'I tell you, boss, I can't thank you enough for looking after Lauren
and Spencer. I would not have liked them to see that.'
Skinner winced, in spite of himself. 'We'll have them next weekend
too, if you want.'
Mcllhenney shook his head. 'Thanks; I appreciate that too. But our
nurse said that she should be all right after the second treatment. It's
only a top-up, and the drug they use is easier on the patient. On top of
that, the visitor we had - Penelope dark, she said her name was reports
back to the hospital, and that helps them judge the amount of
anti-sickness medication they need to give.'
He sighed, heavily. 'Can I ask you, sir: how was Lauren over the
weekend? Our Spence is on the young side to understand it all, but my
wee lass was about twenty when she was born. I worry something
hellish about the effect this could have on her.'
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'And you know what, Neil? She's worried in just the same way
about you.' The sergeant closed his eyes, and for just a second, his
chin looked as if it might wobble, but then his whole jaw tightened in
a resolute line.
'She had a wee moment over breakfast on Saturday,' Skinner went
on, quickly, 'but she and Sarah went away and had a woman to woman
talk, and she was fine after that. She's a great kid; they both are.'
'Aye,' said their father. 'They are that.'
He pulled himself up in his chair. 'Anyway, boss,' he said briskly,
'to business. If you look in that folder you'll see it's a succession of
nil returns from all over the country.
'I spoke to Mario over the weekend . . .' he laughed, unexpectedly.
'The pair of us, bloody nurses, eh. Can you imagine that?
'He told me that Neville did have to check one bloke out last week,
but that he was okay.' The big sergeant chuckled again. 'So much so
that she went out with him.'
'Bloody hell!' Skinner gasped. 'She's what?'
'It's okay, boss; calm down, calm down. Mario said that he read her
the Riot Act, or his version of it, about secrecy; about keeping her
mouth shut on the job, so to speak. She was quite offended about that,
apparently. He did also double check the guy himself, just to be sure:
he's absolutely squeaky, no doubt.'
'Nonetheless,' Skinner growled, 'she shouldn't let her work cross
over into her private life.'
'Maybe not, sir. But haven't we all done it, to an extent. And the
guy was only really a suspect because she saw him limp.'
A smile flicked at the corners of the DCC's mouth. 'As long as
that's the only way she saw him,' he muttered.
'For sure, I reckon,' his executive assistant retorted. 'According to
Mario, he turned out to be gay.'
'Jesus,' laughed Skinner, 'it sounds as if no one's getting a return
out of this business at all. First the mad Mr Impey has McGuire
nearly shooting an Interpol agent, then Fettes's answer to Mata Hari
pulls a poof.
'Fucking typical of this Hawkins investigation. I tell you, Neil, this
guy better turn up somewhere soon, before this whole operation
descends into farce.'
'I think it has already, boss. Mario said he was at the airport on
Thursday checking some tips on the Amsterdam flight. All he got was
a wee drunk Arab trying to smuggle six litres of Bell's into the country
. . . imagine, smuggling whisky into Scotland .. . and a couple of
Hari Krishnas.
'He's completely pissed off. And if the boy McGuire is, you can bet
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that all the other SB guys around the country are as well.'
'Don't I know it,' the DCC exclaimed. 'I tell you, if it was just
down to me - and if the stakes weren't so high - I'd bin this bloody
operation as well.'
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49
The day was almost gone when the surprise visitor arrived.
Very few people, other than his personal staff, could walk into Bob
Skinner's office unannounced; Sir James Proud, Jim Elder, Andy
Martin, Sarah, Alex ... and one other. The digital clock on the wall
opposite the window showed forty minutes after five when Chief
Constable Sir John Govan, security adviser to the Secretary of State
for Scotland, peered round the door.
Skinner smiled, and stood up. 'As many as you like, Jock,' he
answered, walking round the desk to greet the newcomer. 'Would you
like a coffee ... or something else?' He pointed to his drinks cabinet.
'Well, since I've got a driver outside ... if you've got a
Macallan. ..'
Skinner nodded, opened the cupboard and poured some of the
smooth malt into a heavy glass. Since he had no chauffeur, he poured
himself a ginger ale, then sat facing his guest on one of the room's
low, soft chairs.
The veteran Strathclyde Chief sipped his whisky and nodded
approval. 'So,' he said. 'How's your poisoned chalice then?'
'Pure fucking hemlock. Jock. How's yours? And I'm not talking
about that glass.'
'As if I thought so.' The older man smiled. 'Yes, I can understand
why you turned Anderson down when he asked you to stay on in the
security job. I have long experience of ignoring politicians at a local
level. Reporting to one nationally is something new to me, and I can't
say I like it.'
