A Brush With Death

by Quintin Jardine

  Sheriff Romannes gazed at her, then smiled. ‘Let me see. I’m curious.’ She took the photographs and studied them; in sequence they featured a middle-aged man, well muscled and tanned, running on a treadmill, operating a cross-trainer and bench-pressing a significant weight; they showed him again, clean shaven and immaculately dressed, standing outside the gym, smiling, with a boy by his side who looked as happy as any child ever did.

  Romannes smiled also. ‘That being . . .’

  ‘That being the dishevelled, disreputable Detective Sergeant Daniel Provan, who has never come close to failing a fitness test in all his years of police service. The boy is, of course, Jakey Mann, who hardly seems deprived, subdued or in any way at risk.’

  She took the images back from the sheriff and drew out several documents, which she laid on the table. ‘I know, my lady,’ she said, ‘that witnesses are not called in this forum, however statements may be lodged and I hope you will examine these. They’re precognitions, properly taken by my agent and witnessed. The first is by Mrs Grace Ainslie, who was employed for five years as secretary to Mr Arnold Mann, a post she gave up when she could no longer tolerate his innuendo and casual advances. In her testimony she describes Mr Mann senior’s volatile temper, and several physical assaults on junior members of his staff, of both genders. The second and third statements are offered by two people who were Scott Mann’s teachers at primary and secondary school. They describe in graphic detail several occasions on which he appeared at school with bruises to his head and body. The fourth is a copy of the disciplinary report prepared on Scott Mann that led to his dismissal from Strathclyde Police Service, on grounds of the abuse of both alcohol and prisoners, and tampering with evidence in criminal investigations. The fifth is a statement by Christine McGlashan, his one-time mistress and co-accused in his criminal trial. She describes his instability, and also acts of violence suffered at his hands. Finally there is an account by my client of the abuse that she herself experienced. These are informal statements at this stage, but every one of those people is willing to give evidence under oath and subject themselves to cross-examination by Mr Lee or anyone else. My lady, I’ve been investigating these people for less than a week and I’ve come up with that. Give me another week, and who knows what will surface?’

  She passed the documents across the sheriff’s desk. ‘Finally, my lady,’ she continued, ‘I would like to address the adequacy of Jakey’s present and future care. Vanessa Linares is the partner of Jamie Provan, Acting DI Provan’s son; he is an officer in the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. Ms Linares is not in fact extremely pregnant; she’s currently at twenty weeks, and will be in a position to care for the boy for another four months. By that time a long-term arrangement will be in place, one that I am sure will satisfy you. Acting Detective Inspector Provan, after thirty-four years’ service as a police officer in and around Glasgow, has decided to retire. He will be a sometime lecturer at the Scottish Police College, but his main retirement occupation will be as carer to Jake Mann.’

  She produced one final document from her case and handed it over. ‘That is a copy of Acting Detective Inspector Provan’s service record. You will see that it contains several commendations for good conduct and a couple for bravery, but not a single disciplinary infraction. My lady, I hope you will read my submissions and will find that Jake Mann could be in no safer place than in his mother’s care.’

  Fifty-Eight

  ‘Oh Dan, love,’ Lottie laughed. ‘You should have seen their faces, Scott’s and Moss Lee’s. Sheriff Romannes adjourned for three hours. When we went back in, she’d read all Alex’s reports, and made a few phone calls of her own. She found entirely in my favour; she banned Scott’s father from any unsupervised contact with Jakey, and she told Scott that if he ever petitioned her again, he’d lose his own rights of access, which are set from now on at one day every fortnight. That Alex; she is something else.’

  ‘I guessed she might be,’ Provan murmured, leaning back on the sofa in her small living room. ‘Hey,’ he asked quietly, ‘what did you call me there?’

  ‘You heard.’ She looked at him seriously. ‘Dan, are you sure about retiring?’

