Nine Lights Over Edinburgh

by Harper Fox

  McBride watched Leitner make his way back towards the door. Now their eye contact was broken, McBride was at a loss to know what had seemed so extraordinary about him. He was tall and broad shouldered and his suit had probably cost more than McBride’s flat, but he was just a man. A tired one, from the look of him, and anxious. McBride listened while he gathered his men around him. Snatches of what he assumed was Hebrew drifted up to him. He didn’t need to understand it to know what was bothering Leitner. He nodded in amusement as the agent gestured to the exact same places from which McBride was afraid an attack could come. “Aye. For the right reasons. Will we get the chance to brief with them?”

  “Lila wants us here two hours before kickoff tonight. They’ll be here as well. Oh, er, James—one more thing…”

  McBride straightened. He looked at Andrew in suspicion. “What?”

  “Plain clothes tonight is…traditional. She wants us to blend in with the hall’s hospitality staff.”

  “Andrew, the staff here wear—”

  “Full kilt and shoulder cloak. Yes.”

  “Oh, you are fucking kidding me.”

  “Afraid not. She’s very keen. Hired the very best from McCalls. Done her research too—got you your McBride green-and-blue, from the Clanranald—”

  “Thank you. I know what my clan tartan is.” It was a decent idea to have him and his lads looking like harmless prats instead of plainclothes coppers, but he couldn’t help but wonder if Lila had come up with it as a subtle form of punishment. He’d worn his tartans twice in his life before—once at his wedding and once when some of the Harle Street police had been asked to march with the Tattoo. Both occasions had been torture. “Where am I supposed to hang my bloody gun?”

  Andrew chuckled. “Well, that’s up to you. But I gather she’s ordering weskits and jackets long enough to hide a shoulder harness.”

  McBride sank his face into his hands. “Brilliant. The woman’s thought of everything.”

  ***

  The changing rooms were crowded. McBride supposed he should be grateful they’d been assigned facilities separate from those of the staff, the horde of little cocktail shakers heading off about their duties in full fake ceremonial, a uniform tartan never dreamed of by the Highland chiefs. If Lila was making some kind of point to him about becoming part of a team again, she couldn’t have chosen a more direct way to do it. From his position on the bench, struggling with his shoelaces, McBride could see parts of his colleagues seldom exposed in cultures that did not include a skirt in their national dress. He repressed a smile. It was enough to put a man off. And that would be grand, wouldn’t it—cure him, straighten him out and send him home to Libby with a hard-on.

  At least his gear was authentic. Standing, McBride adjusted the heavy, groin-shielding sporran to its proper place and settled the hang of the cloak over his shoulder. All that was missing was the sgian dubh in his sock. Unlike Lila Stone, he had a real one, a gift from his grandfather, which looked like it might still have Sassenach blood on its blade. But these were meant to be peace talks, and all parties were forbidden the display of conspicuous weaponry. Ironic, McBride thought, since he was carrying a Walther P99 in his holster. Ironic, that the few times he’d ever had to carry a weapon on duty were at peace talks.

  “Boss?” McBride looked up. There was Andrew, who’d fought his way to the full-length mirror and was struggling with his cloak brooch. He’d already spiked himself in the thumb, from the look of things. “Are you any hand at fastening these wee bastards?”

  McBride was, but more from dealing with Grace’s nappy pins and little frocks over the years. He slid Andrew’s pin home with the absentminded tenderness he’d brought to those tasks, then tidied the ruffles of his shirt and stepped back, patting him once on the shoulders. Andrew looked the real deal, of course. Resplendent in his Barclay yellow and black. Poster boy for the Lothians tourist board…

  Tears in his eyes. McBride frowned. “What the devil is wrong with you?”

  “I’ve been thinking, James. What I did—it was terrible.”

  “Ssh.” McBride glanced over his shoulder. “I told you, forget about it. And don’t get blood on that shirt, for God’s sake, or Lila will lose her deposit.” He watched while Andrew sucked his thumb in a gesture he would once have found distracting and which now left him cold. Christ, maybe I am cured. “Here, shift over. Let’s have a look at these two fine Highland warriors.”

