Aileen reached out and grasped the work surface, squeezing it hard.
‘What are you doing?’ Joey chuckled.
‘I’m checking for earth tremors. You might not know it but what he just said is the equivalent of a very large mountain starting to move. I can’t believe it. I told him last night he’d never leave Pitt Street once he got in there, but I didn’t think for one second that he’d actually listen to me. It’s a first.’
He reached out and patted her on the shoulder. ‘No, dearie, it’s you that wasn’t listening to him. His words,’ he pointed out, ‘were “this morning”, not “last night”. So whoever made him think again, it wasn’t you.’
‘You’re right,’ she whispered. ‘Which makes me wonder where the hell he was this morning.’
‘While I’m wondering about something else,’ Joey said. ‘Why did that News cow ask where he’d seen you last night?’
Nine
‘I’m sorry about that News woman, sir,’ Malcolm Nopper said. ‘I’ve never seen her before. I can’t keep her out of future press conferences, but I’ll do my best to control her.’
Skinner looked at the chief press officer he had inherited from Toni Field, and laughed. The media had been escorted out of the conference room in the force headquarters building and the two men were alone. Nopper eyed his new boss nervously, unsure how to read his reaction.
‘How the hell are you going to do that?’ the chief constable asked. ‘Sellotape over her gob? So you didn’t know her? I didn’t know her either, and it would have been the same if she’d turned up in Edinburgh, on my own patch. She’s a seagull; we all get them.’
‘A seagull, sir?’
‘Sure, you know, they fly in, make a noise, shit on you, then fly away again. As for controlling her, you don’t have to. If she turns up at one of my media briefings in future. . not that I plan to have many. . I’ll simply ignore her. You can do the same at any you chair.’
‘I tend not to do that, Chief,’ Nopper said. ‘When an investigation’s in process, I let the senior investigating officer take the lead.’
‘Not any more. Lottie Mann will have to go before the media later on. From something that Max Allan told me a while back, I guess she hasn’t had any formal media training. Am I right?’
‘None that I can recall,’ the civilian agreed.
‘I know she’ll be fine, but I’m not sure she does, so she must have a minder. I’ll be there but if I go on the platform it’ll undermine her. As you said, she’s the SIO. So you’ll be there, you’ll introduce her and you’ll pick the questioners. Ms Hatton will not be one of them. Your regulars won’t mind that. In my experience they don’t like seagulls either.’
‘As you wish, Chief.’
‘Mmm. Where will you hold it? Do you have a favourite venue?’
‘No. Normally it would be where it’s most convenient for the officer in charge.’
‘In that case we do it here in Pitt Street, in this room. I spoke to DI Mann on the way through here. She’ll be finished at the concert hall by two. She and I agreed that given the nature of this investigation it’s best that it be centrally based, rather than in a police office that’s open to the general public. Nobody else will be using this room this afternoon, will they?’
‘Not as far as I know, but suppose somebody was, you want it, you get it.’
‘Okay, set it up for four. That’ll give Lottie time to brief me, and it will give me time to get used to my new surroundings.’
As he spoke, a figure appeared in the double doorway.
‘Lowell,’ Skinner called. ‘You found us. DCI Payne is going to be my executive officer during my stay here,’ he explained to the press officer. ‘When you want to get to me, you do it through him. That’ll be the case for everyone below command rank, but be assured, I will be accessible; his job won’t be to keep people out, but to help them in.’
He moved towards the exit. ‘Your first task, Lowell. Show me to my office. I knew where it was in Jock Govan’s time, but I have no clue now.’
As one of her first signs of her new-broom approach, Antonia Field had rejected the office suite used by her predecessors and had commandeered half a floor in the newer part of the headquarters complex. ‘Have you decided where you’re going to live, sir?’ Payne asked as he led the way up a flight of stairs towards the third floor.
Skinner stopped. ‘Lowell,’ he said, ‘I don’t expect to be “sirred” all the time by senior officers, least of all by you. You want to call me something official, call me “Chief”. When there’s nobody else around and you ask me something you’d ask me over the dinner table, call me Bob, like always.’
‘Fair enough. Although,’ he added, ‘it was really a professional question, since I’ll have to know where to raise you in an emergency.’
‘True. The answer is that as much as possible I plan to live in my own house. I will have a driver and I plan to use him.’
‘That’s in Gullane?’
‘Sure. Where. .’ He halted in mid-sentence. ‘Ah, you thought I might stay in Aileen’s flat.’
‘Well, yes.’
‘That won’t be happening. It will become apparent soon, if only because we’re both public figures, that she and I are no longer together.’
Payne was silent for a few seconds, as they resumed their climb. ‘I see,’ he murmured. ‘I’m sorry to hear that. So that’s why you weren’t with her at the concert.’
‘That was part of the reason. Anyway, it’s not public knowledge yet, although I came close to making it so in my press briefing, when that bloody News person wound me up. It is something I’ll have to deal with, and soon, but not right now. Once we’ve both calmed down, we may issue a joint statement, but we’re both too hot to discuss that just now.
‘So,’ he continued, ‘Gullane is where you’ll reach me most of the time. When I have to stay here I’ll use a hotel; Hanlon’s already said he’ll pick up the tab for that. . without me even asking, would you believe.’
They reached the top of the stairway; Payne turned left, and headed along a corridor that was blocked by a glass doorway, with a keypad. He opened it with four digits and led the way into a complex with more than a dozen rooms around a small central open space, with four chairs surrounding a low table, on which magazines were piled.
‘This is it, Chief, your new command suite. Your office is facing us.’
Skinner stared ahead. ‘It’s got glass walls,’ he exclaimed.
‘Relax,’ his aide said, noting his indignation. ‘There are internal blinds between the panels. I’m told that Chief Constable Field kept them open all the time.’
‘That will change; they’ll be closed permanently. I never did like people watching me think.’
‘There’s a bathroom and a changing room as well. They have solid walls,’ he added.
‘Just as well, or I’d be going back to Jock Govan’s old suite. Do I have a secretary?’
‘Of course, but she isn’t here today. I called her and told her what was happening, about you, and your appointment. I didn’t want her finding out from the telly. She offered to come in, but I told her not to.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Marina Deschamps.’
‘Mmm,’ Skinner murmured, then he blinked. ‘Deschamps, you said? Wasn’t that Toni’s birth name?’
Payne nodded. ‘Yes. It’s her sister; the chief brought her with her. She insisted on it, apparently, before she accepted the job.’
‘Eh? The bloody Human Resources director didn’t think to tell me that last night.’ He frowned. ‘What about the mother? Are we flying her up here?’
‘The Met took care of that. They got her on to the first Glasgow flight this morning.’
‘I wish to hell they’d left her down there.’ He sighed. ‘I know I have to pay her a courtesy call, but I’ll leave that until tomorrow. Meantime, the sister should be regarded as on compassionate leave. Does she have a contract of employment?’