He looked around at the sea of neon, bright even in the morning light. ‘Times Square, the centre of the universe,’ said his escort. ‘Tacky, isn’t it?’
‘It’s Piccadilly Circus, mate,’ McGuire retorted. ‘Different shape, overall bigger, but the same idea.’ He pointed along 42nd Street. ‘You’ve even got theatre land going off it, just like in London they have Shaftesbury Avenue.’
‘Do you have anything like this in Scotland?’
‘We light up Edinburgh and Glasgow for Christmas. But we’re too fucking mean to pay the electricity bill for a whole year.’ He glanced up at the banner rolling around a building on the other side of the wide street, headlining the morning’s news stories. ‘Ach, that’s not quite true. The castle’s floodlit all year round, and damn nice it looks, but we don’t have any of that stuff. Wouldn’t be appropriate for my city. Wouldn’t look right.’
‘Edinburgh’s that staid, then?’
‘She’s not as po-faced as she used to be, but compared to this she’s still a tightly corseted old lady.’
‘Sounds attractive,’ said Mawhinney. ‘I really am looking forward to seeing it. Will I enjoy it, do you think . . . as a cop, as well as a tourist?’
‘As a cop you might well be bored. At your rank, in uniform, you’d spend a lot more time in the office than out on the street. The upside is that when you were out, your equipment belt would be a few pounds lighter.’
For a moment the American looked puzzled, until he caught McGuire’s meaning. ‘Ah yes, being unarmed. Do your guys have a problem with that?’
‘We’d have a bigger problem if we were told that we had to be armed all the time. A lot of my friends would quit if that happened.’
‘But how do you get by as an unarmed force in the twenty-first century?’
‘We’re not an unarmed force, Colin. We have more firearms at our disposal than ever before. They’re just not routinely deployed, other than at sensitive sites; airports in the main. We’re as lethal as you lot when we have to be, but we don’t give guns to ordinary uniformed patrol officers.’
‘Doesn’t that put them at risk?’
‘No more than they’ve ever been: not yet, at any rate. Gun crime is a problem, I’ll admit. We have a law in Britain banning the private ownership of handguns, but it was passed to keep them out of the hands of nutters, people who might suddenly go crackers and shoot up a street without warning. It was never thought that it would reduce the incidence of guns in street crime, for one obvious reason . . . criminals don’t obey the law.’
‘Mmm,’ Mawhinney murmured. ‘Interesting.’ He motioned with his hand. ‘Come on, let’s walk up Seventh towards Central Park and watch how our officers handle street patrol. You’ll see plenty of them: we believe in a strong visible presence. As a result, Manhattan is one of the safest tourist places in the world.’
‘Oh, aye? And what about the rest of New York?’
The American grinned. ‘Just don’t get off the subway at the wrong station at night, that’s all I’ll say. Let’s walk, Mario. If we’re meeting Paula for lunch at noon on your last day in town, we’ve just got time to get there. If she’s researching the deli business, she has to see the Carnegie.’
11
Wee Moash Glazier stared defiantly up at the two faces as they towered over him in the Wee Black Dug, the pub he frequented whenever he stopped over with his Granton girl-friend. ‘Ah dinna ken what yis are talking aboot,’ he protested. ‘Me go oot in that fog? Ye must think I’m fuckin’ daft.’
‘No, Moash,’ Detective Sergeant George Regan growled. ‘We actually think you’re fuckin’ clever. You looked at that fog and what did you see? Santa’s lucky fuckin’ dip, that’s what! But you should have kept your sticky wee hand out, because this time it’s pulled you into a murder investigation.’
The little thief’s mouth fell open. ‘It’s you that’s fuckin’ daft,’ he protested.
‘Is that right?’ the sergeant exclaimed heavily. ‘In that case, you come with DC Singh and me, and we’ll all go up to the Torphichen office for psychiatric evaluation.’
‘Are you liftin’ me?’ Moash raised his voice so that the rest of the bar could hear him. He glanced around, in the hope, perhaps, that some of his fellow drinkers might dislike the police sufficiently to come to his aid. However, he saw nothing but backs turned towards him, and men lost in determined study of the bottom of their glass.
