Lethal intent - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 2

CID?'

'Among other things, yes.'

'Specialist?'

'Not necessarily.'

'I'll look into it, see who's applied for transfer lately and let you know.' Haggerty heard Allan chuckle. 'Here, talking about transfers, how's Bandit Mackenzie getting on through there?'

'He's settling in fine, as far as I know. He reports to Bob, not me. You sound as if you might have been glad to get rid of him.'

'Well, I'll say this: we sleep easier in our beds knowing he's with you. He's some boy, the Bandit. He always sailed closer to the wind than any other officer we had. You must remember that, surely, from your time here.'

'I remember his clear-up figures… they were bloody impressive.'

'Maybe so, but there was always that terrible fear that he'd become a statistic himself one day. Here, that reminds me: his old sergeant, Gwen Dell, put her name in for a move last week. I'm not keen to let her go, though. She's a good operator, and a lot less reckless than Mackenzie.'

'That wouldn't be hard. If you do decide to go along with her request let me know and we'll see whether she fits what we've got. Now I'd better let you get back to work and catch those bombers of yours. We can't have the druggies blowing each other up: they could hurt too many innocent people.'

'How did you know they were druggies?' Allan asked. 'We didn't release that.'

'Do me a favour. Who do you think you're talking to?'

'Point taken. You're right, of course: three victims blown to bits. We've identified two of them as Frankie and Bobby Jakes, former asylum-seekers, and now former everything. We haven't a clue who the third guy was, although the barman in the Johnny Groat, where they'd been drinking, said he sounded foreign. Whoever he was, we found his arse in the car… a big flashy American thing, it was. The rest of him was all over the place and what was left was pretty well crisped, but the pockets of his jeans were crammed full with what had once been white powder.'

'Supply cut off at source, you might say. At least that's a bonus for you, if not for them.'

'Mmm,' DCS Allan muttered, 'but there's a downside. We're not telling anyone this either, but it wasn't a bomb that blew them up. My ballistics guys have been working all night on it, and they tell me they're pretty much certain that it was a missile, an American Javelin anti-tank weapon, they reckon.'

'Bloody hell!' exclaimed Haggerty. 'I've never heard of them in Partick before.'

'Me neither. But at least we've got somewhere to start looking. There were two guys in the pub. They'd been seen talking to the Jakes boys, and when they left, this pair went out just after them. They were seen making a very sharp exit from the scene just after the explosion. We reckon they might have fired the missile from their car.'

Haggerty felt his scalp tingle. 'How do you know they weren't just punters?' he asked.

'We know for sure they weren't. They were heard telling Jakes, and a woman, that they were porters at the Western. Only they're not. The hospital's never heard of them. We reckon that they were the hit team, and right now, finding them is our absolute top priority. We're putting E-fit pictures out on television tonight. Hopefully, they'll lead us to them.' Seventy-five

The two officers who had found the body in the Transit were still there, but a uniformed inspector had arrived from divisional headquarters in Leith and taken charge. McIlhenney eyed the two youngsters. A tight lid would have to be put on the situation; he wondered whether they could be trusted, and how strong their loyalty to the force was.

Dottie Shannon, the inspector, saw them as soon as they stepped out of Mackenzie's car, which he had parked in the roadway outside the warehouse. She was a contemporary of the Special Branch commander, and he had no worries about her discretion.

'No press around?' he asked.

'Not a sign. We've made as little fuss as possible, as you asked; I've even let the warehouse stay open. You'll see that the vehicle was left well away from the business entrance, so we've cordoned it off and let them carry on as usual, in the meantime at least'

'That's fine.'

'The only thing that concerns me, Neil, is that we don't have a medical examiner here.'

'Is he dead?'

'Oh, yes, he's dead all right.'

'In that case, unless you can find me one who specialises in resurrection, we don't need a doctor. Dot, I don't need to spell anything out here, do I?'

The inspector looked up at him from under her cap. 'You've done that already.'

'What about the kids over there? How much have they seen?'

'Hardly anything: the girl looked in the van but from what she says, she didn't hang around to see much detail. The other officer wasn't that curious; he took the word of the warehouse manager and called it in.'

'Do you know them?'

'Yes. They're both sound; they'll accept what you tell them.'

'Do they know who I am?'

'No.'

'They don't need to find out, then. Tell them that this is a suicide, that the guy's a copper from another force, and that there is to be no talk about it. I'll deal with the manager.' He turned to Mackenzie. 'Bandit, let's take a look.'

The two chief inspectors walked round and into the car park. 'Hey, Neil,' Mackenzie said quietly, as they approached the van, 'something's just occurred to me. Shouldn't Amanda Dennis be here? This is her guy, after all.'

'She's otherwise engaged.'

They reached the Transit: a foul odour wafted out to greet them through the rear doors, which lay very slightly ajar. McIlhenney glanced around to make sure that they could not be seen from the road outside the compound, and opened them to their full width. He sensed his colleague flinch beside him as he saw Sean Green's purple face, and his dead bulging eyes. 'Easy now,' he murmured. 'He might look scary, but he's not going to bite you. Poor guy: he paid a heavy price for chibbing Andy Martin's jacket.'

'I'm supposed to be the flippant one around here,' Mackenzie reminded him. 'We knew this man. How can you talk like that?'

'I find that it helps.' He gulped a lungful of relatively fresh air then squeezed himself up on to the platform of the van, for a better view. He saw that Green was wearing what he assumed was his waiter's uniform, black trousers and a white shirt. It was buttoned all the way up to the neck, as if his tie had been ripped off and used to strangle him.

'Was he killed in the van?' his colleague asked.

'I don't think so. Sean would have been trained to handle himself, and the space in here is limited. My bet would be that it happened in or near the restaurant, given that he's still in his working clothes.'

'What do we do now?'

'You call in for a black van to take him to the city morgue. I'll check to see if there's anything on him that might help us.'

A little gingerly, he reached inside Green's right trouser pockets; he found a wallet and withdrew it. On flipping it open he found that it contained thirty-five pounds in cash, two credit cards and a photographic driver's licence, all in the name of John Stevenson. He handed it to Mackenzie, who stared at it, looking puzzled. 'They didn't take it?'

'They couldn't have needed thirty-five quid,' McIlhenney replied, tersely.

The left trouser pocket held a small cell-phone. He withdrew it and tried to switch it on, but was asked for a passcode. He slipped it into his own pocket, for the technical people to explore, then bent over the body again, and rolled it on to its side. There was a back pocket on the right-hand side of the slacks. Even more gingerly, since Green had soiled himself in death, he felt it from the outside, then reached in with two fingers and slipped out a folded sheet of paper.

He opened it, carefully, and could just determine that it was a map, a street plan of the town of St Andrews. He frowned, peering at it, but it was dark inside the Transit and so he jumped out, back into the grey afternoon, where there was just enough of the fading daylight for him to see.

In fact it was only a section of a map, a graphic guide to the north end of the town. Landmarks and prominent buildings were shown in miniature and a seagull flew over St Andrews Bay. Lines across the top and bottom told him that it had been downloaded from the internet, then faxed. 'Why?' he asked himself, as his colleague joined him, looking over his shoulder. 'I doubt if he was planning any sightseeing while he was up here.'

'What are those marks on it?' Mackenzie asked, pointing.

McIlhenney followed his finger and saw that two circles had been drawn on the page. One was round the Sea Life Centre while the other encompassed a tiny illustration of St Salvator's College and its quadrangle. They were linked by a line, running along a street called The Scores. On the map, there was a cartoon of a boat in the bay, heading out to sea. It, too, had been circled.

The chief inspector cleared his mind and concentrated, the page hanging loosely in his fingers as he thought. And then he gave a long, soft whistle. 'Salvator,' he murmured, 'Salvator. Bandit, what was the Albanian word the Dutch lorry drive overheard? Remember?'

'Saviour, wasn't it?'

'That's right; probably what you'd come up with if you were translating Salvator into Albanian.'

'Yes, so?'

'David, my friend, what's St Andrews famous for, apart from golf?'

'Dunno.'

'The university, that's what. And who's its most famous student?'

Mackenzie's mouth fell open. Before it had closed, McIlhenney had his phone in his hand and was calling Bob Skinner. Seventy-six

Stevie Steele had been expecting a report from Arthur Dorward, not a personal visit, so he was surprised when his red-haired colleague walked into his office. 'Hello,' he exclaimed, 'I didn't think that you Howdenhall lab guys could find your way to divisional offices any more.'

'We get precious little thanks when we do,' Dorward answered, 'so these days we only deliver the good news in person.'

'Good news? You bear good news?'

'I do indeed, my son. A double helping, in fact.'

Steele leaned back in his chair and smiled. 'Let me have it.'

Casually, Dorward tossed an envelope on to his desk. 'It's all in there, but this is what it says. First, the sock: as you suggested, we had another look at wee George's clothing, and knowing what we were after made all the difference. We took several fibres from his jacket; they were an exact match for the cotton in the sock that socked Mario McGuire. We checked the garment too. That wasn't difficult: it's a Marks and Spencer product, fits size eight to ten shoe, and it's from a range that was withdrawn only six months ago. Before you ask, it could have been bought in any of their stores but, still, it's a big step forward.'

'True. It eliminates half of the male population and one or two large females as well.'

'Get away with you. It changes your report on the boy's death entirely, and you know it. Would you like to know about the rock?'

Steele chuckled. 'I can hardly wait. Did you put your top geologist on it?'

Dorward looked down his nose. 'Naturally. It's a lump of grey granite from the north-east, the stuff that Aberdeen and a few other places are built out of; very hard, much tougher than sandstone. The interesting thing about it is that it's been machine cut. Superintendent McGuire must have a seriously hard head to have got up after being whacked with that.'

'He has, take my word for it. He'll be out of hospital by now.'

'He's lucky he's conscious by now,' the inspector said. 'If that weapon is what was used on young George Regan, the kid didn't have a chance.

'Now, the other. We went back to Ross Pringle's room, and we dismantled that heater. I put my best girl on it, and on one side of the loosened socket that caused the leak, she found a clear right thumbprint. We had to fingerprint Ross's body, I'm afraid, which I didn't like doing, but it allowed us to eliminate her. We took the lock on the door apart too. There were scratches inside it that my specialist thinks would have been made by a skeleton key. He also… and this is where he got really clever… found traces of two different types of lubricant inside the lock, which led him to speculate that the skeleton might have been oiled to make it work better.'

'Whose speciality would that be?'

'Apart from a locksmith? A joiner? A mechanical engineer? A policeman? We're scientists, Stevie, we only go in for guessing when it's founded on something concrete.'

'Have you eliminated the engineer who did the last service on those gas appliances?'

'Gimme a break! Of course we have. Match that print and you've got your man.'

There was a knock at the door. Steele looked up and saw, through the glass, Detective Sergeant Ray Wilding. He beckoned him in, as the smiling Dorward stood. 'When we catch this guy, I'll buy you a beer, Arthur. So will George, Dan and Neil, I'm sure.'

The two officers passed in the doorway and Wilding took the seat that the inspector had vacated. Steele had taken up Skinner's suggestion that he bring him into the investigation and had found him only too willing. 'You're looking pleased with yourself too, Ray,' he said.

'So will you be in a minute, Stevie. I've found Chris Aikenhead for you, and he's right on our doorstep.'

'Yes!' Steele hissed.

'I read through the file on the investigation, and I found a reference to him, saying that he worked off-shore with a Scottish-owned company called Oriental Petroleum, so I checked with them. He still does. He worked on their platform in the North Sea at the time, and for three years after his wife's suicide, until he was moved to an installation off Venezuela. He remarried out there and stayed until September, when he came back to a job in the Edinburgh office as development manager. The personnel officer was very co-operative: she gave me his address.'

