'Actually…' said Julia hesitantly, as if looking for the right words, 'neither. She's a sort of courtesy aunt, really. She was at school with my mother. They were very close.'
'In Israel? Funny, I wouldn't have thought that. Her accent sounds more European.'
'No, not in Israel. Somewhere else. The thing is – well. the thing is, my parents broke up when I was a girl, and I went to live with relatives in Israel. I got in touch with Auntie again when I came to the Sorbonne.' Suddenly she looked troubled. 'But, Andy, I really don't like to talk about all that. It was a bad time for me, and it is best left in the past.'
'Sure, love,' he said, soothingly. And in a second it was forgotten. 'He's some machine, old Bob, when he gets one of his niggles going. Wonder what it is this time? One thing's for sure though: sooner or later, we'll find out!'
37
The first rumblings of discontent appeared in the hastily written leaders of the following morning's Scotsman and Herald, while in the tabloids the rumbling was a full-scale earthquake. One lateedition banner blared, 'PLOD FIASCO: BOMBS HIT OZ'. This articulate headline filled two-thirds of the front page, and led a story filled with hastily assembled 'bystander' condemnation of the security operation in general, and of its commander in person.
Resisting the urge to crumple it up and throw it across the room, Skinner read it through to the end. He noted grimly that the only critic identified in the story was Al Neidermeyer.
While the more serious Scottish dailies were more circumspect, notes of concern rang in them all. The sombre leader in the Scotsman went so far as to praise Skinner as an outstanding detective, but developed its theme of two days before, wondering whether counter-terrorism was suited to his skills, and whether the crisis might be better placed under someone else's command.
'Like who, for instance?' he muttered to the empty room.
Michael Licorish and Alan Royston had scheduled a media conference, to be taken by Ballantyne and Skinner, at 10:00 am in the main hall at Fettes Avenue. In preparation for the inevitable grilling, the ACC read all of the reports which lay on his desk, including one from the Royal Infirmary which put the final death toll at eighteen, including the girl he had seen on the stretcher. Her name had been Alice Carroll, and she had been seventeen years old. Also listed at the end of the report was Alice's elderly grandmother, untouched by the shrapnel, but who had died of a heart attack shortly after the explosion.
Skinner had just finished his perusal when Ruth buzzed through on the intercom to tell him that Licorish was waiting outside.
'OK,' he said, 'send him in.'
The Information Director came in a few seconds later. Skinner could see an embarrassed look in his eyes, and knew that he had some uncomfortable news to break. He took a guess.
'Where's the Secretary of State, Mike? I thought he'd be here by now.' "That's just it. Bob. He can't make it. He asked me to apologise to you, and to ask you to take the chair in his place. He said I was to tell you he still has every confidence in you.' "That's fucking big of him. What's his story?'
'It's to do with a family friend having just died. Between you and me, it's actually a friend of Mrs Ballantyne. You know how it is with them?'
Skinner nodded. But he wondered if Licorish knew how it was with Ballantyne and Carlie.
The Scottish Office man continued, almost sotto voce. 'She's been having an affair with a Liberal peer. Lord Broadgate. But it seems she was too much for him. He had a stroke during the night.
She phoned S of S in a bit of a panic, and he caught the first shuttle down to London.'
'Mmm,' Skinner muttered. 'Nice of him.'
As he looked at Licorish, he sensed something else. Before he could ask, the civil servant produced a brown envelope which he had been holding behind his back. 'This arrived just after he left.'
He pushed it across the desk.
The latest letter was brief and to the point.
Ballantyne, you and your lackeys must believe us now. We have shown you what we can do, and we will not stop until you give us back what is ours. Now we have the attention of the international community, and we have its support.
Withdraw from Scotland before its people rise up and join us in throwing you out.
Skinner threw it down on the desk.
'What the hell is that? It's just fucking rhetoric. They kill an American. They kill Australians. They kill their own Scots folk.
These people have to be crazy, or playing for very big stakes. Is Scotland that important?' He rose from behind his desk and led the way to his meeting with the media.
In the briefing room, the media corps – even Al Neidermeyer, his nose noticeably swollen – were unusually subdued as Skinner described the scene in the Music Hall, then listed the dead. Finally, he put down his notes and looked at his audience.
"There's little I can say to you that I haven't said before. This is a well-organised, well-resourced and completely ruthless group of people. What happened last night was beyond words – beyond mine, and I think beyond even yours, eloquent as you all may be.
The thing that I find most incredible is that Scots people could treat other Scots in this way, whatever justifiable cause they think they have. Last night, I talked to an eighty-year-old man who told me that he grieved for Scotland. I share his grief.'
'Having said that, I can tell you that there is now some sign of outside involvement in these atrocities. The explosive used in both attacks is a new type of Semtex. So far it's been unknown here. It hasn't even turned up in Ireland. Until now, no one has been aware that there was an illicit market in this material. The country of manufacture is pretty jealous of its reputation, and its government felt sure that all batches were accounted for. It seems they were wrong. We now know that there was a break-in at a French military arsenal two months ago, when a quantity of the stuff was stolen. We're pretty certain that's the explosive used here. Before all this started, we never had an inkling of any embryonic Scottish terrorist organisation. It's asking a lot – of me, at least – to believe that such a group has existed all along, with a plan so detailed that it involved stealing high explosives from an arsenal in France.'
Skinner's old friend, John Hunter, interrupted him. 'Bob, are you suggesting that all this might have been contrived outside Scotland, or that there might be some foreign involvement?'
'I can't say that for certain, John, but whatever this group is, it's tied into some sort of network.' •Irish?'
'I don't know. I know someone who definitely doesn't think so, but sooner or later I'll find out for sure! Thank you, gentlemen.
From now on, in the light of these events, I'm prepared to take briefings on a daily basis, at 10:00 every morning, here, but that's all for this morning.'
Skinner rose to his feet. There was a stampede for the door as the media corps rushed off en masse to file their French connection copy.
38
A message, written in Ruth's neat hand, lay on Skinner's desk when he returned to his office. 'Call DC Mcllhenney, Glasgow.
Urgent.' She had noted down the telephone number.
Using his secure telephone, he keyed it in. 'Neil? ACC here.
What've you got for me?'
'Morning, sir. Our man Macdairmid's an early bird. He pitched up at his Party offices at 9:00 this morning, but he was only there for twenty minutes, then off down to that pub of his. It's got an early-opening licence for night-shift workers at the factory up the road.
'Barry beat him there. He was waiting when he arrived. Sure as God made wee green apples, he ordered a half-pint of Gillespie's then used the pay-phone. The Glasgow technical boys had their tap in place, and got the whole thing.'