Thursday legends

50

'So this is where it happened,' said Skinner as he looked around the attic room. 'This is where the Diddler got done.' Detective Inspector Arthur Dorward's team had finished their crime-scene work; the bedding and the binding ropes had been removed for examination, but the bloodstains remained, disfiguring walls and ceiling.

'Aye, this is it, sir,' Pringle replied, gruffly. 'Come on and I'll show you how they got rid of him.' He led the DCC back down the stairs to the hall where he found a brass handle, recessed into the floor, and lifted up a wide trap-door, revealing another flight of steps. The sound of lapping water came up from below.

'Down there is a wee jetty place. He was shoved in the water from there in the middle of the night. The Water of Leith was still high and flowing fast last Friday night, after all that rain the week before. They probably thought he'd be out to sea by the next morning.'

"They were hopeful, then,' said the DCC. 'If he hadn't snagged under that bridge, he'd probably have been bobbing along through Leith when the dawn came up.

'You said there was no money in his wallet?' he continued.

'No, it was cleaned out. They left his cards, but took his cash.'

'His watch?'

'Wasn't here, Boss, and there was no personal jewellery on the body when we found him.'

'You keep saying "They", Dan. What evidence is there that there was more than one killer?'

'Nothing hard, Boss, but… There's the hair, right; the one caught in his dick. We've got that. We found more hairs on the towels in the bathroom, and Dorward's preliminary report says that they match that one and that they're all female. So the woman took a shower after having sex with Mr Shearer.'

'… and possibly also to wash off his blood.'

Pringle looked at Skinner, doubtfully. 'I just don't fancy a woman as the murderer,' he said. 'The battering that Mr Shearer sustained was ferocious.'

'Okay, but I ask you again. What evidence for this male accomplice?'

'Other people used that shower too, sir; males other than the victim. Let's say the woman set him up and someone else did the butchery. Arthur found several different hair samples down there, trapped in the wastepipe. Some belong to Mr Shearer and some will be from his son, but there are others. There's a possibility that some of them came from the bloke who used that baseball bat.'

'They won't help us find him though; not unless they match with something on the DNA database.'

'No, but we do have something that will identify him. Arthur's got a print from the bar of soap… over one of the blood streaks. Whoever left it did so washing off Mr Shearer's blood.'

'We haven't matched it, though?' 'No, not yet.'

'Could he tell anything from it?'

'It came from quite a big hand; that's all he could say.'

'A great help,' the DCC grumbled. 'What have you got to take this thing forward, Dan? I'm just about to meet Edith Shearer at the airport and I would like to tell her we're making progress without lying in my teeth.'

'McGurk's been interviewing Mr Shearer's partners, sir. One of them seemed to know a bit about his private life. He told Jack that he used this organiser thing — a palm-top, he called it — and that it had a lot of Mr Shearer's personal information on it. It wasn't here, so the man's taken McGurk into the office to look for it.

'There's the missing watch too; the Rolex. Ms Bryant, the secretary, said that it was bought from Laing's a couple of years ago. We're going round all the known receivers and the licensed pawn shops with a description. If anyone tries to flog it, we'll get them.'

Skinner looked at the Superintendent, scathingly. 'Do you really believe that, Dan?' he asked. 'You don't batter somebody unrecognisable just to steal a few quid and a watch that you'll probably get nicked trying to sell. That Rolex was only taken to fool daft coppers like you and me.

'You get those divers back out and have them look at the river out there. I would not be astonished if they found it stuck in the mud. If we really get lucky we'll find a palm-top as well. I remember that thing; the Diddler even brought it to the football sometimes. He didn't leave it in the office; no bloody way.'

'Could this have been business-related, sir. D'you think that could have anything to do with it?'

'Now you're on my wavelength, Dan. The Diddler was a fund manager, one of the very best. His death will have an incredibly damaging effect on Daybelge, and a whole flock of their business rivals could be in a position to benefit from it.

'I think you should get involved yourself in the interviews with these partners; but first, I would have a long talk with Janine Bryant. If anyone in the financial community had a real down on the Diddler, she'd be the person most likely to know.'

'Do you want to sit in, sir? You know the woman.'

'Thank you for that kind offer. I've just had a couple of days the like of which a man would go to jail to avoid, I am about to collect off a plane the grieving widow and daughter of a good friend of twenty years standing, to get them home before Alan Royston tells the world that he was battered to death, and you ask me if I'd like some more.

'I've been accused, properly of being a dodgy delegator; but this time, Dan, I'm going home to the arms of my wife and kids.'