‘When do I start?’ I asked the chief super.
‘Tomorrow afternoon; ask for the chief constable when you get there. Stay till you’re done, in a hotel if you have to. They’ll be paying your expenses.’
‘Jesus. It’s that urgent?’
He told me to report to the Edinburgh headquarters building, two o’clock sharp. I’d been there once before, for a liaison meeting, but that had taken place in what looked like a gymnasium, near the entrance, so I knew very little about the layout of the building. I showed my ID, two minutes early, to an unsmiling civilian on the reception desk. He peered at it until a light went on in his eyes, then he nodded, with an attentiveness that would have shamed Uriah Heep. ‘Yes, Mr Payne. The chief constable’s asked me to send you up to his room. Go up those stairs behind me, then along the corridor that you’ll find straight ahead of you. You’ll see his office on the left. I’ll call and let his assistant know you’re coming.’
The directions were spot-on. When I reached the chief’s outer office, the door was open and a man stood framed by it. He was in his thirties, medium height, well groomed and in civvies. ‘DCI Payne,’ he greeted me. ‘I’m Gerry Crossley, Mr Skinner’s personal assistant; he’s asked me to show you right in.’
The Man Himself was standing in front of his desk when I entered. He stepped towards me, hand extended. ‘Lowell, I’m glad you can do this,’ he greeted me as we shook. ‘How are Jean and the wee one?’
‘Jean’s fine, thanks, and the wee one’s not so wee any more. She’s twelve.’
‘Twelve?’ he gasped. ‘Bloody hell! It all goes by so fast. But why should I be surprised? My own kids are shooting up. Mark’s starting high school, James Andrew’s becoming a bruiser, and Seonaid’s too damn smart for her own good.’ There was a gentleness in his eyes as he spoke of them. Then he switched to official mode; in that instant they turned hard as steel, and I admit that I was shaken as I found myself looking at a man I’d never met.
He led me to a small meeting table in the corner of the room; as I sat he poured two mugs of coffee from an ancient, battered, filter machine on a stand against the wall. ‘Milk?’ he asked.
‘Yes, please, but no sugar.’
He nodded. ‘Alf Stein, my old boss, gave me this contraption when he retired and I succeeded him as head of CID. He also taught me how to get the most out of it. When I leave, it’ll stay here.’
He handed me a mug. I took a mouthful and wondered how Stein had survived to retirement.
Bob spotted my reaction. ‘Alf smoked a pipe,’ he volunteered. ‘His room was always as stuffy as hell, but nobody ever got drowsy at his meetings, not when we were drinking that stuff.’ He sat, facing me.
‘David Mackenzie’s going to join us shortly,’ he continued, ‘but I want a quiet word with you first. I need to emphasise that he’s not the character you knew. I’m well aware of what he was like. He tried to come the smart-arse with me once, and I had to put him right. But I still rated him highly enough to poach him and bring him to Fettes.’ He leaned forward, frowning. ‘David had a rough time, in a rough situation, a few years ago. He came out of it full of self-doubt, and for someone as he was that’s not good. He hit the bottle, and it hit him back. For a while I thought we were going to lose him from the job, but I refused to allow that. Now he’s one of my real trusties, and a better officer than he was before he crashed. Just don’t call him “Bandit”, not even in fun.’
‘Noted,’ I said.
‘Good; now, the job I’ve brought you here to do. I’ve got a cop who’s gone bad. I need to know how bad. Best case, you may come to say simply that he’s let himself down. Worst case, you might find that he’s disgraced my force. If that’s how it turns out, I will fucking crucify him, upside down.’
‘What’s your instinct?’ I asked him, bluntly.
‘Worst case,’ he grunted. ‘This man has had a respectable, but low-profile career, so circumspect that a man who left this force with the rank of chief superintendent was able to come back this morning as an independent interviewer because he’d never met him. When you’re that good at not being noticed, what the fuck else are you good at?’
I took another swig of the coffee. It must have made me reckless, for I asked him, ‘What about you? Presumably you knew him.’
‘Yes,’ he confirmed. There might have been a warning in his tone, but I pressed on.
‘In that case, has he ever crossed you?’
He stared at me, and I knew how the legend had risen up around him. ‘Are you asking whether I have a personal grudge against this man?’
I nodded, because if I’d spoken it might have come out as a croak.
Then he smiled, if only briefly, and I found that I could breathe. ‘Fair question,’ he conceded. ‘So it deserves a truthful answer. I hadn’t until half an hour ago, when I heard a recording of his interview this morning, and I heard him trying to pin the blame for his own action. . fuck, no,’ he barked, ‘his own crime. . on a junior officer, his own sister’s daughter no less. That girl’s resignation is in my in-tray, and I am bloody angry about that, because I did not want to lose her, but now I have to, because the way it’s turned out, if I accept it, and let her leave chastened but unblemished, I will be saying publicly that I believe her account over his. On the other hand, if I reject it, and let her go to an independent disciplinary hearing, as I’d have to, people might infer the opposite, that I don’t. . and she would be sacked anyway. So yes, as of now, I do have a personal grudge against Inspector John Varley, and I am looking out the longest and bluntest nails I have in my toolbox.’
There was a knock on the door, but he ignored it. ‘That’s why I’m going to set you and David up in an office outside this building, and why I don’t want either of you to come anywhere near me until you’re in a position to tell me just how dirty this fucking bastard is.’
Maggie Steele
‘Usually she’s tight-lipped about the time she spent in the Branch. You have to be, because that’s the way it is.’
It was an epiphany moment. As soon as the words left his mouth, I knew what Bob Skinner wanted me to do.
I picked up Montell’s file from the coffee table. His whole police life was in it, and I’d liked what I’d been reading when he’d come into my office. I looked at it, and then at him. I’d done my best to put him at his ease, because I don’t believe in treating people with anything but respect, whatever the circumstances, but I could see that he was still a little on edge.
No way was I going to recommend dismissal; that had never been an option in my mind. It would have set an impossible standard for the rest of the force, and it would have been unjust. Technically, Montell had broken the rules, but I’ve never met a cop who hasn’t done what he had, and I don’t see one when I look in the mirror. He and Cowan were a couple, as Mario and I, then Stevie and I, had been. I didn’t talk shop with either of them over every dinner table, but I shared things with them and they did with me, as Griff had with Alice. We had done so casually; Montell actually had a reason for telling her what was going on, because it had disrupted their plans for the evening.
She’d let him down and she was going to have to pay the price. It was end of story, all done with for her, but not for her uncle, and not for her boyfriend. If Varley went to trial he’d be a key witness, not just in respect of what he had told her, but also where and when. Mario had told me about the inspector’s version of events, and I knew that we would have to knock that story down, by demonstrating if possible that Alice couldn’t have got from wherever she was, to the place of the alleged meeting in the time available. When Griff went into the witness box to explain that, mud would be thrown at him, it would be reported, and among his fellow officers it would stick, fairly or not.