questions that still seemed to be pointing him in a certain inevitable direction. There was his crumbling home life. He had called Sarah from the car that had taken him, and the chief constable, to their supper engagement, to explain that he would not be home at all that night. She had been cold and distant; their brief flickering of understanding a few days earlier had disappeared. He found himself in a huge dilemma, aching for his children, yet knowing that a reunion with them would bring a confrontation with his wife. And third, but not least, there was the world into which he had stepped that night.
He had expected others to have been invited for supper: di Matteo, Rossi and Angelo Collins, certainly, and possibly the Lord Provost and his wife. Yet when they had arrived there had been only four places set: theirs, the Archbishop’s and the last, at the head of the table, for the Pope himself.
The conversation had been largely as promised. Pope John the Twenty-fifth was a hopeless football addict, and had been since boyhood, he revealed. He had played the game in his teens at a decent level; he had played in the Boys Guild, like Gainer, he had turned out as an amateur for Albion Rovers and, like Skinner, he had played for Glasgow University.
The DCC looked at him, as they sat in the Archbishop’s drawing room, supper over and with brandy goblets in their hands. Cardinal Gilbert White had been a familiar figure in Edinburgh, a hugely popular man who had bridged the religious and political chasms that existed across central Scotland. He had been a giant of the city, and it was difficult to conceive that he could have evolved into something even greater.
And yet he had. He wore simple garments, more of a tunic than a suit, and he sat comfortably back in his chair, yet his presence seemed to fill the spacious room. In his career Skinner had stood close to monarchs and princes, prime ministers and presidents, yet until that evening he had never experienced the feeling of being in the presence of true greatness. With it there came a peacefulness that settled on him as a blanket, making him realise how weary he was.
‘So, Jimmy,’ said the Pope to the chief, ‘you’ve been sitting quiet all night listening to Robert and me and the other James here, kicking the ball around. Tell me, how much longer will it take for them to prise you out of that uniform and introduce you to the delights of tending your garden?’
Skinner looked at Proud; it was a question he had never asked himself. He assumed, as did his colleagues, that he would carry on to the last day allowed by law. ‘Not long now,’ he replied. ‘I’d go tomorrow if I thought that this man here would step into my shoes, but he’s showing a marked reluctance to commit himself to that.’
‘What’s this, Bob? Are you denying Lady Proud the pleasure of having her husband around all day?’
The DCC sipped his Amaretto, then scratched his nose, until to his surprise he found himself voicing his thoughts in a way he never had before. ‘You make me aware of my own selfishness, Your Holiness. I confess that I welcome Jimmy’s continuing presence in that office of his, because every day he spends there delays the moment when I have to make what will probably be my last career decision. I’m not so arrogant that I assume his job is mine for the asking, but I know of his ambitions for me, and it would make me feel bad if I had to deny them.’
‘Are you saying you might not apply for the chief’s job when it becomes vacant?’
‘Possibly. Would you have me apply for it if it went against my instincts and my conscience?’
‘I would never have anyone deny his conscience, but that’s just a word you’re throwing around. You’re using it to mask your resistance to change. I know this because I’ve been there myself. I didn’t seek the office I now hold . . . you don’t apply for this job, son. When it was put to me, I thought at first, I can’t do this. I’m a pastor, a priest among priests, not above them. But then it came to me that the College of Cardinals hasn’t made too many mistakes in recent centuries, and that my brethren calling to me with such unanimity were in a way the collective voice of God. I’m not bestowing divinity on Jimmy, here, but he’s a wise man and if he feels you’re his natural successor, don’t you owe it to him and to yourself and to your city to listen to him?’
‘But, Your Holiness, we’re completely different sorts of policeman. I could never do his job the way he’s done it over the years.’
‘Then do it your way,’ said the Pope, quietly. ‘He’s had you as his deputy. So what’s to stop you finding a deputy like him?’
Skinner laughed. ‘He’s a one-off.’
‘So are you. Bob, I’m not simply arguing my friend Jimmy’s case here, I’m arguing my own,’ he nodded to his left, ‘and that of Archbishop Gainer. We love this city and we want to see it in the safest possible hands.’
‘Your Holiness . . .’
‘Think about it, that’s all I ask . . . Well, that and one other thing. I won’t say that I don’t feel more holy in my exalted state, for it would be impossible not to, looking down on all those thousands in St Peter’s Square, but that title is an awful mouthful for evenings like this. Since my first days as a priest, my closest friends have called me Father Gibb. Please join them.’
‘Thank you, Father, for that honour,’ said the DCC. ‘In fact I heard that name for the first time a few days ago.’
‘Yes, and from my old friend Auguste, I believe.’
‘That’s right.’
Father Gibb frowned. ‘Angelo told me of the tragedies that befell his colleagues. Do they relate to me, do you think?’
‘They make me uncomfortable, but they don’t, not that I can see. To be truthful I don’t know what’s behind them.’
‘But there is a threat to me. Tell me, Bob, I can sense it anyway.’
It was impossible to dissemble before the man, to hold anything back. ‘Yes, there is,’ Skinner replied. ‘Two people. We believe they were planted here by al Qaeda, or by the greater network of which it’s a part, to await your visit. We know who they are, although not where they are or what they’re planning. Whatever it is, they’re long odds against now we can put faces to them. If I may say so, you don’t seem surprised.’
‘I have felt the presence of a threat since my coronation,’ said the pontiff. ‘And I have felt also that it would be at its greatest when I was among those closest to me.’ He gave a twinkling smile. ‘Without giving myself any more airs and graces, there’s a precedent for that, you know.’ He reached across and touched Skinner on the arm. ‘Try to do them no harm, please.’
‘Our first duty is to protect, Father Gibb, but we’ll try to shed no blood, I promise.’ He looked across at the chief, who nodded in support.
‘Going back to Malou,’ said Skinner, ‘we’re protecting him now also, and his bandsmen. Is there anything you can tell me that might help us identify the killers of Hanno and Lebeau?’
For the first time that night, John the Twenty-fifth looked his age; he frowned and closed his eyes, as if he was in prayer. Eventually he turned back to the DCC. ‘I can’t tell you all I know about Auguste Malou, because much of it came to me in the confessional.
‘He was a soldier when we met, a young officer. It was over forty years ago, but he was carrying a burden even then. Although he was absolved of his guilt, the letters we have exchanged over the years tell me that he bears it to this day.’
‘Have you seen him since your time in Belgium?’
‘No.’ He shot a bright glance across at Skinner. ‘But what makes you think I met him there?’
‘If not, where?’
‘During my time as a curate at Saint-Gudule, I joined a mercy mission to the civil war in Africa, in which the Belgian army was embroiled. Malou was a young lieutenant then. We met in the Congo.’
83
Neil McIlhenney was waiting in his office when the car dropped Skinner back at Fettes at ten minutes before one. ‘The New Yorkers?’ he asked.
‘Been and gone. When I showed Donegan the photograph of Aurelia Middlemass, the poor guy broke down in tears.’
‘How about the other one?’
‘Progress. I showed him the Kabul picture and the photofit treatments that we’d produced from it. He sparked on one, so I pulled in an operator and we worked up one that he reckoned was pretty much spot on for the version he met in New York. I sent that to Merle Gower on her e-mail; she was going to pass it straight on to her people at
