Pray for the Dying

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘Do you think it was related to something here?’

  ‘Come on, Bridie,’ Skinner murmured, ‘you know the rule: speculation hinders investigation.’

  ‘Aye, I suppose I do. Did you say that Lottie Mann’s involved?’

  ‘She was on duty; she took the shout.’

  ‘Granted, but . . . Lottie can be like a runaway train. Max Allan was always careful how she was deployed.’

  ‘I know that,’ he conceded. ‘But last night was chaos. The hall was full of headless chickens, but she turned up and took charge, even put me in my place. I liked that. It means she’s my kind of cop. What’s her back story? She said she has a family, but that’s all I know about her.’

  ‘That’s right,’ she confirmed, ‘she has. Her husband used to be a cop too. His name’s Scott, as I recall. I’ve got no idea what the wee boy’s called.’

  ‘Used to be, you say?’

  ‘Yes. He left the force a few years back. No, that’s a euphemism; he was encouraged to resign. He had a drink problem and eventually it couldn’t be tolerated any more. The job probably didn’t help, for he seems to have got himself together after he left it. The last I heard he was working in security in a big cash and carry warehouse out near Easterhouse.’ She smiled. ‘There’s a story about Lottie and an interdivisional boxing night . . .’

  ‘I’ve heard it. Max Allan told me.’

  ‘Aye but did he tell you the name of the cop she flattened? It was Scott; that was how they met.’

  Skinner laughed, softly. ‘There’s a love story for you. Somebody should make the movie.’

  ‘Fine, but who would you get to play Lottie?’

  ‘That would be a problem, I concede. Gerard Butler in drag, maybe.’ A name suggested itself. ‘Joey Morocco?’

  ‘Mr Glasgow? Our movie flavour of the month? He looks good, granted, but I wonder sometimes if there’s any real substance to him. I’m pretty sure I’d back Lottie against him over ten rounds.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll make that match,’ the chief murmured. ‘It would fill Ibrox Stadium. Bridie,’ he said, his tone changing, ‘I know you’re as surprised to see me here as I am to be here.’

  She contradicted him. ‘No, I’m not. What happened, happened. I think they’ve done the right thing. This force always needs a strong hand; Max is too old, I don’t have the experience in the rank, and neither does Michael, whatever he might think.’ She frowned, concern in her eyes. ‘How is Max, by the way?’

  ‘He’s okay, but it remains to be seen whether he’ll be back. But whether he is or not . . . I have to get some hierarchy in place here. That means I need to appoint a temporary deputy chief. Even if Max was here, I’d want that to be you. Are you up for it?’

  She was silent for a few seconds. ‘How can I say no?’ she asked when she was ready. ‘But what are you going to tell Thomas?’

  ‘I don’t plan to explain myself, if that’s what you mean, Bridie. The Police Authority gave me the power to designate my deputy, and you are it.’

  She smiled, and said, ‘This might sound daft, Bob, but . . . what will I have to do as deputy?’

  He returned her awkward grin and replied, ‘To be honest, I don’t know yet, not in any detail, because I don’t know yet what the demands of the job will be on me. Mind you, they have just cast doubt on my plans to go to my house in Spain in a couple of weeks’ time, something I’ll have to break to my children. Holidays might prove to be out of the question.’

  ‘Aw, what a shame,’ she exclaimed, like a kindly aunt. ‘The poor wee souls.’

  ‘It might not be a complete disaster. I’ll ask their mother if she can clear some time to take them instead.’ He sighed. ‘As for your question, all I can say is that you’ll deputise for me whenever it’s necessary.’

  ‘I’d better go and practise looking important then,’ the ACC chuckled. ‘Was there anything else for now?’

  ‘No. My usual practice is to have a morning session with my senior colleagues. I’ll probably carry that on here; Lowell Payne will advise everybody. He’s going to be my aide while I’m settling in here, maybe for longer.’

  ‘Good,’ she declared. ‘I like Lowell. He tends to fly below the radar; that may be why he hasn’t risen higher.’

