Skinner's Rules (8 page)

Patrick McCann, Rachel’s client, was a dark man in his late twenties. The rape of which he was accused was particularly brutal, with the victim having been mutilated after the attack.

The trial troubled Rachel; she knew with utter certainty that her client was guilty. The girl, who had been attacked in her own home, had known McCann by sight and reputation. The weapon had been found, with blood patches, consistent with the victim’s group, on the handle, and with clear prints of the accused’s thumb and two fingers.

All the forensic evidence backed up the Crown argument. To cap it all, the victim, who had been forced to have every kind of sex with her attacker, had described in detail a brown mole on the right side of the man’s penis.

Rachel’s advice to her client, endorsed by the instructing solicitor, had been quite clear. ‘Plead guilty. If you go to trial you will be convicted and the judge will probably give you a life sentence. Plead, save the woman the ordeal of a trial, and keep detailed evidence from the Bench, and I might, just might; be able to keep it down to about eight years.’

McCann had looked at her with the arrogant eyes of a psychopath. ‘No way, miss. She was wantin’ it all. The stuff with the knife she made up.’

Occasionally, an advocate will come across a client who is pure evil. Rachel recognised this in Patrick McCann. She knew that at fifteen, he had knifed a schoolmate to death in a brawl which had followed McCann’s attack on the boy’s sixteen-year-old sister. She knew also that he was the chief suspect in two recent, and still unsolved, murders of drug users.

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.

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.

Special Branch officers also maintain a discreet surveillance over terrorist suspects, potential agitators, crackpot revolutionaries and general troublemakers. Their criminal investigative functions extend to offences against the State, or involving the security of the Nation.

In these and in some other circumstances, they will link with that genuinely secret apparatus of State known euphemistically as the Security Service. However on a routine basis, Special Branch officers report to their Chief Constable and Head of CID.

Special Branch activities in the Edinburgh area were under the command of Chief Inspector Alec Smith, a man of renowned judgement and unflappability. Martin was well aware that if he succeeded the veteran he would become the youngest officer ever to hold that private post.

He voiced this thought to Skinner. ‘Do you think I’m ready for it?’

‘Of course I bloody do, or I wouldn’t be offering it to you. Look, Andy, you’ve got it in you to be Chief Constable of this or of some other force. On the way to that you’re going to succeed me as Head of CID some day.

‘You take this number, Andy. You’re ready for it, it’s bloody interesting and it’ll do you the world of good in career terms.’

‘I’ll miss working with you, Bob.’ The decision is made, thought Skinner.

‘Don’t worry. You’ll still be working with me. What you, even you, don’t know, is the amount of contact I have with Alec Smith. He reports to me and so will you.’

‘Doesn’t he report to the Chief, too?’

‘In theory yes, in practice not too much. There are some things that the gaffer doesn’t need to know about, unless and until they’re likely to go critical. For instance, if he knew all there was to know about some of the characters on the Police Committee, he’d never be able to look them in the eye.’

With that, Skinner looked Martin squarely in the eye. ‘Right, Andy, so the answer’s yes, is it?’

‘Of course it is, boss, and thank you very much. When do the snoopers start on me?’

‘They started-on you two days ago, as soon as the Chief had approved the appointment. It seems that your bank manager has done as he was told and kept his mouth shut. As of tomorrow you start a hand-over with Alec Smith. The Royal Visit that’s coming up should give you a good start.’

The Japanese man was there as Rachel Jameson rose to begin her cross-examination.

As usual, the tight wig sat awkwardly on her head. She bowed to the Bench, pulled her gown further up her shoulders and walked towards the woman. The witness was stout, with dyed red hair. She was wearing an imitation fur jacket over a tight sweater and skirt. She had teetered into the witness box on pink high-heeled shoes. Rachel thought that she had never seen an alleged rape victim dressed less appropriately. But she knew that the vivid red scar running down the left side of the woman’s face was likely to command all of the jury’s attention.

‘Miss X, you are twenty-four; is that correct?’

‘Aye, that’s right.’ There was a new, aggressive edge to the witness’s tone. She sounds stronger today, thought Rachel. Must have popped an extra Valium.

‘Were you a virgin before the alleged attack?’

Miss X reddened. ‘Naw. Were you when you were twenty-four?’

It was Rachel’s turn to flush. Christ, she thought, that’ll have done her no good with the jury.

Severity stirred in the kindly Lord Orlach. ‘The witness will answer questions, not ask them. Madam, you must accept that counsel is entitled to examine whether your sexual history has a bearing on this trial. Hers most certainly does not.’

‘Thank you, my Lord.’ Rachel turned back to face Miss X. ‘When did you have your first sexual experience?’

‘Ye mean the full thing?’ Rachel nodded. ‘When ah was thirteen, with a boy at the school.’

‘And since that time, how many lovers have you had?’

‘God knows! Naw, wait a minute. Ah’ve had...’ she thought for several econds ‘... eight steady boyfriends, and maybe twenty or so one-offs. Ah cannae remember.’

‘So you like sex?’

‘No’ that much, tae tell you the truth, but the fellas expect it.’

‘Have you ever taken money for it?’

‘No way!’ The woman shouted her answer.

Rachel rebuked herself mentally.

‘Right, let’s accept that. Do you ever make the running, make the first sexual advances?’

‘In Barlanark, are you kiddin’?’ One or two spectators laughed. Lord Orlach threw the witness a frown.

‘So you didn’t give Mr McCann the come-on?’

‘That pig! No way.’

‘You knew him by sight, did you not?’

Miss X nodded.

‘Isn’t it the case that you once told him you fancied him?’