Pray for the Dying

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘No,’ she replied, jumping to her feet, ‘you do that, and I’ll check that Madam Seonaid isn’t halfway through War and Peace by torchlight under the duvet.’

  As she left the room, he reached for his attaché case and opened it. He had brought the remnants of his in-tray with him, to be worked on during his flight to London, but the contents of Toni Field’s safe were in a separate folder. He took it out and set the rest aside.

  His dead predecessor’s papers were contained in a series of large envelopes. He picked up the first; the word ‘Receipts’ was scrawled on the outside. He shook out the contents and saw a pile of payment slips, two from restaurants, three from petrol stations, five for train tickets, two for books on criminology bought from Amazon, another from a hotel in Guildford, double room, breakfast for two, he noted, recalling a policing conference in the Surrey town two months earlier that he had declined to attend. Maybe she took Marina, he thought.

  Or possibly not. Might Toni have been capable of taking the so-called Don Sturgeon along for the ride, and slipping him on to her expenses?

  He stuffed the slips back into the envelope and picked up the next. His eyebrows rose when he saw his own name written on the front. He was about to open it when he found a second envelope attached, stuck to it by the gum on its unsealed flap. He prised them apart and read another name, ‘P. Friedman’. He looked inside, but it was empty, and so he laid it aside and slid out the contents of his own.

  He found himself looking at two photographs of himself. From the background he saw that they had been taken surreptitiously at ACPOS, probably by Toni, with a mobile phone while his attention had been elsewhere. They were clipped on to a series of handwritten notes.

  As he read them he saw that they were summaries of every meeting they had ever attended together, and one that had been just the two of them, when he had paid a courtesy call on her in Pitt Street in the week she had taken up office. That note was the most interesting.

  Robert M. Skinner (Wonder what M stands for?)

  The top dog in Scotland he thinks, come to let me know no doubt that he could have had my job for the asking . . . if he only knew. Tough on him; this is the season of the bitch. Sensitive about his politician wife. Eyes went all cold when I asked about her. Wonder if he knows what I do, about her screwing the actor guy every time he’s in Glasgow. Or if he’d like me to show him the evidence. If he knew about the other one! But that definitely stays my secret, till the time is right.

  Skinner’s eyes widened as he read.

  The man has testosterone coming out of his pores, which makes it all the more ironic that his wife plays away, as did the one before, from what I hear. As a cop, old school. He will not be an ally over unification. Question is, will he be an opponent for the job? Think he will, whatever he says; he’s a pragmatist, used to power, and not being questioned. Also, will he stand for Scotland’s top police officer being a woman, and a black one at that? Sexist? Racist? His sort usually are, if old Bullshit is anything to go by. Must work out a way to take him out of the game. Main weakness is his wife; use what I know and work on getting more on her. Other weakness his daughter, but she’s protected by the dangerous Mr Martin so too much trouble. Summary: an enemy, but can be handled.

  ‘No wonder this fucking woman got herself killed,’ he murmured to himself. ‘I might have been tempted to do it myself.’

  He replaced the notes and the photographs, then turned to the next envelope. It was inscribed ‘Bullshit’. It contained nothing but photographs, of Toni Field and a man. In one they were both in police uniform, but in the others they were highly informal. It was all too apparent that at least one of the participants had been completely unaware that they were being taken, most of all in one in which he was clad only in his socks.

  Skinner stared. He gaped. And then he laughed. ‘Bullshit,’ he said. ‘B. S. for short. B. S. for Brian Storey, Sir Brian bloody Storey, deputy assistant commissioner then, going by his uniform, but now Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. And weren’t he and Lady Storey guests in the royal box at Ascot a few weeks ago?’

  His smile vanished. Was Brian Storey a man to be blackmailed and take it quietly? Maybe, maybe not.

  He moved on to the next envelope. It was labelled ‘Brum’, another collection of candid camera shots of the star of the show with a West Midlands ACC, in line with Marina’s account. Skinner knew the guy by sight but could not remember his name, a sign that the days when he might have been of use to Toni lay in the past.

