Thursday legends

4

Once upon a time, North Berwick was known as 'the Biarritz of the North' — a term coined, or so Detective Chief Inspector Maggie Rose had always thought, by someone who had never been to Biarritz.

In fact the term came from the Victorian era, when the small East Lothian town had been the main weekend and holiday resort for the merchants and financiers of Edinburgh. Even at the dawn of the new millennium, its beach-front area was little changed from those days, although the modern community which unrolled from it had become a dormitory for the city and an internationally recognised golf resort.

Maggie Rose was standing at the front door of Shell Cottage, between two uniformed constables, when Karen Neville's Nova drew up behind the ambulance and police vehicles, and the Head of CID stepped out of the front passenger seat. It was forty minutes past midnight. 'Hi, Mags,' he said. 'Sorry I didn't get here sooner, but I decided to ask Karen to bring me out, rather than take a patrol car off duty. ACC Elder gets humpty about that sort of thing.'

He saw her eyes narrow slightly and guessed that the DCI thought that they had been together when she had called. 'It took her a few minutes to get down to pick me up,' he added, pointedly.

Maggie flushed slightly, embarrassed that her mind had been read. 'Hello, Karen,' she said, as the detective sergeant approached.

'The man inside,' Martin asked. 'Who is he?'

'His name's Smith, Alexander Smith, and he's the only elector registered at this address. There are some papers inside which told us that he was a police pensioner…' She paused as she saw the DCS's face change. 'You know him?'

'Of course I do. I succeeded him as Head of Special Branch. Don't you remember him? Alec Smith; he was a DCI when he chucked it, like you are now. Jesus, this puts a bit of a spin on it. Have you told the Boss?'

Red hair swung as she shook her head. 'No. I left that to your judgement.'

'Let's have a look at him first. Are Dorward's scene-of-crime team here yet?'

'No, but the MO's here. He's still inside. I came out for a breath of fresh air. I'd have opened the windows, but I didn't want to touch anything unnecessarily before Arthur's lot have been over the place.'

'Lead on then.' Rose nodded and turned to go back indoors. Before following, Martin paused for a moment to look at Shell Cottage. It was a two-storey house, built of locally quarried red stone, with a pan-tiled roof, and separated from the pavement by a narrow garden. Taller buildings stood on either side, their walls adjoining.

'I never knew Alec lived here,' he murmured, absent-mindedly, then stepped past the uniforms and into the house, into a narrow hall, Neville at his heels.

Maggie Rose was waiting for them at the foot of a flight of stairs. 'He's up there, in his living room, or study. Whatever you want to call it.' She looked at the Sergeant. 'Karen, it's bad,' she warned.

'I've seen death before,' the other woman replied.

'Not like this, you haven't.' Rose led the way upstairs. 'Trust Brian Mackie to be on holiday when we get one like this,' she murmured. Four doors opened off the upper landing, which was lit by a skylight. Three led to rooms overlooking Forth Street; a tall man in his early thirties stood outside the other.

'This is Dr Brown, the duty medical examiner,' said Maggie. 'Dr Brown; DCS Martin and Detective Sergeant Neville.'

The Head of CID shook hands with the doctor, noting that the fresh round face was a touch pale. 'Pleased to meet you. Been doing this job for long?'

'No,' the doctor replied. 'I've only just joined your panel.' Martin caught a light Irish accent. 'Right now, I'm having second thoughts.'

'Have you got a cause of death for us?'

'Heart failure, technically; it'll take a bloody good pathologist to tell you what the principal contributory cause was.'

'Fortunately,' muttered Martin, 'I know one… if I can persuade her to do it, that is. Let's have a look at poor old Alec, then.' He pointed to the fourth door. 'In here, yes?'

'Yes.'

He opened it, took a pace inside, then hesitated, as if he had been checked physically by the smell which greeted him, a mix of blood, faeces and something else. Experienced policemen will assert that terror leaves a stench of its own; Martin caught it as he looked at the man into whose shoes he had once stepped.

Alec Smith's study stretched the full width of the house. The wall facing the door seemed to be one big, north-facing window. Although its slatted, vertical blinds were closed, Andy could still see in his mind's eye the view outside; the wide beach, the harbour, the old granary, now converted into desirable apartments, Craigleith, the Bass Rock, and in the distance the outline of the East Neuk of Fife.

