‘And I’ll say that it won’t be the same proposal at all, that we’ll put safeguards in place. As for your political point, the senior appointments won’t be made by the First Minister but by a management board that isn’t part of government.’
‘And who’ll appoint that?’ I challenged.
‘That hasn’t been decided yet; Clive and I have to consult about it, and soon too, because you’re right about the legislation going through before the next election. There’s no need to wait. We don’t want to politicise the issue.’
‘No, you want a fucking stitch-up, the pair of you,’ I growled.
‘Damn it, Bob!’ It was Aileen’s turn to shout. ‘Why are you being so difficult?’
‘Because I’m dead against it! Dress it up any way you like, it’s political policing. If you can do this you can do anything. You’ll have us all carrying sidearms next.’
‘Who knows?’ God, she was sneering at me: I realised that I didn’t know this woman, this version of my wife. ‘We might, so live with it! We are elected, after all; it’s called democracy, a quirky little system, but it works. And by the way, what did you mean, about you having anything to do with it?’
‘Work it out, love,’ I snapped. ‘I’ve told you. I will oppose this, as loudly and as publicly as I can.’
‘Hold on a minute,’ she protested, ‘you can’t. You’re a serving chief constable; you can’t involve yourself in political debate.’
‘Watch me.’
‘Bob, I won’t allow it, Clive won’t allow it. ACPOS won’t back you; they’ll support us once the bill’s published, you know that.’
‘Don’t you be so sure about that. The Association is split down the middle at the moment, but once my colleagues see that you’re getting into bed with Clive Graham and that it’s all been carved up, you may find that quite a few move behind me. And what the hell do you mean “allow”? What’s the new political Couple of the Month going to do about it?’
Her eyes narrowed and her mouth tightened. ‘You could be suspended,’ she snapped. ‘Clive could do that if he thought you were trying to interfere with the political process.’
‘Define interference,’ I countered. ‘Usually with you crowd it means not agreeing with you. And what the fuck was that meeting about this afternoon if it wasn’t interference with the ACPOS process? We were offered a committee room by the First Minister, so that we could gather to discuss the proposal, specifically. I’ll bet you he assumed he could rely on Toni Field and her Strathclyde contingent to carry it through. He was wrong; we voted against. . democratically. Now you’re telling me the whole exercise was a sham.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Of course you did.’ I didn’t even try to keep my scorn from my voice. ‘You and your new Nationalist best friend, you’ll join hands and push your bill through the Scottish parliament without giving the people a chance to consider what’s at stake, and that is the potential to create a police state.’
‘Aww! Listen to yourself,’ she mocked. ‘A police state.’
‘I said, the potential to do it. Look, the more you centralise the police service, the more remote you make it. People don’t know who their local cops are any more. When I was born, my home town had its own burgh police force, and its own chief constable. The local people knew him, and they knew their cops. Okay, it wasn’t perfect, especially if you’d gone to the wrong school, but it made for good policing. When my wee force was merged with Lanarkshire, something was lost, but it was still socially acceptable. Personally I’d have kept it at that level. In my view Strathclyde’s a monster, and even my own force is too big. Create a single police force? I’d create three new ones.’
‘What about Andy’s agency?’ she argued. ‘The SCDEA. That’s national.’
‘You said it: it’s an agency, and it co-ordinates investigations against serious crime, working with local forces.’
‘Are you sure you’ve never served in the mounted division?’ she laughed, with mockery, not humour. ‘For you’re really on your high horse now.’
I was having none of it. ‘You know what they do in France?’ I challenged. ‘If they have a major public gathering. . let’s say an anti-war march, or students demonstrating over the issue of the day. . they will have the riot squad, the CRS, on hand. But those officers won’t be local. If the demo’s in Paris, they’ll have been brought up from Marseille, or vice versa, so they can kick the shit out of the troublemakers without the chance that they might be beating up their nearest and dearest. That’s the model you’re about to import into Scotland.’ No kidding, I was fuming.
‘Okay!’ she yelled. ‘You’ve said your piece. But it won’t change anything. We will put this legislation forward and parliament will vote it through.’
‘I am sure you’re right,’ I told her, ‘but it will do so in the face of my determined and public opposition.’
‘And then you will look like a complete idiot when you’re chosen to head the new force.’ She stepped right up to me, this little street fighter I’d never met before, leaning over my chair, right in my face. ‘This is really about Toni Field, isn’t it? You’re like all your brother. . and I use the word deliberately. . officers. You cannot stand the thought of this force being set up and its first chief constable, or commissioner or whatever the hell we decide to call the commander, being a woman. That’s why you’re so upset.’
I couldn’t believe that. ‘Is that what you think of me?’ I gasped. ‘That I’m your classic Chauvinist pig? I must tell my deputy; it’ll come as news to her, and she’s known me a fucking sight longer than you have. Aileen, you have known how I feel about a national force since I wrote a paper for you on the subject during my sabbatical. I’ve studied it, I’ve looked at models in other countries, and I’m against it.’
‘In that case you’re going to look ridiculous when the force is set up, because I don’t know a single person who expects Toni Field to head it, other than Toni Field herself. Clive and I have already agreed that the First Minister will be taken out of the decision process on the new supervising authority. Why? So that if I’m back in office after the election, I won’t be compromised. Everybody assumes that the job will be yours, man. So please don’t make it any more difficult for me than it is already. State your objections in ACPOS, then when the legislation is through you can draw a line under it and take the top job without being labelled a hypocrite.’
I stood up and walked across to the window. My back was to her as I looked out over the garden and beyond, out to sea. I’d been having a private debate for some time, away from ACPOS, away from everyone, in my head. I hadn’t come to a conclusion, not until then, but my wife had brought me to it, not in anger as she had been, but calmly, as I accepted the inevitable.
I turned and faced her. ‘If that is everybody’s assumption,’ I said, ‘it’s completely off the mark. Not only would I never seek to command such a force, I couldn’t in all conscience even be a member of it. So when your chum introduces his bill, and you stand up to support it, I want you to bear in mind that you are putting my career on the line. So you’d better know this too: if you think for a minute that I won’t do everything in my power to defend it, even at the cost to you of yours, then neither of us really knows the person we married.’
I meant every word of it. As I looked at her, and as her angry eyes stared back at me from an uncharacteristically pale face, I knew that I had arrived at a sea-change moment in my life, one as instant and shocking as Myra’s death, bigger than my split from Sarah, which had been gradual, and the opposite from the end of my relationship with Alison Higgins, which had been an amicable, mutual decision.
Having said all I had to say, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t even know where to go. I might as well have been paralysed.