‘Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,’ he began. ‘I’ll take your questions, but first I’d like to say a few words. As you’ve been told, today the Joint Police Board offered me the position of chief constable of this force, and I’m pleased to say that I have accepted. I feel sad and proud . . . yes,’ he grinned, ‘I should use that word . . . all at once: sad to see the departure of a great police officer, and a great friend, in Sir James, but proud to be given the honour of succeeding him.’ He stopped, leaning back and looking Hunter in the eye. His seniority was rarely challenged; if it was, by an outsider who did not know the ropes, the intruder was always ignored. ‘John,’ Skinner invited.
‘Is this the culmination of your career, Bob?’
‘I hope not. I have a seven-year contract and plenty to do.’
‘Will there be changes in the way the force is run?’
‘None that you or the public will notice, I hope.’
‘When will the new deputy be appointed?’
‘That’s a matter for the Board.’
‘On your advice.’
‘No. The rules don’t go that far; they say I may be consulted.’
‘Is the First Minister pleased?’ a woman asked. He looked in her direction, and recognised her: Rebecca Unthank, the Daily Mail political reporter, not a regular presence at police briefings.
‘OK,’ said Skinner. ‘Here’s the ground rule for this and all future occasions. I will be as open to the media as possible, but my private life is off limits. I won’t answer questions about my partner under any circumstances, and the best that’s going to happen to anyone who persists in asking them is that they’ll be ignored.’
‘Does that apply to every member of your family?’ Unthank shot back.
The chief constable’s eyes turned to ice as he stared at her, unblinking. He said nothing, but she seemed to shrink and her eyes went to the floor. A ripple seemed to go through the crowd, a faint collective sigh. ‘What?’ he snapped.
When no one replied, he looked at Hunter. ‘John, what’s up?’
The old man shook his head. ‘This is not for me, Bob,’ he replied. ‘I wouldn’t touch it with the proverbial.’
He moved on to Fisher. ‘Jock,’ he asked, ‘are you going to let me in on the joke?’
‘No joke, Bob,’ the Saltire reporter sighed. ‘I wish it was; I hate these things.’ He reached into a side pocket of his jacket, took out a brown envelope that only just fitted, and passed it across the table. ‘About half an hour before this meeting was due to begin, every news desk in Scotland received these by email, from an unknown address, with no covering message. I had our IT people trace the source. They were sent from an internet terminal in a café in Leith. Apparently you don’t have to register with it; you just sit down, put money in the slot, and go ahead.’
Skinner ripped the envelope apart; two photographs fell on to his table, face up. He picked them up and stared at them. The first was a location shot, showing a building, centred on an uncurtained window. Alex’s apartment building: Alex’s apartment: Alex’s bedroom. In the shot, there were two figures, close together, indistinct, but one, a dark-haired woman, was wearing a blue robe, and the other, a fair-haired man, was naked from the waist up. The second image, taken with a telephoto lens, was much closer. The blue robe was gone, and the woman was unfastening the man’s belt. The figures were recognisable, all too recognisable: Alex, with Andy Martin.
‘There were others,’ he heard Jock Fisher say, somewhere. ‘I chose not to bring them with me.’
He stared at the images, then turned them over. He was about to rip them into shreds, he was about to slam them on to the table, he was about to explode with rage, when he remembered that he was under the scrutiny of a room full of people, that the video cameras were still running, and that the stills photographers were still snapping. And so, albeit with a great effort, he laid the pictures down, and looked up at Fisher. ‘Yes?’ he asked. He spoke quietly, but in that instant, the air in the room seemed to have been chilled.
‘My paper wouldn’t dream of using those, Bob,’ the Saltire reporter replied, ‘but their very existence is a story and we can’t ignore that.’
‘Is that your daughter?’ Rebecca Unthank shouted, her courage seemingly restored.
‘I didn’t answer your earlier question,’ he told her. ‘For the avoidance of doubt, I will not discuss any family matters in this forum with you or anyone else.’
‘Were you aware that she’s still seeing DCC Martin, even though he’s married?’ the woman persisted.
