Skinner sat upright in his chair. ‘So our team is six. No one else. Wrap up the searches at the two flats and report to me on the findings. Then arrange for our people to take over the Harvey surveillance. No word on that yet?’
‘No, it’s business as usual for them. No odd moves at all.’
‘Good. That means they didn’t catch on to you.
‘One other thing. I want our team, no one else, to work on the Syrian security job when it happens. When he was still in a dealing mood, Hughie Fulton promised me all the special back-up we’ll need. The boys from Hereford and all that.’
67
The report which Martin brought to Skinner was bleak. Neither of the search locations had yielded a single clue to the reason for the secret payment to the two advocates.
‘It’s a dead end, boss. Nothing on paper, or on Mortimer’s computer disks. I’ve given Kenny Duff his keys back. As far as I’m concerned he can carry on with winding up the estates.’
Skinner considered this for a few moments. ‘Okay. Tell him we’v finished with everything, except for Mortimer’s briefcase, and the other items that we have in the Productions Store.
‘Are the team here?’ Martin nodded. ‘Let’s have them in.’
The four detectives came into the room. Skinner invited them to sit. ‘Well, people, you’re probably all bored stiff by now. I’m sure you all see this as a complete waste of time.’
McGuire shook his head.
‘Come on, Mario,’ said Skinner. ‘I sent you hunting wild geese. That’s what you’re really thinking, isn’t it?’
With a slow, wry smile, McGuire nodded his head.
Skinner smiled back. ‘Well that’s tough on you. Sometimes it comes with the warrant card and the nice suits we get to wear!
‘But seriously, I’ve been impressed by the way that you lot have done the job, regardless of the boredom. You worked well and methodically as a team. That’s why I want us all to work together on one of the most sensitive security jobs we’ve had in this city since the Pope stood under John Knox’s statue. Andy, will you explain, please.’
Martin stood up from his seat in the corner. ‘Question. Who is Hassan Al-Saddi?’
He looked from face to face. ‘No? Well, for the past six weeks or so, Mr Al-Saddi has been President of Syria. He took over following his predecessor’s enforced resignation, having been the strong man behind the scenes for some time before that.
‘He is a hard-liner, and believes that the previous incumbent was soft in his attitude to the West, and conciliatory towards Israel. Since he came to power there have been signs of a shift in the balance in the Arab world; the PLO have certainly become noisier. Get to know the name, and that face.’ He handed round a large black-and-white photograph. ‘On January the eighteenth you’re all going to be involved in protecting him when he visits Edinburgh.’
Martin described the detail of the Syrian’s visit. ‘Syria doesn’t have an embassy in this country at the moment. Later today, a Lebanese diplomat and a guy from the Foreign Office will arrive to look over the route, the hotel and the venue. Mario, you’ll drive the boss and me to meet them at the airport, and then take them to the Norton House Hotel and the MacEwan Hall. I’ve already had a quick look. All three places appear to give us the minimum security problems. Everybody on the team will be allocated specific tasks for the visit once the Lebanese representative is happy. That’s all I have to say for now.’ He resumed his seat.
‘I have a few things to add on the other matter,’ said Skinner. ‘Call it a bonus. All that boring time you’ve spent going through those files wasn’t in vain after all. The Filofax and the address book which Mr Martin and I took away have given us a lead. That lead has taken us quite a way.
‘For example, we now know that our two victims were paid twenty thousand pounds - that’s right, twenty big ones - in two cash instalments; paid, it seems, by a diplomat who, by a coincidence, bearing in mind the previous item, happens to be Lebanese, with strong Syrian connections. We have to consider the possibility that this transaction was linked in some way to the murders, and that this man, might be our killer. I’d like to ask him politely whether he is or not, but I can’t. Not just because he’s a diplomat, but because he’s disappeared.
‘We know too, that this same bloke has a past connection, a student relationship at Edinburgh University, with Rachel Jameson. We are further aware of a link between the pair of them and a one-time student radical, now turned businessman - and boring wee fart, according to Mr Martin - called Andrew Harvey.