'Hold on, Ray. What if she tells him that the police have been asking about him?'

'I asked her not to do that, in case she alarmed him unnecessarily. I told her that something had arisen that related to his late wife's case, and that we wanted to advise him of it. She promised me she wouldn't say anything to him.'

'Let's hope she's as good as her word. Where does he live?'

'In the Buckstone area.'

'Christ, that's close to Neil, and Dan Pringle.'

'And the ski centre.'

'It gets better. What was his trade on the rigs?'

'He was an engineer.'

'It all fits. We pay a call on him, Ray, but first we get a warrant. We might need to search his house for a sock that's in want of a partner.' Seventy-seven

Skinner was turning into Elbe Street when his cell-phone sounded in its hands-free socket in his car. He hit the answer button.

'Boss,' Neil McIlhenney exclaimed. 'Got you at last. I tried the office, but Jack said you'd gone. This is the third time I've called your mobile.'

'That's the trouble with technology,' the DCC grumbled. 'It never works when you need it. What's up? Are you still at Newcraighall?'

'Yes.'

'It was Green, then?' The question was tinged with resignation.

'Yes, but there was never any doubt about that, was there? Are you on your way here?'

'No. I decided that I'd go to the restaurant instead. I'm just pulling up outside in fact.'

'Good, I didn't want you driving when you heard this. We've found something on Sean's body that might be the answer to everything.'

As McIlhenney described the map of St Andrews, Skinner, for all that he had seen and done in his career, felt his blood chill. 'What do you still have to do there?' he asked.

'Nothing. The van's just arrived to remove the body, and we've spoken to everybody we need to. We've managed to convince the warehouse manager that it was a suicide, and that Sean managed to strangle himself with his own tie.'

'Okay. I want you to get Bassam's address, and go there. No chance he'll be there, but check it out, and then come here, as fast as you can.' He switched off the cell-phone, took it from its holder, and jumped out of his BMW.

A uniformed constable was guarding the door of the restaurant. For a second he moved to bar Skinner's way, but recognised him just in time and stepped aside.

There were no diners inside, only DS Sammy Pye and two other CID officers, four very confused staff members and one angry chef. 'Who you?' he demanded, before the door had even closed behind Skinner.

'Deputy chief constable,' he replied. 'Now who are you?'

'I Sukur. I cook here. We have customers; no boss, no head waiter, but we working still, then you people come and tell us we have to close. When Mr Bassam come back, you hear about this, I tell you.'

'Where is Mr Bassam right now?' Skinner asked him.

'I no' know.'

'Has he been in at all this morning?'

'No, but I have keys. Usually I open up.'

'Did Mr Bassam lock up last night?'

'How should I know? I go after we serve the last people. He no' here then, though. New head waiter say I could go.'

'Who was here when you left?'

'John, the new guy, and him.' The chef pointed to one of the two waiters, the Asian.

The man nodded. 'But I left after that,' he said, quickly.

'So John was alone?'

'Yes.'

'Where was Bassam?'

'I don't know.'

The DCC turned back to the chef. 'Do you?'

'No' here,' the truculent Sukur grunted. 'He went out before that'

'When?'

'Earlier on.'

'Don't try my patience,' Skinner warned him. 'At what time?'

'I dunno, maybe eight, maybe earlier.'

'Did he tell you where he was going?'

'The boss no' tell me anything. He just leave me to run the kitchen.'

'But you knew he had gone. Does that mean you saw him leave?'

Sukur nodded. 'I see him through kitchen window. He get into van.'

'What van?'

'Mr Bassam's van: an old thing he uses to go to the cash and carry. He keep it at his house and sometimes he bring it here. It was here last night, parked out back. He get into it with the other guys.'

Skinner's eyes narrowed. 'What other guys?'

'I no' know who they are; they friends of his, though. Not Turkish, but then neither is he.'

'What do you know about them?'

'Nothing. They been living upstairs, but they don't come in here, ever.'

'What's upstairs?'

'The boss have a flat upstairs; he used to stay there, till he bring his family over and buy his house.'

'Do you have keys for it?'

'No. The boss keeps those.'

'How long have these people been there?'

'I dunno; not long, a few weeks maybe.'

'Come on,' said the DCC, 'show me where this place is.' He turned to Pye. 'Sam, with me.'

The chef, still scowling, led them through the kitchen, and out into Delight's back yard. A flight of stone stairs, on the outside of the building, led to a green-painted door. 'There,' he grunted.

The two police officers climbed the worn steps, coming to a square landing on top. Skinner tried the door handle, then, finding it locked, kicked it open effortlessly with the sole of his right foot.

'Sir,' Pye exclaimed.

'It was stuck: the wood must have been warped.'

'Yes, but…'

'Ah, you think they might be in there, do you, Sam? Not a cat's chance, but there's one way to find out.' He stepped into the flat.

All four doors off the hall were open: two led into bedrooms, each with twin beds, a third to a bathroom, and the last into a large living room, with a kitchen area against the far wall. The place was a mess: discarded cigarette packets, bottles and food wrappers lay everywhere.

'Not exactly Good Housekeeping,' Pye muttered.

'Looks a bit like your wife's desk from time to time.' The DCC chuckled. The sergeant was married to Ruth, his secretary. He walked over to a small dining-table positioned at the window. It was strewn with crumpled sheets of paper, which seemed to have been torn from a pad. He picked one up, and saw a few words jotted down. Whatever the language was it was unknown to him.

'Sir.' Skinner glanced across at Pye. He was standing by a small side table, looking at a heavy black machine. 'It's a fax,' he said.

'Do you think it might have been used?'

'If it has, it might have a log that tells us.'

'Try it'

The sergeant bent over the device, pushing a button repeatedly as he read the menu. 'Got it,' he whispered, finally, then straightened as a humming sound began, and a sheet of paper started to emerge from a slot below the key-pad. He caught it before it could fall to the floor, and handed it to the DCC.

He read it, his eye scanning down a list of numbers and dates. Only two entries had any currency, and both showed messages received from the same number. 'Oh two oh seven,' he murmured. 'Thanks, Sam,' he said. 'That was good thinking. Now go back to the restaurant, please, and wait for DCIs McIlhenney and Mackenzie. When they arrive, send them up here.'

As soon as he was alone, Skinner took his palm-top computer from his pocket and turned it on, using a security code. He opened his personal directory and chose the letter 'A', quickly finding the phone number he sought.

He switched on his mobile and dialled. His call was not picked up directly; instead he heard a click and the dialling tone change pitch. At last a voice answered. 'Yes, Bob,' said Major Adam Arrow.

'Are you on a cell-phone?' he asked his friend.

'I'm in the field at the moment. What can I do for you?' There was none of the customary profane banter that was his usual trademark.

'Is this secure?'

'All the way, don't worry.'

'I need a number checked out.'

'Have you thought about Directory Enquiries?' The question reassured Skinner; it was more like the usual Arrow.

'For about a nanosecond: remember those Albanians I told you about?'

'Yes.'

'I've found them. I'm in a flat on my patch where these guys have been living since they pitched up here. They've been under the protection of an Albanian Turk called Petrit Bassam Kastrati, who runs a restaurant directly below where I'm standing, and now they've broken cover. In the last four days, they've received two faxes, and I'd like to know the point of origin.'

'So would I, but so would Five. Why aren't you asking them?'

'We had a line to one of the Albanians. He was killed last night in Glasgow, in sight of my people, as they were about to follow him back here. We had an MI 5 operative under cover in the restaurant; he was found dead a couple of hours ago. His handler is currently being held in custody in my building.'

Arrow whistled. 'You don't need to say any more; give me the number.'

'You'll check it and get back to me?'

His friend chuckled. 'What's up, Bob? Not sure you can trust me?'

'Did I call you? You're the only man outside my own team I'm sure I can trust. Adam, if that's a Five number…'

'Then the fall-out will be in my area of operations, so don't you get into it. From the sound of things you were right to take the handler out of play. Can you tell me who it is?'

'Amanda Dennis.'

'Hell, I know Amanda. Are you sure she's a risk?'

'No, but I'm taking no chances.'

'I don't suppose I would either. You say the Albanians have gone. Do you have any idea where?'

'That's the really heavy bit. The only lead I have points to St Andrews, and you know who's there.'

'God almighty!'

'Not quite, but the future Defender of His Faith.' Skinner paused. 'Whatever these guys are here for, it's not a drug run. As of now, it looks like they're a hit team.'

Arrow hesitated for a few seconds. 'There's another strong possibility,' he ventured. 'In fact I'd say it was almost likelier than an assassination. I did some research after you called me and I've come up with a possible answer. As well as all those criminal activities for which they've become world famous, they have another speciality. They stage kidnappings for ransom. Can you think of a victim with a higher price tag?'

The DCC pondered the suggestion. 'Whatever they're up to,' he said, 'they're equipped for it. We believe that they acquired a load of armaments in Holland; from the sound of things they gave us a sample of their fire-power in Glasgow last night. The guy I told you about, Samir Bajram, was with two locals. He was completing a drug deal, but I reckon he was doing a bit of business on the side, and when Naim Latifi found out, he took him out of play. The car he was in was hit by an anti-tank missile.'

'Jesus.' Arrow whistled again. 'Why make a small bang when you can make a really big one?'

'Adam,' Skinner went on, 'if Five's been penetrated, I've got to keep my distance from them. Can you send me fast back-up, from anywhere?'

The little soldier's sigh sounded full of despair; it gave Skinner no comfort. 'I don't have any specialists, mate. I was with the Secretary of State at Hereford yesterday, and it was virtually empty. The whole world's on fire, and the SAS is fully deployed putting it out. If you want boys in uniform, I'll get them to you, but they won't be trained for that stuff.'

'Can you alert the protection squad?'

'I'll alert the Palace. But, Bob, from what you say, this thing, whatever it is, could go down any time. An instant military operation isn't practical; the police will have to deal with it themselves.'

At his words, a great wave of dread swept over Skinner, and he felt the tension burn within him. 'Adam, if we're right about this, the stakes are higher than anything I've ever faced. I don't know if we can handle it'

'Mate,' the old Arrow's voice came down the line, 'I've seen you in action. I don't think there's anything you can't fookin' handle.'

'Thanks for your confidence,' the DCC said, ironically.

'I'd rather you were on this than anyone else. I'll run down that number for you. Is there anything else I can do?'

'First get me an exact location; I need to know precisely where he is. Also, could you get me a chopper? We need to get to St Andrews as fast as we can. I'll alert the Fife force, but it'll take them time to get an armed team out there.'

'I can do that: there's one on standby at Redford Barracks. I'll put a detachment of soldiers in it too. Give me a location.'

'My headquarters building. It can land on the football field. It'll take me fifteen minutes to get back there.'

'How many passengers?'

'There'll be three of us.'

'No problem. Do you want firearms?'

'We'll take our own: we're familiar with them.'

'Let's hope you don't have to use them. I'll be in touch.'

'I hate helicopters,' said a voice from behind him. He turned to see McIlhenney and Mackenzie, the latter wearing a mournful expression.

'Who likes them? But there are worse places you could be. For example, you could be locked up in Glasgow. Strathclyde Police are after you two for blowing up Bajram and his cousins.' He headed for the door. 'Come on, there's no time to lose: we've got to get airborne as soon as we can. The future of more things than you can imagine could be in our hands.' Seventy-eight

Normally, Andy Martin was a patient man, but as five o'clock approached, he found himself beginning to fret. The contact he had made in the General Register Office in Southport had promised him that he would have the information he sought before the day was out, but time was wearing thin.

