Quintin Jardine - Stay of Execution

The little man stared at the table silently.

‘Fuck it, George,’ said Steele. ‘I’m fed up being nice to this wee snotter. I’m making this a formal interview and he’s going down for everything we can nail on to him.’ He looked over his shoulder at the bulky, grey-suited DC. ‘Tarvil, go and get us a couple of fresh tapes.’

‘Yes, sir.’

The junior detective had a hand on the doorknob when Glazier called out, stopping him in mid-stride. ‘Aye, okay, okay. Ah get the picture; it’s bash wee Moash day. A’right, Ah took the coat. It wisnae keeping him warm, that was for sure.’

‘You didn’t happen to nick a bike from Warrender Park Road as well, did you?’ asked the inspector. The little man glared at him, trying to summon up some defiance. Steele answered his own question. ‘Of course you did, but I’ll deal with that later. Did you take anything else from the area around the body?’

Glazier peered at him as if trying to work something out, until finally his eyes lit up. ‘Oh aye,’ he said cunningly, ‘Ah get it, one of you bastards lifted the guy’s wallet and now you’re going tae blame it on me. Well you just switch that tape on and I’ll tell you loud and clear that I didnae take anything else aff him.’

‘If I had time to take serious exception to that suggestion,’ Steele told him icily, ‘I would. But so far this is still your lucky day. I repeat,’ he leaned over and stared into the thief’s eyes, ‘did you take anything else?’

Moash flinched. ‘There was a wee step-ladder; an aluminium thing. It was dead light, so I jammed it between the seat and the saddlebag. It fell aff though. Ah dinna ken where. That’s the truth, honest.’

‘You’ve never been honest in your fucking life, pal. Where’s the coat?’

‘Ah havnae got it.’

‘Christ, I know that. You were in the pub, therefore you had drinking money, therefore you’d sold the coat and the bike straight off. I guess the stolen cell phone you called 999 on will be in the Water of Leith by now. Who bought the coat off you?’

‘Fuck, Ah cannae tell you that. You’ll do him for reset, and he’ll do me for grassing him up.’

‘I just want the coat, Moash. I won’t do anyone if I get it back. But unless you tell me I will do you big-time. You were the first man to see Ivor Whetstone dead; it won’t be all that difficult for me to prove to a jury that you were also the last man to see him alive.’

‘You’re as daft as Regan!’ the thief protested.

‘Nobody’s as daft as Regan, but I’ll let that one pass. You stole Whetstone’s coat. Whether you tell us who bought it or not, we’ll find him, and prove that. The rest’s easy to work out; you mugged the man in the dark. You hit him over the head; but you hit him too hard. You thought you’d killed him, you panicked and to cover your crime you made it look like he topped himself. Tell me who you sold the coat to, or that’s the way it’s going to be.’

Wee Moash was convinced. Breaking with a tradition handed down by the two generations of Glazier thieves before him, he muttered, ‘Big Malky Gladsmuir, the bar manager in the Wee Black Dug.’

‘Truth?’ Steele fired out the question.

‘On my kids’ lives.’

‘You don’t have any kids, Moash,’ Regan rumbled.

‘In that case,’ said Steele, ‘we’ll just keep you in custody till we actually have the coat. George, Tarvil, get back down to that pub fast and recover it, before Big Malky realises that it might be just a bit too warm for him to hang on to.’

He had been in St Andrews House on many occasions, and for many reasons, since the creation of the Scottish Parliament and its Executive and before that, when Scotland had been ruled from afar and governed on a day-to-day basis by the Secretary of State.

From the start of his career, he had always kept his political leanings to himself, but those who assumed that he was naturally inclined to the right would have been surprised had they known the truth. He had voted for devolution and had welcomed it, on patriotic grounds, but also because he believed in social justice, and knew from experience that the remoteness of the Westminster Parliament and the constant battle for legislative time had been a heavy chain slowing down its delivery.

More than anyone else at the table that morning he had been angered by the interference of Miles Stringfellow, as he always was when he sensed that London was attempting to impose its will on Scotland. He had sometimes suspected that if he had lived his life two and a half centuries earlier it might have been ended on Culloden Moor.

As he rode up to the fifth floor, he was seized again by the feeling that the big stone building was a happier place under its new management.

Lena McElhone was waiting for him as the lift opened. ‘Good evening, Mr Skinner,’ she said as he stepped out into the ministerial office area. ‘She’s ready for you. If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you in.’ She led him a short way along the corridor, stopped at a massive, varnished door, rapped on it with her knuckles and swung it open.

The deputy justice minister stood up behind her desk as he came in. The windows were uncurtained, he noticed, and the room was back-lit to an extent by the sodium globes outside in Waterloo Place. ‘Hello,’ exclaimed Aileen de Marco, moving round to meet him and extending her hand. He shook it, his smile seemingly automatically activated by hers. ‘This is a surprise,’ the minister continued. ‘I didn’t expect you to deliver the programme personally. I thought a biker would drop it off.’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s not a problem,’ he told her. ‘Besides, I wanted to update you on what’s happened since our meeting this morning. . and to break some bad news in person. I wasn’t certain that I’d find you here, though. I thought you might have been off home to Glasgow by now.’

‘I don’t commute,’ she said. ‘Lena has a spare room in her flat. I rent it from her so that I have somewhere near the parliament and the office where I can crash. It’s an unusual relationship between minister and private secretary but it suits us both. So what’s this bad news you have to break?’

Skinner explained to her that there would indeed be two more guests throughout the papal visit, and that as a result she no longer figured in the platform seating plan.

She laughed. It was a pleasant laugh, not a bray, but strong, musical and infectious. ‘You think that’s bad news, do you? It might be for my brother. . he’s coming with me. . but it isn’t for me. I don’t mind giving up our places for the Prime Minister and his wife. In fact, making them happy is all I live for.’

Skinner looked at her and saw the mischief in her eyes. ‘Not a fan, then?’ he asked.

The young MSP smiled back at him. ‘Come on,’ she chided. ‘That would be heresy, would it not?’

‘If I was the investigating officer, I’d press for full-blown blasphemy on the charge-sheet.’

‘Aah, but I’m an atheist, remember.’

‘I don’t think that would be a legitimate defence. It would be like saying that you didn’t believe in traffic lights, so you have a right to drive through them. There are jails up and down Scotland that are jammed full of people who think like that. You should know. You’re a justice minister; you’re responsible for them.’

‘Mmm,’ she mused, ‘I never thought of that. Maybe I had better guard my tongue in the future.’

‘That depends.’

‘On what?’

‘On whether it’s politically correct within your ruling group to be for the Prime Minister or agin him. From what I’ve observed the antis are probably in the majority.’

She looked at him in surprise, half sitting on the edge of her desk, knee slightly raised, calf curving attractively. ‘Is this Bob Skinner talking?’ she challenged. ‘The man who, or so the legend goes, once had a Secretary of State for Scotland by the throat? The man who’s famous for his dislike of politicians? Is this the same man standing in my office talking like one of them?’