Thursday legends - Skinner 10 (15 page)

"This
is it, son,' he said. "There's stuff in here that the
Sun
would
die for. You're honoured, you know. You've been cleared to see all of it.' He
smiled at Steele's surprise. 'You don't think we let any old plod walk in here,
do you?'

Nonetheless,
as he dialled up the first combination, he was careful to shield the lock with
his body from the Sergeant's view.

He
released the lock and swung the double doors open. The cupboard was full of
side-racked files, row above row; the Inspector crouched beside them and
flicked through the fourth row from the floor, then the third. 'This is where
it begins,' he said. 'Alec Smith's reign as SB Commander. His files take up all
the second cabinet and go on into the third.'

He
straightened up. 'You're going to see things in here that will surprise you.
Files on famous names, and I'm not just talking about the Bolsheviks. These
cupboards are all about real or potential threats to national security; they
cover, literally, a multitude of sins. For example, I've got files on three
members of the Scottish Government. One of them's a closet lesbian, another's a
thief, and the third was a once member of a group which was suspected of
feeding information on potential targets to the ERA.'

'What
do you do with information like that?'

'I
pass it straight to Big Bob; I'm only a finder-out, he's the do-er. In those
cases I happen to know that he's shown the files to the First Minister and his
Deputy. The three subjects are still in their jobs, but I'd expect two of them
to disappear at the first reshuffle. Not the gay lady, though. Sex is nothing;
in the fifties it was everything, but nowadays no-one cares how people get
their rocks off
...
unless it involves
children or farm animals, that is.

'Forty
years ago, homosexuality was illegal, now it's almost bloody fashionable.'

'Why
the file on her then?' Steele asked.

'Because
it was there. SB was asked to vet her and it turned up in the process. There is
a slight complication in the case which might make her vulnerable; she's
married and has two children.'

'What
will we find in Alec Smith's files?'

'Some
right goodies. There's one on a former Lord Advocate who was into porking wee
boys. Big Bob showed the file to Hughie Fulton, who was the Secretary of
State's security adviser at the time. Fulton came back to him and ordered him
to burn it. The DCC - he was a Chief Super then - went to see Proud Jimmy about
it. The Chief called Fulton into his office and told him that if the guy wasn't
removed, his file would be left accidentally in the
Scotsman
newsroom,
and the Secretary of State's along with it. Exit Lord Advocate.'

'How
do you know all that?'

'Because
the file's still in that cupboard, with a note of Bob Skinner's conversations with
Fulton, and a tape of the meeting in the Chief's office. Makes good listening,
I tell you.'

'What
happened to Fulton?'

McGuire
frowned. 'That's not on file. No-one knows, but he vanished overnight, straight
after the Syrian thing, and Big Bob took over his job. He did it for a while
until he fell out with the Secretary of State.'

'What
is the Secretary of State's security adviser anyway?' the young Sergeant asked.

'A
superspook. MI5. Plays a whole different level of the security business, way
above simple flatfeet like you and me.'

'And
Mr Skinner used to do that?'

The
Inspector gave him a long look. 'You're cleared to be in this room, so I'll
tell you this. Sir John Govan, the retired Strathclyde Chief, does it now, but
the Big Man's still connected. It comes in handy from time to time, like last
year up in the Conference Centre.

'Come
on,' he said briskly. 'Let's get started on taking Alec apart and looking for
his machinery. I think the sensible thing to do would be to start at the end of
his time in office and work back.' He opened the other two cupboards,
identified a series of files in the top row of the third and took them out.

'This
is going to be a long job, Stevie. We're going to have to check all these out and
assess whether the subject was a potential threat to Alec, or whether there was
an association between them that carried over beyond his police career.

'There's
only one constraint on you.' He produced a list from his desk. 'There's a note
of all the members of the current Police Board. If you come across old files on
any of them, or on any serving officers, give them to me.'

Steele
drew in his breath for a second. 'Have we got files on many of the
councillors?'

'I've
got current files on every fucking one of them. See that kind old uncle of a
Chief Constable of ours? When he has to, he can be a right ruthless bastard,
just like his Deputy.. Sir

James
is more of a politician than all that lot put together. He had trouble with
them once, just once. It took him about one minute to scare them back into
line. He knows the power of information; so do I, and I learned about it in
this room.'

He
separated the files into two lots and handed one to the young Sergeant. 'Any
questions?'

'Just
one. Who's got your file?'

'Big
Bob.'

'And
who's got his?'

'I
don't know, and I'm glad. Because I've got a feeling that there are things on
it that I'd rather not know.'

17

As
he rang the Lewis doorbell, Andy Martin was thinking about Sarah's advice,
thinking hard. When Juliet Lewis opened the door he snapped back to the
present.

'Good
evening, Andy,' she said. There was nothing but welcome in her voice. 'You
after my older daughter?'

'Yeah.
I've got a couple of tickets waiting for us out at UCI.'

'You
look as though you need a break. Come on in, Rhian's not quite ready.' She led
the way up to the living room. He had never been upstairs before, but the house
was built identically to his own, so the layout was familiar. He glanced around
the room; it was expensively furnished, in modern style, with a large
television set in the corner beside the patio doors. On the other side, a
parrot, red the dominant colour among its plumage, sat on a swing in a big
cage.

'Who
are you then?' he asked. 'I'm Andy.'