  ‘Never surer, lass,’ he replied. ‘A whole new chapter just opened up. With luck, I’ll get to read quite a bit.’

  ‘And is that all you want?’ She held his gaze. ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘Possibly not,’ he admitted after a while. ‘But I won’t build my hopes up.’

  She reached out and touched his cheek, with surprisingly soft fingers for a large hand.

  ‘Maybe you should,’ she whispered. ‘I swear, these days you look ten years younger.’

  Fifty-Nine

  ‘You’ve viewed it, this film?’ Joey Morocco asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Skinner replied, ‘and Aldorino Moscardinetto’s memo to Leo, where he suggested that he saw it as a feature film, not the documentary that Leo had envisaged. I have a copy of what was on the memory stick; all I need is clearance from Leo’s heir and I can give it to you.’

  ‘Will you get it?’

  ‘I don’t anticipate any problems. Of course,’ he continued, ‘the story moved on a long way after that. I can add some of the additional material, but it’s better if it’s properly put together. There’s a writer guy I know in Gullane; I’ve briefed him and he’s going to turn the whole thing into a rough screenplay. You were a mate of Aldorino’s; I’m sure he’d be pleased, wherever he is, if you could make it all happen.’

  The actor smiled, and Skinner knew that he was hooked. ‘I’d direct, of course,’ Morocco said, ‘as well as star. I’ve been looking to take that step for a while. Mind you, it’ll take a bit of funding.’

  ‘I can talk to my colleagues at InterMedia,’ Skinner volunteered. ‘It is a media company, and given its Italian interests they might kick in some money. If you cast a couple of Spanish actors as well, that would help.’

  ‘Easily done,’ Morocco agreed. ‘I’m interested, Bob, very interested. Send me what you can when you can. I’ve got to go now; I have a plane to catch and my taxi’s outside.’

  Skinner watched his retreating back as he headed for the door of the Balmoral Hotel. He was about to follow him when yet again, inevitably, his phone sounded. Yet again he thought about letting it go to voicemail, but inevitably, he answered.

  ‘Bob,’ familiar gruff tones greeted him. Even if his screen had not advised him that Sir James Proud was calling, he would have known his voice whatever the background noise levels.

  ‘Jimmy,’ he exclaimed. ‘How are you? How’s the chemo going?’

  ‘That’s fine,’ his old chief replied. ‘I’m officially in remission. Bob, I’m wondering if you have some time free tonight. The thing is . . . I’ve got a problem.’

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  One

  ‘Bob, I’m wondering if you have some time free tonight. The thing is . . . I’ve got a problem.’

  I have one thing in common with Maggie Thatcher: history showed her to be a long way short of being St Francis of Assisi, and so am I. I’ve never been much good at sowing love to replace hatred, and when it comes to bringing joy to drive away sadness, my record is patchy to say the least. However, since I walked away from the police service and Chief Constable Robert Morgan Skinner became plain Bob to all and sundry, I have noticed that when my friends have a problem, they may choose to come to me for help and counsel.

  I’ve had to deal with a few difficult situations, for my friends tend to be the sort of people who draw problems like tourists draw midgies on a damp and wind-free lochside morning. But if there was one I never expected to make such a request, it was my predecessor in the Edinburgh chief’s job, and my principal su
pporter for much of my career, Sir James Proud.

  The thousands who served under his command used to call him Proud Jimmy, a silly nickname I will use only once in this account, to emphasise how inappropriate it was. If anyone ever belied his name it was Sir James. I have never met a man in a command situation who exuded such humility, and who showed less self-importance or pride. The phrase ‘public servant’ is bandied around at will, but I’ve never known anyone who grasped its true meaning, and put it into practice, as well as he did.

  Jimmy at work was one of those rare people who didn’t have problems. He had challenges, and it’s a tribute to him, and a reason for his longevity in a job that wore me out in a few years, that he rose to all of them. I’ve known officers who went into his office to be disciplined and were heard to thank him as they left for the wisdom he had shown them. Latterly, of course, he didn’t do too much of that; he delegated it to me. No one who wound up on my carpet ever left feeling better for the experience.

