‘He’ll be all right,’ the chief growled. ‘His skull’s too thick and his brain’s too small for there to be any lasting damage.’
He turned to Emily Repton. Her eyes told him she had enjoyed the show. ‘Spell it out,’ he told her.
She nodded. ‘Hard man, soft centre,’ she said. ‘Your marriage may be over, but I don’t believe you would wish to cause Ms de Marco the damage, the distress and the disgrace that would follow publication of those images. The fact that it was a one-off doesn’t matter. Her career would be gone, way beyond the U-bend, and so would her employable life. As indeed it will, if one single line in one single newspaper, or blog, should ever link my husband to Antonia Field and her child.
‘You can write your report to the procurer physical or whatever he’s called. It will say that your investigation has reached the conclusion that the balance of probability is that Chief Constable Field’s killing was ordered and funded by Mexican or Colombian drug cartels that she compromised during her time with the Serious and Organised Crime Agency. There will be not the slightest hint of impropriety by the Security Service.’
She frowned. ‘I’m not going to ask if you agree. There is no alternative on the table; you will do what you’re told. Go back to Scotland, Mr Skinner, and be the big provincial copper in your little provincial pond. This is London; the power will always lie here. If you can’t live with that truth, you could always resign.’
Skinner stared down at her, unblinking, until the coldness in his eyes made her shiver and look away.
‘You really don’t know me, Home Secretary,’ he told her. ‘My report’s already dictated and that is more or less what it says. Even if my suspicions had been one hundred per cent right, there would have been no mileage for me in pulling this building down.’
He nodded towards Lowery, who was beginning to stir on the floor. ‘Getting rid of him will do nicely thanks, and I’ve shown you why that has to happen.’
‘Agreed,’ Repton said.
‘But you are right,’ he continued, ‘that I won’t see Aileen broken by you. Hell, woman, I know you and Lowery set her up. Any idiot, even me, could see that. She can’t hold her booze at the best of times, and I can tell from the photo she was rat-arsed when that all went off. I’m sure that if I could identify the two other women, I’d find that at least one was on Five’s payroll.
‘But that’s by the by; I’ll go along with your deal. Your husband’s safe. If you’re prepared to tolerate his adultery, that’s your business. I’ve never met the man, so he really means nothing to me. Plus, I have no practical need to remove him, since he isn’t in my sphere of influence.’
‘That’s pragmatic of you,’ she mocked, her tone heavy with sarcasm.
‘But you are,’ he snapped, as he picked up his case. ‘And you disgust me. You’re the embodiment of everything I loathe about politics and politicians. Frankly, I don’t want to be any part of any world in which someone like you operates, and there are only two things I can do about that. So I’ll go back to my provincial, sub-national pond, and I will work out which one it’s going to be.’
Fifty-Six
‘No thanks, Amanda, I’ll pass on that one personally. Maybe I’ll send Lowell Payne instead. I was impressed by the way he handled himself the other day, and it’s persuaded me that he’s the man to take over what was a vacancy as head of CTIS.
‘He’s in post already. It wouldn’t be right of me to come, when I might not be a police officer for much longer. You take care now, and watch your back as long as that woman’s standing behind you.’
He ended the call and slipped his mobile into the big canvas bag that lay by his side.
‘What was that about?’ Sarah asked. They were sitting on a travelling rug on the beach at Gullane, watching their two sons trying to persuade Seonaid that the seawater was as warm as they said.
‘Amanda Dennis,’ he said. ‘She’s having a two-day review of the Field fiasco in London, on Monday and Tuesday. It’s a natural response: what went wrong and how to prevent any recurrence. She said she’s ordered Houseman and his entire Glasgow team down there, and asked if I wanted to attend.’
‘Were you serious in what you said to her?’
‘About Lowell? Sure. He never wavered in there and he turned out to be very good at reading people. He’s a natural for the job, and it gives me grounds to give him an acting promotion, without anyone calling it nepotism. Mind you,’ he chuckled, ‘Jean wouldn’t be too pleased if I send him off to London again so soon, so I don’t think I’ll pass on the invite.’
