‘I see,’ the chief constable murmured. ‘So what we have here is a planner and two hit men. Suddenly, out of the blue, Cohen, the planner, ups and dies from entirely natural causes. Smit and Botha have a problem. They could have stripped the body and chucked it in your namesake river, but their military ethics wouldn’t let them do that.’
‘Yes,’ I chipped in, ‘or they could have taken him out on to the Fenwick moors, buried him there and sent us rough co-ordinates, but I guess they didn’t know the terrain.’
‘So they brought him through to Edinburgh, dug a shallow grave in a city location and told us where to find him. But why Edinburgh?’
‘So that you’d be searching for them through here,’ I suggested, ‘while all the time they were back in Glasgow.’
‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘but not necessarily.’ His eyes were gleaming. There was something going on behind them. ‘But doing what in Glasgow, Clyde? That’s the question. You’ve got. . or you had. . the planner, you’ve got a sniper, and you’ve got his minder. Who’s the target?’
I frowned. ‘We don’t know for sure,’ I confessed, ‘but there is one possibility, and that’s why the DD has hit the red button. There is a man called Theo Fabrizzi. .’
‘A classical pianist,’ Skinner said. ‘I know. He’s playing in Glasgow tonight at a charity event in the Royal Concert Hall.’
‘You know about that?’
‘I was invited; turned it down. My wife’s going though. Never pass up a photo op, that’s her motto.’ I couldn’t miss the bitterness in his voice, but I didn’t have time to dwell on it. ‘What’s with Fabrizzi?’ he asked. ‘An Italian musician? Is he Mafia?’
‘He isn’t Italian. Despite the name, he’s Lebanese, and covertly he is a significant financial backer of Hezbollah. He’s a sworn enemy of Israel. If they still had a death list, which they say they don’t, you’d be liable to find his name on there somewhere.’
‘Hold on,’ the chief interrupted. ‘You told me that Beram Cohen was kicked out of Mossad.’
‘I said they cut him loose, that’s all. As a freelance, it might actually have been more convenient for the government in Tel Aviv. Fact is, with him involved, it makes Fabrizzi the likely target. With Smit here, the hit could be anywhere. All he needs is a vantage point, and the right weapon. The record distance for a kill shot in Afghanistan is almost two and a half kilometres; Smit’s in that class. ’
He leaned back in his chair, his hands behind his head, fingers intertwined, and he yawned. ‘Sorry, Clyde,’ he chuckled. ‘Late night, early morning, and I’ve been warned off stimulants. If the threat is a sniper,’ he continued, ‘what’s the problem? Take the target out of the firing line.’
‘This is where it gets difficult, sir,’ I said. ‘We can’t, because he won’t let us. I saw him early this morning and suggested that he pulls out of tonight’s concert and lets us get him out of the country. He told me no way, that he’d rather be a martyr than back down to an Israeli threat. But there’s this too; the Home Secretary’s been briefed. She’s ordered that these people, regardless of who might have commissioned them, are to be treated as terrorists. They are to be caught, not frightened off, so that, if the Israelis have commissioned this we can hand them their heads on a plate. Her words, according to the DD.’
He leaned forward again, took two more drinks from his small office fridge, and gave me my second Irn Bru of the day. ‘You have told Strathclyde, I assume, regardless of what Amanda thinks of their security.’
‘No, sir,’ I told him.
‘But you must!’
‘We’ve been ordered not to, by the Home Secretary herself. This is a secret operation, she says, and that means no police, apart from you, since you brought us Beram Cohen in the first place. Terrorism isn’t a devolved function of the Scottish parliament. She’s in charge, sir. It’s her baby and she gives us our orders.’
‘So who’s looking after Fabrizzi?’ he demanded. ‘The guy might be willing to risk his own life but he still has to be protected.’
‘We’re doing that; the security service.’
‘We, being how many?’
‘I have a detail of three on it.’ Mr Skinner gasped. ‘With respect, sir,’ I said, ‘I’d rather have three of mine than ten of Strathclyde’s.’
‘That reminds me of the apocryphal story about the guy who left his Bentley in your old street, and reckoned it was safe since he’d left his Rottweiler in the back seat. The flaw in his thinking was that the dog couldn’t put out fires. Your guys may be good, but the sniper just needs to have one clear sight of Fabrizzi, and he’s up in flames.’ He paused. ‘All of this puts you in the shit, Clyde, doesn’t it?’
We’d come to it. He was right. I’d been tasked not just with stopping an assassination, but with catching the shooters, and I hadn’t a clue where to begin. Not one.
Skinner smiled. He pushed himself from his chair and stretched himself to his full six feet and a couple, running his fingers through his hair and sending the sand flying from it.
‘In which case,’ he laughed, ‘the two of us are in it together. But don’t you worry, son, because your Uncle Bob has the inkling of an idea.’
No doubt about it, that man moves in mysterious ways.
Lowell Payne
I’d done my homework on McGuire before I ever met him; I had him marked as a rich kid, maybe a black sheep, a lad who didn’t need the money but had joined the police force for a laugh and a fight at the weekend without the risk of being locked up for it, then had found that he was good at it.
It didn’t take me long to realise that I’d taken him too lightly. Yes, he does have a tendency to flippancy, and a light touch when dealing with subordinates, but anyone who marks him down as a soft touch is likely to wake up regretting that mistake. Mario is one of nature’s nice guys, but I could tell that he also has a formidable temper and no visible tolerance level for fools.
He and Bob’s ex seemed to get on very well. I had heard of her, from Alex, and I knew that she was back in town. At first I thought she’d be keeping her distance from the police community, but that would have been pretty much impossible, given her job. From my brief observation of her, I have to say that I like her. She’s sexy, beautiful and stacked, but that has nothing to do with it.
I judge people by their eyes; I believe they tell the story of what’s behind them and hers appealed to me. I read them as intelligent, kind, and warm, those of someone who at that moment was enjoying life very much. I found myself wondering how she and Bob had split up; she seemed like a good match for him. When I met him first, at Jean’s dad’s funeral, he was with a DI from his force; that was quite serious for a while, but I never thought it would last, because their eye signals weren’t quite right.
I realised from watching her at work that Sarah is also very professional, and that McGuire is too. I didn’t step forward to look inside that van, and I stayed well away from what they brought out of it. Maybe that’s why Mario’s a DCS, bound for ACC rank, and I’ll be stuck at chief inspector till I retire.
To be honest, I don’t envy him his position; I’m happy where I am. His house, though, that’s another matter, a bloody great duplex on top of one of the new high-rises that dominate the Leith waterfront, not far from the Scottish Government building. It goes with the car, Paula’s new Lexus.
And Paula? She goes with everything; tall, immaculate hair, archetypically Italian looks, and she has great eyes that go mellow every time she looks at the big guy. She was very pregnant when we met, but she hadn’t given in to looking fat and dumpy, as my Jean did when Myra was on the way. She knew how to dress to manage it, probably with the help of a personal shopper at one of those big Edinburgh stores. She had on a maternity day dress that must have made the till ring like a one-armed bandit scoring the jackpot.
She also knows how to make a sandwich. Even now, I salivate when I think of the plate she brought out for us.