As she led him into the club’s sitting room, he felt a strange flutter; he paused for a few moments, wondering if his pacemaker was kicking into action, but it passed and he followed her to a table near the window, with armchairs on either side, and a bottle of white wine in an ice bucket sitting on it. Two long-stemmed glasses stood beside it; one was half-full.
As he sat, she picked the bottle up and filled the second glass. ‘Chardonnay,’ she said. ‘Call me a prole if you want, but I like it.’
‘Me too,’ he confessed. ‘But I’d better keep an eye on it. I have a car outside. So,’ he asked, ‘how are you finding your new job?’
‘Much like my old one as deputy minister; but the salary’s better, the car’s a bit flashier and . . .’ She flashed him a quick twinkling smile. ‘. . . I get access to all the secrets. Imagine!’
‘That’s good. It means you’ve passed your vetting.’
She looked surprised. ‘I was never vetted for the job.’
Skinner laughed. ‘You don’t know all the secrets, then.’
The minister whistled quietly. ‘Me too? I’m beginning to get an idea, though.’
‘You’ve only just begun. How did your lunch with my friend Mitch go on Monday?’
‘It was excellent. I learned more about the law in those two hours than in all my life up to then. Tell me, Bob, why isn’t he a judge?’
‘Because he’s a solicitor, and always has been; he prepares cases and instructs counsel but he doesn’t plead the case in court. Received wisdom is that to be a judge you have to have done that.’
‘You don’t go along with that?’
‘Not all the way. Mitch has only ever lost one action in his life, and that would have been overturned had the pursuer not died before it got to the Appeal Court. I agree with you: he’d make a fine senator . . . if he wanted the job.’
‘I must have a chat with the Lord Advocate, in that case. Maybe we can put his name before the Judicial Appointments Board.’ Skinner raised an eyebrow, and she caught its meaning. ‘Do I take it that you’re not a fan of the board?’ she asked. ‘We think it’s one of our finest achievements.’
‘I’m a great supporter of the Scottish Parliament, and the Executive,’ he told her, ‘except when it does something bloody stupid. The old system worked; it didn’t need fixing.’
‘What?’ she exclaimed. ‘Judges appointing judges?’
‘That’s not how it was, and you should know that. Politicians always made the appointments, on the basis of independent recommendations by people who were capable of assessing the fitness of the candidates for office.’
‘Come on, it was Buggins’s turn, and you know it.’
‘I do not,’ he countered. ‘I could name you umpteen brilliant lawyers who did not make the Bench, because their appointments would have been dangerous, and maybe disastrous. Your system, a board that’s made up of half lay members, who are not experts in the subject, and a minority of practising lawyers, who are, will let some of these people through. What’s the next step? Telephone voting by the punters?’
‘We won’t go that far, I promise.’ She threw him a mock frown. ‘Here, this is my baby you’re calling ugly.’
‘Not yours.’
‘I’m its guardian at least. Maybe I should appoint you to the next vacancy.’
‘You’d have to wait a long time for that, till after I retire, and even then, if there was a remote possibility that I might be interested, I’d need to be chairman.’
‘You’re a passionate man, aren’t you?’ said the minister. ‘I’d never have suspected that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you’re iron-clad.’
‘I’m passionate about justice,’ said Skinner, ‘and in particular about its impartiality. My father was a family solicitor, but he was a bit of a constitutional lawyer too. If he was alive, although he voted for your party all his life, he’d be dead against anything that eroded the essential distinction between the people who enact legislation . . . that’s you lot . . . and the people who interpret it . . . that’s the Bench.’
‘Where do you fit in?’
‘In the middle; we enforce it . . . the parts that relate to crime and public order.’
‘And should you be independent of government too?’
‘I think we should be removable by government, as ultimately we are, but I do not think you should have day-to-day supervision over us. Who investigates you?’
‘Nobody, if we don’t want it to happen. Isn’t that the case?’
He smiled. ‘So how come you didn’t know you’d been vetted?’