'I'm
Andy! I'm Andy!' the bird cawed.

'Clever
bugger,' Martin chuckled.

'Clever
bugger! Clever bugger!'

He
turned to Rhian's mother, thinking as he did, that he could see what Spike
Thomson saw in her. She was wearing cotton slacks and a sleeveless top which
did her no disservice at all.

'Quite
a mimic, isn't he?' she said. 'Say anything to him, anything at all, and he'll
copy it. His name's Hererro; some
South
American reference, I was told. I rescued him not long ago. His owner was
leaving the country for good. I haven't had a quiet moment since.'

'I
sympathise. You were right about me needing some time off.' He smiled.
'Normally, Edinburgh isn't a particularly dangerous place, but for the last few
years, when things have happened, they've tended to come in clusters. Having
two murder investigations running simultaneously isn't normal for us, but it
isn't unprecedented either.'

'I
know,' Juliet answered. 'My division at Victoria Dock deals with the incidence
of crime, among other things. It's just so unpredictable, isn't it? I've
actually been out into the field with serving officers; often I think to myself
that we civil servants should know more about how the police work. Do you think
it would be feasible for some of us to be seconded to forces?'

'I
don't see why not. Why don't you float the idea with Ministers? If they give it
the okay, I'm sure you could work something out with the Chief Constables.'

'Whose
number you will be joining quite soon, I hear.' He looked at her in surprise.
'Come on,' she said, reading him. 'You're sleeping with my daughter; not only
that, you're more than ten years older than she is. You think I wouldn't check
you out?'

'Not
at all. I'm just a bit disturbed that you could.'

'I
have my sources
...
although, like
you, I wouldn't dream of revealing them.'

'Sir
John Govan,' he said. She flushed and he knew that he was right.

'I
couldn't possibly say. Anyway, I was told that there will be an ACC job coming
up in Strathclyde in round about
a year
and that you're favourite for it.'

He
laughed. 'Jock was always a manipulator. I haven't even thought about it.'

'You
don't have to. Everybody and his mother knows that Bob Skinner was offered the
Strathclyde Chief's job and turned it down flat. So it's the logical place for
you.'

'Why?'

'You
know quite well why.'

He
smiled at her, amused by the game, and in spite of himself a little flattered.
'And what about Bob?' he asked. 'What has Jock got planned for him?'

'I
know, but I couldn't possibly tell you, I'd be fired if word got out to him
before everything was ready.'

'Rubbish,
mother,' said Rhian, appearing in the doorway. 'You're going to be head of your
department inside two years, and Permanent Secretary before you're fifty.
You're fireproof.'

'Jesus,'
Andy cried out. 'Enough of the career planning. Let's go and hide out in
another galaxy, a long time ago and far, far away. This one's getting too
bloody crowded.'

She
took his hand and followed him downstairs, waving goodnight to Juliet. The MGF
was outside, top down in the warm evening. He drove slickly up Palmerston
Place, along Morrison Street, and eventually down Holyrood Road, past Dynamic
Earth and the rising Parliament complex. Soon they were heading out of town,
for the UCI multiplex.

'What
about that talk?' Rhian asked, suddenly, her voice raised above the rush of the
wind. 'Are we having it later, finally?'

'No,
let's have it now. Are you serious about this thing, or are you just a young
girl having fun with an older guy?' 'I'm serious.'

'Fine.
Let's see how it goes, then.' 'What about love 'n stuff?'

'I
don't use that word any more. Too bloody dangerous.'

'My
mother's ambitious for me as well as for herself, you know. She's trying to
pair us off, if you haven't guessed.'

'Sure,
I know. That's the norm in some cultures and it seems to work more often than
not, too.'

She
laughed, musically, like a chime in the wind. 'You're not exactly a great
romantic, are you?'

'I've
grown out of that too. I'm me and that's it; but I'm looking for someone. Maybe
it's you.'

'So
am I on trial?'

'No
more than I am with you. So far all we know is that we're good in bed together.
Now we have to find out what else there is.'

'Andy?'
she asked, whispering in his ear as he drew into a parking space outside the
cinema. 'Can you cook?' 'Yes.'

'Thank
God for that'

18

'That's
it, then?' said Dan Pringle. He was gazing at a colour print of a
computer-generated portrait. The subject was a man, in early middle age, with
mousy receding hair. The pointed nose, small eyes and tight little mouth gave
him a slightly rodent-like appearance.

'That's
it, sir,' Detective Sergeant Jack McGurk confirmed. The Superintendent looked
up and felt a pang of jealousy; the newly promoted McGurk was still in his
twenties; almost a quarter of a century lay between them in age, fitness,
enthusiasm and prospects.

Not
that Pringle was dissatisfied with the way his career had gone; Divisional CID
Commander was pretty good by most standards.' But twenty-five years earlier,
when he had stood in McGurk's shoes, his sights had been set higher, on Andy
Martin's office at the very least, and beyond, on the loftier heights of the
Command corridor. He had been wounded when young Martin, new in the
superintendent rank, had been catapulted into the Head of CID post by Roy Old's
death, but he had recognised that the man was on his way somewhere, fast, and
more than that, that he was possessed of a level of energy and a quality of
leadership far beyond his. So he had kept his disappointment to himself, and
had been rewarded by Bob Skinner with a recommendation for the award of the
Queen's Police Medal.