Thursday legends

12

The key players in the Alec Smith investigation team were gathered in the command vehicle when the Head of CID entered, five minutes after ten on Sunday morning, with Karen Neville following behind: DCI Maggie Rose, standing nearest to the door, studying a report; Mario McGuire, Steve Steele, three detective constables… and Sarah Grace Skinner.

Martin glanced around the group and knew at once that they had been waiting for him. It had taken him longer than he would have liked to extricate himself from Rhian, even though he had postponed their promised discussion until the evening. He had called Karen, on a whim, reasoning that she had been in at the start of the investigation and therefore that she should be kept in touch with its progress.

There had been another consideration too. If he were to become heavily involved in the unpredictable affair of the Water of Leith floater, he might need her as liaison in both investigations.

'Sorry we're late, Mags…' he began.

'I know,' the DCI answered. 'Traffic. The Sunday drivers start early when the weather's good.' For a second he thought that there might have been a touch of sarcasm in her comment, but he rejected it at once. Maggie just wasn't made that way.

'I'm a bit surprised you're here at all, actually. I heard about last night's business on the radio. Has Dan made any progress?'

'He won't, until he gets an identification; and he's a long way off that. Missing persons drew a blank and so far we've had nothing from the fingerprints. Sarah's booked to do the post-mortem this afternoon.' He glanced across at her, while still speaking to Rose. 'I'm going to ask her if she can draw us a picture of the guy.'

'Eh?' The woman detective looked puzzled.

'His face was smashed in — and I mean smashed in. You'd have thought his head had been run over by a car.'

'What makes you think it wasn't?' asked Sarah, walking towards them.

'I don't know that it wasn't,' he conceded. 'You'll have to tell us for sure. But my guess is that if it had been, the whole skull would have been crushed. In fact, all the head injuries seemed to be facial.'

'We'll see about that. It's for later, though.'

'Sure,' he agreed. 'Maggie, this is your briefing. Do you want to begin?'

She nodded, sending a ripple through her glossy red hair. 'Yes, let's do that. Okay, everyone,' she called. 'Attention please. I've called this meeting to update everyone with progress in the investigation into the death of DCI Alec Smith. On the face of it, we haven't achieved a great deal over the last thirty-six hours, but everyone's worked hard to eliminate certain possibilities, if nothing else. We've also found out more about the way in which Mr Smith was killed.

'As you know, the person who killed Mr Smith fancied himself as an amateur film-maker. He used the victim's camcorder to make a very explicit movie, then left it for us to find at the scene. Some of you have viewed it… those who needed to. Those who haven't, but feel the need, may do so, but believe me, it won't add anything to your lives.

'The video didn't answer all our questions. Alec Smith was a very neat man. Everything in his house was carefully arranged; everything had a purpose, and when we found him, everything was in its place. So the first thing we wondered was how he was overpowered.

'DO Smith was a big man, yet he was trussed up like a turkey and hung up on a hook, ready to be butchered, and this was achieved without any sign of a struggle. A mystery, yes, but thankfully no longer. Dr Skinner has come up with the answer. Sarah, if you would.'

The pathologist pushed herself from the desk on which she had been sitting. 'Thank you, DCI Rose.' She looked around the group. 'Yes, a real puzzle, huh? Like the DCI said, the victim was a big man; in his fifties, but physically very fit. His legs were very powerful, indicating that he did a lot of walking, or cycling, or both. In addition to that, those of you who saw him at the scene will have observed that — apart from the injuries which were inflicted while he was being tortured to death — there were no other marks on the body.'

Detective Sergeant Steele raised a hand. 'What about the head injuries, Doctor? Couldn't he have been knocked out by a blow to the head, then strung up?'

'No. Don't believe the movies, Stevie. You don't just hit someone on the chin arid knock them out. Even in professional boxing it's unusual for someone to be rendered completely unconscious for more that a few seconds. It takes a hell of a blow to do that, a severe concussion, and generally speaking the bigger the person, the more force would be needed.

'If Mr Smith had been hit hard enough to allow his attacker to strip him naked, tie him, then haul his limp body up on that hook, I'd have been expecting to find a skull fracture and probably a significant injury to the brain. I would not have expected him to be as alert and aware as the man we saw at the start of that video.

