‘For about three years,’ he replied. ‘It began with persistent abdominal pain, just annoying at first, but it became more than that. I didn’t say anything at work; instead I became David Murphy and took myself off to a private clinic in Dublin, where it was diagnosed: pancreatic cancer. I took a sabbatical, as you may remember. I was supposed to be studying in Italy, but actually I was in Dublin having chemo. Initially my consultant was hopeful, but that was misplaced. I had a period of remission, then a recurrence, more treatment, more false hope; until finally last summer, he told me there was no more treatment. Drugs would keep me going in the short term, my consultant said, but probably I had no more than eighteen months left.

  ‘And that’s when I decided that Matthew Reid wasn’t going to outlive me,’ Dorward said. ‘The problem was that I had no idea how I could bring that about, without a causing a scandal that would engulf my son Paul.’

  Unexpectedly, he beamed. ‘And then it came to me. I’d create a crime, and pin it on him!’

  ‘Soon after that, Bob, you in your lockdown boredom, started to fantasise about old people’s deaths in Gullane and I was asked to investigate. The thing was,’ he laughed, ‘I’d set it all up. You were right, the old folk were murdered, and clues were thrown in your direction; you did your thing and all you got wrong,’ he smiled and winked, ‘was the perpetrator.

  ‘It was me that did it, not Matthew. All of it, that was me, right down to planting DNA evidence that I had but you didn’t. I had Matthew’s DNA and a viable print for years. The irony was that he gave me it himself without ever knowing it. Paul was a fan, coincidentally, so I pretended that I was too. I asked him to go to one of Matthew’s gigs, to buy a book and get him to sign it using my fountain pen.’

  Dorward laughed. ‘Paul went over the top, actually, he asked for a selfie. Anyway, with Matthew established as prime suspect it was time to bring everything to an end. Everything you said about my movements was right and so, unfortunately, was your eagle-eyed dogwalker. If he’d walked a bit faster he might have seen me take the motorhome, big and all as it is, into Matthew’s driveway where it couldn’t be seen . . . I’d checked it out on Google Earth . . . then I rang his doorbell.

  ‘He didn’t know who I was at first, not until the paralysing drug was in him and I could tell him. When I shot the pentobarbital into his vein, all he said was, “No, not now.” I wondered then what he meant, but when I found out about him and McClair, I guessed. When he was gone, as you know, to muddy the water I took his car up to the reservoir with my wee Hero bike in the back, and his clothes . . . he didn’t have a lot . . . in cases. I dumped those in the water, cleaned the car and left it there, complete with your prints on the steering wheel, Bob. That was just for a laugh, of course,’ he added.

  ‘I had those too. They’re on record still and I had access. I know you thought that Matthew transferred them off disposable gloves you’d worn, but there was no need for that. The 3D printer’s a great invention.

  ‘With that job done,’ Dorward continued, ‘I biked back to Gullane, used a fold-up trolley to get the body into the motor home and got on my way to Bishopbriggs. I did the embalming there. It’s not difficult if you have the knowledge and the kit. The rest was as you described it. End of story, for Matthew and for me.’ Dorward leaned back, with a smile of satisfaction. ‘A brilliant plan,’ he boasted.

  ‘What about the Glasgow murder?’ McGuire asked him. ‘The forensics led us to Reid. Did you do that too?’

  ‘Fuck no!’ he exclaimed. ‘That would have been much too risky, and too bloody. I reckon you should still look at Andy Martin for that one.’

  ‘The text messages,’ Skinner exclaimed, ignoring the accusation. ‘What were they about?’

  ‘Just a distraction,’ Dorward explained. ‘I wanted you to think that Matthew was still alive for at least as long as it took me to die naturally. My only mistake was sending them too soon. You were meant to find him eventually, but not so quickly. I’d hoped to have passed away myself by then.’

  ‘You’ll do that in prison, Arthur.’

  ‘You reckon, Bob?’ He pointed at the camera, and looked at McGuire. ‘Mario, switch that off please, and the audio recording. It’ll be in your interests, both of you, I promise.’

