‘I don’t know for sure, Chief, but I’d imagine so.’
‘She’s a civilian, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay. Tell the Human Resources director that her contract will be honoured. If she wants to stay here in another capacity, she can. If she wants to leave, then she may do so at once, but she’ll be paid as if she’d worked a full notice period, whatever that is. Then tell him to find me a replacement, pronto, someone with full security clearance, mainly to manage my mail and yours.’
They had been walking as they talked, and reached Skinner’s new office as he finished issuing his orders. The door was locked, but Payne took a ring with three keys from his trouser pocket and handed it over. ‘I had the lock changed,’ he said. ‘Easier than searching through Ms Field’s things and getting Marina’s back from her.’
‘Good thinking.’ He detached a key from the ring, used it to unlock the door, then handed it to the DCI. ‘Yours,’ he said then stepped inside. As he did so he felt a sudden and unexpected shiver run through him. ‘Weird,’ he murmured. ‘I have never imagined doing this, not once.’
He looked around. The room was larger than the one he had left in Edinburgh, but furnished in much the same way. His desk was on the left, facing a round meeting table, with six chairs that slid underneath it. Beyond, there was another door; he could see through the unscreened glass wall that it led into another office.
He pointed towards it. ‘Secretary’s room?’
‘Yes,’ his aide replied.
‘Where are you going to go?’
‘I hadn’t given that any thought.’
‘Where’s the deputy’s office?’
‘That’s the one beyond the secretary’s.’
‘Then use that. It’s vacant.’
‘Okay, Chief, thanks.’ Payne walked behind the desk and opened a door behind it. ‘Your personal rooms are through here,’ he said. ‘There’s a safe in the changing room, but apparently nobody knows the combination, unless Marina does. I’ll ask her. If she doesn’t I’ll. .’ He smiled. ‘Actually I’m not sure what I’ll do.’
‘Too bad Johnny Ramensky’s dead,’ Skinner chuckled.
‘Yeah: the last of the legendary safecrackers. As for the rest,’ the DCI continued, ‘all of Ms Field’s things have been removed, from the changing room and the bathroom, and everything from the desk as well, that wasn’t office-related. Her business diary is still there, so you can see what she had in her schedule. There are also some files. I had a look at them, a very quick look, and then closed them up again. They seem to contain her observations on her senior colleagues.’
‘Then take them away and shred them,’ Skinner instructed him. ‘I don’t want to know about her prejudices and her grudges.’ He grinned. ‘I prefer to develop my own. What’s the general view of Michael Thomas?’ he asked. ‘You can be frank, don’t worry.’
‘Unfavourable,’ Payne replied, without a pause for thought. ‘I knew him as a constable, way back, after I’d made sergeant. He was “Three bags full” then, before he started to climb. Much later I was stationed in his division for a while when he was a chief super. He virtually ignored me. He has a reputation for efficiency, but also for being a cold fish. He was a big supporter of Toni Field, at least he kissed her arse regularly enough.’
‘I know that from ACPOS. He was her regular seconder in the debate on unification. What about Bridie Gorman?’
‘Now she is well liked. She spends a lot of time out of the office, in the outlying areas of the force. I think that suited her, and suited Chief Constable Field as well, for they were complete opposites, as cops and as people.’ Payne scratched his chin. ‘Obviously I don’t know what perceptions were outside Strathclyde, but the view in here was that Field planned to get rid of every chief officer apart from ACC Thomas. She’d already axed the deputy, and it was common knowledge that Mr Allan was next.’
Skinner nodded. ‘Yes, I could tell that at ACPOS too. She didn’t even try to be civil to him. Any word on him, by the way?’
‘Yes, I checked. He’s still in hospital, suffering from what they’re now describing as shock. They’re going to keep him in for a couple of days. I don’t know how he’ll feel about coming back.’
‘Then see if you can find out for me. Go and visit him, this evening if you can. Max is only a few months off the usual retirement age. If he’s up to talking about it, tell him that if he’d like to come back, I’ll be happy to see him, but if he doesn’t, I’ll sign him off for enough sick leave to take him up to his due date.’
‘Yes, Chief; I was planning to go and see him anyway. He’s always been good to me.’
‘Fine. Now who’s here, in the building now?’
‘ACC Thomas is. He said he’d be in his office, and that he’d like to see you as soon as possible. And ACC Gorman’s in as well. She came down from Argyll overnight.’
‘Does she want to see me too?’
‘No, she said to tell you she was about if you needed her, that’s all.’
Skinner smiled. ‘Okay then, let’s talk to her; I can spare a few minutes before I have to see Lottie. Ask her to drop in, then give Mr Thomas my apologies, tell him that I’ll fit him in tomorrow morning, and that he’s free to salvage what’s left of his Sunday.’
As Payne left, he walked over to the desk, tried the swivel chair for height, and found, as he had expected, that it was set far too low. He stayed in it for only a few seconds, then pushed himself out. There was something not right about it, something that made his spine tingle. He knew what it was without any deep analysis. Less than forty-eight hours before, Toni Field had been sitting in it, and at that very moment she was lying in a refrigerated drawer in one of the city’s morgues, unless she was being autopsied by Sarah’s opposite number in the west.
He knew that he would never feel comfortable in her old seat, and so he wheeled it over to the secretary’s office, and left it in there with a note saying, ‘Replace, please,’ scribbled on a sheet torn from a pad.
He had just stepped back into his own room when he heard a knock on the door. ‘Come in,’ he called.
‘I can’t,’ a female voice shouted back. ‘This door self-locks. It can only be opened with a key or from the inside.’
He stepped across and admitted his visitor. ACC Bridget Gorman was in civvies, light tan trousers and a check shirt. ‘Afternoon, Chief,’ she said. Her manner was tentative, not that of the Bridie Gorman he knew.
‘Hey, Bridie, last week at ACPOS it was Bob,’ he told her. ‘It still is, okay? Come in and have a seat.’ He showed her across to the table and pulled out two of the chairs.
She glanced across to the desk, taking in the missing swivel but saying nothing. ‘Wouldn’t be right,’ he replied to her unspoken question. ‘I feel bad enough being here.’
Gorman frowned, and her forehead all but disappeared behind a mop of black but grey-streaked hair. ‘I know,’ she murmured. ‘It’s just awful. And it could have been Aileen.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t believe it could, and neither does DI Mann.’ He explained why.
She nodded. ‘Yes, I can see that. Somebody like them, they’d know exactly who they were shooting, I suppose. But why? Why Toni Field?’
‘They didn’t need to know that.’
‘But they’d know who wanted it done.’
‘Not all the way up the chain, not necessarily.’
‘Do you think it was related to something here?’
‘Come on, Bridie,’ Skinner murmured, ‘you know the rule: speculation hinders investigation.’
‘Aye, I suppose I do. Did you say that Lottie Mann’s involved?’
‘She was on duty; she took the shout.’
‘Granted, but. . Lottie can be like a runaway train. Max Allan was always careful how she was deployed.’
‘I know that,’ he conceded. ‘But last night was chaos. The hall was full of headless chickens, but she turned up and took charge, even put me in my place. I liked that. It means she’s my kind of cop. What’s her back story? She said she has a family, but that’s all I know about her.’