Stay of Execution

53

‘My love, I hear what you’re saying to me,’ Bob Skinner told his wife. ‘I appreciate that as soon as your thing loses the protection of total impersonality, it becomes very, very difficult. And I promise you that if old Joe Hutchinson was available, we would not be having this conversation.’ He paused. ‘I don’t like being seen, personally, to give you police work. I’m scrupulous about leaving that to the judgement of others. Yet here I am: that, and the fact that I’ve driven out here to talk to you about it, when I should be back at Fettes helping young Crossley and Ruth cancel Proud Jimmy’s cocktail party, must tell you how serious I am.’

She stood in the big glass-walled room gazing out to sea. ‘I don’t know if I can, Bob. What about that woman in Glasgow? Couldn’t she handle it?’

‘She was my second choice after the Prof, Sarah. I called her, but she’s out of town at a conference; ironically, it’s in New York. I can’t, I wouldn’t, I won’t entrust this autopsy to anyone who isn’t top-drawer. I know that it appears to be routine, but I have to report to the commissioner of the NYPD on this, and I need to be one thousand per cent sure of every piece of information I give him.’

‘Bob,’ she protested still, ‘I knew this man. He’d be more than an empty vessel lying there on the slab. He’s someone I’ve talked with, eaten with, laughed with, and all less than forty-eight hours ago. All the time I was working I’d be hearing his voice. Have you any idea how difficult that would be?’

‘Yes, I have. Now will you call on every scrap of skill, strength and professionalism you have and do it for me? Today?’

She turned. ‘Are you giving me a choice?’

‘Yes. You can let me down.’ He saw her flinch. He started to form an apology, but knew that it would be an empty gesture, for he had spoken what he saw as the truth.

‘I couldn’t do that again, could I?’ she said. ‘Very well. Where have they taken the body?’

‘The Western General.’

‘That’ll do. You’ll need to give me time to line up an assistant, a student if I can get one. Plus I’ll want one of Arthur Dorward’s photographers, and I’ll want a police witness.’

‘I’ll ask Neil to do it.’

‘The hell you will!’ she snapped at him. ‘You’ll be there. If you’re laying this on me, then I’m laying it right back on you, honey. I know you hate these things, but you will not delegate this one.’

‘If that’s what you want,’ he said lamely. ‘You fix up the student and I’ll call Dorward.’

Skinner left her to use the phone on the sideboard and went upstairs to use the unlisted line that was reserved in the main for Internet access. He made the call to Arthur Dorward at Howdenhall, then phoned his own office. ‘Do you have that phone number for me?’ he asked Ruth Pye.

‘Yes sir,’ said his secretary. She read out a New York City number. ‘That’s the direct line of the chief of Department. I told his assistant that you need to speak to him as a matter of urgency. He’s in his office now, waiting for you to ring him. There’s one other thing, sir, that’s come up since we spoke last. The head of CID’s been on; he asks if you’d get in touch with him as soon as you have a moment, on his cell phone, since he could well be travelling back to the office when you do.’

‘Did he say what it’s about? The Belgian investigation, I suppose.’

‘Yes. He said there’s been a development.’

‘Bugger it! That’s all I need. Okay, Ruthie, I’ll get to him later.’

He hung up, then made the New York call. The chief of Department was the most senior sworn officer in the NYPD, reporting only to the appointed commissioner. His secretary picked it up, but put him through at once when he identified himself. ‘Good morning, Chief Skinner. This is Ralph Lovencrantz speaking.’ The voice was smooth and cultured, with just a hint of Massachusetts twang; it was also cautious.

‘Good morning, Chief,’ said the DCC. ‘This call should really have been made by my chief constable, but he’s out of town, and it can’t wait for his return. I have some bad news for you, concerning one of your officers.’

‘That can only be Colin Mawhinney; I can’t think of another who’s in Scotland at the moment. What’s happened?’

‘He was found this morning in a dock near his hotel; drowned.’

The chief of Department’s sigh carried three thousand miles. ‘I knew you weren’t going to tell me anything good; I just hoped it wouldn’t be the worst. Were you at the scene yourself?’

‘Yes.’

‘So how did it look to you? Did he fall, was he pushed, or did he jump?’

‘If I said it looks as if he jumped, would you be surprised?’

‘Is that an official question?’

‘Was yours?’

