08 - Murmuring the Judges

by Quintin Jardine

  He let McGrigor out into the street, and together they climbed into the Head of CID’s Mondeo. The Superintendent gave swift directions to Borders General Hospital, on the outskirts of the town. As he weaved his way though the narrow streets of the centre of Galashiels, Martin asked him, ‘Have you advised the Chief’s office that we have a wounded officer?’

  ‘Aye. I spoke to Sir James himself, an hour ago. He said he’d be down right away.’

  ‘Good. Not that I expected anything else from him.

  ‘Tell me John,’ continued the DCS, ‘do you know whether the bank was flush with money?’

  Beside him, McGrigor nodded. ‘I spoke to the manager. He was well cashed up a’right. There’s a big electronics factory outside the town still pays most of its weekly wage staff in notes, and yon big DIY place up the road has a sale on.

  ‘It’ll take him a while to work out how much has gone, but he said it wouldna’ be less than seven or eight hundred thousand.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ whispered Martin, quietly. ‘If we don’t stop these people there’ll be no fucking money left in our area!’

  As he spoke, he reached the big, modern hospital. It was well sign-posted, and so the Accident and Emergency admissions unit was easy to find. The detective parked two hundred yards away, in the first available bay, jumped out and led McGrigor at a brisk walk towards its entrance.

  As the two policemen strode through the double doors, Martin looked around for the admissions desk. Instead, he saw Chief Constable Sir James Proud, imposing in his heavily braided uniform. His face spoke the news for him.

  ‘When?’ the Head of CID asked, grim-faced.

  ‘Half an hour ago,’ replied the silver-headed Chief. ‘The poor lass never regained consciousness. I’ve just left her parents and her boyfriend. It’s his twenty-third birthday tomorrow: the same age as she was.’

  There were a few people in the police force who believed that Sir James Proud took such pleasure from the wearing of his uniform because it helped him hide a soft centre. Anyone seeing the look in his eyes as he spoke to Martin would have been disabused of that notion. ‘You make sure you catch these bastards, Andy,’ he said, quietly, yet ferociously. ‘Catch them quick.

  ‘When you do, I’ll interview them myself, just to see what sort of creatures they are. Because I surely don’t detect any humanity.’

  9

  Bob Skinner, with Jazz dozing in a carrier strapped to his father’s back, grinned at Mark as he fought with determination to master his in-line skates. The boy was highly gifted in terms of memory and intellect, but not in terms of athleticism.

  Sarah’s hand was in his as they walked back along the Passeig d’Empuries, from the beach where they had spent the hot August afternoon. She had a big beach umbrella, in a carrier, slung over her shoulder, while he carried their towels and the other debris of the day in a yellow bag.

  As they passed from beneath a tree-shaded area of the walkway, Bob nodded to his right, towards a whitewashed building which stood facing a small, sharply curved bay. ‘Look at that,’ he said with a smile. ‘The Hostal Ampurias. I used to have a day-dream that one day I’d buy that place and make it one of the finest hotels on the Costa Brava.’

  Sarah laughed, and slipped her arm around his waist. ‘Why don’t we?’

  ‘Two reasons. One, the owners don’t want to sell. Two, we can’t afford it. No, three reasons, we’ve got two boys to bring up, and you’re off the pill. Oh aye, and another. Four reasons, we’ve just bought a new family home back in Scotland.’

  She smiled. ‘Okay, but in a few years you’ll be eligible for retirement on a pretty good pension. I could do consultancy and locum work during the school terms and we could spend all of the holidays out here.

  ‘You could write your memoirs.’

  His roar of laughter was so loud that it startled the walkers around them, and made Mark pause on his roller-blades to look over his shoulder. At his back, he felt Jazz stir.

  ‘That will be right,’ he retorted. ‘The things that would make my memoirs a best-seller are the very things that I couldn’t include in them. If I ever wrote about crime, it would have to be fiction, like that guy we know back in Gullane.

  ‘Mind you, from what I hear there isn’t too much money in that.’

  She looked up at him as they walked. ‘I’m half serious, you know,’ she whispered, in her gentle New York drawl. ‘I just want us to be as happy as we possibly can be.’

