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bloody clue.'
    The
Head of CID glanced at him, surprised. 'I didn't know that you and DCI Smith
were pals.'
    'Well,
sort of. He played football with my Thursday night crowd for a few years,
before his right knee gave out on him. He lived out Pencaitland way in those
days, with his wife. She did a runner, though, a year or two before Alec packed
it in. Went off with a plumber, or something. I guess he must have moved here
in the aftermath of that.' Skinner paused. 'There were a couple of kids, son
and daughter; they'll probably be well into their twenties by now. He lived
here alone, you said?'
    'That's
what the voters' register says. We'll see if the door-to-door tells us anything
about lady-friends - not that this murder was your run-of-the-mill domestic'
    'No
indeed. Better let me see where it happened, then.'

Another
uniformed constable, so new in the force that Skinner did not know his name,
was stationed at Alec Smith's front door. He stood to attention as the
unmistakable figure of the Deputy Chief Constable approached. 'Morning, son,'
Skinner said. 'This is a bloody awful job you've got: doorkeeper at a
slaughterhouse. But I've done it in my time and so has Mr Martin. Just don't
let the gawpers gather at the gate. The same goes for the press over there, and
for the television crews when they turn up ... as they will. This is a narrow street and the traffic comes whizzing round that
bend sometimes. We don't want another body here, if we can help it.'
    'Very
good, sir,' the young man replied, put at his ease by the DCC's friendly
manner.
    'Who's
in there?' asked Martin.
    'No
one, sir. They're all round the corner at the mobile HQ.'
    'Then
why's the front door open?'
    'Inspector
Dorward said to leave it open, sir. To blow the smell out of the place, he
said.' Skinner winced, as he stood aside to let Martin lead the way into the
house.
    Even
after Dorward's crew of technicians had done their work, the room upstairs
still seemed relatively tidy, considering what had happened there. The slatted
blinds were closed once more, but the windows had been opened and they were
blowing up and rattling on the through draught. In spite of it all, some of the
stench from the night before crept back into the Head of CID's nostrils.
    Smith's
clothes still lay across the armchair, where the killers had left them. A blue
velvet drape still lay across the back of the sofa. The whisky bottle and
glasses were still on the table, and the telescope was still on its stand,
although they had all been dusted with white fingerprint powder. The cameras
were gone from the desk, though, taken away by Dorward as ordered. The only
other thing missing from the room since Martin's first visit was the body
itself.
    Its
presence lingered nonetheless. Directly below the hook in the roof beam from
which it had hung, a dark stain disfigured the beige carpet.
    "The
room was like this when you were here last night?' Skinner asked.
    'Yes.
No signs of a struggle, as you can see. I guess that Alec must have known the
guys.'
    'Guys?'
    'There
must have been more than one, surely, to handle a big, rough bloke like him
with no obvious effort.'
    'Aye,
but you said that he was battered about the head. Couldn't a single bloke have
slugged him from behind, knocked him unconscious, then strung him up?'
    Martin
frowned. 'He could have, but if it had happened that way, then almost certainly
there would have been blood spattered around. I don't see any. I reckon he must
have been overpowered, and that would have taken more than one guy.'
    The
older man grunted. 'Knowing Alec Smith, age fifty plus or not, I can promise
you that it would have taken a small fucking army to overpower him, strip him,
tie him and hoist him up on that hook. No, somehow or other he must have been
knocked unconscious.'
    'That's
something else Sarah will have to tell us, then,' the DCS murmured.
    Skinner
looked around the room: at the expensive, carefully-placed furniture,
television and video; the tall