‘Let’s take that as read,’ I said to Clive. ‘Now go ahead, First Minister. Since you’re not going to offer me tea, coffee or Irn Bru, you’d better ask me the question you invited me here to answer.’
Unlike Field’s superficial smile, his was open and genuine. In truth, Clive Graham is one of those colleagues that I regard as a friend, all politics set aside. Sometimes I regret that we aren’t in the same party, but no way am I going to join his, and he left mine twenty-five years ago. ‘Okay, Aileen,’ he chuckled. ‘Did you talk to him?’
‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘At least that’s how it started. But I am not going into detail, not even with you, Clive, and certainly not with a third party who doesn’t seem to have any regard for my husband, or any idea of what makes him tick.’
‘And you do, Ms de Marco?’ Field murmured.
Second time around I didn’t even bother to look at her. ‘Oh yes, dear. Be sure I do.’ I focused on the First Minister. ‘Well?’ I challenged.
He nodded. ‘Do we have a problem with him?’ he asked.
‘Oh, yes,’ I replied. ‘We certainly do. And if the chief constable here thinks she can sweep him aside in ACPOS, she really doesn’t have a bloody clue who she’s dealing with.’ I held his gaze. ‘I’d like her to leave now,’ I said.
He shifted in his chair, awkwardly, as if his nuts needed rearranging, but Field removed his problem. She stood. ‘As it happens,’ she drawled, ‘I must go anyway. I’ll leave you to your plotting. I find politics so intriguing,’ she added. ‘All that stuff behind the Speaker’s Chair, when we all know how it’s going to finish, even you, Ms de Marco. Your husband is a dinosaur, and their time is long past.’
I couldn’t hold back any longer. ‘And what are you?’ I snapped. ‘The fucking meteor that wiped them out? Alongside him, you’re a pebble.’
I watched her, every step of the way to the door. ‘God, Aileen,’ Clive Graham gasped as it closed, ‘you don’t mind who you cross, do you? That woman is powerful. If she tries to influence her force and their families against you. .’
‘What’s she going to do? Book me for parking every time I step out of my car?’
‘She has ten thousand people under her command,’ he pointed out. ‘If she spread the word that you were to be opposed at the next election. .’
‘I’d find out about it the day it happened.’ I glared at him. ‘Clive, I am up to here with being underestimated. Don’t you bloody start or. .’
‘Or what?’ he chuckled. ‘You’ll wind up the Lib Dems and the Tories to back you in a no-confidence vote? You know that neither of us want that.’ He frowned. ‘So, things did not go well, I gather, when you had your discussion with Bob?’
‘It wasn’t as calm as that,’ I told him.
‘Do you want to back off from public support for the bill?’ he asked.
‘Hell no! The day I vote according to the whim or instruction of Bob Skinner, you’ll know I’m finished in politics.’
‘Fine, but if you want to take a step back when the bill is published, I’ll understand. I appreciate that you’re in a very difficult situation, domestically.’
‘I’m not the one who’s making it difficult,’ I snapped, ‘so I’ll cope.’
‘What’s he saying? Can I ask that? Not to leave this room, of course.’
I looked him in the eye. ‘Can I trust you on that?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, because I know you’ll kill me if I break my word.’
‘True; keep that thought in your mind because it’s apposite. Bob is saying, “Over your dead body,” almost as directly as that. He’s said that he will oppose an all-force merger publicly, and that if he loses and it happens it’ll be a resignation issue for him.’
‘You’ve pointed out to him that the police are meant to keep out of politics?’
‘Of course I have,’ I sighed. ‘You can tell him yourself if you want. He’ll assume that we’re having this conversation, so if you call him in here and warn him off, it won’t make it any worse between us.’
‘Would it work, do you think?’
‘Hah!’ I laughed. ‘No chance. You make your speech, and issue as formal a warning as you like; he’ll point out to you that “politician” and “policeman” both have the same root and mean essentially the same thing, interpreted in different ways. That’s one of his dinner table favourites when he’s among my colleagues. Some of them call him Bob the Greek.’
