Skinner's Trail (16 page)

Thirty-five

‘
Oh, Bob. Poor Gloria, there are so few people.'

`That's the way it is when they bury a suicide. Folk are embarrassed, they disapprove, they don't want to be involved. There's no church service either, no requiem mass for the sinner. I'm glad the priest's turned out, though. Sometimes they refuse.'

Sarah spotted a familiar face wearing a look of unfamiliar grimness. 'What's Carlos doing here?'

The UBET asked him to represent them. You know, the local business organisation. Santi was a member. Kath said he'd be here when she arrived to baby-sit.'

They were about to join their friend when the cortege — the hearse and a single car — swung into the little walled cemetery on the road from L'Escala to Villadamat. Gloria's father was in the front seat of the black Mercedes. When the car came to a stop not far from the new grave, he jumped out first, opening the rear door and holding out his hand to assist his daughter as she emerged. Two other women, both middle-aged, rose with dignity from the other side. One bore a striking resemblance to Gloria. The other, Bob and Sarah each assumed correctly, was Santi's mother.

The graveside service was mercifully brief. Although Bob could not follow much of it, he was aware that the priest had
little to say, and suspected that he had never met the man he was burying. He offered a few words of comfort to Gloria, pronounced the rites, and the coffin was interred in a silence broken only by the sobbing of three women.

The small congregation began to disperse at once. Carlos had not noticed the presence of Bob and Sarah, and when they turned to look for him again, they saw him hurrying off. They were about to follow when Gloria's father approached. `Senor, Senora, you will join us at the villa to toast Santi?' He spoke to Sarah in Spanish.

`Thank you, Senor Gomez, but we must go back home to our baby.'

Bob cut in. 'Why don't you go for a while? I'll drop you off and then I'll relieve Kath. I'm sure Senor Gomez will run you home.'

`Okay. Maybe Gloria could use seeing someone her own age today. To cope with the aftermath of this, she'll need all the friends she can get.'

Thirty—six

‘
Do these really come from Scotland?'

`Razor shells? Yup. There's every chance that these came from our west coast. We ignore them, and the Spanish treat them as a delicacy. But that's my fellow countrymen for you. If you can't serve it with chips, salt and vinegar, or roll it in breadcrumbs and call it scampi, they're not interested.'

It was mid-evening, late enough for
buenas tardes
to have become
buenas noches
, but far too early for adios. Bob and Sarah were finishing a tapas supper in the marble-lined bar of El Golf Isabel, one of their favourite old-town restaurants. Jazz was asleep in his buggy behind them — two hours away, Sarah estimated, from his next feed. On the next day, she had determined, she would begin to supplement his diet with rusks.

Apart from Navajos, the distinctive Spanish name of Scotland's secret export, the plates spread before them included small portions of mountain ham, meatballs, small green peppers fried in olive oil, and a delicious spicy chicken dish. Finally they were finished, and Romeo, the olive-skinned Italian waiter, appeared to clear their table. As they had noticed earlier, he seemed to take his name to heart, and his excessive attentions to Sarah, and her cleavage, pushed Bob's annoyance level close to breaking point. She, seeing the
gathering frown, laughed as her admirer retreated to the kitchen to fetch two Creme Catalan desserts. 'Don't worry about him, Bob. It's good for a girl's morale, especially when she's just had a baby.'

`I'm not worried about him. Not one bit, but he should be bloody worried about me!' He spoke just loudly enough for his words to carry across to the kitchen area.

She laughed again at his annoyance, until eventually Bob's resolve cracked, and his grin returned.

`That's better. I'm sure he's got the message. This was a really nice idea of yours, darling, after the gloom of this afternoon.'

`How was it at the villa?'

`Grim. Poor Gloria; that's a really bad scene, you know. Her father had to give her some bad news from Santi's insurance company. They're not paying out on his life policy.'

Bob shook his head sadly. 'To be expected with a suicide. Some do, depending on the circumstances; some just point
-
blank refuse. Sounds like Santi was with one of the latter kind, for them to have reached that decision so quickly. There'll be no chance of them changing it either.'