He was on the point of making a wake-up call when his direct line rang. He snatched it up.

'Bet you thought I was never going to get back to you, Mr Martin,' said an amiable voice.

'That's not a bet I'm going to take, Mr Donald.' He chuckled. The two men had never met, but when Martin had identified himself to the GRO switchboard, he had been put through to the office of the Deputy Registrar General, who had introduced himself as Rex Donald.

He had expected that he might have some difficulty in persuading him to do a search of the English birth, death and marriage registers, but he had found him more than willing to help. Donald had explained that it was policy to co-operate with official requests from the police and other departments, and that he was not hindered by the Data Protection Act.

When Martin had given him the name of the person whose birth he wanted traced, he had listened for a reaction, but had picked up none. He had smiled to himself, wondering how Tommy Murtagh would have taken the knowledge that a high-ranking English civil servant had never heard, apparently, of Scotland's top politician.

'Has your search been successful?' he asked.

'The birth one has, in triplicate,' Donald told him. 'I've found three male children born thirty-six years ago and named Thomas Murtagh. However, only one of them has a mother called Rachel.'

'And the father?' asked Martin, trying to sound matter-of-fact.

'That information is not on the register. Rachel Murtagh was the mother's maiden name.'

'I see. Where was the birth registered?'

'In the city of York, where the mother lived. Obviously, since the mother was single, your second request, for details of her marriage, fell by the wayside. However, I had some additional checking done, just to make sure, and I can tell you that she did not enter into any subsequent union, not in England at any rate. Finally, there is no record of anyone named George Murtagh dying in the year you mention. Is all that helpful?'

'Very. Thank you, Mr Donald.'

'May I ask, Mr Martin, out of sheer, naked curiosity, what's behind your enquiries? Is it a fraud?'

The police officer grinned. 'You could put it that way,' he replied. 'Some people might see it as a very big fraud indeed.'

He hung up, musing over what he had been told. So the story of the motor mechanic's tragic death, the one that Diana Meikle had believed, was a fabrication, and the First Minister's official biography was a lie.

He found himself thinking about the man's sad family background and of his long-gone sister, whose birth certificate, as a Scottish check had revealed, had also been lacking in information on her paternity. How much light could she shed on her brother's world? Suddenly, he found himself thinking about the Herbert Groves Charitable Trust.

He picked up the phone again and called an old friend of his, someone who went all the way back to his Special Branch days. 'Excellent,' he murmured, as the phone was answered.

'Veronica Hacking.'

'Hi, Ronnie. It's Andy Martin. How's the Inland Revenue these days?' Seventy-nine

Although the sports field was at the back of the building, and out of sight from his room, Skinner knew from the roar that penetrated the thick windows that the helicopter had arrived.

As he stood behind his desk, phone in hand, waiting to be put through to the Chief Constable of Fife, he adjusted the hip holster containing the Glock pistol that he had signed out from the store. A voice sounded in his ear. 'I have Mr Tallent for you now, sir.'

'Thanks.'

'Bob, what's the panic?' The Fife chief sounded slightly annoyed. 'We've got a medal presentation on here, and I've just been hauled out of it. This had better be good, or else.'

Skinner never reacted well to threats, not even from one of the few senior officers he had within the Scottish force. 'Shut up and listen, Clarence,' he barked. 'I'm calling to advise you that two of my officers and I are heading into your territory in hot pursuit of four suspects whom we have reason to believe may be planning something very big in St Andrews.'

'Terrorists?'

'More like mercenaries: Albanian gangsters, heavily armed. We believe they're heading for St Salvator's, which leads us to suspect the worst. Do you have an armed response unit in the area?'

'In St Andrews? Of course not.'

'How long will it take you to put a team together and get them there?'

'I reckon I can do it in an hour,' said the now compliant chief constable.

'We'll be there before them. I have a chopper on the ground outside, with a small military detachment. When we get there, and your people arrive, I want them operating under my command. We know what the opposition looks like; they don't.'

'That's agreed. I'll be with them.'

'Thanks. What strength do you have there at the moment?' asked Skinner.

'I've got a uniformed station, with a chief inspector in charge.'

'Okay, I'd like you to have someone go to the college, alert the protection officers and let them know I'm on the way.'

'I'll do that. What's your plan?'

'I'm going to fly there, secure the subject and send him in the same chopper to a place of safety, then wait for the arrival of the Albanians. They've left this area, so I believe that to be imminent.'

'I'll get my team on the ground as fast as I can. God be with you.' Eighty

The man's done well for himself,' Ray Wilding commented, as he looked at the house. Night had fallen but the stone-clad villa still stood out, illuminated by carefully placed lights in the landscaped garden. 'The oil business must pay as well as they say.'

'All the people in this area have done well for themselves,' Steele reminded him. 'This is pretty up-market territory.'

Wilding checked his watch. 'It's spot on five. Do we wait for him to come back from the office, or do we go in now?'

'If you look at the driveway, you'll see that there are two cars there. Could be he's home already. Let's go in.'

They climbed out of Steele's car and crunched their way through the frozen snow up the path to the front door. Wilding's ring was answered by an attractive woman with jet-black hair, a brown complexion and eyes to match. 'Yes?' she asked, looking at them suspiciously.

'Mrs Aikenhead,' the inspector began, 'we're police officers.' He and the sergeant displayed their warrant cards. 'Is your husband at home?' She nodded. 'In that case, we'd like a word with him. It has to do with the death of his first wife, and the circumstances that led up to it.'

'If you've come to apologise, you're ten years too late.' The voice came from within the hall; they looked past the woman and saw a big, heavily muscled figure leaning against the door frame. 'But come in and tell me your story.' He turned and disappeared into the room behind him.

By the time his wife had shown them through, he was seated in a chair beside the fire. 'Jessie, you don't need to hear this,' he said. She nodded and left the room.

The two officers stood, waiting for an invitation to sit, but none came. 'What have you got to say for yourself?' Chris Aikenhead asked, truculently.

'We've got a few questions, actually,' Steele told him, quietly.

'I hope they make some sense this time, more than that man Pringle did. Is that bastard still on the force?'

'Detective Chief Superintendent Pringle is currently our head of CID, sir.'

'And what about those other two, the pair who fucked up and caused Patsy to kill herself? What were their names again?'

'I think you know their names, Mr Aikenhead.'

The man scowled up at them. 'How could I forget them?' he muttered. 'McIlhenney and Regan.'

'They're both still on the force too. You must know George is, unless you don't read newspapers or watch television. It was his son who was killed in the castle grounds the Sunday before last.'

'Into every life a little rain must fall.' The words were soft, and had a hint of laughter about them. Steele felt Wilding tense beside him.

'That's quite a downpour,' he replied, 'losing your kid. But it didn't just rain on George and Jen Regan: the cloud hovered over Dan and Elma Pringle as well. Their daughter was gassed last week by a heater in her room on Riccarton Campus. She died a couple of days later.'

Aikenhead's eyes held his. 'That's bad luck,' he said, coldly.

'Yes, it was. Fortunately Neil and Louise McIlhenney were luckier: their son was supposed to have a fatal accident up at Hillend on Saturday, but he managed to escape from the man who took him.'

'A real chapter of accidents, from the sound of it.'

'That's what we were meant to think, but thanks to some excellent work in our lab, we can prove they weren't. We're looking at two counts of murder, and one of attempted abduction. Can I take you back through your movements over the last ten days, sir? For example, where were you on Saturday afternoon, when we had that blizzard?'

Chris Aikenhead stared at the two detectives in absolute astonishment: and then, without warning, he exploded into laughter. When finally, it subsided, he shook his head. 'Make it easy for yourselves,' he said, still chuckling. 'Just get the fuck out of my house.'

'You've got it the wrong way round,' Steele snapped back, his patience eroded. 'We have a warrant to search these premises; if you don't start treating our questions with respect I will have a team up here within half an hour and we will take this place apart.'

'You want answers?' Aikenhead shot back. 'I'll give you one answer, and that's all you'll need.' He seized the arms of his chair and pushed himself to his feet. Standing erect and staring down at both of his interrogators, he unbuckled his belt, unfastened his jeans and let them fall to the ground.

His right leg had been amputated just above the knee, and replaced by a prosthesis. He let them stare at it for several seconds, then dropped back into his seat and pulled himself back, awkwardly, into his trousers.

'That's the reason I came off the rigs,' he told them, calmly. 'I lost it ten months ago. I'm getting good on the new one, but only on level ground. Any more questions?'

'Just one,' Steele replied. 'Why didn't you tell us that at the start?'

'Haven't you worked that one out yet? I don't like you guys. It doesn't matter whether it's you two or the other three, you're all the same to me, unsympathetic bastards in suits whose only interest is in getting a result. That man Pringle bullied my Patsy into confessing to something she didn't do; because of that and because of two clowns who couldn't be bothered to see for themselves, she died a miserable death in a prison cell.'

Aikenhead paused; his anger had been replaced by pain. 'You know,' he murmured, 'since I met Jessie, I've actually been trying to forget about it all. I even thought that when my leg got ripped off, some of that old hurt got torn out as well. I was wrong: you guys have brought all of the injustice back, and more. You came in here prepared to accuse me of being a child-killer.'

He shook his head, sadly. Steele looked down at him, feeling awkward and, for once in his life, at a loss for words. 'I'm sorry,' was all he could say, as he and Wilding turned and headed for the door.

They were almost in the hall when Aikenhead called after them: 'What I don't understand is why you picked me. If I had decided to take revenge ten years on, why would I have killed their kids? An eye for an eye in my case would have been their wives.' Eighty-one

The helicopter flew low and fast through the night skies. It was a big ugly brute of an aircraft, built for functionality and not for comfort. McIlhenney and Mackenzie were strapped into seats at the back with four uniformed soldiers, Skinner in front with the pilot.

It was gloomy: the only illumination came from the instrumentation and from a small night-light in the cabin, but outside and to their left, they could see the lights of the Fife coastal towns, as they swept across the Forth estuary. They were flying over land once more when the radio crackled into life in Skinner's headset.

'Bob, are you receiving me?' a tinny voice asked. 'It's Adam.' The pilot handed the DCC a microphone, showing him a button and pointing to indicate that he had to press to transmit. He took it from him.

'Receiving,' he shouted.

'I've advised the Palace of the possibility of a threat and told them that a detachment is on the way to St Andrews to secure the area. What action have you taken?'

'I've contacted the local chief constable: he's mobilising what resources he can. What will the Palace do?'

'They'll make direct contact with the protection officers on the ground, advise them of the situation and tell them that you're coming. He is in the college, Bob; repeat, in St Salvator's College building, in his private suite. Do you understand?'

'Received and understood. What about the number?'

'I've had no joy with that yet.'

'Keep trying. What do you want me to do with Amanda?'

'Keep holding her. She may be part of it, she may not; we don't know how far it goes yet. But forget that: what you have to do in the next hour will need your full attention.'

'Acknowledged. I'll call you when he's secured.' He put the microphone back in its slot below the instrument panel and stared out into the night. 'How close are we?' he asked the pilot.

'See those lights up ahead, sir? That's it. We're less than five minutes away.'

'Good. When we get there I need you to put us down as close to St Salvator's College as possible. Do you know the town?'

'Yes, but it's dark, sir,' the young lieutenant shouted back. 'Without proper lighting the safest place for me to land would be on the golf course.'