‘By the balls if I have to,’ Regan muttered, seizing him by an elbow and propelling him towards the door and out into the street, where their car was parked on a yellow line.
The little recidivist sat sullenly in the backseat as Tarvil Singh drove smoothly up through Muirhouse, and up towards Crewe Toll. As they navigated the busy roundabout, Regan heard him mutter, ‘Yis have nae right. Ah’ve got nothing on me; yis have nae right.’
The detective sergeant turned in the front passenger seat and stared at him. ‘You have the right to remain silent, and if you don’t exercise it till we get where we’re goin’, you’ll also have the right to a belt round the ear.’
His advice was followed for the rest of the journey. When they reached the Torphichen Place police office, Singh drove to the back, and parked close to the entrance; Glazier was hustled inside and deposited in an interview room. ‘Keep an eye on him, Tarvil,’ said Regan, ‘while I go and fetch Stevie. This wee bastard would nick the table given half a chance.’ He disappeared, ignoring the prisoner’s muttered protests, returning a few minutes later with DI Steele.
‘This is a fuckin’ liberty,’ wee Moash exclaimed as the inspector took a seat opposite him.
‘Shut up,’ Steele snapped. ‘Speak when you’re spoken to and give me straight answers to my questions, and you’ll walk out of here. Piss me about and you will be off the streets for quite a long time.’ He took a tape cassette from his pocket and inserted it in one of the decks of the recorder that sat between them on the table. ‘Listen.’ He pressed the ‘play’ button. There was a hiss, and then a female voice spoke. ‘Emergency services. Which service do you require?’
Moash blinked, as the reply sounded around the room. ‘Nane, but ye need the police in the Meadows. Fit o’ the walkway, ahent the old Royal.’
Steele stopped the tape and rewound it. ‘Again,’ he said, and pressed ‘play’ once more. When it was finished, he stared across the table. ‘This is the point, Mr Glazier, at which you tell me that you have no idea whose voice that is. Correct?’
The thief gave a tiny, cautious nod. ‘Nae idea.’
‘Okay. Predictable so far. Now here’s the next step. DS Regan’s already told you, I think, that we’re investigating a suspicious death, a man found in the Meadows, the subject of that phone call. That means this is far more serious than anything that’s ever brought you to our attention before. It means also that if I have to, I will bring in experts to listen to that recording, compare it with your speech pattern and determine whether or not it is you. Since DC Singh identified you at first hearing, I don’t think they’ll have any bother, but if I have to do that, you will be charged at the very least with withholding evidence in a murder inquiry. The fiscal might even go for accessory.’
He leaned forward. ‘I’ll ask you one more time, and I mean one more. Lie again and you’re in the crapper. Is that your voice?’
Moash Glazier did not scare easily, but this young polis, a stranger to him, had his number. ‘Aye,’ he croaked, ‘it’s me. But I just found the guy, like.’
‘I told you, straight answers only. This is one step at a time. Did you steal the late Mr Whetstone’s overcoat from off his body?’
The little man stared at the table silently.
‘Fuck it, George,’ said Steele. ‘I’m fed up being nice to this wee snotter. I’m making this a formal interview and he’s going down for everything we can nail on to him.’ He looked over his shoulder at the bulky, grey-suited DC. ‘Tarvil, go and get us a couple of fresh tapes.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The junior detective had a hand on the doorknob when Glazier called out, stopping him in mid-stride. ‘Aye, okay, okay. Ah get the picture; it’s bash wee Moash day. A’right, Ah took the coat. It wisnae keeping him warm, that was for sure.’
‘You didn’t happen to nick a bike from Warrender Park Road as well, did you?’ asked the inspector. The little man glared at him, trying to summon up some defiance. Steele answered his own question. ‘Of course you did, but I’ll deal with that later. Did you take anything else from the area around the body?’
Glazier peered at him as if trying to work something out, until finally his eyes lit up. ‘Oh aye,’ he said cunningly, ‘Ah get it, one of you bastards lifted the guy’s wallet and now you’re going tae blame it on me. Well you just switch that tape on and I’ll tell you loud and clear that I didnae take anything else aff him.’
