"I asked him once how he could be like that. He told me that he left that part of himself in the war. When I asked him what he did, he looked away from me, and he said, "I killed people, Robert". When I asked him where he fought, he wouldn't tell me at first, but I pressed him. Eventually he said that he'd been in France in 1942, and later in
Yugoslavia and Greece. You know what that meant."
He frowned. "When I got involved with MI5 and such, I asked our friend Adam Arrow in the Ministry of Defence to find out if there was a file on him anywhere. There is; it's among a batch that are still sealed, but Adam told me roughly what was in it. D'you know, he won the George fucking Cross, Andy, but he never told me. He must have thrown it away, because there was no sign of it among his effects after he died, nor any reference to it.
"You know what Adam's like, and some of the things he's done. Well, when he told me about my father… Man, there was respect in his voice, bordering on…"
The door opened, interrupting him. "Sorry to have taken so long," said
Rod Greatorix. "Come Monday morning, the buggers in this office are going to get a message about keeping a stock of tapes at all times." He laid a big black twin-deck tape recorder on the desk and stretched its lead across to a plug in the wall. Finally, he stripped the clear wrapping from two tapes and inserted them into the waiting slots.
"Okay," he announced, 'we're ready to go ahead. I am Detective Chief
Superintendent Roderick Greatorix, Tayside Police; also present is
Deputy Chief Constable Andrew Martin of this force, and Deputy Chief
Constable Robert Skinner, from Edinburgh. Mr. Skinner is here to volunteer evidence of…" He stopped in mid-sentence and glanced at Martin.
"Identification."
"Thanks… of identification, in respect of the current murder enquiry. Mr. Skinner?"
"Thank you, chief superintendent. I have to tell you that I have seen the body that was found today in Myrtle Terrace, Perth, and can identify it as that of Michael Niven Skinner, aged fifty-six years."
Greatorix stared at him in surprise. "What was your relationship to the dead man?" he asked, at last, remembering that he was taking a formal statement.
"He was my older brother."
"What do you know of his whereabouts in the period leading up to his death?"
"Nothing."
"When did you last see him?"
"Approximately thirty years ago."
"But you are certain of your identification?"
"Absolutely."
"Do you know of any associates he may have had in the period prior to his death?"
"No. I have had no contact with my brother throughout my adult life."
"Was he married?"
"Not that I know of. A GRO check will tell you, for sure."
"What happened to alienate you for so long?"
"I tried to kill him."
Andy Martin reached across and switched off the recorder. "For Christ's sake, Bob," he exclaimed.
"It's true," Skinner retorted. "I've lived with it ever since. Now switch that thing back on."
Martin restarted the recorder. "Interview temporarily interrupted," he said, 'but now restarted; same three people present."
"Thank you. As I was saying, the last time I saw Michael there was a violent dispute between us. I was sixteen years old, and at home. I heard my brother shouting, at the top of his voice, screaming obscenities. I found him in the kitchen, and I also found my mother.
Her nose was bleeding. Michael had demanded money from her, and when shie had refused him, he had punched her and tried to take it from her purse.
"I wasn't full-grown, but I was a big lad nonetheless. I went straight for him. As I've said, there was about ten years between us in age, and my brother had been taught how to look after himself in the army, but he wasn't in the best of shape, not any more. I remember he threw a couple of punches at me, but I just walked straight through them and nut ted him. He didn't shift off his feet, though, so I hit him. I remember it clear as day, straight fingers in the gut, and a punch to the left temple that almost broke one of my knuckles. He went down then, all right. He was spark out, and I wanted him to stay that way.
My brother had thumped, abused and threatened me for much of my young life, but he had run out of time. I had outgrown him. Still, I knew what he was capable of if I gave him half a chance. So I grabbed him by the tie as he lay there, and I hit him again, and again, and again.
"I reckon I'd have finished him, if it hadn't been for my father. He was a very strong man, and big as I was, he got behind me, put a full nelson on me, and lifted me clean off Michael. I struggled for a while, but I couldn't move; he could have broken my neck with that hold if he'd liked.
"Eventually, when he thought I'd calmed down, he let me go. But the thing was, I'd never lost it. I'd known what I was doing all the time.
The bastard had hit my mother and I was going to kill him. At the time
I was angry with my father because he didn't react just like I had, but later I came to realise that he couldn't let himself feel that way. I thought I was a hard boy then, but I found out later that I was nothing compared to what he had been.
"I was still ready to do for Michael, though, and my father knew it. So he called the police, as well as a doctor. Michael was taken to Law
Hospital; he was still unconscious when he left the house, but I heard that he came round in the ambulance. They kept him in for a couple of days, and then he was charged with assaulting my mother.
"My father got one of his partners to represent him. It was carved up between him and the fiscal that Michael would plead guilty and be remanded for psychiatric reports. They showed that he was legally sane, but had a serious personality disorder. He was also a chronic alcoholic. The sheriff read the reports and put him on probation, on condition that he enter a psychiatric hospital as a voluntary patient.
"He was in there for six months. I don't know what they did to him, but I'm told that it calmed him. They couldn't keep him off the drink, though. I don't think they even tried, since that kept him on an even keel too. My father found him somewhere to stay, a hostel in Gourock, well away from the family home, and well away from me. The only order he ever gave me in my life was never to see my brother again. He told me that he was afraid, for both of us, of what might happen if I did.
Michael was looked after, financially, to a modest extent. He was unemployable, so my father set up a trust fund for him, to keep a roof over his head, to feed and clothe him, and to keep him in a certain amount of drink… enough, but not enough to let him drink himself to death.
"And that is how my brother lived out his life for the last thirty years; until he fell in the Tay and drowned, or just maybe, until someone hit him over the head and chucked him in the river to die. It's ironic, isn't it, that the last two times I saw my brother he was laid out on a stretcher."
Bob Skinner looked at Martin and Greatorix, then nodded at the tape recorder. "You can switch that fucking thing off now," he said.
Neither of the other men moved, so he reached across himself and pressed the twin 'stop' buttons. The head of CID took the tapes from their slots. "I'll go and brief the team," he murmured, and left the room.
The silence he left behind was unbroken for around half a minute. "Why did he turn out that way, Bob?" Martin asked, eventually.
"As I said earlier, son, he was a flawed personality; he was weak and he was jealous. I've only ever tried to live up to my father, but I think that Michael had to out-do him. Mum and Dad wanted him to go to university… he was bright, he'd have made it no problem… but he insisted on joining the army, straight from school. I don't know if any strings were pulled, but he got into Sandhurst.