`Are you feeling guilty about rushing down here?'
She smiled ruefully. 'It's nature, I suppose. I mean, I know he couldn't be in better hands. It's just. . I don't know, didn't expect it, that's all. I mean, he's sleeping, and I'll only be a couple of hours.
Bob smiled. 'Make that ten minutes, if you like. Come through and have a look.' He was reaching out to open the bedroom door for Sarah, when his mobile phone sounded.
The caller was Alison Higgins. 'I've run both those checks you ordered, sir. Linda Plenderleith's flat was owned by a company called Samson Properties, 'registered number SC122783, directors Anthony Manson and Richard Cocozza.
And Leonard Plenderleith was released from Shotts Prison, on parole, on Saturday morning. Get this: they were expecting to be short-staffed at the prison over the weekend, so they let him out a day early. The officer on gate duty remembers that he was picked up by a small, fat, dark-haired man driving a white Astra GSi:
`Thanks, Superintendent. Small, fat and dark, eh. Can we find out-?'
`I have done, sir. Richard Cocozza drives a white Astra GSi.'
`Nice one. Perhaps you could arrange for Mr Cocozza to join us at Torphichen Place. I'm looking forward to watching that slimy wee bastard sweat. Let me know when you pick him up. You and I will interview him together. Ask Roy Old to sit in too, and I'll arrange for Andy Martin and Maggie Rose to be there as well. We'll terrify him by weight of numbers if nothing else!'
Skinner ended the call, and put the miniature phone back in its customary place in the pocket of his shirt. Sarah was still standing beside him at the door to Linda Plenderleith's bloody bedroom.
`Come on, then,' he said. 'Have a look at the mess, and tell me what you think. The technicians have barely started yet, so mind what you touch.'
She gave him her best withering look as he opened the door. A photographer was at work beside the bed, taking close-up shots of the wounds to the neck. Sarah knew him well from other crime scenes. 'Excuse me please, Dave,' she said as she approached.
The man looked up, surprised by the sound of her voice. `Doc! What're you doing here? Haven't you just had a-?'
She stopped him with a smile and a nod, and stepped up to the bed. She leaned close to the body and looked at the face and at the cuts on the neck. She touched the flesh of the abdomen to test the temperature, and lifted one of the hands to judge the rigidity of the joints. Then she leaned over the groin, probing, testing, exploring gently. The woman's legs were spread apart in a V shape. Sarah looked closely at the inside of her thighs, then quickly at each of the upper arms.
She stood up and walked over to the discarded clothing on the floor. 'Can I touch these?' she asked Skinner.
`Sure, but put them back more or less where they were.'
She picked up the underpants, and looked at them inside and out. She lifted them to her nose and sniffed. Next she examined the shirt, and finally, the jeans.
Replacing the last garment as close as possible to its original position, she stood up and turned back to face Skinner.
`Three days, at least. She was killed not less than three days ago. That would make it Saturday.'
`Afternoon?'
`Just about spot on, I'd say. But no later.'
`No possibility of early Sunday morning?'
`No way. It'll take the autopsy to confirm it, but I know I'm right.'
`So I can go on believing that the man who did this could have gone on to kill Manson?'
`Sure. Who do you think it was?'
The husband. Just released from jail. While he was inside, Manson gave his wife gainful employment as a prostitute.'
Sarah nodded. 'Is that so? Well, I'd say he spent his time in the pen thinking about all this, and planning it. Know what he did? He made love to her, then he did that. It wasn't forcible sex — not rape. Look where her dressing-gown is. I'd say she put it there, rather than him. He's horny. . he's just out of jail after how long?'
`Five years,' Skinner responded.
`Jesus, yes, he's horny. He throws the duvet across the room, he lays her on the bed. He doesn't bother to undress. He's in too much of a hurry, although there's another reason. He just undoes his belt and unzips his jeans — or she does — frees his penis, and enters her straight away. Her pubic hair is matted. There's semen dried in it. There are other semen stains on his underpants, and on his shirt. This is when it gets really calculated. They've just made love. She's lying back, maybe saying how good it was, how much she's missed him. But she hasn't seen the knife. This wasn't a spur-of-the moment thing. All along, he meant to kill her. He took the knife into the bedroom with him.
`Why didn't she see it?'
`Because it was in the back pocket of his jeans. It could have been something smalclass="underline" a Stanley knife, say. It could have been any size, but one thing I do know: it was pointed. Look at the jeans. They're new. Well, on the back, right-hand pocket, near the bottom, you'll find a tear. I think that he slipped the knife into that pocket, and its point went through the cloth. It was there all the time he was humping her. When he's finished, when he's got his rocks off, the bastard.
For a second her professional mask slipped and a woman's outrage at sexual violence showed through.
`Just when she's telling him he's Superman, he grabs her hair, forces her head back, pulls the knife, and does that. He's never cut anyone's throat before, so the first cut is the big one. The song's wrong, you know. The first cut is rarely the deepest. Maybe she gets off a scream, but she doesn't have time to struggle. The fingers aren't clenched. When the first cut doesn't kill her, when he finds that it isn't as easy as that, he just starts hacking away, to finish her off as quickly as he can. He isn't thinking any more. He cuts deep, on either side of the throat, to make sure. Eventually he hits the big one, and the blood spurts. It goes everywhere. Up the wall, all over the bed, all over him. She blacks out as soon as the blood supply to her brain stops, and she's dead in seconds after that. He's got blood all over his clothes. So he strips them off, washes. .?'
She glanced at Skinner for confirmation.
`Yes, he took a shower.'
`Mmm. Then he changes into clean stuff and off, presumably, he goes on his merry way. And you think his merry way took him to kill Manson?'
Skinner nodded.
`It fits, I suppose. Have you found the murder weapon?'
`No, but come here and look at this.' Skinner led her into the flat's spacious dining-kitchen. There was a work surface next to the sink, and on it stood a set of kitchen knives, housed in a wooden block. One of the six slots in the block was empty. `We've got a set much like this one at home,' said Skinner. `From what I can remember the knife that fills that slot should be a big, broad-bladed job.'
`That's right. The blade is about eight inches long, and comes to a point. In our set the blade's like a razor and the point's like a needle.'
`From what you saw, could a knife like that one have killed Manson?'
Sarah nodded firmly. 'Absolutely. It had to be a blade that long. It travelled upward and ripped the heart open.'
`That looks like the answer, then. Big Lennie kills his wife then shows up at Manson's. He does the alarm. That's no problem; he's been in the nick for five years; he'll have learned how in there. Tony comes in, flushed with success at the tables. It's Big Lennie he sees in the bedroom. His jaw drops as he figures out why Big Lennie's there, and in that short time he's a dead man.'
`Where do you think he is now?'
`I know where he is now. Last week Tony Manson gave Linda four grand. She turned it into traveller's cheques. We've found out that there was a seat booked on a flight from Glasgow to Alicante on Sunday in the name of L. Plenderleith. It looks as if Manson was trying to whisk her out of town before Lennie got out. Seems like he didn't quite make it. Nice windfall for Lennie, though. The traveller's cheques — unsigned we believe — and the plane ticket are gone. Britannia tell us that the ticket was used. They said that there was some confusion when a man turned up, but the surname checked and they assumed it had been a booking error. So there you have it. The whole story. Lennie gets home early, exacts a terrible and bloody revenge on Linda and Manson, and buggers off to Spain with Manson's cash and her ticket.'