Quintin Jardine - Lethal Intent

'Chris Aikenhead.'

Steele smiled. 'Indeed it does, sir,' he said softly. 'Do you want to go first, or will I?'

'Fire away.'

'We've had three incidents here, two fatal, one might have been, all involving the children of police officers who worked on a specific case together. It ended in the suicide of the accused, following which the guilty verdict was turned over by the appeal court. Chris Aikenhead was her husband.'

'Of course: Patsy Aikenhead, the child-minder who killed the baby.'

'That's not what the appeal court decided.'

'Maybe not, but it's what Dan Pringle believes to this day. Are you telling me this Chris Aikenhead killed Ross, and George's kid?'

'No,' Steele replied, vehemently. 'He couldn't have. He's missing half of one leg. The guy I'm looking for ran up a mountain in the snow with Neil McIlhenney's boy, and put Mario McGuire in hospital into the bargain.'

'Ouch! I'd have thought you'd need three legs to do that. So where does that leave you, with him out of the frame?'

'It leaves me looking at the parents of Mariel Dickens, the dead child. That's on my agenda for tomorrow.'

'I reckon you'll be wasting your time. I was the head of CID's gofer in those days: we had a look at the investigation after it went pear-shaped and, from what I remember, the mother was the main breadwinner in the family because the father had severe multiple sclerosis.'

Steele groaned, and made a face at Maggie, who had come to sit beside him. 'If you're right, unless Mrs Dickens is a hell of a woman, that just leaves Patsy's family.'

'And that's where I might be able to help. Have you ever heard of the Groves Charitable Trust?'

'No, sir. Should I?'

'I don't suppose so,' Martin conceded. 'It's a foundation that provides for the family of the owners of Herbert Groves Construction plc, a big construction firm based on my patch. The current beneficiaries include the children of the present boss of the company. They also include Chris Aikenhead.'

'How come?'

'Have you read the papers in the Aikenhead investigation?'

'Yes.'

'Can you remember the name under which Patsy was charged, her full, formal name, that is, as it went on the charge sheet?'

'No, but I didn't pay any attention to that, because I didn't think it was relevant.'

'Sod it. We might as well have waited until tomorrow.'

'Not at all: I've got the file at home with me. It's in my briefcase.'

Maggie jumped up. 'I'll get it,' she called out, as she headed for the door.

'Thanks, love. It's in the bedroom.'

'Was that who I think it is?' asked Martin.

Stevie chuckled. 'You're well out of the Edinburgh loop, aren't you?'

'I didn't realise how much until now. Are you together?'

'Permanently.'

'That's great. I'm happy for you both.'

Maggie returned with the case and handed it to him. Quickly, he spun the combination locks, opened it and took out the file. 'Hold on till I flip through this,' he said, the phone jammed between his shoulder and his ear. 'Let's see,' he mumbled. 'No, not that. Wait a minute, yes. Here it is, a copy of the indictment. She was charged as Cleopatra Aikenhead… Patsy for short… and her maiden name is given as Murtagh.' He paused. 'Murtagh? That sounds very familiar.'

'Too right it is, Stevie,' Martin exclaimed, not trying to disguise his triumph. 'She is… or, rather, was… Tommy Murtagh's sister.'

Steele gasped. 'Stone me! That puts the First Minister at the top of the list of people I need to interview. That is one I am definitely not going to do without referring back to the boss. I'd better call him now. I hope I don't wake his kid.'

'Somehow I don't think you'll find him at home. I've just seen the BBC ten o'clock news; check out Ceefax or Sky, if you've got it, and you'll see that he's had a busy night'

The drive back was much more gentle and sedate than the women's headlong rush to St Andrews had been. It was also virtually silent, once the radio news round-up was over and they had heard Clarence Tallent's trembling solemnity as he read his statement.

'The attempt was foiled,' he concluded, 'by a team from Edinburgh, headed by Deputy Chief Constable Bob Skinner. That's all we can tell you for now, but we hope to have more information later. Let me repeat: the Prince is safe and has been taken to another location.'

He was followed by Aileen de Marco, her voice steady and grave, as she paid tribute to the rescuers and offered her sympathies, and any effective help and support that her department could give, to the casualties.

When it was over, and he had switched off the radio, Skinner sat in the front passenger seat, staring ahead into the night, thinking about the part of the story he had not told Aileen, or the chief constable, the part they would never know.

He had sent the two surviving soldiers to guard Arrow's body, with orders to allow no one to come near it, not even the police; then he had called the commanding officer of RAF Leuchars and had arranged for it to be removed by helicopter, taken to the air station and kept under guard. He had told him a simplified version of the truth, that the dead man was a member of the intelligence services, and that his presence at the scene could never be acknowledged.

There would be a cover-up: he knew that. Rudy Sewell and the other conspirators would be disposed of in some way. A bullet in the head, explained to relatives as death in the line of duty; military detention, explained as missing in action; or perhaps, in the bizarre world in which they lived, they might simply be dismissed from the service and kept under supervision for the rest of their lives.

Whatever option was chosen, it would not involve a trial. He should have cared about that, but at that moment he did not. Adam Arrow was dead and that was what filled his mind: Arrow, the solid, reliable, resourceful, lethal friend to whom he had always turned in times of greatest danger, knowing that whatever help he needed would be given. He was dead, and he, Bob Skinner, had fired the fatal shot.

And yet he did not feel that he alone had killed him. He had been the instrument, yes, the executioner, in the end, but he truly believed, and knew that he always would, that his instinctive reaction had been one of compassion. The head wound would probably have crippled the man; it would certainly have left him helpless in the hands of his interrogators. Although Arrow had never told him his real name, which had been kept under wraps to protect those close to him, he had shared one of his darkest secrets with Skinner. He had been tortured once, in Ireland, with electricity. He had withstood it for three days, until miraculously he had been saved by SAS colleagues. This time, there would have been no rescue. He would have cracked and, to him, that would have been worse than death.

Arrow had died because of his loyalty, twisted and misguided though his patriotism had been. Skinner tried to live his own life by that principle, but when he thought of his friend, he knew that his variety was a pale imitation of Arrow's. He was loyal to his force, to his colleagues and to his job. On that basis, he could make instant decisions, as he had that night, knowing that afterwards he would be able to justify them to himself and therefore to others.

He was loyal to his children and would die for them. Yet there was someone else who should have been able to command his loyalty, and in that car on the way through that dark night, he realised that she no longer could.

He remembered once looking up the definition of the word: it had been extensive. 'True, faithful to duty, love or obligation towards a person,' it had begun, then 'faithful in allegiance to sovereign, government or mother country'.