  ‘I know that. And the way to that is for you to be what you are, and for me to be what I am, not for us to deny our natures. I promise you this, though, my darling. As soon as I know I’m past my sell-by date as a copper, I’ll go. I’m not implying that Jimmy’s past it . . . he’s the best Chief Constable in the land, by miles . . . but I’ve got no wish to hang on for the silver uniform and the knighthood.’

  Sarah’s arm tightened around his waist. ‘You don’t know how good a Chief Constable you’d be until you’ve tried it. I’ve no doubt that you’d be brilliant. The Strathclyde job’s coming up soon, isn’t it?’

  ‘Christ,’ he gasped. ‘One minute you want me to retire, the next you want me to go after Jock Govan’s job. I can tell you that is something I definitely will not do. If I become a Chief anywhere, it’ll be in succession to Jimmy. My role with the Secretary of State, even though I’ve chucked it, gave me special eligibility.’

  Sarah’s face fell into shadow as they passed under another umbrella of trees on the wide red walkway. ‘Do you regret not staying on in that job, even though you were asked?’

  ‘Not for one second. I’ve had a bellyful of the duplicity of politicians.’ Then suddenly and conspiratorially, Skinner smiled. ‘But let me tell you a secret. I’ve been asked to keep my links with MI5 and the security service. That’s where the real advantage lies.’

  ‘You so-and-so! You never said.’

  He nodded. ‘That’s true. Mind you, now I have told you, I’ll have to kill you.’

  For a split-second, she frowned at his joke. ‘Hey, coming from you, that ain’t so funny.’

  ‘See what I mean about my memoirs then? Now, change of subject. Where do you want to eat tonight?’

  They strolled on together, Bob, Sarah and their boys, along the last kilometre of the walkway, until they reached the headless statue which marked its limit. Directly across the street they climbed the one hundred steps which took them up to Puig Pedro, Mark counting every one out loud. Sarah’s legs were still aching when finally they reached their villa.

  Jazz was still asleep in the carrier as Bob eased it from his shoulders. ‘I’ll just put him in his cot,’ he whispered.

  ‘Yeah,’ said his wife. ‘While he still fits it. I may take a snooze too, if you and Mark want to play in the pool for a bit.’

  She kicked off her shoes in the hallway and wandered into their big living area.

  Sarah had always objected to mobile phones on holiday. However she had agreed to a fax being installed in the villa. ‘For emergencies only, remember.’

  When Bob came into the living room, bare-chested and barefoot, she was standing facing the door. Her hazel eyes were narrowed and the laugh-lines around them showed white against her tan. There was an expression of pain on her face.

  Without a word she handed him a single sheet of fax paper, and watched his face grow first shocked, then dark with anger as he read. When he looked up at her, the question was asked and the answer given without a single word being exchanged.

  ‘I’ll begin packing,’ she said. ‘You explain to Mark.’

  ‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘We’ll take the Channel Tunnel. That way we can be home in twenty-four hours.’

  10

  Like many policemen, even of the most senior rank, Sir James Proud was wary of the press.

  Dislike was too strong a word to describe his attitude; he was shrewd enough to appreciate the role of newspapers and the electronic media in shaping public perceptions of his force and its effectiveness. For that re
ason he had always been assiduous in maintaining friendly working relationships with editors and proprietors.

  However, facing a mass of hungry hacks across a table was another matter entirely. There was something about their collective attitude which made him feel as if he was in the centre of a pack of predators, every one with his scent in their nostrils, every one waiting to fire questions with teeth in them.

  Proud Jimmy could not be described as shy, nor nervous. He feared no man, except, privately, Bob Skinner, when aroused to a rage. But it was in his nature to measure his words, and to weigh his reply to every question put to him. He envied his deputy and his Head of CID their calm assurance in media briefings, knowing that while they always seemed confident and assured, invariably he presented an image of hesitancy and stiffness.

  He had once heard himself referred to as Pinocchio in a whispered aside by a journalist after a briefing, and he had never forgotten it.

