by Lesley Kelly
Maitland’s face contorted. ‘This is bloody Emma, isn’t it? My ex?’
‘All complainants are given anonymity during the investigation.’
‘It is her though, isn’t it?’
Paterson shrugged, which Maitland took as a yes. ‘Not bad enough that she dumps me, she also has to make trouble.’
‘Speaking as a divorcé, making trouble for the errant male does seem to feature pretty highly on a scorned woman’s to-do list. I could have been sacked three times over if people had believed everything my first wife said about me when I left her, so I’m not unsympathetic.’
‘Ehm, anonymity, Mr Paterson?’ said Bernard.
‘Not that I’m confirming it was your ex. Anyway, so, you weren’t sleeping with,’ he checked the name, ‘Kate Wilson during the investigation?’
Bernard laughed, incurring glares from both Maitland and Paterson. Usually his team leader’s wrath would be enough to swiftly rid him of any feelings of happiness, but this was just too good. He doubled over and chortled.
‘Something funny?’
‘Well, firstly, Mr Paterson,’ he fought to get his breathing under control, ‘Kate is a Christian of the variety that doesn’t believe in sex before marriage, and secondly, she’s a good-looking woman with more sense than to look at Maitland.’
His colleague glowered at him, before his features morphed into an expression closer to coyness. ‘Actually . . .’
Silence filled the office.
‘Actually, what?’ asked Paterson.
‘We’re dating.’
Paterson slumped back in his chair. ‘There are boundaries, Maitland . . .’
‘But it started after the investigation ended!’
‘OK.’ He thought for a second. ‘That’s a very relevant point. And you’re not . . .’ Paterson made a vague gesture with his hand. Bernard could contain himself no longer and started to giggle again.
Maitland elbowed him in the ribs. ‘No.’
‘So, just to clarify, Bernard, did you notice any inappropriate behaviour of a sexual nature by Maitland toward anyone involved in the Greenwood case?’
‘Just his usual level of inappropriate sexual innuendo. And some misplaced homophobia in my direction.’
‘I’ll put that as a no, then. Mona! Carole!’ They appeared suspiciously quickly at the door. ‘Did you notice any inappropriate behaviour of a sexual nature by Maitland toward anyone involved in the Greenwood case?’
‘Like what, Mr Paterson?’ asked Carole.
‘If you have to ask, Carole, I’m going to take that as a “no”.’
‘Mona?’
She grinned. ‘No, Guv.’
Paterson continued scribbling on his notes. ‘OK, as far as I’m concerned that’s the investigation concluded, bar submitting the paperwork.’ He pointed at the door. ‘Now, out of my office.’
‘I expect you want to know what all that was about?’ asked Bernard, pulling the door shut behind him.
‘No. We could hear pretty much every word,’ said Mona, grinning. ‘I particularly liked the bit about Maitland having a new girlfriend but not getting laid.’
‘Same as Bernard, then, except for the girlfriend bit.’ The colour was returning to Maitland’s cheeks. ‘Anyway, doesn’t anyone have work to do, people to find, etc., etc.?’
‘Not sure we’re quite finished taking the piss, but it’ll keep.’
3
‘Mona, get your coat.’
She looked up to see Paterson standing in the doorway of his office, shrugging on his mackintosh. ‘We’ve been summoned to SHEP.’
‘We have?’ Mona grabbed her jacket and bent down to pick up her bag. By the time she was upright, Paterson had vanished. She could hear him thundering along the corridor outside; he might have requested her company, but he wasn’t giving off any vibes that suggested he was happy to be spending time with her.
‘Bernard – can you handle the IT visit without me?’
‘No problem. Good luck at SHEP.’
He looked slightly concerned about her trip.
‘It’ll be fine,’ she said confidently. ‘Probably just . . .’ she tailed off as she realised she couldn’t think of a single positive reason for the summons. A call from the Scottish Health Enforcement Partnership usually meant only one thing. Someone, somewhere had cocked up, and Cameron Stuttle, the SHEP chief executive, was looking for someone, somewhere to shout at. That someone, with tedious regularity, tended to be Paterson. And both Mona and Paterson knew that there was still some outstanding business from the Weber/Greenwood cases that Stuttle hadn’t dealt with yet. Perhaps today was the day.
