‘True, but much as I like Andy, those kids of hers have got two parents, and this force isn’t carrying the whole fucking load. Daddy and Auntie Alex will help out as necessary, I’m sure.’
‘No,’ Chambers declared, suddenly and authoritatively, ‘let’s all hold our horses and think about the headlines. Sir, “Cop wanted in connection with wife’s disappearance” will be a major media event. I believe we need a period of quiet, not pressure from the get-go.’ She looked at McGuire. ‘Unless you order otherwise, I want to keep this confidential for a minimum forty-eight hours, let’s say until Thursday morning.’
The ACC frowned, then conceded the debate. ‘Okay, you’ve got it. Ray, everything else you have on your desk you give to Mavis. You work on this alone; officially, David’s having some personal time to deal with family issues.’
‘With a bit of luck,’ Wilding said, ‘I’ll have found the bugger. .’ he grinned, ‘excuse me, sir, ma’am, of course I meant the detective superintendent. . by Thursday. The only thing is, I’m going to have to look nationwide. I’ll begin with a “stop on sight” order on that number, and get on to the ferry companies to check whether it’s booked on any of their crossings. From what I saw on screen he could be going to any of four different countries.’
‘Then you’d better make sure your passport’s up to date,’ the ACC told him. ‘I hate to point it out but he’s got up to a day’s start on us.’
‘What if I need help from other forces?’
‘Ask for it, but don’t give names, only that number and stress that it’s sensitive. Don’t share with anyone, not even Becky, without my authority.’
‘That’ll be tricky.’
‘Sure but it has to be if we’re to avoid the highest profile manhunt since the Yanks got Bin Laden. Go to it.’
Twenty-Three
When I confessed at a dinner party that Blue Bloods was one of my favourite TV shows, Aileen, my wife at that time, accused me of being a right-wing, sentimental old fart. My smile may have been a little tight-lipped, but I sat there and let it pass.
Now that she’s part of my history, I want to put the record straight for anybody who was at that table and might have believed that I agreed with her description. I don’t.
I know I’m not right-wing, but I don’t feel that I have to prove it to anyone. I have been known to be sentimental, but it takes the presence of my children, or these days of Sarah, to bring out that side in me. A television programme does not get anywhere close. As for the last, one day maybe I’ll become one of those, but not yet.
I know Blue Bloods is corny, but it’s about cops, so that gets my attention. I know that it has one basic storyline, but the good guys always win. I know that the Irish Catholic family it portrays, the Reagans, is laughably stereotyped, but their values are my values, if not their faith.
I enjoy it, and I’m not embarrassed to say so; live with it.
One thing, though; people who know the show might assume that I associate myself with Frank, Dad Reagan, the New York police commissioner. I don’t. The character with whom I empathise most is Danny, the older son, who’s a New York City detective. That’s why when I walked into my chief officers’ meeting on my first day back after my L’Escala break, and those six uniforms stood to attention, I had a sudden flash of me, with a Tom Selleck moustache, and I thought, Shit, this is not who I am.
I kept it to myself, though. All I did was reiterate my edict that nobody who didn’t wish to wear a uniform to my meetings should feel obliged to do so. I suspected that nobody would take a blind bit of notice, but I felt it needed saying.
The group were still, largely, strangers to me. The only two I’d known before taking the Glasgow job were the ACCs, Bridie Gorman, my very sound acting deputy, and Michael Thomas. He and I had a difficult beginning, but we’d reached a position of mutual respect, if not trust, on my part.
In truth, though, none of them was my sort of cop. The only one of the command crew I inherited that I would have chosen for that rank was old Max Allan, but no sooner was I appointed than he decided that his health wasn’t up to the job any more. I couldn’t complain. He’d only been hanging on to spite my predecessor. Her tenure had come to a sudden and shocking end, but that’s another story.
‘Nothing personal, Bob,’ Max said, when he told me. ‘You’ll get on fine without me.’
It seemed that in my absence the Strathclyde police force had got along perfectly well without me too. There had been no serious crime, no crises and generally speaking everyone was sleeping peacefully in their beds at night. It was the sort of briefing that every chief constable should like to hear, but it left me with a growing sense of my own irrelevance.
I’d signed up for the role, though, so I thanked them all, sent them off to continue keeping the people safe, and went off to tackle my mountainous in-tray. I got so wrapped up in it that I almost broke my vow to Sarah by having a daytime coffee to keep myself awake, but I worked my way through a whole series of decisions, of which most were so damned obvious that my nine-year-old son could have taken them.
I was so wrapped up that when Inspector Sandra Bulloch, my executive officer, came into my room to tell me that a man named Dominic Jackson was downstairs in reception, saying that he had an appointment with me, it took me quite a few seconds to make the connection.
‘The guys downstairs are a bit wary about him, sir,’ she said. ‘Apparently he’s enormous.’
I smiled as I made the connection. ‘That’s possibly an understatement. Go get him please, Sandra.’
I was waiting at the lift door when she returned with my visitor. I’d been wondering how he’d react when he saw me on my own turf rather than on his. As it turned out he looked a little reserved, shy almost. Sandra certainly seemed to have found nothing in him to make her wary, for she was completely relaxed as she ushered him into the corridor.
‘Mr Jackson,’ I said. ‘Thank you for coming to see me.’ We shook hands; mine isn’t small but it almost disappeared inside his.
‘Thank you for the invitation,’ he replied. ‘It took me completely by surprise, as you’d imagine.’ His voice was at odds with his size, but I’d known that. It was as quiet as ever, and over his years in a broad-based community much of his Edinburgh accent had worn off.
I nodded. ‘Yes, I can imagine that. Come this way; my office is along here. Would you like tea, coffee?’
‘I’m fine thanks, Bob. Plain water, if you’ve got it, but that’s all.’
‘Sure.’
I settled him into a visitor chair that was fortunately just big enough to take him, then fetched a couple of plastic bottles from my office fridge. I didn’t sit behind my desk, but on the other side, facing him.
‘Well, Lennie,’ I murmured, ‘this is full circle, is it not?’
‘It surely is.’
‘How’s the course going?’
‘Very well. I’m on track for graduation next summer.’
Lennie had begun a postgraduate Masters degree at Strathclyde University; he was like any other mature student in that he attended lectures and tutorials five days a week. The big difference was that at the end of the day he went home to Kilmarnock Prison, and ten thirty lights out, while the others went to their flat shares, their designer pubs and wherever else they chose to exercise and abuse their freedom.
I’d known about it from the start; in fact I supported his application when he asked me if I would. He told me that his degree and his doctorate were respected, but they were OU and that he wanted to top them up with what he had called an orthodox qualification.
He glanced in the direction of Sandra Bulloch’s glass-walled office. ‘Does the inspector know who I am?’
‘You’re Dominic Jackson to her and to anyone else in this building who crosses your path.’ The university had agreed that he could study under his alias. I suppose it was possible that some of his fellow students would have heard of Lennie Plenderleith, given that criminology was in his course, but it was highly unlikely that any would recognise him. His hair was receding, and what was left was far shorter than in any photograph in newspaper libraries; also he wore a neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard.