‘Do go on, my friend.’ The fiscal yawned.
‘No problem. You knew that we had Ballester in the frame, yes?’
‘Yes.’ Broughton nodded.
‘Right, and then you heard that he was dead, swinging in his cottage in Wooler. You didn’t stop to ask yourself why he would hang himself if he was innocent, as you surely knew he was. You seized the main chance, you drove down to the scene and when nobody was looking you planted all the evidence that was found there. That would have been easy to do. All of it was outside the house, outside the taped-off crime scene, and all of it was found after you’d been on the scene, none of it before.’
‘As before, Bob, you’re describing your own actions. You were there too, remember?’
Skinner leaned towards him. ‘But I never touched Ballester’s computer. I never laid a hand on it. You took that away from the scene. The local coroner went ballistic when he heard that, remember, so you had the hard disk copied and you sent the original machine back down south. When my guys looked at the copy. . an exact copy, you told them. . they found images, beautiful, caring photographs of the three dead girls, Stacey, Zrinka and wee Amy Noone, all taken, posed like angels, in the minutes after their deaths.
‘Daniel Ballester couldn’t have put them there, Gregor, because he couldn’t have killed them. If you’d read his autopsy report carefully, you’d have learned that he had a physical condition that would have made it impossible. The only person who could have seeded that computer was their murderer, and the only person who had access to Ballester’s machine, was. . not me, not anyone else. . it was you, Gregor. You killed them all, and that’s how I will prove it, or prove enough of it to put you away until you’re eating your dinner with a shaky fucking spoon! Go on, Prosecutor. What are my chances of a conviction, even before the world’s most perverse jury? Go on, tell me!’
The deputy chief constable’s eyes and those of his adversary seemed to lock together. To Stallings it was as if their intensity was sucking the air out of the room, until she realised that she was holding her breath. Beside her Joe Dowley sat catatonic; she glanced at him and saw an expression on his face that was pure terror. She could see Skinner only in profile, and perhaps that was just as well. As she watched, Broughton, seated a few feet from her, slowly fell apart. First the confidence left his eyes, and then the courage, and finally the hope, until all that was left was despair.
‘You can make a phone call,’ said Skinner, quietly. ‘Who’s going to tell Phil, Gregor, you or me?’
‘You’d better do it,’ the beaten man whispered, only just loud enough for the tape to register. ‘I couldn’t find the words.’
‘Okay. Interview terminated.’ He looked to his right as he switched off the three recorders on the table, and removed the cassettes. ‘Excuse us, please, you two. We’ve got enough for now. The next part’s private, between the two of us.’
‘Sir,’ Stallings murmured.
‘Jesus, Becky,’ the DCC exclaimed. ‘Relax, I’m not going to give him a doing.’
Doubtfully she left the room, taking the tapes and a still shaking Dowley with her.
Left together, Skinner looked back at the man he had thought he knew. ‘So, Gregor, why?’ he asked him, for the third time.
‘They were beautiful, you know,’ Broughton replied softly. ‘You’ll have seen those images. You called them angels, and others did too. I read the reports. You were all right. That is what they were. They were art themselves, dead, yet living art. I tried to make them something greater: not with a brush, for there I have no skill, but with my camera. There can be such beauty in death, Bob, in the perfect death. It’s an art form, the purest, loveliest art form there is, and who better to appreciate it than those with art in their soul? As you have, for I’ve seen your taste, the things you possess. I know you can see the beauty.’
‘I can see a very sick man, Gregor.’ He paused. ‘You must be aware that we are searching your house. The Lord Advocate gave us a warrant. Phil’s in court, and your boys are being looked after while it happens. We’ll find those images, but will we find any others, victims we don’t know about?’
‘Not there,’ he said. ‘You won’t find them in my home, but sooner or later you’ll search my office, and find my lap-top, my camera and a third gun in my private safe. You’ll find nine, in total, including Nada Sebastian. Not just from Scotland, some from other parts of the world, where I have travelled, including countries where the penalty for such things is death, although I can’t be extradited to any of them. It isn’t just the art, you understand, it’s the excitement too, the danger, and ultimately the thrill of the victory that’s part of each creation.’
‘Amy Noone?’ Skinner asked. ‘Why her?’
‘You’re on a roll, you tell me.’
‘I will. I’ve read all the witness statements from those investigations. There’s one with Amy, where she talks about the first time she, Zrinka and Stacey were all together. It was the final-year show, up at Lauriston, where the students sell their work. She said something about Stacey selling her last picture to a man. She said that he spun them a story about wanting it for his daughter’s flat, and that he looked “as tough as fuck”, as I recall. You’re a pretty rugged guy, Gregor. That was you, trying to fit me up into the bargain. You saw that statement and you killed Amy because she could have identified you. Does that cover it?’
‘As I said, Bob, it’s your day.’
‘Maybe, but there’s one thing that’s got me baffled. Why pick on me? Why try to set me up? Not even you would have anticipated that I’d be convicted for things I hadn’t done, but enough smoke, even without fire, would have derailed my career, and probably Aileen’s too. I suppose that’s what those anonymous phone calls were about, you trying to kick-start that process. So why, Gregor, why me? We’ve known each other for twenty years. I’ve always regarded you as a friend. Tell me, please; I don’t know and I can’t guess.’
‘I don’t suppose you can, Bob. If it’s any consolation, I’ve never regarded you as an enemy: as a friend, though, no, not for a long time; not since I found out about you and Phil.’
Skinner stared at him. ‘That’s it? That’s why you’ve been trying to point my own officers at me in their investigations? Phil and I went out together. . what? Twelve years ago now, before you and she were married, or even engaged. It wasn’t a secret at the time, but I doubt if there’s anybody in Edinburgh who still remembers it, apart from the three of us. I’ve never even told Alex about it, only Aileen. What’s your beef? I didn’t ask her to marry me, although I might have got around to it, I admit. You did, and she accepted. I was the one who got hurt, not you.’
‘You think so? Remember when Ranald was born, our first?’
‘Of course I do. We wet his head in Deacon Brodie’s. Got it very wet, as I recall.’
‘I told you he was carried full term. . or, at least, I allowed you to assume that he was. Actually he was two months premature.’
To Skinner the room suddenly felt smaller. ‘Now wait a minute. .’ he began. ‘Phil and I didn’t have that sort of relationship.’
‘Never? Under oath?’
‘Well, maybe a couple of times. . just before it packed in. But you’re not telling me that you and she were platonic.’
‘No, I’m not, and our relations were within the time-frame. Phil never gave me the slightest hint that I might not have been Ranald’s dad, but I’m afraid I always had that little niggle. Gradually I forgot about it, though, until last year, when something happened. Your daughter was attacked, and to help the investigation, she gave a DNA sample. Of course, the papers in the case landed on my desk. I’d never thought of having a test done until then, but I found the temptation too much to resist. I had comparisons run privately using your daughter’s DNA, Ranald’s and mine. Congratulations, Bob. Your sex with Phil may not have been very memorable, but for all that it was effective. You stole my son, you bastard.’