  Nevertheless, there were some situations in which he could not delegate the responsibility of facing the press, and the early evening gathering in Galashiels which he faced now was surely one of them.

  The Chief Constable sat alone at the black-covered table, set up in the canteen of the small, country police office, having declined Andy Martin’s offer to accompany him in the briefing. ‘No, son,’ he had said, ‘it wouldn’t be right for me to be seen to be leaning on anyone at a time like this.’

  The wall behind him was bare and shabby, but he had refused to allow Alan Royston, the force media relations manager, to erect the portable backdrop which he had brought with him from Edinburgh. ‘No slogans, Alan. Not this time.’

  He picked up the statement which he had written half an hour earlier, glanced at his audience, and at the array of microphones on the table before him and began to read.

  ‘At twelve-thirty-five this afternoon three men entered the Royal Bank of Scotland in Galashiels. They were armed with shotguns and threatened customers and staff, holding them at gunpoint and forcing bank employees to hand over a large sum of money.

  ‘In the course of the robbery, a bank customer, Mr Harry Riach, grappled with one of the gunmen and was shot. Mr Riach died instantly. As the three men left the bank they encountered an officer of my force, PC Anne Brown. Miss Brown was shot also, and died shortly afterwards in Borders General Hospital.

  ‘The three men made good their escape, in a car believed to be a grey Ford Escort. The most strenuous efforts to trace them are being made. On behalf of all my officers and staff, I extend sincere condolences to the families of Mr Riach and PC Brown, and promise them that none of us will rest until their killers have been brought to account.’

  He sighed, squared the silver-encrusted shoulders of his heavy tunic and laid his statement on the tables. ‘I will take questions, ladies and gentlemen.’

  Every one of the eighteen journalists in the room raised a hand simultaneously. The Chief settled on the youngest face in the room, a girl in the front row. She looked barely out of her teens, and she was ghostly pale. ‘Yes, miss,’ he offered, kindly.

  ‘Alice Collins, sir, from the local paper. Can you tell me how old PC Brown was?’

  ‘She was twenty-three.’

  ‘And Mr Riach?’

  Sir James glanced at John McGrigor who stood, beside Andy Martin, at the side of the room. ‘Harry was fifty-two, sir,’ the Superintendent replied to the unspoken question.

  ‘Was PC Brown married?’ Alice Collins asked.

  ‘No. She was engaged, to a young man from Galashiels, I believe. Mr Riach was married, though. He leaves a widow and three sons, aged between eighteen and twenty-seven.’

  ‘Is this the same Harry Riach who played rugby for Scotland back in the early seventies?’ Sir James looked across to the other side of the canteen, recognising the voice before he picked out the grizzled face of John Hunter, a veteran freelance from Edinburgh. ‘From the youngest to the oldest,’ he thought.

  ‘That’s right, John. He won nine caps, playing in the second row. He played club rugby for Gala. The other lock in the team was Detective Superintendent John McGrigor over there. He’s known Mr Riach all his life.’

  ‘It must have been terrible for the Superintendent, then,’ said Hunter, ‘when he got to the scene.’

  ‘It was, John,’ said Proud Jimmy, quietly. ‘It always will be.’

  ‘Where’s Bob?’ the old journalist asked, almost too casually.

  ‘DCC Skinner is on holiday with his family, but he was informed by fax. He called me an hour ago, to say that he is returning at once. He’s driving, so I expect him back tomorrow evening.’

  If the Chief Constable had looked, he would have seen Andy Martin lean his head against the wall and close his eyes. He was imagining the next morning’s headlines, given the spin which his commander had added unwittingly to an already hot story. ‘Skinner rushes back to take charge of double murder hunt.’

  ‘Next question, please,’ Sir James invited, ponderously. Once again the forest of hands shot up. ‘Julian Finney, Scottish Television,’ he said, pointing to a man who stood at the back of the room, beside a camera and its operator.

  ‘Thank you,’ the reporter acknowledged. ‘Sir, do you know how much money was stolen?’

  ‘The bank staff are still checking the exact amount, but we know it’s more than seven hundred thousand pounds.’

  A collective gasp sounded around the room.

