Lethal Intent bs-15 Page 4

'What do you mean?'

  The ACC tapped his nose. 'Just a feeling I've got,' he chuckled. 'I don't see Andy as a long-term Dundonian, that's all.'

  'Thank you, sir. Is that all this visit was about: to wind me up about things I don't know?'

  'Not quite. The chief had another call this morning, and he asked me to tell you about it. We're having a visit tomorrow afternoon from friends in London, and he wants you in on it. Most important of all, they want Bob to be there; their top man insists on it, in fact.'

  'Special Branch?'

  'Of course not: they'd have called you direct. No, they're from MI5, the Security Service.'

  'No point asking what it's about?'

  'None. As per usual they won't tell us till we're all in a room that's been swept for listening devices.'

  'Is that why you wanted to know where the DCC is?'

  'Mainly, yes.'

  'Let me guess: so does Sir James, and he told you to ask me.'

  Haggerty looked sheepish.

  'Silly games, sir. You weren't testing me, were you? Trying to ease me into telling you things I shouldn't?'

  'Nothing was further from my mind,' said the ACC disingenuously.

  'No, of course not: you wouldn't do that.' McIlhenney smiled, affably. 'Anyway you and the chief can relax. He should make the meeting. I had a call from him at half six this morning. He's flying back today from… where he's been; he gets into Glasgow tomorrow morning. I'm picking him up. He might be like a bear from the jet-lag, but he'll be there.'

  Eight

  Aileen de Marco liked her office. It looked out and down over the Old Town of Edinburgh, and if she got close to the window and leaned to the left, she could see the castle.

  In her days as a Glasgow councillor, she had thought that its Victorian marble-lined City Chambers was the finest public building in the world. She had been as loyal a Glaswegian as there was, and had regarded Edinburgh as a pompous place, which looked down its civic nose at the rest of Scotland. Yet now that she was there, installed as a minister in Scotland's first home-based legislature in almost three hundred years, she had to admit that there was something about St Andrews House, for all its allegedly fascist architecture, that she liked even more.

  It stood on the site of the old Calton jail… legend had it that its execution chamber was still in existence, used as a store deep in the cellars… and it had little of the opulence of its George Square counterpart, which had been built to emphasise Glasgow's proud position as the second city of the Empire. Yet it had its own aura, drawn from the city around it.

  It was a cold winter day, and the view was hazy, as if the traffic-crippling fog of a few weeks before was threatening a come-back, but the great dome of the Bank of Scotland headquarters on the Mound, with the silver Christmas star on top, still stood out on the skyline, between the crest of St Giles Cathedral and the tall spire of the Assembly Hall that had given the Scottish Parliament its temporary shelter.

  She would never give up this room without regret, she realised.

  She had just settled into her chair, and was about to buzz for Lena McElhone, her private secretary, to bring in the morning's in-tray, when the unlisted phone on her desk rang. She wondered if it was Bob again, calling to make sure she had done nothing reckless, but then she realised that it was the middle of the night in Florida.

  She picked up the receiver. 'Yes?'

  'Ms de Marco?' a male voice asked. 'Lord Advocate for you, ma'am.'

  'Put him through,' she said, icily.

  'Aileen, how are you?' Milton Grassick began.

  'Still here,' she replied. 'Are you surprised?'

  'Relieved, actually. I wanted to talk to you about your meeting in Bute House yesterday, with Tommy. I gather it was hostile.'

  'I don't think it was even as friendly as that.'

  She could almost hear Grassick wince. 'You threatened resignation?'

  'Was the First Minister smiling when he told you that?'

  'I have to say that he didn't sound too concerned. I am, though.'

  'Nice of you, Milton,' she said, casually. 'But isn't it a bit late for that?'

  'You haven't…'

  She paused for several seconds, letting the silence build. 'No,' she told him, at last.

