‘Why should I? And if I did, do you really think that I’d betray her by setting you on her? If you want to find her, ask her husband, why don’t you?’
‘I rather think not,’ Hatton drawled. ‘Can you tell me about your relationship with Ms de Marco, Mr Morocco?’
‘No,’ he snorted. ‘Why the hell should I do that?’
‘But you did say you’re a friend of hers.’
‘Yes. So what? Aileen has many friends. She’s Glasgow’s leading lady. Ask a real journalist and they’ll tell you that.’
‘Oh, but I’m a real journalist, Mr Morocco,’ she told him. ‘Be in no doubt about that. How long have you known Ms de Marco?’
‘For a few years.’
‘How close are you?’
‘We are friends, okay? Is there any part of that you don’t understand?’
‘What’s the nature of your friendship?’
‘Private. Now please piss off.’
‘I don’t think so.’
He felt himself boil over. ‘Listen, hen,’ he shouted, lapsing into Glaswegian in his anger, ‘you want to talk to me, you go through my agent or my publicist. By the way, both of those are owed favours by your editor, so don’t you be making me have them called in.’
‘He owes me a few as well, Joey,’ she countered. ‘I keep bringing him exclusives, you see. When did you last see Ms de Marco?’
‘Fuck off!’ he snapped and slammed the phone back into its cradle.
‘You’ve been a while,’ Aileen said, as he rejoined her.
‘I had a nuisance call,’ he replied.
‘There’s a number you can call that stops you getting those.’
‘It doesn’t always work. But hopefully that one’s gone away to bother somebody else.’
Eleven
‘How’s the force reacting to Mr Skinner’s appointment?’ Harry Wright of the Herald called out, from the second row of the questioning journalists gathered in the Pitt Street conference room.
‘Come on, Harry,’ Malcolm Nopper began to protest, but Lottie Mann cut across him.
‘How would I know?’ she replied, her deep booming voice at a level just below a shout. ‘I’m just one member of this force, and for the last,’ she made a show of checking her watch, ‘twenty hours, minus a few for sleep, I’ve been leading a murder investigation. I think I can say for everybody that we’re all still shocked by what happened to our former chief constable. As for the new chief, he’s keeping in close touch with my investigation, but he’s confirmed me as the lead officer.’
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Nopper exclaimed, ‘people, I know these are unique circumstances, but I remind you that we’re here to discuss an ongoing inquiry into a suspicious death.’
A few explosions of laughter, some suppressed, some not, came from the gathering at his blatant use of police-speak. Skinner winced, and reflected on his insistence that the chief press officer should take the chair at the briefing. He had slipped into the room at the first call for order, and was standing at the back, half-hidden behind a Sky News camera operator.
‘Okay,’ Nopper sighed, shifting in his seat before the Strathclyde Police logo backdrop as he tried to rescue the situation. ‘At least that got your attention. My point was that this is a murder we’re here to talk about and that it should be treated just like any other, regardless of who the victim is. Now can we stick to the point?’ He looked towards the Herald reporter. ‘Harry,’ he invited, ‘do you want to ask a proper question?’
The man shrugged. ‘I thought that was, but never mind. Detective Inspector, you were able to confirm for us that the police victims are Chief Constable Field and Sergeant Sproule. Now can you tell us anything about the other two men? Do you know who they are. . were, sorry?’
Lottie straightened in her chair, and took a deep breath, in an effort to slow down her racing heart. ‘We believe so,’ she replied, speaking steadily. A murmur rippled through the media, and she paused to let it subside. ‘They’ve been identified as Gerard Botha and Francois Smit. They were both South African citizens, and they’ve been described to us as military contractors.’
‘Mercenaries?’ a female Daily Record hack shouted.
The reporter was so suddenly excited that Lottie suspected she had spent her career waiting to write a crime story that didn’t involve domestic violence, homophobia or dawn raids on drug dealers. ‘If you want to use that term,’ she said, ‘I won’t be arguing with you.’
‘Who gave you that description?’ John Fox asked, from his customary front and centre seat.
‘Intelligence sources,’ the DI told him.
‘MI6?’
Lottie looked him in the eye, then gave him the smallest of winks. ‘Be content with what I’ve given you.’ She came within a couple of breaths of adding, ‘There’s a good boy,’ but stopped herself just in time, realising that Pacific Quay’s top crime reporter was someone she did not need as an enemy.
Fox grinned. ‘I had to ask, Lottie. These men were the killers, yes?’
She nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘To what degree of certainty?’
‘Absolute.’
‘Do you know as certainly how they came to die?’
‘Yes,’ the DI said. ‘But with the greatest respect, I’m going to tell the procurator fiscal before I tell you. Fair enough?’
The BBC reporter shrugged his shoulders slightly as if in agreement, but some others tried to press the point. She held her position until eventually Harry Wright changed the angle of approach.
‘DI Mann, the concert hall had security cover and the event was policed, yet these two men seem to have smuggled a weapon in there regardless. Is your investigation focusing on your own security and on the lapses that allowed this to happen?’
‘We know how they did that too, but again I’m not able to share it with you.’
‘Same reason, I suppose,’ Wright moaned. ‘The fiscal gets to know before the public.’
She shook her head, firmly. ‘No. It’s information that we have to keep in-house for now. There are aspects of it that we need to follow up.’
‘Continuing lines of inquiry?’
‘Sure, if you want to say that, I’m content.’
‘DI Mann, why isn’t Mr Skinner sitting alongside you?’ Marguerite Hatton cried out from the side of the room.
‘Relevant questions only,’ Nopper exclaimed. ‘Anyone else?’
‘I’ll decide what’s relevant,’ the woman protested. ‘I’ll disrupt this press conference until you answer. Why isn’t the new chief constable present?’
‘He is!’
Every head in the room, apart from the two seated at the table, turned at Skinner’s bellow.
‘Satisfied?’ he boomed. ‘DI Mann is leading this investigation and she enjoys my full confidence.’
‘How is your wife today, Mr Skinner?’ Hatton shouted back.
Slowly, the chief constable walked towards her. A press office aide stood at the side of the room, holding one of the microphones that were available so that every reporter’s questions could be heard. He held out his hand for it and took it, then stopped.
He knew that the TV cameras were running and that still photographs were being shot, but made no attempt to have them stop.
‘Lady,’ he said, into the mike, ‘I don’t know who you think you are, or what special privileges you expect from me, but you’re not getting any. You’re here at our invitation to discuss a specific matter, and now you’re threatening disruption, as everyone here has heard. I’m not having that. One more word from you and I’ll have you ejected.’
‘This is a public meeting,’ she protested.
‘Don’t be daft,’ he snapped back at her. ‘It’s a police press conference. I mean it. One more word and you are on the pavement.’ He held her gaze, his eyes icy cold, boring into hers, unblinking, until she subsided and turned away from him.
‘Okay,’ he murmured. ‘As long as we’re clear.’ He looked at the platform. ‘Carry on, Malcolm.’