Quintin Jardine - Fallen Gods

"We have the complete invitation list," Steele replied. "It includes clients, other lawyers and professionals, the Lord and Lady Provost, the Chief Constable and Lady Proud… who declined, by the way… a couple of Supreme Court judges, and the media. We have a list of all the people who were signed in and given lapel badges with their names on them. We have a list of all those guests whose badges were not picked up. We have a list of all of the staff on duty. But we do not have a list of those people, guests or otherwise, who simply wandered in and past the registration desk without picking up their badges … as some people do at these bashes."

"Weren't there invitation cards?"

"Yes, but they were taken at the reception desk, not at the door. There were a couple of security people on the steps who were supposed to look at the invitations, but they've admitted already that it was quite possible for someone to have got past them. There were full taxi-loads of people arriving, five, ten at a time. No way did they check everyone."

"No. Listen, Stevie, where are you?"

"In the office."

"I'd better get along there then."

"Why, Mags? To do what, exactly?"

Rose frowned. "The video tapes from the security cameras. We'll need to check every face against those lists, looking for someone who isn't on any of them. And we should take that phone call seriously. This is borderline terrorism, so we should get Neil Mcllhenney and Special

Branch involved. We should tell Dan Pringle as well."

"I've done some of that already, Mags; I've told Neil. I agree there's a chance we'll come up with a face that's on his files. I'll leave it to you to break into the head of CID's Saturday night. But there's something else we have to face up to as well, and this is why I think we should sleep on it… apart from the fact that I'm knackered and cross-eyed from looking at tapes. If we don't find that face in the crowd, and it's long odds against that we will, then what we have on our hands is a gathering of Edinburgh's great and good, their spouses, partners and the rest, every one of whom is a suspected arsonist."

Maggie Rose let out a whistle loud enough to turn heads at the next table. "You are right," she conceded. "I must have had too much to drink already. Get on home, Stevie… or off to wherever you're expected. I'll see you in the office tomorrow, nine a.m. sharp. We've got a minefield to find our way through here, and no mistake."

The car park in front of the Perth divisional office was busier than might have been expected, even on a Saturday night. A row of lights blazed in an office suite on the first floor.

"CID," Martin explained. "We didn't see any point in setting up a mobile enquiry headquarters, just round the corner, especially since it's no more than a suspicious death, and highly unlikely that it happened where the body was found, so Rod Greatorix is running the thing from here."

"I'm impressed," said Bob Skinner. "You've got an unidentified victim, a bum for all they know, yet you're still pulling out all the stops.

You're making your presence felt already, Andy."

"No, I'm not. This is not the homicide capital of Scotland, but Rod knows how to go about setting up an investigation as well as if not better than I do."

The older man grunted. "I suppose he does. Sorry, Andy, that was pure bloody arrogance on my part. I know about Greatorix; he was head of

CID here when I had the job in Edinburgh. He's sound, all right. I'll make all the right noises when I meet him, don't worry. How much did you tell him, by the way?"

"Only that I had a positive ID on the victim, and that he should meet me here at ten. I didn't see the point in saying anything about you till we got there."

He saw Skinner's grim smile in the dashboard light. "That'll be a nice surprise for him, then," his friend murmured. "Let's go and see him."

Martin gripped the door handle, then hesitated. "Okay, but before that, will you do something for me, as my closest friend?"

"Maybe. What?"

"Will you phone Sarah?"

"Pass."

"Bob, please. You've got a hold of yourself now, but I've never seen you like you were before. I'm worried about you."

"You think I'm going to keel over again? Don't worry, I won't."

"I know that, but it just seems to me that you've got stress coming at you from all angles just now. If you talk to Sarah and get everything on an even keel with her, it's got to help."

Skinner gave a small growl in the darkness. "Martin, sometimes you are just full of the naivety of youth. But if it'll keep you happy.. "

"It will. Here, you can use my phone."

"Don't be daft, I've got my own. Now step outside, will you. So far tonight you've seen me cry like a baby. I don't want you to see me crawl as well."

Andy laughed as he stepped out of the Mondeo and closed the door behind him. Inside the car, Skinner took out his cellphone and scrolled through the phonebook until he found the number of the Buffalo house.

He pressed the green button and waited; the call was answered on the third ring, by a Scots voice, that of Trish the nanny.

"I'm sorry, Bob," she said. "Sarah isn't back from her trip yet; she called me to say not to expect her until later on."

"Do you know where she is?"

"No. She said it was to do with the estate, that's all."

"Okay, thanks."

He closed the line and was about to put the phone back in his pocket when he saw Andy standing expectantly in the car park. "Shit," he muttered and scrolled through the stored numbers once more until he found Sarah's cellphone, and dialled it.

Three thousand miles away Sarah swung her legs out of Ron Neidholm's bed and picked up her Nokia. She looked at the incoming number, and for a second her thumb hovered over the red off-switch until, with a sigh, she took the call.

"Yes, Bob," she said, loud enough for Ron to hear her and firmly enough for him to know to keep quiet.

"Where are you?" her husband asked. "What's this trip Trish told me about?"

"I've been to the cabin."

"What! You told me you never wanted to see it."

"I know, but I changed my mind. I felt that I had to visit it."

"Are you still there?"

"No," she said, truthfully. "I'm on my way back," she lied.

"How did you get there?"

She thought, quickly; at the same time picking her shirt from the floor with her free hand and covering her lap with it, in an automatic gesture, as if he had found them and was standing in the doorway. "One of the lawyers took me," she said, 'in a private plane, then in a hire car. Now why the interrogation?"

"I'm sorry," Bob replied, at once. "You took me by surprise, that's all."

"So we're both good at that. Now what is it?"

"Need it be anything? Can't I just be calling you?"

"If you're calling to say you're catching the first flight over, yes you can. If not, then what I said yesterday still counts."

"Sarah, I can't do that."

"Okay, have your damn medical next week. Once you're cleared for duty, take some family time and come across."

"I can't do that either, love. Something's come up, apart from the job."

"What? Have you had another incident?" For the first time she sounded anxious.

"No, I'm fine."

"Is it Alex? Is something wrong with her? Or Andy, or his baby?"

"No, none of that. I'm in Perth now; wee Danielle's magic, really, and

Karen's doing great. No, it's something else, a personal thing, a long, involved story that I should have told you a long time ago. I can't now, though, not over the phone. Sarah, I really would like it if you'd come home. Just for a week or so, even. I need your support."

"Hah!" Her laugh was harsh and brittle. "Those words sound familiar.

Last time they were used between us, I was saying them to you. I needed you, Bob, to help me cope with my parents' death, to be there when I went through my mother's belongings, to help me with questions about the estate and to advise me about things in which you've got much more experience than I have. I needed your support then, and I begged you for it. And what did you do? You caught the first fucking plane out of here, that's what you did. Well that is exactly what I'm not going to do.