'I'm bothered about someone else's safety, not ours. If it's clear of students I want you to set us down right in the middle of St Salvator's quadrangle.'

'I'll try, sir, but no promises.'

The lights of St Andrews shone ever clearer, made brighter by the blanket of snow that still lay on the ground. As the aircraft swung over the town, Skinner could make out the shape of South Street, then Market Street and, furthest away, North Street, their objective.

'I can't get into the grounds, sir,' the pilot shouted. 'There are a lot of people down there.'

'In that case, set us down in the middle of North Street, but don't cut your engine. I want you to wait, ready to lift off immediately when your next passenger gets here.' He twisted round in his seat to face McIlhenney, Mackenzie and the four infantrymen. 'It's begun on the ground,' he shouted at them. 'We won't know what the situation is until we see it, but remember this, all of you: our only objective is to make the Prince safe and get him out of there. You've all studied photographs of Naim Latifi, the Ramadani brothers and Peter Bassam: if you see any one of them, put him down unless he's clearly unarmed and offering no resistance.'

'You mean shoot them, sir?' All of Mackenzie's customary flippancy had evaporated; even in the surreal light within the cabin, it was clear that his face was ghostly white.

Skinner stared at him. 'Bandit,' he asked, 'are you up for this? You can stay in the chopper if you want, and it will never be held against you. The same goes for you, Neil. You guys have got kids, after all.'

'So have you,' said McIlhenney, tersely. 'And the young man in the college, he's someone's kid as well.'

The DCC looked out of the window to the side. The pilot had taken him at his word: he had switched on his searchlight and was setting the aircraft down in the middle of North Street, next to the university chapel with its tall illuminated tower. The wheels were barely on the ground before Skinner jumped out, the Glock big in his hand and shining silver in the night.

As the pilot had said, they were not alone. A stream of young people were pouring out of Butts Wynd into the thoroughfare. They were running for their lives, and one or two were screaming. Some were bleeding, but the DCC reasoned that if they were mobile they could be cared for later.

'With me,' he ordered, then led his small force in the direction from which the crowd had come, round the corner of the chapel and into St Salvator's quadrangle.

The scene that greeted them was one of total chaos. More students rushed past them, barely noticing their presence. A few were not running; they lay on the ground, ominously still. He looked across the snow-covered grass to the college itself. He had been there once before, when he and Sarah, as guests at a Fife police summer event in the nearby Younger Hall, had been given overnight accommodation.

The doorway that they had used on that occasion no longer existed. It had been blown apart, and only a great gaping hole remained. Another blast had hit the facade of the old building further along. 'Missiles,' Skinner shouted at McIlhenney. 'The protection-squad guys would have secured the building when they got the alert. They just blasted their way in.'

A tall young student rushed towards them, intent on escape. The DCC grabbed him, halting his flight. 'Where is the Prince's suite?' he yelled. The terrified boy gazed at him, shock in his eyes, but the policeman had no time for sympathy. 'Where?' he roared again.

'One floor up, to the left.' Skinner set him free to run into the night. He turned to his six companions. 'You four,' he said to the soldiers. 'You've got carbines, so you're best in the open, I want two of you here to take down any of the targets if they get past us and try to escape this way, and the other two in The Scores, the street behind, covering the back. Neil, Bandit, we're going in.' As two of the infantrymen raced off across the lawn, and the others took position, the three police officers ran towards the newly carved entrance.

The building was ablaze with light: it had not occurred to the attackers to try to cut the power, or they had been completely confident of the effect of their ferocious assault. The trio sprinted inside, each covering the others' backs. The flood of fleeing students had subsided, and the entrance hall was empty… of the living, at any rate. A few must have been in the hall when the missile hit, three, Skinner reckoned, although he could not be certain. The bodies of two uniformed police officers, a chief inspector and a female constable lay at the foot of the stairs. They had each been shot at least a dozen times.

'Automatic weapons,' said the DCC, 'keep yourselves close to the ground, boys, and for Christ's sake, shoot first if you have to.' He led the way up the stairs, moving fast and silently.

At his heels, McIlhenney prayed silently, and thought of Lou and the children. He was aware that Mackenzie, by his side, was trembling; but he was pressing on nonetheless, defying his fear.

They reached the top of the stairs, which opened out on to a corridor; they had turned back upon themselves, and so if the student's direction was correct, the Prince's suite would be on their right. A doorway opposite offered some shelter: Skinner tensed himself and dived towards it, trusting that he still had the speed to beat an Albanian's trigger finger and a hail of bullets.

But none came: the corridor was eerily quiet. Taking his life in his hands once more, he stepped out of the doorway, braced and ready to fire.

Outside a door at the end, two figures, another constable and a man in a suit, lay still on the floor. The DCC ran towards them, beckoning his colleagues to follow. The man in plain clothes wore a small gold badge in his lapel, the sign of a protection officer; his right hand still clutched a pistol, loosely. He had been shot several times in the chest and head, and he was beyond help. Skinner felt the gun in his hand; it was warm, as if it had been fired.

The police officer was still alive: he had wounds in his right arm, shoulder and his upper chest, but he was not bleeding profusely, and he was conscious. 'You'll make it,' said Skinner, quietly. 'What's your name?'

'PC Alan McManus.'

'I'm Bob Skinner, from Edinburgh. How many years on the job, Alan?'

'Fourteen, sir.'

'All of them quiet till tonight, I'll bet. Tell me what I need to know.'

'They took him, sir,' the wounded officer replied, weakly and painfully. 'The other protection officer's in the suite; I think he's dead.'

'He is,' McIlhenney murmured. 'Just inside the door.'

'Where did they go?'

'Down the fire escape: there's a door over there that leads to it.'

'How many?'

'Three, but one was wounded.' PC McManus groaned. 'This man here got off a shot before they opened fire.'

'Okay. You just lie quiet now.' Skinner looked at Mackenzie and took pity on him. 'Bandit, you stay here: make him comfortable and make sure that the emergency services get to him as fast as possible.' He turned to McIlhenney. 'Neil, let's get after them. From Sean's map we have to assume that they're heading for the Sea Life Centre. We've heard no shots from outside, so they must have gone before our two soldiers got into position. But if one's wounded that might slow them down.'

They found the door that led to the fire escape, as the constable had described it. The emergency exit swung on its hinges. The DCC saw, with a burst of savage satisfaction, that it was smeared with blood. They trotted down the metal staircase at double time, no longer caring about noise, then found the gate that led out into The Scores.

The roadway was deserted; skeletal trees rose around them, shifting, ghostly figures in the weak glow of the sodium lamps.

'Bob,' McIlhenney whispered, hoarsely, breaking into a run once more. 'Look.' Skinner followed him across the road; on the other side, huddled against a low stone wall, the two infantrymen lay dead, their carbines by their sides. Each had been shot in the back, at close range, and again in the neck, a coup de grace.

'How the hell did the Albanians do that?' the big chief inspector asked himself, aloud. 'Poor bastards; it looks as if they never had a chance.'

'They must have had an outside man too: there were four of them in all, remember, including Bassam. I'd been guessing that the fourth man would be on the boat, but I must have been wrong: it looks as if he was guarding the escape route. Christ, they could almost be gone by now.'

'There are bloodstains on the snow,' McIlhenney exclaimed.

'We follow them.' Taking the dead soldiers' rifles, and their night glasses, they started to run, as fast as they were able on the treacherous, slippery pavements. As they moved down The Scores the blood patches became noticeably larger, showing them the way ever more clearly. They turned off the roadway and on to a path that led across the grass, passing the Martyrs Monument on the left.

They had almost reached the Sea Life Centre, when they came upon the body, lying face down and hunched before them. Mindful of a trap, Skinner kept the rifle on the man, as McIlhenney turned him over, but there was no need: the dead eyes of Amet, the younger of the Ramadani brothers, stared up at the night sky, just as the moon appeared from behind a cloud to bathe his face in silver.

'I can see them,' McIlhenney shouted, looking through the night glasses. 'They're on the jetty, by the Centre.'

Skinner snatched up his own binoculars and focused them. He found the boat, a big fast vessel, built for sheer speed; a stocky, bald-headed man was at the wheel. 'Bassam,' he murmured, moving the glasses until he found the others, a group of three.

The figure in the middle was slimmer and much taller than the other two, well over six feet, but they held him firmly on either side, shoving him towards the boat. 'If they get him on board…' the DCC murmured. He dropped the glasses and raised the rifle, feeling a wave of exultation when he found that it, too, had night vision.

He pressed the butt to his shoulder and found the trio again; they seemed larger through the telescopic sight than in the binoculars. He drew a deep breath and held it, fixed the man on the Prince's right with the red laser dot, and squeezed the trigger, gently so that he would not jerk it. There was no recoil from the weapon, and so he saw the Albanian as he rose up on his toes and pitched forward, tumbling into the boat.

He swung the sight to the other kidnapper. Even as he did so, he saw the young Prince swing a powerful punch at him with his newly freed fist, knocking him sideways and out of the weapon's field of vision.

'Run!' he bellowed, but the command was unnecessary, for the tall young man was already sprinting up towards them. Frantically he swung the rifle, searching through the sight for the second Albanian, before he could start shooting. He heard McIlhenney, beside him, firing into the night, and then he saw the man leaping into the boat, even as its engine roared into life and it began to move away from the jetty. He gave a huge sigh of relief and let the weapon relax in his grasp.

The young man was racing up the path, and more than halfway towards them, when Skinner saw a figure step from the shadow of the Sea Life Centre building and into the moonlight. The man raised his arm, and he saw the silenced pistol, as he trained it on the fleeing Prince. In a blur of movement, he swept the carbine back up to his shoulder, sighted and fired. The figure seemed to stiffen; the gun slipped from his grasp, and he toppled backwards.

And then the young man around whom so much revolved was standing before them, tall, blond, and blessed with his mother's looks. 'I really do hope that you're the good guys,' he exclaimed, breathlessly.

'Seventh Cavalry, Edinburgh branch, at your service, sir,' Skinner replied, then turned to McIlhenney. 'Neil, take the Prince to the chopper, and have the pilot fly you back to our headquarters; not the barracks as previously discussed. Make him secure and comfortable there, then contact the assistant commissioner in the Met who's in charge of royal protection and tell him where he is. I repeat, go to Fettes, not Redford. Understood?'

'I'm with you. Who was that down there, that fourth man you just shot?'

'That's what I'm afraid to find out, but I'm going to have to. Now get out of here, fast, and up to North Street.'

As the two moved off into the night, he heard a confident young voice say, 'Neil, this way, along Murray Park. It's quicker.'

Holding his rifle in both hands, the DCC moved down the path to where the fallen man lay, with his head in the centre of a great dark circle of spreading blood. His limbs jerked uncontrollably, and he had a massive head wound, just above his right ear. And yet he was still conscious.

'Wh-when you fired, did you know it was me?' asked Adam Arrow. The words were a shivering whisper; Skinner had to kneel down to hear them. He did so steadily and with care for he was shaking himself and a great cold fist seemed to be grasping the pit of his stomach, threatening to shatter his self-control.

'I reckoned that it had to be,' he answered, 'when I saw the dead soldiers. I tried to tell myself that it was impossible, but only you knew they were coming. You killed your own men, Adam,' he said, with disgust in his voice as he stared down at him. 'You were here all along, weren't you? When I called you today, and you said you were in the field, you were here.'

'Yesss.'

'What the hell have you done?'

'F-fucked up in the end.'

'You were behind the whole thing? You and Amanda?'

'No.' The whisper seemed to grow stronger. 'Not Amanda: she knew nothing. Rudy Sewell. She reported back to him; never knew he was one of us.'

'One of us? You mean there are more?'

'A few of us; intelligence officers… patriots.'

Skinner sighed. 'How often has that been said by traitors?'

'Not traitors! I've served Queen and country all my life. Queen and country, listen. Rudy and I and the others, we believe that young man mustn't become king or he'll destroy the monarchy, like his mother tried to do.'

'You're crazy. He's his father's son as well, you know.'

'He's an idol. He'll take the throne too close to the people.' Arrow shuddered violently, and for a moment Skinner thought that he was going, but instead he seemed to recover some strength. 'The monarchy can't be u-user-friendly, Bob. It represents authority. It's the symbol that guys like me fight and die for. Make it populist and it will die; this country will be rudderless, and everything it has been will be lost. My friends and I decided that we couldn't let that happen.'

'So you set out to kidnap him?'

'No, to make it look like a kidnap. There's a vessel offshore: that's where the speedboat's headed. He'd have been killed as soon as they got him on board, and his body disposed of effectively. But it would have been blamed on the Albanians.'

'So why did you help me? Why did you give me the helicopter?'

'To make it look good,' Arrow wheezed, his voice beginning to fade once more. 'I didn't plan on getting found out… ever. None of us did. I knew you wouldn't be here on time; my backup plan if you did corner them was for him to be killed in the battle. I almost made sure of it.' He let out a macabre, choking laugh. 'I wish I'd never taught you to handle a bloody carbine,' he whispered.

'I'd have got you with the Glock,' Skinner murmured. 'Why did you choose to try it here?' he asked. 'Why St Andrews, with all these people around?'

'Logical. It was easier to attack than anywhere else, plus we could get him out by sea.'

'And the leak from NATO intelligence? That couldn't have been part of your plan.'

'That was unfortunate. Nobody would have been any the wiser but for that, until it was all over. The good thing was that the tip came to me, so we were able to manage it. We couldn't ignore it, but Rudy tried to put a lid on it, keep the search in-house. He let Amanda think they were drug-dealers and sent her chasing wild geese around the clubs in Edinburgh, but your people tripped over it' Arrow gave another violent shudder, and his face twisted with pain. 'Told him he should have kept off your patch,' he gasped. 'We still held all the cards, though, with Amanda, in all innocence, keeping us informed.'

'Why should I believe that she's not a part of it? She might be one of you; Rudy Sewell might be the innocent one.'

Arrow laughed again, another bizarre, croaking chuckle. 'No chance: she'd never have sacrificed her toy boy.'

'Sean? Him and Amanda?'

'Worst kept secret in MI5.'

The DCC felt his knees growing stiff in the cold: he pushed himself to his feet. 'So what happens now?' the gravely injured soldier whispered.

'You might live,' said Skinner. 'People have survived worse head wounds than that.'

'I know. That's why I asked.'

'I don't want to know. I can't see you standing trial, though. That would be a huge scandal; like you say, very bad for the Queen and country you thought you were protecting.' The policeman scowled, gazing into the night. 'Maybe they'll send you to Cuba, like those other poor bastards.'

'Or somewhere worse, getting names out of us, even when there are no other names to give. I don't want that: I've done it myself, so I know how it'll be.' Arrow looked up at him, into his eyes. 'But that's not what I meant. Bob, there's nobody around. If I could move I'd find my gun, and finish it. You wouldn't do me a favour, would you?'

He gazed back down at the man who had been his friend, the man he had once trusted with his own life, without a moment's doubt or hesitation. 'And why should I do that?' he asked, then turned and headed back towards the college.

'Goodbye, Bob,' the weak voice called after him.

'Oh, shit.' Skinner turned, raised the rifle and shot him dead.

He stood there for a while, not noticing the ground around him darken as the moon retreated behind the cloud cover. He was grief-stricken, not for the traitor but for times past, for unswerving loyalty turned to betrayal. Finally he shook himself into action, and walked through the crisp, icy night towards the Martyrs Monument. He heard sirens in the town, as the Fife police contingent, headed, he supposed, by Chief Constable Clarence Tallent, arrived to take control, and as the emergency services began to remove the wounded. Then, rising over all the din, came the roar of a helicopter taking off; he sighed with relief.

He stopped at the great obelisk, numb not just with cold but with everything that had happened that night, took out his cell-phone and switched it on. He found his stored numbers; selected the first on the alphabetical list, and called it. 'Aileen,' he said, when she answered. 'Where are you?'

'I'm at the flat. I've just got in from the office.'

He had lost track of time; he checked his watch and saw to his surprise that it was only seven twenty. The night seemed to have been endless. 'Is your nice new Fiat there?' he asked, making an effort to sound calm and collected.

'Yes.'

'Then, if you would, I'd like you to do something for me. I'm in St Andrews, I've got no transport, I'm freezing and I'm in a slight state of shock. I wonder if you'd come and get me, for right now there's nobody in the world I need to see as badly as I need to see you.'

'Bob, of course I'll come, but you're scaring me.'

'Don't be afraid: the panic's over. When you get here, I'll be with the chief constable, in St Salvator's College. We'll probably have TV crews here by then so comb your hair before you get out of the car. It'll look good, you being here, I promise you.'

'What's been happening?'

'A small war, but we won. It's safe; I wouldn't have you here otherwise. However, before you leave, there's something you have to do, and it's very important. You're the Justice Minister, so I guess you're able to call the Home Secretary in person, about something really urgent.'

'Yes, I suppose so, although I never have.'

'Well, I want you to do so, although by now you might find he's not surprised to hear from you. When you contact him, tell him to contact the Commissioner of the Met and have him arrest a man called Rudolph Sewell. He's an assistant director of MI5. Tell him that it's very important and that he has to do this tonight.'

'And if he asks me why?'

'You could tell him he's upset your boyfriend. If he doesn't buy that, tell him it involves a plot against the state; that should get his attention.' Eighty-two

Danielle Martin was cutting teeth; she had given her mother a difficult day, and so when Andy had arrived home, he had found himself concentrating on her and her vocally expressed needs.

Finally, the infant had settled down to sleep, and her parents had settled down to supper. Karen could see that he was distracted; as an ex-police officer, she knew the signs. 'CID, is it?' she asked, eventually. 'Have you got a stalled investigation?'

He blinked, fork in hand and looked at her. 'Uh?'

'You were back in Dundee, Andy.'

'I'm sorry, love,' he said. 'I don't like bringing it home with me. But this is a thing I've been working on for Bob, and I'm keen to talk to him about it.'

'I see. That's what these hush-hush meetings have been about, is it? Your forces have a cross-territory job on and you two are sticking your noses in. Honest to God, the one of you's as bad as the other. You're both deputy chief constables, you have perfectly competent criminal investigation departments, but can you leave them to get on with their work? Can you hell.'

Andy smiled at her lecture. 'No, Kar, you're wrong, honestly. This has nothing to do with either of our forces… not directly at any rate. We have a political problem, one that needs careful handling or it could affect all of us.'

She shrugged as she poured him more wine. 'If it's that important, what are you waiting for? Call him.'

'I tried earlier on, but I couldn't get hold of him anywhere. He even had his mobile switched off and that's a rarity.'

'Maybe Sarah's come home and they're having a passionate reunion. That'd be nice.'

'You may wish, but don't hold your breath. Anyway, what makes you think he'd turn his phone off for that?'

She laughed, then reached across to the sideboard from her seat at the table, picked the cordless telephone from its socket, and handed it to him. 'Go on,' she urged him. 'Try again, and then maybe you can appreciate the dinner that I went to some trouble to cook for you.'

He took it from her and dialled Skinner's cell-phone; this time it rang out.

'Yes?'

There was a weariness about his closest friend's voice that set him on edge at once; he had known him in many moods, but he had never heard him sound like that. 'Bob, it's Andy. Are you okay?'

'Yeah, sorry, mate. I'm on the move, that's all.'

Martin could hear background noise: people calling out, their voices filled with urgency. 'What's up?' he asked.

'The proverbial balloon,' Skinner sighed, 'but I can't talk about it. Switch on the telly, and I reckon you'll find out soon. What do you want?'

'It's this Murtagh thing: I'm almost certain that Brindsley Groves is his father. The official version's a load of crap: his mother never married, so she was never widowed by any tragic works accident. Groves did his MBA at York, where she lived; Tommy was born around the time he went back to Dundee and joined the family firm.'

'That's very interesting, but really, Andy, I cannot deal with this just now.'

'Will I speak to Neil?' Martin asked.

'No, please don't. He has his hands full as well.'

'Okay, I'll leave it till tomorrow, if you insist, but there's one other thing I wanted to ask you. I checked out the current beneficiaries of the Groves family trust. There are four: Herbert Groves, Brindsley's son, Rowena, his daughter, Tommy Murtagh, and someone called Chris Aikenhead. Do you have any idea who he is?'

It was as if Skinner had been given an instant shot of a powerful stimulant. 'What?' he exclaimed, his voice back to full strength. 'Andy,' he continued, 'if you're desperate to talk to someone tonight, get hold of Stevie Steele, wherever he is. Your investigation and his have just bumped into each other.' Eighty-three

Aileen de Marco had never driven as fast after dark. She had done as Bob had asked and had heard the Home Secretary's manner change from one of annoyance, to bewilderment and finally to panic, all within thirty seconds. Then, rather than leave Lena McElhone at home to field incoming London calls about which she knew nothing, she had taken her with her in the Fiat. Her presence was a bonus, for Lena was a St Andrews graduate and guided her along the fastest, straightest road to the town.

They kept the radio switched on all the way. The eight o'clock news headlines told them that reports were coming in of an incident in the university town, they gave no details, but reminded listeners that the Prince was a student there.

When they arrived, the whole of North Street was blocked off by armed police, and a contingent of the RAF regiment flown down from Leuchars, but when Aileen identified herself a detective sergeant took them into his charge and led them towards the college.

A small group of journalists, photographers and television crews had been allowed inside the perimeter, under tight control. They recognised the minister and called out to her. She stopped and walked across. 'Wait, please,' she said, stilling their cries. 'I don't know what's happened yet; I'm just going in to be briefed. When I can I'll talk to you.'

As the sergeant led them into the quadrangle, they stopped in their tracks, shocked by the devastation, and the mangled side of tire building. Lena gave a stifled scream; she had known it well.

They passed through the bloody hall, where five large white sheets had been laid over the dead, and found Skinner in a room at the back of the building. Aileen had seen him straight from a transatlantic flight, but then he had looked nowhere near as exhausted. He was slumped in a chair, pale-faced and wearing a military flak jacket. A glass of whisky lay on a table near his right hand, which seemed to her to be trembling very slightly.

He stood when he saw her enter. Their eyes met, then they came together in a great shivering hug. 'Thank God you're here to warm me, baby,' he whispered in her ear. 'I thought I was going to freeze to death.'

'Hush, now,' she murmured, stroking his hair. 'It's all right.' The chief constable, Lena McElhone, Bandit Mackenzie, and the detective sergeant all looked away, trying to be as invisible as possible.

When Skinner had stopped shaking, she released him from her embrace and made him sit once more. She turned to Chief Constable Tallent. is the Prince safe?' she asked.

'Yes. There was an attempt to kidnap him, but thanks to DCC Skinner and his men it was foiled.'

'Those…' she hesitated '… in the hall?'

He understood her question. 'There have been seven fatalities in the building,' he told her. 'Two students killed by the blast and another by gunfire, two of my officers and two members of the royal protection squad.'

'And three outside,' said Skinner, hoarsely, from his chair. 'Two soldiers and one of the kidnappers; his body's down by the Sea Life Centre, being guarded by the military.'

