Sir James Proud sighed. ‘Never forget it. I was ACC Operations then. I saw the report myself.’
‘Can you remember how the incident was handled by the Procurator Fiscal? I was in a haze around then, but I don’t recall there being a Fatal Accident Inquiry.’
‘There wasn’t, Bob, not a formal court hearing at least. The officers at the scene reported that it was a straightforward loss of control due to excessive speed; no eye-witnesses but no indication of any other vehicle involved. The post mortem confirmed that death was due to crushing injuries to the chest and would have been instantaneous.’ He gazed at Skinner.
‘I ordered the report completed and sent it to the Fiscal in Edinburgh.’
‘Not the deputy in Haddington?’
‘No, I sent it over his head. I went straight to the top man and told him I didn’t see the need for a full FAI before Sheriff and jury, and that I didn’t want one. He agreed.’
‘Did you keep a copy of the report,’ Skinner asked, quietly.
Sir James shook his head. ‘No, I didn’t. It was the Fiscal’s property, not mine. I sent him the only copy.’
‘And were there photographs with it?’
‘There were, but I didn’t forward them. I sent them back to the photographic unit. I imagine they were destroyed.’
Proud Jimmy looked anxiously at Skinner. ‘This is part of what’s between you and Sarah, son, isn’t it?’
‘That’s the way she wants to see it,’ said the DCC, choosing his words carefully.
The Chief hesitated, studying his friend’s face. ‘Bob,’ he said at last. ‘You don’t want to get into this. Not after all this time. And you don’t want to see that report. Take my word on it.’
‘Ah, but I do, Jimmy. I do. I need to see it. You take my word on that.’
He stood up and left the room by the side exit. Across the corridor, his secretary’s door was open. ‘Ruthie,’ he asked. ‘Would you get me Mr Pettigrew, the Procurator Fiscal, please.’
‘Yes, sir, but Brian Mackie and Mario McGuire are waiting in your office.’
‘As soon as they’ve gone, then.’
Mackie and McGuire stood up as he entered the room, but he waved them to the comfortable seats around his low table. ‘You’ll have read something of the Carole Charles death, I take it,’ he began, briskly.
‘Yes, boss,’ the thin, dome-headed Detective Chief Inspector replied. ‘Only press reports, though.’
‘My wife told me about it last night, sir,’ replied the powerfully built, black-haired McGuire. ‘She told me they interviewed someone yesterday.’
‘That’s right,’ said Skinner. ‘She and others are following it up today. But DCS Martin and I have a job for Special Branch too. We want you to consult your colleagues in the network around the country, and find out anything you can about anyone with a grudge against John Jackson Charles . . . a big enough grudge to make him a target for murder.
‘We need a full report as soon as possible. Consult Andy Martin as you require, but let me know at once of anything you turn up. I’ll be at my Gullane number over the weekend, or available on my mobile.’ He stood up, almost jumping to his feet.
‘That’s it, go to it.’
He was buzzing Ruth as the door closed behind the two detectives. Within two minutes, she called him back. ‘Mr Pettigrew on the line, sir.’
‘Davie,’ said Skinner, heartily, as she put the call through. ‘How are you doing?’
‘I’ll be doing better when you give me someone for that fire in Seafield.’
The DCC smiled as he pictured the mournful, black-bearded face at the other end of the line. ‘We will, Davie, don’t you worry. With a bit of luck, and a bit of time, we might give you more than that.
‘But this is about something else. How long does your office keep police reports on accidental deaths? What’s the Crown Office rule on retention?’
‘There’s a certain amount of discretion on that,’ said Pettigrew. ‘In this office we keep them for at least twenty years.’
Skinner smiled in huge satisfaction. ‘Excellent. In that case, I want you to do me a favour, by having some weekend reading couriered to me at Fettes Avenue by close of play today, under Eyes Only cover.
‘I want to see the report on the death of my first wife, in a car accident in East Lothian, eighteen years ago.’
‘I’ll still have it,’ said Pettigrew, hesitant, and clearly curious.
‘I’ll tell you why in due course, Davie. Meantime, it’s just possible that you might have a call from my Chief Constable asking you not to let me see that file.
‘If that happens, my friend, you’re going to have to decide which of the two of us you’d like least to upset!’
20
‘Big guy, with a Zapata moustache. I remember him all right. “The Vulture” was what we called him, in fact; on account of that bloody great tattoo.’
Calum Berwick smiled as he stood among the shining apparatus in the weight-training room at Meadowbank Stadium. It was less busy than the Royal Commonwealth Pool facility had been. Only four people were at work, but all were pressing heavy weights, concentrating so hard that none of them appeared to notice the group of three near the door.
Rose glanced down the room and saw, through the glass wall at the far end, a number of athletes pounding round the synthetic track upon which two Commonwealth Games had been celebrated.
‘You get the serious people in places like this, the hard trainers, and you get the posers,’ said Berwick. ‘The Vulture was a bit of both. He could do his stuff on the apparatus okay, but he liked to strut around too, flashing the pecs at the girls, and running off at the mouth.
‘I remember hearing him say once that he had the tattoo done when he was in the French Foreign Legion. He was a hard man, by his way of it, but I had him marked down as a bit of a wanker.’
‘What age was he?’ asked Maggie Rose.
‘In his thirties, for sure, but whether early or late, I wouldn’t like to say.’
‘Can you recall his real name?’
Berwick made a face. ‘I was afraid you were going to ask that. I’ve been trying to remember, but I don’t think I ever knew it. There was no membership requirement up there. You just paid and lifted, paid and lifted, every time.’
‘Have you ever seen him here?’
The manager shook his head. ‘No. Not once. And I’d have remembered that bloody tattoo for sure, if I’d seen it.’
‘Up at the Commonwealth,’ asked Pye, ‘did you ever hear him speak of anywhere else he might have trained?’
Berwick considered the question for a few moments. ‘No, I can’t say that I did. But the guy worked out a lot. Big circuits at least three times a week, daily at some times. I doubt if he’d be training anywhere else at that time.’
‘Yet he just stopped turning up,’ said Rose.
‘So it seems, if Simon doesn’t know him. He must have joined a club. A lot of the serious guys do. It can work out cheaper than here in the long run.’
‘That’s just great,’ said the Chief Inspector. ‘We’ll have to start working our way round them.’
Berwick began to head for the door. ‘One thing more,’ Rose called out. ‘Do you remember a guy named Carl Medina from your days at the Commonwealth?’
‘Carl? Sure, he was one of my regulars up there. He comes here too on occasion, on the special unemployed concessionary rate. Nice guy, quiet. He’s not a body-builder; just trains to keep fit.’
‘Is he the sort of guy who’d have associated with the Vulture.’
Berwick shook his head, emphatically. ‘No. He’s the sort of guy the Vulture would have tried to impress.’
He escorted the two detectives to the stadium’s foyer, waving them goodbye, as he trotted back down the stairs to his office. Rose and Pye stood alone in the big entrance hallway.