'I know. It'll mean that Gloria will have to sell the villa as fast as she can, and in a buyer's market too. She may not even get what they paid for it. She's got very little money, and she already has a spare-time job keeping books for a man who owns a few shops. She thinks that, until the villa's sold at least, she'll have to take a third job, at weekends. Bar work, cleaning, anything she can find. She'd like to go back to Tarragona, but she can't do that until the villa is sold.'

`Yeah, it's a damn shame. Too bad the selfish bastard didn't think about that before he topped himself.'

`Maybe he did, and it was still too much for him to face. A million pounds is a lot to have stolen. He'd have done twenty years.'

`Then that's what he should have done.'

Sarah changed the subject. Did you call Alex to ask about her last exam?'

`Yeah. Answerphones were on at her place, and at ours, so I left a message on each. You know our kid — she'll be out on a shopping binge to celebrate.'

Sarah smiled. 'Yes. Something like that.'

As Romeo returned with their desserts, Bob looked up, raising an eyebrow as if t
o
say 'Just try it, son.' But the Italian's ardour was stilled. They ate in silence for a minute or two. Eventually Sarah paused, putting down her spoon.

`What makes it even tougher in a way is that apparently Santi's policy had one of those double-indemnity clauses in it. Suicide, zilch — but if he died by accident or some other violence, it would pay out twice the value. Forty million pesetas: two hundred thousand pounds' She wrinkled her nose. 'Are you sure you couldn't prove he was murdered, Bob?'

He shook his head. 'Sarah, love, much as I'd like to help poor Gloria inherit some big bucks, if I could do that, then at the same time I could turn that
agua minerale
of yours into Gran
Vina Sol
. There is nothing, but nothing, for me to go on, and I am not here to waste our time.'

Thirty-seven

T
he weather held, as their holiday resumed its normal course.

The weaning of Jazz took place successfully, and quickly he developed an appetite for rusks to equal that for the natural element of his diet. And as his input became more varied, so inevitably did his output, introducing Sarah — and Bob once more — to those joys of parenthood which call for a little dedication.

With the Pitkeathly affair and Santi Alberni's suicide behind them, they began to do some of the things which had been on their original agenda. On the Thursday, as their first week at the villa drew to an end, Bob wrote productively in the morning. Later they visited Pals and its ceramic shops, and called for a late lunch at Mas Pou, a celebrated Catalan Tipique restaurant in the distinctive circular village of Palau Sator. Next morning, Bob did something which even a few months earlier would have seemed unthinkable. He telephoned Proud Jimmy and secured his chiefs agreement to the proposition that, since much of his first week had been spent effectively on police work, he would write it off as holiday, and so would delay his return to Fettes by a further seven days.

`Of course, man,' his grizzled boss had said. 'Get to know
your new son. Mackie tells me you got a good result in that business.'

`Good for whom, Jimmy? Pitkeathly's got his few quid back, Ainscow's down a million, Alberni's done himself in, and his widow's penniless. Apart from that, everyone's laughing.'

`Aye, well, that's the job sometimes, Bob. You know that. Now enjoy yourself!'

Thirty-eight

‘Y
ou know Bob, my friend, in the work I do with the Spanish tourist industry I have been all over the world. America, Sri Lanka, Roma, South Africa, I have seen them all. But, of all the places I have seen, this here, in L'Escala, on the terrace outside our restaurant, looking across the marina to the town and to the mountains, this is my favourite place of all.'

Bob leaned back in his seat and took a deep mouthful of his beer. 'I can see why you say that, Carlos. It's beautiful all right. But, you know, you're really saying something else. Nowadays I have three homes. One here that I bought with — and for —my daughter. One in Gullane that I bought with, and for, my first wife. And one in Edinburgh that I bought with, and for, Sarah. And I'll tell you what's my favourite place. It's the terrace in Puig Pedro, looking out at the same mountains as you do. Or it's Gullane beach frozen solid on a bright cold January morning. Or it's the tree in our back garden in Edinburgh, where Jazz's swing is going to be. It's wherever they are,' he pointed behind him, over his shoulder with his left forefinger, to where Sarah stood in the shade of the awning, holding Jazz to her brown shoulder, and speaking with Kathleen, 'those two; here, there or anywhere, that's my favourite place. And when you sit here in the sun and look out, you're really looking over your shoulder, too, at Kathleen and
the boys. That's your favourite place: the one you have with them. And for all you'd admit it, suppose it wasn't here, but in some back street in Girona — that's still how it'd be.'