A thought struck her, a horrific thought that had her reaching for her seat and grabbing the mouse of her computer. Had Amanda made contact with SHEP? She hesitated, torn between checking her e-mail and catching up with her boss. Oh, God, Amanda. Heidi Weber’s friend, if friend was the right word for someone who used your credit card to buy drugs to sell. And who filmed everyone and everything on her phone, including some pictures of Mona that she would rather no one ever saw. Her last contact from Amanda had been an e-mail asking for her help. She hadn’t responded, and while there had been silence ever since, she would bet every pound she possessed that she hadn’t heard the last from her.
Paterson was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs, impatiently tapping his foot.
‘Any idea why our presence has been requested, Guv?’
He ignored her question, and as she followed him out to the car park she felt the familiar pull of disappointment that he still wasn’t talking to her. Paterson continued to rebuff her attempts to start a conversation while he signed out a pool car, retrieved it and sat in traffic for ten minutes on Lothian Road.
‘Roads are bad today, Guv, aren’t they?’
In response to her conversational gambit, Paterson turned on the radio.
‘Oh for God’s sake!’ Mona’s anger bubbled over and she snapped the radio back off. ‘Guv, are you ever planning to speak to me again?’
‘Don’t take that tone with me.’
‘What tone?’
‘You know, that “poor me, my boss is being so unreasonable” tone.’
‘Well . . .’
‘I’m not being unreasonable! If I’d had my way, you’d have been off my team two months ago. But your pal Stuttle won’t hear of it.’
This was news to Mona, on both counts. She’d assumed that Paterson had fought Stuttle to keep her, not the other way round.
‘So I may be stuck with you, but I haven’t forgotten what you did, and I certainly haven’t forgiven it.’
She stared out of the window. ‘I don’t think what I did was that bad,’ she said, quietly.
Almost immediately she regretted her words, as Paterson nearly swerved the car into the oncoming traffic. He recovered the wheel, and took a deep breath. ‘Not that bad? Really? Are you suffering from a bout of amnesia or something? You went over my head!’
She considered intervening, but decided it was futile. She contented herself with a heavy sigh, and some passive-aggressive window-staring.
Paterson wasn’t done. ‘By some miracle, we managed to get through the whole Weber and Greenwood thing without anyone becoming cult members, getting arrested, or getting killed. And don’t forget, that was a real possibility with Bernard. He took quite a beating, one that could have been avoided if any of my staff had bothered to involve me in what was going on.’
It was becoming quite uncomfortable listening, due to the high truth content in what Paterson was saying. Bernard had taken a beating, and had been behaving like a nervous kitten ever since.
‘But we get through all that, and due to a bit of behind-the-scenes pressure from the German government, everyone keeps their jobs. I make it clear to you both that we’ve made it out by the skin of our teeth, and that this case is now firmly a hundred per cent closed. And what do you do? You immediately send Cameron Bloody Stuttle an e-mail, don’t you?’
Th
e truth quota was making her itchy again. It was all true. She’d been sent video footage, taken by Amanda, that implicated a senior German diplomat in Heidi Weber’s death. She’d forwarded it on to the head of the Strategic Health Enforcement Partnership on the, apparently naïve, assumption he would act on it.
‘And what did Stuttle do with it?’
She drew her fingernails across the back of her hand. Perhaps if she could make the itch a real one she could scratch, her discomfort would disappear. ‘He sat on it, Guv.’
‘He sat on it. And why was that?’