  His sigh of relief seemed to explode down the line. 'Thank goodness for that. Listen, Aileen, if anyone should go over this it's me. I had a call from Bob Skinner in the middle of the night; he made his feelings very clear and even threatened to embarrass me publicly. He's not a very nice man when he's angry, is Mr Skinner, but I rather think his view will be shared by most of the police service. It'll be difficult for me to work with him, and maybe with the chief constables, from now on. So I think I may well…'

  'Tommy won't let you,' she told him, bluntly. 'Your resignation would be seen as a condemnation of his decision… or, rather, of his surrender of his powers to London.'

  'He may have difficulty…' Suddenly Aileen was distracted by the sound of her door opening. Lena McElhone slipped into the room. 'Hold on, Milton. What is it, Lena?' she asked.

  'The First Minister wants you,' her private secretary replied. 'Now, was what he said.'

  'Okay.' She returned to the phone. 'Milton, I'll need to go. You-know-who's calling for me. Listen, don't you do anything rash; if you feel your position is untenable, do what Lord Advocates have always done, promote yourself to the Supreme Court bench. I'll support that.'

  There was another silence, shorter this time. 'Let me consult a few people about it,' he murmured. 'There is a vacancy, and I could probably persuade the Judicial Appointments Board to approve, but…'

  'Think about it; now I really must go.' She hung up and followed McElhone from the room.

  The First Minister's office was almost identical to her own. The furnishings were a little grander but that was the only difference the eye could detect. Tommy Murtagh looked even smaller behind his desk; she looked at him as she closed the door behind her, but saw nothing in his eyes that gave away what he was thinking.

  'Thank you for taking the time to see me,' he began.

  She looked for sarcasm in his tone, but could detect none. 'My time is your time,' she said. As she spoke, she heard the door open again, then close.

  She turned: a tall, slim, man had followed her into the room. He looked to be in his fifties, with muddy grey eyes. His only distinguishing feature was a high forehead, accentuated by a receding hairline. 'I want you to meet someone, Aileen,' Murtagh continued. 'Sit down, please, both of you.' He pointed to two chairs that faced his desk. They were exceptionally low-slung; she knew that he liked to look down on his visitors. She would have preferred to stand, but she did as he asked, keen to see what was coming.

  'Ms de Marco, I'd like to introduce Mr Greg Jay,' the First Minister announced. 'As you know, when the office of Secretary of State for Scotland disappeared, I inherited Sir John Govan as my security adviser. Sir John's done a good job, but to be frank, he's establishment, very much in the court of the Association of Chief Police Officers, and that isn't always our side. I've decided to replace him with someone from the… dare I say it? … more active side of policing. Mr Jay has just retired, with effect from last Friday, in fact, as detective superintendent in charge of a CID division in Edinburgh; he's been doing this job unofficially for a couple of weeks now, but as of today he's full-time. He comes highly recommended by friends of ours.'

  She nodded to Jay as she accepted his handshake. 'Congratulations; I'm pleased to meet you.' She looked back at Murtagh. 'At the same time, I'm a bit surprised that you didn't consult me as Justice Minister before making the appointment. I have relations with the police in my portfolio, after all.'

  'This isn't a police post, Aileen. Greg's remit is security, in the broadest sense. Besides, there were reasons for not consulting you.' He paused. 'Before I go into those, let's round off our last conversation. You were a wee bit steamed up last time we spoke. Are you still thinking of resigning?'

  She sh
ook her head. 'My friends tell me that would be an overreaction on my part. They've persuaded me that since the decision was yours alone and taken behind my back, nobody's best interests would be served by me quitting.'

  Murtagh's oval face broke into a smile; it was framed, oddly, by his red moustache. 'Not even mine?' he murmured.

  'If you want rid of me, Tommy, you'll have to fire me.'

  'I'll bet you think I wouldn't do that, though. Not given the story that's running in the on-line Scotsman, and the Herald,' he tapped the computer monitor on his desk as he spoke, 'and on the latest radio and television news bulletins.'

  'What story's that?' she asked, genuinely surprised. She had rushed to the office, not taking time to read a newspaper.

  'I'm sure you know damn fine: the one about the terrorists. Their removal was supposed to be announced in the Sheriff Court this morning, but there's been a leak. The beans are well and truly spilled. You're even quoted.'

