Country of the Blind (7 page)

Because that was the real fear. Parlabane wasn't a catalyst; he didn't stroll through the wreckage and the rubble, oblivious to the havoc he was precipitating. He was a danger to himself and others. While he could often be the one who saw through the facades, who had the intuition and the sheer balls to break a case right open, there was always and equally the possibility that he'd bring the whole thing down on top of himself and anyone else who happened to be in the vicinity.

All of which made him the last person she wanted anywhere near her on a day like today.

"Are you okay, Jen?" he asked, concerned. He had once described her as "as phlegmatic as a spittoon at a bronchitics' convention". It wouldn't take much for him to clock that all was not peachy.

"Look, nothing personal, Jack, but fuck off," she said quietly, eyeing the testosterone casualties stomping loudly about the office. "That's not an instruction, it's a piece of advice, you hearing me?"

"I'm listening, but I'm not picking up much sense. Qu'est-ce que c'est le Hampden?"

"You want to know the score?" she replied in an agitated near-whisper.

"Well as I'm sure you know, somebody just popped the Conservative Party's chief meal-ticket, with the result that they're wheeling out the fucking dancing girls in putting on a show of official reaction. The building's suddenly full of guys with stern faces and smart suits but no name-badges, if you know what I mean. It's like a bad 'tache society reunion. Nobody knows who the fuck these guys are, but the vibe is that they get to ask the questions and you get to do whatever the hell they say."

"G-men types?"

"If it's G for goon squad, aye. Call it a hunch, but I've got an irrational suspicion they know absolutely bugger-all more than anyone else, as the word is that the men in custody aren't saying much that anyone wants to hear, and what they are saying is posing more questions than it answers."

36

"What do you mean? What are they saying?"

I'm not getting into this, she thought. Not today.

"I don't know," she said. "I don't want to know and that's just as well, because it's pretty clear us plain old cops aren't supposed to ask. But whatever it is, it has obviously not been enlightening and constructive. That's the problem: these morons are always ten times as dangerous when they don't know what they're looking for.

"Listen to me, Jack, I knew a guy who was on duty in Brighton the night of the bomb in '84. He said they got orders to round up every Irish person they could find. I mean
every
Irish person. Like fucking
shamrocknacht
, you know?

He says they lifted pretty much anyone with an Irish accent, Irish name, anyone who'd ever visited Dublin for a stag night, anyone who'd ever drunk a pint of Guinness and anyone who'd ever been to Parkhead. Panic, Scoop. Panic and the political
need
to be seen to be taking massive and decisive action.

"That's what's brewing here. They've got four guys in custody with - literally - blood on their hands, but they still don't know what the fuck's going on, why the thing went down, anything. Consequently it's time for Hunt The Motive. They're already out knocking on doors across the country. Lefties, union officials, anyone they can think of. And if memory serves, you crossed swords with the corpse yourself once, didn't you?"

"Something like that."

"Well that would be enough for these eejits. Like I said, Scoop, fuck off. Keep your head down and your mouth shut. I know you've got a personal interest, but you'd be wise to stay well away from this mess."

"You know I can't do that," he said, with what would normally have proved infectious humour.

Jenny sighed. Stay out of this, Jack. Take a holiday.

"Christ, I wish
I
could," she said. "I've got better things to be getting on with. Another dead prostitute in Leith, and the male public being as forthcoming and cooperative as ever, the hypocritical bastards. Mother of three, but who cares, she's just a pro. Could be some nutter on the loose and I can't get any bodies on to the case because of this Voss fiasco. In fact I could hardly get out the fucking station for TV cameras. It's a media menagerie out there - I got swamped nicking out for a roll and bacon a wee while ago. I'd have had to starve if they hadn't started queuing up for their shot at this lawyer who's been making a nuisance of herself."

"Who she?"

"No idea. She showed up about half-eleven, apparently, claiming to represent one of the suspects. She knows fine she can't speak to him, so she started making noises about wanting some evidence to support the use of Prevention of Terrorism powers. Callaghan said she was getting short shrift until she pro37

duced some document, upon which she was immediately wheeched into an office by a couple of the 'tache team. They took their own stat of whatever it was, but Call says she insisted on accompanying them to the photocopier, wouldn't let the thing out of her sight. Half-an-hour later she's out front and the telly's lapping her up. She'll be all over the lunchtime news."