  That was why, when I took his call that day, as I was ending a meeting in the Balmoral Hotel, my instant reaction was apprehension. A few months before, he had been diagnosed with testicular cancer, but the last medical bulletin he had passed on to me had been positive. His therapy had been effective and he was officially in remission. It’s back, was my first thought, even though he had just told me he was clear.

  ‘Jimmy . . .’ I murmured.

  ‘No, no, no!’ he insisted. He always could read my mind. ‘It’s not that. That’s fine; I meant it when I said I’m in recovery. I saw my oncologist yesterday and she said I’m in better shape than she is. She’s right, too. Poor bugger’s a stick-thin midget; I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s her own patient pretty soon. No, son, this is something else entirely, something completely out of the blue.’

  ‘Something that’s worrying you,’ I observed, ‘from your tone of voice.’

  ‘I confess that it is, son,’ he sighed. ‘Maybe there’s nothing to be done about it. If so, I hope the judge takes pity on me. But if there is anyone that can help,’ he added, ‘I’m talking to him right now.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Jimmy!’ I had visions of my old boss being caught slipping out of the grocer’s with a filched tin of corned beef in his pocket. He had never shown the slightest sign of dementia, but he was in the age bracket where it’s most likely to occur; indeed, the variability of Lady Proud’s memory had been worrying Sarah and me of late.

  ‘He’s involved, in a way,’ he said. ‘I might need a miracle. This is serious, Bob: the last thing I need at my time of life.’

  ‘Okay,’ I told him, ‘we can meet tonight. Do you want to come to me or me to you?’

  ‘Neither. I don’t want either of us to have to explain anything to our wives. I’ll meet you in Yellowcraigs car park, eight o’clock, if that’s all right. I’ll be taking Bowser for a walk.’

  ‘It’s all right, but why don’t we meet on Gullane Bents? Why Yellowcraigs?’

  ‘Because nobody can see it from your house.’

  Two

  I thought about Jimmy all the way home on the bus.

  Me? Bob Skinner? Bus?

  That’s right. It had been the simplest way to get to the Balmoral given the institutionally baffling and constantly changing traffic management in the heart of the city of Edinburgh. Yes, I could have driven by a simpler route to my office in Fountainbridge and taken a taxi, but I had nothing else to do that day, so I let East Coast Buses take me straight to the door.

  I was slightly vexed by my new engagement, because I had been looking forward to spending some time with my younger kids in the evening, once the homework burden had been disposed of – don’t get me started on that: I don’t believe in it – and then a quiet dinner with Sarah, my wife, in celebration of the successful conclusion of an investigation in which I’d become involved.

  When I left the police service, or when it left me, as I prefer to put it, I had no clear idea, not even the vaguest notion, of what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I’m still not certain, beyond my determination to see all of my children through to happy adulthood. I have six of those: the eldest by far is Alexis, my daughter with my late first wife Myra. She has turned thirty and is building a reputation as the Killer Queen of Scottish criminal defence lawyers, after turning her back on the lucrative but unfulfilling corporate sector. Mark, he’s in his teens; we adopted him after he was orphaned by separate tragedies. James Andrew, the first of my three with Sarah, is a hulking lad who is easing his way through primary school, just as his sister Seonaid is starting to make her presence felt there. The youngest, Dawn, was a complete and total surprise, and is still only a few months old.

  And then there’s Ignacio, the son I didn’t know I had, the product of a one-night stand twenty years ago with a dangerous lady named Mia Watson, who left town a couple of days after he was conceived and didn’t reappear until very recently, still in trouble and still dangerous.

