The policeman glanced at him as they walked. Finney knew the questions to ask, all right.
'I don't hand out press awards, mate.'
`No, but if I ran that story, you wouldn't be on to the Complaints Commission either, would you?'
He stopped and looked at the man. 'just don't go over the score, Julian. You've got one eye-witness. Stick to that, don't speculate any further and you won't have any problem with me.'
`Fair enough. There's something else you should know,' Finney went on. 'I heard the guy from the Record take a call from his office. I think it was a tip-off about you — something about smashing your way into the cockpit of the plane and coming out with a kid.
There was a long silence.
`Roland McGrath had a wee boy, didn't he, Bob?'
Skinner glowered at the reporter. 'Tell you what, Julian, and you can believe me. You run any of that, and I really will crucify you.'
I believe you, Bob. I believe you!'
SIXTEEN
As soon as Skinner stepped back into the Command vehicle, the telephone rang. One of the two uniformed Sergeants whom Maggie Rose had pressed into service to assist her in her coordination role picked it up on the instant.
`Sir!' he called to the DCC. 'Are you available to speak with Superintendent Higgins?'
`Sure,' he said without a second's hesitation, and took the phone. 'Ali. Hello. Where are you?'
I'm at the St Leonards office, sir.' The normally confident Higgins sounded shaken. On another morning Skinner would have been taken by surprise.
`You heard about Roy, I take it?'
`Yes, sir. It's awful, isn't it? I feel guilty. I spoke to him yesterday. He and I had an arrangement to do performance reviews this morning. When I heard he was at the conference I called to remind him, and of course, he'd forgotten. But he promised me he'd catch the first shuttle and be here on time. "Officers' careers are more important than a few extra drinks at a stuffed-shirt dinner." That's what he said. I can't help thinking, if I had just postponed the interviews, he'd-'
`Don't, Ali. I've been doing that too. You didn't put him on that plane, and I didn't. This may sound odd coming from someone who deals in fact and logic, but it was fate; a combination of circumstances. I could have gone myself, I could have sent you, I could have sent Andy. But I didn't. I made the right choice. You could have been neglectful of your responsibilities towards junior officers, but you weren't. You can't look at it any other way. You mustn't.'
There was a long silence at the other end of the line. 'Thanks, boss. I'll bear that in mind.
But there's something else.' If anything, Higgins sounded even more agitated. 'I've just heard a radio newsflash. It said that Roland McGrath was on the plane too. Is that true?'
I'm afraid so. Why — d'you know him?'
`Yes. Well, not him so much, but Leona, his wife. She and I were at school together.
We've been pals since we were five. I spoke to her last a few days ago. She told me that she and Roland and their wee boy were having a week together in London, then were coming back up to Edinburgh this morning. So was she on the plane too?'
He could almost feel Higgins gripping tight to her self-control. 'No, Alison,' he said. 'She wasn't. She had a dental appointment in London. She'll be on her way up now. The Secretary of State's going to Edinburgh Airport to meet her.'
A great sigh of relief burst from Higgins, but it was cut short. `But Mark! What about Mark? I'm his godmother. Was he on board?'
`He survived, Ali. Maybe the report that you heard mentioned a survivor. It was him, and he's perfectly all right. That's fate again. It sent Roy Old to his death, but it put wee Mark on the flight deck, in a stewardess's arms, and it kept him alive.'
As Skinner finished speaking, he heard his colleague explode into tears. 'Okay, Ali, it's okay,' he said quietly. 'Why don't you go and look after your pal. Take a uniformed officer with you too, to keep the press at bay. On you go now.' He handed the phone back to the Sergeant.
Maggie Rose was looking at him, concerned. But all he could do was shrug his shoulders and turn away. 'On days like this you have a surfeit of emotion, Maggie. Not just in you, but all around you.' He forced himself back to business. 'What have you done here?'
`My role is co-ordination, sir, and that's what I'm doing, but I'm determining priorities as well. Chief Superintendent Radcliffe is directing the recovery of victims — that's objective number one. Once it's complete he'll move on to gathering in personal effects.
`The CAA people are on the scene. Their first job is looking for the flight recorder, the Black Box thing. They say it's in the cockpit, in the reservoir, so our divers are going down again to bring it out.
I'm focusing on identification. Look here: this is what I've done.' She led him across to a large pinboard, on the wall facing the door. Several sheets were fixed to it. 'This is the full passenger list, in seat order, and the crew list.
I've got three Constables — two old-stagers and a lad who volunteered — moving between here and the mortuary tents, checking each body as it's brought in, then coming back here to enter details on the lists. Those with the wee stick-on dots beside them have been identified by possessions found on them: driving licences, credit cards, that sort of thing. If the dots are yellow, that means that the bodies will be visually identified easily by next of kin. If they're red, we may need dental records.'
`This big sheet here represents the floor of the mortuary tent, where the bodies are laid out in rows of six. Each square blue sticker represents a recovered victim. Where they've been identified their seat number is written on the sticker. Obviously, the body bags are being labelled in the tent as well.'
`That's important,' said Skinner. The last thing we want to do to a distraught relative is to show them the wrong body. What about photography?'
`Taken care of, sir. We have six photographers here. Every body is being photographed where it's found, and is given a number as it's bagged. Then it's being photographed again inside the tent.'
`That's good work, Maggie. With about two hundred or so bodies lying about, we have to move them as fast as possible. But this is looking like a murder investigation, so we have to cover every detail. When this thing gets to court, we don't want to wind up in the witness box with our shirt-tails flapping in the breeze.'
He peered at the list again, and pointed to Roy Old's name. There was no dot next to it. As he looked the door opened, and a Constable entered, a young man whom Skinner recognised. His face was drawn, but his expression was determined and composed. He carried a clipboard with a sheaf of papers. The top sheet was a copy of the mortuary plan.
The DCC guessed that the boy had aged three years in three hours. 'Afternoon, PC Pye,' he said. It was twelve minutes past noon.
The young officer stood to attention. 'Sir!'
Skinner smiled. 'Stand easy, boy. You volunteered for this duty, did you?'
`Yes, sir.'
`Well, good for you. I'll remember that. You have more details to enter?'
`Yes, sir.'
He stood back, allowing PC Pye to approach the pinboard. The Constable looked at his notes and placed six blue stickers on the master plan of the mortuary. On four of them, he wrote numbers. Skinner read the first number and tensed. It was 28A. Silently he watched as Pye unpeeled a yellow dot from its sheet and placed it beside Roy Old's name.
The young man placed yellow dots against two more passenger names and a red against the fourth, then turned, and with a final salute to Skinner, left the Command vehicle.