As bad luck might have had it, Varley’s house was located beyond the Almondvale shopping centre. It’s huge by Scottish standards; I know that because Sarah likes it, and when we were married she dragged me along there on many an occasion, to marshal the kids. The traffic can be intense around it, but fortunately in the early evening it all goes in the other direction, so we had a clear run in. The name of the street was stuck in my head, for there’s one in Gullane of the same name and I know the people who live at its number seven. It’s a cul-de-sac and so, by coincidence, is the Livingston version.
Clyde turned into it and paused, counting down the numbers. I didn’t have to. My body hasn’t quite caught up with my age yet, and my long vision is still very good. At the end of the street a single house faced us. There was a car in its driveway, a Mercedes E class, metallic blue. I couldn’t make out the numbers, not quite, but the letters of its personalised number were FJW.
I pointed towards it. ‘That’s number seven,’ I said, ‘and I think we might just have come up lucky.’
Maggie Steele
I’ve learned a lot over the years that I’ve worked with Bob Skinner, and one of those lessons is never to question him when he’s in full flow.
He’s a friend as well as a boss, but we’ve never socialised much, our interests and circumstances away from the office being entirely different. (For example when it comes to golf, I belong to the ‘good walk spoiled’ brigade.) He’s considerate too. Through all my bad times, and through all my worst times, he’s been rock solid in my support, and even now, although I hold the second most senior rank in the force, he goes out of his way to ensure that I have as much quality time as possible with my wee Stephanie.
For him to phone me on a Saturday afternoon, it had to be serious.
‘Mags,’ he began, as soon as I picked up his call, in the kitchen, ‘how are you for babysitter cover?’ No preliminaries, straight to business; unlike him.
‘I think I’m okay,’ I replied, ‘Bet’s here.’ I looked at my sister, who was by the sink, and raised an eyebrow. She nodded. ‘Yes, I’m clear.’
‘Good, I’ve got a crisis and I need someone with your clout to deal with it.’
‘Fire away.’
‘Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,’ he murmured grimly. ‘There’s a charity concert taking place in Glasgow this evening in the Royal Concert Hall at the top of Buchanan Street. It starts at seven thirty, with a VIP reception half an hour before. The star turn’s a pianist called Theo Fabrizzi. I want you to go there and arrest him.’
‘You what?’ I chuckled, instantly incredulous.
‘I know,’ he said, ‘it’s a bit out of the ordinary, but we’ve got a problem; no, a whole raft of them. There is a credible threat against this man; he’s Lebanese, pro-Hezbollah, anti-Israeli and it is highly like that Tel Aviv wants him dead. We believe there’s a hit squad in place ready to take him out. He’s been advised of the danger, but the stupid bastard carries a martyr’s shroud around with him and he’s refusing to back down.’
I knew I was sticking my head in the lion’s mouth, but I had to ask. ‘Bob, surely the obvious solution is for Strathclyde police to cancel the event.’
‘Maggie,’ he snapped; then he stopped. ‘I’m sorry, I keep forgetting; you’re my deputy, you’re supposed to question me. The complicating factor is that this is not a police operation. The first objective is to capture or kill the hit team and that’s in the hands of MI5. I’m not really speaking to you as a cop here. I’m involved. We’ve had a specific instruction from the very top not to advise Strathclyde. That said, I’m not letting anyone offer this man as a target, not even the man himself. We have to take him out of play another way.’
‘How?’
‘As I said, I want you to go to the sheriff and get a warrant for his arrest, then pick up David Mackenzie, if he’s available, if not somebody of equivalent rank, and go through there and arrest him.’
‘Eh?’ I exclaimed. ‘On what charge?’
‘Suspicion of the murder of an Israeli national named Beram Cohen,’ he said. ‘His was the body we found the other night at Mortonhall.’
‘But I thought that was death by natural causes?’
‘The sheriff won’t know that, though. See if you can dig out Sheriff Levy, the one they’re calling Miss Whiplash. If she wants to know the grounds for arrest tell her he’s a known anti-Zionist and that witness statements place him near where the body was found.’