She shook her head. ‘I didn’t mean were you sure about Lowell. I was talking about the last part. Do you really mean that?’
‘I think I do,’ he said. ‘I am edging myself towards walking away from the Strathclyde job and leaving the police service altogether, as soon as I can. All the way back from London I argued the toss with myself, and I still am arguing. It’s doing my head in. I never wanted to destroy the Security Service itself, only to sort any people that might have crossed the line. I’m a realist, I understand how the world has to work at times. But given what I knew, or thought I knew, I had some questions that needed answers.
‘As it was, I got it wrong, although not all of it: the Home Secretary did misuse her position by having Lowery delete the Mauritian birth record. Now I’m being blackmailed by Emily Repton herself, to save her husband’s reputation and both their careers. You should have heard her, and seen her. That woman is fucking evil.’
‘She threatened me? Really?’
‘Yes, but we both knew that was crap; that was just her way of telling me how far she could reach into my life. I’ve taken legal advice since. Your passport may be American, but your children are British. There isn’t a judge in Scotland who’d allow your deportation.’
‘But her threat against Aileen? Is that for real?’
Bob nodded. ‘Oh yes. She went with Morocco to a party in Glasgow, after the premiere of a movie he was in. They’d been watching the pair of them for long enough to be fairly sure she would go, especially since I was at a security conference that MI5 had set up.
‘While Joey was away schmoozing the press, Hubert Lowery’s two women got her shit-faced, possibly with a little chemical assistance, then set up the cocaine scene in the toilets. I know all this because Amanda made Lowery tell her as he was clearing his desk.’
‘How did she make him cough that up?’
He gave a bitter laugh. ‘She threatened to tell me where he lives. That was enough.’
‘Can Amanda do anything about it, now she’s in the top job?’
‘Not with Emily Reptile as Home Secretary.’
‘If you had been right, and Toni Field had been killed on Repton’s orders, what would you have done?’
‘As much as I could, although that might not have been a lot, since so many of the players are dead and so much of it is deniable.’
‘Are you really satisfied that isn’t what happened?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, I’m sure. I got taken. As Mandy suggested, I did send a car to pick up Marina, as soon as I got out of there. She’d gone, right enough. Sofia thought she was just shopping . . . or so she said . . . but she hasn’t been seen since. Amanda was right. The woman made me look like an idiot. Hell, I am an idiot! She fed me little hints to steer me in the direction she wanted, towards them and away from her.
‘That last scene, her identifying Clyde Houseman as Toni’s mystery lover, that was the final piece of the con. I bought it, like an absolute sucker, and went charging off down to London, to commit professional suicide.’
‘It wasn’t suicide,’ Sarah insisted. ‘You don’t need to do anything so drastic as quit.’ She paused. ‘Don’t go off on me for asking this, but could this depression from which speaking as a doctor, you are clearly suffering, be related to the fact that you feel humiliated, embarrassed, and maybe even a little unmanned by what this Marina woman did to you?’
‘Why should I take the hu
mp?’ he asked. ‘It’s a fair question. But the answer’s no. At the time, sure, I had a red face. Now, I see it the same as a golf game. Marina was good, and so was I. But where I shot a birdie, she had an eagle. When that happens out there on Gullane Number One, you don’t give up the game. You say to the other guy, “Good shot,” and then you stuff him at the next hole. If I leave the force, it’ll be because I can’t go after Repton from within it. But whatever happens, I’m going to find Marina Deschamps.’
She looked at him, a little afraid of the answer to the question she was about to pose. ‘When you find her, what will you do?’
‘I could eliminate her,’ he told her. ‘As long as I don’t do it in the middle of Piccadilly Circus at rush hour, I really don’t believe anyone would want to know. Too many guilty secrets.’ He stopped, then laughed at the alarm on her face. ‘I could,’ he repeated, ‘but don’t worry, I won’t. There is an alternative.’
He jumped up from the rug. ‘Come on, let’s go and paddle with the kids. The water can’t be that cold.’
‘Okay.’ She took his hand and let him pull her to her feet, then laughed, as his phone sounded. ‘I thought you were going to leave that at home,’ she said.
