Quintin Jardine - Pray for the Dying

‘Bob,’ the reporter began, ‘you weren’t a candidate for this job last time it was vacant. Are you prepared to say why not?’

The chief constable shrugged. ‘I didn’t want it.’

‘Why do you want it now?’

‘I don’t, John. Believe me, I would much rather still be arguing with Toni Field in ACPOS over the principles of policing, as she and I did, long and loud. But Toni’s been taken from us, at a time when Strathclyde could least afford to lose its leader, given the absence of a deputy.

‘When I was asked to take over. . temporarily; I will keep hammering that word home. . by Councillor Hanlon’s authority, on the basis that its members believe me to be qualified, as a police officer I felt that I couldn’t refuse. It wouldn’t have been right.’

Fox was about to put a supplementary, but another journalist cut in. ‘Couldn’t ACC Allan have taken over?’

‘Given his seniority, if he was well, yes, but he isn’t. He’s on sick leave.’

‘What about ACC Thomas, or ACC Gorman?’

‘Fine officers as they are, neither of them meets the criteria for permanent appointment,’ he replied, ‘and so the authority took the view that wouldn’t have been appropriate.’

‘Did you consult your wife before accepting the appointment, Mr Skinner?’ The questioning voice was female, its accent cultured and very definitely English. Aileen was in the act of chopping Chinese leaves; she stopped and if she had looked down instead of round at the screen she would have seen that she came within a centimetre of slicing a finger open.

She saw Bob’s gaze turn slowly towards the source, who was seated at the side of the room. ‘And why should I do that, Miss. .’

‘Ms Marguerite Hatton, Daily News political correspondent. She is the Scottish Labour leader, as I understand it. Surely you discuss important matters with her.’

‘You’re either very smart or very stupid or just plain ignorant, lady,’ Aileen murmured. ‘You’ve just lit a fuse.’

A very short one, as was proved a second later. ‘What the hell has her position got to do with this?’ her estranged husband barked. ‘I’m a senior police officer, as senior as you can get in this country. Are you asking, seriously, whether I seek political approval before I take a career decision, or even an operational decision?’

‘Oh, really!’ the journalist scoffed. ‘That’s a dinosaur answer. I meant did you consult her as your wife, not as a politician.’

On the screen Skinner stared at her, then laughed. ‘You are indeed from the deep south, Ms Hatton, so I’ll forgive your lack of local knowledge. I suggest that you ask some of your Scottish colleagues, those who really know Aileen de Marco. They’ll tell you that there isn’t a waking moment when she isn’t a politician. And I can tell you she even talks politics in her sleep!’

‘Jesus!’ Aileen shouted. ‘Joey, switch that fucking thing off!’

‘Relax,’ he said, ‘it’s not true.’

The woman from the Daily News was undeterred. ‘In that case,’ she persisted, ‘how will she feel about you taking the job?’

‘Why should I have any special knowledge of that?’ He looked around the room. ‘No more questions about my wife, people.’

On camera, John Fox raised a hand. ‘Just one more, please, Bob? How is she after her ordeal last night?’

‘Last time I saw her she was fine: fine and very angry.’

‘Where was that, Mr Skinner?’ Marguerite Hatton shouted.

‘You’ve had your five minutes,’ he growled. ‘Any more acceptable questions?’

The woman beside Fox, Stephanie Marshall of STV, raised a hand. ‘You weren’t a candidate for the Strathclyde post last time, Chief Constable, but will you put your name forward when it’s re-advertised?’

Watching, Aileen saw him lean forward as if to answer, then hesitate.

‘If you’d asked me that last night,’ he began, ‘just after Dominic asked me to take on this role, I would have told you no, definitely not. But something was said to me this morning that’s made me change my attitude just a wee bit.

‘So the honest answer is, I don’t know. Let me see how the next couple of weeks go, and then I’ll decide. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I must go. We have a major investigation under way as you all realise, and I must call on the officer who’s running it.’

Aileen reached out and grasped the work surface, squeezing it hard.

‘What are you doing?’ Joey chuckled.

‘I’m checking for earth tremors. You might not know it but what he just said is the equivalent of a very large mountain starting to move. I can’t believe it. I told him last night he’d never leave Pitt Street once he got in there, but I didn’t think for one second that he’d actually listen to me. It’s a first.’

He reached out and patted her on the shoulder. ‘No, dearie, it’s you that wasn’t listening to him. His words,’ he pointed out, ‘were “this morning”, not “last night”. So whoever made him think again, it wasn’t you.’

‘You’re right,’ she whispered. ‘Which makes me wonder where the hell he was this morning.’

‘While I’m wondering about something else,’ Joey said. ‘Why did that News cow ask where he’d seen you last night?’

‘I’m sorry about that News woman, sir,’ Malcolm Nopper said. ‘I’ve never seen her before. I can’t keep her out of future press conferences, but I’ll do my best to control her.’

Skinner looked at the chief press officer he had inherited from Toni Field, and laughed. The media had been escorted out of the conference room in the force headquarters building and the two men were alone. Nopper eyed his new boss nervously, unsure how to read his reaction.

‘How the hell are you going to do that?’ the chief constable asked. ‘Sellotape over her gob? So you didn’t know her? I didn’t know her either, and it would have been the same if she’d turned up in Edinburgh, on my own patch. She’s a seagull; we all get them.’

‘A seagull, sir?’

‘Sure, you know, they fly in, make a noise, shit on you, then fly away again. As for controlling her, you don’t have to. If she turns up at one of my media briefings in future. . not that I plan to have many. . I’ll simply ignore her. You can do the same at any you chair.’

‘I tend not to do that, Chief,’ Nopper said. ‘When an investigation’s in process, I let the senior investigating officer take the lead.’

‘Not any more. Lottie Mann will have to go before the media later on. From something that Max Allan told me a while back, I guess she hasn’t had any formal media training. Am I right?’

‘None that I can recall,’ the civilian agreed.

‘I know she’ll be fine, but I’m not sure she does, so she must have a minder. I’ll be there but if I go on the platform it’ll undermine her. As you said, she’s the SIO. So you’ll be there, you’ll introduce her and you’ll pick the questioners. Ms Hatton will not be one of them. Your regulars won’t mind that. In my experience they don’t like seagulls either.’

‘As you wish, Chief.’

‘Mmm. Where will you hold it? Do you have a favourite venue?’

‘No. Normally it would be where it’s most convenient for the officer in charge.’

‘In that case we do it here in Pitt Street, in this room. I spoke to DI Mann on the way through here. She’ll be finished at the concert hall by two. She and I agreed that given the nature of this investigation it’s best that it be centrally based, rather than in a police office that’s open to the general public. Nobody else will be using this room this afternoon, will they?’

‘Not as far as I know, but suppose somebody was, you want it, you get it.’