  The same was true of the men featured in the next two. The broadcast journalist had been a name a couple of years before but had passed into obscurity when he had signed up with Sky News. As for Chairman Mao, the only thing for which he was remarkable was the size of his penis, since Toni had been able, easily, to swallow it whole.

  The fifth envelope in the sequence was ‘Howling Mad’. There was something vaguely recognisable about the man, but if he was a QC as Marina had said, he would normally be seen publicly in wig and gown, as good a disguise as the chief constable had ever encountered. In addition, he was the only one of the five who was not seen completely naked, or in full face, only profile. However, there were a series of images possibly taken from a video, in which the pair were seen under a duvet, in what looked to be, even in the stills, vigorous congress.

  ‘Howling Mad,’ Skinner repeated. ‘Who the hell are you, and why is that name vaguely familiar?’

  His question went unanswered as he refilled the envelope and turned to the last. It was anonymous; there was no description of its contents on the outside. He upended it and more photographs fell out. They showed Toni Field as he had never seen her, out of uniform, without make-up, without her hair carefully arranged. In each image she was holding or watching over a child, at various ages, from infancy to early toddler.

  He felt a pang of sadness. Little Lucille, who’d never see her mother again. One photograph was larger than the rest. It showed Toni, sitting up in a hospital bed, holding her child and flanked by Sofia and a man, Mauritian. He had given his daughter his high forehead and straight, slightly delicate nose. And how much of his character? Skinner wondered.

  He was replacing the photographs and making a mental note to hand them over to Marina, after burning four of the others . . . the ‘Bullshit’ file was one to keep . . . when he realised that something had not fallen out when they did. He reached inside with two fingers and drew out a document.

  He whistled as he saw it, knowing at once what it was even if its style was unfamiliar to him. A birth certificate, serial number ending seven two six five, recording the safe arrival of Mauritian citizen Lucille Sofia Deschamps, mother’s name, Antonia Maureen Deschamps, nationality Mauritian, father’s name Murdoch Lawton, nationality British.

  In the days when Trivial Pursuit was the only game in town, Bob Skinner had been the man to avoid, or the man to have on your team. There was never a fact, a name or a link so inconsequential that he would not retain it.

  ‘Murdoch,’ he exclaimed. ‘The A Team, original TV series not the iffy movie, crazy team member, “Howling Mad” Murdock, spelled the American way but near enough and that’s how Toni would have pronounced it anyway, played by Dwight Schultz. Hence the nickname, but who the hell is he?’

  Sarah’s iPad was lying on the coffee table. He picked it up, clicked on the Wikipedia app, and keyed in the name of the father of little Lucille Deschamps.

  When Sarah came back into the room he was staring at the tablet’s small screen, his face frozen, his expression so wild that it scared her.

  ‘Bob,’ she called out, ‘are you all right?’

  He shook himself back to life. ‘Never better, love,’ he replied, and his eyes were exultant. ‘Can you print from this thing?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course. Why?’

  ‘Because the whole game is changed, my love, the whole devious game.’

  Fifty-Four

  ‘Are ye sure you’re all right, kid?’ Since his visit e
arlier in the evening he had called her three times and on each occasion he had put the same question. Lottie understood; she knew that he was hurting almost as much as she was, but was incapable of saying so.

  ‘I promise you, Dan, I’m okay. That’s to say I’m not a danger to myself, or to wee Jakey. Nobody’s going to break in here tomorrow and find me hanging from the banisters. Ask me how I feel instead and I’ll tell you that I’m hurt, embarrassed, disappointed and blazing mad, but I’ll get over all that . . . apart, maybe, from the blazing mad bit. I’ve made a decision since you called me earlier. Jakey’s going to his granny’s tomorrow and I’m coming back to work.’

  ‘But Lottie,’ Provan began.

  She cut him off. ‘Don’t say it, ’cos I know that I can have nothing to do with the Field investigation, but there’s other crime in Glasgow; there always is.’

  ‘The chief constable said ye should stay at home until everything’s sorted.’

