'Just a social call, son, honestly. Tell me, don't you ever find it difficult, being a serving copper and chairing your family business?'
'No more difficult than you found working here and being Right Worshipful Master of your Masonic Lodge. I don't have an executive role, as you know very well; I have a lawyer who advises me on all the important decisions, and who has power to act for me.'
'And not just any lawyer either, I hear, but Miss Alexis Skinner, the sharpest young solicitor in town.'
McGuire's anger rose, its flames showing in his eyes. 'Who the hell told you that?' he snapped.
'That's not important. Why are you so tetchy anyway? Was that supposed to be a secret?'
'No, but it's my private business, and I don't like it being ground in your gossip mill.'
'Sorry, if I upset you. That temper of yours, Mario, it's awfully near the surface these days. I hear you've been showing it to some old friends of mine, too.'
'Such as?'
'Malky Gladsmuir, for one, the manager of the Wee Black Dug pub. I'd a pint in there at lunchtime, and he mentioned that you'd been in to see him. You know, I think you scared the poor chap. I never thought anyone could do that, but you seem to have managed it. He's a valuable informant of mine, is Malky, so I'd appreciate it if you eased up on him a bit.'
'He's a devious bloody scammer and he always has been. You missed a hell of a lot that went on in that pub in your time here, my friend. And what do you mean "is" a snout of yours? You're gone, Greg, remember?'
'Not gone, Mario; "translated" would be a better word. Clearly the news hasn't filtered down to your level: I've got a new job.'
'What's that? Security at the docks?'
'A little more important than that, and a little more sensitive. Ask your friend McIlhenney next time you see him. He'll know about it, I'm sure; the Great Man will have told him by now.'
Jay pushed himself to his feet. 'I'd better be going. Wouldn't do to interrupt the fight on crime any longer than necessary.' He walked to the door. 'By the way,' he said, 'I hear there's a new regulation in the pipeline. It's going to require complete disclosure by police officers of all business interests, whether direct or through their wives and families. It'll cause quite a stir, I reckon. Where something's deemed unsuitable, the officer involved will be given a straight choice between giving it up or leaving the force.'
'Oh, yes?' McGuire growled. 'And who's going to do the deeming?'
'My new boss, actually… acting on my advice, of course. Be seeing you again, I'm sure.' He opened the door and stepped outside.
McGuire snatched the phone from his desk and buzzed the CID office. Detective Sergeant Sammy Pye answered at once. 'Sir?'
'Sam,' he exclaimed, 'that bastard who's just come out of my office: Jay. Have him followed; in fact, do it yourself if you're clear. I want to know where he goes.'
Twenty-eight
George Regan stepped out of the Castle Terrace car-park office. The manager had been annoyed at another police visit, but eventually he had co-operated and given him a rundown of his regular customers, those whom he knew and their usual times of coming and going. Most of them were office employees, professionals from the impressive new buildings that had sprouted in the city's West End during the last decade of the millennium, but several were shop-workers, with differing hours and shift patterns that involved them sometimes in weekend working.
He checked his watch: it showed twenty past six. Normally most of the shop people would have been gone by that time, but in December their hours tended to stretch a little. He looked around level five of the well-lit car park: it would have been full during the day, but most of the cars had gone. Still, there were enough around to make his trip worthwhile.
He heard footsteps behind him, and turned to see a woman trot down the stairs and hurry across to a small blue Citroen hatchback. He moved towards her, taking out his warrant card. 'Excuse me, madam,' he called out. 'I wonder if you can help me. I'm a police officer.' She turned, startled; she was mid-forties, with brown, well-cut hair, and she would have been attractive but for the sharp suspicious eyes that seemed to drill into him. He held the card up high, for her to see more clearly, and she peered at it carefully.
'What can I do for you?' she asked, in cultured, clipped tones.
'I hope you can be of assistance,' he told her. 'Are you a regular user of this car park?'
'Yes, I'm here every day during the week.'
'How about weekends?'
'Not normally, but on occasion I come into my office out of normal hours.'