‘Are we speaking the same language?’ he fired back. ‘Are you short of comprehension as well as manners?’
His gaze returned to Hunter and Fisher. ‘Listen,’ he began, in a voice loud enough to be heard at the back of the room, ‘I understand and respect the job that the responsible media have to do, but I won’t tolerate irresponsibility, wherever I find it. The only other personal comment I’m prepared to make is this: I regret that people who take and disseminate photographs like those I’ve just been shown are not subject, in this country, to criminal prosecution.’ He paused, frowning, as Alan Royston approached, and handed him a folded note. He opened it, read it, nodded, then looked back across the crowd of reporters. ‘Some news for you,’ he told them. ‘I’ve just received this message from Mitchell Laidlaw, chairman of Curle Anthony and Jarvis, solicitors. Any newspaper or broadcast organisation that publishes those images, or names the people in them, will be in breach of an interim interdict that has just been granted to my daughter by the court.’ He stood. ‘Any other questions you can put to me through Mr Royston,’ he said. ‘I have a job to be getting on with.’
He swept from the room, impassive, as a young journalist tried to block his way, only to be swept aside by the media manager. He was aware of eyes upon him as he walked from the gym and along the corridor, until he turned the corner and was out of sight.
He took the stairs two at a time, and strode along to his new office, pausing to open the door of its anteroom, where his secretary sat. ‘I’ll return Andy Martin’s call now, Gerry,’ he said. ‘I want you to listen in to this one,’ he added.
He had just eased himself in behind his desk when the phone rang. He was about to snatch it up when he stopped himself, and took a deep breath. ‘Calm,’ he whispered.
‘Bob,’ said Andy Martin.
‘Do you know what you’ve done?’ he asked, conversationally, as if his toe had just been stood on, nothing more. ‘My introduction to the media as chief constable, and I find myself looking at my daughter, in the buff, easing her way into your jockeys.’
‘Christ, Bob, listen—’
‘I don’t want to listen to you, Andy,’ he said. ‘I know it takes two to tango, but you have to understand that I’m biased here. I will do anything to protect my daughter, and her interests, private and professional. I’m going to assume that Karen knows about this, or will find out. Well, you make fucking certain that you give her my sincere, personal apologies for Alex’s involvement with you. And this is personal too; you can be sure that I will do everything in my power to thwart any thought you might have of ever working in the same city as my kid again. You will not see her again, you will not approach her, you will not accept any misguided calls she may make to you. Now, I don’t imagine that you rang her doorbell and asked her if she fancied a shag. You were in her house, so I must assume that she invited you there. Well, she’s got my genes, so in her personal life she’s going to make a few mistakes. To be honest, I always regarded you as one of them, although I kept that to myself when you were together. I’ll help her through this. What you have to do now is get your sorry arse home, get down on your knees, and rescue what’s left of your marriage, if you can. As for your career, you’ve crossed me, so that’s fucked.’
He replaced the phone in its cradle, gently. A few seconds later, Gerry Crossley came into the room, his face paler than before. ‘Boss, did you really want me to hear that?’ he asked.
‘Oh yes,’ the chief constable replied. ‘If I hadn’t known you were on the line, I reckon I would really have lost it with my former best friend. Now, get me my daughter, please . . . but don’t listen in this time.’
It took the secretary a few minutes to make the connection, but finally he buzzed through. ‘I have Ms Skinner for you, sir,’ he said.
‘Hi, kid,’ Bob murmured, as she came on line. ‘You’ve had a tough afternoon, I hear.’
‘Oh, Pops,’ she sighed; he wondered if she was in tears. ‘I’m so sorry; for this to have happened today of all days, and for it to have embarrassed you. I heard about your press briefing from Alan Royston; it’s just awful. There’s nothing I can say to excuse myself. It was a one-off, a meeting between the two of us, for a chat, as it was for a while, until it got out of control. I should never have put us in that position. It was my fault, so don’t be too hard on Andy.’