'Can I go there?'

'You don't want to. Anyway, it's off limits to everybody for now.' His eyes were still slightly glazed as he took a sip of his whisky.

She turned back to the chief. 'How many kidnappers were there?'

'Four in all. Three escaped by boat, although Mr Skinner says that one is wounded, possibly fatally.'

'Probably,' the DCC snapped. 'I shot him in the middle of the back, right between the shoulder-blades. He fell into the boat.'

Chief Constable Tallent nodded. 'The RAF have scrambled aircraft and are searching for them. We believe that they'll be meeting up with a larger vessel offshore.'

'Do we know anything about the attackers?'

The chief hesitated.

'It's all right, Clarence,' said Skinner. 'Aileen's entitled to know; anyway, we might as well go public now. They were a gang of Albanians, four of them, and their aim was to collect the biggest ransom pay-off in history. They got paid off all right, and any minute now the RAF will be blowing what's left of them out of the water.' He smiled, weakly. 'That last bit isn't for the press, by the way.'

'Killed trying to escape?'

'They are certainly still armed. They may even have another missile. No chances will be taken.'

'I understand; anyway, that's military business. Chief Constable,' she continued, 'there's a hungry media pack outside. Shall we give them a joint statement for the ten o'clock news programmes?'

'It's very early in the investigation,' Tallent answered, doubtfully.

'What bloody investigation, Clarence?' Skinner snarled; he pushed himself to his feet once more, stripping off the flak jacket and throwing it into a corner. 'We know what's happened, and we know who did it. It's a national issue, there's Christ knows what speculation already, and the people need to be told: most of all they need to be told that the prince is safe and sound.'

He looked at Aileen. 'Get out there and tell them, Minister. Just don't mention the body count, for there are next of kin to be told, and don't mention my name.'

'If she doesn't I will,' said the chief constable gruffly. 'Let's do it, then.'

Aileen was in the doorway, when she turned. 'Bob, I understand that you don't have transport back to Edinburgh. When this is over, can I give you a lift?'

Skinner's tired smile crinkled the lines around his eyes. 'That's very kind of you. Do you have room for DCI Mackenzie as well? His transport's gone too, and I'd hate for him to have to hitch-hike in this weather.' Eighty-four

The flashing green light on the telephone receiver told Stevie Steele that he had a message as soon as he and Maggie stepped into the house. He pushed the hands-free button, then play-back and listened.

'Stevie, it's Andy Martin here. There's something I've been working on and a name's come up. I've been told I should speak to you about it, urgently. So if you get in at a reasonable hour, say before eleven, give me a call on this number.' Steele grabbed a pen and scribbled as Martin recited. 'Failing that, I'll call you in the office tomorrow, nine sharp.'

'Wonder what that's about?' said Maggie. 'He sounded pumped up. That's not like him: he's usually pretty cool. Go on, give him a call: it's only just gone ten fifteen.'

He nodded and walked through to the play-room, where he picked up the phone and sprawled on the couch. He dialled; Martin picked up on the first ring. 'You're keen, sir,' he chuckled, 'or were you sat beside the phone?'

'You wake the baby, I get grief.'

Stevie smiled, thinking of days to come. 'Sorry to call you back so late, then; we were at a movie. In that case, whatever you want to discuss must be really urgent.'

'Bob Skinner said it was. I spoke to him earlier tonight and happened to mention a name. He sparked on it and said it might relate to an investigation of yours.'

'Try me.'

'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' Eighty-five

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'.

As he thought it through, he recognised that, in his own loyalty, Adam Arrow had been absolute. He had believed in and had suffered in the defence of the institutions that had shaped his country and made it the place for which, ultimately, he had laid down his life. When he had come to believe, truly and completely, that they were facing destruction, he had been prepared to go to any lengths to protect them. People would say that he had been wrong, but he had trusted utterly in his own instincts and in the necessity of what he and his allies were doing.

Ultimately, Skinner recognised, he himself had been loyal to Adam. He had borne no duty or obligation to him: it was love that had given him the merciful bullet. In that moment of blinding clarity, he realised a simple truth that had escaped him for all of his blinkered life: however pure and admirable loyalty was, it could also be destructive.

And, finally, he accepted a second inescapable fact: in his own loyalty to his wife, he had been at best simplistic, and at worst a hypocrite. Throughout their marriage he had professed it, but he had not always been faithful to her, any more than she had to him. Truthfully, he no longer loved her; indeed, he doubted whether he ever had. They had been sustained as a couple only by the sworn duty of marriage, parenthood and the obligations that came with them.

He glanced sideways at Aileen, and as he did, something beautiful happened, something strange and all the more unexpected since it had come in the midst of that awful night. A moonbeam hit the car from the side, and in its light he saw her profile… only it was not hers alone. He saw Myra's also, his first wife, Alex's mother, his soul-mate, as if the two had blended together.

'I love you,' he whispered in the darkness.

She turned to him and smiled, briefly, before focusing once more on the M90. 'I love you too,' she murmured, 'but let's not tell the two in the back.'

Bob Skinner grinned, and glanced over his shoulder: Mackenzie and McElhone were either asleep, or pretending to be. In Mackenzie's case, at least, he assumed the former; there was little or no diplomacy in his colleague's make-up.

He turned back, facing the road, to see the lights of the Forth Bridge looming up ahead. Twenty minutes later, Aileen swung the Fiat into the rear car park of the Fettes headquarters. As the four climbed out, Skinner took Mackenzie aside. 'Bandit,' he said, 'as soon as you've checked in your firearm, go straight home. I know you called your wife to let her know you're okay, but she'll want to see you, to make sure there are no holes in you that you didn't tell her about.'

'Thanks, boss,' the chief inspector replied, as they stepped inside the building. Then he stopped, looking awkwardly at the floor, anywhere but at the DCC. 'About tonight: I'm sorry.'

'For what, man?'

'I bottled it in there. It wasn't like that night in the club: I was scared.'

'No more than the rest of us were, son. I like healthily scared guys around me in a crisis: they're sharp. The important thing was that, whatever you felt, you kept moving forward. I gave you the chance to back off, and you as good as told me to get stuffed.' He put a hand on his colleague's shoulder. 'You never know, somebody might want to hand out medals for this. If they do, you're getting one, and you'll have earned it. Now go on, lose that Glock and get the hell out of here.'

As Mackenzie left, the DCC led Aileen and her private secretary upstairs and past the reception desk. When they arrived at the command floor, Sir James Proud was waiting in the corridor to greet them. He stepped up to Skinner and shook his hand. 'Well,' he murmured, 'even by your standards, you've had a hell of a night.'

'More than you'll ever know, Jimmy,' he thought. Suddenly he found himself close to tears, but he held them back.

The chief constable turned to the minister. 'Ms de Marco, welcome, and thanks for bringing him back. All of you, come into my room.'

They followed him in through the small antechamber. In the office several people were waiting. As the group entered, they burst into applause. Surprised and embarrassed, Skinner took in the faces of Willie Haggerty, Jack McGurk, Ruth Pye, Alan Royston, several other fellow officers and, among them, two people, a woman and a man, whom he did not know. He looked around for Neil McIlhenney and felt a strange pang of relief and reassurance when he stepped out from behind the skyscraper form of McGurk.

The chief thrust a slim glass into his hand, then waved McIlhenney over to join them. 'Gentlemen,' he announced, 'I want you to know that this gathering is entirely spontaneous. When your colleagues heard that something big was afoot, they stayed here, and when they heard the outcome, they all insisted on waiting for your return. I've only got one thing to say, but it's on behalf of a lot more people than are here. Thanks, boys, you've done us proud.'

Skinner looked at McIlhenney; his mouth went tight, and he read the same thing in his friend's heart that he felt in his own. 'Thank you, sir,' he replied, formally. 'We, and Bandit, who's gone home to his wife…'

'No, I haven't,' came a tired voice from behind him. 'I got hauled up here.'

'In that case, all three of us thank you for your concern and for your welcome.' He laid his glass down on the chief's table. 'Thanks for that too, Jimmy,' he said, 'but honestly, I can't drink it. Give me a beer and then several more and I'll slaughter them all, but not that stuff. Champagne's for celebrations, and this isn't. The three of us saw people dead on the ground tonight, brother officers, comrades, and kids who just got in the way. Their families will be grieving, and so am I. Thank you for staying, and thank you for caring so much about us. Now, we would like you all to go home.'

He took McIlhenney by the elbow and led him into a corner. 'Where is he?' he whispered.

'Safe. An SAS detachment arrived half an hour ago; they took him out the back way. There was a plane waiting at Turnhouse. He'll be on his way to London by now.'

'An SAS detachment that was supposed to be deployed elsewhere,' thought Skinner. 'Thank Christ for that,' he said.

'Back in St Andrews,' the chief inspector asked, 'who was that other man?'

'Nobody. He wasn't there, he never existed. If you have any theories, keep them to yourself, pal, please, for my sake.'

'What man?' McIlhenney murmured.

'Excuse me, Bob.'

Skinner turned to see the force press officer standing before him. 'Alan, what can I do for you?'

'I've got an army of media outside, all wanting to talk to you. Do you want me to set something up? I could use the gym.'

'No way,' the DCC replied, firmly. 'We're not talking to any journalists, not even old John Hunter. Get rid of them. I don't care whether you're polite about it or not. And tell them also that if anyone is thinking about camping outside my house, or Neil's or Bandit's, they should reject it as a very bad idea indeed.'

'Maybe I shouldn't say this, but do you have any idea how much the media would pay for your stories?' asked Royston. 'You could live on it.'

'We couldn't live with ourselves, though,' said McIlhenney. 'So please, Alan, do as you're told.'

As the press officer left, Skinner pointed to the two strangers. 'Who are they?'

'She's Martina Easterland; she's the Scottish representative of the Royal Household. He's from MI6; he says he wants to debrief us. He says that you and Bandit and I have got to stay here when everyone else leaves.'

'Indeed?' The DCC looked at the man until he caught his eye, then summoned him like a schoolboy, with a crooked finger. 'Are you the director general of MI5?' he asked him.

'No,' he replied, startled.

'In that case, you can go away. He's the only person I'm talking to.'

'You'll get the chance,' the man said, almost pouting with displeasure. 'He's on his way up.'

'Tonight?'

'As we speak.'

Skinner smiled, wryly. 'That doesn't surprise me. You will not be involved in our meeting, so you can take the advice I've just given you.'

'Five is compromised; I insist that you speak to me first.'

'Listen,' the DCC barked. 'I'm a tired, angry man with a warrant card in his pocket and a gun on his hip. Who are you to argue with me? Now fuck off!'

His voice had risen as he spoke. Sir James Proud and Aileen de Marco, the only other people left in the room, looked round anxiously. The intelligence officer looked to the chief constable for support, but he simply jerked his thumb in the general direction of the door.

'Hold on a minute,' exclaimed Skinner, suddenly. 'On second thoughts, you stay here.' He turned to McIlhenney. 'Are Bandit and Jack McGurk still around? If they are, bring them here.'

The chief inspector left, and returned, seconds later, with his two colleagues. 'Gentlemen,' the DCC ordered, grabbing the MI6 operative by the shoulder. 'Take this man away, examine his credentials, then detain him until I'm ready to question him.'

'You can't do that,' the stranger protested.

'Sure I can. Hold your arms out wide. Guys, frisk him.'

With Sir James Proud and the Justice Minister looking on, the two detectives patted the man down. McGurk reached his trouser pocket and stopped, reached in and removed a tiny automatic pistol. 'Let me guess,' Skinner laughed, 'you're just looking after that for your wife.'

