He raised her on her toes and kissed her. ‘When?’ he murmured.
‘In six months,’ she replied, ‘if we both still want it. Let’s get you in the chair first, let some time elapse, and then do it quietly. When does Sir James go?’
‘In a couple of months; he’ll give a period of notice and take accrued leave. End result, he’ll be gone before September. The selection process will take longer than that, though; much of the six months you were talking about.’ He put his forehead against hers. ‘By the way, that was serious nonsense you were talking back there. No way are you just a glorified committee chair. It’s people like you who make people like me decide not to take over the country, not just yet.’
Aileen laughed. ‘You will let me know when you change your mind, won’t you, so I can have you arrested?’
Bob checked his watch. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s get on the road. I’ve got a witness to track down and interview.’
He was in the act of picking up the car keys when the phone rang. ‘At last,’ he exclaimed, snatching it up. ‘Mario?’ he said.
‘Mr Skinner?’ asked a female voice.
‘Yes.’
‘Is the First Minister with you?’
‘That depends. Who is this, and how did you get this number?’
‘It’s the Lord Advocate’s office, and Lena McElhone, her private secretary, gave it to me.’
He ignored the stiffness in the woman’s voice. ‘She’s here,’ he conceded. ‘What’s the panic?’
‘The Lord Advocate would like to speak to Ms de Marco.’
He could feel Aileen’s eyes on his back. ‘Please tell the Lord Advocate she’ll call him back in a couple of minutes. I have your office number.’
‘That’s all right. I’ll hold on.’
‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘The First Minister will call you back.’
‘I could have taken it,’ she said, as he turned to face her.
‘And possibly found yourself talking to the news editor of the Daily Star. She could have been anyone. Basic security, love, that’s all. I’ll call Johnson back now.’ He flipped through his directory, found the number and dialled it. ‘I have the First Minister on the line for the Lord Advocate,’ he told the switchboard. ‘He’s expecting the call.’
He handed over the white handset.
‘This is Aileen de Marco,’ he heard her begin; then add, a few seconds later, ‘Gavin, you’re not one of my regular callers. What can I do for you?’
Although she had never asked him to, Bob preferred to leave her to make her business calls in private; he strolled outside, on to the terrace, and waited. Almost fifteen minutes later, she came out to rejoin him. Her expression was troubled.
‘What’s set my Lord Advocate’s wig spinning?’ he asked her.
‘You have, or at least your force has. Gavin Johnson’s new in the job, even newer than I am in mine, so he’s anxious not to stand on anyone’s toes. He’s got the Crown Agent up in arms. Apparently, there was a report on the Daniel Ballester murders, by your force, to the Crown Office. It led to the inquiry being closed. Now we’ve got this new killing in Edinburgh. It bears a strong similarity to some of the others and Neil McIlhenney’s insisting that the Agent . . . What’s his name again?’
‘Dowley. Joe Dowley.’
‘That’s it. Neil wants the Crown Office to have a leak inquiry, and Dowley is having none of it.’
‘What do you mean, having none of it?’ Bob demanded.
‘I’m quoting Gavin Johnson.’
‘But we’re entitled to ask him to do that.’
‘Dowley says you’re not, that his office is at the top of the pyramid.’
‘I always knew that man was a fool.’
‘He’s an adamant fool, though. When Neil stood his ground, he phoned Sir James at home and, again according to Gavin, he was told to eff off.’
Bob winced. ‘He must have riled him: that’s not the chief’s style.’ He frowned. ‘I’ll bet that’s what’s behind it, this sudden decision of his to go. He’s had enough of intransigent idiots interrupting his private life. What’s Johnson doing about it? Why’s he bothering you?’
Aileen wrinkled her nose. ‘I think he’s a bit afraid of the Crown Agent.’
‘I’m not,’ Bob growled. ‘I’ll deal with the bastard.’
‘Gavin’s afraid of that too. He’s asked me to persuade you to back off.’
‘Jesus! What did you tell him?’
‘That I couldn’t possibly interfere in an operational police matter.’