‘Mrs Harvey, who was around then, too, has for some reason, been telling us porky pies about those days. In current circumstances, I hope you’ll agree that all that is very interesting. So we’re keeping a close eye on Mr and Mrs H. at the moment, as the only members of this wee group who are alive or otherwise available. I want you four to take over that surveillance, and to be ready to follow wherever it leads you.
‘I’ll say this once more. I want you to keep this enquiry absolutely secret.
He looked slowly from face to face. ‘I’m going to tell you this only because I trust you all implicitly. There are people in high places outside this force who know something of our enquiries, and who don’t like them one wee bit. In fact, I’ve been given a heavy hint to lay off, for reasons which I believe to be political.’
His eyes swept the room again, catching the concern in the four faces. ‘I’ve never been a politician. I don’t really know what the word means.
‘This is still a multiple murder enquiry, for all the cloak and dagger I expect the pressure to get tougher. If it does, I’ll handle it. All I ask of you is total discretion. Nothing on paper. Report orally to me or Mr Martin. Unless it’s most urgent, use the phone rather than police radio.’
He paused, and looked every officer in the eye, in turn. ‘Having told you all that, I’m offering you an exit. If anyone thinks that this is too heavy for him, or her, or worries about career prospects - and I won’t deny it, if this thing goes really badly south that could be a worry — they are free to opt out right now. No comebacks.’ He paused again. He looked again at each officer. ‘Well?’
Brian Mackie stood up, a gesture surprising in its formality. ‘Sir, over the past four days, we’ve all, well we’ve come to know Mike and Rachel. And none of us will ever forget young MacVicar, or the others. We’re all as determined as you are to catch the animal who killed them.’
Skinner’s smile was one of gratitude. ‘You’re all good people. Stick with me on this I won’t let you down.’
68
Allingham and the Lebanese diplomat, who was introduced as Mr Feydassen, arrived at Fettes Avenue just after 4.00 p.m. The Foreign Office policeman was on his best behaviour when Martin showed him into Skinner’s office. The Lebanese a small, swarthy man, seemed nervous, overawed by his responsibility.
Skinner did his best to put him at his ease, explaining that, since Edinburgh was a capital city, visits by heads of state, with their attendant security requirements, were commonplace for his force.
‘This visit is shorter than most. Mr Martin has been over the route and we have chosen a hotel which will be easy to guard for the brief time that our guest is with us, and which we believe offers a suitable standard of comfort. You’re booked in there tonight, so you can judge for yourself. Tonight we will drive over the route which the President will cover Then we will look at the Hall in which he will be speaking.’
Mario McGuire drove them back out of town, heading west as if towards Edinburgh Airport. But instead of heading straight through the complicated Maybury roundabout system, he took the right turn leading to RAF Tumhouse.
‘This is the original Edinburgh Airport,’ Skinner explained. ‘It’s still used by the Queen’s Flight. Security here can be as heavy as we like. This visit won’t be announced in advance, but with a university and its students involved, we have to assume that it’s going to leak.’
Feydassen turned towards him in
alarm.‘ Your newspapers will report it, you mean?’
Skinner shook his head. ‘No. They’ll keep quiet, in exchange for full reporting facilities at the debate. The press will be handled by the Scottish Office information department; all the media in the hall will be vetted by us.’
The car left the airfield and turned once again towards the city centre, taking the Western Approach into Lothian Road, and winding through the Grassmarket, beneath the towering floodlit bulk of Edinburgh Castle, perched in splendour on its rock.
As McGuire drew the Granada to a stop outside the MacEwan Graduating Hall, Skinner turned to Feydassen. ‘On the evening of the visit, the President’s car will be led by motorcyclists, and will be followed by another carrying Mr Martin and three other officers. I will be in the President’s car. My colleagues and I will all be armed.’
‘You will use outside people, won’t you?’ asked Allingham.
‘Of course. The RAF regiment will be responsible, as usual, at Turnhouse. Both the Hall and the Hotel will be secured by a detachment from the Special Air Services.’
Feydassen smiled. ‘That is most satisfactory, Mr Skinner.’