'I only learned one thing in that job. Jock, and that was never to
trust any of the bastards. It doesn't matter what colour of rosette they
wear, they're all the bloody same. Still, maybe it'll be easier when you
retire from Glasgow and do the job full-time. How long have you
left?'
'Six months. D'you fancy succeeding me?'
'Is that why you came here? To ask me that?'
'Partly.'
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'Then the answer's no. I'm awaiting Jimmy's return with mounting
excitement.'
'How's he coming along?'
'Very well, I'm glad to say.'
'That's good.' Govan produced a pipe and put it in his mouth, but
made no attempt to reach for his matches. 'Sorry you don't fancy my
chair, though. You being a Lanarkshire man and all, I hoped I could
talk you into it; the Secretary of State asked me to try, as well.'
Skinner felt anger rising within him. 'That bastard's taken too great
an interest in my career in the past; he can piss off now. Be sure you
tell him that. Jock; those exact words mind.'
'My pleasure. Bob, my pleasure. But if you change your mind in
the next couple of months, give me a call. Mr Committee Chair has
told me privately that the Labour Group will support my nominee
without question.'
'Thanks, Jock, but I won't. Go for Haggerty; that's my advice.'
'Ach, I can't do that. Willie's too much of a rough diamond; not
politically aware. You know what I mean.'
'Aye, and that's exactly why you should appoint him.'
Sir John Govan sighed. 'In an ideal world, my young friend; in an
ideal world. Now, about this hemlock of yours; I've got some good
news for you.' Skinner looked up, intrigued at once.
'I was in London this morning,' the veteran Chief Constable
continued, 'and I was
asked to call in on our associates at Ml 5, where
I was received by the Director General, no less.
'He told me that he had just come from a joint briefing with Ml 6,
given by an envoy of sorts from the Central Intelligence Agency.'
'That sounds lethal,' the DCC interposed.
'You're right, in this case. The subject under discussion was our
friend Michael. Hawkins. At the beginning of last week, there was a
fatal air accident in Poland; a light plane, came down in a field. The
pilot, the only person on board, was a Kenyan passport holder, a white
man named Matthew Reid.
'The trouble was that when the Poles tried to trace the next of kin,
they discovered that, according to the Kenyan passport office, there
was no such person. It took them a few days to think of a connection
with Hawkins, but eventually, the possibility dawned on them. The
body was badly burned so they had to send for dental records. When
they arrived .. . guess what?'
'I don't believe it,' Skinner gasped.
'Neither did the CIA, at first, when the South Africans told them.
Neither did our SIS people. They each sent their own people to confirm
the identification, before they were convinced. Hawkins had a ruby
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set in one of his lower teeth and several gold fillings at the back; they
all matched.
'There's no doubt it seems. Everybody's satisfied that Hawkins is
dead.'
'In Poland, of all places. What the hell could he have been doing
there?'
Govan smiled, grimly, without humour. 'There was a briefcase in
the plane, and its contents survived the blaze. There was nothing in it
but the phoney passport, plus a series of maps and scribbles: notes
written over a period on the movements of a celebrated individual.
'Hawkins had been stalking Lech Walesa. God alone knows where
the contract came from, but he seems to have been the target.'
The big DCC let out a whistle. 'So, for the past week, guys like us
have been crawling all over Europe, looking for a target who, all that
time has been a cinder in a freezer drawer in Warsaw?'
'You've got it, my son.' Govan paused. 'So now, the panic's over.
The details of the global economic summit will be announced next
week, and we can all relax ... in your case, until it happens and you
have to police the bloody thing.'
Skinner looked at him, steadily. 'And what about you. Jock?' he
asked. 'Are you relaxed? Do you believe it?'
'I've been convinced,' the older man said. 'More important than
that, I've had my orders from the top, and I'm passing them on to you
as the man in charge of the operation in Scotland. The game is over:
you can stand down your team.'
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50
'That's the best news I've had in a long time, sir,' said Mario McGuire.
'That carry-on at the airport last week was just about the last straw for
me.
'Those Dutch guys made no attempt to go through the landing
cards at their end. If they had done that, and filtered out the obvious
no-users, instead of just collecting the bloody things and handing
them straight on, they'd have saved a hell of a lot of our time.'
'Blame the Poles first, inspector,' Skinner told him. 'They were
included in the Hawkins alert, yet it took them the best part of a week
to make the connection to the dead man with the phoney passport.'
'The identification was made from dental charts?' asked Andy
Martin.
'That's right. Verified by a CIA agent from Berlin, or so Jock said
after his third whisky, and by one of our own spooks.'
'So the body was a mess?'
'Flame grilled. Chief Superintendent, flame grilled.' He caught
Martin's eye. 'I know what you're thinking, Andy, you're a suspicious
bastard just like me. But the dental pattern was absolutely unmistakable,
right down to the ruby and the bridge work on the left side of the
lower jaw.