‘But, still, you’ve been caught in the middle of this. Aileen, I can’t tell Neil to walk away. Apart from the loss of face involved, the guy’s right. If we don’t eliminate the possibility of a leak within the Crown Office, we could have an investigation with a big hole in it. Dowley should never have got involved.’
‘But he did, and now he’s threatening to resign, publicly, if he’s overruled.’
‘And now,’ said Bob, ‘he’ll know that Johnson’s spoken to you, so if I persist and he does resign, he could well claim that by staying out of it, you took my side against him: or, worse, that I told you to stay out of it. I can’t let any of that happen.’
‘We’re not going to let him win, though. Are we?’
He fell silent. He sat on a lounger and gazed into the pool until, finally, he shook his head. ‘No,’ he declared, ‘we’re not. Here’s what we’re going to do.’
Twenty-six
Andy Martin scowled across the desk at Detective Chief Superintendent Rod Greatorix, the Tayside force’s head of CID. ‘You can’t be serious,’ he said.
‘I can,’ the detective replied. ‘I wish I wasn’t, but I was there and I witnessed the whole fucking shambles. I was ready, the other police witnesses were ready, the pathologists were there, the jury was empanelled and in place, and the judge was on the bench. The only thing that was fucking empty was the dock. The prisoner wasn’t with us.’
‘Where the hell was he?’
‘In Edinburgh, in a cell, in the remand section of Saughton Prison. Somebody in the Crown Office got the dates mixed up. They had the trial down to begin next Wednesday, not this morning.’
‘Who was the judge?’
‘Lady Broughton, one of the new ones. Remember? She used to be Phyllis Davidson, QC.’
‘I know Phil. How did she react?’
‘Like the lady she is. When Herman Butters, the Advocate Depute, finally stood up, half an hour late, and said that he wasn’t ready to proceed, and wouldn’t be until tomorrow morning, she just smiled at him, and said, “That is unfortunate, isn’t it? In that case, we all might as well go home.” You should have seen the look of relief on wee Butters’s face, until she dropped the bomb, that is.’
‘What bloody bomb?’
‘Butters asked her if she wanted to start early tomorrow, to make up time, and she said, “You misunderstand me. The case is deserted, pro loco et tempore. The jury is discharged.” Then she thanked them all for their service, short though it had been, as she put it. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Grandpa McCullough’s counsel, Sally Mathewson, stood up and asked that her client be formally acquitted and released.’
‘He wasn’t, was he? Don’t tell me that.’
‘No, Phil was too smart for that. She pointed out that what she had done didn’t amount to an acquittal, and that the Crown could bring the case back to court. But she did say that he could have bail until they were ready to do that.’
Martin pushed himself out of his chair and stepped towards the window of his office. ‘Bloody hell,’ he exclaimed. ‘It’s taken you . . . what? . . . more than half of your career to nail McCullough for something serious, and now he’s out on the street. We’ll have to lock the key witnesses up, or they’ll both wind up as dead as the guy he killed.’
Greatorix held up a hand, as if in reassurance. ‘It’s okay. It’s not as bad as that. Remember, we’re proceeding with the murder charge separately from the Class A p
ossession indictment. I had him rearrested on that so he never got out of Saughton.’
‘Thank Christ for small mercies, Rod. Have you told the chief?’
‘He’s not back from his meeting yet. If I know him he’ll want to write to the Solicitor General. Black day for wee Butters, eh?’
‘Too right.’ Martin snorted. ‘I’ve got a feeling that he’ll spend the rest of his stint as a prosecutor in places like Wick, Dumfries and Ayr. Maybe even Lerwick, if they can find a reason to have the High Court sit up there.’
‘It can’t be far enough away,’ said the chief superintendent. ‘See you later.’
The deputy chief constable returned to his desk with mixed emotions, a small part of him wanting to laugh at the farcical scene that had played out in court, the rest appalled by the consequences that might have flowed from the prosecution’s mistake, but for Greatorix’s quick thinking. Knowing that Graham Morton, his chief constable, would consult him about a formal complaint to the Solicitor General, he began to draft a letter. It was almost complete when his assistant opened his door.
