Quintin Jardine - Lethal Intent

'He could,' Aileen replied, gently. 'Calm down and tell me about it.'

She waited until Lena's sobs had subsided. 'It was last Friday,' she began, when she could. 'When you were in the Parliament, I was asked to go to see a man in an office on the fourth floor. He told me he was the First Minister's security adviser, that his name was Mr Jay and that he needed to talk to me. When I got there, I found that he wanted to talk about you.'

She gulped. 'He said that part of his job was to vet all new members of the Cabinet, and that since you had been promoted only recently, you had to be put through the process. He told me it was routine, nothing to worry about, it happened to everybody, even the First Minister.' Aileen choked off a retort. 'I told him that I didn't think it was right for me to discuss your business, but he said the whole thing was totally confidential, and that nobody would know. When I said that I was still reluctant, he got a bit nasty and said it wasn't a request it was an order, and that if I liked I could have it from the First Minister himself, but if it came to that it would have an "adverse effect", as he put it, on my career.'

'So he blackmailed you?'

'I suppose you could put it that way.' The civil servant looked at her plaintively. 'I'm sorry, Aileen. He promised me it would be okay.'

'I'm sure he did. Go on.'

'I showed him your diary,' said Lena. 'I went and got it from the office. But he wanted to know more than that. There was a note in it about your first meeting with Mr Skinner, when you took him to dinner at the Arts Club. He asked me if that was the only time you'd met. I told him it wasn't, that you'd seen him here, and in his office, and that he'd returned your hospitality with lunch at the Open Arms. He asked me about your meeting with Mr Laidlaw, and I told him about that. Then he asked me more personal stuff about you, whether you had a steady boyfriend, whether you ever brought men back to the flat. I said you hadn't, and that if you had that sort of a private life you conducted it well away from me.' She drew another deep breath. 'And that was it. He was very nice after that. He laughed and said it all sounded very respectable and very responsible, and that there was nothing untoward. He told me I should discuss our meeting with nobody, and that I should forget it. Aileen, I'm so sorry,' she protested. 'I trusted the man when he said you'd never even know about it, that it was a purely routine piece of security. How did you find out?'

'It's been used against me,' the Justice Minister replied. 'And not just against me.'

She picked up her mobile phone from the sideboard, and selected Bob Skinner's number. When he answered, she could hear the sound of children in the background, and felt a sort of regret that there was a part of his life she might never know. 'Hi', she murmured, her back turned to McElhone so that she could not hear. 'It's me.'

'Yeah,' he drawled, 'so my clever phone told me.' He sounded tired, as if the jet-lag was giving him another jolt. 'What's up? Do you want company?'

'That would be nice, but we can't. I want to ask you something. You told me that you did the security-adviser job for a while, didn't you?'

'Yes,' he replied, 'until the Secretary of State of the day got so far up my nose that I had to blow him out. Jock Govan took over after that.'

'When you were in post, did your duties include the vetting of ministers, interviewing their staff about their public and private lives?'

'Of course not; that's all tosh. Why?'

'Because that's the story Jay spun Lena to find out about you and me.'

'Bastard,' Skinner hissed. 'That goes on his tab as well.'

She read meaning in his tone. 'Bob, are you up to something?' she asked.

'Me?' He managed to sound offended. 'Did I promise you I'd keep my head down?'

'Yes,' she admitted.

'Trust me, then.'

'Sorry.'

'Forgiven. I've got some good news for you, by the way. Your flat's clean as a whistle, certified bug-free by Strathclyde Special Branch, so no one'll be playing us any doctored tapes.'

'I'm glad to hear it, but how can I be sure that it'll stay clean?'

'I asked them to leave a scanning device in your top kitchen drawer.'

'That was thoughtful. Do you plan on coming to test it?' The question was out before she could stop herself.

'Maybe, but not for a while and certainly not this weekend. My rambunctious younger son has threatened to head-butt my kneecaps if I don't take him to Tynecastle on Saturday, and then on Sunday we're going to look at some sharks. But I would like to think that a return trip to Glasgow might happen some time.'

'I hope so too.' She moved further away from Lena. 'I think I may have to go back through there full-time.'

'Is that wholly necessary?'

'Not completely. I'm sure that Lena really was conned, or coerced.'

'Then think before you jump. If you move out, Jay will know, and he'll guess why. You won't be doing the girl any favours.'

'I see what you mean,' she mused. 'She and I were just about to discuss that, in fact'

'Do it, then. Good night, Minister.'

'You too, Deputy Chief Constable.' She ended the call, and turned back to Lena. 'Okay,' she said. 'Here's what we're going to do about Mr Jay.'

'Do you think you'll ever go back to your career?'

Louise McIlhenney smiled. 'That depends,' she replied. 'It depends on my husband, it depends on Lauren and Spencer's needs, it depends on my health, it depends on me getting any offers to go back, but most of all it depends on how I feel after I'm a mum. I know the modern trend is to leave it late before starting a family but I'm an extreme case. I'm over forty: at an age when some women are starting the menopause I'm having a baby.'

Paula Viareggio shivered, sending her silver hair rippling across her shoulders. 'Rather you than me,' she said, 'at any age. But you don't look forty plus, you look younger than me, for God's sake.'

'No, I don't. I've been an actress for twenty years, so I'm good at makeup. You might accentuate your hair colour, but that's all you do. Where I see a sign of grey, and there's plenty under this lot, I cover it up. I don't let Neil see my hairdresser's bills: he'd have a fit if I did.'

Her husband laughed. 'I know who your hairdresser is,' he exclaimed. 'That's enough.'

'Come on,' Paula retorted. 'Don't try and kid me that men's hairdressers are cheap.'

Mario McGuire held up a hand. 'There's a guy in Leith, near the docks, who'll still cut your hair for a fiver; and it's two quid for OAPs.'

'And would you go to him?' his partner challenged.

'Not even if I was stone bald,' he admitted, cheerfully. 'But by the same token, neither would I dream of going to a barber who drives a Ferrari, the kind that you girls are talking about.'

'Charlie Kettles does not drive a Ferrari.'

'Charlie's pals would laugh him out of town if he did, as you well know, but there's others who do.'

'So? They run successful businesses. So do you and I, and we're not ashamed of it.'

Mario's smile vanished for a moment. 'There are times when I'm embarrassed by it. It's not something that I chose; it was wished on me by my grandfather and latterly by my mother, when she decided to retire to Italy. But the businesses employ a lot of people, and I feel responsible for them. Okay, we're planning to change things, but when we do, I only hope I don't have Papa Viareggio haunting me.'

'Me too,' Paula agreed. 'But you handle things the way they are just now; having Alex Skinner act on your behalf wherever possible is a good idea.'

'It is for her firm; it costs plenty.'

'What does Alex drive these days?' asked McIlhenney, casually.

'A nice wee yellow two-seater, last I saw,' Mario told him. 'Nothing flash. But speaking of Alexis, her name came up in conversation this afternoon.'