Thursday Legends

by Quintin Jardine

dark-haired, with eyes that seemed never to blink, and a gaze which

  gave the clear message that here was a mind which never worked at less

  than maximum capacity.

  "Good morning, gentlemen," the chief constable greeted his visitors.

  "Sorry to keep you waiting; I was just fixing my make-up. Are the

  trains running all right this morning, Tom?" he asked the

  Glaswegian.

  "I gave up on them long ago," the solicitor replied. "I use the M8.

  For all its uncertainties, it's still a better bet if you have an

  appointment to keep."

  "Sad but true, eh. How about you, Mitch? Traffic moving smoothly in

  Edinburgh, was it?"

  "I took a taxi, Jimmy, just to be sure; no way did I want to be late

  for this one."

  "Your implied criticism is noted." He glanced at his watch. "Is your

  client ready to join us? I suppose he's paying his respects to Miss

  McConnell, or checking up on DS McGurk."

  Laidlaw pursed his lips. "My client will not be joining us, Jimmy. We

  discussed the matter of his attendance; on balance he agreed with my

  view that it might be better if he did not come face to face with

  Councillor Maley. I'm here to present his position, and also to do any

  barking that might be necessary. If Bob was present himself, it might

  prove hard to restrain him from joining in, should there be any

  resistance to our proposition. Mind you, he was easier to persuade

  than he might have been, had he not been preoccupied with the death of

  his brother."

  "Yes, that came out of the blue. It must be disturbing for Bob, in all

  sorts of ways. There's this local problem, his .. ." Sir James

  hesitated as he searched for a suitable word '... difficulties in the

  States, and then all the old family skeletons this has brought out of

  the cupboard."

  "I never knew Bob had a brother," Laidlaw confessed. "My firm's never

  handled his family business, or I might have. Alexis did, though,

  although not from her father. She found out by accident, she told me

  yesterday, when I commiserated with her over it."

  "He didn't tell Sarah: I know that," said the chief constable. "As a

  matter of fact, I was one of the few people who knew about him, outside

  the community in which the Skinner family lived. Since Michael

  disappeared from there thirty years ago, his existence will have come

  as a surprise to just about everyone. Bob chose to tell me when I made

  him head of CID. He said that he felt that as such he could not have

  any secrets from his chief constable." Proud Jimmy sighed. "He could

  from his wife and daughter, though, which tells you rather a lot about

  his attitude to his job, and the lengths to which he'll go to defend

  it. At least we can try to resolve that matter for him today." He

  glanced at his watch. "Let's see if the ladies are here."

  He picked up one of his phones, pressed a button and spoke to his

  civilian secretary, Gerry Crossley. "Are we ready?" he asked.

  "Yes, sir," the young man replied. "The councillors are waiting in

  reception."

  "Thanks. Ask them to join us please, and send in the tea." Since his

  health scare Sir James had given up coffee; it was no longer served in

  his office, and if he had had his way it would have been banned from

  the senior officers' dining room also.

  Less than a minute later, the door at the far end of the room opened.

  The three men stood as Councillors Marcia Topham and Agnes Maley

  entered. The contrast between the two women was so marked that it was

  hard to imagine them as political colleagues. Councillor Topham was

  middle-aged, but managed to maintain her elegance in the face of the

  bulk that Proud had watched grow over the years. Councillor Maley was

  short and squat with short dark hair and distinctly unfeminine

  eyebrows, below a low forehead. Where the former's manner bordered on

  diffidence, the latter's was full of undisguised aggression. Agnes

  Maley had been a councillor for many years, and for most of them she

  had served on the Police Authority. For a brief dark period in the

  days of the old regional councils, she had been its chair. Although

  she had once been famous as a left-wing firebrand, she had somehow

  moved with the times, and had held on to her city-centre power-base

  despite the revolution within her party. Proud had succeeded once in

  having her removed from the Authority, but after the last round of

  elections she had engineered a comeback, and had infuriated the chief

  by seizing the chair of the human resources committee by a mix of

  trickery and intimidation within the majority group. The grapevine had

  it that, after the next council polls, she would replace the moderate

  Mrs. Topham as chair of the Authority itself.

  She bridled when she saw the two lawyers, and would have tackled the

  chief constable head on, had not Maisie, the dining room waitress,

  forestalled her by rolling in a trolley loaded with cups, a big steel

  teapot, and plates of plain biscuits.