'By any chance were you here last Sunday?'
She frowned, as she scanned through her mental diary. 'Yes, I was, as it happens, but not at work. There was an evening carol concert in St John's Church.'
'What time did it finish?'
'Seven o'clock.'
'And when did you leave the car park?'
'I'm not sure, but it must have been after eight. They had mulled wine and mince pies afterwards, and I stayed around.'
'When you left, which exit did you use: top or bottom?'
'The lower exit,' she said. 'I always go out on to King's Stables Road; it's easier for my route home.'
Regan felt a burst of optimism surge through him, and tried to keep it from showing on his face. 'Would you think very carefully about this, please, ma'am?' he asked. 'When you turned out of the car park and into the road, did you see anyone?'
She looked at him; as she did, the suspicion left her eyes and her tight mouth seemed to soften a little. 'This is about that poor child, isn't it?' she asked. She stared at him even more closely. 'And you're his father, aren't you? I saw you on Reporting Scotland, I'm sure.'
Embarrassed, Regan nodded.
'Oh,' she said, 'I'm terribly sorry, for you and your family, but I really can't help you. When I saw your appeal on television I did think about it, but I can't recall seeing anyone, least of all a small boy.'
'He wasn't that small. He was thirteen.'
The woman shook her head. 'No, I'm sorry,' she said. 'I'd love to help you, but I really can't remember there being anyone in the street at all.'
She was so definite that the detective felt the candle of hope within him flicker and die. Nevertheless, he took a business card from the breast pocket of his jacket and handed it to her. 'Those are my office and mobile numbers,' he said. 'Please keep them, Mrs…'
'Miss,' she said, as she took the card. 'Miss Bee, Betty Bee. I'm sure I won't recall anything that will be of help, but if anything at all does occur to me, I will get in touch, I promise.'
He thanked her, holding the door of her car open for her as she climbed in. 'Thank you,' he said, as he closed it gently. He watched her as she drove off, then leaned his head back and closed his eyes. That had been pure luck, he knew: he would not find many more potential witnesses so easily. He had to try, though. Slipping his warrant card into the pocket of his overcoat, George Regan made his way down to the barrier that controlled the exit to King's Stables Road, and settled down for a long evening of questioning drivers, even though in his heart of heart he knew that it would be fruitless.
At least he was doing something.
Twenty-nine
'What's up?' Lena McElhone blurted out the question as she stood with her hands in the sink, washing the pan in which she had cooked the spaghetti that she and Aileen de Marco had shared.
'What makes you think that anything is?' her boss, friend and tenant replied.
'I know you well enough by now to read the signs. You hardly spoke last night, and just now it was like eating in a public library: no talking, please. Did something happen to upset you when you stayed in Glasgow on Monday?'
'Yes and no. But my problem is, Lena, that I can't talk to you about it. In fact, I think I might have to move out.'
The other woman gasped and her face went chalk white. 'But why? What's happened?' she demanded.
Aileen looked down at the tiled floor, then turned and led the way t
hrough to the flat's small living room. She had hoped to avoid a confrontation, but finally she recognised that it had to be. 'This arrangement of ours,' she began, 'my living here: it's unique, as far as I know, for a minister and her private secretary to share accommodation. A few of my colleagues, and yours too, I guess, think it's weird, that there's something improper about it.'
'You mean they think we're gay?'
'Some probably do, but that doesn't matter. The point is that my sharing your flat is convenient for us both, and it works, because it's built on trust.' She looked Lena in the eye. 'I have to ask you something. Have you been talking about me?'
'You mean have I been gossiping about you? Absolutely not! Do you actually think I would?'
'No, that's not what I mean, not at all. Have you been asked about me professionally? Have you been asked about my movements, for example, and my meetings with Bob Skinner?'
The private secretary's face went from pale to crimson in a matter of seconds. 'Oh, no,' she whispered; her shoulders shook and she began to weep. 'He couldn't have.'
'He could,' Aileen replied, gently. 'Calm down and tell me about it.'
