Pray for the Dying

by Quintin Jardine

  Twenty-Four

  ‘Bingo,’ Skinner exclaimed, as he gazed at the photograph on his monitor. He turned to his exec. ‘It may say Byron Millbank on his driving licence, and that may not be a top-quality image, but I rarely forget a face . . . and never, when I’ve seen it dead. That is Beram Cohen, one-time Israeli paratrooper, then a Mossad operative until he was caught using a dodgy German passport while killing a Hamas official, most recently for hire as a facilitator of covert operations.

  ‘As you know, Lowell, he’s the guy who recruited Smit and Botha, procured their weapons through Freddy Welsh in Edinburgh, then went and died, inconveniently for them, of a brain haemorrhage a few days before the hit.’

  ‘Could we have stopped it if he hadn’t?’ Payne asked.

  ‘There would have been even less chance. The evidence we had would still have led us to Welsh, but no sooner; we probably wouldn’t have got to the hall as quickly as we did.

  ‘Even if we had been lucky and got the two South Africans, my guess is that Cohen would have been in the car and would have taken off. He’d have been on the motorway inside two minutes. He would have got clear, dumped the guy Brown’s body, so it would never have been linked to our investigation, and we’d have had no clue at all, nowhere to go.’

  He scratched his chin. ‘Cohen dying might have been convenient for us, but as it turned out it wasn’t a life-saver. Speaking of Bazza Brown’s body,’ he continued, ‘lying a-mouldering in the boot of a Peugeot, and all that, I’d like an update on that side of the investigation.’ He checked his watch. ‘Mann’s press briefing should be over by now; ask her to come up, please.’

  The DCI nodded and was about to leave when Skinner called after him. ‘By the way, Lowell, are we any nearer being able to open that bloody safe, or do we seriously have to explore the Barlinnie option? Toni’s sister gave me a number, but as she warned me, it had been changed. She did it weekly, apparently; there’s security,’ he grumbled, ‘then there’s fucking paranoia.’

  Payne laughed. ‘It’s in hand, gaffer, but the Bar-L route may be quicker than waiting for the supplier to send a technician.’ He paused. ‘By the way, how did your visit go? How are the mother and sister?’

  ‘As bereft as you would imagine,’ the chief replied, ‘but they’re both very calm. I was impressed by Marina,’ he added. ‘She’s not a bit like her half-sister. Toni, it seems, was the love child of a Mauritian politico; she must have inherited the gene. Marina, on the other hand, struck me as one of nature’s civil servants, as her mother was.’

  ‘And her father? Is he still around?’

  ‘No, not for some years; he never was, not full-time. Sofia seems to have valued a degree of independence.’ Skinner pointed to the anteroom at the far end of his office, the place that Marina Field had filled. ‘Have you lined up any secretary candidates yet?’

  ‘Yes. Human Resources say they’ll give me a short list by midday.’

  ‘Then hold back on that for a while. We can call up a vetted typist when we need one. Marina says she wants to carry on in her job, working for me. I’ve stalled her on it, until I decide whether I want that.’

  ‘How long will you take to make up your mind?’

  Skinner grinned. ‘Ideally, three months, by which time I’ll be out of here.’

  Twenty-Five

  ‘It is for these reasons,’ Aileen de Marco concluded, reading from autocue screens in the conference room of the ugly Glasgow office block that housed her party’s headquarters, ‘that I am committing Scottish Labour to the unification of the country’s eight police forces into a single entity. The old system, with its lack of integration and properly shared intelligence and with its outdated artificial boundaries, bears heavy responsibility for the death of Antonia Field.

  ‘Not only do I endorse the proposal for unity, I urge the First Minister to enact it without further delay to enable the appointment of a police commissioner as soon as possible to oversee the merger and the smooth introduction of the new structure.’

  ‘Any questions, ladies and gentlemen?’ Alf Old invited, from his seat at the table on the right of the platform, then pointing as he chose from the hands that shot up, and from the babble of competing voices. ‘John Fox.’