‘If I had time to take serious exception to that suggestion,’ Steele told him icily, ‘I would. But so far this is still your lucky day. I repeat,’ he leaned over and stared into the thief’s eyes, ‘did you take anything else?’
Moash flinched. ‘There was a wee step-ladder; an aluminium thing. It was dead light, so I jammed it between the seat and the saddlebag. It fell aff though. Ah dinna ken where. That’s the truth, honest.’
‘You’ve never been honest in your fucking life, pal. Where’s the coat?’
‘Ah havnae got it.’
‘Christ, I know that. You were in the pub, therefore you had drinking money, therefore you’d sold the coat and the bike straight off. I guess the stolen cell phone you called 999 on will be in the Water of Leith by now. Who bought the coat off you?’
‘Fuck, Ah cannae tell you that. You’ll do him for reset, and he’ll do me for grassing him up.’
‘I just want the coat, Moash. I won’t do anyone if I get it back. But unless you tell me I will do you big-time. You were the first man to see Ivor Whetstone dead; it won’t be all that difficult for me to prove to a jury that you were also the last man to see him alive.’
‘You’re as daft as Regan!’ the thief protested.
‘Nobody’s as daft as Regan, but I’ll let that one pass. You stole Whetstone’s coat. Whether you tell us who bought it or not, we’ll find him, and prove that. The rest’s easy to work out; you mugged the man in the dark. You hit him over the head; but you hit him too hard. You thought you’d killed him, you panicked and to cover your crime you made it look like he topped himself. Tell me who you sold the coat to, or that’s the way it’s going to be.’
Wee Moash was convinced. Breaking with a tradition handed down by the two generations of Glazier thieves before him, he muttered, ‘Big Malky Gladsmuir, the bar manager in the Wee Black Dug.’
‘Truth?’ Steele fired out the question.
‘On my kids’ lives.’
‘You don’t have any kids, Moash,’ Regan rumbled.
‘In that case,’ said Steele, ‘we’ll just keep you in custody till we actually have the coat. George, Tarvil, get back down to that pub fast and recover it, before Big Malky realises that it might be just a bit too warm for him to hang on to.’
12
He had been in St Andrews House on many occasions, and for many reasons, since the creation of the Scottish Parliament and its Executive and before that, when Scotland had been ruled from afar and governed on a day-to-day basis by the Secretary of State.
From the start of his career, he had always kept his political leanings to himself, but those who assumed that he was naturally inclined to the right would have been surprised had they known the truth. He had voted for devolution and had welcomed it, on patriotic grounds, but also because he believed in social justice, and knew from experience that the remoteness of the Westminster Parliament and the constant battle for legislative time had been a heavy chain slowing down its delivery.
More than anyone else at the table that morning he had been angered by the interference of Miles Stringfellow, as he always was when he sensed that London was attempting to impose its will on Scotland. He had sometimes suspected that if he had lived his life two and a half centuries earlier it might have been ended on Culloden Moor.
As he rode up to the fifth floor, he was seized again by the feeling that the big stone building was a happier place under its new management.
Lena McElhone was waiting for him as the lift opened. ‘Good evening, Mr Skinner,’ she said as he stepped out into the ministerial office area. ‘She’s ready for you. If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you in.’ She led him a short way along the corridor, stopped at a massive, varnished door, rapped on it with her knuckles and swung it open.
The deputy justice minister stood up behind her desk as he came in. The windows were uncurtained, he noticed, and the room was back-lit to an extent by the sodium globes outside in Waterloo Place. ‘Hello,’ exclaimed Aileen de Marco, moving round to meet him and extending her hand. He shook it, his smile seemingly automatically activated by hers. ‘This is a surprise,’ the minister continued. ‘I didn’t expect you to deliver the programme personally. I thought a biker would drop it off.’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s not a problem,’ he told her. ‘Besides, I wanted to update you on what’s happened since our meeting this morning . . . and to break some bad news in person. I wasn’t certain that I’d find you here, though. I thought you might have been off home to Glasgow by now.’