She shivered. ‘Spooky.’
‘Listen,’ he said, suddenly serious. ‘However liberal a society may be, if it is to be safe, there have to be dark areas. All countries operate that way. Because of who I am and what I do, there are few doors if any that are locked to me in Britain. But this morning, in another European country, one was slammed right in my face.’
Aileen de Marco’s eyes widened. ‘Do tell!’ she exclaimed.
‘I might . . . since you’ve been vetted . . . but I thought you mentioned something about dinner. I had about a quarter of a fairly inedible salad eight hours ago; I am seriously hungry.’
She glanced at her watch. ‘God, you’re right; we should be upstairs.’ She stood, smoothing her grey skirt, picked up its matching jacket, and led him once more, this time up a flight of stairs to the club’s dining room. ‘I’ve kept the menu plain and simple. Tomato soup, grilled sole, and ice cream.’
A waiter showed them to their table, left for a few moments, then reappeared with their ice bucket and glasses. Skinner glanced across the room; there was a party of two couples at a table in the furthest corner. He recognised both men: one was an actuary and the other was chief executive of an insurance company.
‘When I changed the booking I was told we’d have company,’ Aileen said. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’
‘Not at all,’ he replied, giving the group a nod of acknowledgement. ‘If they were lawyers it would be all over town in twenty-four hours, but the only things actuaries ever tell people have numbers in them.’
They sat in silence as the waiter served their first course; home-made, he noted. ‘So,’ the minister whispered as soon as he had left, ‘what was your sudden trip all about?’
‘Dead Belgians. I wanted some information, and I thought their government would be helpful.’
‘But they weren’t?’
‘They treated my colleague and me to dinner in the best hotel in town. Then this morning they gave us the bum’s rush.’
‘I can’t imagine anybody giving you the bum’s rush.’
‘It isn’t over. I will find out what they’re covering up.’
‘Who’s going to tell you?’
‘That I can’t say, not at this stage, anyway.’ He picked up his spoon.
They did justice to dinner for the next half-hour, talking trivia about movies and music, discovering that they were both Lord of the Rings devotees, and Skinner admitting that his off-duty reading consisted mostly of crime fiction.
‘Can’t get away from it?’ Aileen asked.
‘What did you read last?’ he asked her.
‘First Among Equals,’ she confessed. ‘Okay, I know it’s about politics, and I know it was written by a Tory, but it’s still a first-class read.’
The coffee was poured and cooling before the minister steered the discussion back to business. ‘The First Minister came by my office this morning,’ she said. ‘He asked me if I’d heard anything about that poor American policeman.’
Skinner frowned. ‘Aileen,’ he murmured, ‘I’m happy to talk to you all night about policing, but I’m uncomfortable when you get into active investigations . . . especially when Tommy Murtagh’s name’s mentioned.’
‘You really don’t like the First Minister, do you?’
‘Not a lot. I told you, when it comes to my view of politicians, you’re one of the few except
ions to the rule. I don’t trust them, and you should learn to do the same. Do you think Murtagh knew you were seeing me tonight?’
‘It never occurred to me.’
‘Well, it’s the first bloody thing that occurred to me. As it happens we’ve got a strong lead in that investigation, but I don’t want you telling him so. If he wants to know anything of that nature, he should be asking the Lord Advocate, not you, and he’s well aware of that fact. He’s testing you, just to see how compliant you are; watch him.’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘I’d certainly never be compliant for him,’ she murmured, with a smile. There was a movement in the doorway behind her. ‘Bob,’ she said, ‘I think they want to close up.’
He looked round and saw that the other table was deserted. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I didn’t realise how the time had gone.’ He glanced at her. ‘Aileen, taxis can be hard to find at this hour. Can I run you home?’
She paused, for maybe half a second. ‘Well, since it’s on your way . . .’ She stood up and slipped on her jacket. ‘Wait for me downstairs, while I sign the bill and pay a visit.’
‘Where are we going?’ he asked her, as she eased herself into the passenger seat.