"Brave woman," Parlabane said.

"What do you mean?"

"Well anyone demanding rights for those guys - other than their right to be taken forth from this place and hanged by the neck until dead - is gaunny get some kicking in the press, just doing her job or not. I take it she was pretty young?"

"Yeah," Jenny said, remembering. "I only saw her from a few yards away but she looked a wee bit like her mammy probably didn't know she was out. How did you know?"

"She'll be from some major firm. They'll be happy enough to be involved in this case, for the publicity, but none of the big names will want to be seen sticking up for these guys, not at this stage anyway. I mean, given the climate of bloodlust and retribution over this thing, most firms would see their "defence" role as little more than the formality of delivering their clients into the hands of the sentencing judge."

Oh no. He was off.

"Maybe they've got something, who knows," he continued. "But it sounds to me like they're not sure themselves, otherwise it would be one of their famous names talking to the cameras. Instead they'll send in someone junior - ideally photogenic - who can be 'young and idealistic' in pursuing her cause. They're angling. If it works out, the big man takes over and they wheel her out every so often because the cameras like her. And if it goes nowhere, she can be

'inexperienced and naive' in chasing up a blind alley, and the big man can join in the condemnation of the baddies with everyone else."

Jenny glanced up at the clock. She was in real danger of being sucked into his vortex. Time to eject.

"Well, tell you what, Scoop," she said. "I've got to go. Why don't you tune in and find out. I can't. I've just spotted a formidably solid-looking wall down the corridor and I could really do with banging my head against it."

Parlabane sat back on the settee, having wandered around the room for fully five minutes in a second vain attempt to locate the VCR's remote control before admitting defeat and making the gruelling six-foot journey to the telly to start the tape recording. Pulling his legs up on to the settee, an indulgent luxury of Sarah's absence, he felt a lump under one thigh and proceeded to fish the errant electronic device out from between two of the cushions. 38

"Good afternoon," said the newsreader, in a stern tone of voice that suggested it should be anything but; He is dead! He is dead! Anyone caught not mourning to be reported to Conservative Central Office immediately! Parlabane recognised the anchorwoman as one of those media phenomena that just showed up everywhere, like some kind of human corporate logo. Fashion shows, chat shows, consumer relations and even the news, an abject lack of discernible talent, intelligence or personality having proven no impediment to a rocketing career. He distantly wondered for a moment whose cock she had had to suck to enjoy such success, then realised that on this sort of scale, as Hicks would have suggested, it was probably Satan's.

"Inside information may have played a part in the murders last night of Roland and Helene Voss," she led off, subtly relegating the two dead bodyguards to the appropriate proletarian status of Total Fucking Nobodies. "It has emerged today that the four men apprehended at the scene of the crimes may have been assisted by someone connected with the security operations at Craigurquhart House."

Parlabane snorted in mild amusement at her pronunciation, "Craigurkewhart". Right up there with "Tannadeechee". The programme cut to the location reporter, one of their big-story first-team, no doubt dispatched to replace last night's "Scottish affairs correspondent" as this was of national importance and therefore had to be presented in a Home Counties accent and a trenchcoat. He was standing somewhere in Princes Street Gardens. It was nowhere near L&B HQ, but having the Castle in the background was presumably obligatory for broadcasts from Edinburgh - in the same way that, in London, a backdrop of Buckingham Palace wasn't.

"This latest dramatic development followed the arrival of a lawyer representing one of the suspects, Thomas McInnes. Nicole Carrow, of Glasgow law firm Manson & Boyd, gave police a letter she claims was written by her client more than a week before the murders, in which he says he had received vital information about the security arrangements at Craigurquhart House, and that this information would be used to plan a burglary."

The image cut to a petite figure in a light blue skirt and jacket, walking down the steps of the police building, being swarmed upon by an insect-like infestation of multi-limbed creatures - arms, hands, booms, mics and cameras. The purpose of the chaotic footage was, of course, to underline just how bloody important
this
news programme was when she appeared talking exclusively to them in the next shot.