The two men sat in silence for a while. Then Carlos turned and smiled, a sly smile filled with fun. 'Yes, and I suppose I can see a day when I will be here, but only in an urn behind the bar, and the place will still go on without me!'

`That's right, but it won't be just any old urn. It'll be shaped like the European Cup, and draped in Barcelona ribbons!'

The howls of their laughter startled Jazz, and drew an insistent `Sshh' from Sarah.

`Ah, we mus' keep down the noise,' said Carlos. 'Tell me, that Alberni business. Is all finished now,
si
?'

Skinner nodded. 'Yes, it's a suicide, and that's how it's been put away in the box.' He offered no detail on the investigation, nor even hinted that one had taken place.

`Suicide. That is very bad, very, how you say, un-Catalan. Even from Tarragona, Alberni was still Catalan. We are not suicidal people. We are excitable, yes. We are happy and sad, like others. But suicide, that is not the way with us. Your Scandinavians, they are so cold they kill themselves all the time! Your French, they are so miserable and always in love. You British, not you but you know what I mean, you are so discontented. But we Catalans, we are happy people, not suicidal. We support the greatest football team in the world, we have a beautiful warm country, we love our wives, we spoil our children. And, when we are not eating them, we are even kind to animals'

Skinner took another mouthful of beer as he considered the point . . . and choked. Wide-eyed, he sat bolt upright in his chair, and slammed his glass back on the table. As Sarah,

Kathleen and Carlos stared at him in alarm, he jumped from his chair and clasped his hands together as if in triumph.

`Carlos, that's it! That's what was wrong. Alberni — he didn't feed the dog! Sarah,' he called out, 'he didn't feed the bloody dog!'

She looked across at him, bewildered. 'Yes, but—'

`Look, he was thoughtful enough to make his wife breakfast. He cared enough for the grass to switch on the lawn sprinkler. But he died and left his dog — Romario the footballer, his dog, not Gloria's; she told me how much he cared for it — left it howling, with licked-clean, bone-dry food and water dishes. That doesn't fit. That's what's wrong with Alberni's death. Now I've got a reason to look into it some more! That guy was done in, and I will prove it. Gloria's insurance company had better get its chequebook out.

`And you, Carlos, can buy in a few litres of
aqua minerale
, and look for a saving on the wine bill!'

Thirty-nine

‘W
here did you put those notes?'

`They're in the
escritura.
You bring Jazz in, I'll go fetch them.'

Skinner unfastened the straps of his son's car cradle and carried him, asleep, through to his cot. As he went through to the living room, the motorised shutters were rising slowly, and light was advancing into the room from the patio doors towards the centre. Sarah stood waiting for him, a notebook in her hand.

`Good job you took those.'

`Come on, Bob, it's a reflex with me at autopsies. It helps keep my mind on the job. Do you think I never get squeamish over some of the things I see. Remember that time in Advocates Close?'

Skinner looked at her in silence. 'Then you do a hell of a job of covering it up, my darling — even from me. The boys and girls all think you're superhuman, the way you've kept your cool, especially among some of the messes we've had to clear up.'

She flicked the notepad open. 'Here they are. Don't know what good you expect they'll do, though. Just an hour ago we were both agreed it could only be suicide. Are you sure you aren't just grasping at this dog theory like a straw, to humour me?'

`Come on, girl, what sort of a copper do you think I am?

Listen, I was there. I saw that dog. It's a big friendly mutt, but when I got there it seemed terrified — of me. Barking, snarling, all the rest. As soon as it saw I was a friend, it was fine. It more or less pointed me, believe this or not, towards the garage. And those feeding bowls were bone dry.'

`Couldn't they have dried out in the sun?'

Skinner shook his head emphatically. 'They were well in the shade. Believe me. That was a friendly, well-fed, well-groomed animal, treated kindly, just like Carlos said. And it was Santi who treated it that way. Gloria doesn't like dogs. Believe me, he thought as much of the mongrel as he did of his grass. If he switched on the lawn sprinkler, he'd have fed the dog too . . . unless someone stopped him. So, Professor, my forensic genius of a wife, since what I'm saying is what happened, I want you to work out, from those notes, a picture of how it was done. Once you've done that, we'll get around to finding out who did it, and why.'