'No. The head injuries were inflicted after death.'

Karen Neville raised a hand. 'Need there have been a struggle? Need he have been stripped? Couldn't this have been a sex game that turned into something else.'

'Wouldnae mind a game with her.' In the lull, Detective Constable Faxon's aside to Detective Constable Morrow was no more than a whisper but, as Sarah paused, it carried to the Head of CID. He shot DC Faxon a look that threatened to strip the flesh from his bones, but Karen cooled the moment with a laugh. 'You're not built for it, Constable,' she murmured.

'Shut up, Faxon,' snapped DCI Rose. 'Sorry, Sarah.'

'That's okay, boys will be boys.' She looked across at Neville. 'As a matter of fact, Sergeant, when I began my examination I considered that the likeliest possibility. It might even have explained why the genital area was burned to a crisp; to destroy the possibility of DNA traces remaining from a sexual encounter.

'But that wasn't the case. Mr Smith was subdued, and he was stripped. When I turned the body over, before beginning dissection, I found a puncture wound in the middle of the back. I examined this minutely and found fibres compressed into it. I sent them to Arthur Dorward at the lab and he confirmed very quickly that they came from the shirt which was found at the scene.

'Subsequent analysis of the blood and tissue samples showed that the victim was shot in the back with a tranquilliser dart. The substance used was Immobilon; it's commonly used in zoos and other places to sedate large animals. Whoever did it got the dose right; it would have knocked him down instantly and rendered him helpless for a few minutes, long enough for him to be made ready for what was to happen to him. If they'd used too much it could have killed him. Vets have been known to commit suicide with that stuff.'

'Does that mean that we're looking for James Herriot?' asked Steele, without a flicker of a smile.

'Detection is your field, Steve, but I'd have said that, at the very least, you should interview the local veterinarians to find out whether they have any stock discrepancies.'

'Would the local vets need stuff like that, Doctor? I mean, most of them just look after dogs and cats and hamsters and such.'

'And cattle and sheep, too,' Sarah responded, 'and horses, especially in a rural area like this.'

'I suppose so,' the young Sergeant conceded. He paused. 'All the things that were done to him; how much of that would he have been aware of?'

'You saw the video, remember; he was aware of all of it. No, we're talking about a tranquilliser, not an anaesthetic; he wouldn't have been numbed by the drug. This man must have suffered unimaginably. He died, eventually, from heart failure caused by the shock of disembowelment. Like I said, the head injuries came after that.' Sarah looked around the van, at eight shocked faces.

'A word about them. They would not have been fatal in any event. They were furious, angry blows, inflicted as a final act of, of… I don't know… savagery, that's all I can say. I do not always agree with my husband or with DCS Martin, but they're both right on this one. Whoever did this is a very dangerous person.'

Andy gazed at her. 'Singular, Sarah?'

'As far as I know. I've seen the video and the still photos taken at the scene. Now that we know how it was done, there is absolutely no evidence to indicate that there was more than one person involved. This was carefully planned and brutally executed; it didn't even require a great deal of strength: pure physics tells you that it would have been easy to haul Smith up on that hook, the way it was done.'

She stepped out of the centre of the group and sat once more on the edge of the desk.

'Thank you, Sarah,' said Maggie Rose. 'Are there any more questions for the doctor? If not, she has to leave us now.'

No-one spoke; Sarah waved a brief farewell, and stepped out of the van. Martin followed her outside. 'Before you go,' he said. 'About this afternoon's job; I know facial reconstruction's a science in itself, but if you could give me some idea of what this bloke might have looked like it might help us.'

She grinned at him. 'I'm not a complete ignoramus in that science. I did some studying while I was pregnant with Seonaid, and I've talked to Joe Hutchison about it. I couldn't build you a new head yet, but I'll give you some thoughts that are a little more than guesses… if only a little.'

As he turned to go back into the van, she laid a hand on his arm. 'Andy.' She was suddenly, untypically, tentative. 'Can I say something?'

'Always.'

'It's about you and Karen.'

He smiled gently. 'Bob's been filling you in on the office gossip. Or was it Alex?'