  ‘If that’s the case,’ Finney went on, his tone quiet and inoffensive, ‘it can’t have escaped your notice that it will bring the total stolen in armed robberies in your force’s area over the last three months to around two million pounds, with over a million and a half taken in the last week.

  ‘Are these robberies the work of the same gang, Sir James?’

  As Proud shifted in his chair, a muscle clenched at the base of Andy Martin’s jaw. He wanted to intervene, to give Finney a stalling answer, but he knew that he could not undermine his Chief. He closed his eyes once more and hoped. In vain.

  Honesty is never a weakness, but an inability to prevaricate can be a fault. ‘We’re in no doubt that they are,’ the Chief Constable responded solemnly.

  Finney’s eyes narrowed, very slightly. ‘In that case, can you tell us something about your strategy to protect banks and public from future attacks . . . particularly now that these people have shown themselves capable of murder.’

  Proud Jimmy stared back at him. ‘I don’t know if I can discuss operational matters,’ he began, as the potential for disaster dawned on him.

  ‘Surely, Chief, when lives and property are at stake, the public has a right to know?’

  Looking at the little man, Sir James knew suddenly the torment and fears of a baited bull. ‘Say nothing to start a public panic,’ his inner voice told him. He gazed at Finney for several seconds, unaware of anyone else in the room.

  ‘Well,’ he said finally, ‘we are in active consultation with the banks and building societies, and have offered them our advice on branch security. We are also scheduling our routine patrols so that as far as possible all bank premises will be under constant observation.’

  ‘That’s very reassuring, sir,’ Finney agreed. ‘But have you considered stationing armed police officers inside banks?’

  Proud spluttered, in spite of himself. ‘We don’t have the resources, man.’

  ‘Well have you considered allowing the banks to employ their own armed guards?’

  For once the Chief did not measure his response. ‘Not for a second,’ he barked. ‘That would just add to the public danger. Anyway, it would be against the law.’

  As he looked at Finney, his mind’s eye saw him moving in for the kill; and he knew that his own honesty made him defenceless. ‘In that case, Sir James,’ the television reporter went on relentlessly, ‘what you’re telling us is that if armed men succeed in entering any bank, it, its staff and its customers will be completely vulnerable. Is that true? Yes or no, please.’

  For Andy Mart
in it was too much. ‘I’m sorry, Julian,’ he said firmly, from the side of the room. ‘The Chief can’t get into a discussion with you or anyone else about the security arrangements within banks. But you can take it that anyone who stages an armed robbery in the future is in for a few very nasty surprises.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Finney nodded, looked across at Martin then back at Proud.

  ‘May I ask one final question, Sir James?’

  The Chief nodded his silver head.

  ‘Other than the man currently awaiting trial for his alleged part in the first robbery, do you have any clue to the identity of these men?’

  All that Proud Jimmy wanted to do now was to clear the room, to escape from the sharp-toothed questioning. ‘No, Julian,’ he said, weariness in his voice. ‘As of now, we do not.’

  ‘Thank you. Sir,’ replied Finney, sincerely, his sound-bite secured.

  Before another hand could be raised, the Chief Constable rose and swept from the canteen, Martin, McGrigor and Royston following behind.

  Proud led the way into the Station Inspector’s empty office. As the door closed, he turned to face the Head of CID, his eyes blazing. McGrigor and Royston each glanced at the exit.

  ‘That fucking wee ferret Finney!’ he exploded. Inwardly, each of his three colleagues breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Mr Nice, but all the time he’s at your throat.’ His expression softened. ‘Thanks, Andy, for jumping in when you did.’

  ‘I’m sorry about that, Chief, but I just felt I had to.’

  ‘I know. Christ, all the time I sat there looking at him with tomorrow’s headlines, Police powerless to stop killers, swimming before my eyes.’ He paused. ‘Mind you, I felt I had to give him a straight answer to his last question.’

  The Chief Superintendent nodded. ‘I agree. If you had come out with something even as innocuous as “Following several lines of inquiry”, you’d just have dug a hole for us.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I thought. Anyway, that’ll be my last press briefing for a while. They’ll be down to you from now on.’