‘We’re heading towards Portobello. Lena’s place is just off King’s Road.’
‘Fine.’
Skinner was not given to mixing conversation and driving: he found it too easy to concentrate on neither. As they drew away he switched on his CD player, and let Maria Callas fill the car. Aileen de Marco sighed. ‘Ohhh! I just love her.’
‘Unfortunately Onassis didn’t. So she got fat and died. Silly woman.’
‘Are you always such a cynic?’ she asked.
‘No, I just find it astonishing that someone who gave the world so much more than he ever did should have wound up pining away after he dumped her.’
‘Thank God!’ she exclaimed.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Thank God that you don’t understand everything.’
He let the music take over and drove east. Lena McElhone’s flat was in a modern block in a quiet side-street. He pulled up at the front door and turned down the volume on the great diva. ‘Thanks for dinner,’ he said.
‘Thank you,’ she replied, ‘for making me realise how much I’ve got to learn, and for helping me shed my political blinkers.’
‘Hah! That’s what I’m doing, is it?’
‘Absolutely. You’re contributing to the better governance of Scotland.’
He shuddered. ‘That’s a horrible Harold Wilson word; you’re from another era. I prefer “administration” myself. It implies more regard for the people.’
‘Why, you’re a closet socialist, Mr Skinner!’
‘Aren’t we all, if we care about people?’
She looked at him. ‘Bob, the coffee was lousy back at the club. Would you like another?’
He glanced at the car clock. It showed ten thirty-six, and he always kept it fast. ‘Yeah, okay. If Lena’s not in her curlers, that is.’
‘Lena’s on a management course in Sunningdale.’
She jumped out of the car and opened the block’s main entrance door with a key. The flat was on the ground floor, to the right; the heating had been on, for it was warm and comfortable. ‘Living room’s there,’ said Aileen, pointing to a door off the hall. ‘Make yourself at home, and I’ll brew up.’
Skinner settled on to the larger of the two couches and leaned back, gazing up at the ceiling, feeling tired, and wondering vaguely what he was doing there. From nowhere, he thought of his children and felt a pang of longing, for peace, quiet and a life undisturbed.
‘Hey,’ her voice came quietly. He realised that he had been dozing.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I was meditating.’
‘Do you always meditate with your mouth hanging very slightly open?’ she asked as she laid a mug before him on the glass coffee-table, and settled down beside him on the couch.
‘That means I’m really getting into it.’
‘You don’t let much out, do you, Bob?’
‘Not as a rule,’ he admitted. ‘Discussing my politics with a politician is a real first. Even my wife thinks I could go into the polling station, close my eyes, and my hand would still put the cross in the Tory box.’
‘If we’re into confessions, I’ll give you one. I voted Tory once myself. It didn’t count, mind you. It was in a mock election at school in ’eighty-three.’
‘Everybody voted Tory in ’eighty-three. Would you like to confess something else now?’
She peered at him, over the top of her mug. ‘What?’
‘How did you know that this was on my way home?’
A faint pink flush came to her cheeks. ‘I told you I had access to the secrets,’ she murmured. ‘My department has a file on you; I read it. I know that you live in Gullane, East Lothian, your middle name’s Morgan, you’ve a two-one arts degree in philosophy and politics from Glasgow University, and you hold the Queen’s Police Medal. You had a cardiac incident earlier this year in America. You had a pacemaker implanted as a precaution against a recurrence and you are now one hundred per cent fit. You’ve been married twice; your first wife was killed when you were twenty-eight, your second wife is American, a consultant pathologist. You have one daughter by your first marriage, one of each by your second, and an adopted son. Your adult daughter is an associate with Curle, Anthony and Jarvis, Mitchell Laidlaw’s firm . . . but he told me that, it’s not on your file.’
‘Just as bloody well,’ Bob growled.
‘I could also take you through every step of your career, culminating in your rejection of the command of the Scottish Drugs Enforcement Agency, the reasons for this set out in your letter to the former justice minister.’