  ‘I don’t think he’s bothered about that. I know him well, from outside the force, and I’m glad to have him alongside me.’ He stood. She thought he was indicating the end of the meeting and was in the act of rising, but he waved to her to stay seated.

  ‘I’m just about to call Lottie up here, to give me an update on her investigation. You stay here and sit in; belt and braces. Christ, after what happened to Toni, none of us can be sure we’re going to see tomorrow.’

  Ten

  ‘I could get to like this,’ Aileen said. ‘Bob’s garden in Gullane is nice too, but it overlooks the beach. He refuses to plant trees to give it a bit of privacy; says he likes the view.’ She picked up her glass from the wrought-iron table. ‘Well he’s bloody welcome to it!’

  Don’t get to like it too much, Joey Morocco thought. He had been on the astonished side of surprised when Aileen had called him the night before, almost raving about being imprisoned by her husband and seeking sanctuary for a day or two, but they had enjoyed regular liaisons a few years before, and the occasional fling since.

  Their history together had been enough to overcome his caution about taking another man’s wife under his roof, even when the man was as formidable as Bob Skinner was said to be.

  Nonetheless, when she had defined their renewed relationship, ‘just fun, convenient uncomplicated nookie, no more than that’, he had been relieved. He was bound for Los Angeles in a few days, for the film project that was going to make him, he knew, and the last thing he wanted was a heavy-duty woman in Scotland with her claws in him.

  ‘Are you sure that’s really what you want?’ he asked. ‘To end your marriage?’

  ‘Bloody certain,’ she replied. ‘I don’t actually know what drew me to him in the first place.’ She grinned. ‘No, that’s not true, I do. I wanted to find out if he matched up to the waves he was giving out. Very few do, in my limited experience.’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘At first, yes. Then I made the mistake of marrying him. It all got mediocre after that, but I suppose that’s life. I’ll learn from it, though; once is enough.’

  He smiled.

  ‘And you’re relieved to hear that, I know,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, Joey. My career is all planned out, and it doesn’t take me within six thousand miles of where you’re going.’ She looked around the suntrap garden once more. ‘But this is nice. I like it here; it suits me. I’m guessing that when you go to the US, you won’t be back here very often, so if you need a tenant, let me know.’

  ‘I will,’ he promised. ‘The way my commitments are, I won’t be back for at least a year, so that might work. You’d be a house-sitter, though, not a tenant.’

  ‘No,’ she declared. ‘It would have to be formal. I couldn’t be seen as your bidey-in, even though you were never here.’

  He shrugged. ‘Whatever,’ he murmured, hoping secretly that it would all be forgotten by the next morning. ‘Want another drink?’ he asked.

  Aileen pressed her glass to her chest. ‘No, I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I’m not a big afternoon drinker . . . or evening, come to that. You’ve seen me in action before. You know I can’t handle it.’

  ‘True,’ he conceded. ‘If you’re sure . . . I think I’ll get another beer, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Not a bit.’

  He wandered back into the kitchen, and took another Rolling Rock from the fridge. He had just uncapped it when the phone rang. He frowned, irked by the interruption, wondering which of the few people with access to his unlisted number had a need to call it on a bloody Sunday, when they all knew it was the day he liked to keep to himself.

  ‘Yes,’ he barked, not choosing to hide his impatience.

  ‘Is that Joey Morocco?’ a female vo
ice asked.

  ‘Depends who this is.’

  ‘My name’s Marguerite Hatton. I’m on the political staff of the Daily News.’

  ‘And I’m a bloody actor, so why are you calling me?’ Hatton, Hatton; the name was fresh in his mind. Of course, the woman from the press conference, she who had tried to give Aileen’s husband a hard time, and had her arse well kicked.

  ‘I’m trying to locate Aileen de Marco,’ she replied. ‘I’d like to talk to her about her ordeal last night and how relieved she feels that the killer got the wrong woman.’

  ‘So?’ he challenged. ‘Why are you calling me?’

  ‘You’re quoted as saying, last night as you left the concert hall, that you’re a friend of hers,’ she explained. ‘I’m calling around everyone; the Labour Party, Glasgow councillors, anyone who might know her, actually, but she seems to have disappeared. Do you have any idea where she might be?’