‘Force of habit. I’ll ignore it.’
‘Hell no,’ she retorted, fishing it out of their beach bag. ‘You’ll fret if you do that.’ She handed it to him. ‘It’s Mario.’
‘Ah, that’s different.’ He took it from her and accepted the call. ‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘Has Paula had the baby?’
‘She has indeed,’ the new father replied. ‘Wee Eamon put in an appearance about half an hour ago. Like shelling peas, the midwife said, although not within Paula’s hearing.’
‘Big fella, that is absolutely great, I am so pleased for you both.’
‘In that case, you’re going to be even more pleased. About two hours ago a bloke walked into the St Leonards office with a bag that he found when he was sorting old clothes from one of those public recycling points. It was mixed up among them all, and there was a laptop inside it, wrapped in a shirt with a Selfridges label on it. The battery was flat, but the desk staff found a charger and plugged it in. When they switched it on, it said “Byron’s MacBook”. I reckon we’ve found your man Cohen’s missing computer.’
Looking at Bob, Sarah saw his face light up, saw all his gloom and pessimism evaporate, and she knew that whatever he had been told, it had been a tipping point in his life.
‘Mario,’ she heard him exclaim, ‘that’s brilliant. It means the show’s back on the road. I’d like it in Glasgow in my office, by Monday morning.’ She thought he was about to end the call, but he went on, as if an afterthought had come to him just in time.
‘One other thing,’ he added. ‘I want to see wee Ramsey again, but not in my office. Find him and tell him I’ll be shopping in Fort Kinnaird at noon tomorrow and that I’ll fancy a hot dog from the stall by the crossing. There’ll be one in it for him as well if he turns up.’
Fifty-Seven
‘Welcome back, Detective Inspector,’ Skinner said, with feeling. He jerked his thumb in Provan’s direction. ‘This little bugger’s been intolerable since you’ve been away.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Lottie chuckled. ‘He’s never been off the bloody phone. He’ll be wanting to adopt me next.’
‘Everything’s all right at home, is it?’ Her eyes went somewhere else for a second. ‘Sorry,’ he exclaimed. ‘It’s none of my business and if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine by me.’
‘Not at all, Chief, not at all,’ she replied. ‘I had a tough couple of days, but I’m okay now. Scott’s living with his brother out in Airdrie . . . at least that was the address they gave when he made his court appearance this morning. He turned up at the house again on Saturday, but he was sober, and it was only to collect his clothes.’
‘Did you know that Sergeant . . .’
Her nod stopped him in mid-sentence. ‘Yes, I was told. Her husband got himself arrested for thumping her. I’d have put in a word for him if he’d battered Scott, but he must have decided that hitting her was less risky. Maybe she’s with him now. I don’t know and I don’t want to. Jakey’s come to terms with the fact that his dad won’t be back, and that’s all I’m worried about.’
‘Of course,’ Skinner agreed. ‘He’s the most important person involved. Right,’ he exclaimed, ‘if we’re all ready, let me explain to you what this is about.’ He smiled. ‘They thought it was all over . . .’ he chuckled. ‘But no, thanks to a large slice of luck, the game may still be on . . .’ He rose, stepped over to his desk, and returned holding a laptop, which he laid on the table. ‘. . . and those who don’t believe in miracles may like to have a rethink. That, lady and gentleman, is Byron Millbank’s missing MacBook, the place where his wife told Detective Superintendent Payne that he kept his whole life. Normally,’ he continued, ‘there would have been a team of experts huddled over it for a week, trying to work out the password. In this case Byron gave us an unwitting clue, when he said to Mrs Millbank that the chances of getting into it were the same as winning the Lottery.
‘So we had her rummage about among his personal things, and guess what she found? Yup, a payslip for a lottery season ticket.’ He opened the computer to reveal a slip of paper, with six twin-digit numbers noted on it. ‘There you are,’ he said, and slid the slim computer across to Mann.
‘Has anyone looked at it?’ she asked.
‘No, it’s all yours. I want you and that bright young lad Paterson to get into it, and see if you can find anything that doesn’t relate to the dull and fairly uneventful life of Mr Byron Millbank but to the rather more colourful world of Beram Cohen.’