‘I’ve got Sir James Proud on the line, sir,’ he said. ‘He’d like a word.’
‘Then put him through,’ Martin replied at once. ‘Chief,’ he said, as he heard the click of the connection.
‘Not for much longer, son.’
‘So I hear. Nine months, is it?’
‘Less than nine weeks. I’ve moved the date forward. Mind you, as of this moment, you, Bob and my human-resources director are the only three people outside my house who know.’ He paused. ‘But maybe not. I imagine that Bob has had a heart to heart with his lady by now.’
‘Has he said whether he’ll apply?’
‘No, but I believe that he’ll be told to.’
‘And she must be obeyed?’
‘No again, unless she’s right, as she usually is.’
‘You know that if he does apply, I won’t?’
‘I guessed as much. That’ll be your decision, Andy. I’d respect it either way.’
‘Thanks, Chief,’ said Martin. ‘And thanks for letting me know too. I appreciate that. I’ll look forward to your leaving do.’
‘Ah, but that’s not the only reason I called.’ A new, mysterious tone came into Sir James’s voice. ‘I want to make you a formal request, one of the last I’ll make in office, so if you turn me down you’ll feel really guilty about it.’
‘If it comes to that,’ Martin chuckled, ‘I’ll go to confession and seek absolution. But go on, you’ve got my attention.’
‘A situation has developed in Edinburgh. It’s a difference of view that’s developed into a confrontation between senior CID officers and Joe Dowley, the Crown Agent.’
Martin listened, as Proud described how the problem had arisen, and how it had escalated. ‘Dowley doesn’t have a leg to stand on,’ he said, when the chief constable had finished. ‘If the Lord Advocate’s too chicken to back you, and you want to take it all the way, couldn’t you apply to the court for a compliance order?’
‘Yes,’ Sir James agreed, ‘I could; I’ve already had legal advice to that effect. But for various reasons, I don’t want to go there. I’ve discussed this with Bob, and it’s our considered view that the best way to defuse the situation is by appointing an officer from another force to carry out an objective inquiry into the possibility of a leak of sensitive information from the Ballester report.’
‘Why has it gone this far so fast?’ asked Martin. ‘There’s no certainty that the Dean homicide is a copycat.’
‘No, but the investigating officers believe that to be a possibility, so it has to be checked out. To answer your question, if Gregor Broughton, the Edinburgh fiscal, hadn’t been off at a conference somewhere, he’d have talked to a few people quietly and either come up with a culprit or given McIlhenney an assurance that his office was clean. But he wasn’t, so Neil asked his assistant to look into it. She’s new, so she took it all the way up to Dowley, and war broke out.’
‘Why didn’t she go to the deputy Crown Agent?’
‘On holiday.’
‘So what’s Dowley’s angle?’
‘The Lord Advocate thinks that he’s trying to make a name for himself, with a view to becoming a judge. Having a reputation for not being a soft touch for the police might not do him any harm with the judicial appointments board.’
‘Why make such a fuss? The Crown Agent’s pretty much assured of going on to become a sheriff.’
‘Gavin Johnson reckons he’s more ambitious, that his sights are set on the Supreme Court. But,’ said Sir James, ‘you haven’t asked me why I’m speaking to you about this.’
Martin smiled. ‘I have a terrible feeling that I know.’
‘You’re right, then. I want you to conduct the investigation. You know this force, you’re familiar with the workings of the Crown Office, and with a spell in Special Branch on your CV, your discretion is assured. This has to be completely confidential. I’ve spoken to Graham Morton, and given the time of year he’s okay with it, as long as it doesn’t take more than a couple of weeks, which it won’t, since there aren’t that many people in the chain. So, Andy, will you take the job on?’
Martin sighed. ‘Hell’s teeth, Chief; rattling cages in the Crown Office and investigating former colleagues is not my idea of a fun time.’
‘As a favour to me?’
‘Ah, shit. Put like that . . . Give me a quiet room on the command corridor, and your exec as my leg man, if I need him. I’ll be there tomorrow morning.’