Sarah looked at him doubtfully. 'Christ, you don't want much. You want me to make bricks, give me some straw. There ain't none in here that I can see.'

`Nonetheless, let's go for it.'

`Okay. Let's go outside.' Sarah led the way outside to the patio. Bob made a diversion via the kitchen to fetch two beers. They sat side-by-side at the white table, facing the mountains. Sarah read through her notes, then read them again.

`Cause of death,' said Bob. 'Is there any chance that he was strangled manually by someone, and then hung up there as dead meat.'

Sarah shook her head. 'Absolutely no indication of any other ligature being applied. Remember, too, the strands of rope under the fingernails.'

`That's true. And there was that oily footmark on the chair, matching the smear on Alberni's shoe. So let's take that as certain: he died by hanging. So someone strung him up. How many would it take?'

`At least two, obviously. To control him, and to hoist him up on to that chair.'

`Alberni wasn't very big, but he'd have put up some sort of a struggle. Surely they'd have had to pop him one to keep him quiet. There were no
other
signs of injury, no bruising, no bang on the head?'

`No, absolutely none. We looked, believe me. If he'd been hit, anywhere, between his toes even, that guy Martinez would have found it. The only unusual things we found were, as I told you; those funny marks on his upper arms.' She picked up her Estrella and took a swig. 'Bob. Go. Vamoose. Have a swim. Change a diaper. Anything at all, but just go and leave me here for a few minutes to try and figure this one out. Go. Scoot!'

Thus bidden, Bob stood up, slipped off his shirt and the shorts which he wore over his trunks, sauntered around to the side of the house, and plunged into the small pool. He swam its short length, backward and forward, until he lost count, then floated for a while on his back in the sun. 'This time next year, maybe Jazz'll be in here with me.' They had decided that the baby would be taught to swim naturally, even before he could walk. Already, Sarah, a college swimming blue, had introduced him to the pool, and he had reacted with delight, taking his own buoyancy for granted, and splashing and kicking like a cygnet trying to fly.

Sarah broke into his daydream with her shout. 'Copper! Get back here!'

He hauled himself out of the pool at the deep end, and
rejoined her at the table where she sat, hands clasped together on the closed notebook. There was an expression of satisfaction on her face which fell only a few points short of smugness.

`I think I've got it. Think I've built you something you can fly in. Sit down. I'll be back:, She disappeared into the house, and returned a few seconds later carrying a ball of string.

`Those marks on his arms could have been made by a rope.'

`How?'

`Like this. Stand up again. Ohh, you're still dripping!' She stepped round behind him with the string. The two guys; let's say they're waiting in the garage with their rope — which Gloria said she'd never seen before. She leaves. Santi comes out. They hear him turning on the lawn sprinkler. Then one of them makes a noise, maybe accidentally, probably deliberately. Santi goes into the garage. They grab him, and before he can do anything, they do this.'

She took the string and slipped it under and around Skinner's left arm, then across behind his back and around the right arm. She pulled sharply on the string, and he found that his arms were pinioned to his side.

`Okay, so far,' she continued. 'He's helpless, and they frogmarch him over to beneath the maintenance pulley, where they've already set up the hanging rope and the chair. With this rope, they hoist him up on to the chair. He realises what's going to happen by now, and he's probably screaming bloody murder, but the villa is empty and isolated and there's only the dog to hear him. One of the guys holds him helpless; the other one slips the noose over his head, and kicks the chair away. They pull the other rope out from behind his back, then stand back and watch the poor man claw at the noose until he blacks out and dies. They take the other rope and they leave. Bingo.'

`How did they get there? How do they leave?'

`Very early, across the field behind the villa. They'd leave by the same way. Well?'

Skinner smiled at his wife. 'God, you're clever. With an instinct for planning like that, I hope you never get mad at me.' He nodded 'Yes, I'll buy it, all right. I want another word with Gloria. I'll do that this evening, then I'll take it to Arturo in the morning.'

`You'd better buy it. It's all you're gonna get.' She grinned at him wickedly. 'You could say your whole case is hanging on it!'