Old grinned back at her. ‘No, and I never did. So, why did you ask me if you’d survive?’
‘I only meant within the party, man. What’s the feeling in our shadow cabinet and on the back benches? Are they scared by what’s happened? Is my sleekit deputy Mr Felix Brahms likely to seize the day and challenge me for the leadership?’
‘As far as I can tell, there won’t be a revolt. You certainly needn’t worry about Felix. I spoke to him last night. Yes, he was making opportunistic noises, but I put a stop to that.’
She frowned. ‘How?’
‘You don’t want to know.’
‘Yes, I bloody do. Out with it.’
He looked around again; a waiter was approaching with an order pad, but he waved him away. ‘A friend of mine in Special Branch up in Aberdeen, the Brahms fiefdom, dropped me a word about him. They were worried about him being a security risk as shadow Justice Secretary.
‘He’s been having it off with a woman, a well-known local slapper called Mandy Madigan, whose brother Stuart is currently remanded in custody charged with the murder of a business rival, that business being prostitution and money-lending.’
‘What a creepy bastard!’ Aileen exclaimed. ‘I like his wife, too. What are we going to do about it?’
‘Nothing,’ he replied, firmly. ‘You’ve put a hint of sex into the campaign; that’s just about okay, given the way that you and Bob have dealt with it. We do not need any more sleaze, though. When Brahms called me about your situation, I had a sharp word with him, told him what I knew. He swears he didn’t know about her family background, and he’s going to put an end to it. The Grampian cops will keep the affair to themselves, but he’d better be a choirboy from now on.’
‘My God,’ she chuckled. ‘You’re making me feel like the singing nun by comparison. Well, maybe not quite, shagging a movie star and all, but still.’ She paused. ‘Poor Joey; he called me this morning, on his way to the airport. He’s quite upset, worried that he might have done for my career. I must call him once he gets to Los Angeles, and tell him he’s probably put my approval rating up a few points.’
‘Any chance of him supporting you in the campaign?’
‘Hell no, he’s a Tory. I know, before you say it, I seem to be making a habit of sleeping with the enemy. At least I’m not going to marry this one!’
‘Is Bob going to make trouble down the line?’
‘For me, no. I’ve got a funny feeling that I’ve done him a favour by cutting him loose. Not politically, either. He’s got nothing to gain from it.’ She frowned, suddenly. ‘That said, I must ring him and apologise for what I said at the press conference. He’ll have heard by now, for sure, from one of his inner media circle, Foxie, or June Crampsey. I don’t want to fall out with him any more than I have done.’
‘Why should that bother you?’ the chief executive asked. ‘You don’t think you can win him over on unification, do you? He made his views pretty clear in the Saltire at the weekend.’
‘Did he? That passed me by, not that I care. It’ll go through regardless. And once it’s there, who knows what he’ll do. I’m quite convinced that if Toni Field was still alive he’d go for it. He’s a cop first, second and third; it’s all he knows, and most of what he cares about, apart from his kids.
‘He’s also a pragmatist. If that’s right, that he said his piece in the press, all he was doing was getting at me. He knows he won’t win. Deep down he also knows that if Field had been there to go for the police commissioner job, he’d have done whatever was needed to stop her, and that would have meant putting himself forward.’
‘Christ, you’re making it sound as if he was behind the shooting.’
Aileen smiled, but her eyes stayed serious. ‘He’s shown himself capable of pulling the trigger, on Saturday and more than once before that in his career. But no, I wouldn’t go that far.’
‘Now she’s dead, what will he do?’
‘My guess is that he will go for it, and I’ve told him as much. He spent years telling himself he didn’t want to be chief in Edinburgh. Since he was talked into it, he’s been saying the same about Strathclyde, but I sensed a change in him when his refusal to put his name forward last time left the field clear for Toni Field, and he saw what a political operator she was. He said something to me once about power only being dangerous if it was in the wrong hands. He could have been talking about her.’
‘And his are the right hands, are they?’
‘He’d never say so. He’d leave it to the politicians he dislikes so much, and the media he uses so skilfully, to do that. But he believes it all right. He hides it well, but Robert Morgan Skinner has a massive ego, tied to an absolute belief in his own rectitude. And when it comes to power, he’s the equivalent of an alcoholic; one taste and he’s hooked. Mind you, he’d tell you the same thing about me, and he’d be right too.’
She sipped her wine. ‘I want to stay on good terms with him,’ she continued, ‘because I will need to be. Whatever the polls say, and however badly our colleagues in London have fucked things up for all of us, I intend to be First Minister after the election and, as such, we will have to co-exist.’
Old nodded. ‘I can see that.’
‘But,’ she added, ‘there’s something else. I want to stay as close to his investigation as I can, because I want to know who killed Toni Field just as much as everyone else does. Who’d want her dead?’ she asked. ‘She hadn’t been in Scotland long enough to have upset the criminal fraternity that badly. Yes, she may have hacked off someone dangerous in her earlier career. But can you recall another case of a senior British cop being assassinated by organised crime? I can’t. However, like I said earlier, the late Toni was an intensely political animal. Who knows who she’s crossed in that area. Make no mistake, politics can get you killed, and if there is any whiff of that, I want to know about it.’
Twenty-Eight
‘I’m fine, Bob, honestly. I lost it for a second or two in there, but that’s enough when the red lights are on the cameras. I’m simply calling to apologise for what I said about you. It was unforgivable; if you want, I’ll put out a statement through my press office retracting it and saying that I was provoked.’
‘Let it be, Aileen. I’m not worried about it. What you said is bloody true, anyway, so I won’t ask you to lie for me.’
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I appreciate that. You couldn’t do something about that Hatton woman, could you?’
‘No need. She’s done it to herself. I’ve just taken yet another call from her editor, made no doubt on the advice of his lawyer. This time he was grovelling over what she called me. He’s ordered her back to London this afternoon, even offered to sack her if I insisted on it. I said I didn’t want that, but that he should tell her, so she can see that I have a magnanimous side after all.’
‘But if she ever comes back to Glasgow, she’d better not have any drugs in her handbag?’
He laughed. ‘You said that, I didn’t. Now, I must go; I’ve got people outside waiting to brief me on the Toni Field investigation, and I cannot get off the fucking phone.’
‘Then I won’t keep you. How’s it going, by the way? I gather from Alf. . I’m with him just now; we’re hiding out in the Postman’s Knock, the bistro down the road. . that they’ve determined that she was the target.’
‘That’s right. My turn to apologise; you should have heard that from us, not him. I’ll know more when I’ve seen the team, but we have several lines of inquiry. Not least, we want to know what the hell a dead Glasgow gangster was doing in the boot of the shooters’ getaway car.’
‘My God!’ she exclaimed.
‘Indeed, and you should be pleased to hear it. Lottie Mann was going to break that news at her press briefing. It should deflect some of the coverage of yours. By the way, you’d better call Clive Graham. He practically blew the wax out of my ears a few minutes ago, in the ludicrously mistaken belief that I’ve got any influence over you.’