  And that was no good. The mirror, his reflection in it with Andrew’s, recalled straightaway the Harle Street locker room on the night of the party. He saw Andrew redden and was glad he was too tired to manage a blush for himself. “It wasn’t all fake,” Andrew whispered. “I…I did like it, James. If you want to go on…”

  McBride tried to imagine it. He couldn’t. And when he tried to recall it, all he could see in his mind’s eye was Agent Leitner. He blinked in surprise. Had he even been thinking of him? “Don’t be so bloody stupid,” he growled. “You’re a lot of things, Andrew, but queer isn’t one of them. Now, we’ve got bigger fish to fry than our own tonight, so pull yourself together. How’s Janice?”

  Clouds lifted from Andrew’s brow. McBride let himself cease paying attention while the boy detailed Sergeant Janice Dee’s perfections. There was just a chance that one day he and Andrew might find their way back to normality, to balance. Distractedly he checked the draw on his weapon, that the edge of the cloak wouldn’t hinder it. Best warn the others about that too. Best give them the team talk, even though it had been so long he could barely remember what to say.

  He let Andrew roll to a halt, then called his men around him. Lila had only given him a handful, but at least they were good—Royston and Davies, both top marksmen, and McKay, eerily talented at picking out a wrong face in a crowd. Three others, all fine lads. He told them all the usual things. That part was easy. To look out for the venue’s weak points and for one another. To mind what Zvi’s men had said. To make sure no part of their evening’s draperies was going to foul up their pull, and to keep their weapons otherwise well concealed. They listened dutifully. They laughed at McBride’s dutiful effort at a joke.

  And they were polite, which made his blood run cold. Anyone who’d ever stood in front of a squad room full of Edinburgh coppers knew he need not expect to be treated with kid gloves. McBride wondered how much they had heard about why he was here with them tonight. What Lila had told them.

  Then, did he really need to look to her for blame? McBride tried to remember the last time he’d sat down with his colleagues. When had he last gone with them to the pub after work? Ever since his divorce, he’d grabbed every chance that had come up for him to be a lone wolf. He realised with a shock that these men weren’t his friends anymore. They would obey him because he’d been put in charge, but that was all.

  A loneliness seized him. Finishing the briefing, McBride reproved himself. He couldn’t have it both ways, could he? Not the cameraderie and the teamwork and the dark freedom of the streets. Once they were done here, that was where he was headed. His little snitch had found another link, a better one, between those shallow graves and Sim Carlyle. He could do it. He knew it would be worth the price.

  Chapter Five

  The doors of the conference hall were open, the early arrivals filtering through. Dinner suits and djellabas, a composite rustle of German, Arabic, Hebrew and Auld Reekie filling the air. From his position by the marble statue of Sir Walter Scott, McBride watched the stream. Diplomats and politicians, that was all. No one walking too fast or too slow, no sweaty brows or overly dilated pupils.

  Nevertheless he wasn’t happy. He glanced ruefully up at Sir Walter, envying him his stony calm. Where was the unease coming from? He’d barely slept for the past few days, what with his extracurricular activities and the raw-nerved tension they left in their wake. This was just street-fear, he tried to persuade himself. Nothing for him to worry about in this haven of chandeliers, dazzling white tablecloths and champagne glasses adroitly bala
nced on silver trays. McBride resisted the urge to filch one from a passing waiter, though he couldn’t half have used a drink. He’d drawn the line at carrying a tray himself to enhance his cover—another of Lila Stone’s suggestions, and he wondered if she’d sat up long the night before thinking up further small twists of the knife.

  Speak of the devil. There she was, halfway up the magnificent staircase that connected the foyer with the conference chamber. Locked in debate, it looked like, with Agent Leitner.

  McBride hid a smile. If ever a haughty woman had met her match… The pair of them looked like two cats facing off. Pedigree versus moggy, McBride added for his own entertainment, watching. Lila’s fur was practically on end. After a moment she turned on her heel and stalked up the rest of the red-carpet flight into the hall.

  Leitner did not look as if he’d scored a victory. He just looked bloody lonely. He went to lean on the marble banister, the incoming crowds parting round him. For a moment he lowered his head.