  McGuire frowned, looking him in the eye. Finally, he made a decision. ‘Switch off,’ he ordered an unseen hand. A few seconds later, the light on the camera went out. The DCC reached out and turned off the voice recorder himself.

  ‘Okay, clever boys,’ Dorward said, gazing at them with a smile, ‘so here’s the deal. All this has been done with me manipulating crime-scene evidence all over the fucking place. Maybe you should ask yourselves, how many other times have I done that? How many of your celebrated convictions have been obtained thanks to forensic traces planted at crime scenes by yours truly?’

  He let his hypothesis take effect. ‘If that claim was ever made,’ he ventured, ‘can you imagine the consequences for the pair of you? It wouldn’t even have to be true. All it’d take will be for me to go to trial, which I will if necessary, and make the claim in open court. And if I go on, if I add that you two, and McIlhenney, were complicit? You would be royally fucked, the three of you. Okay, you might be exonerated eventually, but how long would it take? Mario, your career and Neil’s, would be over effectively because you’d be suspended for the duration. Bob, you’d lose your highly lucrative jet-setting job. I mean, how could a man under such a cloud run a business as ethical as Intermedia has to be? It’ll be open season on you guys. I wish he could hear this but I’ll trust you to convey my message as clearly as need be.’

  The scientist smiled. They could see triumph in his eyes, and pain behind them. ‘So,’ he continued, ‘here’s the deal. Arthur Dorward retires on health grounds. David Murphy goes back to the family farm in Cork for a bit, and then into a hospice where he dies quietly in a few months’ time. If it’ll help you make a decision, I’ll even give you access to his medical records.’

  One Hundred and Three

  ‘Is he serious?’ Jenny Sprake asked.

  ‘As serious as death,’ Neil McIlhenney assured her. ‘He wasn’t lying about his cancer. Mario’s spoken to his consultant in Dublin. He’s entering the final stage; the prognosis is he’ll be dead by the end of September at the very latest.’

  ‘What can we do?’

  ‘We can charge him, put him up before the Sheriff and have him remanded without plea for a couple of weeks, while we prepare a case for a pleading diet. If he pleads not guilty the judge can send him to the High Court for trial, then give him bail, with an ankle tag, so that we don’t have to begin before any specific date. The case will be sub judice, so the press won’t be able to report any claims he makes. Also, we’ll cut off his access to social media. If he pleads guilty, well, that’ll probably mean his threat is false, but the judge can defer the sentencing hearing for as long as we like, that is for as long as it takes him to die.’

  She looked him in the eye. ‘Or?’

  ‘Or we let Arthur take retirement and David go back to Ireland. If he should make a miraculous recovery . . . we can always bring him back to Scotland for trial.’

  ‘Which of those options should I choose, Chief Constable?’

  McIlhenney shrugged. ‘You’re the Crown Agent. It’s your call.’

  One Hundred and Four

  ‘You’ve heard about Matthew?’ Noele McClair asked, tentatively.

  ‘The DCC told me,’ Karen Neville replied. ‘I’m trying to get my head round it. Arthur fucking Dorward! Jesus, imagine carrying a grudge like that for all that time. How did you hear?’

  ‘From the same source. He told me everything. I can’t make up my mind whether it was a grudge Arthur was bearing or a torch that became too hot to handle.’

  ‘Probably a bit of both?’ Neville suggested. ‘I never really thought of Uncle Matt having a past, far less one he was covering up. I certainly never thought of him being gay. If I had, I wouldn’t have cared. He’d still have been who he was, my favourite uncle, a big influence on my life and a constant supporter.’’

  ‘He wasn’t gay,’ McClair murmured. ‘Of that I can assure you. But I believe what the DCC said about Dorward and him. Matthew was a loving man, and I believe from the short time I knew him that he was a very moral one too. As for Arthur, yes, I can imagine someone like him being as obsessive as that. If I ever write a romantic novel,’ she declared, ‘it’ll be about a love story that went wrong, with tragic circumstances. If I ever write a horror story, it’ll be based on the Black Shield Lodge inquiry.’

