Skinner's Mission

31

The morning air was fresh and not too cold as he ran past Fenton Barns, down the curving dip in the road, then, his stride shortening, up the climb towards Dirleton Toll.

He glanced quickly through the iron gate as he passed the cemetery, catching a quick glimpse of his wife’s gravestone, but as always he ran on without stopping. The wind was strong from the west and the hardest part of the run lay before him as he began to pound out the two miles westward, back to Gullane. Cars rushed past him on the main road in both directions, some heading for North Berwick, most at that hour of the morning bound for Edinburgh.

He ran even harder as he took the curve at Archerfield and the village came into sight, punishing himself, forcing himself back towards the sort of pace he had been able to achieve before his stabbing, taking pleasure from the realisation that he was almost there.

Sweat was pouring from him as at last he turned off the Main Street, past the bakery, and ran up and across Goose Green, to finish his run as always by vaulting his garden gate.

He cooled down in the back garden for a few minutes, then unlocked the back door and stepped straight into the small shower. He had installed it when Alex was a child, for use when she returned from the beach. A full ten minutes later, naked and towelling himself off vigorously, he stepped out, and into the kitchen. Eventually he wrapped the towel around his middle, poured himself a large glass of orange juice from a container in the fridge, and walked through to the dining room.

The big brown envelope lay on the table, untouched since the night before. Suddenly, as he looked at it, steeling himself to open it, a memory burst unbidden into his mind.

Myra’s sixteenth birthday party, in her parents’ big house in Orchard Street.

His own sixteenth, a few days earlier, had been marked quietly and within the family, like any other. The Graham girl had treated hers as a milestone, and had summoned around twenty of her friends to its celebration, making the point in her telephone invitations that her parents would be absent on the night. He had known Myra since the early years of primary school. They had played together as small children but had become mere nodding acquaintances as the boys and the girls had been diverted into their separate pursuits. Now as adulthood beckoned the groups were being drawn back to shared pastimes.

He had gone to the party with Alice McCready, a neighbour, with whom, once a week, he shared the back row of the Rex Cinema. Myra’s date for the night, he remembered, had been one Campbell Weston, a self-styled Romeo with a cultivated hard-man image but a soft centre. Campbell had been grinning and preening himself like a peacock as Bob and Alice had arrived, but as the evening went on, Myra had paid less and less attention to the spotty boy and more and more to Alice, and thus to him.

She had played her hand beautifully, he remembered with a smile, chatting to them both in the big breakfasting kitchen, frowning in disapproval as cigarettes were smoked, and beer was drunk. Gradually, the Beatles and Herman’s Hermits had given way on the Dansette to Tony Bennett, and Nat King Cole. Gradually, the lights in the lounge had gone out. At last Myra had made her move.

‘Alice, can I have a dance with Bob? For my birthday.’

Refusal had not been an option. Even before the hapless Alice had nodded he had been whisked through to the lounge, where the sofa and chairs had been pushed back to the wall to clear a space for dancing. He closed his eyes, and it all came back. The glow of the coal fire, the musky smell as youngsters groped and fumbled in the dark: and Myra, as they stepped out to dance, to become adults, to fall in love.

Nat Cole was singing ‘There’s a Lull in My Life’ - in Bob’s head, he was singing still - but the tempo of the music was unimportant. She had simply pressed herself against him and moved. He was tall, almost full-grown, and so was she. He remembered her fingers running though his hair, the lushness of her kiss, her tongue in his mouth, the firmness of her breasts, their warmth through his shirt, her right hand roaming, his sudden erection, her murmur.

And then the realisation as the music stopped that everyone in the room was staring at them. All at once Campbell Weston was there, his face contorted, tugging at Myra’s shoulder, pulling them apart. He had pushed him away, but Campbell had lunged back towards him, swinging a wild, vicious punch.

Until that moment Bob Skinner had never hit anyone in his life, or even thought of it. All the way through school, there had always been something about him which had made him immune to bullying or victimisation. But his attacker had lost face before his crowd, and was in a corner.

He remembered how naturally it had come to him; swaying sideways to avoid the blow, countering in the same movement by slamming his right fist wrist-deep into the youth’s midriff, driving the air from his lungs and the beer from his belly. He remembered his calmness in the heat of the brief encounter. He remembered the surge of unexpected, surprising pleasure as his attacker had collapsed, puking, to the floor. One of Campbell’s cronies, a bruiser known for no obvious reason as Big Zed, had taken a threatening step towards him. He had simply smiled at him, nodding invitingly, only to see, to his secret disappointment, the thug back off.

Naturally, that had been the end of the party. The fallen Campbell, unable to walk unaided, had been carried off by his crew. Bob had offered to help clean up the carpet, but Myra had told him that she could manage. ‘You take Alice home,’ she had said, both of them knowing that she was telling him to tie off a loose end, so that matters between them could be put on an official and proper footing.

On that April evening thirty years before, the course of Bob Skinner’s adult life had been set. Now he looked at the parcel on the table, whose contents told how, twelve years later, it had been shattered.

He picked up the envelope, tore it open and drew out the report inside. It was enclosed in a stiff green folder, bearing the two-line heading ‘Procurator Fiscal’s Office. Fatal Accident Report’. Written on it in heavy blue, he saw a number, a date, and the words ‘Mrs Myra Skinner’.

He opened the folder. The first document to meet his eye was a letter, to the Procurator Fiscal. He read aloud.

Sir

The enclosed is a report into the death of Mrs Myra Skinner in a road accident on the date noted.