  ‘Is this not a panic reaction, Ms de Marco,’ the BBC reporter asked, ‘after your narrow escape on Saturday?’

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘What would you say to those people, and there may be many of them, who think that it is?’

  ‘I’d tell them that they’re wrong. Scottish Labour took a corporate decision some time ago to support unification; we’re quite clear that it’s the way forward. On the other hand, the party in power seems less committed. Yes, I know the First Minister says that it’s the way forward, but there are people on his back benches who aren’t quite as keen.

  ‘We’ve been reading a lot this morning about the First Minister’s personal courage . . . and I have to say that I admire him for the way he displayed it on Saturday, when even the senior Strathclyde police officer on the scene collapsed under the strain.

  ‘What I’m saying today is that it’s time for him to bring that courage into the parliament chamber and join with us in getting important legislation on to the Scottish statute book.’

  She paused, for only a second, but Marguerite Hatton seized on her silence.

  ‘Do you have anyone in mind for the position of police commissioner, Ms de Marco?’ she asked.

  Aileen glared down at her from behind her lectern. ‘There will be a selection process,’ she replied, ‘but I won’t have anything to do with it.’

  ‘Would you endorse your husband’s candidacy?’

  ‘I repeat,’ she snapped, ‘I will not have anything to do with the selection process. I’m not First Minister, and even if I was, the appointment will be made by a body independent of government. The legislation will merge the existing police authorities into one and that will select the commissioner.’

  ‘Then my question still stands,’ the journalist countered. ‘Will you endorse your husband’s candidacy?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Ms Hatton,’ she maintained, ‘I’m not going there. I’m the leader of the Scottish Labour Party, and I’m sure that I’ll have political colleagues on the new authority, but it won’t be my place to influence them in favour of any candidate.’

  ‘Or against one,’ she challenged, ‘if you believed he was entirely wrong for the job?’

  Aileen paused. ‘If I believed that strongly enough about someone,’ she replied, ‘I’d say so in parliament.’

  ‘So do you believe your husband would be the right man for the post, even though he’s an authoritarian bully?’

  ‘Now hold on a minute!’ Alf Old barked, from the platform. ‘This press conference isn’t about individuals. It’s about important Labour Party policy. However, I have to tell you that I’ve met the gentleman in question and I don’t recognise your description. Now that’s enough out of you, madam. Another questioner, please?’

  Hatton ignored him. ‘But isn’t that why you and he have just announced your separation, Aileen?’ she shouted. ‘Isn’t that why you ran into the arms of another man after your terrifying ordeal on Saturday, because Bob wasn’t there for you?’

  Aileen de Marco had known more than a few intense situations in her life, and she was proud of her ability to stay calm and controlled, whatever the pressure. And so, it was agreed later, her outburst was entirely atypical, which made it all the more shocking.

  ‘Bob’s never been there for me,’ she yelled. ‘Why the hell do you think I’m divorcing him, you stupid bloody woman?’

  Twenty-Six

  ‘John, go easy on her, will you?’

  ‘Bob, I’m BBC. We don’t run big lurid headlines on our reports and we don’t editorialise on politicians. We just run what we’ve got on the record, and in this case that’s Aileen screaming at the Hatton bitch then storming out of the room. We can’t ignore that, because it’s there. STV ha
ve got it, and that means it’ll be on ITN national at lunchtime. Sky have got it and they won’t hold back. Plus I saw a couple of freelance cameras there, so it could even go international.’

  ‘Bugger,’ Skinner sighed. ‘And you’re the nice guys, aren’t you?’

  ‘Exactly,’ John Fox said. ‘You know what Hatton will do with it, and the rest of the tabloids. Thing is, Bob, it’s not just Aileen that’s been caught up in it.’

  ‘Don’t I know it. I was never there for her, she said.’

  ‘Do you want to react to that?’

  ‘To the media in general, no, because anything I say will be used in evidence against either Aileen or me. To you, because I trust you or we wouldn’t be speaking right now, I’ll say I’m sorry she feels that way, and I’ll add that lack of communication is one of the factors behind our separation.’ He paused, then added, ‘Hell, you can use this as well, on the record. I find it contemptible that she was goaded into her outburst after what she went through on Saturday night.’

