'One. She's in the ambulance, being looked after. She was just coming out of her flat in Albany Street when she heard a bang. She didn't react at first, but final y she looked along here and saw something on the ground. She ran along, and realised what it was.
By that time the manager of the pub on the corner had appeared too.
He called us.'
'How did you get involved?' Skinner asked.
'By luck, Inspector Good was in the first car to respond. He looked in the woman's handbag, found this, and cal ed me straight away.'
McGuire handed Skinner a laminated photo-pass, showing a blonde woman in her thirties. It bore a House of Commons crest, and a name: Mrs Catherine Anderson.
'Oh shit,' whispered the DCC. 'It's Bruce's wife al right.
'Let's have a look at her, then,' he said, resignedly McGuire led them across the street, towards a car parked nose-in, in the only occupied bay in a group of six. The body lay on the ground beside the driver's door, covered in a grey blanket, emblazoned with the crest of the Scottish Ambulance Service.
Skinner knelt down and lifted it up by a corner, carefully. Two eyes stared out at him, vacantly, looking not in the slightest surprised, just very dead. There was a big ragged hole in the woman's forehead, just at the hairline, from which blood and grey brain matter stil oozed. He dropped the blanket quickly, fighting for control of his stomach.
'Shot in the back of the head?' he asked McGuire.
'Yes sir. You can see the exit wound. It looks like he just stepped up behind her and… Bang! Poor woman never knew what hit her.'
He paused. 'Eh, who's going to tell Mr Anderson?'
'I wil,' Skinner answered, 'suspended or not. But we'll need to find him first.' He reached into a pocket of his jacket, to produce a small book. 'I've got his private secretary's home number here.' He began to search again, for his mobile this time, but was interrupted.
'Excuse me, sirs,' said a nervous woman constable, appearing on the edge of the group, 'but there's someone here who says he might know the victim.'
The three detectives looked across, to see a middle-aged man, dressed in a grey shirt, grey trousers and with greying hair and beard, standing with another officer. Martin and Skinner walked across towards him.
'Yes, sir?' the Chief Superintendent began. 'First, can you tell us who you are?'
The man, who was also grey-faced, nodded quickly. 'I'm Charlie Kettles, I have the hair studio on the corner. Look, when I saw the car and heard what had happened… It's not Mrs Anderson, is it?'
'D'you know her?' Skinner asked.
Kettles nodded, anxiously. 'She's a customer. She has been ever since her husband became Secretary of State and they took over Bute House. She comes at nine thirty every Saturday morning, for a tidy up usual y. She left my place not long ago.'
'I see.' The DCC nodded. 'I'm afraid it is Mrs Anderson.'
'God, that's terrible,' said the hairdresser, his eyes glistening suddenly. 'What about Tanya?'
'What d'you mean?' Martin asked, yet knew the answer. A sinking feeling gathered in his stomach.
'Her daughter. Tanya. She's eight. Every second Saturday, she comes with her mother. She was here today. She's not… as well, is she?'
'No,' Skinner replied. 'There's no sign of Tanya. Thanks, Mr 183
Kettles. Someone wil take a statement from you in due course. If you'l excuse us, though, for now.'
'Of course.' The man nodded, turned and headed back to his studio, head bowed, as the DCC took out his mobile phone once more.
He punched in a number. After a few seconds, the Secretary of State's private secretary answered. '247-348…'
'David. It's Bob Skinner here. Where's your boss?'
'Bute House. Why?' Hewlett sounded alarmed.
'Never mind why. Just listen. How long wil he be there?'
'Quite a while. He's expecting the Permanent Under Secretary of State and me for a working lunch.'
'Okay. You contact the Permanent Secretary and cancel him. Then get along there yourself. Andy Martin and I will be there before you.
This is a real emergency, so no questions for now, Dave. Just do it.'
55
'We spoke to the nearest thing we have to a witness before we came along here. When we pressed her, she said she thought she saw a silver or a grey car heading away from the scene, towards Dundas Street.'
'What does that mean?' asked the Secretary of State for Scotland, ashen-faced.
'We believe that the man who kil ed Leona McGrath, and took Mark, drives a grey car,' said Andy Martin.
'I see.' Dr Bruce Anderson nodded. He was standing by the tal fireplace at one end of the long, formal drawing room of Bute House, his official residence in Charlotte Square. He started to walk to the window, but Bob Skinner reached out and caught his arm.
'Don't do that. You wouldn't want to be photographed just now.'
'No,' agreed Anderson. 'You're right. Wouldn't do, would it?' His cheeks were still wet with tears as he looked up at Skinner. 'I was surprised to see you here Bob, but now, I'm glad of your presence; yours and Mr Martin's. Look, let's go upstairs and have a seat somewhere less grand, so we can talk about this.'
'You don't have to do that yet, sir,' said the DCC. 'I mean to say, you've just lost your wife.'
'Yes, and my child has just been kidnapped. I can't do anything for the one, but if I can help you find the other… Come on.' He turned to Hewlett who was standing close by. 'David, you'd better find a phone and sort something out with the Information Office.'
'The Director's on his way, sir.'
'Good. You wait here for him, then. I suppose you should get together with the police Press Officer, so that everyone knows everything that's being said.'
He led the way out of the public room and up a narrow staircase, to the floor which had been fitted out as private family quarters in the fine old Georgian House.
'Why did you stay here every Saturday, when your main home and your constituency are in the West?' Martin asked, as the three men entered another sitting room, much smal er than the first, but still finely furnished.
Anderson smiled, as the three men sat. 'Catherine liked Edinburgh.
She was like a kid with a new toy when she found that this place came with the job. So every Friday evening, when she had finished teaching and I had done my constituency surgery, she insisted that the three of us pack the car and come through here.
'Normally we stay till Sunday evening. The girls have to be back in Glasgow for school on Monday.' His eyes moistened again, as his out-of-date tenses caught up with him.
'Catherine found the hairdresser, Charlie What'sHis-Name, through the wife of one of my colleagues. She was very particular about her hair, and about Tanya's.' He broke off. 'Look, Bob, when can I see her?'
'As soon as possible. Before the post-mortem, certainly.'
'Where was she shot?' the bereaved husband asked, quietly.
'Back of the head, once from close range,' Skinner replied. 'She'd have died in an instant.' He touched his forehead. 'The bullet exited here. It was a medium-calibre weapon; from the cartridge case we found, I'd say nine-millimetre.'
'Christ, and I thought we'd banned al handguns,' Anderson moaned.
'You might as well have banned the wheel. In my experience, murderers don't mind using il egal firearms. The fact is they nearly always do. With one or two notorious exceptions, when a person used his own, registered firearm to kill, it was nearly always a suicide.'
He smiled, grimly, for a second. 'See those blokes you've brought up to investigate me? In their home city you can buy a gun in a pub for a few quid. There are so many shootings down there, they barely make the papers now, unless they're fatal. Eastern European weapons usually. Half the Red fucking Army seems to have sold its weapons on the Black Market. Nine-millimetre pistols, many of them are, and they change hands a lot.