McLean stared ahead and wished he’d shut the fuck up, especially when he was punched hard just below the ear.
Nelson watched McLean suck in air with the shock of the blow and looked round at the men in the back seat. ‘Anything else?’
No one spoke; no one needed to, but Clark realised that Nelson was human after all.
13
Macallan sat on the edge of the bed and wished she could find an excuse not to go into the office. She had period pain that was squeezing the energy out of her; it was just part of life, but it felt like the perfect reason to disappear under the duvet. If only they lived in a more sensible world.
She wondered what the reaction would be if she phoned in and said to the chief super that she had what was the most common pain in the world? ‘They’d find it unacceptable,’ she said out loud, as if it would help, and pulled the hot-water bottle against her abdomen. She just wished that all the criminals, all the murderers, all the fucking terrorists and every male who’d ever pissed her off could feel what she was feeling right now.
Dragging herself into the shower, via the bathroom cabinet for some strong analgesics, Macallan felt like her holiday had been a dream and she was just destined to have problems rather than the life promised in glossy magazines.
The water splashed on her back, and she rubbed the soap functionally, just to get the job done. When she stepped out of the shower she peered into the steamed-up mirror, rubbed the surface and saw her image again. Her face was looking older, noticeably older than just a couple of years ago. She thought she looked like shit but that maybe there was a man or even a woman out there who would tell her otherwise, and she ached to be loved. During the working days the squad saw her as the tough, glam detective who made headlines, never suspecting that when she went home and stripped off she might stare at the image of herself in the mirror, trying to find what was left of her youth. She remembered, years before, a nineteen-year-old friend being surprised when Grace had told her she was twenty-one and feeling for the first time that something had passed – twenty-one had suddenly seemed old.
‘Twenty-one. I wish.’ She turned from the mirror and decided she would just have to get on with the day.
She dressed and sorted her face. It was going to be a tough return, but she would deal with it; that was who she was – someone who dealt with the fuck-flood that pounded the force every day while most of the good citizens went about their business in blissful ignorance.
McGovern had given her enough of a briefing over the phone for her to know there was a problem developing in the city and that the Belfast boys were involved. She knew, however, that it wasn’t enough, and it would be wrong to gamble on just getting through the day without more information. This was a bad start, because the people who didn’t know how to deal with it would want answers. Once again the rather average shoulders of Grace Macallan would have to square up. No one was sure to what extent these Belfast men were implicated, but she’d known they’d be up to their Protestant arses in it since she’d first heard mention of them. Poisoned by the Troubles, they would make most of the locals seem like cartoon characters.
An hour and a half later Macallan walked in through the back door of the square, uninspiring old HQ building. It was strange but, even after all her years in the job and the many difficulties she’d faced, she always felt slightly nervous when she came back after a break. She’d had an inferiority complex as a child and thought it must have been a legacy of that condition.
She smiled, remembering one of the many pains she thought she had as a child being reported to her very old-fashioned GP one day. After hearing him telling her mother quietly that she had an inferiority complex, she had spent the next few weeks fretting that it was an incurable disease. This went on till her mother explained as diplomatically as she could what it really meant.
As always, she’d worried when she was away in Sutherland – that the job would discover that it could do well without her, that someone would fill her role and do it better than she could. Once she was back it would be okay and as if nothing had changed. It was just another of those burdens she would carry from childhood to the grave.
The briefing was in the chief super’s office, which probably meant he was pissed off, and Macallan guessed that the press must have started to give him grief. She only had time to throw her bag into her office and have a quick catch-up with McGovern beforehand. He introduced her to Lesley Thompson, who seemed to have been parachuted in almost as soon as Macallan had left the building the previous week. She’d seen her around, usually walking in John O’Connor’s shadow, but this was the first time they’d spoken. Thompson looked businesslike, though perhaps a bit too stiff, her short, jet-black hair contrasting with a complexion that was pale and flawless. Painfully thin, she cut a nervous figure, and Macallan wondered how she’d cope with a team of hairy-arsed detectives. Her voice was strong enough though, definitely honed by money and a very decent education.
‘Welcome to the team,’ Macallan said to her when they were introduced. ‘Sorry we don’t have much time to get to know each other, but we’ll do it after this meeting with the chief super.’ The painkillers were just about beginning to take effect so her smile wasn’t quite as forced as it might have been earlier.
‘Thank you. I’m looking forward to working with the team. I’ve heard so much about you.’ Thompson didn’t bother with a smile when she said it.
Macallan saw McGovern’s eyebrows twitch upwards, and like him she wondered what exactly that meant. She had a bad feeling about Chief Inspector Thompson, and she needed a problem with her new deputy like she needed Mick Harkins’ proverbial budgie.
‘Okay, let’s get to this meeting; don’t want to be late on my first day back. Jimmy and Lesley, I’d like you both along with me. I’m not up to speed with everything that’s gone on during my break and don’t want to get caught out by his lordship.’