'On that basis, the Director of the CIA and the DG of MI6 have
pronounced Hawkins dead. We humble beat-pounders have to accept
it. So, like I said, you can stand down, Mario, and you, Neil, can
forget about co-ordination and daily reporting.' Mcllhenney smiled
and nodded.
'Andy, Karen Neville will be back on your staff as of this morning.'
He looked back towards McGuire. 'By the way, what's this I hear
about her pulling a suspect?' he asked, sharply.
'I think it was the other way round, boss, he pulled her,' McGuire
answered, more than a little defensively.
'Come on, Mario, she didn't exactly batter him with her handbag,
did she. Didn't the words "No thank you" occur to her?'
'She did what she thought was best at the time, sir. She saw this
guy, he had no obvious reason to be at the conference, he fitted the
161
Hawkins profile and he had a limp. When he asked her to have dinner
with him she accepted as a means of making contact rather than
anything else.'
The DCC grinned, finally. 'Okay, I accept that.'
McGuire continued. 'The first thing she did after she made the date
was to check him out; before she even told me about it. The guy is
legit. He's who he says he is, beyond doubt. I know because I did a
back-up check myself; even had the guy's photo faxed across from
Australia.'
'That's fine, but once she'd checked him outthere was no need to
keep the date, was there?'
'No,' the inspector conceded. 'Other than the obvious: she likes
him.'
'But he turned out to be gay.'
'She told him the same thing.'
'She did?' Skinner laughed. 'And he believed her?'
'Ah, well,' McGuire murmured, hesitantly. 'I'm not so sure about
that. Karen seemed very pleased with herself yesterday morning. I
think those cover stories might have been blown.'
The DCC shook his head. 'Let's just draw a veil over the whole
thing,' he said. 'Sounds like Neville was the only person who got
anything out of this operation. If that's so, good luck to her.'
162
51
She raised herself up on her elbows, with a broad smile on her face.
'God,' she said, at last. 'You don't know how satisfying that was.' She
felt the heat radiating from her body; glancing down she saw, silver in
the moonlight which shone through the second-floor window, the
sheen of sweat on her breasts, and clinging to it, a few light, curly
hairs, shed from his downy chest.
'I've got a fair idea,' her young lover laughed. 'You told me often
enough while we were doin' it.' As he looked up at her she seemed to
see him in a new light. His face was gentler than she had appreciated
before; his eyes softer, his hair more lustrous, his features more fragile.
In some ways he looked as feminine as his cousin, in whose flat they
lay.
'Ah, but you don't,' she assured him, 'nor why. Usually, when
I have sex, however good it's been, I've always feel just a wee bit
flat afterwards . .. and sometimes more than a wee bit. Not this
time, though: this time I feel . . .' She searched for the word.
'.. . triumphant.'
She chuckled at his expression. 'Don't flatter yourself, though,
boy. It's got a lot more to do with me than with you: energetic though
you surely were, for a beginner.' She patted his chest, approvingly.
'Look, we haven't known each other long, and I don't want this to
get complicated. All I'll tell you is that for a while I've been in an
enveloping relationship with someone . . . my fiance, as it happens.
'I love him; there's no question of that. But he loves me too much.
Lately it's become worse and worse, until; ach, I've just felt
overwhelmed by the need to be myself again, to express myself... in
all sorts of ways.'
She threw back the duvet and took his balls in her hand. 'Luckily,
I moved in with Gina, and I found you, just in time to help me.' She
grinned. 'Lucky for us both, maybe.' Rolling his testes gently in her
fingers, she lowered her head down upon him, and took him in her
mouth, sucking, licking, swirling her tongue around him, until, gently,
yet firmly with his lean, youthful strength, he raised her up, eased her
back as she yielded to him, and rolled on top of her once more.
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'Yesss,' she hissed, still holding his sack as he slid into her, long
and slender, delicately made in that part, too, just like the rest of him.
'We're all two people really.' She moved supply as she spoke, taking
him deeper. 'There's the one everyone knows: and then there's the
other one, with all those secret lustings and desires that we feel, but
we're afraid to satisfy.
'Myra wasn't afraid though; she let the other person out. She lived
her wicked dreams.'
'Who's Myra?' he whispered in her ear.
'My mother,' she answered.
He raised his head and looked at her. Yes, she thought. He really is
only a boy.
'You said "wasn't". You used the past tense.'
'She was killed when I was very young. In a car: driving way too
fast. She did everything too fast, did Myra, and paid for it in the end.
I didn't have the chance to get to know her. Like I said I was only a
child; I barely remember her. But when I became a woman, I
discovered her, and how! I read her diaries. No one ever had, not even
my father. I found out what she was like. I learned about her other
self, and how she let it loose. It shocked me at first; then I was
frightened, because I sensed the same thing in me, the same .. .