  ‘Why should I? And if I did, do you really think that I’d betray her by setting you on her? If you want to find her, ask her husband, why don’t you?’

  ‘I rather think not,’ Hatton drawled. ‘Can you tell me about your relationship with Ms de Marco, Mr Morocco?’

  ‘No,’ he snorted. ‘Why the hell should I do that?’

  ‘But you did say you’re a friend of hers.’

  ‘Yes. So what? Aileen has many friends. She’s Glasgow’s leading lady. Ask a real journalist and they’ll tell you that.’

  ‘Oh, but I’m a real journalist, Mr Morocco,’ she told him. ‘Be in no doubt about that. How long have you known Ms de Marco?’

  ‘For a few years.’

  ‘How close are you?’

  ‘We are friends, okay? Is there any part of that you don’t understand?’

  ‘What’s the nature of your friendship?’

  ‘Private. Now please piss off.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  He felt himself boil over. ‘Listen, hen,’ he shouted, lapsing into Glaswegian in his anger, ‘you want to talk to me, you go through my agent or my publicist. By the way, both of those are owed favours by your editor, so don’t you be making me have them called in.’

  ‘He owes me a few as well, Joey,’ she countered. ‘I keep bringing him exclusives, you see. When did you last see Ms de Marco?’

  ‘Fuck off!’ he snapped and slammed the phone back into its cradle.

  ‘You’ve been a while,’ Aileen said, as he rejoined her.

  ‘I had a nuisance call,’ he replied.

  ‘There’s a number you can call that stops you getting those.’

  ‘It doesn’t always work. But hopefully that one’s gone away to bother somebody else.’

  Eleven

  ‘How’s the force reacting to Mr Skinner’s appointment?’ Harry Wright of the Herald called out, from the second row of the questioning journalists gathered in the Pitt Street conference room.

  ‘Come on, Harry,’ Malcolm Nopper began to protest, but Lottie Mann cut across him.

  ‘How would I know?’ she replied, her deep booming voice at a level just below a shout. ‘I’m just one member of this force, and for the last,’ she made a show of checking her watch, ‘twenty hours, minus a few for sleep, I’ve been leading a murder investigation. I think I can say for everybody that we’re all still shocked by what happened to our former chief constable. As for the new chief, he’s keeping in close touch with my investigation, but he’s confirmed me as the lead officer.’

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Nopper exclaimed, ‘people, I know these are unique circumstances, but I remind you that we’re here to discuss an ongoing inquiry into a suspicious death.’

  A few explosions of laughter, some suppressed, some not, came from the gathering at his blatant use of police-speak. Skinner winced, and reflected on his insistence that the chief press officer should take the chair at the briefing. He had slipped into the room at the first call for order, and was standing at the back, half-hidden behind a Sky News camera operator.

  ‘Okay,’ Nopper sighed, shifting in his seat before the Strathclyde Police logo backdrop as he tried to rescue the situation. ‘At least that got your attention. My point was that this is a murder we’re here to talk about and that it should be treated just like any other, regardless of who the victim is. Now can we stick to the point?’ He looked towards the Herald reporter. ‘Harry,’ he invited, ‘do you want to ask a proper question?’

  The man shrugged. ‘I thought that was, but never mind. Detective Inspector, you were able to confirm for us that the police victims are Chief Constable Field and Sergeant Sproule. Now can you tell us anything about the other two men? Do you know who they are . . . were, sorry?’

  Lottie straightened in her chair, and took a deep breath, in an effort to slow down her racing heart. ‘We believe so,’ she replied, speaking steadily. A murmur rippled through the media, and she paused to let it subside. ‘They’ve been identified as Gerard Botha and Francois Smit. They were both South African citizens, and they’ve been described to us as military contractors.’

  ‘Mercenaries?’ a female Daily Record hack shouted.

  The reporter was so suddenly excited that Lottie suspected she had spent her career waiting to write a crime story that didn’t involve domestic violence, homophobia or dawn raids on drug dealers. ‘If you want to use that term,’ she said, ‘I won’t be arguing with you.’

  ‘Who gave you that description?’ John Fox asked, from his customary front and centre seat.

