That not a bit of a risk, leaning on journalists?' asked Martin.
'Who said anything about leaning on them? We'll just say we're consulting them; it'll make them feel important. The hack is not yet born who is so hairy-backed and anti-establishment that he doesn't want the polis owing him a favour. You do that, while I make this call. Then we'll get off to the George to scare the shit out of the Festival directors.'
11
The George is not the most imposing of Edinburgh's first-division hotels, but it is one of the best. It is situated on the street from which it takes its name, and its narrow entrance affords clients a greater degree of privacy than its massive rivals at either end of Princes Street. It is possible to slip virtually unobserved into the George, while entry through the wide doors of the Caledonian or the Balmoral, past their liveried and effusive keepers, is always something of a performance.
Skinner and Martin arrived at the hotel in the BMW just after 5:00 pm, finding a parking place with unusual ease, as the Saturday shopping crush had eased off. Martin, who enjoyed special relationships with every hotel manager in the city centre, had asked for a private room for their meeting. He carried a briefcase as they walked into the hotel. Six of the seven Festival directors were waiting for them. Only Trevor Golley of the Book Festival had been unavailable. None of the six had been told in advance that the others would be present. As the two policemen entered the room, the low buzz of conversation stopped, and half a dozen faces turned towards them.
Skinner broke the ice. 'Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I must thank you for coming along here at such short notice, and in response to such a mysterious invitation. We appreciate how busy you must be just now, so we won't keep you long.'
Three large Thermos jugs lay on three occasional tables in the centre of the room.
'Everyone all right for coffee, before we begin?' An assortment of grunts and nods came from around the room. 'Right, if you'll each find a seat, I'll explain what all this is about.'
The long room had no windows. It was furnished with three deep and comfortable two-seater sofas and two armchairs. The policemen each took a chair, leaving the sofas for their guests. As the directors sat down. Skinner saw that they seemed to sort themselves unconsciously into natural pairings.
Harriet Nelson, in her second year as director for the 'Official'
Festival, sat on the left-hand sofa, alongside Colonel Archie McPhee, organiser of the Military Tattoo. Even seated, Harriet Nelson was an imposing woman: tall, heavy featured and with a flaming red hair. She had won her spurs in the arts in her late I twenties, as one of the very few leading female orchestral conductors, and had wielded her baton in concert halls around the world for almost two decades. Her appointment as director of the Edinburgh International Festival had been announced by the governing committee as a major coup, which indeed it was.
Colonel McPhee, the Military Tattoo director, was in his own way as imposing as his neighbour on the sofa. Before his retirement from active service, five years earlier, he had been a battalion commander in the Parachute Regiment, and had seen bloody combat in the Falklands. He was in his early fifties, with close-cropped, receding hair, a sharp nose and piercing, perceptive eyes. He was dressed in light slacks and a short-sleeved green shin, an outfit which emphasised an impression of total physical fitness.
The director of the Film Festival, Julia Shahor, sat directly facing Skinner and Martin, next to the one person of the six whom Skinner had not met before, whom he knew therefore to be Ray Starkey. head of the television event. Julia Shahor's shock of very black hair exploded in a natural Afro, framing a small, pale but unforgettably attractive face. She wore a voluminous white robe which covered her from neck to ankles. She was a small woman, the youngest of the six directors by at least seven or eight years, Skinner guessed. She had come to the Film Festival ten months earlier, on a one-year contract, and like Harriet Nelson she had been regarded as a catch for Edinburgh. She was still in her twenties, but already she had built a brilliant career as a screenwriter. It was said that her ambition was to emulate one of her predecessors by using the Festival as the springboard for a career as a movie director in America.
Ray Starkey wore large, yellow-framed spectacles, with lenses which made his eyes seem huge. He was very fat, and dressed incongruously in a pale blue Armani suit, with a grey shirt, yellow braces, and a tie which seemed to have been hand-painted, badly, that same afternoon. Skinner knew that Starkey had come to run the television event after having been a casualty of the 1991 commercial television licence auctions. He had been programme controller with one of the losing franchise-holders and had waited in vain for a year for one of the winners to offer him a contract, before being invited to take up the Festival post.
Finally, seated together on the sofa to the right of the two policemen, were David Leroy, the director of the Fringe, and Jay Hands, his counterpart at the Jazz Festival.
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe enjoys a reputation as one of the great showcases for new-wave theatre and new performing talent.
Many artists now world-famous had made their first impressions upon public consciousness at Edinburgh Fringe productions.
David Leroy's appearance was completely at odds with the avantgarde style of his Festival. While many of his performers found kaftans and sandals de rigueur, the Fringe director could have been taken for a successful big-firm chartered accountant. Even on an August Saturday he wore a blue Austin Reed suit, black Loake shoes, a white shirt with a thin blue stripe, and an Edinburgh Academy Old Boys' tie.
However, Jay Hands, the longest-serving of all the directors, was much more in tune with the image of the grizzled jazzman.
Even seated, he seemed round-shouldered. He was in his late fifties, tall and lean, with a sallow complexion and lank grey hair which looked two months overdue for a trim. He had the tired eyes of a man who played with a jazz band several nights a week, then stayed on after the show.
The six directors now sat in waiting, some looking curious, some – Nelson and Hands in particular – showing an edge of annoyance. Skinner smiled his wannest smile. 'For those of you who haven't met us, I'm Bob Skinner, Assistant Chief Constable and head of CID in Edinburgh. It's a matter of public knowledge that I also act as security adviser to the Secretary of State. My colleague here is Detective Chief Inspector Andrew Martin, head of Special Branch in Edinburgh. Some of you may have guessed why we've asked you to meet us.'
Only two reacted in any way. Archie McPhee smiled tightly and nodded. Jay Hands looked puzzled.
'For those of you who don't already know, we have had what we describe in police-speak as "a serious incident", specifically an explosion. It happened at midday today at a Festival hospitality venue in Princes Street. In fact, we now know that it was a bomb attack on the Festival itself.'
He paused. Opposite him, Julia Shahor's eyes seemed to grow impossibly wide.
'Jesus Christ!' whispered Jay Hands.
Skinner went on. 'Shortly after the bang, we received this.
Would you all read it, please.'
He handed his copy of the letter to Harriet Nelson. She scanned it slowly, then, white-faced, handed it to Archie McPhee. By the time Jay Hands had finished studying the letter, and handed it back to Skinner, all six directors looked considerably shaken.
'Before any of you ask me, I'll tell you that we are taking this letter at face value. We believe that the people behind this atrocity are serious. We don't know the first thing about them yet, but we do know that anyone who can lay hands on a pound or two of Semtex is unlikely to be a one-hit wonder. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, we have to believe that the Festival events for which you are responsible are now all under threat. More than that, while I don't want to alarm you unnecessarily, we have to assume, for safety's sake, that each of you could be a target.'