‘What about me, Chief?’ Provan asked, with a hint of a rumble. ‘Am Ah too old for that shite?’
Skinner threw him a sharp look. ‘Almost certainly,’ he said. ‘But as it happens I’ve got something else in mind for you. I want you to get back on to your friends in Mauritius, and find the birth registration of Marina Deschamps. She’s thirty-two years old, so the probability is that it will be a paper record. Birth date, April the ninth, so you’ll know exactly where to look.’
‘Marina Day Champs? The last chief’s sister?’
‘Not quite,’ Skinner corrected him. ‘The last chief’s missing half-sister. There are things I don’t know about that lady, and I want to.’
‘Can Ah no’ just ask her mother?’
‘No chance. You do not go near her mother. Leave that to CTIS, Superintendent Payne’s new team. She says she doesn’t know where her daughter’s gone, but we’re tapping her phone, just in case. Like mother like daughters? You never know.’
Fifty-Eight
‘The chief seems in better form today,’ Dan Provan remarked, as they stepped back into the suite in Pitt Street that he had left the week before. ‘When Ah saw him on Thursday, when Ah wis closing this place up, he wis like a panda that discovered he’d slept in and missed his big date wi’ Mrs Panda.’
‘Why’s he interested in Marina Deschamps all of a sudden?’ Lottie Mann pondered.
‘How come you can say that and Ah cannae? Day Champs.’
‘Possibly because I have a wider outlook on life than you, and expose myself to other cultures,’ she suggested. ‘You’ve got no interest in anything that doesn’t involve crime, real or imaginary.’
‘Maybe no’, but Ah’m shit hot at that. Ah’ve thought about puttin’ ma name up for Mastermind.’
Beside him Banjo Paterson spluttered.
‘You can laugh, son, but tell me, how many murders was Peter Manuel convicted of?’
‘Eight.’
‘No, seven. One charge wis dropped for lack of evidence. What was Baby Face Nelson’s real name?’
‘Who was Baby Face Nelson?’
‘Eedjit. Lester Gillis. What was Taggart’s first sergeant called?’
‘Mike?’
‘Naw, he wis the second. It was Peter, Peter Livingstone.’
/> ‘Enough!’ Lottie Mann laughed. ‘If they ever have a “Brain of Cambuslang” contest you might be in with a shout, but until then stop showboating for the lad. All these things happened before he was born.’
‘So did Christmas,’ Provan retorted, ‘but he knows all about that.’
He shuffled off to the desk he had adopted, and dug out the old-fashioned notebook that was still his chosen style of database. He opened it at the most recent entries and found the number of the Mauritian government. He keyed it in and waited.
‘Mr Bachoo, please, Registry Department,’ he asked. ‘Tell him it’s DS Provan again, Strathclyde Police in Glasgow, Scotland.’
Paterson grinned across at him. ‘You didn’t have any problem with that name,’ he said.
‘It sounds like a sneeze. Yes, Mr Bachoo,’ he carried on, without a pause, ‘it’s me again. Ah’ve got another request for ye, another registration Ah’m trying to trace. This one goes back thirty-two years, but Ah’ve got a birth date this time: April the ninth. The name of the wean . . . Ah mean the child, is Marina Day Champs. Could ye do that for me?’
‘Without difficulty,’ the official replied. ‘That period has not been computerised yet, and the records are kept on this floor. This time, could you hold on, please. Last week I was reprimanded for making a foreign call without permission.’
‘Aye sure. Sorry about that; your bean counters must be worse than ours.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Nothin’, nothin’. Ah’ll hold on.’
He leaned back in his chair, the phone pressed loosely to his ear, expecting more Bollywood music but hearing instead only the background chatter of an open-plan office. He glanced across at Paterson’s desk but saw that it was empty, and guessed that the DC and DI were pressing on with their task.
He passed the time by listing, mentally and chronologically, the fictional officers who had been Jim Taggart’s colleagues and successors, and the names of the actors who had played them. He was wondering, not for the first time, about the real relationship between Mike and Jackie, when he heard the phone in Mauritius being picked up.
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