… then stopped in his tracks. Skinner and Stallings were sitting with their backs to the door, and a third chair was placed alongside them. Facing them, staring at him as he entered, was Gregor Broughton, procurator fiscal for the Edinburgh area.
‘Mr Dowley, Crown Agent, has joined us,’ said Stallings for the tape.
‘Sit down, please,’ Skinner snapped. ‘We’ve been waiting for you.’ He turned and stared, hard, across the table. ‘Once again, Gregor,’ he continued, ‘as I asked you on the beach, what the hell is all this about?’
‘Aren’t you simply going to ask me what I was doing there, Bob?’
‘I saw what you were doing there. You were stalking one of my officers and I believe that you were about to shoot her. We found a pistol in your jacket pocket. You were dressed like a fucking hoodie, man.’
‘I was dressed casually, yes, so that I could remain inconspicuous. I had no idea that young woman was a police officer because you chose to keep the facts of the operation from the fiscal’s office. I had seen the way in which she was being exposed in the media, and I was so concerned that I went along there with a view to protecting her, if necessary. As for my dress, is that relevant?’
‘You’re not a police officer, Gregor.’
‘I’m a concerned citizen, Bob, concerned about the inability of your force to prevent the murders of several young women over the last few months, and so lax that it has allowed a copycat killer to emerge, after the earlier murders were solved.’
‘If only. You’re wrong, they weren’t solved.’
For the first time, Broughton’s composure seemed less than complete. ‘What do you mean? Those cases are closed.’
‘No, sir,’ said Stallings. ‘They’ve been reopened as a result of new medical evidence indicating that Daniel Ballester could not have been the killer. I’m leading the investigation, which has now been linked with that into the murder of Sugar Dean.’
‘Then link me to them, I challenge you.’
‘I’ll do that,’ Skinner told him. ‘We’ll start with the most recent. When Ms Dean was killed, you were at Murrayfield Golf Club, and the Law Society’s criminal justice event.’
‘So were you, I’d remind you.’
‘Yes, but while she was being killed I was spending a pointless half-hour on the practice ground, hitting golf balls. A couple of days ago, a colleague of mine found a green-keeper who remembers seeing me there. The same green-keeper has a hell of a good memory: he recalled seeing a man answering your description walking towards the clubhouse, along the side of the eighteenth fairway, that is to say, heading away from the place where the girl was shot.’
‘I doubt if just “answering my description” is going to convince a jury.’›
‘On its own, probably not; so let’s go back a bit to the shooting of Zrinka Boras. Again, I was in the vicinity, at home in Gullane, on sabbatical, very close to where the killing took place. But you weren’t far away either, Gregor.’
He paused. ‘Way back at the start of the inquiry, the investigating team asked local people if they could recall anything unusual that morning. Two of them recalled being overtaken between Gullane and Longniddry by a Saab 93 convertible, heading towards town and going like a bat out of hell. Yesterday I asked Neil McIlhenney to do a check with the traffic department. Your car was clocked by a camera on the A1 that same morning. It was referred to the fiscal in Haddington for possible prosecution; you’re his boss, Gregor, so he did you a favour. He’s just admitted as much. We haven’t interviewed Lady Broughton yet, but when we do, I’ll bet she tells us that you weren’t at home the night before Zrinka was murdered. I believe you’d been stalking her for a while. That day you followed her, not knowing for sure where they were headed, from Edinburgh to North Berwick, where she and Harry, her boyfriend, ate, then back to Gullane, where they camped. And you took your chance. If they’d just gone back home, back to her place, those kids might still be alive.’
‘Bollocks.’ The prosecutor laughed. ‘A speed camera near Tranent does not put me in Gullane. A jury would laugh at you.’
Skinner reached into his pocket and produced a clear plastic envelope, with a piece of paper inside. ‘No,’ he admitted, ‘but this does. You ate in the same restaurant in North Berwick they did. . or someone did, and paid for his meal with your credit card. Is that jury still laughing?’
He stared at Broughton, who remained impassive. ‘Let’s go back to Stacey Gavin now. She died some time after eight in the morning, in South Queensferry. You live in Fife: you drive more or less past that spot on your way to work. . and you were at work that day.’
‘And where were you, Bob?’
‘As it happens, that morning I gave evidence to a fatal accident inquiry in Fife, and drove close to the murder scene. You would have had easy access to the list of witnesses, Gregor. You could have known that.’
‘Possibly, but the chain of coincidence extends further. As I recall, your inquiry revealed that you yourself own works by the first two girls murdered, Gavin and Boras.’
Skinner smiled. ‘But you knew that anyway. Not long into my sabbatical you came out to Gullane to consult me about a pending prosecution. Both of those pictures hang in my living room. And you’re an art buff, Gregor. I haven’t been to your place, since I’ve never been invited, but Mario McGuire has, on business. You profess no knowledge of painting, but he describes it as being like an art gallery, with pictures all over the drawing room; quality, he says, and Mario knows his stuff. You knew what you were looking at when you saw my modest collection; you knew also, when you decided to make a comeback, that there’s a piece of Sugar Dean’s work hanging in this building. . as there is in the Crown Office.’
Broughton chuckled. ‘Looks as if it’s either you or me, Bob. I suggest that the Crown Agent issues indictments against us both, then we’ll see who the jury thinks is most likely.’
‘You had a gun on the beach this morning, an illegal firearm. You were a member of Edinburgh Gun Club twenty years ago.’
‘You’re a police officer. You have access to guns. Indeed, you’ve killed at least one man that I know of. Let me answer your further point. You say that my gun was illegal, but I’ll argue that I’m an officer of the law, like you, and that the laxity which allows you to carry a weapon also applies to me in times of extreme need, in the public interest.’
‘But not in Spain.’
‘Pardon?’
‘You can’t justify being armed in Spain. At my request, the Mossos d’Esquadra raided your house up in Torremirona yesterday. They found two starting pistols in the garage, both converted to fire live rounds. Of course, they didn’t find the one you used to kill Nada Sebastian, the artist who was murdered within sight of my Spanish house. I guess you chucked that one in the sea. How many times have you been in my office, Gregor? How many chances have you had to see the picture of hers that hangs there? I didn’t know myself that it was one of hers, but you clocked the signature and traced it to her website. Then you traced her, and you killed her, when I was there.’
‘And when did I have the opportunity to do that?’
‘When you were in Barcelona last week, on a liaison visit to the Catalan government. I’ve checked with the Catalan justice ministry; it ended on Tuesday, yet you didn’t fly home till Thursday afternoon. My guess is you tracked Sebastian on the Wednesday, and then, next morning, you followed her again and shot her.’
Broughton leaned back in his chair, and gazed at the ceiling, before looking Skinner in the eye once more. ‘And if I did all this, set you up in this way, why did I sign off on Ballester as the murderer?’
‘Because you thought even that might implicate me. And also, probably, to show yourself what a clever bastard you are. But you weren’t, you see, because that’s where you nailed yourself to the fucking wall, that’s where you made the big mistake that’s going to put you away.’