His wellies were less trendy than his wife's. They were the old-fashioned, wide-topped, black sort, and they had lain in the dark recesses of successive car boots for over ten years. The dried mud of countless crime scenes packed the ridges of their soles, and another layer was being added as Skinner crouched to look into the grey, mottled, dead face of Bill Masur.
The body still sat in the chair, crumpled and shapeless. The right eye was slightly open. There was no sparkle there, no light, no life. The weight of the head was pressing the jaw into the chest, and the fleshy bottom lip stuck out grotesquely.
Old Japanese proverb,' said Skinner, softly, conversationally. ' "He who play in heavy traffic sometimes get run over." I don't think your Yakuza pals are going to know what to make of this at all. I just hope that if they decide to do some getting even, they do it well away from here.'
He pushed himself to his feet. With a squelch, he backed away, then climbed up the slope to where Alison Higgins and Mario McGuire were standing on firmer ground.
'A right nasty bastard, was Mr Masur,' he said. 'I thought he might have had something coming to him. Didn't think it'd arrive so fast, though. Have the photographers finished?'
`Yes, sir,' said Higgins, 'and the technicians say they can't do any more here either. They've taken samples from the rope that ties this thing down. Now they're looking for footprints around the bollard to which it's attached. They think they've found the exact point where Masur was loaded into the chair.
‘D'you see how it was done?' She took several steps past the pillar of the stool, which rose from the ground beside the steepest point of the bank to an area where the flatter ground widened out. She grabbed the rope which hung from the end of the long wooden boom which carried the chair. It was at least ten feet above her head. 'When there's nothing in the stool this can be moved about, no bother, and can be swung over there.' She pointed to an area behind Skinner and McGuire where a square had been sectioned off with Day-Glo tape. 'That's where it happened, sir. There's an indentation in the ground that seems to match the base of the chair, and we assume that it was made when Masur was tied into it.' She took a few steps to her right, to where a small, mushroom-shaped metal bollard was fixed securely into the ground. It was roped off also. 'Once the chair was loaded, it was raised up, swung round and dropped in over there. You can tell how deep the chair went by looking at the water mark on the boom. There's mud on it, and on Masur's legs, so it must have been sitting right on the bottom.'
Skinner walked across towards the Superintendent, his eye following her pointing arm to the surface of the loch. 'Could one man have done it all, I wonder?' He strode across to the end of the boom and took hold of the rope with both hands. Winding it around his wrists for added purchase, he tugged downwards.
On the other end of the boom, the chair and Masur's dead Weight rose, dripping, into the air, with surprising ease. 'No problem. The length of the lever makes it relatively simple, if you've got the basic strength to get the bugger off the deck! Holding the body aloft, he stepped to his left, to the very edge of the bank, and lowered it, gently, on to flatter, drier ground, just beside the sectioned area. He unwound the rope from his wrists, and brushed the hemp strands from the sleeves of his jacket, then walked back, ducklike in his flapping wellingtons, to rejoin Higgins and McGuire.
`You can have the body removed now. PDQ in fact, just in case there are any long-range cameras on the scene already. Make sure the ambulance doesn't go out past the clubhouse, but along the buggy track and out through the Bracklands Estate road.
`Complete the sweep of the ground as fast as you can, then tape off the spot where the body was landed, and clear everyone out of here; by nine-thirty if you can manage it.'
McGuire looked at Skinner in surprise. 'Is the tournament going ahead, boss?'
I don't see why it shouldn't, unless I have to arrest all the players! The body'll be out of the way, and the public can't contaminate the site. Deacon Weekes's team will be one short, but I'm sure he'll manage.
OK, you two attend to all that stuff. I'm off to join Andy for a working breakfast at Bracklands!'