Another relevant question, but not one she had an answer to. When she’d joined the HET, she’d felt pretty confident that she knew how the world worked. She had five years of police work under her belt, including a couple spent in CID, which she reckoned gave her an excellent insight into the criminal mind. She’d developed enough of an understanding of organisational culture to be considered, at one time at least, a potential candidate for a fast-track promotion. But the longer she worked for the HET the more she realised there was one area that she really didn’t understand. Try as she might, she just didn’t get the politics of it all: the alliances, the mis-briefings, the whole information is power thing. And Cameron Stuttle, as she was coming to realise, was a Grade A, first-class, no bones about it, political operator.
‘Because I think there are a number of possibilities, Mona. Maybe Stuttle wasn’t keen to rock the boat at that precise moment – after all the HET had just about got out of the whole mess with our heads still attached. Or maybe he thought that your little video would be useful to add to his stack of evidence about important people who’ve been naughty boys, so he can whop it out next time the German government are being a bit awkward. Or maybe, just maybe, he thought it would be useful to have in his vault of data on HET officers who’ve cocked up, so he can use it to bully us into something.’ He shook his head. ‘Jesus, Mona, you were the one person on the team that I thought had some common sense.’
She redoubled her efforts at scratching her hand.
‘And of course it gave Stuttle a fascinating insight into the way my team works. He must be laughing his arse off at the lack of respect you have for me.’
‘That’s not true.’
Paterson brought the car to such an abrupt halt she was able to verify the effectiveness of the seat belts. He began reversing into a parking space, and she realised they were near the City Chambers, where SHEP had their offices.
‘He asked for you specifically, today. Not just any old HET officer; he didn’t say bring Bernard, or Maitland, or whoever happens to be in the office. No, he was quite specific that he wanted to see Mona Whyte. He’s probably got something in mind to help fast-track your way out of the HET. Probably trying you out for a permanent job at SHEP, doing his dirty work. After all, he’s seen your potential.’ With that parting shot he got out of the car, slamming the door behind him. Within seconds he reappeared. ‘Sort out the meter.’
She rooted around her bag for change. If the Guv was right about Stuttle fast-tracking her out of the HET she might take him up on it. When she’d gone over Paterson’s head, she assumed that one of the outcomes would be her sacking, or at least an insistence on her immediate resignation. She’d drafted a letter that noted, not entirely accurately, how much she had enjoyed working at the HET, but had felt compelled blah blah blah. But with Stuttle sitting on the information she’d given him, she’d been left in limbo, neither whistle-blower nor trusted colleague.
Edinburgh’s City Chambers were opulent, even by the high standards set by the rest of the city centre. Located on the High Street, the Chambers had originally been built in the eighteenth century as the Royal Exchange, where the city’s merchants could meet to trade in grand surroundings designed by John and Robert Adam. Sadly, the merchants themselves were creatures of habit, and saw no need to relocate from their usual spot by the Mercat Cross. The building lay empty, until bowing to the inevitable, the council taking it over as offices, some of which they now sub-let to SHEP.
The Chambers were in Edinburgh’s Old Town, the steep and cobbled streets that ran from the castle to Holyrood Palace. The steepness should not be understated; from the High Street the City Chambers was an imposing but not unusual four floors high. If you exited by the lower level back door on Cockburn Street, you could look back to see that the building was a full thirteen storeys in height.
Mona stood at the bottom of Cockburn Street, and looked in vain for Paterson. He’d probably tried to shake her off, which seemed rather pointless as they were both attending the same meeting. She assumed that he’d gone to the front entrance, but there were numerous narrow lanes that linked this street to the High Street and he could have taken any of them. She resigned herself to not catching up with him, and set off up Warriston’s Close.
When she did finally locate him it was in the wood-panelled surroundings of the SHEP waiting room, where he was slumped in a Chesterfield armchair.
She gave it one last try. ‘So, you’ve no idea what this is about, Guv?’
To emphasise that he was ignoring her, Paterson picked up a copy of Hello!, and began flicking through it.
‘John.’ Cameron Stuttle appeared, and pointed at the magazine. ‘More challenging reading material than usual, I see. Keeping those aging brain cells working?’
Paterson flung the publication in the general direction of a table. ‘Let’s get this over with.’
