Head Shot

44

'Well, Sauce, what do you have for me this morning?'

'Weekend reports, ma'am,' the probationer replied. 'The front desk said that Mr English normal y checks them over first thing on a Monday morning.'

I'l bet he does, thought Maggie.

'Just put them in my in-tray,' she said, leaning back in her chair and looking up at the young man. 'Did you have a good one, then?'

Haddock stared at her, bewildered. 'Good what, ma'am?'

'Weekend, son; did you have a good weekend?'

'Oh, that. Yes, ma'am, it was okay. Went out wi' my girlfriend on Saturday, like. Watched the fitba' on telly yesterday. Just ordinary, like.

What about you, ma'am?' he asked, emboldened.

'Mine? Family stuff, mainly.'

'Ahh,' he said. 'I suppose.' He paused. 'They were saying downstairs, about your husband's uncle, like. That must have been an awful shock for him.'

She grimaced. 'A bul et in the back of the head usually is.'

Haddock gasped at her response, and Maggie saw him go pale. 'Sorry, son,' she exclaimed. 'That was a bit blunt. But you do know what you can come across in this job, don't you?'

'Aye, ma'am,' the probationer replied, 'but you don't, do you, at least no' very often?'

'Potentially, every day you pul on that uniform, you're going to see something very unpleasant. The second week I was out on patrol, I was cal ed to a traffic accident out on Queensferry Road; three young girls, all pissed, in somebody's daddy's Rover. All pissed, like I said, and all very dead. I picked one kid's head off the road and put it back in the car, then I was sick in the gutter.

'Two weeks later, my partner and I answered a call to a flat in Morningside. One of the neighbours had complained about the smell.

As it happened, it was coming from an old lady who'd died of a heart attack, in front of her electric fire, about a week or so earlier.

We had to break into the house.

'I don't want to sound hard. Sauce, but if you're squeamish about this job, you'd better get it out of your system. Have you been out in a patrol car yet, or on the beat?'

'Not yet, ma'am.'

'How long did you say you've been with the force?'

'Four weeks now, ma'am.'

'It's about time you had some outside experience, then. I'l arrange it with Inspector Wright.'

'Yes, ma'am, thank you.' Haddock left, looking significantly more serious than when he had arrived.

Maggie shook her head, sighed, then drew her in-tray across the desk towards her. She had just picked up the first of the weekend reports, from the Oxgangs police office, when there was a faint knock on her door.

'Come in,' she cal ed, but it was opening as she spoke. Chief Superintendent Dan Pringle's lugubrious form stepped into the room.

'Hello, sir,' she exclaimed, surprised.

'Aw, come on, Maggie,' the new head of CID protested. 'Don't start wi' the "sir" bit, not after pouring me into a taxi last Friday night. I hope that sitting in for Manny English isn't turning you into a book operator too.'

'Sorry, Clan,' she said. 'But you might be right. Our new ACC's a clever so-and-so, you know. I've only been doing the job for a couple of days, and part-time at that, but already it's got me thinking like management.

'I've just had a probationer in here, the lad who's acting as my runner; the boy's nice, and willing, and all the rest, but doesn't understand what the job's real y about, or what it can involve.'

'So you've told him.'

'Too right. I'm going to make bloody sure he sees what it can involve, too. Young Sauce has potential, but he's got to get his feet on the floor and his head out of the clouds.'

'Sauce?'

'Nickname.'

'Bet you Manny English doesn't know his nickname,' Pringle murmured.

Maggie shrugged her shoulders. 'So?'

'So, for all that he's the very model of a modem divisional commander, that's something missing in him. Guys like him think they have to be 180 aloof from the people under them. I'l bet you know the Christian name of everyone in this office.'

She thought for a moment. 'I probably do,' she conceded. 'Most of the nicknames too.'

'Manny doesn't though. I used to sit in this very office, so I worked with him, and I know that for a fact. He's a decent man, you can't fault his motives, and he never puts a foot wrong, but he doesn't know his officers. He'd never call your lad "Sauce", to his face or behind his back.

I doubt if he even knows that the Chief's cal ed Proud Jimmy, or that Bob Skinner and Andy Martin used to be Batman and Robin, or that you and Mario are…' He stopped short, as he saw her eyes widen.

'Oh yes,' she said, trying not to smile. 'And what do they cal my husband and me, behind our backs?'

Pringle grunted. 'As if you don't know. You two are dark and Lois, to just about the entire force… apart from Manny English.'

'I must tell Mario to stop wearing that bloody cape,' Maggie retorted.

'Anyway,' she continued, 'al that and Wil ie Haggerty's deviousness aside, what's brought you in here?'

The big, middle-aged detective tugged his moustache. 'I'm the new Head of CID,' he answered, blandly. 'I can come in here any time I like.

I wil, too.' She leaned back and waited. 'Ach, it being my first day in the job and al that, I thought I'd get out and about.

'I did think about cal ing in al the divisional CID heads for a roundtable session, but then I thought better of it. Nothing against Andy, but I'm not going to run things quite like he did. I'll stil have the odd headquarters meeting, but not every Monday; maybe one every three months, something like that. No, my idea is that I'll come to see you, rather than the other way around.

'I figure I might learn more that way. If someone's got a problem, he

… or she… might be more likely to come out with it in a one-to-one session than across the big table with everyone listening in.' He looked her in the eye. 'You're the newest in the rank, but don't tell me you haven't picked up on the politics of it.

'Every one of us at those meetings knew that Andy wasna' going to be in that job long. He'll be a chief constable by the time he's forty, maybe in Dumfries and Gal oway, maybe somewhere else; he was bound to move on up the ladder.'