  She hesitated. ‘Karen,’ she continued, ‘Matthew’s funeral. Have you given any thought . . .’

  ‘Yes,’ Neville replied. ‘His lawyer called me this morning to tell me that I’m his executor; it’s down to me, there being no heirs as such. I plan to ask the Spanish to release the body so I can bring him home. A woodland burial maybe, what do you think?’

  ‘I think that would be nice,’ McClair murmured, her voice faltering. ‘One thing, though: you need to know this as Matthew’s executor. There is, or rather there will be, an heir . . .’

  One Hundred and Five

  ‘Why did he send that text?’ Xavi Aislado asked.

  ‘To cause confusion, keep the police looking for Matthew,’ Bob Skinner replied. ‘At least, that’s what he said.’

  ‘You don’t believe him?’

  ‘Yes, but it was more than that. Until they appeared, the police investigation . . . it wasn’t quite closed, but it was scaled down. Without those messages, they wouldn’t have started looking for Matthew in Spain. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been found until someone had cause to open that freezer. By that time Arthur would probably have been dead. The mystery would still have been solved, but he wouldn’t have been around to summon McGuire and me to be told what a clever fella he’d been. He wanted that. It was part of his plan, the end game. I didn’t believe him when he said that he’d sent the messages too soon.’

  ‘Do you think there’s a chance that he did manipulate forensic evidence in earlier investigations?’

  Looking at the computer screen, Skinner shrugged. ‘I don’t know for sure, but I doubt it. Arthur took real pride in his work; he was a perfectionist. But this I do know: never in my career did I put an innocent man away. Dorward’s forensic evidence only backed up what I had proved by other means. He knows that as well as I do; his threat was a bluff, no more than that.’

  ‘What’s going to happen to him?’ Aislado pondered.

  ‘The Crown Office had him examined by two consultant oncologists. They confirmed the prognosis; one said he might have six weeks, the other said twelve but no more. They’re letting him go back to Ireland to die.’

  ‘From what you’ve told me, that’s the best outcome, I think. Although be assured,’ he emphasised, ‘Intermedia would have stood by you whatever happened if he had got to tell his lies in open court.’

  ‘It’s nice of you to say that, mate,’ Skinner said, ‘but we both know that would have been difficult. Our media rivals would have played it up.’ He grinned. ‘Anyway, fuck it. Change the subject. How’s Clyde settling in? he asked.

  ‘He’s great. He’s efficient and he’s good company. I must have been a miserable old shit without him.’

  ‘Nah!’ Bob chuckled. ‘Occasionally morose, that’s all. By the way,’ he added, ‘his brother’s murder is back on the open unsolved list. Arthur tried to point the police towards Andy Martin again, but those two were never friends.’

  ‘Could Martin have killed a man? In that way? Surely not,’ Aislado exclaimed.

  ‘Andy Martin once killed an armed man with his bare hands,’ Skinner told him, ‘but we don’t talk about that.’

  ‘And the Matthew Reid investigation?’

  ‘The police media people are feeding the red-tops the line that it’s still primarily a Spanish investigation.’

  Aislado laughed. ‘The Mossos will love that.’

  Skinner nodded. ‘Yes, but I’m sure there’ll be someone they’d love to frame for it. So long. I’ll be back out next week. There’s a business to run.’

  One Hundred and Six

  ‘John, don’t let it get to you,’ Lottie Mann urged her sergeant. ‘Dorward’s dying. He wouldn’t live for as long as it would take to try him. Letting him go back to Ireland is the compassionate thing to do.’

  ‘It’s also convenient,’ Cotter pointed out. ‘A lot of stuff will stay under the carpet.’

  ‘Where it belongs,’ she insisted. ‘Look, everyone from the chief constable down knows what a good job you did in building the case against Arthur. It can only work to your credit. So,’ she paused, ‘what’s this enquiry from Sunderland that’s landed on my desk looking for a reference for an inspector post there? You’ll make inspector here in short order.’ She grinned. ‘In fact, I hear there might be a DI post coming up in Lerwick. You’d like it up there.’

