Saturday night I’m having dinner with number-one daughter, Alex. Sunday morning, I’ve got a golf tie that I can’t postpone, because it involves other people. How about late Sunday afternoon, at your Edinburgh place?’
‘What if the press are staking it out?’
‘They won’t be.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘Because Special Branch are keeping an eye on you when you’re in Edinburgh. They’ll move them on.’
She gasped. ‘Did you think of asking me before you did that?’
‘Yes, and then I decided not to. You’re First Minister in waiting: I’d do the same for anyone. It’s not just about privacy; there’s the security aspect as well.’
‘Is that something I’ll have to live with, if I get this job?’
‘You’ll be entitled to it, but it won’t be forced on you. It won’t be obtrusive, I promise, and when we’re able to come absolutely clean about our relationship, there’ll be less call for it.’
‘You mean you’ll be all the protection I need?’
‘Something like that.’ He caught the waiter’s eye and signalled for the bill. ‘Sunday it is then, around five?’
‘Okay. I’ll cook something: that’ll probably finish us.’ She fell silent, as the bill arrived: Bob paid in cash. ‘This London trip,’ she continued, after the waiter had gone to fetch their coats, ‘you can’t tell me what it’s about?’
‘It’s sensitive.’
‘My security clearance is pretty high, you know.’
He laughed. ‘You’re right, it is: I’d forgotten that. Okay, between us, there’s a situation in the security services. The directors want someone from outside to run an inquiry, and I’m the man.’
Aileen whistled. ‘Must be serious for them to bring in an outsider.’
‘How does the word “treason” sit with you? I’ve investigated everything else in my time, but this is a first.’
‘My God, that serious? It’ll take a couple of weeks, you reckon?’
‘That’s what I’ve allowed, but to be honest, I haven’t a clue.’
‘Where are you staying?’
‘They’ve booked us into a hotel called the Royal Horseguards. Why do you ask?’
‘There’s a meeting at the Home Office next Wednesday,’ she said, ‘to discuss progress on the new casinos. Next day, there’s a session on immigration. The Home Secretary’s chairing the first one, so I have to go. In that event, I might as well stay and do the second meeting. Lena hasn’t booked the accommodation yet. Wouldn’t it be a coincidence if we wound up in the same hotel?’
‘It would,’ Bob agreed. ‘It would also be fairly embarrassing for the officer who’ll be accompanying me on the trip. I could rely on that person’s discretion, I’m sure, but I’d rather not have to, if you see what I mean; personal and professional overlapping, and all that.’
‘True. I hadn’t thought about that.’
‘On the other hand, if you found that you were booked into, say, the Charing Cross Hotel . . . When I’m away, I always go for a walk before I turn in. Sometimes I stay out for hours.’
Five
Dottie Shannon lived in a flat in Elbe Street, so close to the police station in Queen Charlotte Street that she always came to work in uniform. She was about to go home to change for her appointment with the deputy chief constable when DS Pye appeared in the open doorway of her office.
‘Got a minute?’ he asked.
‘Just one, Sammy, literally. I have a meeting out of the office this afternoon.’
‘That’s funny, so has my boss.’
The inspector’s curiosity was triggered. ‘Indeed? Where’s Mr McGuire’s, did he say?’
‘Fettes, half three. I won’t keep you, if you’re in a rush. I just wanted to know whether you’d had any reports back from the hospitals about our failed armed robber.’
Shannon took longer than normal to reply: she was still pondering the fact that she and Detective Superintendent Mario McGuire had appointments in the same place, at the same time. Fettes was a big building, and there was always plenty going on there, but still . . . To a good copper there was no such thing as coincidence. ‘No,’ she said finally. ‘No, I haven’t. Nothing positive at any rate. Our lad hasn’t turned up at the Eastern, the Royal or the Western General looking for treatment. I widened the search as far as Livingston, but no joy there either. If he does arrive anywhere we’ll hear about it . . . or you will at least. I told my colleagues to pass any information to you.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Anything else we can do?’
Pye scratched his head. ‘If we don’t get anything from the hospitals soon, we might have to start asking around the city GPs, but I’m holding off on that. The scene-of-crime woman took a print from the finger, and I’m waiting to hear if Criminal Intelligence has it on file.’
‘Fine, but in the meantime, could this bloke have bled to death?’
‘From the amount of blood in the betting shop, and in the street outside, I’m advised by the SOCO that it’s unlikely. He’ll need medical attention at some point, sure, but if he’s a junkie, like Starr said, there’s a good chance he’s gone home and shot up again, to kill the pain.’
‘What about Starr? What’s the CID view on him?’
‘He’s a shit. Would the uniform branch disagree?’
Shannon grinned, showing the gold filling in one of her teeth. ‘We’d concur, but, as you know damn well, I meant, do you see him as offender as well as victim?’
‘Difficult. I’ve talked to Superintendent McGuire about that: his instinct is that the fiscal’s office would be reluctant to lay a charge. What would it be? Assault, probably. He’d go to trial, and his defence would be pretty obvious. Odds in favour of conviction? Probably against, even money at most, but suppose he was found guilty, you can be sure it would go to appeal. It could become a test case, a
‘So you’ve let him go without caution or charge?’
‘No, I cautioned him formally before he made his statement. His lawyer was there, I had to.’
‘How did he take that?’
‘Oliver Poole, the solicitor, told him that it was normal procedure and that he shouldn’t worry about it. He was right, too. So I took his statement, and turned him loose. I told him that the SOCOs would have to hold on to the cash for a while, in case we need more prints. That annoyed him a bit, I’m glad to say.’
‘Does that mean you’ve hit the buffers already?’
‘Almost. I’ve got his board man, James Smith, in the interview room now. Starr was right: he does hum a bit. I’d better get shot of him, and let you go to your meeting, too.’
Pye closed the door as he left. His mind was on Shannon and her appointment as he walked back to the interview room where Big Ming was waiting. He liked the inspector: she was something of a fixture in the Leith office, popular with the officers under her command, but not too much, always careful to maintain a proper balance between familiarity and authority. She reminded him a lot of Karen Neville, his DS friend from his uniform days in the Haddington office, as she had been before she stunned the force by marrying Andy Martin, then the head of CID, and settling down to a life of blissful domesticity. He found himself wondering if Dottie’s private life was as interesting as Karen’s had been. She was pushing forty, he knew, and single. He had heard a hint in the locker room of a relationship that had ended badly, but when he had asked about it, the whisperer had clammed up, so he had let it go.
Big Ming was unhappy when Pye rejoined him. His body odour was more rank too, as if it was an inbuilt gauge of his mood. ‘How long is this goin’ tae take?’ he asked.
‘Got anything better to do?’ the detective shot back. ‘Your boss knows where you are.’
‘It’s lunch-time,’ Smith grumbled.
‘Oh, yes, I forgot,’ said Pye, as he switched on the tape-recorder on the desk. ‘And you never had your bacon