‘I don’t commute,’ she said. ‘Lena has a spare room in her flat. I rent it from her so that I have somewhere near the parliament and the office where I can crash. It’s an unusual relationship between minister and private secretary but it suits us both. So what’s this bad news you have to break?’
Skinner explained to her that there would indeed be two more guests throughout the papal visit, and that as a result she no longer figured in the platform seating plan.
She laughed. It was a pleasant laugh, not a bray, but strong, musical and infectious. ‘You think that’s bad news, do you? It might be for my brother . . . he’s coming with me . . . but it isn’t for me. I don’t mind giving up our places for the Prime Minister and his wife. In fact, making them happy is all I live for.’
Skinner looked at her and saw the mischief in her eyes. ‘Not a fan, then?’ he asked.
The young MSP smiled back at him. ‘Come on,’ she chided. ‘That would be heresy, would it not?’
‘If I was the investigating officer, I’d press for full-blown blasphemy on the charge-sheet.’
‘Aah, but I’m an atheist, remember.’
‘I don’t think that would be a legitimate defence. It would be like saying that you didn’t believe in traffic lights, so you have a right to drive through them. There are jails up and down Scotland that are jammed full of people who think like that. You should know. You’re a justice minister; you’re responsible for them.’
‘Mmm,’ she mused, ‘I never thought of that. Maybe I had better guard my tongue in the future.’
‘That depends.’
‘On what?’
‘On whether it’s politically correct within your ruling group to be for the Prime Minister or agin him. From what I’ve observed the antis are probably in the majority.’
She looked at him in surprise, half sitting on the edge of her desk, knee slightly raised, calf curving attractively. ‘Is this Bob Skinner talking?’ she challenged. ‘The man who, or so the legend goes, once had a Secretary of State for Scotland by the throat? The man who’s famous for his dislike of politicians? Is this the same man standing in my office talking like one of them?’
‘Sure it is,’ he replied easily, wondering when he had last felt so relaxed with someone who had been elected to office. ‘You cannot conquer your enemies, Aileen, or even control them, unless you know how they think.’
‘If you can’t beat them, join them?’
‘If necessary.’
She whistled softly. ‘You are definitely not the product as advertised, Mr Skinner.’
‘I’ve learned to adapt
over the years. I’ve studied the beast in captivity.’
‘And what have you learned?’
‘I’ve observed that on occasion you come across one that you can let out of its cage to roam around freely, without worrying if it’s going to bite you on the arse. They’re the good ones: the ones who are there to make a difference for the people who gave them the job, not to preserve their own power base: the ones who’ll steer the ship through heavy seas if they have to, not tie up and wait for the storm to pass. The trouble is, they’re almost always found on the back benches or the cross benches, because their colleagues realise they’re too dangerous to be trusted with the tiller.’
‘And how do you spot them?’
‘Small signs,’ he replied. ‘For example, they refer to politicians in the third person rather than the first, “they” instead of “we”, as if they themselves realise they’re not run-of-the-mill, not just another nose in the trough. You did it yourself, a couple of minutes ago.’
‘Are you saying you’d open the door of my cage?’
He nodded. ‘But don’t tell anyone. Watch yourself. Guard your tongue. Go with the tide . . . until your chance comes. When it does, you grab the tiller and steer for the white water.’
13
Big Malky Gladsmuir was not particularly tall. His size was in his shoulders, which were as wide as a doorway, and in his chest, which resembled one of the barrels in the cellar of the Wee Black Dug: when that was allied to a disposition that was said to suck sunlight out of the brightest day, he inspired a reaction similar to that of sailors spotting a mine bobbing on the surface of the ocean.
Nonetheless, for all his outward ferocity, Big Malky appeared to be an exemplary citizen. As Tarvil Singh drove down Leith Walk, George Regan had taken the precaution of calling his CID colleagues in Queen Charlotte Street, headquarters of the division that took in Granton, and making enquiries about him. He found that he had never been accused of any offence, nor had he been detained by police for any reason.
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