68
If smiles could cut you, Andy Martin thought to himself, Ballantyne would be bleeding all over the place.
The tension between the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Scotland was obvious to the six other people in the room:
Martin himself, Brian Mackie, the ministers' two private secretaries Fowler and Shields, and the PM's two protection officers. From chance remarks it was also obvious that the appearance by the country's leader at this concert had been Ballantyne's idea rather than his own.
The Prime Minister was a small man, almost slender alongside the stocky bulk of Ballantyne, but his firecracker temper was known to equal that of even his most formidable predecessor. He was clearly not best pleased to be here in Edinburgh, in the firing line, in the rain. The conversation between the two ministers remained polite, but it was stilted. They were clearly not the closest of political allies. And although the PM was working hard to maintain an affable front, every so often the truth of his feelings would flash in his eyes, behind the spectacles, betraying the insincerity of his professional smile.
It was a relief to everyone when Martin's radio crackled into life on an open channel. Only he could hear the voice through his earpiece. It was distorted, but it was unmistakably Skinner. 'It's all secure up here, Andy. The punters are in their seats, the orchestra's tuning up, and the blue touch paper's lit. It's five to ten, so let's get the show on the road.'
Martin snapped an acknowledgement into the handset, then turned to his charges. 'All's well, gentlemen, so if you're ready…'
'Yes,' said the Prime Minister, fixing Ballantyne with his frostiest and least sincere smile. 'I love a good fireworks display in the rain, sitting behind a bullet-proof shield! Let's go, Alan, and do your duty!' m
69
The rain still poured down, the thunder crashed and the lightning flashed, like some great overture to the fireworks to come.
The motorcyclists and the escort cars peeled off as soon as the convoy entered the Gardens. Watching from above. Skinner and Maggie Rose could follow the Jaguar's headlights as they cut a path through the dark to the entrance to the Ross Theatre.
Expertly, the PM's driver swung the car round, and reversed it up' to stop a few feet in front of four empty seats, two of them with massive sentinels positioned behind them.
Martin and Mackie, in heavy anoraks and flat caps, jumped out; and scanned the audience. Then Martin leaned back into the car and spoke softly. The Prime Minister stepped out first, and then the Secretary of State for Scotland, each in heavy rainwear. Their arrival in the darkness went unseen by the great majority of the audience, but they were greeted by a round of polite applause nonetheless, led by the Concert's guest conductor, Daniel Greenspan, standing well back on his spotlit rostrum, only just out of the pounding rain.
The Prime Minister was ramrod straight, and smiled widely around him as he walked the few steps to his seat. Behind him, Ballantyne, glum and nervous, hurried to sit down under the cover provided by Mario McGuire. Martin took the seat immediately beside the PM, while Mackie flanked the Secretary of State. Each detective kept a hand inside his jacket, on the butt of his pistol.
Greenspan turned to face the orchestra and raised his baton.
70
Skinner felt Maggie Rose jump slightly beside him, in involuntary alarm, as the first firework. launched from the wide area around the foot of the Castle rock, exploded in synchronicity with the first bars of Aaron Copland's 'Outdoor' overture.
'Get used to it, Maggie. Keep looking around, and keep your fingers crossed that's all you'll see or hear.'
For some while it seemed as if Skinner's hope against hope would be fulfilled.
As the Concert unfolded, the unamplified music boomed up towards them on their battlement. Different shapes, colours and patterns of light burst all around them, as the pyrotechnics lit the night sky, in uncanny harmony with the music.
Skinner concentrated his view to the left, and Rose kept hers to the right. From time to time, flashes from the fireworks were channelled through the night-glasses and blinded them, but as the hour's duration of the concert wore on, they were able, between them, to keep under observation the whole of the area surrounding the Gardens and the theatre. They could see nothing untoward, only the enthusiastic crowds down in the Street, as they jumped and clapped with each new wonder of light in the dark sky.
At last, the programme reached its climax, Handel's Musicor the Royal Fireworks.
'They're nearly at the end now,' Skinner called out above the noise to his two companions. 'So far, so-'
He was cut short by the sound of an explosion, carrying clearly through a lull in the music, and a momentary break in the fireworks. It came from their left.
Skinner swept his glasses along Princes Street to the Caledonian Hotel, but saw nothing untoward. Carrying on, he scanned along Castle Terrace. Saltire Court and the Traverse Theatre seemed undisturbed, and from what he could see of the Usher Hall and we Sheraton, they too looked undamaged. But beyond them, beyond the Royal Lyceum, in Lothian Road, to the left of the high top of Capital House, he saw a billowing cloud of smoke and dust rising and shining in the floodlights which illuminated the front of the building which had been home to the Film Festival.
His radio was in his hand in a second. 'Major incident, Filmhouse,' he barked into the open line. 'All emergency services required now. Every second officer in Princes Street go to the scene, immediately.'
Just as he finished issuing the order, he heard the tail-end of a second blast, this time sounding from the right.
Again Skinner swung round, searching through the glasses, but something took him instinctively to the Balmoral. The hotel's foyer was out of his line of sight, but his eye was caught at once by the shattered windows in its side. Then he saw the smoke of the; bomb as it spread outwards in a mushroom from the front of the huge, square stone building.
'Jesus Christ, there's been another.'
The radio mike was in his hand once more. 'Second explosion, Balmoral Hotel. Emergency services respond again. Headquarters, let's get every policeman in Edinburgh into this area!'
He was still issuing his orders when Maggie Rose grabbed his arm. 'Sir, what's that over there, on the Mound?'
He followed her finger pointing into the night, until his glasses found the stationary lorry. It was big and flat-backed, and it seemed to have been pulled right up on to the pavement, just at the point where the curving section of the Mound straightened to run down towards Princes Street, past the National Gallery. The lorry's cab was empty, but its curtain side, facing the Gardens, had been pulled open, and four figures stood on its platform.
Skinner could see them clearly – and could see clearly what they were doing.
Two of them clasped bulky, box-like objects to their shoulders, while the others were braced against them, to hold them steady.
'Andy!' he roared into the radio. 'Get them into the car, now, they've got missiles! In the car! In the car! In the car!'
And as he spoke he saw the launchers fire, simultaneously. He followed the path of the squat fly-by-wire projectiles as each homed in on its target.
'Down! Down! Everybody down.' He screamed into the radio, and into the darkness of the Garden