No other vehicle was involved in the incident, and there were no eye-witnesses. It is the view of the attending officers that the accident was caused by a combination of excessive speed and freak road conditions.

Mrs Skinner was the wife of a serving police officer. Detective Sergeant Skinner arrived by chance at the scene before his wife’s body had been removed from the vehicle and this has added to the natural shock of bereavement. It would cause him further suffering if he were forced to give evidence at, or even to attend, a Fatal Accident Inquiry, and if the full report was led publicly in evidence. It is my view that the circumstances of this death are so clear that an FAI is unnecessary.

I would be grateful if you would so determine and instruct accordingly.

Yours faithfully

James Proud

Asst Chief Constable

Skinner turned the page. The second document in the file was a report by the first attending officer. He scanned it, silently.

‘Constable David Orr and myself were on patrol near Ballencrieff in our traffic car when we were summoned to the incident by a call made by a passing motorist from the AA box nearby. We arrived within three minutes of receipt of the call.

On arrival we found the vehicle, a Mini Cooper S, registration number DRN 328J crashed against a large tree on the south side of the A198, at Luffness Corner. Agricultural vehicles had been working in the field to the north of the road and there was a large patch of mud on the carriageway.

Tyre marks through the mud leading directly to the vehicle indicated that it had taken the corner, skidded on hitting the hazard and failed to respond to steering. The distribution of the mud on the road indicates that the vehicle lost traction as a result of aquaplaning and consequently did not react to braking.

The severity of the damage caused to the vehicle when it struck the tree indicates that it was travelling at excessive speed.

On examining the vehicle, we found the driver, Mrs Myra Skinner, pinned behind the steering wheel. We searched for a pulse but found none. She had suffered lacerations to her face and hands, and the steering wheel was crushed against her chest. The angle of her head indicated also that she might have suffered a broken neck. It being impossible to remove her from the vehicle without special equipment, we awaited the arrival of the emergency services, and in the meantime took photographs of the accident scene in general and of the interior of the vehicle.

The fire and ambulance services had just arrived when another vehicle, a Triumph 2000, stopped at the scene, ignoring police signals to keep moving. The driver got out and rushed over to the crashed vehicle. I recognised him as Detective Sergeant Robert Skinner, whom I know to live in Gullane.

Sergeant Skinner became hysterical when he realised that the dead woman was his wife. He began to try to remove her from the car himself, and had to be restrained by the attending officers and the ambulance crew. A second police car was summoned to take Sergeant Skinner home.

In due course, Mrs Skinner’s body was cut from the vehicle by fire service officers and removed by the ambulance for post mortem examination.

Constable Orr and I interviewed the motorist who had made the emergency call, Mr Nigel Steadman. He said that he was not an eye-witness to the accident, but that the Mini Cooper had overtaken him at high speed a few minutes earlier as he was leaving Aberlady. His formal statement is attached to this report.

This supports my conclusion that excessive speed and adverse road conditions were the cause of this fatal accident.

Signed

Trevor Haig, Sergeant

Skinner read on. Constable Orr’s report, couched in the same police-speak, agreed with that of his Sergeant in every detail. He turned to the statement of the witness. ‘Nigel Steadman, aged 41, of 12 Tayview Road, North Berwick,’ he read. ‘Wonder if he’s still there?’ He looked at the single page.

I was driving home on the evening in question, having left work early. I had driven through Aberlady and was just passing the end of speed limit sign, when I was overtaken by a green Mini. The car was driven by a young woman.

I was travelling at 35 mph at the time, and I would estimate that the Mini was going twice as fast as me. The vehicle was out of my sight before I had reached the end of the first straight out of Aberlady.

A few minutes later I reached the Luffness corner and saw the vehicle crashed against a tree. I stopped to offer assistance, but I could see at once that the driver was dead. I am an AA member and so I made an emergency call from the AA box a short distance from the scene.

He had to force himself to read the post mortem report. He had attended many in his career, and could picture the scene, with its awful sights and smells. For a second he thought of closing the folder, but, making an effort to disassociate Myra’s face from the images in his mind’s eye, he began to read.

The examination had been carried out by Trevor Hutchison, an experienced man whom Skinner knew and respected.

The body was that of a woman in her late twenties. Examination showed superficial cuts to her face, hand and arms, several of which had windscreen fragments lodged in situ. The right eyeball was pierced by a glass fragment, which was removed.

The victim had sustained a classic whiplash fracture of the third cervical vertebra and the spinal cord was severed. This injury alone would have proved almost instantaneously fatal.

There were severe, also classic crushing injuries to the chest, caused by the steering wheel. The sternum was shattered by the impact and bone fragments were removed from the heart. The liver was ruptured and pierced by lower ribs in two places. These injuries would also have proved immediately fatal.

The victim sustained several non-fatal injuries. Both legs were fractured in several places, as was the right forearm. There was also a depressed skull fracture caused by impact with the windscreen frame.

Examination of the victim’s brain and major organs showed no abnormality, and there was no indication that she had suffered any form of seizure. In my opinion she was aware and alert at the time of the incident.

A fully-formed foetus, male, eleven weeks, was present in the uterus. It was perfectly normal, and I do not believe that any complication of pregnancy contributed to the accident.’

The shock of it washed over him, chilling him suddenly to the bone. Cold sweat spread on his forehead as he dropped the folder, shaking. Proud Jimmy’s warning leapt back into his mind.

‘You don’t want to see that report. Take my word on it.’

‘No wonder, Jimmy, no wonder,’ he sighed. ‘For eighteen years you spared me the knowledge that I’d lost a son as well as a wife. What a decision for a friend to have to take. What a friend to take it.’