Henry Wills greeted the party at the entrance to the debating hall. He explained how it would be set out on the night, indicating the areas to be reserved for press, television and radio.
‘As I told you,’ said Skinner, ‘every journalist and television technician will be approved by the Scottish Office people, and supervised by them. Their fixed locations make life easier for those of us on the security job.’
Twenty minutes later the group left for the hotel. They took a different route, taking the A71 to the city by-pass. McGuire drove smoothly through the Gogar roundabout, and three minutes later, drew up outside the Norton House Hotel, set in wooded countryside, more than half a mile back from the main road.
‘As you can see,’ said Martin, ‘this is a small hotel. There will be no other guests on the night. With only a few men, we can turn this place into a fortress.’
Feydassen looked at Skinner and Martin in appreciation. ‘Gentlemen I am reassured. As Mr Allingham said, you are very thorough. I am happy that my Embassy’s client will be in your safe hands.’
69
Skinner left Martin to dine with the visitors. McGuire drove him home to Stockbridge. Sarah was back into the full swing of her practice, and of her police work. When Skinner let himself in, he found her sprawled on the couch, still wearing a heavy tweed jacket, with a woollen scarf wound around her neck. The gas fire was still warming up.
‘Hi, love, busy day?’ He leaned over and kissed her neck, above the scarf.
Sarah nodded. ‘A real bugger, as you Scots say so eloquently. Began with a heroin overdose in Leith, and ended with a ten-year-old kid in Muirhouse coming home from school to find his mother with her head in the gas oven. Life as it is really lived, or died, as the case may be. How about you?’
Bob shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘Oh, just humdrum stuff. Threatened one minute by a man I thought was a friend. Soft-soaped the next by someone I had down as an enemy. Just a typical day in the life of a hard-working polis!
‘Let me open a medicinal bottle of something and tell you the details.
They sat on the sofa, Sarah in the curve of Bob’s arm, Haydn’s Miracle Symphony on the CD player, and sipped smooth white wine. Yet, instead of unwinding as the music and the grape did their work, Bob grew more tense.
‘Hey, big boy, steady down! Is this Syrian job more tricky than you’re saying?’
‘No, don’t worry about that. Allingham’s had his card marked. If everyone does their bit it’ll be a dawdle. No, it’s the other thing.’
With mounting outrage, he told Sarah of his visit to Fulton.
‘He told me just to go along with the Yobatu story. Can you imagine that? I know that our man’s still out there; it’s bloody obvious, and yet he told me to lay off. I tell you, Sarah, it stinks.’
‘And what are you going to do?’
‘What do you think?’ He almost shouted at her for the first time in his life. ‘Sorry, love, I must learn to leave these things outside.’
‘No, I’m sorry, that was a silly question. But what will Fulton do? What can he do?’
He kissed her on the forehead, and some of the tension seemed to leave him. ‘He’ll huff and he’ll puff, but he can’t go public. He might try to lean on Proud Jimmy, to get him to order me to pack it in. He’d have to lean pretty hard, but it’s possible. He could use the Crown Office to try to stop me.
‘In theory he can’t do anything. Hughie Fulton is a non-person, the sort of guy that Le Carré and Len Deighton write about.’
Sarah looked at him, and he saw a hint of fright in her eyes. But quickly she turned it into a joke. ‘What, licensed to kill, do you mean?’
Bob looked at her, unsmiling. ‘Listen, Doctor, I’m licensed to kill if it comes to it. Far more so than Fulton. I carry a police warrant card and I’m a high-rated marksman, trained to take people down, like everyone on my Syrian team.
‘Fulton isn’t like that. I think he smells something that might embarrass his masters, and he’s trying to cover it up. Remember, the ex-Lord Advocate, the Foreign Office, and probably our own Secretary of State had Yobatu hustled out of the country on a stretcher; now he turns out to have been innocent, there may be no more to it than Hughie trying to save his bosses’ blushes. What makes me mad is that the man was one of the best policemen in Scotland. A real Blue Knight. Now he’s just an arse-licker!’
