He admired the prospect for a few minutes, before turning back to eat, smiling, laughing, joking with his wife, making the small talk that loving couples do.
Finally, as they both pushed away their plates and turned their attention to their coffee, Sarah asked him, quietly, ‘So how was your morning, honey? What did the Lord A. have to say?’
‘ “Help, Mammy, Daddy”, just about covers it,’ Bob replied, dropping for a moment into his broadest Lanarkshire accent. ‘He’s deeply upset, as you’d imagine. He’s an honourable man is wee Archie. I feel heartily sorry for him.’
She glanced around, making sure that the table behind her was still empty. ‘Will he have to resign?’
‘No, he won’t have to, as such, but if we charge the man, I don’t think that anything or anyone will dissuade him from handing in his seal of office. I really hope that the bloke turns out to be innocent, but the way it’s going. .’
He stopped, abruptly. ‘Enough of Archie’s troubles, though. What have you and Professor Joe been up to?’
Sarah replaced her coffee cup in its saucer. ‘It was pretty routine stuff today,’ she said, ‘as murder autopsies go. You were right; the subject was a male from West Linton.’
‘Ryan Saunders.’
‘That was the fella. An otherwise healthy specimen, despatched from this life very neatly by a single gunshot to the back of the head.’ She reached her right hand behind her and touched the base of her skull with a finger. ‘There. It was fired at close range we believe. The hair was scorched around the entry wound.
‘You know,’ she mused, ‘I often ponder on the fact that a human life can be switched off in less than the blink of an eye by just a little piece of metal. Don’t you?’
He shook his head, firmly. ‘Nope. I do not. Nor should anyone, if their job is likely to put a gun in their hands. If you start brooding about things like that, one day you might delay in pulling a trigger, or you might not pull it at all. In that event, an innocent person could die. . maybe even you.
‘Ask Andy, ask Brian Mackie. . they’ve pulled that trigger. . and they’ll tell you the same.’
He frowned. ‘I would be interested, though, to know what was in the mind of the man who sent Ryan Saunders to wherever he’s gone.’
‘Can’t help you there,’ said Sarah, with a quick, wicked smile. ‘Saunders never said a word.’
‘Christ, this new job’s giving you a copper’s gallows humour.’
Suddenly she was serious. ‘Yes, it is, but you know why.’
‘Sure.’ A silence hung over the table for a second. ‘Do you ever dream,’ he asked, ‘of a day when we’ll be leading a life that isn’t wrapped around with the aftermath of brutality?’
‘Of course I do, and one day, darling, we will. Till then, someone’s got to do these things; better it’s people who are good at them, like we are.’
‘I suppose,’ he nodded. ‘So Saunders was a run-of-the-mill dissection then?’
She smiled again, and at once he was intrigued. ‘Almost, but not quite. There was one peculiarity.’ She reached back and touched herself once more, this time just below her right shoulder-blade.
‘Apart from the gunshot, there was a single knife wound, right there in the back. It was in a fleshy area just beside the spine, a surface wound, a bit less than an inch deep. Not life-threatening in any way.’
‘That’s odd. Were there any other marks?’
‘None, apart from severe bruising to the wrists. They were bound together, with considerable force.’
‘Wasn’t there an exit wound?’
‘No.The rifle was small calibre, and a soft-nosed bullet was used. Very efficient: it didn’t exit, just bounced around inside the skull and turned the brain to mush.’
‘Eh?’
‘Yup. Absolute soup, it was. When I removed the cranium it more or less ran out.’
Bob shuddered. ‘When will we have the report?’ he asked.
‘By close of play today. It won’t be complicated. Apart from having no brain left, Mr Saunders was in perfect health.’
47
‘I’m very pleased to hear that you’re staying with us for a few more weeks, Mr Ankrah,’ said Skinner. They were in the main communications room at Fettes, as the DCC finally completed the tour of the headquarters building which he had scheduled for the day of the visitor’s arrival.
‘It’s a privilege for me,’ said the African. ‘Already I am learning a great deal about how methodical your detective work is.’
‘Boring, some would call it,’ the DCC retorted with a grin, as they left the radio room and began the walk back up to his office. ‘It has to be, though. We lay heavy emphasis on the rights of the accused person, as well as the victim. Our prosecution service demands meticulous attention to detail in preparing a case for court, so we have to make sure that every witness is interviewed exhaustively, and that answers exist to every possible question which the defence might ask in Court.’
Ankrah nodded. ‘We aspire to such standards too in my country. But I envy you all these facilities and your many trained officers. We have to rely much more on our instincts.’
‘Good for you, mate,’ said Skinner, sincerely. ‘A nose for the job is just as important to us as all the stuff you see here. When detectives stop following their instincts, by and large they’re no good to me.’
As they reached the top of the stairs which led to the command corridor, Andy Martin was waiting for them. ‘This is the pathologist’s report on the West Linton murder,’ he said, holding up a document.
‘I know what’s in it,’ said Skinner, leading the way into his temporary office. ‘Sarah told me. The man was tied up and shot once in the back of the head.’
‘That’s right,’ the Head of CID confirmed, looking at Ankrah.
‘If it was Sturrock he was very efficient. One shot and the man was gone. The only oddity was a small stab wound in the middle of the back. I can’t figure out why he did that.’
‘I think I can tell you,’ said Kwame Ankrah, quietly, and for once unsmiling. The two Scots looked at him, surprised.
‘Before I came here,’ the Ghanaian began, ‘I paid an official visit to the People’s Republic of China. While I was there, my hosts were kind enough to take me to see an execution. Ten executions, to be more accurate.’ He grimaced, and shuddered slightly.
‘There was no ceremony about it. The condemned people. . two of them were women. . were forced to kneel, and shot in the back of the head with a single bullet, just like this man Saunders. But in that position, the natural reaction is to pull the head down and to cringe away from the bullet.
‘So, when the marksman was ready, another person would put a knife into the back of the criminal, very quickly and without warning. That made him straighten and pull his head up. As he did so, the executioner would fire.
‘They used big, heavy, soft bullets,’ he said. ‘Very messy, but they did not waste a shot.’
The Ghanaian shivered again. ‘I think perhaps, that Superintendent McGrigor should be looking for Mr Sturrock’s knife, as well as his gun.’
Skinner smiled at Martin. ‘I told you we could learn from this man. Kwame, welcome to the team, even if it’s only for a month. It’s good to have you around.’
48
‘You never know what’s going to happen in this job, do you?’ said Detective Sergeant Karen Neville. ‘One minute I was up before the Boss, thinking I might be put in charge of female traffic wardens in Newtongrange, or shoved into some other backwater, the next I’m in headquarters, working for the Head of CID.
‘Is Mr Skinner always as unpredictable as that?’
Maggie Rose, not given to spontaneous laughter, chuckled nonetheless. ‘The day the Big Man becomes easy to read, he’ll chuck it.You’ve only seen unpredictable so far: wait till you come across volatile.’