  It took only a few minutes for the tea to be poured and distributed,

  and for the biscuits to be passed round. As soon as Maisie had left

  the room, Councillor Maley opened fire. "Right, chief," she demanded

  brusquely, ignoring Topham completely. "What's this about?"

  "And a good day to you also, Ms Maley," said Sir James, with glacial

  courtesy. "And to you, Marcia." He softened visibly as he nodded to

  the Authority chair. "Thank you for coming, on short notice. This

  meeting has been called at the request of Mr. Mitchell Laidlaw, of

  Curie, Anthony and Jarvis, who is acting for Deputy Chief Constable

  Skinner. Tom Hogg's here to advise me, and you ladies, if necessary,

  on the Authority's legal position."

  Maley twitched with inner fury at the gender reference. "Councillors,

  please," she muttered. "Why wasn't I given notice of the agenda?"

  "Because I chose not to give you any. Mitchell, do you want to

  open?"

  Laidlaw nodded. "Thank you, Sir James," he said, noticeably more

  formal than before. He took five documents from his briefcase and gave

  one to each person at the table. "I'd like to begin by asking you to

  read that report, carefully. It's an exhaustive report on the present

  physical condition of Deputy Chief Constable Skinner, prepared by Mr.

  Peter Patience and Mr. Hugh Hurley, consultant cardiologists at

  Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, following an examination which took place

  yesterday evening at the Murrayfield Hospital."

  "Mmm," Marcia Topham murmured, nervously.

  The chief gave the lead, picking up his copy and beginning to read, but

  Maley left hers on the table. "This isn't relevant," she protested.

  "The deputy chief constable has to be examined by the force's official

  medical officer. He's said that he's going to give him a month more to

  recover before he looks at him."

  "That is not strictly true, councillor," Proud intervened. "It was

  your subcommittee that instructed the MO to wait for a month. Your

  minutes may not be publicly accessible, but I can see them at any

  time."

  "Thank you, chief," Laidlaw said
. "That was my understanding also,

  from my client. It is his position that a delay is unnecessary and

  unreasonable. Further, it is his belief that it has been imposed to

  give your subcommittee time to rush through changes to local standing

  orders which would ban arbitrarily any officer who underwent the

  procedure that he experienced recently from ever returning to work,

  regardless of their physical condition, or prognosis."

  He fixed Maley with a piercing stare. "I'll be blunt with you. If you

  refuse to read that report, I'm going to ask Councillor Topham, as

  chair of the Authority, to assume executive responsibility for this

  matter, and to exclude you from this meeting. If she refuses, I will

  be in the Court of Session at two p.m." where I will be granted, I

  promise you, an interdict compelling the Authority to deal with this

  matter now."

  "You can't do that," the dark-haired councillor shouted. "This is a

  committee matter."

  "Nonsense," said the chief constable, sharply. "This is not an

  appointment; it's an administrative matter, and either of you have

  executive power." He turned to the other solicitor. "Tom. What's

  your advice on the matter at issue? Do you think Mitch is bluffing

  when he assures us he'll get his interdict?"

  Hogg picked up the report. "If this says what I assume it does, I

  think it's ninety-five per cent certain that interdict would be granted

  ordering you to deal with this now. I think it is

  one-hundred-and-ten-per cent certain that the court would forbid you

  from making any changes in your regulations that might affect Mr.

  Skinner, in advance of receiving a report on his medical condition: My

  advice is, read the report now, and deal with it now. To do otherwise

  would be seen as perverse and might even lay individuals open to a

  civil action raised by DCC Skinner."

  Proud looked directly at Councillor Topham, ignoring Agnes Maley

  completely. "Marcia," he said, 'you've had independent legal advice.

  Now, I'm not asking you to get into the issue of whether the

  subcommittee's decision to defer Bob Skinner's medical might have been

  motivated by antipathy towards him by certain members. We don't really

  want to go there. I am asking you, as chair, to consider the

  reputation of the Authority, and your own position should you find its

  actions condemned by the Supreme Court. Are we going to deal with this

  matter now?"

  Mrs. Topham glanced to her left. "No, councillor," the chief

  exclaimed, firmly. "I'm asking you alone. Will you read that

  report?"

  She looked at the document, then up at Sir James once more. "I

  suppose," she murmured. "I suppose we must."

  Agnes Maley slapped the table. "Ah, bugger the report," she snapped.