Sarah put a hand on his chest. ‘All right. Now forget him. Tell the Chief about your meeting and put it out of your mind. Just do it your way .. but don’t get obsessive.
‘Now, let’s discuss weddings!’
70
Mackie and McIlhenney sat in a plain Ford Transit van, watching a big red-brick villa on the edge of Cumbernauld’s Westerwood golf course.
Mackie had watched the couple leave the Harvand factory half-an-hour earlier, in a black Toyota Supra Turbo, and had followed them home. The curtains had been drawn at once, masking the light. Mackie had a feeling that they were in for a long night, until Maggie Rose and McGuire arrived at 6.00 a.m.
An hour later, their talk of football, and Scotland’s sad exit from the US World Cup Finals exhausted, Mcllhenney voiced a thought which had been in Mackie’s mind. ‘Why hasn’t the boss got us a phone-tap, sir? We might not get anything from it, but at least it’d give us something else to do.’
Mackie smiled. ‘Nice one, Neil, but I don’t think he’ll wear it. I’ll ask him, but I’m sure the answer will be that if we called in an engineer from Telecom, that’d be someone else who’ll know about the operation. Anyway, this is just a line of enquiry. If guys like you were given your head we’d be living in a police state in no time at all!’
In the dark, Mcllhenney smiled. ‘Aye, great, eh!’
Just after 11.00 p.m. the ground floor light went out. A few seconds later there was a sudden blaze of light from an upstairs room. Joy Harvey appeared, framed in the window as she drew the curtains.
‘Fine piece of woman that,’ said McIlhenney. ‘I wonder how that wee chap manages all on his own?’
‘From what I’ve heard, he’s had a bit of help over the years!’
71
The first full working week of the New Year drew to a close in unseasonally mild weather. Saturday morning came in a flood of sunshine, with a hint of warmth rather than the frost which normally accompanies cloudless January skies in Scotland.
For the stake-out team it was business as usual. The only break from routine came when Andrew Harvey left home alone in the Toyota. The Transit van was parked 200 yards away in the drive of an unfinished house at the top of the cul-de-sac in which the Harvey villa was situated.
When Harvey cleared the house, Maggie Rose slipped from the van and gunned her MG Metro, parked out of the line of sight, into life. She had the Toyota in view as it reached the roundabout leading to Wardpark and Castlecary
, but there were no surprises in store. Harvey drove straight to the factory, and drew up in its car park, alongside other vehicles. Six-day working, thought Maggie, the software business must be doing well.
Joy Harvey left half-an-hour after her husband, in a red Ford RS 2000 with a new ‘M’ prefix. McGuire followed her at a distance in the Transit. He was led into a covered car park beneath the sprawling Cumbernauld Town Centre.
As he pulled up, he saw Joy, her long legs carrying her at a brisk pace towards the Asda foodstore. He waited for a full minute before strolling absent-mindedly towards the supermarket. He took a trolley, and wheeled it casually along the first aisle, an inconspicuous unaccompanied male, one of several, picking items at random from the shelves. He spotted her easily, as she moved purposefully from section to section. Her trolley was almost filled to capacity with food, toiletries and kitchenware. ‘Those two fairly go through the groceries,’ McGuire muttered to himself. Eventually he saw her head towards the checkout, the trolley overflowing. He left his, and retraced his steps, as if to pick up a forgotten item. Then, slapping his jacket and swearing softly, as if he had forgotten his wallet, he spun on his heel and walked quickly out of the store.
He was back in the Transit, observing the Ford through its wing-mirror, by the time Joy returned. Eight Asda carrier bags were crammed into the trolley. She folded down the back seat and began to pack the car. McGuire noted that one of the carriers appeared to be filled entirely with toilet tissue and kitchen rolls. Two others contained cartons of orange juice, milk and various soft drinks. Another was full of fresh fruit.
Before she had finished loading her car, McGuire started the van and drove off. He was back on station well before she returned home. He called Maggie again.
Her car-phone rang out, then was answered. ‘How’s it going, sarge?’
‘Quietly. Our boy’s at work. How about you?’
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