  ‘I will use it too. How about Hatton calling you an authoritarian bully?’

  Skinner laughed. ‘Jesus, John, I’m the acting chief constable of the UK’s second biggest police force. If that doesn’t make me an authority figure, I don’t know what would. As for me being a bully, I appreciate Alf Old putting her straight, and I hope that others will as well.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about that,’ Fox told him. ‘It’s a wee bit close to defamation, so most sensible editors . . . including Hatton’s . . . won’t repeat it. I was only covering my back by asking you about it. Besides, no tabloid editor in his right mind’s going to want to fall out with you.’ He laughed. ‘Not that that implies you’re a bully, mind.’ He was silent for a second or two. ‘Can I ask you something else?’ he murmured.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I told you what she said about Max Allan. Do you want to counter it?’

  ‘I’d like to, but I can’t, because it’s true. Max was first into the hall when the emergency lighting came on. He could see very little, and at first he thought it was Paula Viareggio who’d been shot, not Toni. Max has known Paula since she was a kid; he and his wife live closer to Edinburgh than Glasgow and so they do nearly all their shopping there. They’ve been customers of the Viareggio delicatessen chain for twenty years, since the days when Paula worked behind the counter.

  ‘He thought that was her on the floor, and he just buckled. The poor guy’s career’s probably at an end, and an ignominious one at that, thanks to Aileen. The next time I speak to her she and I are going to have very serious words about it. You can be sure of that.’

  ‘I agree,’ the journalist murmured. ‘True or not, it was well out of order. But Bob, off the record this time, why did she put herself up there to be shot at? Sorry, that was an unfortunate choice of words in the circumstances.’

  ‘Maybe but I know what you mean. My informed guess would be that her reasons were purely political.’

  ‘Did you know about Labour supporting unification?’

  ‘Of course I did. This is very much between us, chum, but it was the last straw as far as our marriage was concerned.’

  ‘I guessed as much. There’s a piece on the Saltire website that nobody’s noticed yet. It was blown out of the printed edition by the Field shooting, but it’s got your stamp all over it. Everybody knows that paper’s your house journal, with June Crampsey being a retired cop’s daughter.’

  ‘Mmm,’ Skinner murmured, ‘do they indeed? I’ll need to watch that, but I won’t lie to you about my input to that article; you’re right. I was a bit steamed up at the time. But if you’re going to have a girn about me playing favourites, don’t, because I’m doing it just now. Nobody else is getting past the switchboard here and I’m taking no other media calls anywhere else.’

  ‘I appreciate that,’ Fox chuckled. ‘In the spirit of our special relationship, is there anything else you’d like not to tell me? About the Field investigation, for example.’

  ‘Not a fucking word, mate; you’re not that special. However, you might like to call another chum of yours, the First Minister. I reckon Aileen will have put his nose mightily out of joint.’

  ‘Thanks for that, and the rest. Cheers.’

  The chief was unfamiliar with the telephone console on his desk, but he had noticed a red light flashing during the last couple of minutes of his conversation with Fox. As he hung up he discovered what it was for as the bell sounded, almost instantly. He picked up the receiver, expecting to hear the switchboard operator, or Lowell Payne, but it was neither.

  ‘Yes,’ he began.

  ‘Bob,’ a male voice snapped back at him, ‘can’t you keep that bloody wife of yours under control?’

  ‘Hello, Clive,’ he replied. ‘Funny you should call. Your name just came up in conversation.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. Your ears must have been burning too. Do you know what Aileen’s done?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When did you know?’

  ‘I first became aware of it about ten minutes ago. Clive,’ Skinner asked, ‘what the fuck are you on about? Haven’t you read any newspapers today?’

  ‘No I haven’t. I’m not in the office. I’ve spent the last thirty-six hours incommunicado, comforting my distraught wife. She’s under sedation, Bob. I’m still trying, but failing, to make her believe that I wasn’t the target . . . although the truth is, I’m not a hundred per cent sure of that myself.