Lovencrantz’s laugh was humourless. ‘Touché, Chief, touché. No, let’s keep this between cops. I won’t quote you, you don’t quote me. To be frank, if that was the case I wouldn’t be astonished. Many of our police officers and fire-fighters suffered from post-traumatic stress after Nine Eleven. As you can imagine, losing his wife in the tragedy, Inspector Mawhinney was more deeply affected than most. I told the South Manhattan borough patrol commander to send him on compassionate furlough, but Colin just refused point-blank. He insisted on staying at his post. I ordered him, personally, to have counselling but that was as far as I was prepared to push it. To be honest, Chief Skinner, at that time, I needed all the heroes I could get.’

‘Has he had any time off since?’

‘Oh yes, but not voluntarily. Just before Christmas of that year, he finally had a breakdown; his counsellor reported that he was in a very fragile emotional state. At that point, I intervened, and ordered him to take some time off.’

‘Did he have family other than his wife?’

‘His father’s been dead for around ten years. His mother remarried and moved to Maryland but Colin didn’t like his stepfather; he didn’t regard him as a particularly upright citizen. When he did take a break, he went to the Florida Keys to do some fishing. It was supposed to be for a month, but he came back after a couple of weeks and begged me to let him go back to work. He told me, and right now I can hear him say it as if he was standing beside my desk, “Chief, if I’d stared at that water any longer, I’d have been in it.” I guess finally he couldn’t stop himself.’

‘That’s the way it looks,’ Skinner admitted. ‘He was weighted down with a chain, so falling in isn’t an option.’

‘And he couldn’t have been mugged?’

‘It’s unlikely in that area, and even more so where he was found. If he’d gone in a bit up-river, maybe, but he wouldn’t have drifted with that chain round him. He went in where he was pulled out, and that was in a commercial dock that he could have seen from his hotel-room window.’

‘Sounds open and shut, then. You’ll autopsy, I take it.’

‘It’s mandatory.’

‘You’ll use your top pathologist?’

‘Be sure of it. I’ll copy the report to you.’

‘Thank you for that. What about your media? Has this hit the press yet?’

‘They know a body was recovered from the dock. That of itself isn’t big news, but when they find out who it is, it will be. As of now we’re hiding behind the standard line of not revealing the identity until next of kin have been informed. In this case, that means you; now that we’ve spoken I’ll authorise a formal statement through our communications manager.’

‘Could you see your way to doing something for Colin? In that statement could you call it accidental?’

‘I can do that. How it’s filed eventually isn’t my decision, but I’ve got some influence with the guy who’ll make it.’

‘Thanks. NYPD appreciates that.’ Chief Lovencrantz was silent for a moment. ‘I’m going to send someone over to Scotland, Chief Skinner, as an honour guard, to bring the body back home. It’ll probably be Inspector Nolan Donegan, the commander of Sixth Precinct; he was Colin’s best friend on the force, so I guess that’s appropriate.’

‘Fine. Once he’s booked his flight, let my office know his itinerary and I’ll have him received. Meantime, I’ll ask Mario McGuire, our man on the exchange between our forces, to take charge of his personal effects.’

‘Thanks,’ said Lovencrantz. ‘I’ll be in touch. Now I’d better go downtown for what will surely be my worst duty of the year, and break the bad news, personally, to the officers of the First Precinct.’

Skinner replaced the phone and sat for a while at his son’s desk, staring out of the window. ‘It’s a shit job,’ he murmured, ‘that can do that to a man. So why do I love it?’

He picked up the handset once more, found the head of CID’s cell-phone number in his notebook, and dialled it. ‘Dan. DCC here. What’s up?’

He listened as Pringle described the hand grenade that had been thrown into the midst of his investigation. ‘Bloody hell!’ he exclaimed, when he was finished. ‘Did you ever have one of those days, my friend, when all you wanted to do was go home, pack a suitcase and fuck off somewhere nobody could find you? Well, I’m at home right now, as it happens, and the temptation’s hard to resist. I will, though. Have you found a hotel?’

‘It wasn’t easy, but I’m putting them in the Alpha. I just hope my budget can stand it.’

‘You leave that with me. I’ll have a word with Jim Gainer; I’m sure the archdiocese can stand that tab. What’s your next move?’

‘I’ll be back at Fettes in ten minutes,’ said the chief superintendent. ‘Once I get there, I’ll call my opposite number on the Humberside force, and see what he can tell me about this drunk-driver hit-and-run.’

‘You’re making a big assumption there, Daniel,’ Skinner murmured into the phone.

‘What’s that?’

‘That the guy was drunk.’

‘You don’t think so?’

‘Call me a world-weary cynic if you will, but when I see two fatalities in two days, involving members of the same small group, “accidental” is not the adjective that jumps into my mind.’