Autographs in the Rain

  alone, that is, without the car.'

  'That looks like another asset stripped out, then. Mind you, maybe this

  woman will surprise me by being really stupid and offering the number for

  sale in Exchange and Mart.'

  'Do you expect her to?'

  'Not for one second. Come on,' he said briskly. 'Let's see what else, if

  anything, she's got away with.'

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  Ruth nodded, and followed him into the living room. 'What about his

  watch?' she asked.

  'There was one watch among his effects; a cheap battery thing.'

  'There wasn't a Rolex?'

  'No, absolutely not. I'd have remembered.'

  'There should have been. My aunt gave it to him on their fortieth wedding

  anniversary. She retired about a month before that; she was the matron of a

  hospital in Stirling. She bought it out of her lump sum.'

  She pointed to a wall cupboard, near the fireplace; it was split into two

  halves, and the upper section had a glass door. 'There was a silver tea

  service in there; my aunt's. What about her jewellery? My mother and I

  were left a couple of pieces, but Uncle John kept her diamond engagement

  ring and a sapphire and diamond ring that had been my aunt's mother's.

  That in particular was worth a lot of money.'

  'They've gone too, then. What can you tell me about the grandfather

  clock?' he asked.

  'Not a lot. I'm no expert. I can tell you that it was a big one, though, with

  a shiny brass face that Uncle John always kept polished. It always kept

  good time as well; he knew a watchmaker who serviced it for him.'

  She dropped to one knee and swung open the doors of a big sideboard.

  'Bastards,' she hissed in anger. 'There's nothing in here either. There should

  have been an eight-piece Wedgwood dinner service, and a canteen of

  Sheffield steel cutlery.

  'Inspector,' she said, as she stood up once more. There doesn't seem to

  be anything of value left in this house. It's been picked clean. I don't know

  who this woman was, but she's a vulture.'

  'No, Ruth,' said Mackenzie slowly. 'She's worse than that. Vultures are

  carrion birds. This creature does her own killing.'

  Detective Sergeant Gwendoline Dell had sore feet; she had spent the

  afternoon on fruitless visits.

  'One had been to John McConnell's doctor, who had declared that on his

  last visit, for a pre-birthday check-up, the old man had been the fittest eighty

  year-old he had ever seen. 'Strong as a horse, he was. All that golf over all

  those years gave him forearms like a blacksmith.'

  Another call had been to his club cronies gathered in the bar, sheltering

  from the awful day. One of them had directed her to a railwayman's club in

  the nearby village of Croy, but the steward there had never heard of the old

  man.

  Finally she had canvassed every house in the streets around his home,

  trudging from door to door, ringing bell after bell, most of them without

  reply. Those people who were in were either wrapped up in afternoon

  television or struggling with pre-school children.

  They were all concerned citizens; every one of them frowned

  sympathetically as they denied even knowing John McConnell, far less

  being familiar with his visitors and his habits.

  She had kept the unlikeliest prospect for last: Miss Alice Find, retired

  schoolteacher, of Number Twelve Glenlaverock Grove... unlikely because

  it was she who had reported seeing the tall dark woman heading towards

  her neighbour's door on the last day of his life. More than that, she had

  given impetus to the wild goose chase by suggesting that it might have

  been his niece.

  'Come away in, dear,' said Miss Find, in an accent which suggested a

  genteel Glasgow upbringing. 'You poor soul,' she clucked, 'you look

  absolutely worn out. Let me make you a cup of tea.'

  Normally Gwendoline would have declined, but the old lady was

  right. She was worn out, and dry as a bone. And there was another

  reason to accept: she guessed that the blue Corolla parked behind

  Lorraine Mackenzie's Noddy-car belonged to Ruth McConnell, and she

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  had no wish to bump into her again.

  She looked around the neat living room as her hostess rattled crockery

  in the kitchen. It was of another age; it felt just like visiting her granny.

  Miss Lind's return broke into her thoughts. She took the proffered cup

  of tea gratefully, and even accepted a Tunnock's caramel wafer.

  'I heard the news at lunchtime,' the former teacher said. 'Poor Mr

  McConnell; how very awful. No wonder your people spent so long at the

  house.'

  She paused then added, casually, 'Was his niece of any help to

  you?'