  ‘As far as I’m concerned it is sorted. Scott’s been charged, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘He’s no longer in custody, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And I’m not suspected of being involved in what he did, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘In that case, there is no reason for me to be stuck in the house twiddling my thumbs. The longer I do that the more it will look like I’m mixed up in my husband’s stupidity. So, Detective Sergeant, I will see you tomorrow. If the chief doesn’t like it, the only way he’ll get me out of there is by formally suspending me, and as you’ve just agreed, he doesn’t have any grounds to do that. I won’t come into the investigation room in Pitt Street. I’ll go to our own office in Anderston instead.’

  ‘Then ye’ll see me there. The chief’s told me to shut down the Pitt Street room. He says the investigation’s went as far as it can, and there’s no point in our bein’ there any longer.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked, surprised. ‘Have we run out of leads?’

  ‘Worse than that. Everywhere we’ve gone, some bugger’s been there before us. See ye the morra.’

  As Lottie hung the wall phone back on its cradle in the hallway, her eye was caught by a movement. She looked at the front door and saw a figure; it was unrecognisable, its shape distorted by the obscure glass, but she knew who it was. She felt a strange fluttering in her stomach, and realised that she was a little afraid. She thought of calling Dan back. She thought of going back into the living room and listening to loud music through her headphones.

  But she did neither of those things. Instead her anger overcame her nervousness, and she marched to the door and threw it open.

  Her husband stood on the step, with a key in his hand, wavering towards the Yale lock that was no longer within reach. She snatched it from him.

  ‘Gimme,’ he protested.

  ‘No danger. You’ll not be needing it any longer.’ She grabbed him by one of the lapels of his sports jacket and pulled him indoors.

  ‘Aw thanks, love,’ he sighed, misunderstanding her.

  ‘Thanks for nothing,’ she replied. ‘You won’t be staying. You’re as drunk as a monkey and I’m not putting on a show for the neighbours, that’s all.’

  ‘Ach Lottie, gie’s a break. I’m goin’ tae the fucking jail, is that not enough for you?’

  ‘That’s the last thing I want, you pathetic twat,’ she hissed. ‘What do you think that’s going to do for your son at the school? Every kid in the place will be pointing fingers at him and calling him names. The only thing that’ll save him from being bullied is that all of them know me. As for your slapper, though, that McGlashan, they can stick her in Cornton Vale for as long as they like.’

  ‘Leave Christine out of this,’ Scott snarled, lurching towards her.

  ‘I’d leave her out of the human race,’ she retorted, her voice filled with scorn. ‘And you take one more step towards me,’ she added, ‘and it won’t be a police car that’ll come for you, it’ll be an ambulance. It was you that brought her into it. I hope you’re happy that you’ve ruined her life as well as your own. If I didn’t feel the contempt for her that any woman would feel, and that any good police officer would feel five times over, I could actually find it in my heart to be sorry for the poor cow. Do you have the faintest idea how cruel you’ve been in even asking her to do what she did, far less in talking her into it?

  ‘I know you and she were at it before we met, and I suspect that you always have been, behind my big stupid plodding back. That can only mean that the daft bitch actually feels something for you. And that you’ve let her down just as badly as you’ve betrayed and shamed Jakey and me.’

  She took him by the arm, as if she was arresting him and began to push him towards the door. ‘Now go,’ she ordered, ‘and don’t you ever come back here.’

  ‘Lottie,’ he pleaded, ‘gie’s a break.’

  ‘Certainly. Which arm would you prefer?’

  ‘Ah’ve got nowhere else tae go!’

  ‘No? Why don’t you just go to her place?’

  ‘Aye, that’ll be right. Her husband’s lookin’ for me as it is.’

  ‘Her what? Well, I’ll tell you what, you go down to the riverside and find yourself a nice bench to sleep on, so that if he comes here, I can tell him where to find you.’ She opened the front door and thrust him outside. ‘As soon as I get inside,’ she warned him, ‘I’m going to phone the station. If you’re seen within a mile of this house for the rest of the night, you’ll be lifted. But I won’t tell them to arrest you. Oh no, I’ll have them drive you to Christine McGlashan’s house, drop you there and ring the doorbell. You think I wouldn’t do that, you snivelling bastard?’ she challenged.

