In spite of himself. Skinner smiled at her frankness, and her jest. 'No. I have other people who do that sort of thing.'
She grinned in her turn. "Stop, I give in.' She spoke in a light, cultured Scots accent; rural and north of the Tay, Skinner guessed.
In a flash she was serious again. 'Look, you'll be aware, surely, of the stories about Alan's marriage being on the rocks.'
Skinner nodded.
'Well, they're true. Of course I know that most women in my position would claim this, but I'm not the cause of it. I'm the consequence. Honor Ballantyne opted out of Alan's life five years ago. She lives in London full-time now. She has her own career, and she's having an affair with a Liberal peer. Just so you know everything about me, I live in Alan's constituency. I'm a partner in a firm of solicitors in Aberdeen, called Goldstone and Ferris.
Look me up: Charlotte Mays, spelled M-A-Y-S. Tenth on the list of partners out of fourteen. I specialise in Maritime Law. I've passed my Rights of Audience exams, and appear occasionally in the Court of Session.
'I've paid my subs to the Tory Party since I was twenty-three, but I didn't do anything for them until last year. Then a girlfriend got me involved in organising the constituency Christmas dance. I met Alan there, for the first time. I thought nothing of it. I was too busy selling tombola tickets. The next thing to happen was that my friend persuaded me to go on a branch committee. That was how I really met Alan. We went canvassing together in the spring, and it just took off from there. This is the first time I've beensort of "in residence" here. Alan thinks we should come out into society in easy stages. Everybody in the Constituency Association knows about us already, and they all seem to approve.
They haven't had an MP's wife there for God knows how long, and they feel deprived. So, far from being a shameless hussy, I'm almost the flavour of the month.'
'What about the other political parties?' Skinner asked. 'Won't someone run to the media?'
'Not in politics, Mr Skinner. In our constituency, the SNP are the opposition. Their standard-bearer is screwing his secretary, so he won't say anything. The Liberals don't play the game that way, as a matter of principle, and as for the Labour candidate, he's one of my partners at Goldstones. No, the real problem is Honor Ballantyne. Alan's asked her for a quiet divorce, but she's looking for a horrendous amount of money to agree. They have two daughters, you know. One's ten, the other fourteen. So it's stalemate on that front, for the moment. Alan's even thinking about counter-suing, claiming adultery with the Liberal peer.'
'Silly bugger if he does.'
'As a lawyer, I agree with you. As one of the points in the triangle, I'm selfish. I just wish it could be sorted out.' For the first time. traces of pain and frustration showed through the outer shell of her self-assurance.
Skinner's smile was sympathetic. 'I understand that.
'Look, I'm sorry to have pressed the question. Miss Mays-'
'Carlie, please.'
'OK, Carlie. But since you know what my job is, you'll understand why. I'm responsible not just for advising Alan on security policy, but for his personal security as well. I have to know everything about him, and to know about everything that could affect him, and the Government.'
'Yes. I understand all that. So what do you think? Do we worry you?'
Skinner decided to tell her the truth. 'Yes, the way things are, you do. Your relationship, as long as it remains secret, could lay Alan open to all sorts of external pressure. My duty is to the office of Secretary of State, not to a man, or to an MP, and my advice can't take your interests into account. But you might like it nonetheless. On the basis that he's serious about you, I would advise that you go public, and take what political flak there is. But that's business for later. Right now we have a crisis to handle.'
Together, Skinner and Carlie Mays climbed the stairs. She ushered him into the dining-room and closed the door behind him.
Ballantyne was seated with his back to the door, at the end of a long mahogany dining table strewn with paper. A bulky document case, bound in red leather, lay open at his feet. He looked over his shoulder as Skinner entered the room, and, laying his thick Mont Blanc fountain pen down on the table, went over to greet him.
'Bob, hello. You sounded very serious when you phoned.
What's happened?'
Quickly, Skinner informed the Secretary of State of the murder of Hilary Guillaum, then he handed him the third letter. As he read it, Ballantyne slumped into one of the dining chairs. When he had finished he laid the single sheet of paper on the table and leaned back in his chair, with his right hand trembling over his eyes.
'Oh, sweet Jesus Christ. We're responsible. Bob. If we only hadn't stood on principle.'
At first. Skinner thought that Ballantyne's use of the plural included him, too, until he remembered his earlier claim to have consulted the Prime Minister. He said nothing as the Secretary of State sat lost for a while in his panicking thoughts, but watched the man gradually compose himself again. Eventually Ballantyne stood up from the table and walked over to the Adam fireplace, its hearth lit by imitation coals. He leaned against the mantelpiece, as he had done in the drawing-room twenty-four hours before, and looked back across the room towards Skinner, who was still standing near the door.
'Well, Bob? Did we sign her death warrant?'
The tall policeman stared back at him, dispassionately. As he did so, all of his gnawing doubts about Ballantyne surged up to the surface. There was a clear trace of panic in the man's eyes, and the faintest trembling still in his movements. Skinner doubted that Ballantyne had ever dreamed of his prestigious office throwing him into the midst of such a crisis. Now his expression begged for absolution; and relief washed across his face when Skinner gave it to him.
'No, Alan. I don't think you did. Not this one, at any rate. The way this murder was done, it was planned well in advance. I had a call on my way down here. We've made two solid discoveries at the Sheraton. The first was a chambermaid's uniform stuffed in a servicing cart on the same floor as Hilary Guillaum's suite. The second was its original wearer, in a cleaner's cupboard. She was in her bra and knickers, trussed up like she was ready for the oven, and blindfolded and gagged with tape. The girl's still hysterical, but when she's calm enough to talk, she'll confirm for us, I've no doubt, that she was grabbed from behind by more than one person, bundled into the cupboard and stripped of her uniform.
They'll have gagged her at once so that she couldn't scream, then blindfolded her so that she couldn't see any of them. If we had published that letter, Hilary Guillaum might well be alive now, but I'm pretty certain she'd still be dead tomorrow. Remember, they've promised more incidents, and we've been assuming they'll look for high-profile targets. What the third letter tells us is that they'll be looking for international targets as well. Hilary Guillaum's murder was well planned. They didn't just knock her off to force you to go public. They'd have done it anyway.'
'What do we do now? Give in to them?'
Suddenly Skinner's disappointment in Ballantyne swelled to overflowing. 'Christ, man, where is it about giving in? Look, you're the politician. You take the decisions. I'd have thought it was pretty fucking obvious what you do, but I'm just a poor simple copper. Dig up the Prime Minister wherever he is. Tell him you're going to call a press conference today to lay out the whole scene. You're going to say that Scotland is under terrorist attack, and that the Government is determined to see the threat off. While you're at it, you should call on all the opposition parties to make public declarations of support for your position. You tell the public that all possible steps are being taken to protect Festival venues, and that you're counting on them to show their contempt for the terrorists by making it business as usual.' •What if the PM disagrees?'