The lights were off, but the glow of the northern sky in midsummer was strong enough to imbue the blinds with a pale blue pallor, and to let the Head of CID, and Karen Neville as she stepped in behind him, see the full horror of what was in the room. A beam split the high ceiling, from gable to gable. Into its side, at around the mid-way point a big hook was sunk. Alec Smith was suspended from it, on the tips of his toes; he hung by his wrists, which were lashed together with blue nylon rope, tied in turn to the hook. He was naked and his back was to the door, his head lolling forward on his chest.

'Outside, Karen.' Martin's voice was little more than a whisper, but she obeyed, without argument. As the door closed again, he crossed the room and adjusted one of the blinds, allowing a little more light in. Then he took a deep breath and turned to take his first close look.

For all his experience, for all that he had seen, his stomach heaved instinctively, and he felt a beery taste in his mouth; he was glad that he had not switched on the array of lights which were positioned along the beam. Smith had been disembowelled; his entrails had burst from a diagonal rip across his abdomen and hung down to the floor. Andy clenched his teeth and looked closer. Behind the exposed, rumbling intestine, he could see that the man's genitals were badly burned, as were his nipples, and large areas of his chest and lower torso. A blowlamp, he guessed. Steeling himself once more, he raised the man's heavy head and looked at his face. The mouth was gagged with several strips of broad, brown gaffer tape, and the eyes had been burned out.

Quickly he let go and stepped back; as he did so the body swung round on the hook, and more of its guts slipped out. His hands felt odd, he realised. He looked at them and saw that they were covered in blood. Of course, Alec Smith had been grey, yet the body's scalp was dark, soaked, and matted. Suddenly, he felt himself going; he turned to the blind, and closed it once more then stepped back out of the room.

Dr Brown looked at him, knowingly. He held up his hands. 'Bathroom?' he asked. DCI Rose pointed to the middle of the three doors on, the other side of the landing.

A couple of minutes later he was back on the landing, knowing from the bathroom mirror that he was as pale as the medical examiner. 'Was he dead before all that stuff was done?' he asked.

'I very much doubt it,' the young doctor replied. 'There was a lot of bleeding from the abdominal tear, but less than you'd expect from the head wound. I'd say he was tortured, then battered about the head to finish him off… except he may actually have been dead by then.'

'Did you see any obvious weapons?' he asked Maggie.

'Not in there. I didn't look. I didn't spend any more time in there than I had to.'

'No more did I. Any signs of forced entry?'

'None at all that I could see.'

He turned back to Dr Brown. 'Time of death?'

The Irishman looked at his watch. 'Three to four hours ago.'

'When was he found?'

'Around a quarter to eleven,' Rose answered. 'A guy who knew him came out of the Auld Hoose along the road, and saw Smith's dog barking at the door, wanting in. The animal roams about North Berwick apparently. The bloke rang the bell, then tried the door and found that it was unlocked. There was a light on in the cellar; he called down there and upstairs, got no answer and went to investigate.

'When he found him he ran back to the Auld Hoose and raised the alarm. He also had a very large drink.'

'How did you get here so fast?'

'I was working late in Haddington, reviewing the paperwork on a real bugger of a retail fraud case. I'm proposing to start door-to-door enquiries first thing in the morning, and to try to track down everyone else who was in the Auld Hoose during the evening, to see if any of them saw someone arriving or leaving Shell Cottage.'

The Head of CID nodded assent. 'Do it; but you know already what we're likely to find. Sod all. This was savagery, yet it was cold and premeditated too; it was planned. Whoever set this up is unlikely to have arrived or to have stepped back out into Forth Street, right in front of a casual passer-by.'

'They wouldn't need to, sir,' said the DCI. 'There's a door to the front garden, and steps down to the beach.'

As she spoke, they heard footfalls on the staircase, and the red head of Detective Inspector Arthur Dorward appeared in view.

'You ready for us, sir?' he asked Martin.

'Aye, sure. I hope you're ready for this.' He nodded to

Brown. 'Thanks, Doctor. Welcome to the force. Mags, about the Boss, I'll tell him in the morning.' He glanced at Neville. 'Sergeant, let's get back up town.'

He followed his assistant back into the street and into her car. He asked her to roll down the windows. 'I need to get the stench out of my nostrils,' he explained, although she understood. Without warning, he shuddered, violently. 'Jesus, Karen. I knew that man in there.'

'Let's get out of here,' she said, pressing buttons to lower the front windows and let the cool night air flood into the car.

He thought of home, and imagined how it would be if, after all, Rhian was looking out for his return, her mind on unfinished business. He looked across to the driver's seat, a question showing through the strain in his eyes.

She nodded. 'Yes. My place.'