Thursday legends

'To put the thing in perspective, two guys who played together among us, for a fairly short time, set against the years we've been at it, met violent deaths within hours of each other. But they were very different deaths.'

'How was Alec killed, then?' asked McPhail.

'You do not want to know, David,' Skinner frowned at the interruption. 'The point I was about to make was that I am assured by an eminent and highly skilled forensic pathologist — with whom I am currently sleeping — that Alec Smith and the Diddler were killed by two different people.

'I can tell you also, in police speak, although I cannot go into detail, that I have reason to believe that the Alec Smith investigation will be closed pretty soon.

'So relax, lads. We don't have a stalker.'

'Yeah,' said Grant Rock, returning rapidly to normal. 'But what if there's a whole crowd of them after our time?'

Mcllhenney looked at him from beneath his heavy eyebrows. 'If there was, the smart thing to do would be to give it to them.'

'I'll never be hung for being smart,' said Rock.

47

'Are you going to tell me what happened today?' Maggie Rose asked her husband.

Mario McGuire shook his head.

'Never?'

Mario McGuire nodded his head.

'Don't you think this is taking Special Branch secrecy a little too far?' his wife asked.

'Mags love, what happened today goes way beyond Special Branch secrecy. But that's not why I'm not going to tell you about it. I'm keeping it to myself because it was so fucking horrible that I cannot bear the thought of you knowing about it. I will never tell anyone about what I saw today, nor will anyone else who was there.'

'What was Andy Martin's involvement in it?'

'Who says he was involved?'

'No-one, but… I heard there was some sort of a panic this morning, involving him; that Karen Neville had the whole Ops Room stirred up trying to find a car he was driving.'

'If that happened, then that's all it was… a panic. Karen got her knickers in a knot unnecessarily, until she was told by Neil to go away and untie them. Andy Martin is okay. I know this; I've seen him.'

'What do you mean you've seen him? Where?'

'Never mind. The DCS is okay, and you can bet that he will be back in the office on Monday, gung-ho as ever was.'

'What about this man Lawrence Scotland? You haven't said anything about him for a while. You told me about Morrison, and what Alec Smith did to him. That was heavy enough, but now you're clamming up altogether about the other suspect.'

'Mags,' he said, testily, 'stop trying to interrogate me, will you? Lawrence Scotland is missing.'

'In that case, I have to find him. He's a potential suspect in my investigation.'

'For fuck's sake,' he shouted, suddenly. 'Leave it!'

She sat straight up on the sofa and stared at him, startled and hurt. His anger vanished in an instant; he took her hand and drew her to him. 'I'm sorry, Mags, I'm sorry.'

'That's the first time you've ever raised your voice to me.'

'And it'll be the last, I promise. Love, I keep having to countermand you these days and I don't like it; not just because of our respective ranks, but because you're my wife and I love you and not least because you're a brilliant detective and I admire you for that reason too.

'But through no fault of your own, you are way over your head in this. The Boss has told me to rein you in on Scotland, very quietly. He told me to tell you that you are still in charge of this investigation and, further, that he couldn't be more impressed by the way you've handled it. Now you have to hold your horses for a day or two.

'Lawrence Scotland is missing, like I said. However there will be no man-hunt. There will be the illusion of one, possibly, probably, but Lawrence Scotland will never be found. The way it's looking now, your investigation will not conclude with the conviction of Alec Smith's killer, but given what he was and did — far less what we know about him now — that was never likely anyway.

'I know this runs against all your training and your personal beliefs, but that's the reality of it and you have to accept it.

'Listen, Dan Pringle and John McGrigor will be going in the foreseeable future. Whichever of those divisional CID commands you want is yours for the asking. But do not shake this particular tree, otherwise what falls out might squash someone very important. If that happened, and you were in any way responsible, you wouldn't be forgiven.'

'What do you mean?' She frowned, drawing back from him again.

'Mags, — when he was in my job, Alec Smith did certain things that he shouldn't have. No-one knew about them then, apart from his side-kick, and no-one outside our very small group must ever know about them; otherwise questions will be asked. Questions like, "Why was no-one aware of what Smith was doing?" and then, "Who should have known?"

'Alec's line commander at the time of these incidents was old Alf Stein, the Big Man's predecessor as Head of CID. Once Mr Skinner took over, Smith behaved himself; he knew better than to do otherwise. Stein's dead now, so if any of this shit hits the fan it can only splash on one man — Chief Constable Sir James Proud. If it became public he would be forced to resign; the Chiefs' Association wouldn't be able to protect him. Our zealous new Justice Minister would have him out.

'You know as well as I do that Proud Jimmy is like a father to Bob Skinner. The DCC would do anything to protect him from an ignominious end to his career.'

'Is that what he did today?' Maggie asked, quietly.

He put a finger to her lips. 'No more questions.'

'One more, Mario, one more. This thing you saw today; if it was so horrible you won't tell me about it, what will it do to you? How will you forget it?'

'Darlin',' he said. 'I won't. I will take it to my grave. But in the short term — I'm going to drink another bottle of Amarone, then you and I are going to do what we do best.'

48

A great wall of mist, two hundred feet high, clung to the middle of the Firth of Forth, shrouding part of the main shipping lane. Onshore, the weather was as warm and sunny as it had been for over a week, yet incongruously, the sound of a foghorn boomed across the water.

Bob Skinner sat on a dune, on the beach, looking at the haar, trying to assess whether or not it would sweep in from the sea before it burned off in the morning sun.

"This time last Saturday, eh?'

'Yeah,' Andy Martin, murmured, lying on his back beside him in borrowed shorts and tee-shirt. 'Seems like a long time ago. Fuck, it was a long time ago; I've been dead since then.'

'Want to talk about it? Or not… it's up to you. You'll never have to if you don't want. Boy's in a hole up the Pentlands; story's over.'

'Best place for him.' Martin's voice; hollow, lifeless.

'Man held a gun on me once,' Skinner murmured. 'Bastard shot me, but he made a mistake; gave me a chance. I got the gun. Shot him fucking dead. Someone, not Adam Arrow but like him, cleaned it up because of who he was, what he was. Different circumstances though. That was national security stuff; Scotland had to vanish to keep a lid on our local can of worms.'

'I know, Bob. I know. Don't justify yourself to me; you don't have to. I know why you did it and you were right.'

'I'm glad you killed him, Andy. Glad.'

'He died the way he lived. Alec should have shot him ten years ago, or someone in Ireland should have taken him out.'

'If he'd been on the other side, someone would have. Not all his orders came from the Loyalists; most of them did, but not all. Adam told me that.'

'No great surprise.'

They lay in silence, watching the mist evaporate.

'He pulled the trigger, you know.'

'Jesus. I'd hoped not.'

'Twice. Two bullets second time.'