'No. You know Bob wouldn't do that. And what would Alex know? He mentioned something, that's all. I just wanted to say… and this is where it gets difficult… that if you like her… and I can tell you do… you shouldn't hold back from getting involved because of anything that's happened in the past… to Bob and me.'

He took her point at once. 'Listen, Sarah, one thing I like about Karen is that she doesn 't want to get involved. We're good friends away from the office, and -1 only say this because it's you — we've danced the occasional dance together, but it is a friendship rather than a relationship. Happily, that suits us both. It's a bit like Alex and I are now.'

She surprised him by frowning. 'As her step-mother, I have to tell you I'd be worried about you and her sleeping together just for old time's sake. Unless you were getting back together unconditionally, that wouldn't be good for either of you.'

He laid his big hands on her shoulders and looked her in the eye. 'We couldn't do that; we want different things from life and we both know it. As for the other, I hear what you're saying and I'll make sure that doesn't happen. Promise.' He laughed, suddenly. 'Christ, my love-life's chaotic enough as it is.'

'Then maybe Karen is what you need. Friendship should always come first, you know.'

'Ah, there's a slight impediment in the way of that at the moment.'

'Not Ruth McConnell, by any chance?'

He stared at her amazed, confused and guilty all at once. He had forgotten, completely, his date for the following Saturday night. 'No,' he said, 'not Ruth.' He paused. 'Well…'

She stood up on her toes and kissed him, gently, on the lips.

'Andy Martin, you are a one-off. Take a tip from Auntie Sarah. Find a nice girl, one you like and respect, settle down, have lots of babies, and get on with becoming a Chief Constable.'

'That's all wonderful theory, Auntie, but when you find three at the same time it becomes completely buggered up.'

She shook her head, smiling, and pushed him back towards the mobile headquarters. 'I give up. Go on, get back in there.'

She was almost gone when he remembered. 'Hey, Sarah,' he called after her. She turned. 'The floater p.m. this afternoon: would it be all right if a girl I know sat in on it? Her name's Rhian, she lives next door and she's a final-year medical student.'

'If you're vouching for her and you tell her to keep her voice off the tape, that'll be okay.'

'Great. Thanks. I'll tell her to ask for you at the Royal.'

Maggie Rose had continued the briefing in his absence. 'I've just been summarising the door-to-door results, sir. Nothing, I'm afraid.'

'… but you're not surprised.'

'No. Not really. It fits the man.'

'What do you mean?' he asked

'I mean that no-one knew who he was. Alec Smith is the most private man I've ever encountered. It's as if he was born to do the SB job.

'Everything we've been able to find out about him bears that out. We've interviewed all his neighbours in North Berwick; not one of them, not even the man who saw the dog and found the body could tell us anything about him. The woman two doors along didn't even know what he looked like.

'I've spoken to former colleagues of his. They all said the same thing. "Oh aye, Alec." But they couldn't recall any stories about his career, or even any anecdotes. You know what I mean; Dan Pringle got pissed at a CID dance a few years back and folk still talk about it. But Alec Smith never even went to the CID dance… not ever.

'The Chief's even been to see his ex-wife… his widow, I should say. They were never divorced. She told him that he was courteous, a good provider, not mean in any way; but she said that he was a remote man, quiet to the point of coldness, and that no-one — not even she, not even his children — ever really got to know him. Eventually she decided that she didn't like living alone, so she found someone else.'

'Someone knew him, though,' Martin countered. 'Someone got to know him well enough to want to burn his eyes out and spill his guts out on to his living-room carpet. We're going to have to find the real Alec for ourselves. I'm pretty sure that's the only way we're going to find out who killed him.'

'I agree with you. That'll have to be Mario's job. There are places he can go and things he can look at that are closed to us ordinary coppers. He's asked for Stevie as back-up.

'As for the rest of us; we'll follow up the only lead we've had so far; Sarah's post-mortem report. The DCs, Faxon, Morrow and Braid, have been told to get round all the vets in East Lothian.'

'We should check out Edinburgh too,' said the Head of CID. 'I'll have Sergeant Neville and DC Pye from my staff get that done and report back to you.'

He called across the room. 'You hear that, Karen? You and Sammy do the Herriot round in the city. See if you can find out what sort of weapon might have been used to shoot Smith.'