  He lost his partner, McBride remembered suddenly. He hadn’t properly taken it in when Andrew had first told him: had been too busy falling under the spell—bizarre and mercifully short-lived—of whatever he thought he’d seen in Leitner’s brown eyes. Well, McBride could look at him with perfect disenchantment, but it didn’t mean he wasn’t sorry. He had no idea how Leitner had felt about his partner, but to lose even an imperfect one like Andrew Barclay would break McBride’s heart.

  He made his way up the steps. When he was four or five away, Leitner turned, his movement casual but edged. Cop to cop, McBride recognised it. A stranger entering your personal space. But there was more to it than that, wasn’t there? Leitner wasn’t just a cop. He was Israeli secret service.

  And he was ready to jump out of his skin. McBride halted one step down. “What do you think of our choice of venue, then?”

  Leitner stared at him. First McBride wondered if he didn’t speak English—not that, as far as he knew, Lila counted Hebrew among her accomplishments. Then he wondered why on earth he’d thought this man could be in need of human sympathy. There wasn’t a flicker of expression on his elegant face. McBride became intensely aware of himself. He and all his men, even the ones who could carry their tartans, had looked like clowns coming out to meet their exquisitely tailored Israeli counterparts. “Our choice?” Leitner echoed. “Did you select this?”

  “No, not a bit of it. Figure of speech.”

  “Good. Because you look like a sensible man, Detective Inspector McBride, even if you are wearing a dress. This venue is grossly inadequate, a triumph of arrogance over experience. I cannot defend Zvi in here.”

  Nothing wrong with the English, then. McBride drew himself up, resisting the impulse to straighten his skirt. “You have the advantage of me.”

  “Tobias Leitner.” Leitner put out a hand. Taking it, McBride noticed vividly how his own square Scottish one locked into it. How Leitner’s tanned grip warmed his. Strange—he hadn’t noticed he was cold. “My second has spoken to your sergeant Andrew Barclay. We agree the positioning of your men. Clearly you’ve identified the same points of weakness we have.”

  “Aye. The back staircases, the eastern windows and the library stairs that connect the galleries.” For a moment McBride was too amused by Leitner’s rendition of Andrew’s name—Bar Clay, two separate words, as if that prosaic Lowland soul were biblical royalty—to realise their hands were still joined. He stepped back, letting go. “Between my team and yours, we can just about cover it, but…”

  “But there are gaps. I explained this to your superintendent.”

  “Who told you any risks were negligible and more than outweighed by the splendour and historical significance of the venue.”

  “In almost those exact words.” Leitner looked around him, then turned his attention back to McBride. His dark gaze was as steady as the clasp of his hand, and McBride saw kindling in it the subtle fires that had touched him at their first encounter. “Is she a fool?”

  “No. That’s the strange thing. But she’s trying to bring police work into the twenty-first century, and—” McBride cleared his throat, which had gone dry, “—Edinburgh’s not ready for it.”

  Leitner smiled. It was just a flicker, bittersweet, full of amusement and pain. “Well, I can assure you, neither is Jerusalem. We had better go, McBride. Zvi is due any minute.”

  ***

  McBride struggled for focus. The conference had droned on into its fourth hour. At this rate he’d miss the appointment with his snitch down in Cowgate. Restlessness tugged at him, as if he had mice in his bones. He wanted to be out there in the star-shivered night. He wanted the hot wildness of a quart of scotch inside him.

  Unexpectedly, what he also wanted was to be laid out somewhere getting fucked. The thought struck him with such force that he twitched and stifled a gasp. He analysed it. Yes, getting, not giving. Not with Libby, then. Nor with Andrew, whose cock hadn’t really been in it any more than his heart. Christ, the last time he’d done that had been with Lowrie, and a right dog’s breakfast they’d made of it, though their clumsy attempt had been sweet to McBride, vivid in his memory still.

  He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, making what felt like his fifty-ninth visual check of the gallery above him. What the hell was wrong with him tonight? Ever since Libby had left him—oh, further back than that, if he were honest—his libido had been a well-damped fire, flaring on command to let him perform his marital duties and not much more. Certainly it never distracted him with sexual fantasies during an op. He was tired. Defences down. He wasn’t as young as he used to be, couldn’t skip night after night of sleep like a kid in his twenties.