‘Is that true?’
‘The first part is,’ he chuckled. ‘I’ll bet you that’s enough for Ms Levy.’
‘What do we do with him when we’ve arrested him?’
‘Head back to Edinburgh, very slowly. Chances are you won’t be halfway there before I call you to say that the witness has recanted his statement.’
‘Okay.’ I paused. ‘Do you know for sure that the attempt will be in the concert hall?’
‘No,’ he admitted.
‘Well what if they try somewhere else?’ I asked him.
‘Then Fabrizzi will be dead, the career of a certain young MI5 man will be in jeopardy, and I will make it my business to ruin the politician who gave him his orders. Go to it, Mags.’
He was right about Sheriff Levy. I found her at home; all I had to do was mention the words ‘anti-Zionist’, ‘Hezbollah’, and ‘Lebanese’, and her signature was on the warrant.
I’d called Mackenzie before I went to see her. His wife answered and treated me to one of those heavy stage sighs, before calling him. He was all too keen, when I told him that I had a job that required senior officer back-up.
I have to confess that I’ve never liked that guy much. He’s always been a Bob Skinner project. The chief thought he saw a good detective in there behind the flash, when he recruited him from Glasgow to run our drugs squad. I’m sure he also thought that he could knock some of the arrogance out of him, but it took a loss of bottle during an armed operation to do that. Loss of bottle. . followed by taking to the same in a big way.
There were strong grounds for tipping him over the side, but that would have involved the boss admitting he’d been wrong about him, and that is not something he does with either ease or grace. Instead, Mackenzie was given time to prove that he was off the scoosh, then he was given a uniform and a job in the command corridor, as senior officers’ exec. He does it efficiently, I can’t deny that, but I always feel that he has something of the Cassius about him, and I don’t mean Clay.
I was sure I’d told him ‘no uniform’ so I was less than pleased when he stepped out of his front door looking like he was going on duty at the Queen’s Garden Party. I’d have told him to change, but there wasn’t time. Mental note though, Maggie, in future all instructions and requests to him must be repeated, for the avoidance of doubt.
There was little conversation on the way through. I didn’t feel like making small talk with him, so I turned down his offer to drive, and then turned up the radio once we were under way.
As soon as we reached our destination, and turned into Killermont Street, it was evident that there was a VIP event on. There was a visible police presence, at the vehicle entrance to the Royal Concert Hall, and a couple of them were armed.
I’d heard from colleagues at inter-force meetings that the new Strathclyde chief had taken no time at all to earn herself a nickname, the ‘Gunslinger’. She believed in a show of force, and it had taken the combined efforts of all her assistant chiefs to persuade her that it was a bad idea to have armed officers on view at Old Firm football matches.
Our friends in the west weren’t very keen on me parking directly outside the concert hall. Indeed one of them, a big blackshirt PC who’d have done Oswald Mosley proud, was quite abusive until I made him read my warrant card and until Mackenzie stepped out of the passenger seat. I have to admit that the uniform did come in handy, damn him.
I had the Bolshie guy escort us inside, into a foyer that didn’t seem to enjoy any natural light. It was ten minu
tes before seven, comfortably ahead of the official starting time, or even of the preshow reception, but the organisers were thick on the ground, as were a few others as well. I spotted one of them straight away, just as he clocked me: Max Allan, the senior ACC in the Strathclyde force, the man who wasn’t allowed to know that there was a terrorist alert on his patch. Max is a good guy, and not a stickler for formality, but there he was on a Saturday evening wearing every single piece of silver braid to which his rank entitled him and every medal ribbon too.
‘Jesus Christ, man,’ I said as he approached. I noticed that he managed to ignore Mackenzie completely; some history there, I guessed. ‘Have I got this wrong? Is this a royal event?’
‘It might as well be, Maggie,’ he replied. ‘One of our police charities is a beneficiary, as well as the armed forces, and Her Ladyship’s representing us.’
‘Her Ladyship?’ I repeated, then I caught on. ‘Oh, you mean. .’