  "We all know it's a whitewash without even reading it. Okay,

  councillor, okay Sir James, you reinstate the man. But just you

  remember this; my time's coming, and it won't be in the chair of the

  Police Authority either. There's a by-election for one of the

  Edinburgh seats in the Scottish Parliament due next month, and guess

  who's going to be nominated as the Labour candidate as soon as it's

  called? Once I'm an MSP, I'll sort you buggers out." She glared at

  Laidlaw. "And your client will be top of my list: I promise you that!"

  She threw the report back across the table and stalked from the room.

  In the echo of the slamming door, the chief constable looked at Mrs.

  Topham. "Is that true, Marcia?" he asked. "Is that woman really

  going to the parliament? Surely to God your party organisation can't

  let that happen?"

  The councillor was trembling slightly, as she replied. "I don't think

  it can prevent it, James. Agnes Maley has a pretty effective power

  base in Edinburgh; none of the new brooms in our headquarters, or even

  in London, have been able to sweep her away. In theory her selection

  for the vacancy could be vetoed, but it won't be. There aren't the

  grounds."

  She pursed her lips. "Agnes is a dangerous woman, all right, and

  she'll be even more so, when she gets to Holyrood."

  Thirty-Five.

  "Stevie, are you sure about this?" asked George Regan. "I mean it's

  so bloody obvious that the Strachan girl's the one for this job. She

  had the opportunity, she's a nutter with a religious kink, she's got a

  track record for fire-raising, and she was there when it happened, with

  a personal invite, she says, from God. But, no, you don't think she

  did it. Are you kidding me, or what?"

  Steele had had enough; Regan had been complaining for half an hour,

  since they had begun to review all the notes made and interviews

  transcribed after the Royal Scottish Academy fire. "No sergeant," he

  said, heavily, "I'm ordering you to shut the hell up and get on with

  it. If you can't do that, feel free to go and see Detective

  Superintendent Rose and take it up with her. She'll probably arrange

  for you to swap jobs with young Sauce. That would suit me, for

  frankly, probationer or not, he'd be more use to me in here right now,

  and you'd be more use to the force in uniform, and out on the reception

  desk."

  Regan threw him a dagger-filled look, but Steele stared him down. "What

  are we looking for, then?" he asked, grudgingly, and still grumpily.

  "We're after anything that interviewees saw that was odd. We were so

  hot after the girl when we spotted her there that we didn't give these

  statements any more than a cursory glance."

  "I'm not surprised. God talks to the girl, Stevie."

  Steele grinned at his persistence. "George, enough."

  "Aye, okay." He picked up a folder.

  "We are looking into that, by the way," the inspector added.

  "What?"

  "God's phone call; Maggie's checking it out."

  "She's got His number has she? Or does her old man? They tell me he's

  got plenty of numbers in his book."

  Steele caught a flicker in Regan's eye. "If you mean what I think you

  do, George, you should make a point of forgetting any rumours you've

  heard. You don't want to mess with Mario; no way, not at all."

  "He doesn't bother me."

  "Don't get in his way or he will. And don't let the boss hear you talk

  about him either, in case she takes it personally. One of those two's

  going to be the next head of CID when Dan Pringle goes; you want to

  remember that."

  "So what?"

  Steele was about to tell him when his phone rang. He picked it up,

  with a touch of relief that the conversation had been brought to an end

  before Regan could say any more. "Stevie?" said a familiar voice.

  "It's Jack." Detective Sergeant Jack McGurk had recently been

  appointed as Bob Skinner's executive assistant, during the DCC's

  absence in the US. He sounded excited, and Steele hoped that he could

  guess the reason.

  "He's back," McGurk exclaimed. "It's official. The Big Man is back in

  post. The chief's just had me in and told me; he was reinstated by the

  chair of the Police Authority, after a private meeting this morning. He

  saw the buggers off, Stevie. I had a feeling something
was going to

  happen today. Neil Mcllhenney called into my office this morning, and

  warned me to stay close."

  "Did the chief say anything else?"

  "No, but he had to stop himself from grinning all over his face."

  "Is he back in the office now?"

  "Not yet. It might be a few days before he is, given what happened to

  his brother, and everything else."

  Steele wondered what 'everything else' might be, but he knew better

  than to ask with George Regan within earshot. The sergeant looked

  across at him and raised an eyebrow. Steele nodded, hung up and went

  through to Maggie Rose's office. He knocked on the door and walked

  in.

  Before he could open his mouth, she smiled at him. "I know," she said.

  "Mario just called me; he had it from Neil five minutes ago. Batman is

  back in action. Which means .. . that very soon we are going to have