‘I see he’s in a good mood today, Mona.’ Stuttle smiled at her. ‘Anyway, come in. I need to ask a favour.’
As she followed him into his office, Mona reflected that between Maitland and Stuttle it appeared that nobody in health enforcement knew how to ask for a favour properly.
‘So.’ Stuttle settled himself behind his large oak desk, folded his arms on its top, and looked at them both. ‘I need your help.’
The Guv was staring at his feet. He didn’t seem about to respond, so she ventured a tentative, ‘OK?’
‘A person of importance is in danger of missing his Health Check.’
This made Paterson sit up. ‘Who?’
‘Alexander Bircham-Fowler.’
‘As in Professor Bircham-Fowler, Scotland’s leading authority on the Virus?’ asked Mona.
‘Yup. And I cannot stress enough how confidential this discussion is.’
‘No way.’ The Guv shook his head. ‘Bircham-Fowler wouldn’t miss a Health Check. He’s one of the key backers of the policy. It would be hugely damaging to his credibility.’
‘Indeed. The professor has always been a strong supporter of the HETs, so we would very much like to see him delivered safely into a Health Check, on or before midday on Thursday the 7th of July, when his next Check is due.’
‘How do you know he’s going to miss one?’
‘Oh, come on, John. You know how these things work.’ Stuttle smiled. ‘We’ve got someone in his office, who says he’s done a runner. Disappeared off from work, missed meetings. Totally out of character.’
‘You’ve got a spy in a university?’
‘Grow up. The professor’s too important to all this to, you know, leave him unattended.’
The Guv was looking grumpier by the minute. ‘And what exactly do you mean by “all this”?’
‘You know what I mean.’ He let out a long hiss of exasperation. ‘Everything. Virus policy.’
‘And your career prospects. And you keeping your big office on the Royal Mile.’
Irritation tipped over into anger. ‘That is not what I mean. Listen, both of you. Things are getting difficult. We’ve had the best part of two years of consensus on Virus policy, but that’s starting to break down. There’s a fair few people out there who would love to see the professor discredited, as a first move toward disbanding the HETs.’
Paterson made a noise somewhere between a snort and a tut, which conveyed that he didn’t see this as the end of the world.
‘But it’s not just about the HETs. Bircham-Fowler is due to
give a speech at the Parliament on Friday, and word has it that the content of it is making him very unpopular in certain circles.’
‘Unpopular enough for Bircham-Fowler to come to harm?’
‘We live in interesting times, John. Politicians are much more able to justify things to themselves – and to the electorate – now that we are living in an officially recognised State of Emergency.’
‘So, where do we come into this? We only chase Defaulters, not people who might possibly be vaguely considering not turning up to a Health Check.’
‘I’m well aware of that, but I’d like some discreet questions asked. And I’d rather not do it myself.’
‘But you’re happy for us to do something that we have no legal right to do. If he’s a missing person, get the police to find him.’ To underline his point, Paterson folded his arms and sat back in his chair.
‘There are certain people at Police Scotland that we would rather not alert to his potential absence. And anyway, as I said, you two owe me a favour.’
‘In exactly what way do Mona and I owe you a favour?’
‘I could have thrown the book at you over that whole Weber case fiasco.’
Paterson snorted. ‘And you would have, if you’d been allowed to. Your hands were tied.’
‘Well, put it this way. The bonds have loosened somewhat, and I’m not averse to making your life miserable.’
The two of them glared at each other, and the silence stretched on uncomfortably. Mona decided to nudge the conversation on. ‘What exactly do you want us to do?’
‘Thank you, Mona, for showing an interest.’
Paterson shot her a filthy look. ‘Showing some self-interest, more like.’
Stuttle ignored him. ‘I want you to pay the professor a visit – make up some semi-official excuse to be there – and see if any of his colleagues can shed light on where he is. Then report back to me.’
‘OK.’ Paterson got to his feet. ‘Seeing as I appear to have no choice. But one visit and that’s us done there.’