  'She's helping us right now,' DS Dell volunteered. 'But I'm sorry to tell

  you that wasn't her you saw ten days ago.'

  The old lady looked genuinely surprised. 'Oh, was it not? I don't know

  the girl, of course, but I've seen her on the odd occasion she's been to see

  her uncle, and from the back, it did look very like her.'

  'Ah. So you only saw her from the back.'

  'Well yes. I suppose I did. It was the hair, though. The girl Ruth's is long

  and well-groomed, like those lassies in the shampoo ads, and this other

  one's was just the same. I was absolutely sure too. I hope I haven't caused

  Ruth any upset.'

  'None at all,' Gwendoline lied. 'No, I was just wondering, Miss Find, if

  you could remember any more about this woman. Her car, for example;

  can you recall what make it was?'

  'My dear, I can't tell one car from another. I grew up in a time when

  there were shooting brakes and running boards and things like that. Today,

  they're all the same: not like that lovely Rover of Mr McConnell's. Now

  that is what I call a car. The woman's? I'd enough trouble remembering

  that it was green.'

  'Green? But you said before that it was blue.'

  'Did I? Well maybe that's what I thought at the time. When you get to

  my age, my dear, the memory goes funny.'

  The detective moaned inwardly. 'Do you have any idea how long the car

  was there?' she asked.

  'Not really, dear,' the old teacher replied. 'I don't think it was there

  when I closed my curtains at six o'clock, but it was dark by then, so I can't

  really be sure.'

  'What about the woman herself? Think back please, Miss Find. Can you

  remember what she was wearing?'

  'A long coat and boots. That I can remember; they made her legs even

  longer.'

  'Anything else? Anything at all?'

  The old lady pursed her lips and put a hand to her head, as if she was

  rummaging about in it. 'Well, there was her bag, I suppose.'

  'Her handbag?'

  'No dear, not a handbag, more of a shoulderbag. Only it was bigger than

  that. A big square thing, almost the size of a suitcase. Yes, I remember

  thinking that, from the size of the thing, Ruth must have come for the

  weekend.'

  80

  22

  'Should I be doing this?' Dr Sarah Grace Skinner asked, as she took the

  folder from her husband. 'By that I m
ean have you cleared it with ...' She

  opened the folder and peered at the top sheet, '... Dr McCallum?'

  'Of course I have,' her husband replied. 'Neil spoke to her. She told him

  that she was more than happy to have someone else look over the papers.

  The impression he got was that she feels a bit exposed, now that all the

  background circumstances have come out.'

  'I don't blame her. Okay, drowning in the bath is not an everyday cause

  of death among adults, but this man was eighty years old. In this case, the

  pathologist's natural instinct would not be to ring alarm bells.'

  'Maybe not,' said Bob, thoughtfully. 'But maybe it should have

  been.'

  She grinned at him as she laid the folder on the kitchen work surface. 'I

  will read this later, once the kids are in bed.' She handed him a china bowl

  with Beatrix Potter rabbits around the edge. 'Meantime, take this and feed

  your younger daughter.'

  He took the dish and pulled up a chair, beside the high seat in which Seonaid, the newest member of Clan Skinner, bounced up and down in

  anticipation. She was a sparkling, sturdy baby, and a fast developer like her

  brother James Andrew had been in his infant days, before he grew into a

  rough and ready three-year-old.

  'Okay, Junior Miss,' her father murmured, spooning up some of the

  blended food. 'What the hell's this gunge I've been asked to give you?'

  'Beef and vegetable,' Sarah called across; her accent was still upstate

  New York for all her years in Scotland. 'And before you knock it, it ain't

  out of no jar. I made that myself. It's not unlike what the rest of us are going

  to have once you've put Tootsie to bed. I've just mashed it down with the

  hand blender, that's all.'

  Whatever it was, the baby demolished it with impressive concentration

  as her mother headed upstairs to round up Jazz, and their adopted son,

  Mark, who were along the corridor in their playroom, engrossed in Deep

  Space Nine.

  Bob Skinner was an enthusiastic parent; he had been left to bring up

  Alex alone for most of her young life. He reckoned that he had done a

  pretty fair job, but it gave him a secret inner delight that he had been given

  a second opportunity to share the experience with someone else.

