Before setting out from Fettes, Martin had called the force's criminal intelligence unit, and the national criminal records department, to check on their target. The second source had yielded a faxed photograph, taken at the time of a conviction in Aberdeen twelve years earlier, for receiving a stolen motor car, an offence which the Sheriff had taken lightly enough to punish with only a year's probation. That had been completed impeccably, and since then there had been no sign of a subsequent transgression.
The policemen drew up in Martin's Mondeo beside big grey-painted double gates which seemed to cover almost the full width of the workshop. The lane was a dead end, and so narrow that the Chief Superintendent had to position the car careful y, to al ow both Pye and himself to open their doors.
The gates were secured by a heavy chain and padlock, but inset, to the right, there was a smaller doorway, black-painted, standing out from the surrounding grey, and with a brass nameplate on which the name 'E. Sweeney, Motor Engineer' was etched.
Martin banged on the grey gate. 'Mr Sweeney. Police. Open up, please.' There was no reply, no sound from within. He pushed the smaller door, but itsYale was secure. 'Is there a back entrance to this place, d'you think?' Martin mused.
'Not unless it's through the wal of the whisky bond next door,'
Pye pointed out. 'Maybe he closes early on a Friday.'
The Chief Superintendent sighed. 'Well he bloody shouldn't,' he said. 'This week started with a locked door, now it's ending with another. Fuck this, Sammy, I'm fed up being pissed about. I think I feel an accidental stumble coming on.' Abruptly, he lifted his right foot and slammed the door with his heel. There was a crack as the keeper of the Yale gave under the force of the kick.
'Oh dear,' said the young detective constable, 'that was nearly a nasty fal. Are you al right, sir?'
'I've been worse. Thank God that door was there to stop me.'
There were no windows in the workshop; it was in darkness as they stepped inside. The little light which spilled in from the small doorway lit up a red car, jacked up at the front, but beyond the gloom was too deep to make out anything. The place smelled: of oil, of grease, of old leather… and of something else. 'Christ,' said Pye, 'd'you think Sweeney just pisses in the corner when he's needing?'
Martin said nothing, but peered around near the entrance until he found a light switch. He threw it, and after a few seconds a sequence of half a dozen neon tubes flickered into life. As they did, Pye had reached the red car, and could see beyond.
He gave a slight, involuntary shout, and started. For a moment Martin thought that the young man would turn and run, but he held his ground. 'Sweeney's in after all, sir,' he whispered.
Quickly, Martin stepped up beside him and together they advanced, into the furthest corner of the workshop.
Clearly, Eddie Sweeney had not been a big man in life. His feet only just touched the ground as he sat in the green, straight-backed wooden chair, his wrists and ankles lashed securely to its legs with heavy black insulating tape. But in death his eyes were huge. They stood out in their sockets, seemingly only a very short step from popping out altogether.
Martin leaned over and stared into the grotesque, purple, dead face. 'Oh, Sammy,' he whispered, 'we're dealing with a very special mind here. This man's an expert. He believes in death as an art form.
'I've only ever encountered one other like him.'
Pye crouched down beside his boss, looking up at the dead, head-lol ing Sweeney. And as he did he saw that the man's nose was swollen, with white wisps of cotton wool protruding from the nostrils.
His cheeks were distorted too, and something showed between the protruding teeth; something dirty, yellow and furred.
'That's not his tongue, is it, sir?'
Martin chuckled, blackly. 'Not even the most liverish tongue ever looked like that.' He stood up and leaned over the body. '"Yes, there's a grazed lump on his head. Our Mr Sweeney was cracked on the head from behind, then taped into his chair.'
He shook his head. 'What an imagination, and what a way to go.
The kil er packed his nose with cotton wool, rammed a tennis ball into his mouth, and stood back to watch while the poor sod suffocated.'
Pye shuddered. 'A tennis bal?' He looked closer. 'In the name of
… So it is.'
'Game, set and match to our man,' said the Chief Superintendent,
'or so he thinks. We'd better take a look around, for the sake of form.
But this is a very thorough person. I don't think for a moment that we'l find anything to help us.'
He stepped across to the far side of the workshop, where a grey filing cabinet stood against the wal, with its second drawer slid open.
On the floor beside it there was a big brown steel waste bin. Martin looked inside. 'Sammy, forget it,' he cal ed to his young col eague.
'He got what he was after. There's ash in here, and you can bet that once it was the paperwork related to a set of plates, supplied to customer unknown, no questions asked.'
'Are you sure that this was the man we're after, sir? Maybe Sweeney was in bother with someone else.'
The chunky Martin shook his head. 'Forget it, Sam. This was our guy al right. As soon as he saw the photofit which we issued yesterday, he knew that we'd linked him to the caravan. So he went back and covered his tracks. End of story, for Mr Sweeney.'
He looked at the body once more. 'It could be that he's even sending us a message in the way he chose to kil him. Al significant openings closed off. Fine, let him be that cocky, for that's how we'll catch him.'
'What do you mean, sir?'
'I mean that when you're dealing with a criminal as arrogant and sure of himself as this one is, all you have to do is wait while his ego and his feelings of infallibility get bigger and bigger, until, sure as eggs is eggs, he makes the mistake which lets you nab him.'
49
Pam woke at seven forty-five on Saturday morning, alone in the bedroom of the Gul ane cottage. She was startled at first, until she remembered that she and Bob had decided to leave Edinburgh for the weekend, although not for Peebles Hydro.
They had spent a long, silent Friday evening in the cottage. Skinner was morose, and largely silent, with the telephone set on auto answer, catching cal s from a few sympathetic friends. The only calls which he had returned had been from Neil Mcl henney, offering his sympathy, and his total support, and from Andy Martin, telling him of Sweeney's murder.
'Won't that put that farmer in danger?' Pam had asked, as he had explained what had happened. 'Mr Carr, I mean, the man who did the photofit.'
'I shouldn't think so. He'l assume, rightly, that Andy will put a guard on him. So it'd be too dangerous to go back to the farm to take him out. Anyway, what would be the point? The composite picture would be evidence in itself. No, his meeting with Carr was very brief.
He must have spent much more time with Sweeney, or maybe Sweeney even knew who he was.'
He had shuddered quite violently, startling her. 'I hate people like him, you know, people who kil with flair, not just with purpose.
Murder's murder, I know, always terrible; but usual y it's in hot blood.
Occasionally it's a commercial transaction, a falling-out among criminals who live by different rules from the rest of us.
'I don't tolerate any of it, but nothing turns my stomach like a man who can kill the way this fellow does. He's so premeditated: the way he just disposed of Sweeney, the way he killed Leona.'