  ‘Intelligence sources,’ the DI told him.

  ‘MI6?’

  Lottie looked him in the eye, then gave him the smallest of winks. ‘Be content with what I’ve given you.’ She came within a couple of breaths of adding, ‘There’s a good boy,’ but stopped herself just in time, realising that Pacific Quay’s top crime reporter was someone she did not need as an enemy.

  Fox grinned. ‘I had to ask, Lottie. These men were the killers, yes?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘To what degree of certainty?’

  ‘Absolute.’

  ‘Do you know as certainly how they came to die?’

  ‘Yes,’ the DI said. ‘But with the greatest respect, I’m going to tell the procurator fiscal before I tell you. Fair enough?’

  The BBC reporter shrugged his shoulders slightly as if in agreement, but some others tried to press the point. She held her position until eventually Harry Wright changed the angle of approach.

  ‘DI Mann, the concert hall had security cover and the event was policed, yet these two men seem to have smuggled a weapon in there regardless. Is your investigation focusing on your own security and on the lapses that allowed this to happen?’

  ‘We know how they did that too, but again I’m not able to share it with you.’

  ‘Same reason, I suppose,’ Wright moaned. ‘The fiscal gets to know before the public.’

  She shook her head, firmly. ‘No. It’s information that we have to keep in-house for now. There are aspects of it that we need to follow up.’

  ‘Continuing lines of inquiry?’

  ‘Sure, if you want to say that, I’m content.’

  ‘DI Mann, why isn’t Mr Skinner sitting alongside you?’ Marguerite Hatton cried out from the side of the room.

  ‘Relevant questions only,’ Nopper exclaimed. ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘I’ll decide what’s relevant,’ the woman protested. ‘I’ll disrupt this press conference until you answer. Why isn’t the new chief constable present?’

  ‘He is!’

  Every head in the room, apart from the two seated at the table, turned at Skinner’s bellow.

  ‘Satisfied?’ he boomed. ‘DI Mann is leading this investigation and she enjoys my full confidence.’

  ‘How is your wife today, Mr Skinner?’ Hatton shouted back.

  Slowly, the chief constable walked towards her. A press office aide stood at the side of the room, holding one of the microphones that were available so that every reporter’s questions could b
e heard. He held out his hand for it and took it, then stopped.

  He knew that the TV cameras were running and that still photographs were being shot, but made no attempt to have them stop.

  ‘Lady,’ he said, into the mike, ‘I don’t know who you think you are, or what special privileges you expect from me, but you’re not getting any. You’re here at our invitation to discuss a specific matter, and now you’re threatening disruption, as everyone here has heard. I’m not having that. One more word from you and I’ll have you ejected.’

  ‘This is a public meeting,’ she protested.

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ he snapped back at her. ‘It’s a police press conference. I mean it. One more word and you are on the pavement.’ He held her gaze, his eyes icy cold, boring into hers, unblinking, until she subsided and turned away from him.

  ‘Okay,’ he murmured. ‘As long as we’re clear.’ He looked at the platform. ‘Carry on, Malcolm.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ the chief press officer said.

  The Daily Record reporter raised her hand. Nopper nodded to her. ‘Can we take it that Chief Constable Field’s relatives have been told?’

  ‘Of course,’ he replied. ‘We released her identity, didn’t we? Her mother arrived in Glasgow this morning.’

  Shit, Skinner thought, they’re going to love you for that when the media turn up on their doorstep.

  ‘Did they identify the body?’

  Malcolm Nopper put a hand to his mouth, to hide a laugh.

  ‘They knew who she was, Penny,’ John Fox pointed out.

  Twelve

  ‘So you’re the armourer,’ ACC Mario McGuire said to the man who faced him across the table in the Livingston police office. There was nobody else in the interview room.

  Freddy Welsh was a big man, one with ‘Don’t cross me’ in his eyes, but someone had. There was a deep blue bruise in the middle of his forehead and his right hand was bandaged. For all that, he still looked formidable. ‘I don’t recognise that name,’ he murmured.

  ‘Maybe not, but it seems that other people do. People like Beram Cohen.’