‘Alexis,’ he told her, ‘I couldn’t be too hard on Andy, short of killing him. You’re vulnerable where he’s concerned, and he took advantage of you. The guy’s got a pregnant wife, for Christ’s sake.’
‘Dad, don’t make me feel worse. You and he have been friends for ever. He even gave you a clear run at your new job.’
‘I never asked him to do that. Anyway, the truth is, he wouldn’t have had a prayer against me, and he knew it.’
‘I’ll give tonight’s dinner a miss,’ said Alex suddenly.
‘Then it’s cancelled,’ her father replied firmly. ‘If you’re not there, it doesn’t go ahead, and Aileen will back me in that. You’ll be among friends, so you’re coming.’
‘I need them,’ she confessed heavily. ‘I’ve just had Karen on the phone. That’s why I was delayed taking your call. Mitchell Laidlaw wasn’t going to let the switchboard put her through, but I insisted.’
‘How was she?’
‘Icy and tearful, all at once; not surprising, in the circumstances. She told me that I was a treacherous slapper, and that she’d like to tear my hair out by the roots. I told her more or less what I’ve just told you, and said that Andy was mortified afterwards, that he called me later to say it could never happen again.’
‘He did that?’ Bob barked. ‘Better to have said nothing at all than to rub your nose in your own mistake. The bastard! I tell you, they’re going to be selling tickets at the next ACPOS meeting.’
‘Dad, stay away from him!’ she said apprehensively.
‘It’ll be the other way round, baby; I’m pretty sure of that. I saw him yesterday; if he was my true friend, and yours, he would have told me about what had happened between you, and apologised. But he didn’t have the balls to do either. He won’t come near me for a long time, if ever.’
‘Oh, Pops!’
‘That’s how it is, wee one. Subject closed. Now, this interdict of yours; that was fast work.’
‘The photographs arrived in my email,’ she told him, ‘followed shortly afterwards by a call from a Sun reporter. I told Mitchell at once, of course; what affects me affects the firm. He went straight up to the court and got the interdict preventing publication.’
‘Is he happy that it will hold?’ he asked.
‘He said that if it doesn’t, the editor who publishes the pictures, or even our names, will wind up in jail for contempt. We’ll go for a full interdict in due course.’
‘In a couple of days, kid,’ her father assured her, ‘this will have blown over as far as the media are concerned. They’ll have some sort of a story today and tomorrow, but with no names and no pictures, it won’t feature very high up the news schedules. Still, you’re staying at our place tonight, no question.’
‘If you say so.’ She fell silent for a few moments. ‘Pops, what I don’t understand is who would do this, and why? Those pictures weren’t taken by accident. Somebody was watching my flat. And the timing too . . . just before your unveiling as chief constable. Is somebody out to get me? Have I upset a client that I don’t know about?’
Bob chuckled, taking her by surprise. ‘Alex, from what I know of your firm’s client list, it’s unlikely to include someone who’d take it out on a junior member of staff by photographing her in an intimate situation. You’re a bystander in this business, even if you’re not entirely innocent. Don’t worry, I’ve been wondering the same as you. Whoever’s behind this is either after me . . . but when I ask myself who would be that crazy, I can’t come up with a name . . . or it’s Andy who was the target. I promise you this, I’ll find this character. When I do I’m going nowhere near him myself, but I’ll have him charged with breach of the peace, that wonderful Scottish catch-all which lets you do just about anyone for just about anything. And the first person I’m going looking for is a man who calls himself Coben. See you tonight, babe,’ he said softly. ‘Keep your chin up, but most of all,’ he laughed, ‘please keep your bedroom curtains closed in future.’
Sixty-two
Fred Noble stood, his right hand grasping the high mantelshelf of the Victorian fireplace in his drawing room, so hard that his knuckles shone white, contrasting sharply with its black marble, and with his customary dark clothing. ‘Henry?’ he murmured. ‘You have to be kidding me.’