‘And would it matter,’ he wondered, ‘if I told him he was wrong, that while the two English words are similar, “police” flows from the ancient Greek “polissoos”, meaning city guard, while the derivation of “politics” is the word “politika”, and that comes from Aristotle?’
‘I’d like to be there when you tell him,’ I said, ‘if only to mop you up. You might want to change the waistcoat for a tartan with a bit more red in it.’
He winced. ‘Do think Toni Field can swing ACPOS behind her?’
‘Bob does,’ I conceded. ‘I’m not so sure. When he goes to the next meeting, or even gets on the phone before it happens, and tells them that the main parties are ganging up to force their will on the police service, he may well pull some waverers behind him. And now that I’ve seen how presumptuously fucking arrogant the woman is. .’
‘Damn,’ the First Minister muttered. ‘I’d hoped to avoid this. I like Bob; I don’t want a confrontation.’
‘Then don’t have one,’ I advised. ‘Ignore him.’
‘I don’t know if I can do that,’ he replied. ‘If he really cranks up his public opposition, I may have to do something about it. I hate to think of suspension, but. .’
My mouth fell open. ‘Are you crazy?’ I gasped. ‘You suspend him, and you will have one of the smartest young solicitors in the country briefing the best QC in the country, to take you to court. You’ll have made this into an election issue, when that’s exactly what we want to avoid. If that happens my party might well reconsider its support for the bill.’
‘How would you feel about that? Are you one hundred per cent behind it?’
‘Yes, I am,’ I admitted, ‘and not just on cost grounds. But I don’t want to have to tell Bob that. Christ, we’re shaky enough.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Clive said, and I could see that he was.
‘Let it lie,’ I urged him again. ‘Bob won’t keep quiet about the bill, but he won’t lead protest marches either. He’ll use what media contacts he has, the likes of June Crampsey in the
‘But how will you come out of it? Your marriage? What if he does resign, and blames you?’
I shrugged. ‘There’s another side to that coin. Suppose he does kick up a big enough media storm to swing my lot against the bill, with me on record as supporting? I’d have to quit if that happened. Either way, one of us is going to wind up blaming the other. Will we survive that as a couple? To be honest, Clive, I don’t know.’
‘My sympathies, Aileen,’ he said. ‘I’m truly sorry I got you into this.’
‘You didn’t,’ I retorted. ‘He did, by being the most intractable son-of-a-bitch on the face of the earth.’
He reached into the drawer to his right, the one where I’d kept my personal stuff, and took something out. ‘In the spirit of amity,’ he murmured as he pushed an envelope across to me. ‘There’s an event in the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow tomorrow evening, a concert in aid of a range of charities including police, and one that supports battlefield casualties and the families of the dead. I’m the guest of honour: they’ve sent me four tickets. I had thought to take my private secretary and his wife, but his boss has vetoed it on some spurious ground of official impropriety. If you’d like to come, I’d be very pleased; and if you could talk your husband into escorting you, it might cool things down a little.’
I picked up the tickets. ‘Thanks, Clive, I’ll try to persuade him. If he won’t I’ll come anyway. My stepdaughter might join me, if it’s her scene. Who’s performing anyway?’
‘A classical pianist that I’ve never heard of; I’m more of a jazz man, myself. His name’s Theo Fabrizzi. Quite a star, apparently.’
‘Theo Fabrizzi?’ I repeated. ‘I didn’t know Italy had any pianists. I thought they specialised in tenors.’
‘He isn’t Italian, although most people assume it. They sent me his bio. Yes, his great-grandfather was an Italian prime minister, back in the very old days. He was a socialist, so it got very uncomfortable when Mussolini came to power. He left the country in a hurry and settled his family in Beirut. That’s where Fabrizzi lives.’
