Skinner's rules

4

The news of the murder broke first on the 10.00 a.m. radio news bulletin on Forth RFM, Edinburgh’s commercial music station. By that time, David Murray had posted a black-edged notice at the entrance to the Library, having first sought out Rachel Jameson, and having broken the news personally. By that time, too, CID officers in Clydebank had told Mike Mortimer’s stunned father that his brilliant son was dead.

As he had promised the press, Skinner set up a command room in the former police station behind St Giles Cathedral, across the street from the murder scene. The building had been converted to a District Court two years earlier, but there was still adequate office space available.

There, he and Martin stood looking at their two items of evidence. The technicians, with unprecedented speed, had confirmed his guess that the bayonet was absolutely clean of fingerprints. There was no sign of blood or bone fragments, but halfway down the blade its long cutting edge was slightly notched.

Carefully Skinner picked it up.

‘Andy, I want Professor Hutchison, the Big Daddy pathologist, to do the postmortem, and I want a yes or no from him on whether this was the weapon. He’ll want to run a test, so find the biggest, ugliest polis-man in Edinburgh and have him ready to try to go through the equivalent of a human neck with that thing in a single swipe.’

Martin grinned. ‘I know just the bloke. There’s a beast down at Gayfield that they send up to the station when the Glasgow football crowds arrive for a Hibs game. One look at him and they’re like sheep.’

Skinner looked at the briefcase. ‘It’s a bugger about this combination. Six digits, three either side. This is a valuable piece of luggage, so I don’t want to damage it. We don’t have any safe-breakers in court today do we?’

‘Sorry, we don’t. I’ve checked.’

‘Right, let’s try some of the obvious ones. What was Mortimer’s date of birth?’

Martin checked a folder: ‘4-6-60.’

‘Let’s try that.’ Carefully, he set the digits in sequence, then tried the locks. They remained immobile. ‘Let’s reverse it.’ He reset the combinations to 06 and 64, then pulled the square raised levers, simultaneously, away from the centre of the case. The catches clicked open. ‘Gotcha.’

He opened the case and, carefully, lifted out the contents. Briefs for two criminal cases in the High Court in Glasgow, one an incest trial, the other arson. Witness statements, and notes on each side. A Marks and Spencer sandwich wrapper. A Mars bar, untouched. Two green Pentel pens.

‘Not a lot here,’ Martin spoke Skinner’s thoughts.

‘No, there isn’t.’ Skinner hesitated. ‘But you know, Andy, there’s just something about this that doesn’t quite square away; something about this situation that raises one wee hair on the back of my neck. It’s niggling away at me, and I’m buggered if I can figure out what it is.’

Martin knew the signs. The Big Man was a stickler for detail. If anything in a situation was out of line with what he considered to be normal, he would gnaw away at it forever. But nothing here seemed out of the ordinary.

‘I’ve got to say, boss, that I can’t see anything odd.’

‘No, and if it’s there, you usually do. Maybe I’m still just a bit sick over this one.

‘All right, let’s get this enquiry properly under way. I want all the taxi drivers covered. Everyone at the Scotsman who was either going off or beginning a shift at that time. All the office cleaning contractors. Railwaymen. Coppers, even. Talk to them all, and I’ll deal with the overtime bills later. We’ve got the Queen here in two weeks, and I don’t want our nutter still on the loose by then!’