She waited until Lena's sobs had subsided. 'It was last Friday,' she began, when she could. 'When you were in the Parliament, I was asked to go to see a man in an office on the fourth floor. He told me he was the First Minister's security adviser, that his name was Mr Jay and that he needed to talk to me. When I got there, I found that he wanted to talk about you.'
She gulped. 'He said that part of his job was to vet all new members of the Cabinet, and that since you had been promoted only recently, you had to be put through the process. He told me it was routine, nothing to worry about, it happened to everybody, even the First Minister.' Aileen choked off a retort. 'I told him that I didn't think it was right for me to discuss your business, but he said the whole thing was totally confidential, and that nobody would know. When I said that I was still reluctant, he got a bit nasty and said it wasn't a request it was an order, and that if I liked I could have it from the First Minister himself, but if it came to that it would have an "adverse effect", as he put it, on my career.'
'So he blackmailed you?'
'I suppose you could put it that way.' The civil servant looked at her plaintively. 'I'm sorry, Aileen. He promised me it would be okay.'
'I'm sure he did. Go on.'
'I showed him your diary,' said Lena. 'I went and got it from the office. But he wanted to know more than that. There was a note in it about your first meeting with Mr Skinner, when you took him to dinner at the Arts Club. He asked me if that was the only time you'd met. I told him it wasn't, that you'd seen him here, and in his office, and that he'd returned your hospitality with lunch at the Open Arms. He asked me about your meeting with Mr Laidlaw, and I told him about that. Then he asked me more personal stuff about you, whether you had a steady boyfriend, whether you ever brought men back to the flat. I said you hadn't, and that if you had that sort of a private life you conducted it well away from me.' She drew another deep breath. 'And that was it. He was very nice after that. He laughed and said it all sounded very respectable and very responsible, and that there was nothing untoward. He told me I should discuss our meeting with nobody, and that I should forget it. Aileen, I'm so sorry,' she protested. 'I trusted the man when he said you'd never even know about it, that it was a purely routine piece of security. How did you find out?'
'It's been used against me,' the Justice Minister replied. 'And not just against me.'
She picked up her mobile phone from the sideboard, and selected Bob Skinner's number. When he answered, she could hear the sound of children in the background, and felt a sort of regret that there was a part of his life she might never know. 'Hi', she murmured, her back turned to McElhone so that she could not hear. 'It's me.'
'Yeah,' he drawled, 'so my clever phone told me.' He sounded tired, as if the jet-lag was giving him another jolt. 'What's up? Do you want company?'
'That would be nice, but we can't. I want to ask you something. You told me that you did the security-adviser job for a while, didn't you?'
'Yes,' he replied, 'until the Secretary of State of the day got so far up my nose that I had to blow him out. Jock Govan took over after that.'
'When you were in post, did your duties include the vetting of ministers, interviewing their staff about their public and private lives?'
'Of course not; that's all tosh. Why?'
'Because that's the story Jay spun Lena to find out about you and me.'
'Bastard,' Skinner hissed. 'That goes on his tab as well.'
She read meaning in his tone. 'Bob, are you up to something?' she asked.
'Me?' He managed to sound offended. 'Did I promise you I'd keep my head down?'
'Yes,' she admitted.
'Trust me, then.'
'Sorry.'
'Forgiven. I've got some good news for you, by the way. Your flat's clean as a whistle, certified bug-free by Strathclyde Special Branch, so no one'll be playing us any doctored tapes.'
'I'm glad to hear it, but how can I be sure that it'll stay clean?'
'I asked them to leave a scanning device in your top kitchen drawer.'
'That was thoughtful. Do you plan on coming to test it?' The question was out before she could stop herself.
'Maybe, but not for a while and certainly not this weekend. My rambunctious younger son has threatened to head-butt my kneecaps if I don't take him to Tynecastle on Saturday, and then on Sunday we're going to look at some sharks. But I would like to think that a return trip to Glasgow might happen some time.'
'I hope so too.' She moved further away from Lena. 'I think I may have to go back through there full-time.'
'Is that wholly necessary?'