  Ignacio lives with me now, and is embarking on a degree course at Edinburgh University; he’s a very talented chemist – too talented, with a couple of things on his teenage CV that will never become public. His mother has found a safe haven – I will qualify that; it’s been safe so far – having married a guy from Tayside called Cameron McCullough, known as ‘Grandpa’ to his associates and on his extensive police file, although only his granddaughter gets to call him that to his face. My side had him marked down as the biggest hoodlum in Scotland, but we never laid a glove on him. He always pleaded innocence, as still he does, and was never convicted of anything; indeed, he was only in the dock once, but that case collapsed when the witnesses and the evidence disappeared, traceless. There is an irony in him being my son’s stepfather, one that isn’t lost on either of us, or I’m sure on any of the few people who are aware of it.

  I didn’t think of Grandpa, though, as the X5 bus bore me homewards to Gullane. My mind was too full of Jimmy’s mysterious call and what might lie behind it. It wasn’t the first of its type I’d had since I’d become a private citizen, and quite a few of those had been the triggers for some accursedly interesting times.

  Have I ever doubted my early termination of my police career? In a word, yes, but just the once. The first time I had to drive myself from Gullane to Glasgow, through the dense motorway traffic, I found myself looking back nostalgically on the times when I’d made the same journey in the back of a police car, with my driver in front. He never flashed the blue light; he didn’t have to: one glimpse of it in a trucker’s rearview mirror and he vacated the outside lane, sharpish.

  That was the only time I ever regretted my decision to turn my back on the controversial national police service that I’d always opposed but had been unable to prevent, even though I was married at the time to one of the few politicians who might have stopped it. I’m not saying that was the reason why Aileen de Marco and I split; it didn’t help, but we were pretty much doomed from the outset, by the lingering occasional presence of a famous Scottish movie actor, and by the fact that I’d never really fallen out of love with Sarah, Aileen’s predecessor.

  I knew at the time that I was right about police unification, and I still know that I am, although I take no pleasure from the obvious truth that a great majority of Scots now agree with me, both serving cops and civilians.

  There’s nothing I can do about it, though; only the politicians who caused the fuck-up can repair it, and there’s very little chance that they will. However, I am content. I still have, as an old guy in Motherwell used to say, my feet in the sawdust.

  I don’t call myself a private detective, but I do accept private commissions from individuals. Also, recently, I have been called in by an old colleague and friend in London to help with a couple of situations. As a result, I now carry a piece of plastic that gives me Security Service credentials; that’s MI5 to most people. Nobody outside my inner circle knows about my involvement, that being the nature of the beast. At the moment I’m inactive on that front, but Amand
a Dennis, the director general, could ask for my help at any moment.

  All that occasional activity sits comfortably alongside what’s become my main employment in my second career, my part-time executive directorship of a Spanish-owned company called InterMedia, which operates internationally. Amongst a long list of media outlets, newspapers, radio and TV across Spain and Italy, it’s also the proprietor of the Saltire, an old-established Edinburgh newspaper that was hirpling towards the press room of history until its star reporter, Xavi Aislado, persuaded his brother to buy it, transformed it and made it the only title I know of that is still maintaining the circulation figures of its printed version. Not only that, he is spreading the readership of the online edition across the English-speaking world, and increasingly into Hispanic territory, for we are translated. Hector Sureda, our digital guru, told our last board meeting that the Saltire now has as many Spanish-speaking subscribers in the USA as it has Anglos. Globally, the main Spanish title, GironaDia, does better, but we’re catching up fast.

  I got off the bus in Gullane just as the school crossing patrol woman was seeing James Andrew and Seonaid across the road. Jazz – he’s never quite shaken that nickname – does not like that too much; having the traffic stopped for him by a lollipop lady is beneath his dignity, he feels, but I have told him firmly that looking after his sister is a responsibility I entrust to him and that he will do what it takes to fulfil it.

  I could see them from my bus stop in the distance, and waited for them. As I stood there, Sir James Proud walked past me, a newspaper under his left arm and a Co-op shopping bag in his right hand.