But an advocate does not have the option of shunning such a creature Justice and the Faculty regulations demand that any person on a criminal charge should have the benefit of the best available defence. Rachel’s performance in the Chinese trial had added to her reputation as a High Court pleader. Her clerk’s recommendation that she should be given the McCann brief was sound and natural, and she was available.
All that day, as the Advocate Depute had extracted skilfully from the terrified victim, an account of the night that had changed her life, Rachel had looked on, hardening her heart against thoughts of sympathy. Occasionally, she had glanced across at her client. All the while that the woman stood in the witness box, McCann had kept his dark gaze fixed upon her. The victim’s evidence in chief had ended with the day’s session. Tomorrow Rachel would cross-examine.
Normally she would have been preparing her examination in her mind. Instead, as she soaked her neat little body in her pink bathtub, sipping occasionally from a gin-and-tonic on the cabinet by her head, Rachel wept softly.
Everything about the trial reminded her of Mike Mortimer, with whom she had made love in the same bathtub only a week before. It reminded her of his style of advocacy, direct, yet sympathetic, in difficult situations like the Chinese trial, where he had been as kind as possible to the parents of the victim, while fighting as hard as possible for his client.
She knew that in the cross-examination to come she would be unable to mix consideration with effectiveness. That poor woman was in for a hard time, just as hard as Lord Orlach, the trial judge, would allow.
And even as she planned her strategy for the next day, the secret fear which had been growing in her all afternoon came to the surface. The Crown’s proof was strong, but like all rape trials, the issue hinged on the credibility of the woman in the witness box, and on the jury being left in no doubt that she had been violated.
That woman today was a lousy witness, thoughtRachel. It was natural enough, but if she was scared under the kindly eye of the old judge, and under the protection of the Advocate Depute, how would she react when Rachel went on the offensive in cross-examination?
Suppose, just suppose, that she won a Not Guilty, or even just a Not Proven, the third option in Scotland’s unique trinity of verdicts. The animal McCann would be out on the street, to rape again undoubtedly, and in all probability, to kill.
It was a dilemma which all advocates know they may have to face. It was worst for women counsel in rape trials. But even as the tears for her lost Mike trickled down her face, Rachel had no doubt. She would go all out tomorrow. Justice demanded it. That was what the job was about.
As the bath water cooled, and as the ice melted in her gin-and-tonic, another worry, forgotten earlier gnawed its way through to the surface of Rachel’s thoughts. It centred around that stony, impassive Japanese figure sat on the back row of the public benches.
‘What the hell was he doing there?’ Alone in her bathroom, she asked the question aloud, as if Mike was still there to answer.
14
The night’s stake-out in the Royal Mile produced nothing, or almost nothing. At 4.15 a.m. an armed detective constable came within two seconds of opening fire on a black cross-bred Alsatian Labrador which had ignored three commands to stand still in a dark corner of Gladstone’s Land.
At 5.45 a.m. a uniformed policeman, the giant found by Martin to test the cutting edge of the weapon in the Mortimer killing, snapped a powerful armlock on a dark-suited man in Campbell’s Close, dislocating the man’s elbow. Detective Sergeant Brian Mackie, a firearms specialist called in for the night patrol, was taken for treatment to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary’s casualty department.
As he switched off his radio after standing his men down for the night, Skinner muttered to Martin, ‘Keystone bloody coppers, that’s us!’
They were wearier than their men. They had been on the move for more than twenty-four hours, having broken off only for a quick meal.
‘You know, Andy,’ said Skinner, trapping a butterfly prawn with his chopsticks, ‘the police who investigated the original Ripper murders claimed afterwards that they sensed when he had stopped. They said that the evil went out of the air in Whitechapel. I’ve always thought that was a load of fanciful shite. I’ve never accepted the Ripper mystique. He was just another bad bastard who didn’t get caught… Or maybe he did!’
Martin’s eyebrows rose over tired eyes. ‘Oh yes, who do you think did it then?’
Skinner smiled. ‘The novelist in me has always reckoned that it was the Duke of Clarence, and that the whole thing was hushed up. The Home Office was very careless with a hell of a lot of files, mind.
‘But like everyone else who hasn’t seen those files, I haven’t a clue. I’ll tell you what I wish, though. I wish I had ten per cent of all the money that’s been made by clever people writing books and making films about old Jack. If he’d been nicked, tried and topped, and had turned out to be just another run-of-the mill sadist with a taste for human kidneys, then a whole industry would never have been born. But going back to what I said earlier. I’ve got a funny feeling that we won’t see this fella back here.’
Martin looked at him in surprise. ‘What, are you saying that “the evil has gone from the air”?’
He shook his head grimly. ‘No, it doesn’t smell like that. This guy’s evil, okay. But not the black cloak, horns and tail type. At the moment we’re the ones with tails. The bugger’s got us chasing them and somewhere, he’s loving it and laughing at us.’
Martin did not bother to ask Skinner about the basis of his belief. He knew that his style was to drum information, logic and careful analysis into all of his troops. Then every so often, if they were stuck in a rut and going nowhere on an enquiry, he would project himself somehow into the mind of the villains, follow a hunch and break the deadlock.
‘So what about the stake-out, boss? Do we give it a couple of nights and scale it down?’
Suddenly Skinner was vehement. ‘No. We’ve got a public duty, Andy. We keep them up, full strength, armed men and all, and we maintain them at that level for at least a week, or until I’m proved wrong and we nab this bastard. But not you, Andy, not you. I’ve got something else in mind for you. I’ll tell you tomorrow.’
And after their night on the streets, as they sat in the High Street Office nursing huge mugs of hot tea, Skinner kept his word.
‘You know Alec Smith? He’s handing in his papers. Retiring after the New Year. He’s landed a job with one of the big private security firms as their head bummer in Scotland. A fancy salary and a Jag, to top up his pension. I want you to take his place as Head of Special Branch.
‘Mind you, this isn’t an order. You’ve got to be willing. It means a rigorous vetting by outside people, and maybe even a few questions you won’t like, but you’ll understand why they’re necessary. If the process seems like an invasion of privacy, maybe the promotion will make up for that.’
Skinner paused and looked Martin in the eye. ‘Well, do you want the job?’
Contrary to popular myth, there is no centrally controlled organisation called Special Branch, with tentacles all over the nation, run from a false-front office by a man called X or Y or even M. But within each police force there are certain detective officers whose duties are not connected with routine police work, or in the normal course of events with the investigation of crime. Special Branch officers are responsible on their own territory for the physical security of royal and political VIPs adding manpower and local knowledge to the permanent protection staff.