He put down the lamp and took from a pocket of his heavy windcheater jacket, a small chisel with a fine blade. He picked up the case and looked again at the locks. The three numbered wheels in each were set in a rectangular brass face, with the head of a rivet showing in each of the four corners.
Skinner slid the chisel’s edge between one of the rivets and the facing. Holding it steady with his left hand he gave the wooden handle a sharp downward blow with the heel of his right. The brass rivet head flew across the room. He repeated the process with the other seven rivets. Finally he levered off the two square sliding catches which released the locks. As each one came away, so the brass facings fell on to the desk, exposing the inner mechanisms.
He bent the flexible shaft of the table lamp so that it shone straight down on the desk. Carefully he eased the right hand lock from its casing and placed it in the beam. Reaching once more into his pocket, he produced a small square magnifying glass with a swivelling leather cover, and a pair of philatelist’s tweezers. As Skinner peered through the glass into the lock, Martin realised suddenly that they were both holding their breath.
Suddenly Skinner’s face was lit with triumph. ‘Got you, you bastard!’
In the outer office, the slumbering detective constable jumped in alarm.
Skinner handed Martin the glass. He leaned across and peered at the magnified image of the locking mechanism, in the bright light of the lamp. There, at the back of the device, four black strands of fibre were trapped between the numbered combination wheels.
‘Get me an envelope please, Andy.’
Martin pulled open a drawer in his two pedestal desk, and took out a small folder, made of clear plastic, with a self-sealing strip along the top. He pressed its edges to force the envelope open, as Skinner picked up the tweezers and inserted them carefully into the lock. The strands came clear without breaking, and he placed them gently in the clear container.
Quickly, he examined the other lock. A single strand was trapped there. He put it beside the others and sealed the envelope.
‘We’ll get confirmation from the lab. tomorrow, but we know for sure now. The man who killed Mortimer looked in that case. And, certainly, he looked in Rachel Jameson’s as well, only he couldn’t do it at the scene.
‘I ask you again, why would Yobatu do that?’
‘But what about all the evidence pointing to him?’
‘I know. Motive and opportunity. He’s unstable after the death of his daughter. He kills his three targets, each in different circumstances, and along the way commits three smokescreen murders to lead us away from the link, and from him. It’s incredible, but its a perfect fit. And like a Marks & Spencer suit, I bought it. An off-the-peg solution. A crazy avenging angel, dropped right in my lap.
‘I bought it then, but now I’m taking it back to the shop.’
‘Come on, boss! What about the stuff in the garage?’
‘Andy, son, all that was planted. Whoever did all this had Yobatu picked out as Mr Lucky.
‘Listen, when he looked in that drawer, I was watching him. Just for a second his expression changed. I didn’t know what it was at the time but I know now.
‘He was astonished. He was seeing those things for the first time.’
‘But why didn’t he say that? He had the chance, but he didn’t deny any of it. None of our accusations. He virtually admitted killing the Chinese boy. Why would he do that?’
‘That, I’m going to find out. He is deranged, remember. Maybe when we told him about the murders he even imagined that he did them. But the fact is, we’ve been fed this poor guy.’
‘So there’s another crazy, and he’s still out there? Is that what you’re saying?’
Skinner paused and settled back on the edge of the desk. His eyes were level with Martin’s, and he gazed steadily at him.
‘Yes, Andy, this is a very dangerous man, and he’s still out there. But he’s no lunatic; at least not the sort you’re thinking about.
‘For a while I was prepared to believe the Yobatu solution, and accept the idea of the three smokescreen killings, meant to steer us away from the real story. Now I’m even more ready to believe that someone else committed not three, but four side-track murders — yes that’s right, Shun Lee as well — to set up Yobatu, and to stop us looking for a link between Mortimer and Jameson and whatever is the real cause of all this blood-letting.
‘Let’s forget Shun Lee. Maybe the Triads did whack him. Let’s forget John Doe the Wino, Mary Rafferty, even for the moment young Mac Vicar. Let’s concentrate on Mortimer and Jameson. They were the targets. They were involved in something we don’t know about, and they were killed for it.’
‘Suppose they weren’t the only advocates involved,’ said Martin quietly.
‘That’s another ugly thought; but yes, let’s just suppose that they weren’t. We’d better check with our friends at the Faculty whether any other advocates have met their Maker lately; and let’s run a quiet check on anyone who might have instructed the late Michael or the late Rachel. At the same time I want a full search of all their effects, personal records, professional and social, and anything else that might give us a start on this.’
Martin nodded. ‘I take it you want Special Branch to handle this, boss.’
‘Too right I do. Think back to our friends Allingham and Wilson, and remember how eager they were to see Yobatu off our national premises. We could be involved in something here that goes far beyond our wee city, something that reaches up to Government itself.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ Martin muttered softly.
‘You start searching through the personal effects. Brian Mackie’s due back on Monday, but bring him in tomorrow. Brief him, then put together a small team of good people who’ll keep their mouths shut. Use Maggie Rose as your sergeant if you like. I’ll square it with her boss.
‘In the meantime, I’ll find out if the Faculty has lost any other advocates lately. Then I’m off to London. I want to see Shi-Bachi, to find out a bit more about what makes a man like Yobatu tick, and why he might have been willing to carry the can for something he didn’t do.’
46
Cold rain was beginning to fall on the dimly lit Morningside Street as Skinner pulled his Granada to a halt outside Peter Cowan’s solid, grey, terraced home. Internal wooden shutters, an original feature still in use in many of Edinburgh’s elegant Victorian homes were pulled across the ground floor windows.
The Clerk of Faculty answered Skinner’s knock on the door. ‘Hello, Bob. Good to see you. Congratulations are in order, I hear.’
Faster than a speeding bullet, that’s the Edinburgh grapevine, thought Skinner.
‘Thank you, Peter. Yes, I’m a lucky man. Happy New Year, by the way.
‘Same to you; many of them. Come away in. Now what’s the mystery? He led the way into a comfortable family sitting room, with heavy velvet curtains and a chintzy suite, set around a coal-effect gas fire.
‘Deep and dark, my friend, deep and dark,’ Skinner replied. ‘Look don’t over-react to this, but I want you to think carefully. Have there been, since Rachel Jameson’s murder, or before Mortimer’s, any other deaths in the Faculty of people who might have been close to either of those two?’
Cowan’s expressive eyes widened. ‘Rachel’s murder! You know that the Crown Office has it labelled SUICIDE in big black letters. That’s how the evidence will look at the FAI.
‘I thought your Japanese connection had fallen through. Hasn’t it?’
‘It’s a long story, Peter.’ He explained how the Yobatu lead had developed, and how it had ended with the intervention of Allingham and Wilson.
‘Now after being convinced, I’ve got reason to think that Yobatu didn’t do it. If Mike and Rachel were killed by the same man — as I’m bloody sure they were — and it wasn’t Yobatu, then there’s another reason for their deaths, and maybe, other people involved and at risk. That’s my concern.’