‘Sounds like he put on a show for you, you big clown. What the f..., sorry miss; what were you thinking about, staying in here alone with that man?’
Strang turned back to Rachel. ‘McCann’s a clever bastard. Don’t read too much into that threat, Miss Jameson. He’ll be heading away from you as fast as he can. How much money did he take?’
Rachel looked at her wallet. ‘I’m not sure exactly; around sixty pounds, I think. No more, certainly. At least he’s left me my rail ticket.’
‘Better use it, then. Formal statements can wait; for now, just you get straight home. As I said, I’m sure you’ll be okay, but I won’t take any risks. I’ll have two of our lads run you to Queen Street and put you on the train. Then, just to be sure, I’ll get on to Edinburgh and make sure that they keep a watch on your house. They’ll love me for that, with all the bother they’ve got, but let’s just play safe.’
Two young, courteous, uniformed policemen drove Rachel to Queen Street rail station, off George Square. They parked the police car at the taxi rank and made to get out, but she stopped them.
‘Thanks, boys, but I’d rather not be escorted on to the platform. The train should be in by now anyway.’
The policemen looked doubtful, but after a few seconds’ discussion the driver smiled at her.
‘Okay, miss. But don’t tell anyone. We were given strict orders, see.
It was 5.20 p.m. The Queen Street to Waverley service runs on the half-hour at peak times. On occasion it falls behind time. There was no train waiting on platform six.
Rachel crossed the forecourt to the newsstand, and bought an Evening Times.
‘JURY OUT IN RAPE TRIAL,’ the front page banner headline blared at her She saw her own face staring out from the page. Scottish law forbids the publication, until after the verdict, of a photograph of any accused person. The Times picture editor had obviously chosen the stock shot of the attractive little advocate as an alternative.
In the distance, Rachel could see the lights of an approaching train, gliding in slowly and quietly. She walked towards platform six.
She stopped after only a few yards, just past the big hydraulic buffers. As she glanced again at her Times and at the stop press, which, badly out of date, proclaimed, ‘McCann jury still out’, most of her fellow passengers rushed past her. No one noticed the little lady in the dark overcoat, from which a high, white-ruffled collar peeked.
It was the flash of that white collar, as much as anything, that caught the driver’s eye. As he said later, it was winter, it was after dark and the station lighting was patchy. People were rushing, and he was concentrating on applying the final touch to the brakes, to stop the train just short of the buffers.
And in any event, even if he had seen Rachel earlier, falling in front of his train, he could have done nothing but try not to listen to the thump as the body went under the wheels.
18
Detective Sergeant Brian Mackie, Andy Martin’s provisional replacement as Skinner’s personal assistant, his arm still in a sling after his mishap two nights before, received the request from Inspector Strang of Strathclyde CID, that officers be assigned to protect Rachel Jameson.
Skinner grumbled, but ordered Mackie to arrange for two plainclothes officers, one of them a woman, to meet Miss Jameson from the 5.30 Glasgow train on its arrival at Waverley, and to take her home. He instructed also that a uniformed officer should be stationed at her front door until further notice.
‘And make sure that she’s advised to take a taxi whenever she goes out.’
Forty-five minutes later Mackie was back to tell him of Rachel’s death.
Skinner had a perfectionist’s hatred of shoddy work. ‘They’ve had a great day in Glasgow, Brian, have they not. First they let a newly convicted man do a runner from the High Court itself. Then they ask us to protect a threatened woman and allow her to go under a train before they can hand her over!
‘What the hell happened?’
Mackie looked at his note of Strang’s second telephone call.
‘Nobody seems to have seen very much, sir, not even the engine driver. There were a lot of people milling about at the time. But,’ he paused, ‘the Transport Police have a report of someone answering McCann’s description running from the station just after the incident. And, according to Inspector Strang, McCann could have seen the rail ticket in her wallet when he stole that cash from her.
‘Mind you, sir, Strang said they think it was probably suicide. With this threat coming on top of Mortimer’s death, they think she probably jumped.’
Skinner shook his head. ‘Brian, this is Strathclyde we’re talking about. Strathclyde CID could find a man nailed to a cross in the middle of Glasgow Green, with a crown of thorns on his head, and they’d still not rule out suicide. As for the Transport Polis, show them a picture of a dog and they’ll start barking themselves. They heard that McCann was on the run; they’ll have seen a dozen McCanns in that station before the day’s out.
‘Think about it; there’s McCann, sent down for fourteen long years, then, thanks to the biggest stroke of luck he’s ever had in his life, he finds himself on the street half an hour later, still in his civvy clothes, with sixty quid in his hand. The last place he’s going to head for is a bloody railway tation. He’s stowed away on a cargo boat by now, or hidden himself in a container lorry heading south, probably one with Continental plates, trusting his luck to hold out so that they don’t find him at sea and chuck him over the side, or that he isn’t picked up by the customs at Hull or the Channel.’
But even while he scoffed at Strathclyde’s suicide theory for Mackie’s benefit, he admitted grudgingly to himself that there might be something in it.
The incident report which was telexed to Edinburgh seemed to back that up. Rachel had just lost a high-profile trial. She had been badly frightened by McCann. She had reacted badly, Strang had reported, to his suggestion of police protection and had insisted that her escort allow her to go to the train alone. And thought Skinner, she had just lost her boyfriend in the most gruesome way imaginable. The mental picture of Mortimer’s mutilated remains was still with him when he read the preliminary medical report and saw, to his horror, that Rachel Jameson too had been decapitated.
One thing did seem certain from the report. This had been no accident. The engine driver’s fleeting recollection, and the position of the body made it clear that the woman had not stumbled and fallen. She had travelled outwards from the platform with some momentum, either having been pushed, or, as Skinner finally conceded was likelier, having jumped.
But he hated coincidence. Two people, romantically and professionally linked, die violently within days of each other, murder certain in one case and in the other, a possibility. Yet if they were both murdered, where was the link? And if there was a link between them, what about the other three killings?
Skinner hung on tenaciously to the idea of a connection. A nagging feeling that he had missed something important in the Mortimer enquiry, remained with him. But reluctantly, his mind began to separate Rachel Jameson’s death from the others, expecting soon to see a witness statement confirming that she had jumped in front of the train.
He wrote, Noted, RS.’ on the Strathclyde telex and tossed it into his filing tray.
19
Two days and two miserable, barren night watches later, Skinner attended the first of the funerals. Mike Mortimer was cremated at Old Kilpatrick, a bleak post-war funeral factory standing behind Clydebank, where staff struggle with a crowded timetable to allow families to bid a dignified farewell to their departed. Skinner hated crematoria, the speed of the service, the euphemism of the curtains closing over the coffin, the theatricality of it all. Once he had said to Alex that when the time came for him. he was to be planted, like his wife, in the old-fashioned way in Dirleton Cemetery.