Thursday legends

'No,' said the secretary, 'not at all. Mr Skinner,' she continued, 'Daybeige is a partnership, but Mr Shearer is very much the senior partner. He takes all the strategic investment decisions; the others implement them and report to him. We have some extremely important clients and if word got around the market that he was missing, I hate to think of the consequences for the firm.

'I discussed the situation with the others on Wednesday, and we agreed that we would do nothing and say nothing, but wait for him to surface.'

Skinner sighed. 'I fear that he may have surfaced already, Janine. Have you read about the unidentified man who was fished out of the Water of Leith last Saturday?'

She gasped, 'Yes,' she replied in a trembling whisper.

'There were terrible facial injuries, but in the circumstances… it could be the Diddler. Do you know who his doctor is?'

'He never goes to one, Mr Skinner. He's in perfect health. He has an annual check-up at the Murray field, just to be sure… his MOT, he calls it and he always passes with flying colours.'

'Would they have a note of his blood group?'

'They have better than that. They have some of his blood. Mr Shearer has a rare blood type, so he has the hospital take a pint every six months and store it, just in case they ever have to operate on him.'

Skinner nodded to Pringle, who was standing beside him, hanging on to one side of the conversation. 'That's good,' he told the secretary. 'We'll get an identification from that; one way or another.

'Now,' he continued, 'do you know where Graham, the son, is?'

'He's in Australia. He's spending the university vacation in Sydney working with a firm with whom Daybelge has a link. Mr Shearer arranged it for him.'

'Damn. I'd have liked him here for his mother, if it comes to that.'

'I have a number where you can reach him. Hold on.' He waited while she looked it out, then noted it down as she read.

'One last thing, Janine. If the Diddler was up to his old tricks and was shacked up somewhere, do you have any idea at all where that might have been.'

'No,' she replied. 'Unless… unless he used Graham's place. That would have been empty.'

'What's that?'

'It's a cottage. Mr Shearer bought it but the mortgage is in Graham's name. It's down in Coltbridge. I don't have the address, but I know that it…' She stopped in mid-sentence.

'You don't need to tell me,' Skinner said. 'It backs right on to the Water of Leith.' 'Yes.'

'Ahh, that's it,' the DCC hissed. 'Thanks, Janine. I'm really sorry. Look this has got to stay secret, even from the partners, until we've confirmed the identification by DNA comparison, and until Edith has been told. My colleague Dan Pringle will keep you informed of what's happening.

'So Daybelge can arrange damage control, we'll tell you before we make any announcement. That will not happen before Edith and Victoria are back in Scotland, or before Edith has spoken to Graham and he's on his way back home.'

'I understand.' She sounded under control.

'Good. You'd better give me your home phone number.' Again, he noted as she dictated.

'Thanks. So long, and again… I'm sorry.'

He hung up the phone, and turned to Pringle. 'Okay, Dan. I want you to get McGurk up to the Murrayfield to collect a sample of the Diddler's stored blood. Then I want you to find an address in Coltbridge occupied by one Graham Shearer.'

The Superintendent picked up a copy of the electoral register from his desk and flicked through it. 'There's no Shearer listed anywhere about there,' he announced, after a few minutes.

'The boy's only twenty, Dan. His vote's probably still in Gullane, but he'll be paying Council Tax in Edinburgh. Check it out with the City.' He turned towards the door.

'Damn!' he shouted suddenly. 'Damn! Damn! Damn! Who the Hell would want to do that to the Diddler? And why, for God's sake? Alec Smith and him, on the same bloody night!'

'But no connection between them, Boss.'

'No, but…' He gasped. 'Wait a minute, of course there's a bloody connection. They both belonged to the Legends. They played together.'

Pringle stared at him. 'My Thursday football group,' he explained, curtly. 'Alec was a member for a while, till his knee went; the Diddler's been a member almost from the start. And they're both murdered on the same night. One in North Berwick, one in Coltbridge. And what was the time gap between the two killings?' He thought for a moment. 'Four hours,' he snapped. 'It's possible; it could have been done.

'Dan. Get that blood; find that house. I'm off to talk to Sarah.'

40

'No, Bob, no. Those two murders could not have been committed by the same person.'

'Come on, can you say that for sure? The time-frame fits.'

'Maybe it does, but that's all. There are major differences between the two. Look at poor Diddler; let's go with the sex-crime scenario, I accept that it's the likeliest explanation for the nature of the binding. He's tied, has sex, or at least there's enough contact for him to acquire that single strand of hair, then he's battered to death.

'The Smith case was completely different. He was stripped and bound, yes, but that was for torture. There was nothing remotely sexual about it.'

'What about the burning of the genitalia?'

'That's an anti-sexual gesture, a classic'

'This is only theory though.'

'Okay, you want fact, here it is. The blows to Smith's head and the blows which Diddler sustained were certainly not inflicted by the same person. Now that is a hard, under-oath statement. I wouldn't call Smith's wounds superficial, but they were not the cause of death, nor did they contribute.

'Howard Shearer, on the other hand was battered savagely to death, with great force. Different people, Bob, different people. I'm sorry to blow your theory, but look at it from this angle. How many people have played football with your crowd over the years?'

'God knows,' he conceded. 'Dozens of regulars; if you count the guys, and one woman, who have played just once or twice, you could be into the hundreds.'

'And Alec Smith really wasn't there for all that long, was he? Three years or so?'

'True. Okay, I get your drift.'

'Exactly. Two members of your squad of hundreds being killed violently in completely different circumstances is, I grant you, something of a coincidence, but it's not like winning the pools. Whereas, the possibility of their having been killed by the same person does not exist.'

'Right, right, right, I'm beaten. I guess I got over-excited. Give my love to the kids; see you later.'

Skinner replaced the phone and looked across his desk at Neil Mcllhenney. 'Sometimes it's just impossible to argue with my wife,' he said. 'Especially when she's right.' He paused. 'We don't have a sniff of a motive. The Diddler was a wealthy man, he could have been killed for money, or for his Rolex, even; that alone was worth a ton.

'Nonetheless, as soon as we have a positive ID on the body, as we will, I want you to organise a meeting of the Legends, the other seven and us, or as many as are available, in the Golf in North Berwick, six o'clock this evening. I want to tell them all before they read it in the papers. If Grock or Stewart Rees or Andy John are golfing, tell them to cancel it. The poor wee bugger deserves a wake.'

'I'll need to bring the kids,' said Mcllhenney.

'Fine, Sarah will give them their dinner, and they can have a play on the beach with the lads.'

He recalled the night before. 'Here, was Karen okay about you being late?'

'Aye, she was fine,' his exec replied. 'She was a bit strange, I thought, but it was nowt to do with that, I'm sure. Lauren said this morning that she seemed sad, and she has her mother's eye for people's moods.'

'She's a capable woman, is Sergeant Neville; she'll sort it, whatever it is.'

The big Inspector stood and made to leave. 'Oh,' he said, as an afterthought. 'I tried to raise DCS Martin as you asked, but he isn't in yet. I left a message with Sammy for him to call you.'