The chief super’s office was a world away from most of the cramped boxes that passed for working accommodation in the rest of the building. Like all police plans it had been adequate for about a month after it was built then completely inadequate for the rest of its existence; such was the lot of publicly funded offices. But here there was light and air and space to work, and Macallan would have sold her beloved collection of books for this luxury.
The chief super was new in the job and trying to deal with the aftermath of the unification of the Scottish forces. There were still a few wars raging, with some of the old top dogs skirmishing for positions close to the leader of the pack. He’d transferred from the Met three years before and had walked straight into high office in Strathclyde. The unification had completely fucked up his carefully laid plans, and he was pissed at the whole world – and particularly at those who worked under him.
He was average build, with average looks and without the decoration of his uniform would have passed for a rather uninspiring clerk. What he did have was an almost fanatical drive to succeed in his chosen career, which had just edged out his original plan to work in insurance. He’d managed to climb the ranks with a minimum of fuss, and no one had really noticed him till he was promoted to chief superintendent, when there was a widespread corporate intake of breath and general chorus of ‘how the fuck did that happen?’ He detested the front-end troopers, regarded them as a pain in the arse and was convinced that they believed they were God’s gift to the service.
Macallan nodded to him, but he stayed behind his desk and pretended to write something, like a politician doing a ten o’clock news film shot. He barely acknowledged her presence and looked at McGovern and Thompson as if they were coming to infect his place of work. His secretary directed the three of them to the large oval desk next to the windows looking out onto the rugby pitch at the back of Fettes.
Macallan smiled broadly; she knew well enough that she was working for a total wanker but she did her best to treat everyone in the force like human beings. She’d been there for fifteen years and had seen
them all – some good, some bad and most somewhere in the middle. This one came fairly low in the ‘some bad’ category, and she reassured herself that at least he wouldn’t last long. Too far from the chief, he’d soon find a sewer to crawl along to be nearer the man at the top and the radiation of power.
The other senior officers trooped in and a nerve in Macallan’s neck twitched uncontrollably when John O’Connor arrived, all businesslike as always and looking like he’d just stepped out of the window of Austin Reed. He gave the chief super a broad smile and got back a ‘Good morning, John’ with lashings of mutual admiration. She’d been near to loving this man and asked herself again how she could have felt so good with him when it had been so wrong?
She looked to her side and saw that McGovern was thinking at least some of the same things she was. O’Connor thought he had the chief super where he wanted him, and that couldn’t be good for Macallan or anyone on her team.
O’Connor sat opposite them, gave the pair of them a professional smile and then a real one to Thompson.
‘How’s life as a detective then, Lesley?’ O’Connor asked, as always brimming with self-confidence.
‘So far so good, sir. Can’t wait to get started.’
Macallan wanted to do the two-fingers-down-the-throat act, but she kept still. She played with her papers to divert her mind, though she hadn’t actually read what was in the folder. McGovern meanwhile was asking himself where this would end up, knowing for certain that something would definitely go wrong.
The seats filled up till the chief super felt he’d kept them waiting long enough to annoy them, at which point he looked up, frowning. His non-verbals and lowered brow showed he was not a happy man – and they were about to share his pain.
‘I’ve had the press office beating on my door all morning wanting a statement about what seems to be happening in the drugs trade here.’
He paused, checking the blank faces for signs, but there was nothing but neutral expressions. His gaze hovered on O’Connor for a moment. O’Connor was his kind of man, and he’d become close to the head of professional standards – anyone who spent his time trying to root out the rotten core of the force that he knew existed was his kind of officer.
‘I’ve had Jacquie Bell on the phone telling me that there’s a gang war going on and that two of the Flemings are missing, presumed dead. I’ve no idea who they are but presumably drug-trafficking scum.’
He paused again for effect but the faces were still neutral, although O’Connor gave him a slight nod of encouragement.
Macallan suppressed a smile, knowing that her undeclared friend would be on top of the case and wondered why she hadn’t been hassling her for an inside lead. Bell, who was widely regarded as the best and most ruthless crime reporter in the game, had become a friend to Macallan, and not long after they had met for the first time they’d slept together. This still puzzled Macallan; it was the only time she’d ever been with a woman, and she really couldn’t make sense of it though she’d enjoyed it at the time. Bell treated it as a good night with no strings and occasionally liked to tease her about it.
Macallan liked Bell because she knew exactly where she stood with her, and the journalist had published a flattering profile that had made her something of a minor celebrity in the media, although a very reluctant one.
‘Superintendent Macallan, can you please tell us what’s going on and whether we’re on top of these people? You worked in Belfast so presumably you’ll have some expert advice for us.’
He had barely concealed the sarcasm in his voice and she wondered what crap O’Connor had been feeding into his general dislike of the whole criminal-investigation arm of the force. She tried not to panic, but she knew she should have got herself up to speed before she came to the meeting. She’d fucked up, left her flanks exposed and unless she could bullshit for Scotland, she was going to look like she wasn’t wearing a skirt in public. She shuffled her papers then remembered attending training on non-verbals, where she’d been told that anyone spotted paper shuffling was just buying time when they hadn’t a fucking clue what to say.