He nodded. ‘The chief constable, our Toni. That means all us underlings have to be in our best uniforms, shoes polished shiny, etc.’ He paused. ‘That’s her way, so I mustn’t complain. What brings you here, Maggie?’ Finally he nodded to my companion. ‘With escort.’
I glanced around the busy foyer. ‘Can we go somewhere quiet, Max, please,’ I murmured.
He frowned, but he nodded and led us past a broad stairway and round to its side, just as the first of the VIPs arrived. I caught a quick flash of heavy gold chain, the kind that civic dignitaries wear, but I had no time to admire it. Max opened a door and we stepped into a large windowless cupboard. He switched on the light. ‘What’s up?’
‘I’m about to rain on your parade,’ I told him. ‘Is your guest star here?’
He nodded. ‘Just arrived. He’s on stage checking the piano.’
‘Well, you’d better have someone ask him to join us.’ I showed him the warrant.
He read it, at least twice, with incredulity that reached jaw-dropping point. ‘You can’t be serious,’ he gasped.
‘Would I make that sort of joke?’
‘No, but. . can’t you wait till the show’s over?’
‘My orders are to pick him up now. Do you want to argue with Bob Skinner?’
‘God no, but Field will go fucking ape-shit.’
‘Then she’d better not find out till it’s done and we’re gone. Look,’ I continued, ‘Fabrizzi’s not the only performer, is he?’
‘Of course not. We’ve got the Scottish National Orchestra as well.’
‘In that case, they’re going to have to improvise. You’ll just have to say that Fabrizzi’s been taken ill at the last minute.’
‘Okay,’ he sighed. ‘But I’ll be taken ill when my chief finds out that I went along with it. She’s after me as it is.’
‘She never will from me,’ I promised.
‘I’ll hold you to that,’ he said. ‘Wait here. I’ll fetch him myself.’
We did as he asked. He had barely closed the door on his way out before Mackenzie looked at me and murmured, ‘Tell me, honestly, ma’am. Don’t you feel like an interloper here? This isn’t our territory. Has the chief lost his marbles?’
I glared at him. ‘You’d better ask him that yourself, Superintendent. Come Monday morning, at his chief officers’ meeting, I’ll make sure you get the chance.’ I waved the warrant in his face. ‘Meantime, this gives me authority, and through me, our force. Your view is noted.’
I’d wanted to tell him to shut the fuck up, but that would not have been seemly from an ACC to a superintendent. It might even have led to a complaint to the Superintendents Association, and I did not want to be bothered with any nonsense like that.
Frankly my annoyance with Mackenzie wasn’t due entirely to his disloyalty to the guy who’d saved his career; there was also the fact that his point was one that I’d been trying to ignore. We weren’t in hot pursuit, and technically we should have advised our colleagues in Pitt Street of our intention before we’d arrived.
Then Max Allan returned with Theo Fabrizzi and my reservations started to melt. First, in his black tie and tail coat, he bore an uncanny resemblance to the Go Compare tenor, minus the silly moustache, and I really do hate those telly ads. Second the man had an air about him, that of someone who believes he’s more important than God.
‘What is this?’ he snapped. ‘I very busy man, I’m an artist; I can’t be disturbed so.’
‘You can, Mr Fabrizzi,’ I told him, and showed him my authority. ‘This says so. Can you read English?’
‘Of course,’ he sneered. ‘You take me for a barbarian?’
‘Then please read this.’
He did, slowly; clearly he wasn’t as fluent as he pretended. When he was finished, he looked at me and he laughed. ‘This is preposterous. Is a joke, yes?’
‘No joke. Now come with us please, we have to take you back to Edinburgh with us.’
‘No!’ he shouted.
‘Yes,’ I said calmly.
‘Is conspiracy,’ Fabrizzi exclaimed. ‘Is the Zionists. What this man’s name?’ He peered at the paper again. ‘Cohen. See? Is the focking Jews. This one is dead, you say? Well, soon they all will be, the focking swine. They hate being called that, you know. Focking swine, focking pigs. We wipe them out, you see.’