  Sixtieth check. This damn conference had to end soon. Even the ambassadors looked bored. Drawing deep breaths, McBride dismissed all thoughts but those of the moment. Sixty-first…

  He froze. Something in the fall of light and shadow on the gallery was wrong. Or perhaps not wrong, but just a fraction different. The back of McBride’s neck prickled. Andrew was in place up there. If anything was off, he would see it. A glance from McBride would alert him. They had no trouble, he and his partner, in catching each other’s eye across distance. Stepping forward, McBride looked for him.

  His place was empty. McBride scanned the gallery, pulse picking up in his veins. Finally he saw him—way off, right at the far end of the hall, gazing down like the lord of the bloody glen at the diplomats. Probably dreaming about Janice Dee, not that McBride could really talk.

  Quietly he eased back out of the hall. There weren’t many places other than the Tattoo where he could wander round dressed like Robert the Bruce and not be noticed, but this was one of them: none of the staff or the Israeli guards dotted about the staircases cast him a second glance as he made his way up to the gallery. No sense in alerting anyone yet. Lila would never forgive him a false alarm.

  Which was what it would have been. Emerging on the second level, McBride released a breath. He was getting bloody jumpy in his old age, that was all. The staircase and the doorway were empty. Except for…

  Shit. A lean figure, moving at speed, disappearing between one pillar and the next. Straight into one of the blind spots you’d have to be blind to miss. Nobody had any business up here except Leitner’s men and his own. McBride set out in pursuit. He didn’t have time to stop and try to alert his partner, but no matter: Andrew had to have seen him, picked up the unusual movement. They would converge at about the right place.

  It would have to be soon. Only a sniper would head with such purpose for the end of the gallery. McBride knew this in the way any good copper would who had learned over the years to think like a criminal himself: if he were going to knock off Ambassador Zvi, that was the spot he would pick.

  He rounded a corner and stopped, staring down the barrel of a gun. Black eyes returned his gaze frigidly. Two steady hands held the weapon at his chest. McBride had time to observe the silencer: it was huge, elaborate.

  He would die with a pop that b
arely disturbed the air. Oh, Grace, he thought. A pang went through him, a sorrow, sharper than he’d imagined it would be if ever this came to pass. Somewhere between Lowrie’s embrace on the banks of Loch Beithe and this night, he had lost his love of life for its own sake. But he wasn’t ready to leave it. Not yet…

  The tiny sound came. McBride scarcely noticed. In the instant before it—the grunt, the champagne-cork explosion—a shape had come between him and the gunman. McBride was still standing, and someone had crashed to the ground at his feet. He understood this in retrospect, perceptions running backwards as his hands dealt with the physics of the moment, unholstering his Walther.

  He was a decent marksman, but that hardly mattered anymore. The gunman was four feet away from him and taking aim again. McBride’s life—his flawed, precious life—had just been saved. He couldn’t waste that. He whipped up the P99 and fired point-blank.

  His gun had no silencer. In the hall below, all hell broke loose. The effect was instantaneous. Lurching to the rail, McBride saw Zvi being dragged down to the parquet by one of the Israeli guards. He saw which of the other diplomats and staff were also diving. And he saw who stayed upright, reaching for weapons that had got in because Lila wouldn’t even have her guests subjected to the indignity of a search. Christ, they’d been infiltrated. McBride counted ten or so, in strategic places round the table and the hall. Frantically he tried to distinguish the good from the bad, hostiles from security. They all looked the bloody same.

  Only behaviour distinguished them. McBride got his first clue when another silenced shot scorched past his ear and buried itself in the venerable panelling behind him. Fine; that cleared things up. Ducking behind the balustrade, he took out the man in the hallway below with cool dispassion. Once battle was declared, what did it matter? There was Andrew, in the wrong place, but alive—for the time being, anyway; oblivious to the sniper taking aim on him from the gallery opposite, who in his turn was briefly oblivious to McBride. The Walther jumped in his hands again. Another good shot, and he could see the Israeli men getting their act together, finding cover and their targets, with the exception of…