‘These men are skilled in terror tactics, police methods and, most importantly, they will use levels of violence that our criminals here are not prepared for. They’ve been moulded by conflict, and I have a number of proposals.’
Macallan hadn’t known what she was going to say when she’d started speaking, but she’d dug up a nice line there from somewhere in her survival reserves, though the truth was that her years of experience in Ulster meant certain courses of action seemed blindingly obvious to her. Nevertheless, she was surprised and pleased at how well she’d rescued herself and decided to get onto the front foot.
She could hear Bill Kelly again in her mind’s voice: ‘Even if you don’t know what you’re doing, look like you do know. Very rarely does the game go according to plan. Deal with it, and if you get to high rank your job is to stop the troops panicking.’ It was as if he was by her side. Bill had always believed that she was special; convincing Macallan had been his task.
‘We need to form a dedicated team, and I can tell you that the PSNI will hold intelligence on every one of the Belfast suspects. I believe we need to get them to come across, share what they’ve got and promise them that we’ll reciprocate. We also need to skip a couple of steps and treat these men as if they were in Northern Ireland.’
She paused for effect, just like the chief super, but the difference was that everyone was listening – she was talking about something only she knew about. The room was full of people who wondered what it was like to face a gun, and they were aware that they were in the presence of someone who did have that experience.
Energy pulsed through her as she took command, and they all recognised her authority.
The chief super wished he was back in his office in Scotland Yard, well away from these demented Celts. He was fenced in, knowing he would probably have to back whatever she proposed, because if he didn’t and it went wrong, the minutes of this meeting would expose his weakness in the face of a real problem. That would keep him trapped just outside higher office till the day the troops cheered his departure. When that day came no one was going to volunteer to buy him a gold watch.
‘If the intelligence backs it up we need authorities for full surveillance and electronic monitoring – there will be informants in place in Northern Ireland who can help. I believe we should involve the security services, who may have information on this team . . . but we’ll figure out what we need after the initial analysis of the information has been made by my senior analyst.’
The chief super had turned pale. He’d been imagining Macallan naked during her briefing and suddenly felt ashamed, knowing that it could only ever be a fantasy. The thought had come to him when he’d realised just how capable she was – that the stories were true. He had presumed she’d fold – O’Connor had told him that she hadn’t been briefed properly and that she needed to be shown up in front of the others in the meeting. It had gone badly wrong, and he stared at O’Connor, who looked as calm as always but would be seething. He needed to make some gesture to show that he was king of the castle.
‘You can have whatever toys you need, Superintendent, but I want a cast-iron case before applying for an authority. I’m not going to be responsible for a disproportionate response.’ He experienced the smallest tremor in his hands and did his best to conceal his rising anger.
Macallan saw the opening and knew she should have ignored it, but it had to be said. ‘I’m just back from leave, sir, but as far as I understand it we have two of the Flemings likely to be lying dead somewhere. On top of that there’s a trail of serious assaults on low-level dealers and a possible takeover of the trade by a gang of Belfast men who are likely to have been involved in paramilitary activity – that’s something we need to find out from the PSNI. There must be a serious possibility of gang war here, and I think that definitely needs a proportionate response.’
Everyone in th
e room saw the challenge and they were glad it was Macallan and not them who’d decided to wind up a man with a notoriously thin skin. McGovern was loving it and decided that sexual equality worked – Macallan had just run rings round the boys. For someone who delivered all her lines in the most understated tone, she was a force of nature. Men didn’t get Grace Macallan – at least the men who saw her as just another woman – but for McGovern she was the dog’s bollocks, Sir Alex Ferguson in a skirt and Jock Stein all wrapped up in an average-sized, very female body. She scared her opponents but had become sacred to her team. They didn’t know why she inspired them, just that she did, but it was that thing – that glowing warmth, when you stare at another human being and decide that you can give them it all because they led for all – that ultimately made them follow her.
The chief super knew he had to cut and run but he wouldn’t forget this meeting. He wrapped things up as diplomatically as possible and dismissed them, but to his annoyance, Macallan hung back as they left and asked if she could have a private word. He stared at her. He could have refused, but he wanted to know what she was after. He always believed that everyone was acting primarily out of self-interest, because that was what he did himself.
‘Sit down and close the door first,’ he replied. ‘I have ten minutes before a teleconference meeting with the chief.’
Macallan sat down, trying to get the words right and wished she’d rehearsed something before the meeting. She’d pissed off the man opposite and knew she might have picked the wrong time.
What the fuck, girl, you’ve never been good at diplomacy, Macallan thought, trying to look calm and in control, before she said, ‘I know you have other things to deal with, sir, but I think the investigation we have in front of us is going to be as tough as it gets. These are serious people we’re dealing with.’
‘Get to the point, Superintendent.’ He hissed it out through tight lips.
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