  ‘I’ll pass on that one, boss.’ The DS smiled back at her as he shook his head. ‘I’m not going to Sunderland,’ he told her. ‘That was a gesture of desperation, when I was feeling really low. For a while I reckoned my face didn’t fit here.’

  ‘Rubbish! It always has.’

  ‘I know, boss, but the thing is, I realise now that Scotland doesn’t fit my face. I’m a Tyneside bloke; that’s where I belong. There’s a DS post vacant in Newcastle right now, and it’s mine.’ He smiled again. ‘I’ll be working for a female DCI there as well. She’s older than you, but they tell me she’s a bit of a legend down there.’

  One Hundred and Seven

  There were nine mourners in Perth Crematorium for the funerals of Naomi Trott and Tony Hughes.

  Cameron McCullough and her husband were together in the front row. Behind them sat Mia McCullough, Noele McClair, Jackie Wright, Tiggy Benjamin, Sir Robert Skinner and his sons, Ignacio and James Andrew. ‘I found them, Dad,’ the latter had said. ‘I want to be there.’

  Cameron had invited her uncle, but Sammy Trott had declined, opting to stay in Australia and watch through a video link.

  The service was brief and formal, conducted by a humanist celebrant recommended by the undertaker. When it was over, the nine had returned in two limousines to Black Shield Lodge. There had been little or no traffic on the way, but there was an early kick-off at McDermid Park, and it was beginning to build up.

  Matthew Reid’s funeral was two weeks away. The Mossos d’ Esquadra had not closed its investigation, but had agreed that his body could be repatriated, for burial but not cremation. A twenty-week scan had revealed that his posthumous child was a daughter; Noele’s condition was obvious but it was not discussed. That would be for another time.

  When lunch was over and coffee was being served, Jazz Skinner excused himself from the table. His father followed him, at a discreet distance, as he walked up the pathway that led from the hotel towards what had been Cheeky’s Wood. The foresters had been at work for two weeks, felling the trees that had been left standing after the devastation of Storm Boromir. The job was no more than halfway to completion, Bob estimated, as he stepped up beside his son.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ he asked.

  Jazz flexed his shoulders, in the first formal suit he had ever owned. ‘Their father did that to them, really?’ he replied.

  Bob nodded. ‘Really.’

  ‘Why would he do that, Dad?’

  He sighed. ‘Moses Trott was pure evil. I’m glad I never met him.’

  ‘You must have met lots like him, though.’

  ‘No,’ he said, quietly. ‘Very, very few killers I put away fell into that category. Most of them were just angry at the time they did it, or greedy, or they didn’t really plan on doing it . . . it wasn’t premeditated . . . but the law called it homicide.’

  ‘The other son?’ Jazz asked. ‘He buried the bodies of his sister and his brother. How could he have done that? How could he?’

  ‘Who knows, son?’

  ‘And Matthew Reid. To kill him and put him in a freezer?’

  ‘Same answer. Who knows?’

  I do, Skinner thought, but I’m not going to tell you, son, not for a long time. Your shining innocence won’t last for ever, but I’ll shield you for as long as I can.

  Discover more from Quintin Jardine . . .

  Sir Robert Skinner’s stock is rising – after retiring from the police service he’s been promoted to head an international media organisation. Yet a series of unexplained deaths on his home turf in Scotland threaten to bring him crashing back down to earth.

  As Skinner helps the elderly in his local community, several residents seem to die of natural causes. But when a gruesome discovery is made in a Glasgow flat and one of Skinner’s long-time friends – an aspiring politician – emerges as the prime suspect, things become very murky indeed.

  After unpicking clues that go nowhere, Skinner and his team are left grappling the most baffling conundrum they have ever encountered – is there a mystery at all?

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  About the author

  Praise for Quintin Jardine

  Also by Quintin Jardine

  About the Book

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen