony Murray were both terminally ill.

They were going to die nasty, drawn-out deaths. But what if someone else asks for help; someone who does have a chance of survival? 'No,' he said, emphatically. 'It has to be stopped here.'

She looked at him, soberly. 'Yeah,' she murmured. 'Looked at like that, you have to be right.'

He leaned back into the sofa and nodded. 'And there's more to be investigated.'

'What do you mean?' she asked him, for the second time that evening.

His eyes, narrowed, very slightly 'What if Gaynor Weston wasn't the first? What if there's been a death in the past that has been written off as a suicide at divisional level? Or more than one, even? Christ, there could be a network operating here.'

'You're seeing the worst, aren't you,' said Sarah.

He shrugged, with a sad, resigned grin. 'Honey, that's my job. The trouble has been that from inside the Chief Constable's office, sometimes you just don't see it early enough.'