Stay of Execution

58

The top hinge of the front door squeaked. It had done for the last year, and every two months Bob had promised that he would buy a new tin of Three-in-One and fix it. On the odd occasion, though, it served him well.

He checked his watch: the time was ten past one. Killing the insomniac’s movie on BBC2 with his remote, he walked into the hall with a glass in each hand. One contained red wine; the other, which he handed to Sarah, was a brandy goblet. ‘That’s been getting warm for the last hour and a half,’ he told her.

Dropping her briefcase where she stood, she accepted it, gratefully, and took a sip. ‘I told you not to wait up,’ she said, ‘but I’m glad you did.’

He led her through into the darkened garden room, and dropped into a couch, looking out of the window at the lights of the Fife towns, across the river. ‘Sleep wasn’t an option, not knowing what you’ve been doing.’

‘Did you do your part?’ she asked, as she joined him.

‘Not personally, but it’s taken care of.’ He glanced at her as she sat beside him. ‘So what’s your story?’

‘You’re not going to like it. It’s all subject to confirmation by test, but I don’t believe that Inspector Mawhinney drowned in the Albert Dock. When I checked the stomach, there was dirty, oily water present, and other detritus that almost certainly did come from there, but that need not have been swallowed. It was also present in the large airways, but it need not have been inhaled. It wasn’t in large quantities in the stomach, and it wasn’t present in the further reaches of the bronchus. You saw the water I aspirated with that syringe; it was clear, and it was abundant in the lower areas of the lungs. It may also have diluted the dock water in the stomach. Bob, I think that he was drowned in fresh water and was put in the dock afterwards, weighted down with that chain to make him sink.’

He leaned back and let out a huge sigh. ‘You’re right about one thing, without any lab confirmation. You haven’t exactly made my night. Was there anything else?’

‘Yes. There were signs of bruising to the shoulder girdle and the neck. That can happen occasionally in drowning fatalities, but usually it’s caused by the victim struggling in the water prior to death. Muscles can even rupture in those circumstances and you can find haemorrhaging, but not in this case. Here, the bruising could have been caused by his being restrained and held under water.’

‘Christ on a bike,’ Skinner muttered. ‘You’re saying that someone snatched the guy off the street and drowned him in a bath or something similar.’

‘That is my hypothesis.’

‘Not your everyday mugging, is it?’

‘Not even close.’

‘What are you thinking?’

‘Mafia?’ she murmured. ‘Has he upset someone in New York?’

‘And been taken care of over here, you mean, in the hope that it would raise less heat?’

‘The trip was publicised.’

‘The Mafia don’t rely on the papers,’ he told her, ‘they bribe informants; but essentially you’re right. I tell you, love, the sooner the Pope gets here the better. I’m going to need divine assistance to sort out all the mess that’s landed in my lap in the last twenty-four hours.’