'I'm an officer of the intelligence service,' the man protested.

'You're also under arrest for illegal possession of a firearm.' He took out his Glock and waved it under his nose. 'Mine's legal, you see; properly signed out from our store. Bandit, Jack, cuff this guy and lock him up.'

'You can't do this!'

'If you have a problem with reality, try closing your eyes and pretending nothing's happening.'

He watched, smiling, as McGurk stripped the man's belt from its loops and used it to tie his wrists together, then, with Mackenzie on his other side, marched him out of the door.

'It's always exciting around you, isn't it?' said McIlhenney, drily, when they were alone once more.

Skinner sighed, mournfully. 'I really wish it wasn't, mate,' he murmured.

'Would you like to know what's happening back in the real world?' the DCI asked. 'You've had a few phone calls this evening, but only three of significance. One was from Alex; I've called her and assured her that you're okay. Another was from Sarah: she's home. That one, I left for you to handle on your own. The third was from Stevie Steele. You'll want to talk to him.'

'Okay. You and Bandit make yourselves scarce while you can. I'll wake the boy and Maggie from their slumbers.' He headed for the door. 'Aileen, once you and the chief are finished, I'll be in my office. Where's Lena?'

'Gone on ahead. She's being given a lift home in a police car.'

He stepped across the hall and into his own room; before switching on the light he drew the curtains, to avoid being filmed or photographed by the cameras outside. As soon as he was settled he took off his holster and opened his safe, put the gun inside, took out a brown foolscap envelope, and locked it once more. He took a beer from his fridge. As he was opening it, Aileen came into the room. He handed it to her and took another.

'What was all that about just now?' she asked, as she pulled one of the visitor chairs round to sit beside him.

'It's what can happen when you piss me off'

She laughed, then looked at him. 'Did you mean what you said, back on the road, or were you talking to someone else?'

'I was talking to you, and I meant it. Want me to say it again?'

'Yes, please.'

'I love you. Now you.'

She leaned over and kissed him. 'I love you too… and I never had anyone else to talk to.'

'Are you happy about it?' he asked her.

'Happy about loving you? How could I be anything else?'

'I'm an obsessive, driven guy, you know, plus I'm married. Most people would say you were asking for trouble.'

'I'm driven too, remember, and when it comes to social justice, yes, I'm obsessive. Why do you ask the question? Didn't you want to fall in love with me?'

He smiled. 'It doesn't make my life less complicated but, yes, I reckon I'm ready for it. I'm still numb from the things I've seen and done tonight, so it's difficult for me to talk about happiness right now, but I've worked out what I feel for you, and it's good.'

'Will you leave your wife? Don't get me wrong,' she added quickly, 'I'm not asking you to. I'll love you from afar if it comes to it'

He reached out and squeezed her hand. 'Let me deal with that, then tell you how it's going to be. Meanwhile, Minister, you've got a big day tomorrow. You've got to present Mr Murtagh's bloody Police Bill to the Parliament, a task I know you're anticipating with relish.'

She showed him her best sour expression. 'I'm not so sure about that any more. I went along with it to protect you as much as anything else. After tonight, you'll be beyond Tommy's reach; maybe the whole police service will be for a while. A very public resignation tomorrow morning is back on my list of options.'

He tossed her the envelope. 'There's some briefing for your speech. Read it, while I make a call.'

He picked up the phone and dialled. He knew Steele well enough not to be surprised that he was still awake and that the call was answered quickly.

'Stevie? DCC, what have you got for me?'

'A new suspect, sir.'

'So go and pick him up; interview him.'

'It's not that simple, boss. He's Patsy Aikenhead's brother.'

'I don't care if he's Charlie's bloody Aunt, lift him.'

'Patsy Aikenhead's birth name was Cleopatra Murtagh.'

'What? Say that again, just in case I imagined it.'

'My suspect is Tommy Murtagh, sir. He's the right age, he's fit and he's formidably strong. He doesn't quite fit Miss Bee's height profile, but it was a split-second sighting. I've spoken to her again and she acknowledges that she could have been wrong.'

Skinner inhaled, deeply. Aileen, who had barely begun to read, stopped and looked at him. He motioned her to continue, then turned back to Steele. 'You're right, Stevie: you don't just go along and arrest him. We both go, and we tip the press off in advance. But before that, there's something we have to establish. We've got the motive, but have we got the opportunity?'

As he spoke, he remembered something, and his elation began to disappear. 'Just a moment, Stevie,' he said. 'Aileen…'

He might as well have spoken to the pictures on the wall; suddenly the documents from the envelope had grabbed her attention, one hundred per cent.

'Aileen,' he repeated.

She looked up, wide-eyed. 'What? Sorry, Bob.'

'Something I need you to confirm for me: when did Murtagh call you in to tell you about the terrorists?'

'Sunday, last week.'

'What time?'

'I got there at quarter past eight in the evening, and I didn't leave till after nine.'

'Normally, how familiar are you with his diary?'

'Very: his office circulates his engagements weekly.'

'Can you remember where he was on Saturday afternoon?'

'Yes, I can, because I was there too. We had a Labour National Executive Committee meeting in Glasgow.'

Skinner grinned. Some things were just too bizarre to be true. 'I'm sorry, Inspector, but it wasn't him. His alibi is sat right beside me.'

'Oh, damn,' Steele exclaimed, 'back to the beginning again, then. Sorry to bother you, boss.'

'Don't be too sorry yet. Tell you what, Stevie, I think you should take what you've got and see Andy Martin in his office in Dundee, first thing tomorrow morning.'

He hung up and watched Aileen as she read, his smile widening with her eyes. When she was finished she laid the papers back on his desk. 'Bob, this is amazing. How did you get it all?'

'How can I put that?' he replied. 'Let's just say it was good detective work by some people I can trust when the chips are down. Does it add to that list of options you mentioned earlier?'

'Oh, it does,' she said eagerly. 'Very definitely it does.'

'Honey,' he said, 'that's just the tip of the iceberg. Let me give you a little more background on the man who leads our nation.' Eighty-six

She was awake when he returned home just before eight, in the kitchen making breakfast for herself and the children, while Trish readied them for school. As he came through the door, she thought he looked more tired and dishevelled than she had ever seen him and her heart went out to him. 'Was it bad?' she asked him.

He nodded. 'It was worse than bad, worse than terrible. I'm sorry to be coming in like the cat, but I've been up all night being debriefed.'

'In the circumstances, I won't make the obvious wisecrack. But don't let the kids see you looking like that. Go shave and shower; sleep if you have to.'

'That's a luxury I can't afford today. I don't look that bad, do I?'

'Yes, but that's not what I'm protecting them from. That looks to me like blood on your pants.'

He looked down and saw that she was right. There were dark stains on each of his knees: the blood of Adam Arrow, his dead, anonymous friend, unmourned except by him, and he hoped by a family somewhere, who would be told a discreet lie. He rushed out of the kitchen and upstairs, into his bedroom, where he stripped naked, tearing his clothes off and shoving them into a bag, to be burned in the garden incinerator at the first opportunity.

It was only when he came out of the bathroom in his robe, still towelling his hair dry, that he realised that all of Sarah's familiar things had gone from the dressing-table: her perfumes, her lotions, her potions, and her most personal family photographs, which she had kept there. The bed had not been slept in either: the book that he had tossed on to the duvet after spreading it the morning before was still there, undisturbed. The scene began to answer the questions that had dogged his journey home.

He dressed, casually, and went downstairs: the house was its usual blaze of pre-school activity, with a special excitement because, finally, Mum was home. Yet as soon as he stepped back into the kitchen he realised that there was an edge to it. At the sight of him, Seonaid's eyes lit up, she screamed, 'Daddy!' and rushed over to him as fast as her toddler's legs would carry her.

If Sarah saw the slight, she gave no sign of it, but Bob knew her well enough to realise that the hurt would be there. He snatched up his daughter, and asked her, teasing, 'Have you hugged your mother this morning?' She giggled and tried to bury her face in his shoulder, but he turned her chin gently upwards. 'It's time you did, then. Let's both do it.'

He drew Sarah to him in a clumsy, three-sided embrace, from which he quietly withdrew, leaving her holding her daughter, who threw her arms round her neck and squeezed as hard as she could.

'Have you been teaching her a choke hold?' she asked, but her eyes were grateful nonetheless.

As the boys ate breakfast and Sarah fed Seonaid, Bob made his own, an unhealthy and untypical sausage, black pudding, bacon and eggs. James Andrew watched him jealously: his personal larder was being raided.

Sarah drove them to school. There was still snow on the ground, but it had started to melt, and she was all too aware of the slush-ball havoc that her younger son could cause had the boys been allowed to walk. When she returned, Bob was watching the BBC all-day news channel, seeing, for the first time, how the attack was being reported.

He saw the shots from the night before, and more live from the scene, as the reporter delivered a monologue to camera. He saw Clarence Tallent in the harsh media spotlights, and then Aileen, her name misspelled by the caption writer. He saw the prince, library footage of him in his red student robes. And then he saw himself, the smiling official photograph from the force's annual report, and heard himself described as the hero of the hour.

'Thirty seconds later and it would have been zero, not hero, pal.'

'But it wasn't,' said Sarah, from behind him. 'You came through for him.'

'Took a hell of a risk with his life,' he told her. 'I took a shot in the dark, literally, at one of the guys who was holding him. I got him, but I could just as easily have hit the prince.'

'And if you hadn't taken the risk?'

'They'd have got away, but I suppose the boat might have been intercepted.'

'The boat was destroyed.'

'Was it?' This was news to him, although no surprise.

'They said so earlier; it and the bigger boat that it was meeting. The RAF blew them up; no survivors.'

'Of course not,' he whispered.

'You were well known before,' she said, 'but now you're famous, nationally, internationally.'

'Will it make it more difficult to leave me?' he asked.

'Who said it was ever going to be easy?'

'You will, though; that's what you came back to tell me.'

'Yes, Bob.' She smiled at him, gently. 'Let me guess, you had a hunch?'

'Something like that.'

'I admire you,' she said, 'more than anyone I've ever known, and it would be great to go on being your wife and bask in whatever glory is coming your way. But I can't: because I don't love you, and I don't belong with you. That's the bottom line… and it's mutual, isn't it? Go on, admit it. I'm offering you the easy way out; all you have to do is sit there, silent, and let me be seen as deserting you. But don't, please. Tell me what you feel.'

'Don't worry: I won't let it be that way. I don't love you either, Sarah, not any more.'

'Don't cop out now,' she exclaimed, still smiling. 'You never did. Admit it, officer.'

'Not the way I should have, no. When I met you, I was a flawed, lonely guy.'

She looked at him, sadly. 'Bob, you still are.'

'Maybe, but you took it away for a while.'

'And, in the process, became flawed and lonely myself.'

'How's leaving me going to help that?'

'It'll give me a chance to find someone who does love me, the way it's supposed to be.'

'Mr Right, you mean? Watch out for that bastard: usually Mrs Right's expecting him home by midnight.'

She laughed and sat on the sofa beside him. He switched off the television and turned to look at her. 'What happened last night?' she asked him, quietly.

'You saw on the news. Some Albanians tried to hijack the prince and hold him for ransom; Neil, Mackenzie and I, and four soldiers, stopped them.'

'Yes,' she whispered, 'but what else happened?'

'Isn't that enough?'

'There's more. You're wearing it like a cloak.'

'Two of my soldiers were killed. I sent them to a place where someone was waiting.'

