His eyes swept the room again, catching the concern in the four faces. ‘I’ve never been a politician. I don’t really know what the word means.
‘This is still a multiple murder enquiry, for all the cloak and dagger I expect the pressure to get tougher. If it does, I’ll handle it. All I ask of you is total discretion. Nothing on paper. Report orally to me or Mr Martin. Unless it’s most urgent, use the phone rather than police radio.’
He paused, and looked every officer in the eye, in turn. ‘Having told you all that, I’m offering you an exit. If anyone thinks that this is too heavy for him, or her, or worries about career prospects - and I won’t deny it, if this thing goes really badly south that could be a worry — they are free to opt out right now. No comebacks.’ He paused again. He looked again at each officer. ‘Well?’
Brian Mackie stood up, a gesture surprising in its formality. ‘Sir, over the past four days, we’ve all, well we’ve come to know Mike and Rachel. And none of us will ever forget young MacVicar, or the others. We’re all as determined as you are to catch the animal who killed them.’
Skinner’s smile was one of gratitude. ‘You’re all good people. Stick with me on this I won’t let you down.’
68
Allingham and the Lebanese diplomat, who was introduced as Mr Feydassen, arrived at Fettes Avenue just after 4.00 p.m. The Foreign Office policeman was on his best behaviour when Martin showed him into Skinner’s office. The Lebanese a small, swarthy man, seemed nervous, overawed by his responsibility.
Skinner did his best to put him at his ease, explaining that, since Edinburgh was a capital city, visits by heads of state, with their attendant security requirements, were commonplace for his force.
‘This visit is shorter than most. Mr Martin has been over the route and we have chosen a hotel which will be easy to guard for the brief time that our guest is with us, and which we believe offers a suitable standard of comfort. You’re booked in there tonight, so you can judge for yourself. Tonight we will drive over the route which the President will cover Then we will look at the Hall in which he will be speaking.’
Mario McGuire drove them back out of town, heading west as if towards Edinburgh Airport. But instead of heading straight through the complicated Maybury roundabout system, he took the right turn leading to RAF Tumhouse.
‘This is the original Edinburgh Airport,’ Skinner explained. ‘It’s still used by the Queen’s Flight. Security here can be as heavy as we like. This visit won’t be announced in advance, but with a university and its students involved, we have to assume that it’s going to leak.’
Feydassen turned towards him in alarm.‘ Your newspapers will report it, you mean?’
Skinner shook his head. ‘No. They’ll keep quiet, in exchange for full reporting facilities at the debate. The press will be handled by the Scottish Office information department; all the media in the hall will be vetted by us.’
The car left the airfield and turned once again towards the city centre, taking the Western Approach into Lothian Road, and winding through the Grassmarket, beneath the towering floodlit bulk of Edinburgh Castle, perched in splendour on its rock.
As McGuire drew the Granada to a stop outside the MacEwan Graduating Hall, Skinner turned to Feydassen. ‘On the evening of the visit, the President’s car will be led by motorcyclists, and will be followed by another carrying Mr Martin and three other officers. I will be in the President’s car. My colleagues and I will all be armed.’
‘You will use outside people, won’t you?’ asked Allingham.
‘Of course. The RAF regiment will be responsible, as usual, at Turnhouse. Both the Hall and the Hotel will be secured by a detachment from the Special Air Services.’
Feydassen smiled. ‘That is most satisfactory, Mr Skinner.’
Henry Wills greeted the party at the entrance to the debating hall. He explained how it would be set out on the night, indicating the areas to be reserved for press, television and radio.
‘As I told you,’ said Skinner, ‘every journalist and television technician will be approved by the Scottish Office people, and supervised by them. Their fixed locations make life easier for those of us on the security job.’
Twenty minutes later the group left for the hotel. They took a different route, taking the A71 to the city by-pass. McGuire drove smoothly through the Gogar roundabout, and three minutes later, drew up outside the Norton House Hotel, set in wooded countryside, more than half a mile back from the main road.
‘As you can see,’ said Martin, ‘this is a small hotel. There will be no other guests on the night. With only a few men, we can turn this place into a fortress.’
Feydassen looked at Skinner and Martin in appreciation. ‘Gentlemen I am reassured. As Mr Allingham said, you are very thorough. I am happy that my Embassy’s client will be in your safe hands.’
69
Skinner left Martin to dine with the visitors. McGuire drove him home to Stockbridge. Sarah was back into the full swing of her practice, and of her police work. When Skinner let himself in, he found her sprawled on the couch, still wearing a heavy tweed jacket, with a woollen scarf wound around her neck. The gas fire was still warming up.
‘Hi, love, busy day?’ He leaned over and kissed her neck, above the scarf.
Sarah nodded. ‘A real bugger, as you Scots say so eloquently. Began with a heroin overdose in Leith, and ended with a ten-year-old kid in Muirhouse coming home from school to find his mother with her head in the gas oven. Life as it is really lived, or died, as the case may be. How about you?’
Bob shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘Oh, just humdrum stuff. Threatened one minute by a man I thought was a friend. Soft-soaped the next by someone I had down as an enemy. Just a typical day in the life of a hard-working polis!
‘Let me open a medicinal bottle of something and tell you the details.
They sat on the sofa, Sarah in the curve of Bob’s arm, Haydn’s Miracle Symphony on the CD player, and sipped smooth white wine. Yet, instead of unwinding as the music and the grape did their work, Bob grew more tense.
‘Hey, big boy, steady down! Is this Syrian job more tricky than you’re saying?’
‘No, don’t worry about that. Allingham’s had his card marked. If everyone does their bit it’ll be a dawdle. No, it’s the other thing.’
With mounting outrage, he told Sarah of his visit to Fulton.
‘He told me just to go along with the Yobatu story. Can you imagine that? I know that our man’s still out there; it’s bloody obvious, and yet he told me to lay off. I tell you, Sarah, it stinks.’
‘And what are you going to do?’
‘What do you think?’ He almost shouted at her for the first time in his life. ‘Sorry, love, I must learn to leave these things outside.’
‘No, I’m sorry, that was a silly question. But what will Fulton do? What can he do?’
He kissed her on the forehead, and some of the tension seemed to leave him. ‘He’ll huff and he’ll puff, but he can’t go public. He might try to lean on Proud Jimmy, to get him to order me to pack it in. He’d have to lean pretty hard, but it’s possible. He could use the Crown Office to try to stop me.
‘In theory he can’t do anything. Hughie Fulton is a non-person, the sort of guy that Le Carré and Len Deighton write about.’