‘Is there anything you don’t know about me?’ he asked her, when she had finished.
The pale blue eyes seemed to sparkle with her smile. ‘I suspect there’s still a hell of a lot that I don’t know. In fact, I suspect that the really interesting things about you aren’t on that file. Sure it told me where you come from, where you’ve been, how you’ve risen through the police and all that stuff. But it doesn’t tell me why you have so many enemies.’
He frowned. ‘Do I?’
‘You know you do. There are people in my party . . . not in the controlling wing, I hasten to say . . . and in parties to the left of mine who are dead scared of you. They’d love to see you discredited, brought down, sent packing off to Gullane, or better still taken off the scene altogether.’
‘That’s not news to me,’ he said. ‘They’ve tried to get rid of me from my job already, a couple of times in fact.’
‘You gave them the opportunity, as I understand it.’
‘Maybe. And maybe they’d have succeeded in having me fired too, but they’d neither the brains nor the balls.’
‘That’s funny,’ she said. ‘I’d heard that Agnes Maley had both and you saw her off.’
Skinner laughed, softly. ‘Ah, Black Agnes. She gave it a good try, but she’s history.’
‘Mmm. I heard she annoyed you so much you made a movie with her in the starring role.’
Skinner’s grin vanished as quickly as it had appeared. ‘Your boss,’ he said. ‘Mr Tommy Murtagh, the First Miniature. He’s got a loose tongue; because he’s one of only half a dozen people who know about that, and I can vouch for the silence of all the rest. I didn’t make that movie, as it happens, but, luckily, I have more friends than I have enemies. Just in case you’re harbouring any illusions about me, if I had known about it in advance I wouldn’t have stopped it. The only regret I have about Agnes is that I couldn’t do more to her.’
Aileen saw his eyes go harder as he looked towards her, saw the warmth in them turn to ice. ‘You can be scary, you know,’ she murmured.
‘Only to people who need scaring; like Agnes Maley.’
‘You may think that, but it’s not true; you scared me.’
He frowned. ‘When did I do that?’ The mo
ment was gone; she saw only concern in him.
‘Just now, when you looked at me; it was as if you let me see right down inside you. Did you do that on purpose?’
‘No, not knowingly at any rate. If I did, I apologise, but maybe, subconsciously, I wanted to warn you.’
‘Warn me about what?’
‘Never mind.’
She wrinkled her brow. ‘Warn me not to exceed my ministerial brief, you mean? If you did, it didn’t work. I like danger,’ she said quietly, ‘and you, Mr Skinner, are a very dangerous man. But the really scary thing about you is the way that it comes out of nowhere. Just there, when I mentioned Agnes, you went from sunshine to darkness in an instant. That’s not in your file.’
‘Of course it isn’t. We all do things off the record.’
‘We don’t all kill people.’
‘Who says I have?’
‘That much is on your file; you must know that.’
He shrugged. ‘They were terrorists. I was an armed officer.’
‘They mean nothing to you?’
He held her gaze although, to his surprise, he found it difficult. Jim Gainer’s phrase came back to him. ‘I don’t put flowers on their graves,’ he said.
‘Did you kill them in cold blood?’
‘I don’t like talking about it, Aileen.’
‘Please, I want to know. I’m interested in what makes you tick. You’re not frightening me any more.’
‘If you’re that keen it’s like this: I’m a police officer. That means, literally, I’m an agent of the people. When I act I do so on their behalf, in the interests of the society which put me in that position. Emotion doesn’t come into it. I didn’t feel any then, and I don’t now when I’m forced to look back on it, or persuaded to talk about it.’
‘Why can’t I believe that?’
‘Because you’ve read too much crime fiction. You think that because I’m a copper I’ve got to have a tortured soul.’
‘And don’t you?’
‘I did for a while, but I’m getting over it. I won’t say that I’m entirely at peace with myself yet, but I’ve been persuaded that the bad’s outweighed by the good. Most people can say the same about themselves . . . you included.’
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