'Not completely. I'm sure that Lena really was conned, or coerced.'
'Then think before you jump. If you move out, Jay will know, and he'll guess why. You won't be doing the girl any favours.'
'I see what you mean,' she mused. 'She and I were just about to discuss that, in fact'
'Do it, then. Good night, Minister.'
'You too, Deputy Chief Constable.' She ended the call, and turned back to Lena. 'Okay,' she said. 'Here's what we're going to do about Mr Jay.'
Thirty
'Do you think you'll ever go back to your career?'
Louise McIlhenney smiled. 'That depends,' she replied. 'It depends on my husband, it depends on Lauren and Spencer's needs, it depends on my health, it depends on me getting any offers to go back, but most of all it depends on how I feel after I'm a mum. I know the modern trend is to leave it late before starting a family but I'm an extreme case. I'm over forty: at an age when some women are starting the menopause I'm having a baby.'
Paula Viareggio shivered, sending her silver hair rippling across her shoulders. 'Rather you than me,' she said, 'at any age. But you don't look forty plus, you look younger than me, for God's sake.'
'No, I don't. I've been an actress for twenty years, so I'm good at makeup. You might accentuate your hair colour, but that's all you do. Where I see a sign of grey, and there's plenty under this lot, I cover it up. I don't let Neil see my hairdresser's bills: he'd have a fit if I did.'
Her husband laughed. 'I know who your hairdresser is,' he exclaimed. 'That's enough.'
'Come on,' Paula retorted. 'Don't try and kid me that men's hairdressers are cheap.'
Mario McGuire held up a hand. 'There's a guy in Leith, near the docks, who'll still cut your hair for a fiver; and it's two quid for OAPs.'
'And would you go to him?' his partner challenged.
'Not even if I was stone bald,' he admitted, cheerfully. 'But by the same token, neither would I dream of going to a barber who drives a Ferrari, the kind that you girls are talking about.'
'Charlie Kettles does not drive a Ferrari.'
'Charlie's pals would laugh him out of town if he did, as you well know, but there's others who do.'
'So? They run successful businesses. So do
you and I, and we're not ashamed of it.'
Mario's smile vanished for a moment. 'There are times when I'm embarrassed by it. It's not something that I chose; it was wished on me by my grandfather and latterly by my mother, when she decided to retire to Italy. But the businesses employ a lot of people, and I feel responsible for them. Okay, we're planning to change things, but when we do, I only hope I don't have Papa Viareggio haunting me.'
'Me too,' Paula agreed. 'But you handle things the way they are just now; having Alex Skinner act on your behalf wherever possible is a good idea.'
'It is for her firm; it costs plenty.'
'What does Alex drive these days?' asked McIlhenney, casually.
'A nice wee yellow two-seater, last I saw,' Mario told him. 'Nothing flash. But speaking of Alexis, her name came up in conversation this afternoon.'
'Oh, yes?'
'I'll tell you later.'
Paula frowned and leaned across the dinner table. 'Is that our cue to withdraw to the drawing room?'
Mario looked around him. 'This place is open plan; we're in the bloody drawing room. But there is something I want to talk to Neil about.' He paused. 'We could always go to the pub, I suppose.'
She rose to her feet. 'Indeed you will not! Come on, Lou, let's retire to the kitchen for our port and cigars. Better still, we'll load the dishwasher and open that second bottle of Barolo.' She began to place the dinner plates and cutlery on a tray, while the two men took their glasses and walked over to the armchairs in the opposite corner of the big loft.
'What's up, then?' Neil asked quietly as he sat down. 'Who was talking about Alex?'
'Greg bloody Jay, that's who. He swanned into my office this afternoon, like the Archangel Gabriel on an undercover mission for God. I don't know what he was trying to do, impress me, threaten me, warn me or what, but what he did succeed in doing was piss me off. He went on about some new job of his… that my best pal knows about, apparently, but hadn't got round to telling me about… and then he told me to give Malky Gladsmuir a wide berth. He thinks Malky's his snout, not mine.'
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