  'What do you mean I'm quoted?' she demanded.

  'Well, maybe not quoted, but you're mentioned. It's all very slanted against government as usual, but this time against the Prime Minister and me in particular. All the stories I've read say that senior police officers are angry and frustrated by the decision, and they say also that it's understood you were not consulted. You can imagine what the opposition parties are saying about it' The little man frowned across the desk, with a hint of menace. 'I'd love to know who the source was.'

  'I'll bet you would,' said de Marco, evenly.

  'It shouldn't be too hard to find out, though. There were so few people in the loop: Milton, you, me, the Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary, three private secretaries and Greg here. That's all.'

  'I haven't spoken to any journalists since last night, Tommy.'

  'I'm sure you haven't' Murtagh chuckled. 'You're much too shrewd to do that.' He paused, and she could tell that a grenade was about to be thrown. 'You did speak to other people after our meeting, though. For example, you had a twenty-minute conversation with Mitchell Laidlaw, the chairman of Curie Anthony and Jarvis, the law firm. Just before that you made a short call to a number in Key West, Florida; the Pier House Hotel, I believe. A few hours later, you had an incoming call from the same number.'

  The Justice Minister managed, but only just, to control the great gusher of anger that she felt welling up inside her. For the first time she understood why Jay was present at the meeting. 'Am I to understand,' she asked, calmly, 'that you've had your new security advisor tap my telephone?'

  Murtagh raised both hands in mock protest. 'Heaven forbid!' he exclaimed. 'It would be almost unthinkable for me to do that to a senior colleague. But Greg and I did discuss your outburst at our Bute House meeting last night and we agreed, given the sensitivity of the whole matter, that it would be best if we kept an eye on your personal calls: until everything was done and dusted, so to speak. That's as far as it's gone, I assure you.'

  He smiled again: thin-lipped, smug, humourless. 'That's to say it's as far as it's gone up to now. I could, of course, ask Mr Jay to obtain a copy of the guest list in that hotel. I'm sure that with the help of the American authorities… who now owe us a favour, you'll appreciate… he could even identify the occupant of the room you called.'

  'I'm sure he could,' de Marco exclaimed. 'Listen, Tommy, I have my own advisors: not on the public payroll like your man here, but friends, experts in their own fields, who can help me do my job better. If I want to seek their advice, that's my business, not yours.'

  Murtagh nodded; for a second his sleek, crinkly hair reflected the light above his head. 'Granted. I appreciate that, and it doesn't worry me; I have my private network too. And,' he conceded, 'I'm not above using them to get things into the media that I can't have directly attributed to me. I know what you and Bob Skinner have been up to: you've put a few personal things on the record. Possibly I'd have done the same thing in your shoes. But you know as I do that this will all be forgotten in a week. I'm sure Mitchell Laidlaw told you that these people were handed over legally.'

  She nodded. 'That's not quite how he put it: he said it raised a question about human-rights legislation, but he pointed out that these people were hardly in a position to ask the court to stop the hand-over, and he told me what I knew already, that as soon as they were out of our hands they were beyond rescue since they're under American military jurisdiction in Cuba.'

  'Exactly. That was the advice the Attorney General gave the Prime Minister in London.'

  'All well and good, but let's go back to something. What do you mean by "you and Bob Skinner"?'

  Murtagh looked at Jay. 'Greg,' he murmured, 'would you leave us now, please?' As the door closed on his security advisor, the First Minister turned back to de Marco. 'I know,' he resumed, slowly, 'that until he left the country for Key West around ten days ago, you and he had been meeting regularly. At the Scottish Arts Club, of which you're a member, at the flat you share with your private secretary, in his office at Fettes, and, just before he went to join his wife on holiday, in the Open Arms Hotel, in Dirleton. To top it off, I also know that his marriage is in trouble, thanks to his wife's recent indiscretion in the USA.'

  Her temper snapped at last. 'You little…' she exploded. 'You've been having me tailed!'

  'Not in the sense you mean; my information all came after the event, or events, to put it more accurately.'

  'And just what conclusions have you drawn from it?'