‘I wish I was,’ Sammy Pye told the author, watching as his wife, Amanda, handed him a large malt whisky. She waved the bottle at the DI and at Ray Wilding, but they both declined the unspoken offer. ‘One of our colleagues happens to be in Australia; he’s in Melbourne right now, he’s seen the body and he’s established the cause of death, subject to autopsy confirmation.’
‘What was it?’ asked June Connelly, from an armchair.
‘Before I go into that,’ Pye replied, ‘I must stress that what’s said here has to stay here, within this room.’ He looked up at Noble. ‘But the time has come for you to be fully in the picture . . . especially you, sir. I know that you were friends with Mr Mount, but did that extend to reading his work?’
‘Of course. I’ve read the lot, I think.’
‘In that case, do you remember a book called Havana Death, and how one of the characters is murdered?’
The tall man frowned for a second, then his eyes widened. ‘The old CIA trick, with the bullet in the cigar? That’s how Henry died?’
‘So it seems.’ Pye turned to Connelly. ‘You were Mr Glover’s agent,’ he said, ‘so you’ll be familiar with a story called Black Sugar.’
She nodded. ‘I’m familiar with it, but I confess I read a hell of a lot of crime novels; not all the details stick in my memory.’
‘The victim’s a diabetic,’ Wilding explained. ‘He’s drugged, and then killed by a massive injection of glucose. That’s what happened to Ainsley Glover. That information’s been withheld from the public, and we’ll be asking the Australians not to go into too much detail about Mr Mount’s death. We don’t have too many cards in our hands in this investigation. That degree of confidentiality might help us along the way.’
‘Plus’ Pye added, ‘the last thing we need is a press contest to see who can write the most garish headline.’
Noble lowered himself into the empty chair that faced Connelly across the hearth, taking his wife’s hand as she came to sit on the arm. ‘First Ainsley, now Henry,’ she said. ‘This is like Agatha bloody Christie, Ten Little What-nots. Are you telling us that Fred’s next on the list?’
‘I hope we’re not,’ the DI replied, sincerely. ‘But we don’t need to spell out the need for caution. I’ve been authorised to offer you both protection at any level you’d like. You could move to a safe house, we could move a personal protection officer in here, or we could have uniforms outside, round the clock. Everywhere you go, they’ll go, although, Mr Noble, you should probably think about cancelling your public engagements.’
‘I won’t do that,’ the author declared instantly. ‘I’ve got two gigs at the Book Festival and I’m doing them both.’
‘Wait a minute,’ Amanda Noble retorted. ‘This is no time to be going all macho on me.’
> ‘I’m not turning chicken on you either, though. We’ll have protection on the doorstep, fine, but I won’t be made a prisoner. My first event isn’t till Sunday; maybe the police will have caught this nutter by then.’
‘We might, we might not,’ said Pye. ‘Think about it, please. In the meantime, I’ll have a protection team organised.’
‘But won’t that give the media the hint that there’s a link?’
‘Mr Noble, as soon as the Victoria State Police announce Henry Mount’s identity, and the fact that he was murdered . . . at the moment their media seem to be assuming that some bloke had a heart attack, so no big story . . . the most downmarket tabloid will assume that there’s a link, and your phone will start ringing to melting point. It’s the connection between the methods used in each case that we hope to keep under wraps.’
‘Point taken.’ He paused and looked up at his wife. ‘Switch on the answer machine, love, as soon as we’re done here, and turn off our mobiles.’ His eyes swung back to the DI. ‘I’ll think about pulling out of those events . . . the first one’s a panel discussion anyway: it can go on without me . . . but even as we speak, I’m thinking about this too. Ainsley and Henry both liked to go in for dead clever murders . . . so to speak.’ He grinned. ‘In one Jecks book there’s a female Egyptian bank manager called Cleo who’s poisoned by the bite of an asp. My homicides aren’t that prosaic or elaborate; they usually involve sharp objects, blunt instruments, or the occasional firearm, and they’re nearly all committed at close range. The most sophisticated thing I’ve ever done was have a bloke,’ he glanced at the detectives ‘. . . a police officer actually . . . walk in front of a bus, under hypnotic instruction.’
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