39
December, normally a month of mounting
excitement, was relatively quiet after the uproar of November.
Peace returned to Edinburgh: The press follow-up of the Yobatu
arrest was deflected by a simple statement that the person
interviewed had been eliminated from the enquiry. The officers in
the search team were told that Yobatu was hopelessly insane, and
that the arrest was not to be discussed with anyone, not even wives
or partners. The vigils in the Royal Mile were continued for a
time, but were scaled down, and eventually stopped, although a
public pretence was maintained that they were still continuing at
an appropriate level. ventually, with other, newer stories to
entice them, and with no further killings, the media lost
interest.
The loss of Yobatu, and the unscratched itch, still
rankled with Skinner, but four things happened to make them more
bearable for him.
First, Sarah and Alex were joint belles of the
annual CID dance - never referred to as a ball. The doctor’s
arrival on the ACC’s arm finally allowed the force to discuss in
public what it had been discussing in private for weeks.
Second, he became a member of the New Club, and
found that the institution, in its bizarre home in Princes Street,
was much less stuffy and austere than he had imagined. Quickly, he
came to appreciate its value as an information exchange, and as a
place where business could be done discreetly, if technically
against Club rules.
Third, he noted on a routine report, the pending
prosecution of one John Wilson, of Liberton, on a charge of driving
with excess alcohol in his bloodstream.
Fourth, the Lord Advocate, Lord Muckhart, resigned
suddenly and mysteriously, citing ‘personal reasons’. Later he was
forced to admit that he was involved in an adulterous relationship
with the wife of a leading Scottish politician, after the Scotsman newspaper, having received information from
an anonymous source, broke the story. ‘That,’ Skinner said to
Sarah, ‘is what I call getting even!’