  He made a point, whenever the job permitted, of being home early enough

  in the evening to be able to feed Seonaid, bath her and put her to bed, then

  to spend time with the boys before their curfew.

  i That evening was typical of the domestic regime which he and Sarah had established; they were both pleasurably tired by 9 p.m., when Mark

  and Jazz went upstairs for the night.

  'Okay,' said Sarah at last, as she slumped down on to the sofa in their

  living room. 'Let's see that report.'

  Obediently, Bob walked back through to the kitchen and brought the

  folder to her. Making herself comfortable in her seat she opened it, counted

  the pages briefly, then turned to the colour photographs which were

  appended to them. 'Did you get these by e-mail too?' she asked.

  'Yes. They were sent through as files. I had our IT people print them out

  as clean as they could.'

  'Very impressive. If only they could e-mail autopsy subjects to me, I'd

  never have to leave Gullane.'

  Bob scratched his stubbly chin. 'If we had the garage converted to a

  mortuary, I could arrange to have them brought to you. I doubt if the boys

  would fancy Mum nipping out twice a day to carve up a cadaver.'

  'You kidding? They'd love it. We'd be the talk of the village, though.'

  'I've got news for you, kid. We're that already.'

  She smiled, then turned her full attention to the photographs. This was

  taken in situ?' she asked, looking at the first.

  'There's an index at the back, but yes, it was. It was shot as soon as

  they'd drained the water from the bath.'

  'I wish they had taken one before they did that.'

  'Why?'

  'See those patches discolouring the white enamel?' She pointed to marks

  on the photograph. 'They could be strips of skin.'

  'What would that tell you?'

  'Nothing for sure, but . . .' She hesitated, frowning. 'Suppose the old

  man was suffering from rapidly developing dementia. If, in his confused

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  state he ran himself a bath straight from the hot tap, then climbed in, in his

  senile condition the scalding effect could have induced shock causing him

  to faint and slip below the surface, absorbing a lungful of water which

  would have killed him immediately.

  'The body would have blistered, causing those strips of skin to detach

  themselves post mortem. If I were you

  He held up a hand. 'Not me. Detective Inspector Bandit Mackenzie,

  Strathclyde CID.'

  'Bandit?!'

  'Aye. The lad believes in his own legend just a bit too much. He's proud

  of his nickname.'

  'Well in that case, if I was Bandit I'd go back to the house and see if

  there's anything still clinging to the inside of that bath.'

  'What might that tell him?'

  'That this isn't a homicide at all. On the basis of this photograph alone,

  the Strathclyde police have been precipitate here. Their investigation is

  based purely on this woman who looks like Ruth being seen going into the

  house on the day Mr McConnell probably died.'

  'Probably?' interjected Bob.

  'Yes, probably. I'm sure the estimate of time of death was scientifically

  based, but there's always a margin for error. Stop right here; find the mystery

  woman, charge her, and I'll give evidence for the defence.

  'She walks in ten minutes. The Crown Office wouldn't let it anywhere

  near court.'

  'I see. Yet. . . my gut feeling is that Mackenzie's right. Read on, and

  let's see if we can help him prove it.' He pointed to the photograph. 'Why's

  the body in that condition?'

  That's called saponification. It can be caused by burying a body in very

  damp conditions ... or in this case, immersing it in water. Essentially it

  means that the corpse is turned, or largely turned, into something akin to

  soap. That might have helped Dr McCallum establish time of death, but it

  could have given her other problems; for example the process might have

  destroyed major organs.

  'Let's find out.' Sarah turned back to the narrative of the e-mailed report,

  and began to read.

  As she did so, Bob went into the kitchen, took two bottles of Sol from

  the fridge, uncapped them, and carried them back to the lounge.

  Thanks,' said his wife, without looking up, as she took one from him.

  She finished the beer before she finished her study. She thanked him

  again as he gave her another, and as she laid down the report.

  'Weird,' she pronounced. 'There's no evidence of cerebral degeneration

  at all. Dr McCallum notes that the brain is the healthiest she'd ever seen in

  an eighty-year-old man. This doesn't preclude mental illness, of course, or

  severe depression. Yet...

  "Think of one of the senior section of our own golf club; you know the