Quintin Jardine - Pray for the Dying

From the Saltire newspaper, Sunday edition:

Strathclyde Chief Constable believed dead in Glasgow Concert Hall Shooting

By June Crampsey

Mystery still surrounds a shooting last night in Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall in which a woman was killed in a VIP seat at a charity concert, inches away from Scotland’s First Minister, Clive Graham MSP. The identity of the victim has still to be confirmed officially, but it is believed that she was Antonia Field, the recently appointed Chief Constable of the Strathclyde Force, the second largest in the UK after London’s Met.

The killing was carried out by two men, who were themselves shot dead as they tried to escape, after murdering a police officer and critically wounding another.

A security cordon was thrown round the hall immediately after the incident, but reporters could see what appeared to be three bodies outside in Killermont Street, one of them in police uniform. A fourth man, said to be a police officer, was taken away by ambulance, and a spokesman for Glasgow Royal Infirmary confirmed later that he was undergoing emergency surgery for gunshot wounds.

Edinburgh Chief Constable Bob Skinner, husband of Scottish Labour leader Aileen de Marco who was a guest of the First Minister at the fund-raiser, took command at the scene. Briefing media in Glasgow City Chambers, he refused to name the victim, but did say that it was not his wife, nor was it the woman who had accompanied her to the concert, believed to be Edinburgh businesswoman Paula Viareggio, the partner of another senior police officer in the capital, Detective Chief Superintendent Mario McGuire.

Most of the eyewitnesses refused to speak to journalists as they were ushered away from the concert hall. Many seemed to be in shock. However, world-famous Scottish actor Joey Morocco, Master of Ceremonies for the evening, told the Saltire as he left, ‘There was complete confusion in there.

‘The conductor, Sir Leslie Fender, had just raised his baton and the house lights had dimmed when I heard three sounds that I know now were shots, one after the other. Then everything went completely dark, pitch black, and someone started screaming.

‘Before that, though,’ Mr Morocco continued, ‘I was standing in the wings and I was facing the audience. In the second or two before the lights went out, as the shots were fired, I saw movement in the front row. There were three women on the First Minister’s left.

‘Aileen, she’s a friend, by the way, she was sat furthest away from him, then her companion, Paula, and then the lady who’d arrived with Mr Graham. I don’t know her name, but somebody said she’s the chief constable. I saw her jerk in her seat then start to fall forward. That’s when the lights went out.

‘The emergency lighting came on automatically, after a few seconds. It wasn’t much good, but I could make out that the seat next to the First Minister was empty and that there was a shape on the floor.

‘There was panic after that. I heard Mr Graham shouting for help, then I could just make out a policeman rushing forward. I think it was Mr Allan, the assistant chief constable. I tried to use the mike but it was useless with the power being out, so I jumped up on to the conductor’s podium and yelled to everyone to stay in their seats and stay calm until the lighting was restored. But the people in the rows nearest the front, some of them realised what had happened and they started to panic.

‘Mr Graham was brilliant. He stood up, called out to everyone to stay where they were, for their own safety. It was an incredibly brave thing to do,’ Mr Morocco added. ‘He might have been the target himself and the gunman might still have been there, but he put himself right in the line of fire, then he took off his jacket and put it over the woman on the floor. That’s when I knew for sure that she was dead.

‘Thing is,’ he explained, ‘she was wearing a red dress. Normally at a big public event Aileen wears red, her party colours, but last night, for some reason, she didn’t. So I’m wondering if she was the intended target and whether the gunman just made a mistake.’

Addressing journalists in a hastily convened briefing in the Glasgow City Council Chambers, after being asked by the First Minister to take charge of the situation, Mr Skinner refused to comment on Mr Morocco’s speculation.

‘It’s way too early to be making any assumptions,’ he said firmly. ‘We believe we know who the shooters were, but we’re a long way from understanding their motives.’

Asked whether Al Qaeda might be involved, he replied, ‘I’m not ruling that out, but the gunmen were not Muslim and the nationality of a third person involved in the plot makes that highly unlikely. However, I can tell you that this was a well-planned operation carried out by people with special skills.

‘We’ve been able to establish already that the hall was blacked out by an explosion that took out the electricity substation serving the building. It was remotely detonated as soon as the shots had been fired. We’re also sure that the two men gained entrance to the building dressed as police officers, and ditched their disguises before trying to escape.’

He refused to go into detail on how they had been killed, or by whom.

When I spoke to him later, by telephone, he explained that neither of the victims could be identified before their next of kin had been told. He added that the First Minister was under close protection at his home, and that his wife was also being guarded at a secret location.

‘I put Paula in harm’s way, Mario,’ Bob Skinner murmured, as he gazed at his colleague, their faces pale in the glare of the freestanding spotlights that had been set up to illuminate the scene. ‘I am desperately sorry.’

Never before had Detective Chief Superintendent McGuire seen his boss looking apprehensive, and yet he was, there could be no mistaking it.

‘How exactly did you do that, sir?’ he replied, stiffly. ‘Your wife invited my wife to chum her to a charity concert. Given that Aileen is a former and possibly future First Minister of our country, most people would regard that as something of an honour.’

‘Someone tried to kill her,’ Skinner hissed. ‘There was intelligence that a hit was being planned. You know that; I knew it. I was asleep at the fucking wheel, or I’d have considered that as a possibility.’

‘Then it was Paula that saved her life, Bob,’ McGuire pointed out, more gently. ‘If she hadn’t told Aileen that she was wearing a red outfit, on account of her being so pregnant it was the only thing that would fit, then Aileen would have worn her usual colour.’

The chief constable frowned. ‘But Paula isn’t wearing red.’

‘No, she found something else. Thank your lucky stars again that she didn’t think to tell Aileen about it. Stop beating yourself up, man. Nobody’s going to blame you for anything, least of all me. Paula’s all right, she’s off the scene, and that’s an end of it.’

Skinner nodded towards the splayed body, a few yards away from where they stood, in front of the auditorium stage of Glasgow’s splendid concert arena. ‘She would blame me, if she could.’ He put a hand to an ear. ‘If I listen hard enough I reckon I’ll hear her. Five minutes, that’s all it would have taken. If we’d got to our informant five minutes earlier. .’

‘You’d probably have been caught in traffic,’ his colleague countered, ‘and got here no quicker. Okay, if the Strathclyde communications centre hadn’t been on weekend mode, you might have got the word to ACC Allan and prevented the hit. . but they were and you didn’t.’