The autumn breeze blew her straight black hair erratically around her pale, girlish face as she spoke, nervous but determined. Parlabane realised then how flustered Jenny must have been; even if Carrow wasn't one hundred per cent exactly the policewoman's type, she was certainly cute enough to 39

have normally elicited comment. Such declarations of desire were a running joke between them; Jenny indulged in the occasional ostentatious pastiche of dykiness when in Parlabane's company, and he steadfastly made no reaction to it. Neither was ever quite sure who was taking the piss out of who.

"I received an envelope from my client at the beginning of last week," she began, English accent, surprisingly husky voice for her age and size, "and was told he would collect it again today. If he did not, I had instructions to open it. Inside wuh. . . " She cleared her throat, brushed some straggly hair from one eye. "Excuse me. Inside was a letter from my client stating that he had been in receipt of information from someone he believed to be connected to the security staff at Craigurquhart House. But most importantly, he states that this information was being used to plan a
burglary
, as he had been informed that, and I quote, 'someone very rich would be staying there from September the twenty-first to the twenty-fifth'.

"I have presented this letter to the police because I believe it proves not only that my client's motive for breaking into the house was robbery, but also that neither he nor his accomplices knew the identity of this 'very rich' guest. Nonetheless, the police have persisted in refusing me access to my client under Prevention of Terrorism powers, even though what I am in possession of casts a great deal of doubt upon the notion of a plot to assassinate Mr Voss."

"So you believe Thomas McInnes and his gang simply intended to murder and rob
whoever
they found in the house?" the reporter interjected, suddenly having some sort of Jeremy Paxman delusion.

"No," she said, fixing the off-camera interviewer with a scolding, don'tbe-so-fucking-stupid look, "and as a matter of fact I don't believe my client murdered anyone. Right now we're seeing an awful lot in the way of handwringing and hysteria and very little in the way of evidence, and until those proportions change I will be persisting in that belief."

"Ha-ha!" Parlabane clapped his hands in appreciation. "Get that up ye, ya poe-faced bastard," he muttered, momentarily distracted from the nagging thought that something she said earlier was bothering him.

"However," continued the poe-faced bastard, now straight-to-camera once more in his editorialising, This Is The News voice, "the police take a different view of what Miss Carrow's letter implies. Detective Superintendent David Garloch, who has been coordinating an investigation involving police from two different Scottish regional forces, believes it could be a deliberate red herring."

Cut to a tired, middle-aged man in a crumpled suit, looking like he could use a sleep, a coffee and a shower. He was sitting at a desk in an open office area, uniformed officers buzzing around looking serious and busy. The next shot was closer up, without such ambitary distraction. He spoke in tones 40

intended to suggest he was a reasonable man trying to remain mannered and calm in the face of unnecessary frustration, like it wasn't enough he had all this to sort out without some daft tart insisting on rocking the boat.

"I appreciate that in light of how dramatic and distressing last night's events may have been for many people," he said, "any new development may be bound to cause great excitement, but it is vital that we keep our feet on the ground. In this climate of uncertainty, it would be easy to imagine Miss Carrow's apparent revelation as a twist in the tale, but in fact it merely confirms what our investigations have been increasingly leading us to believe - that some kind of security leak facilitated last night's tragic events. And indeed, we are already involved in efforts to establish the source of the leak right now. However, it strikes me as disingenuous to suggest that a few handwritten words can in any way clear the suspicion of a terrorist motive."

"And why do you believe that?"

"Well, Miss Carrow's paragraphs do not actually
prove
the suspects didn't know the identity of whoever would be staying at Craigurquhart House. Indeed it strikes me that by going on about 'some rich person' it sounds very much like McInnes was deliberately attempting to cover up the fact that they
did
know, and you have to ask yourself why that might be. You have to ask yourself why Mr McInnes would deposit such a letter with his lawyer prior to taking part in this atrocity. It seems to me the only reason could be as a damage limitation exercise in the event that he was caught. If he has written a letter claiming he intended merely to rob some anonymous rich guest, and that he did not know that rich guest's identity, it would suggest that Mr Voss was not a premeditated target, as well as protecting whoever might be behind the operation - by suggesting that
no-one
was behind it."