Quintin Jardine - Lethal Intent

'No, I haven't, Graham,' Martin protested. 'We've been talking about something that concerns you as much as it will everyone else. What I began by asking, if you remember, was what you think ACPOS will do if he comes after us. You still haven't answered.'

'You're right, I haven't. Okay: ACPOS will talk around it behind closed doors and then we'll decide to do nothing at all. I had Jimmy Proud on the phone this morning, dropping the same hints you are, and trying to talk me round to the view that we can't afford to have a public fall-out with the First Minister.'

'And did he succeed?'

'Of course he did, because he's right. I don't trust Tommy as far as I could chuck you, but he's a persuasive wee sod, and he knows which of the public's buttons to push, and when. We might not like him, but we can't oppose him overtly. I suspect that you know that too.'

It was Martin's turn to grin. 'And that's why you were feeding me all that information about him?'

'Was I? And here was me thinking we were just passing the time of day.'

'Of course we were, Graham. Is there anyone else I could pass the time of day with, anyone who knew him better than you in the old days?'

The chief constable paused for thought. 'His worst enemy on the council was Diana Meikle, the Tory leader. She's out of politics now, like most of the rest of the Tories, but she's still around. She lives up in Broughty Ferry, if you want a chat with her.'

Martin nodded. 'Thanks.'

'And then there's Roy Greatorix. Our head of CID's been around for as long as I have, and there's nobody has his ear closer to the ground. It'd be worth talking to Roy, but…'

'But what?'

'But be very careful, and trust no one. I can read what's going on, and I can guess who's behind it. Just remember, the guy's network is everywhere, and it's still at its strongest here. You've got a fine career ahead of you, son, even if it's not going to be on Tayside in the long term, or maybe even in the short term. I'd hate to see your head being one of the first that Mr Tommy Murtagh sticks on a pole.'

Willie Haggerty liked being home. As he drove along Argyle Street the old song rang out in his head: 'I belong to Glasgow, dear old Glasgow town…' He did too. He had been born in Rotten Row, the city's bizarrely named maternity unit, and brought up in a council house in the Garngad, a part of the city that spawned few policeman.

Leaving the place had been a wrench, but he had spent his career waiting for an offer he could not refuse, and when the ACC job in Edinburgh had been offered to him on a plate, he had gone for it in an instant. Truth be told, it was not the attraction of working with Jimmy Proud and Bob Skinner that had lured him across the country. No, it was the fact that service at command rank in another force would make it easier for him to achieve his dream, his ultimate ambition, to command the Strathclyde Police Force, Britain's second largest after the Met. It was still a long shot, he knew, but the Dumfries and Galloway post, if it came off, would take him one step closer. Service at chief constable rank was a prerequisite for the top job, and with a couple of years under his belt…

Haggerty thought through his rivals and came up with only two names, both of whom he knew well: Skinner himself, and Andy Martin. Yet he had heard Bob mutter often enough that he had no ambition to be sidelined, as he put it, into a chief's office. As for Andy, if he was ever to land the Strathclyde job, given his age it would almost certainly be after his own turn had come and gone.

There was something else. He had been sanguine about his chances of landing the post… two of them, slim and none, as Muhammad Ali had said famously… but the events of the current week had made him think again. At first he had been as outraged as Skinner and the chief when he had been told, in confidence, of Tommy Murtagh's plan to take effective control of the police, until another thought had come to him.

Was the First Minister a politician? Yes. Did politicians, by the very nature of the word, love populist gestures? Yes. So how much more populist could you get than by appointing a boy who had escaped from the war-torn Glasgow housing schemes as head of the city's police force?

It was a thought that he had kept to himself, yet it was preying on his mind.

He pushed it away as he swung into Kelvinhaugh Street, then took another turn to his left a little further along. It was still there, and as he had suspected it had not seen a lick of paint in the three years since his last visit. The Argyle Kebab Parlour stuck out on the corner of its neglected street like the last tooth in a derelict's mouth. Haggerty wondered if the doners were still as good as he remembered.

He parked his car directly outside the scruffy shop… so that it would always be in his sight… and walked inside. He smiled as he looked at the posters on the wall; they were a mix of Galatasaray and the Turkish national squad, revered in some parts of Scotland since their baiting of the English side in a European qualifier. It was well before noon and so there were no customers, just a young man behind the counter firing up the gas jets below the great roll of meat, on its vertical spit, the trademark of Turkish takeaways. The boy, who was no more than seventeen, turned and stared at Haggerty, as if he resented his intrusion. 'Can ye no' read?' he asked. 'It says on the door we're no' open till twelve.'

'I can read, Bulent,' the police officer replied. 'That's why I'm here now. Is your father in?'

The question was barely finished before a bead curtain at the end of the counter was roughly parted; an older man appeared, shaking off its fronds as he stepped into the front shop. 'I thought it was you,' he said. He was built like a beer barrel with short limbs and a round head. In contrast to his son, who spoke pure Glaswegian, his accent was still heavy and redolent of his native land.

'How goes it, Rusty?' Haggerty greeted him, as the two shook hands.

'Same as ever, as you can see,' replied Rustu Kerimoglu. 'How goes it with you? I thought we'd seen the last of you, since you became a great man in Edinburgh.'

'You thought wrong, then. You know what they say: they can take the man out of Glasgow. .'

The Turk finished the homily for him. '… but they can't take Glasgow out of the man. No, they can't, can they? Someone should develop a vaccine, maybe.'

'None of us would take it.' He glanced at the younger Kerimoglu. isn't that right, Bulent? Once a Weegie, always a Weegie.'

The boy gave him a small grin. 'Maybe,' he murmured.

'So what brings you back?' asked Rusty. 'Don't tell me you missed our kebabs: they're not so good that a man would drive fifty miles for one.'

'They're not bad, though. You get that spit fired up, son; I'll maybe have one before I leave.'

'Come on through the back,' said the older Kerimoglu, turning and parting the curtain. 'Bulent,' he called back over his shoulder, 'you keep an eye on Mr Haggerty's car, now.'

The two men stepped into a back room that was part store, part kitchen, part sitting room. Rusty had been preparing salads on a big well-scrubbed table. This struck Haggerty as odd. 'Where's Esra?' he asked. For as long as he had known the Turk, in all the twenty-five years and more since he had opened his shop, his wife had done that job.

The man smiled. 'She's retired, Willie,' he replied. 'When the boy left school a year ago, I decided that she'd spent long enough cooped up in here. It only takes the two of us to run this place, so now, with our Mata coming in to help out when I want a break, she's completely a lady of leisure. It's great, I tell you; for the first time in our married life I get something other than kebab or pizza for my dinner. She's been going to cookery classes. And,' he added with pride, 'she's learned to drive. We even went up to Oban last weekend.'