  He shook his head.

  ‘Aye, damn right I would. You know, Scott, what I feel right now, looking at you? I feel ashamed that I let you father my son. Well, I tell you this. There is no way that I will let you pass your weakness on to him. It might hurt him for a bit, but you’re never going to see him again.’

  With that, Charlotte Mann slammed the door on her husband, walked quietly into her living room, slumped into an armchair, and wept as she had never wept before.

  Fifty-Five

  ‘It’s bloody warm in this city,’ Lowell Payne remarked, as they stood on the pavement outside Thames House.

  ‘It can be in the summer,’ Skinner conceded. ‘I have this theory that all big cities generate their own heat. Mind you, it can be cold here too. I remember, oh, must be twenty years ago now, standing here on Millbank one evening in February, with a wind whistling up the Thames that felt as if it had come all the way from Siberia. That’s still the coldest I’ve ever been in my life.’

  ‘Are we going to get a chilly reception in here, d’ you think?’

  ‘No, I don’t, but things may cool down quite a bit once we get going.’

  ‘Who are we meeting?’

  ‘I’m not absolutely certain. As things stand, our appointment is with Amanda Dennis, the deputy director of the service. Whether she has anyone with her, that may depend on whether she guesses why we’re here.’

  ‘What’s my role?’

  ‘You’re a witness,’ Skinner told him. ‘Did you do what I suggested?’

  ‘Tell Jean, you mean?’ Payne frowned. ‘No, I didn’t, I’m sorry. You’ve known her for longer than I have, so I shouldn’t have to tell you that if I just happened to mention casually that you and I were off to a top-level meeting with MI5 but I couldn’t tell her what it was about, she’d have gone into full worry mode, and not slept a wink. Did you tell Sarah?’

  ‘Of course. Sarah gave up worrying about me years ago.’

  ‘Did you tell her what the meeting’s about?’

  ‘No, and she didn’t ask. She’s used to me moving in mysterious ways. She calls me God, sometimes.’

  The DCI grinned and shook his head. ‘What is it with you two?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Honestly?’
<
br />   ‘Always. I’d expect nothing else.’

  ‘I think that Aileen getting caught out with Joey Morocco came in very handy for both of you.’

  ‘What does Jean think?’ Bob asked.

  ‘There’s nothing for her to think about,’ Lowell told him, ‘as far as you and Sarah are concerned, not yet, but she’ll be fine. They didn’t know it at the time, but I heard her and Alex compare notes one day. Neither of them were too keen on Aileen.’

  ‘I know that now.’

  ‘I’ve got nothing against her, mind, but on the two occasions that I’ve met Sarah, I thought that she was a sensational woman and that the two of you together just filled the whole room.’

  ‘Maybe we did at that, Lowell. We lost our way for a while, that was all. I hope we’ve found it again.’

  ‘What’s made the difference?’

  ‘I’ve stopped living in the past. Recently, somebody very close to me told me that for the last twenty and a bit years, since Myra was killed in that bloody car, I’ve been in denial, that I’ve never accepted it, never moved on. I’ve come to accept that’s true. It drove Sarah and me apart, and with Aileen . . . I made myself see Myra in her, when in fact they couldn’t be more different. Myra was wild, self-indulgent and she lived her life on the spur of the moment. She was also promiscuous, as Jean may have told you, more than I ever was, even when I was single.

  ‘Aileen, on the other hand, is one of the most calculating people I have ever known. I don’t mean that unkindly, not any more, but everything she does is to a plan, and everyone around her must conform to it, even me.

  ‘She supports police unification for two reasons. One, she does believe in it, but two, she thought that it would make me leave the force and help her achieve her real ambitions, which don’t lie in Scotland, but down here, in Westminster.

  ‘I’m sure she’ll get there, but not with my help. As for me, as was said to me, my soul’s been broken, but Sarah’s helping me fix it, and I feel more at peace with myself than I have in years.’ He checked his watch. ‘And I’ll be even more so when we’ve done our business here. Are you all set?’