  'It doesn't matter what conclusions I draw from it. What matters is the conclusions that the tabloid press will draw if they ever find out.'

  She pushed herself out of the low chair and looked down on him. 'You little snake!' she snapped. 'Are you trying to threaten me? Because if you are, we'll see how long you last with me on the back benches throwing rocks at your administration.'

  'No, we won't, Aileen, because I won't let you go to the back benches. I want you all nice and docile and co-operative, not working to undermine me; I want you on the front bench where I can keep an eye on you. So you go back to your office and toe the line.'

  'And why should I do that?

  'This is why,' Murtagh told her, his cold smile back in place. 'You may not care about your own office right now, but do you want to sacrifice Skinner's on the altar of your long-term ambition? He's an outstanding policeman, no doubt, but if he thinks he can play politics with the big boys, he's wrong. I intend to take a lot tighter control over the police service, and I want you as my Justice Minister to be my instrument in that.'

  He stood up to face her, still not quite at her eye level. 'You asked me about my conclusions earlier. Here they are: I think you care about Deputy Chief Constable Skinner, and I think he cares about you. So here's what I'm telling you. If you do value each other, you will do what I say, and he will lower his profile and stop interfering in things that don't concern him. Otherwise, regrettably, I will fire you and take my chances, and I will ruin him, without a second thought.'

  Nine

  'What knife?' Richard Cable looked across the table at the two detectives.

  'The knife with which you attacked my colleague,' Bandit Mackenzie replied. 'The knife with which you cut his jacket. The knife that's going to land you in the dock on a charge of attempted murder.'

  'It's your colleague that should be in the dock,' said Cable evenly. His voice had little accent, but what there was was cultured, suggesting a comfortable background and upbringing. 'He was the one who did the attacking. I was standing there minding my own business, waiting for my girlfriend to come out of the toilet. My phone rang, I went to answer it and next thing I knew I was having my face bounced off the wall.' He reached up and touched the heavy white plaster that covered his nose. 'This is the result. As soon as I'm released from here, you can expect a formal complaint to the Chief Constable, and probably a civil action too.'

  'Feel free to consult a lawyer,' Mavis MacDougall told him. 'We'll stop this interview right now, if you want to change your mind and have one present
. Call him; tell him you're being held at Danderhall police office.'

  'I don't feel the need for a lawyer at this stage. If and when I do, I will let you know. Can we go on, please? I don't have time for this.'

  Mackenzie chuckled. 'Ah, but you do, Mr Cable. Trust me, you do. You've got years for this. Let's go back to your girlfriend. What's her name?'

  'If I tell you that you'll haul her in here for questioning and give her a hard time. You don't need to know her name.'

  'Can I make that decision for myself, sir?'

  'No,' Cable whispered. His eyes had no more expression than they had shown in the club: there was no anger, no defiance, nothing other than boredom.

  'When I went into the toilet with Bell,' the detective continued, 'there were two women there, other than DS MacDougall that is: a blonde buying condoms and a red-head with poor personal hygiene.

  They left one after the other and walked right past you. So where was this mystery woman? Or were you just fantasising about the sergeant here?'

  For the first time Cable allowed himself something that resembled a smile. 'That might be a fantasy worth having, but I'd never seen her until I was hauled off the floor by your colleague. Where is he, incidentally? I'd like another talk with him.'

  'He's not taking part in this interview. Plus, if you have any sense, you will not want to see him again. He's still very upset about his jacket.'

  'That old rag?'

  'It's one of his best friends, I believe.'

  'Too bad he cut it, then.'

  'And when did he do that?'

  'When he produced the knife that he planted on me.'

  Mackenzie sighed. 'Mr Cable, we have three witnesses who saw you produce the knife and thrust it at my colleague. You know the scenario: we have Bell on videotape telling me what will happen if he calls you, then he does. You said earlier that you answered the call, but the fact is you didn't. It rang, you checked the number showing, and then you headed for the ladies' toilet'

  'Nonsense. I went to answer but I pushed the red button by mistake. Then I was attacked by your colleague, who knocked me down and dropped the knife by my side. Are my prints on it?'