'But you didn't know that.'

'I should have guessed, though. I'll never make a general.'

'You are a general,' Sarah retorted. 'But there's still something you're not telling me.'

'Maybe I don't want to; maybe I can't, for your sake.'

'You've told me things in the past. I'm your doctor as well as your wife, remember: you're suffering from post-traumatic shock, I want to know the cause, and I'm bound to keep it confidential.'

'Okay,' he said abruptly. 'I'll tell you one more dark secret, never to be repeated. That attempted kidnapping last night was actually a plot by some right-wing intelligence officers who shared a paranoid fear of what might happen to this country if that boy becomes king. So they used an MI6 asset called Peter Bassam, who'd worked for them in the Balkans till they had to pull him out. He recruited the Albanians, sheltered them in Edinburgh, and kept them fed and quiet until the time was right to attack. We got on their track and put a man in under cover to find them. He was betrayed, and on Saturday night he was murdered. My two soldiers weren't ambushed by the Albanians, but by one of the plotters, who was in St Andrews to make sure that everything went according to plan. When it didn't, he tried to kill the prince, but I spotted him and I dropped him first. Before he died, he told me most of it. The rest of it we got out of an MI6 operative called Miles Hassett, one of the plotters, who was sent up, right into my very office, to find out how much I knew.' He stopped. 'How's that, Doctor?'

'It sounds like the thriller of the year; come on, you made all that up.'

He looked at her and saw that she was frightened. 'No, I didn't; my imagination isn't that good. Oh, yes, the man I killed? It was Adam.'

The colour fled from her face; she had known Arrow. 'It's not true,' she murmured. 'Tell me it's not.'

'I'd love to. I'd love to wake up and find that it never happened. But it did.'

She sank back into the couch, her hands pressed to her cheeks. 'And the morning after I come home to tell you that I'm leaving you. God, Bob, what lousy timing. I'm so sorry. I can't go now, not when you're trying to deal with this.'

He gave a huge weary sigh. 'Who would your staying help, Sarah? Not me. What are you going to do? Take me to bed and hug me till all the monsters go away? You can try, but they won't. I've been dodging the truth about you and me for long enough. I've been hiding behind you for years, tying you to me, watching you become sadder and less of a person as you took second, probably even third place in my life. If you'd come back and said, "Let's try to make it work," I'd have said, "No." So let's do what we know to be right, and let's do it now. I'll move out. I'll find somewhere in Edinburgh.'

'With your politician friend?'

'Maybe, but not straight away, and maybe never. I'm going to need a lot of breathing space for a while. Besides, Aileen's just like me: she's married to her job as well.'

'You sound just right for each other; I hope it works.' She pursed her lips. 'But listen, I don't want you to move out. I've been doing a lot of thinking of my own, and I've found my truths as well. Somewhere along the line, Bob… I don't know when exactly; maybe it was when my parents died, but maybe even before then… I handed control of my life to you.'

'I've never tried to control you,' he protested.

'I'm not saying you did, honey, but I let you nonetheless. Well, that's over: as of now I'm in charge of my own destiny again. Sarah Grace is coming out of hiding and back into the world, but with a whole new agenda, not like she was before.'

She looked at him, and he could see in her eyes a determination which, he admitted to himself, had been absent for a while. 'For a start, I've had enough of pathology,' she declared. 'Actually, I decided that a while back. Any people I cut up in future will be alive at the time, and hopefully afterwards. Where will that be? Bob, I'm an American, and I'm a doctor, so I'm going home, and back to work. All my property in Buffalo, and the up-state cabin, is on the market and it'll all sell fast. I've spent a lot of time in New York City and I still have friends there. So I'm going to buy an apartment in Manhattan, and I'm going to practise real medicine again. But I won't look after people who can afford me: I'll be a doctor for those who can't.'

He reached out and touched her cheek. 'Well, good for you, Doc'

'You don't think I'm just being idealistic?'

'The world could use a few more of us idealists. Your parents have left you wealthy. What you're proposing will let a lot of people benefit from it. I only have one problem with your plan. I don't think I want my children brought up in Manhattan.'

She paused, unsmiling, letting his final sentence hang in the air, gathering its own tension around it.

And then she grinned, dispelling it in an instant. 'I knew you'd say that,' she told him, 'and I admit that, for a while, it was a hurdle I couldn't clear. I love my kids, Bob, just as much as you do, and I don't want to be parted from them. But neither do I want them to be caught in the middle of a great adversarial battle between you and me… one which I might not win… so I'm prepared to negotiate. I recognise that fathers have rights too and, damn it, obligations as well. I made you a promise in Florida: I said that, whatever happened between us, the children would be educated as we've planned. Sure, that was before I'd had a chance to think things through, but now that I have, I'm prepared to stick to it. You did a pretty good job with Alex; I reckon you can handle this lot too, for half the year at least.

'That doesn't mean I'll give up all legal rights,' she said quickly, 'but I could live with joint custody, on the basis that they stay with you during the school term, and that they spend the bulk of their holidays with me. I'll fly them and the nanny over to New York, or to whatever resort we go to. Plus, I'll pay Trish's salary all year round, because I've got a lot more money than you, and I'll contribute half of their school fees. Agreed?'

He closed his eyes; it felt like closing a book. 'Agreed.'

'Good, but there are a raft of conditions.'

'Okay.'

'One, I have visiting rights here, whenever I choose.'

'Okay.'

'Two, until we're divorced, you don't move anyone else in here, at least not while the kids are around.'

'Agreed.'

'Three, when they finish school, they get to decide where they want to go to college, the US or Britain, without pressure from either of us.'

'Agreed.'

'Four, if we did a conventional property split, it would be a hell of a lot better for you than for me, so I propose that we each take away what we brought in: you keep this place and its mortgage, plus your Spanish property, and I keep my parents' entire estate, from which ultimately the kids will benefit.'

'Agreed.'

'Five, we'll always be friends.'

Bob opened his eyes again, and grinned. 'Yes, that too.'

'And six, that you will never ever put your job above the interests of our children.'

'That's a solemn promise.'

She touched his arm. 'I could argue that you broke it last night. Did you have to risk your life?'

'You mean that I should have risked someone else's instead? Do you want me to raise the boys to think like that? Of course you don't. Anyway, I could argue that the maintenance of national security is in their interests.'

'I suppose you're right. What I'm really saying, Bob, is that you're at an age and stage when you don't have to lead every charge.'

'Hopefully, there won't be any more.'

She laughed. 'Are you kidding?'

'Probably, but let me tell you this. I will do everything in my power to discourage our three from following in my footsteps. I want Mark to be an actuary or a maths professor, I want the Jazzer to be a professional golfer, and I want Seonaid to be a doctor like her mum. I will never countersign an application by any one of them to become a police officer.'

'Thanks for that,' said Sarah. 'The trouble is that I've always encouraged them to try to grow up just like their dad, and I don't plan ever to change that.'

'Poor confused wee sods!'

'Maybe.' She dug him in the ribs. 'Hey, pal, know what?'

'Tell me, why don't you?'

'All of a sudden I feel less lonely than I have in years.' Eighty-seven

Rod Greatorix had called in sick. A wicked cold had been brewing over the weekend, and when he had wakened to find every major joint in his body aching, he had realised that it had turned to flu.

His wife had put up a show of reluctance to give him the phone when Martin had called him, but eventually they had spoken and he had agreed that the DCC and another officer could visit.

He was sitting in a high-backed chair when they were shown into his study, with a sweater over his pyjamas, and wrapped in a heavy dressing-gown. His eyes were rheumy and his nose shone like a red traffic-light. 'Don't get too close,' he warned, but the two callers needed no telling.

'Will it be family flowers only?' Martin asked.

'Very funny,' the invalid grunted. 'Have you just come here to take the piss?'

'No, honest we haven't. Rod, this is DI Stevie Steele, from Edinburgh; he's been working on an investigation that's under wraps for now but likely to go public soon. Before that happens, we've got some questions that need answering, and you might just be the man who can.'

'That's a first,' said Greatorix. 'I've never been interviewed before. What's it about?'

'What do you know about Cleopatra Murtagh, sir?' asked Steele.

'Tommy's sister? Could Andy not tell you that?'

'I could have given him gossip, Rod. I'd rather he heard it from you.'

'If you must.' The older man sighed. 'The girl is believed to be the daughter of my brother-in-law, Brindsley Groves; her mother was his mistress for years, until she died, in fact.'

'Believed to be?'

'All right, then, she is his daughter. I had it out with Brindsley at the time and he admitted it to me. He promised that he'd never acknowledge her publicly, but he said that he'd always look after her.'

'Did he make the same promise about Tommy?' Martin's question took his colleague by surprise.

'Why should he?'

'Because Tommy's his son; the official version, the father's death, that's all balls. His mother was single, not a widow, and she lived in York while Brindsley was a student there.'

'Hell's teeth!' Greatorix hissed. 'So it wasn't just a case of looking after him because he was shagging his mother.'

'To come back to the girl, sir,' Steele intervened. 'What happened to her?'

'I don't know. Brindsley sent her to college somewhere, and that was the last I heard of her. Why?'

'Because she's dead: she committed suicide in jail ten years ago, after being convicted of killing a child in her care. The verdict was later overturned.'

'Would Brindsley know that?'

'It's reasonable to suppose that her mother might have told him, she was still alive at the time… or that Tommy might, for that matter. He was on the Groves payroll then. But it doesn't matter who told him; he does know, that's for sure. The Groves Foundation's been paying an income to her husband ever since… and to Tommy Murtagh, incidentally'

'The bastard,' Greatorix swore. 'What if those payments can be traced? If my sister ever finds out…'

'Are you sure she doesn't know already?'

'Brindsley promised she never would. He told me he supported the girl through the mother's wage packet.'

'What about your nephew and niece?'

'Herbie heard some gossip when he came home from school one summer and started knocking around with the local lads; he'd have been sixteen at the time. He came to me and, again, I made him promise to keep it from his mother. He did, although he told his dad he wanted fuck all to do with him or his business. I don't think Rowena ever knew. She's a snooty wee cow and she never mixed with Dundee kids.'

'Your brother-in-law is late fifties, sir, yes?'

'Fifty-eight.'

'What sort of shape's he in for his age? Good, bad, any major health problems?'

Greatorix laughed. 'You must be kidding. He's a bloody monster. He was an international cyclist when he was young and he still rides his bike; he belongs to the local wheelers. They go up to Montrose and back once a month, and sometimes do longer trips than that. He rides horses too, and he leads a company team in the London Marathon every year. They're his big hobbies, them and his clocks: he collects them and rebuilds them; he's always tinkering with the bloody things.'

He paused, blew his nose and then looked at Steele, sharply. 'You know, you've got me wondering what all this is leading up to, son. But before you get round to telling me, let me stop you. I don't want to know. I'd do nothing for Brindsley, but I'd do everything in my power to protect my sister so, please, don't put me in an awkward position.'

'Fair enough, Rod,' said Martin. 'That's us done anyway.' He and Steele stood. 'I think you should speak to your sister, but for now just you sit there and fester, we'll see ourselves out.'

The inspector nodded. 'Yes, thank you, sir. I hope the flu clears up soon. By the way,' he continued, 'that's a really nice path you've got up to the house; very unusual stone. I've been thinking of renewing my place. Did you do that or was it there when you bought this house?'

'No,' the chief superintendent replied. 'That's one of the few advantages in having Brindsley for a brother-in-law. He has a stoneyard, and those were cut there. You'll never be able to find anything like them down in Edinburgh: they're grey granite and they'll never wear out.'