I smiled. ‘Indeed,’ I murmured, then glanced at Max. ‘What do you make of that, ACC Allan?’
‘I make it inciting racial hatred,’ he replied, ‘contrary to the Public Order Act of 1986. You may consider yourself under arrest twice, Mr Fabrizzi. But you can have first go at him, ACC Steele.’
‘It’s an outrage,’ the Lebanese pianist hissed. ‘You focking Scots, you’re Jews as well.’
‘Some of us are,’ Max told him, ‘and proud of it. Now please shut up, sir, or I’ll handcuff you myself.’
Clyde Houseman
There was a gleam in Mr Skinner’s eyes, and a narrow, wicked smile on his face as he pointed to the Merc that had been reversed into the driveway of the house that faced back down the dead-end street. As I looked at him, I wondered how a man who clearly loved being in the thick of any action that was going had allowed himself to be constrained in a chief constable’s uniform.
‘That’s number seven,’ he said, ‘and I think we might just have come up lucky. Drive on down there,’ he continued, ‘very quietly, and block the exit. Take it easy, though.’
I did as I was told, looking at the house as I approached. It was a villa, with four windows to the front, two up, two down. The curtains were closed on what I took to be a bedroom window on the upper floor, but there was no sign of movement behind any of the others.
There was a second car, some sort of old banger, parked beyond the FJW plate, but the drive was long enough to accommodate a third, so I cruised in there and switched off. ‘Quiet now,’ the chief murmured, as he opened his door and stepped out, closing it behind him, but not fully, to avoid any risk of noise. I checked my weapon, and then I followed him.
‘Back entrance,’ he whispered. There was no doubt about who was in command: I knew my role and I trusted him.
The drive was covered in small white pebbles, so we stepped as lightly as we could. We walked silently along the side of the house, past the two cars. The ground at the rear, which sloped down towards fields beyond, was landscaped, with a small neat lawn surrounded by rose beds and a classic herbaceous border, all of it beautifully tended. Someone in the Varley family had been a gardener. I had a fleeting thought of the contrast with the street where I’d grown up, where any flower that poked its head above the surface was liable to wither and die of embarrassment, that’s if it wasn’t yanked out by a rough and lawless kid like me.
Mr Skinner held out a hand, signalling me to pause. A sound came from somewhere around the corner, a muffled noise of something being dragged. He stepped out beyond the house, into the open, and I followed, my hand inside my blazer, on my gun. There was nothing else to do.
The villa had been extended at the back; it was a pro
per two-storey construction, not one of those glass box things that the double-glazing guys, and Kenny Bass, call conservatories. Beneath, as Bass had said, there was what appeared to be a cellar, or storeroom. It was windowless, for its door was a little ajar and we could see that it was lit within, on a summer evening. I checked behind me to make sure that no neighbour could overlook and see us, then drew my pistol.
‘I go first,’ I murmured to the chief, my only show of insubordination.
‘You’ve got the fucking gun,’ he replied, his voice as quiet as mine, ‘so fair enough.’ He was smiling again.
We crossed quickly to the entrance and I stepped through it. The space was not what I expected, a single room; instead it was divided into two. The side into which I’d stepped was full of gardening equipment, nothing more, but on my left there was a second doorway, in which a large, heavyset man was framed. Even as I saw him he was in the act of throwing something at me, a box; it was aimed straight at my head, and travelling. Instinctively I threw my arm up to protect myself; it caught me on the wrist and sent my weapon flying. And then he was on me, knocking me aside with brute strength as he headed for the exit. . into the path of Bob Skinner.
The chief hit him, not with his fist, but with the heel of his hand, right in the middle of the forehead, as hard a blow as I’ve ever seen. It halted Freddy Welsh, big and all as he was, in mid-stride, lifted him off his feet and sent him crashing on to his back, spark out.
‘Jesus!’ I exclaimed. My first thought was that he’d killed the guy.
‘I used to do karate,’ he offered, almost apologetically. ‘I’m out of practice. A few years back, he’d never have got that close to me.’
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