'Why didn't he get the job here?'

'Us humble mortals can only guess at that, Maggie. Mine would be that it didn't fit in with Bob Skinner's plans… but you'd know more about that, having worked for the Big Man. Anyhow, those Monday sessions used to amuse me, watching certain people grinding their axes and jockeying for position, fancying themselves up as Andy's successor.

Big McGrigor, he was near retirement, so he didna' give a stuff. As for me, I thought I'd been passed over for good when Andy got the job, then I was sure of it when I was shifted down to the Borders.

'The others, though, they all had ambitions, and two of them, Jay and Michaels, don't even like each other. They never offered an opinion; they said what they hoped Andy wanted to hear.'

'That's not true of Brian Mackie,' Rose protested.

'Even Brian was careful before he stuck his neck out.' The chief superintendent laughed suddenly. 'God, it was funny, though, when you came into the meetings. That changed the whole thing around, wi' you being so close to the Boss, and everything. When you were promoted straight into the Central Division job, Greg andWillie were really rattled.'

'I can't say I noticed.'

'Well, by Christ I did!' He laughed softly. 'Anyhow, I don't fancy listening to any more of it. And I'd have to. I won't be here al that long myself, and wi' Mario in the mix, those two's jockeying wil be even worse. No, I'm going to do it my way.'

'Mmm,' the red-haired superintendent murmured. 'Just remember who started those meetings. It wasn't Andy, or Roy Old, it was Mr Skinner himself.'

'Oh, I remember that al right. There was no bul shit in those days though; they were all too scared of the Big Fella to take any chances wi' him. There's no problem there, anyway; the DCC's told me I can run things any way I like.'

'So this is the start of it, then. You're going to be peering round my door every Monday morning from now on.'

'No, no, no, no,' he assured her, quickly. 'This is just to tell you how things are going to be from now on. There'l be no surprise visits after this.

'But how're you doing anyway? And how's your man taking his uncle's death? That was a hell of a shock. Half-ratted as I was at the time, I remember thinking I've never seen him so rattled.'

'He had a rough weekend… the whole family had, as you'd imagine, and that crap in the Sundays didn't help… but he's okay now. He headed off down to Gala at half-six this morning. It's his first day as well, remember.'

The Head ofCID rose to leave, but as he did so, his eye was caught by 182 a paper in her out-tray He picked it up; it was the flyer on George Rosewell, on which Mario had doodled a rough beard. 'Who's this ugly bugger?' he chuckled.

In spite of herself, she felt a cold tug at her stomach. 'He's a missing person. It's got to be re-circulated, since he's thought to have changed his appearance since that photo was taken; hence my husband's artwork.'

Pringle gave his moustache another tug. 'You know,' he murmured,

'this looks a hell of a lot like someone whose mug turned up on my desk this morning. It came through from Strathclyde, a notice about a guy they're looking for through there. It's the sort of thing where you'd say he's just done a runner, but they're taking it seriously, since the guy's a parish priest.'

'Could you send me a copy?' asked Maggie.

'Sure, if you like. Why?'

'I don't know. I suppose I'd just like to see a priest who looked like him!'

'What do you think of the Borders so far, sergeant?' Detective Superintendent Mario McGuire asked his new assistant, as they strol ed around the main thoroughfare of Galashiels, enjoying the midday sun.

Sammy Pye ran a hand over his dark hair. 'Come on, sir. I've only been here for four hours.'

'Come on, nothing. You make up your mind about a woman in about half a minute flat, so give me an instant opinion about our new surroundings.'

'If it's an order, boss; I know we haven't been out of Gala yet, but if this is the hub of the division as far as population's concerned, what's the rest going to be like? Even in comparison to Dalkeith and East Lothian, where I was before I was in Mr Martin's office, it's quiet.'

McGuire smiled. 'Maybe so, but your predecessor in this office got a lump shot off his ear not that long ago. There was no danger of that while you were working for the head of CID.'

'Maybe not, sir, but is it going to be that much different here? That thing they had last year was a one-off, and everybody involved got such heavy time that there won't be any repeat performances. Don't get me wrong, I jumped at the chance to get out to a division again, but my role's going to be much the same, isn't it? I was Mr Martin's exec; now I'm yours.'

'It'l not be the same, though, because my job's different… at least the way I do it wil be. After doing my stint in Special Branch, I was as keen as you to get out in the field again. I'm not going to drive this division from behind a desk; I'm going to take the lead on most investigations as they come up, and you'll be there with me. We've got a small team here, I know, but even if I'd been given an Edinburgh command, that's the way I'd have handled it.

'The downside of SB is that it doesn't let you do any conventional CID work. You spend al your bloody time gathering and exchanging intelligence, unless you're Alee Bloody Smith, and look what happened to him.' He reached out a shirt-sleeved arm and punched his sergeant lightly on the shoulder. 'So you and I, Sammy, we're going to make this place sing. And don't you worry; the Borders might be quiet, but there are people here, and where there's punters there's crime. There's also a substantial amount of moneyed folk down here; it fol ows that there are also less-moneyed folk, some of a mind to do a bit of redistribution.

'We've also got colleges, and where you have colleges you have young people. Where you have young people you have discos and stuff, and where you have them you have guys peddling class A drugs. You get my drift, Sammy?'

Pye nodded.

'Good.' The superintendent stopped, in front of the police office. 'I don't like to speak il of my predecessors, and I won't to anyone else bar you, but this division was a problem for a while. When Mr Skinner became Head of CID he inherited John McGrigor as his commander down here, and John was a problem.

He was a former rugby international; that made him revered down here, and got him his job, but he was a piss poor detective nonetheless.