chief constable’s office in the West Midlands force.
I’d met her only once before that afternoon and it had taken me five minutes to realise that she had arrived in Scotland with a very simple plan. Support the unified force, then take the top post and use it as a springboard to the ultimate policing job in Britain: Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service. Good luck to her, I thought. If she was happy with reporting to a mop-headed clown elected on a populist ticket, then good for her, but she wasn’t going to do it by helping to destroy the force that I knew in Scotland, the one to which I’d dedicated my life. I believe unequivocally in local accountability in policing; maybe that comes from John Wintergreen too.
I wasn’t able to hide my antipathy to the woman, but I was careful not to invite any accusation of either sexism or racism. On Maggie Steele’s advice, I wore my uniform to the meeting, as I knew Field would, and I addressed her formally, by rank; no first-name terms, lest she accuse me of being patronising.
In the debate, the antis had lined up behind me. At the end of the day it had come down to the casting vote of the chair and Andy was opposed, so I won the day, but I knew quite well that Field would ensure it was raised again at our next meeting, at which the chair would pass to Max Allan, the Strathclyde ACC, and it was assumed that he would side with his boss, not because he’s a toady, but because the long-serving Glasgow people are all imperialists at heart.
I wasn’t going to talk about the meeting, but Aileen asked me straight out how it had gone, as soon as I settled into my chair in the garden room. I told her what had happened, and what my prediction was for the future.
‘The First Minister’s trying to railroad ACPOS into backing the proposal,’ I said, ‘even if it’s only by one vote, so he can bang the legislation through before the next election and claim that he has our support. I like Clive Graham, but I’m not letting him get away with this one. I tell you, I’ll fight this in the Association, and in public if I have to, right up to the very end.’
‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ my wife murmured.
I stared at her. ‘You what?’ I gasped. I thought I’d misheard her.
‘I said that I’d rather you didn’t.’
‘Eh?’ Yes, I had heard her right, but still I didn’t believe her. ‘Why the hell not?’
‘Because Labour’s going to support the government; we’re going to back the bill.’
‘You’re going to WHAT?’ I roared. I’d never raised my voice to her before; I’d never been angered by her before, and I’d never imagined that I could be. And yet. .
I worried that the children might have heard me, until I remembered that the three of them were at their mother’s place in Edinburgh. Nevertheless I made an effort to rein myself in.
‘How in God’s name,’ I asked her, as quietly as I’d been loud before, ‘can you bring yourself to do that when you know that I’m completely opposed to it? Please tell me you didn’t vote for this within your party group; tell me you were overruled.’
‘I can’t,’ she replied, ‘because I wasn’t; the decision was unanimous. My colleagues and I all believe that it’s the best option on cost grounds.’
‘Cost?’ I hissed. ‘You’re prepared to jeopardise the efficiency of the police service to save a few quid?’
‘It’s more than a few quid, Bob,’ she shot back at me. ‘And how exactly will it affect efficiency?’
‘How exactly?’ I mimicked. ‘The present structure’s bad enough; now you’re going to ask cops in Lerwick to implement policy decisions that are taken in Glasgow, by someone who most certainly won’t have a clue about local conditions.’
‘Then he’ll have to get up there and find out, won’t he? And who says the unified force will be based in Glasgow?’
‘I do,’ I snorted, ‘because that’s the way it will play out. But efficiency’s not the only issue; the big one is the concept of putting policing power in the hands of one man, the First Minister. . or one woman, if you and your lot get back in at the next election. . which you won’t if I have anything to do with it.’
Her eyes flared, angrily, like I’d never seen them do before, and she opened her mouth to rip into me, but I cut her off. ‘Think back,’ I snapped, ‘and not that far back either, to when your predecessor, that crooked little bastard Murtagh, tried to do this very thing and you shot him down in flames. The media will go for you if you turn full circle now. They’ll throw your own words back at you.’
‘And I’ll say that it won’t be the same proposal at all, that we’ll put safeguards in place. As for your political point, the senior appointments won’t be made by the First Minister but by a management board that isn’t part of government.’
‘And who’ll appoint that?’ I challenged.
‘That hasn’t been decided yet; Clive and I have to consult about it, and soon too, because you’re right about the legislation going through before the next election. There’s no need to wait. We don’t want to politicise the issue.’
‘No, you want a fucking stitch-up, the pair of you,’ I growled.
‘Damn it, Bob!’ It was Aileen’s turn to shout. ‘Why are you being so difficult?’
‘Because I’m dead against it! Dress it up any way you like, it’s political policing. If you can do this you can do anything. You’ll have us all carrying sidearms next.’
‘Who knows?’ God, she was sneering at me: I realised that I didn’t know this woman, this version of my wife. ‘We might, so live with it! We are elected, after all; it’s called democracy, a quirky little system, but it works. And by the way, what did you mean, about you having anything to do with it?’
‘Work it out, love,’ I snapped. ‘I’ve told you. I will oppose this, as loudly and as publicly as I can.’
‘Hold on a minute,’ she protested, ‘you can’t. You’re a serving chief constable; you can’t involve yourself in political debate.’
‘Watch me.’
‘Bob, I won’t allow it, Clive won’t allow it. ACPOS won’t back you; they’ll support us once the bill’s published, you know that.’
‘Don’t you be so sure about that. The Association is split down the middle at the moment, but once my colleagues see that you’re getting into bed with Clive Graham and that it’s all been carved up, you may find that quite a few move behind me. And what the hell do you mean “allow”? What’s the new political Couple of the Month going to do about it?’
Her eyes narrowed and her mouth tightened. ‘You could be suspended,’ she snapped. ‘Clive could do that if he thought you were trying to interfere with the political process.’
‘Define interference,’ I countered. ‘Usually with you crowd it means not agreeing with you. And what the fuck was that meeting about this afternoon if it wasn’t interference with the ACPOS process? We were offered a committee room by the First Minister, so that we could gather to discuss the proposal, specifically. I’ll bet you he assumed he could rely on Toni Field and her Strathclyde contingent to carry it through. He was wrong; we voted against. . democratically. Now you’re telling me the whole exercise was a sham.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Of course you did.’ I didn’t even try to keep my scorn from my voice. ‘You and your new Nationalist best friend, you’ll join hands and push your bill through the Scottish parliament without giving the people a chance to consider what’s at stake, and that is the potential to create a police state.’
‘Aww! Listen to yourself,’ she mocked. ‘A police state.’
‘I said, the potential to do it. Look, the more you centralise the police service, the more remote you make it. People don’t know who their local cops are any more. When I was born, my home town had its own burgh police force, and its own chief constable. The local people knew him, and they knew their cops. Okay, it wasn’t perfect, especially if you’d gone to the wrong school, but it made for good policing. When my wee force was merged with Lanarkshire, something was lost, but it was still socially acceptable. Personally I’d have kept it at that level. In my view Strathclyde’s a monster, and even my own force is too big. Create a single police force? I’d create three new ones.’
‘What about Andy’s agency?’ she argued. ‘The SCDEA. That’s national.’
‘You said it: it’s an agency, and it co-ordinates investigations against serious crime, working with local forces.’
‘Are you sure you’ve never served in the mounted division?’ she laughed, with mockery, not humour. ‘For you’re really on your high horse now.’
I was having none of it. ‘You know what they do in France?’ I challenged. ‘If they have a major public
