least. Arrow's a good guy. His speciality is counter-terrorism: IRA, UVF, it doesn't matter to him. He loathes them all. He's put a few active service men into early retirement, one way or another. Just recently, he was involved in sorting out something particularly nasty that the Loyalists were planning. Arrow knows something of what happened last winter – but not everything.'
Andy Martin looked at Skinner, and held his eyes. An awkward silence hung in the room, until Martin broke it.
'Bob, I'm your closest colleague, and you've never told even me the whole story of that night. You've changed since then, you know. I tell you this as a friend, that I've noticed a side to you that wasn't there before. Just now and again, it's as if you're somewhere else, in a very scary place. Maybe only people who really know you can see it.'
Skinner had his back to Martin as he replied. It was perhaps as well that the younger man could not see the expression in his grey eyes. 'Andy, I try not to let any of my thoughts show on the outside, but that was something of a night.' Then, suddenly Skinner laughed out loud. 'And I've got a fucking great bullet hole in my leg to remind me!'
The tension broken, Skinner quickly changed the subject.
'Now, the last member of the team. I want to include Sarah. What d'you think? Can I have my own wife on my team?'
Martin looked thoughtful for a second, then looked up and nodded. 'Yes, boss, I'm all for it. She knows how you think, and she's got her Masters in criminal psychology, too. If she can help you, she's helping us all. And since she's still a part-time police surgeon, technically she's an insider as well.'
'Right, Andy,' said Skinner emphatically. 'That's our team picked. Now let's get it on the park. The game's started and the other side's a goal up already!'
8
From the privacy of his own office in the command suite. Skinner made six quick fire telephone calls. The first two were to the divisional detective superintendents at the Torphichen Street and St Leonards police stations, who were, respectively, the line officers Maggie Rose and Mario McGuire. He told them that each would be losing his best sergeant for an indefinite period. He expected no questions or protests, and received none. The third call went to a private number.
The phone was answered on the second ring, and a familiar deep voice sounded on the line. 'McGuire.'
'Hi, Mario. ACC here. Are you alone, or is anyone I know there with you?'
'Well as it happens, sir, DS Rose is watching a video in the living-room. Me? I'm in the kitchen as usual.'
'In that case. Sergeant, I've got good news for you, and bad news for Maggie. You heard about this morning's bang in Princes Street?'
McGuire grunted assent.
'Well, I'm setting up a unit to co-ordinate the search for the cowboys who did it. I want my best on it, so you two are in. Get yourselves down to Fettes right away, and meet me in the SB suite.'
Next he dialled the mobile number of Detective Inspector Brian Mackie, his personal assistant. As Mackie answered. Skinner could hear the din of a crowd.
'Where are you, Brian?'
Tynecastle, sir. Kicked off five minutes ago. The Jam Tarts are one down already.'
'So am I. Give the rest a miss and get into the office.'
For his fifth call. Skinner switched to a green scrambled telephone on his desk. Seconds later he was connected to an MI5 duty officer. He identified himself, and asked the woman to call him back in confirmation. When she did so, he asked her to do everything necessary to have Captain Adam Arrow report to him personally at police headquarters in Edinburgh by 10:00 am the next morning.
Finally, he called his own home number in Edinburgh. Sarah and he had just moved into a bungalow off Queensferry Street, even closer to Fettes Avenue than the flat in Stockbridge from which they had recently moved. He assumed that Sarah herself would answer his call, but he was wrong.
'This is 957 0825. Alex Skinner speaking.'
He smiled at the unexpected sound of his daughter's voice.
'Hi, kid. I thought you were rehearsing up to the last minute.'
'No, Pops. Our director decided that we could only get worse, so he gave us the afternoon off, to rest up. Curtain goes up at 8:00 sharp. Will you be able to get to it, with all this bomb stuff and everything? Sarah told me about it. In fact will you get home at all this evening. Pops? There's someone here I'd like you to meet. My new leading man, you might say.'
'Don't think so. Better postpone the introduction. But unless something else happens, I will make it tonight. So you be good, and if you can't be good, just be sensational. Now put your stepmother on, okay.'
'I think she's in the shower. No, I lie. Just a sec. Sarah! It's your old man!'
Moments later, he heard Sarah's soft New York drawl. 'Hello. honey, where are you?'
'At HQ. Did you get everything cleaned up at your end?'
'Eventually. No other serious casualties. That poor girl looked in worse shape than actually she was. A bad scalp cut; lots of blood – most of it ended up on me. God, was I a mess. I've just done washing it off. Next I'll have to wash the shower-curtain. It looks like that scene from Psycho. When will you be home?'
'Not for a bit yet. But, that's not why I've called. Look, I want you up here now. I'm putting a team together and I want you on it. I need somebody with your sort of expertise, so why not you?'
'Well…' she tried, but failed, to sound matter-of-fact. 'See you in twenty minutes.'
9
Detective Inspector Brian Mackie had found that getting out of a football ground just after kick-off can be more difficult than gaming entry. Having been forced earlier to park his car a mile from Tynecastle Stadium, he found himself the last to join the team in the Special Branch suite. As he arrived, apologetically, the clock on the wall was just approaching 4:00 pm.
Nevertheless, Skinner greeted him with a smile. 'Hello, Brian.
We were beginning to think you'd hung on there for the pies and the Bovril. Hearts were 3-1 up at half-time, in case you hadn't heard.'
'I always had faith in them, boss.'
'God knows why. OK, grab a seat and let's get on with it.'
Skinner walked over to a pinboard fixed to the wall. 'Most of you will know each other, I think. But, Maggie, Mario, have you met Barry Macgregor here?' The two sergeants nodded towards the detective constable who, at twenty-four, was the youngest of the group by several years. Maggie Rose gave him a friendly smile.
'Mind you, even if you hadn't met him, you'd have marked him out, nae bother, as Crime Squad just by the hairdo.' Macgregor's mousy-blond hair was shoulder-length. It was pulled back into a pony-tail, and some of it was braided and ringed with white beads.
The young man grinned, shaking his head vigorously from side to side to make the beads rattle.
'All of you know Dr Sarah Grace, from various crime scenes and elsewhere. Be in no doubt that, although she's my wife, Sarah's here now as Dr Grace, police surgeon, criminal psychologist and fully fledged member of the team. If she slips up, she'll get bollocked just like any of the rest of you. For me,' he said with a sudden broad grin, 'the downside is that if I slip up myself, she'll let me know – in her own special way.'
Then the smile left Skinner's face. 'That's the last laugh you'll get from me for a while. We've been brought together here – and it's a reunion for all of us but you, Barry – by a very nasty incident which took place this morning. For those of you who've only heard the news reports, I'll tell you now what we're dealing with – as far as