  ‘But more than that, it’s not just the thought of me with my brains on the floor that’s got to her, it’s the notion that if she had come with me, and not Toni, she’d have copped it. So you’ll see, Bob, reading the press hasn’t been at the top of my agenda. My political office has only just emailed me the unification press release Labour have put out.’

  ‘And that’s all they’ve sent you?’

  ‘That’s all.’

  ‘Then you should shake up all your press people, in the party and in government. Somebody should have told you that two hours ago my dear wife and I announced that we’ve split. They should also have told you to check out today’s Daily News. You’re going to have fun with that come next First Minister’s Questions at Holyrood, I promise you.’

  He heard the First Minster draw a deep breath, then let it out slowly. ‘Then I apologise, Bob,’ he said, quietly. ‘The government people are supposed to brief me constantly on what’s happening in the media, partly to ensure that I don’t make any embarrassing phone calls like this one. I told them, firmly, to leave me alone, but when the troops are afraid to override your orders when necessary, that makes you a bad general.’

  ‘Or an authoritarian bully,’ Skinner murmured.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. You can tell Mrs Graham to calm down. We have absolute proof that Toni was the target. They were set up and waiting for her.’

  ‘Are you certain?’

  Skinner snorted. ‘I appreciate that you’re a politician, but even you must know what “absolute” means.’

  ‘But how did they know she’d be there?’ the First Minister asked, sounding more than a little puzzled.

  ‘When did you invite her to accompany you?’

  ‘Two weeks ago.’

  ‘Yeah, well, one day later Toni posted the engagement on bloody Twitter, and on the Strathclyde force website. She set herself up.’

  ‘But who’d want to kill her? I know she was abrasive, but . . .’

  ‘I’ve got a team of talented people trying to find that out,’ the chief replied, ‘and I imagine that right now they’re waiting in my assistant’s office.’

  ‘Then I won’t delay you further. Again, I’m sorry I went off at half cock.’

  ‘No worries. For what it’s worth, I reckon I know why Aileen broke ranks on unification. You might not realise it, if you’ve been cloistered since Saturday, but you’ve become something of a media hero, thanks to Joey Morocco’s eyewitness account. He’s seen a few things up close in the last couple of days
, has our Joey. With the election coming up, Aileen couldn’t let that go uncountered. It’s the way she thinks.’

  ‘I suppose it is, and I might even understand it. It won’t do her any good though. I’ve seen our private polls: Labour will be crushed, and her career will be over.’

  Bob laughed. ‘Don’t you believe it, Clive. She has a plan for every contingency. She’s like Gloria Gaynor: she will survive. Get on with you now. Go and give your wife the good news.’

  Twenty-Seven

  ‘Will I survive this, Alf?’ Aileen asked, leaning forward across the table, with a goblet of red wine warming in her cupped hands.

  ‘I’ll treat that as rhetorical,’ the chief officer replied. ‘You’ve just locked up the female vote within the party; as for the men, they were eating out of your hand anyway.’

  ‘But tomorrow’s coverage will be all about me dropping the bomb on that twat Hatton, and not about the policy initiative I announced.’

  ‘Aileen, you and I both know that is bollocks; the announcement doesn’t matter. We don’t make policy any more, the SNP do.’

  ‘But they need us to get unification through fast,’ she countered.

  ‘No, they don’t. You and Clive Graham agreed to rush it through before the election so that it doesn’t become an issue that the Tories could score with, but the Lib Dems are for it as well, and even in a minority situation their votes would see the bill through. That’s if he tables it at all. The poll’s in a few weeks, and you’ve just removed police structure as an issue anyway by announcing that we’re for it.’

  ‘You’re saying that if I’ve pissed him off with my challenge he might walk away from our agreement.’

  ‘Indeed I am.’ He glanced around the basement restaurant to which they had retreated, checking that they were still alone and that no journalists had followed them there. ‘But so what? It’s irrelevant alongside the campaign that’s ahead of us. With everything that’s happened, are you sure you’re ready for it?’