Quintin Jardine - Lethal Intent

'Have you seen this bill?'

'No, but a friend of mine has and described it to me in detail.'

'What about the new Justice Minister, de Marco? I thought she was supposed to be pro-police. She made her feelings plain on Monday about those people being packed off to Cuba.'

Skinner looked at him and picked up another sandwich. 'She's the friend,' he replied, and took a bite. He let the silence linger until he was finished, reading all the questions in his friend's eyes as he did. 'Aileen didn't make her feelings plain directly; I did it for her. Now she's been coerced by Murtagh into appearing to go along with it, and we've agreed that she should acquiesce for now. The guy thinks he's got me by the balls too, and I plan to let him go on thinking that.'

'So are you going to sit on your hands and let the bastard get on with it?' Martin demanded, as angrily as he could ever sound.

'I'm going to appear to do that. He'll be watching me like a hawk or, rather, his newly appointed Himmler will.'

'Who?'

Skinner raised his eyebrows. 'You haven't heard that Jock Govan's been booted as security adviser? Jimmy Proud told me he'd let all the other chiefs know.'

'It's news to me, but Graham Morton was away yesterday and Monday. I haven't seen him this week. Who's the new guy?'

'Greg Jay.'

Martin gasped. 'You have to be joking.'

'Am I smiling?' Skinner retorted. 'Officially he retired from us last week, but unofficially he's been working for wee Tommy for a while. He's even been checking up on Aileen and me… not that there was anything for him to check up on, in the sense you're thinking.' He caught a flicker of McIlhenney's right eyebrow, but no more.

'He's made his presence felt with other people too. I spoke with Niall Foy, the Chief Inspector of Constabulary this morning. He's absolutely livid, because apparently Jay's been saying that he'll be allowed to conduct private investigations into individual officers and report directly to his boss about them. Again, Murtagh's saying that it would only be in the most sensitive and exceptional circumstances, but if you believe that…'

'This is appalling,' Martin exclaimed. 'What do you think, Neil?'

The chief inspector smiled. 'Just between you and me, Andy? Personally, I think Jay should have been sent home to his garden a while back, when he crossed my friend McGuire, but I wouldn't have dared say it to the boss, would I?'

Skinner grumbled, 'No, but maybe Dan Pringle should have.' He paused. 'Is there anything you wouldn't dare tell me about him?'

'As head of CID,' McIlhenney replied, 'Dan was a man for his time. Now that time's nearly up. There's other things I could say as well, but I'm not going to dig that up.'

'No, best not to. Anyway, back to the pressing matter. I wanted to see you guys today because I want to ask you to put your careers on the line. I want to get that little bastard Murtagh and I want you to help me do it. He is just too bloody slimy to have no skeletons in his closet. I want to find out whose they are, or what they are, and I want to make their bones rattle until they drive him out of office.'

He looked at Martin once again. 'Murtagh may be Edinburgh-based now, but he has a Dundonian background. I want to know all about it. I want to know who his pals were when he was here, whether he preferred women to sheep, where he worked before he gave it up and became a politician. I want schoolfriend anecdotes, office gossip… did he ever feel the typists' bums, that sort of stuff… any weapon you can find me, and as many of them as you can.'

He turned to McIlhenney. 'Neil, I want you to do a vetting operation on him in Edinburgh. I've already had a conversation with Amanda Dennis. She understands what's at stake and she'll help you in any way she can. I know I'm piling a lot of responsibility on your shoulders, with the other thing on the go, but I have to assume that I'm being watched myself. I won't forget it, don't worry.'

'I never have,' said McIlhenney. 'What about Jay?'

'Jay is a minion.' Skinner spat the word out contemptuously. 'If you think about it, you and I both know already how we can bring him into line. But I will choose my moment. Who knows? Maybe I can turn him into our best weapon against Murtagh.'

He winked at his colleagues, at his friends, and picked up yet another sandwich.

'I like this pub,' said Maggie, as she looked around the old tavern, strategically placed beside the railway station on the five-pointed Haymarket junction. 'I came here when I was little more than a girl, and it's barely changed since.'

'Unlike too many of them,' Stevie Steele commented. 'I don't like designer boozers, converted banking halls, that sort of thing, but I really hate it when places like this are revamped and modernised just for the sake of it, when a coat of varnish is all they really need.'

'This one's survived, at least'

'But for how much longer?'

'As long as it makes a nice profit.'

He laughed. 'And serves a nice pie.' He looked at her as he sprinkled vinegar on his chips. 'So, love, what's so important or enticing that couldn't wait till tonight?'

Maggie slipped her arms out of her overcoat and let it fall behind her over the back of her chair. She still wore her white uniform shirt, but she had removed the black and white checked cravat and epaulettes. Police uniforms always drew stares in pubs; without the telltale neckerchief, she might have been a bank clerk.

'I had a letter from my lawyer in the mail this morning,' she said. 'He's agreed the financial settlement with Mario's solicitor and it's ready for us both to sign. I'm getting the house free and clear, as Mario promised, and everything in it.'

'That's good,' Stevie replied, quietly. 'But it's no surprise, is it? You didn't expect him to go back on his word.'

'No, of course not, but it's still nice to know that the formalities are done with. Once it's signed it'll just leave one tie to be cut between us, the marriage itself.'

'Divorce, you mean? That'll happen the year after next, won't it, once you've been apart for two years?'

She nodded. 'It would do, if we followed the simple procedure and divorced on the ground of irretrievable breakdown. But if I sued Mario for divorce on the ground of adultery, it could happen virtually right away.'

Stevie's eyebrows rose. 'Would you do that?' he asked.

'I don't know. I don't feel vindictive towards him, or even towards Paula. It depends.'

'Depends on what?

'Depends on whom: it depends on you. Would you like me to be single as soon as possible?'

Stevie stopped in the middle of cutting a segment out of his mutton pie. He frowned, looked at the ceiling for a few moments, then took a mouthful from his pint of orange squash. Finally he looked back at her. 'As in free to marry?' he asked.

'I wasn't implying anything like that,' she answered quickly.

He smiled into her eyes. 'I don't care what you were implying. Whether it was a back-handed proposal or not, the answer's yes. I want you absolutely free and clear from Detective Superintendent McGuire at the earliest opportunity, and I want to marry you. But will it be that easy? Big Mario might not care to be branded publicly as an adulterer.'

'Big Mario does not care. Big Mario told his lawyer to tell mine that if that's what I want to do then it'll be fine by him and Paula, as long as I keep her name off the petition.'

Stevie's smile spread from ear to ear. 'Bloody hell!' he exclaimed. 'That's a twist.'

'But it's not unexpected by me. Mario and I weren't very good at being husband and wife, in any sense, but if either of us needs something from the other, it's as good as done.'

'Should I worry about that, long term?'

'No. Not any more. There's nothing tying us together.' She paused. 'All the bodies have been buried, and all the evidence burned.'