Twenty-seven
‘How are we going to play this? The usual way?’ McIlhenney was gazing from McGuire’s office window down the driveway that approached the entrance to the force headquarters building. ‘It does no harm to be able to see who’s coming and who’s going,’ Bob Skinner always maintained. As he watched the uniformed figure walking up the slope from the patrol car that had dropped him off, the detective superintendent understood what he meant.
He recognised Constable Theodore Weekes from the photograph in the personnel file that lay open on the head of CID’s desk. Even from that distance he read the look of uncertainty on his face, and detected his hesitancy as he walked up the rising pavement. Chippy Grade had told him he was wanted at Fettes, no more than that, and had detailed a car to take him straight there, with a colleague beside him in the back seat as if he were a prisoner.
‘You nice guy, me nasty guy, you mean?’ McGuire replied. His eyebrows came together in a frown. ‘No, let’s change the act; let’s give this man no comfort at all.’
‘Treat him as a suspect from the off, you mean?’
‘He’s more than a suspect: he’s guilty of failing to report information that might be relevant to a murder investigation. So let’s not offer him as much as a single smile, from either of us. The best that’s going to happen to him is that he walks out of this room with a reprimand on his record stiff enough to end any hopes he might have of ever making sergeant.’
‘Fine by me.’ McIlhenney’s face set hard as he took a seat beside the chief superintendent, facing the door, watching and waiting.
The reception staff had been ordered to say nothing to Weekes as he arrived, to answer no questions he might ask, but simply to escort him to his final destination.
There was no name on McGuire’s door, only a number. When, finally, the two detectives heard their visitor’s knock, they waited. The knock was repeated, louder this time.
‘Come in,’ McIlhenney shouted. The door was opened slowly and PC Weekes stepped inside.
In the days of heavy serge uniforms, all police officers had had a substantial look to them. The modern tunic may suit some better than others, but Weekes filled his impressively. He was over six feet tall, with strikingly good looks, enhanced by a honey-brown complexion that would have suggested at least one parent of Caribbean origin, had McGuire and McIlhenney not known already from his file that his mother was Barbadian.
He stared at them, patently puzzle
d.
‘Cap off,’ McGuire snapped. His briskness broke the constable’s trance. Instantly, he swept his cap from his head and tucked it under his arm as he stepped up to the head of CID’s desk and came to attention.
They let him stand there for over a minute, rigid and staring straight ahead, until McIlhenney, in an even tone, with just a hint of menace, asked him, ‘Do you know who we are?’
Without easing his stance, Weekes swept his eyes from one seated man to the other. ‘No, sir,’ he replied.
‘Then why the fuck are you standing to attention?’ the superintendent snapped. ‘Do you know how many civilian management staff this force has?’
‘No, sir. Sorry, sir. I just assumed.’ Weekes’s voice was surprisingly soft; his accent was Scottish, but with a hint of his mother’s influence.
‘You’re brought here with no notice,’ McGuire growled, leaning his massive forearms on the edge of the desk, ‘no indication of what it’s about, but your assumption seems to be that you’re in the shit. That, of itself, tells me a hell of a lot about you, Constable. You can stand easy . . .’ he paused as Weekes relaxed his stance ‘. . . but not too easy. You’ve upset my colleague and me, and that’s never a good thing to do.’
‘Sorry, sir: beg your pardon, sir. How have I upset you?’
‘By not fucking knowing us! For your enlightenment, I’m DCS McGuire, the head of CID, and this charmer on my right is Detective Superintendent McIlhenney, known occasionally to our friends as the Glimmer Twins, and to our rapidly dwindling body of enemies as the Bad News Bears. For better or worse, we’re two of the most recognisable officers on this force. You’re standing there with five years’ service, and you don’t know us?’
‘Sorry, sir. Now you say it, I ...’
‘Bullshit! What’s your station inspector’s name?’ McGuire asked.
‘Chippy . . . Sorry, sir, Inspector Grade.’
‘Name and rank of your divisional commander?’
‘Eh . . .’
‘Failed that one. Who’s the chief constable?’
‘Mr Proud.’
‘Sir James to you. Deputy chief?’
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