Thursday legends

16

'I know, Stevie, this is a bloody dismal place to work. But face it, man; we all have to work our way up to the likes of Bob Skinner's office. It's in rooms like this that we do it. I've been asking for a spot of refurbishment for over a year now, but that Chris Whitlow, the force's civilian bean-counter, he's a real tight-fisted bastard.

'The Boss doesn't like to lean on him himself, but he's promised me that if I get no action within the next three months he'll bring the Chief down for a visit, to let him see the place, then wind him up to do some kicking himself.'

'Doesn't the Chief come down here normally, then?'

'Proud Jimmy? About once every three years, and then only when Bob invites him. I report to the Big Man direct, you see, and nobody interferes with his operations… nobody at all.'

'I can imagine. I've seen him in action. He saved my arse a while back…'

McGuire nodded. 'The Russians. I remember.'

'Fucking awesome, he was. You should have seen what he did to that big guy.'

'I'd rather not. We've all done things in our time that we wouldn't have wanted witnessed.' He laughed. 'I remember one night, when Mcllhenney and I were in uniform, these gang lads thought they had him cornered in an alley; but they didn't know that I'd been checking out a shop down the street.

I came in behind them and it was them that were cornered. What a fucking mess we left them in. But it was just as well no law-abiding member of the public wandered past. It'd have been "Police brutality" and no mistake — there were only four of them.'

He walked over towards the far wall of his office which was lined with cupboards, three of them, steel doors stretching to ceiling height, each with a combination lock.

"This is it, son,' he said. "There's stuff in here that the Sun would die for. You're honoured, you know. You've been cleared to see all of it.' He smiled at Steele's surprise. 'You don't think we let any old plod walk in here, do you?'

Nonetheless, as he dialled up the first combination, he was careful to shield the lock with his body from the Sergeant's view.

He released the lock and swung the double doors open. The cupboard was full of side-racked files, row above row; the Inspector crouched beside them and flicked through the fourth row from the floor, then the third. 'This is where it begins,' he said. 'Alec Smith's reign as SB Commander. His files take up all the second cabinet and go on into the third.'

He straightened up. 'You're going to see things in here that will surprise you. Files on famous names, and I'm not just talking about the Bolsheviks. These cupboards are all about real or potential threats to national security; they cover, literally, a multitude of sins. For example, I've got files on three members of the Scottish Government. One of them's a closet lesbian, another's a thief, and the third was a once member of a group which was suspected of feeding information on potential targets to the ERA.'

'What do you do with information like that?'

'I pass it straight to Big Bob; I'm only a finder-out, he's the do-er. In those cases I happen to know that he's shown the files to the First Minister and his Deputy. The three subjects are still in their jobs, but I'd expect two of them to disappear at the first reshuffle. Not the gay lady, though. Sex is nothing; in the fifties it was everything, but nowadays no-one cares how people get their rocks off… unless it involves children or farm animals, that is.

'Forty years ago, homosexuality was illegal, now it's almost bloody fashionable.'

'Why the file on her then?' Steele asked.

'Because it was there. SB was asked to vet her and it turned up in the process. There is a slight complication in the case which might make her vulnerable; she's married and has two children.'

'What will we find in Alec Smith's files?'

'Some right goodies. There's one on a former Lord Advocate who was into porking wee boys. Big Bob showed the file to Hughie Fulton, who was the Secretary of State's security adviser at the time. Fulton came back to him and ordered him to burn it. The DCC — he was a Chief Super then — went to see Proud Jimmy about it. The Chief called Fulton into his office and told him that if the guy wasn't removed, his file would be left accidentally in the Scotsman newsroom, and the Secretary of State's along with it. Exit Lord Advocate.'

'How do you know all that?'

'Because the file's still in that cupboard, with a note of Bob Skinner's conversations with Fulton, and a tape of the meeting in the Chief's office. Makes good listening, I tell you.'

'What happened to Fulton?'

McGuire frowned. 'That's not on file. No-one knows, but he vanished overnight, straight after the Syrian thing, and Big Bob took over his job. He did it for a while until he fell out with the Secretary of State.'

'What is the Secretary of State's security adviser anyway?' the young Sergeant asked.

'A superspook. MI5. Plays a whole different level of the security business, way above simple flatfeet like you and me.'

'And Mr Skinner used to do that?'

The Inspector gave him a long look. 'You're cleared to be in this room, so I'll tell you this. Sir John Govan, the retired Strathclyde Chief, does it now, but the Big Man's still connected. It comes in handy from time to time, like last year up in the Conference Centre.

'Come on,' he said briskly. 'Let's get started on taking Alec apart and looking for his machinery. I think the sensible thing to do would be to start at the end of his time in office and work back.' He opened the other two cupboards, identified a series of files in the top row of the third and took them out.

'This is going to be a long job, Stevie. We're going to have to check all these out and assess whether the subject was a potential threat to Alec, or whether there was an association between them that carried over beyond his police career.

'There's only one constraint on you.' He produced a list from his desk. 'There's a note of all the members of the current Police Board. If you come across old files on any of them, or on any serving officers, give them to me.'

Steele drew in his breath for a second. 'Have we got files on many of the councillors?'

'I've got current files on every fucking one of them. See that kind old uncle of a Chief Constable of ours? When he has to, he can be a right ruthless bastard, just like his Deputy.. Sir

James is more of a politician than all that lot put together. He had trouble with them once, just once. It took him about one minute to scare them back into line. He knows the power of information; so do I, and I learned about it in this room.'

He separated the files into two lots and handed one to the young Sergeant. 'Any questions?'

'Just one. Who's got your file?'

'Big Bob.'

'And who's got his?'

'I don't know, and I'm glad. Because I've got a feeling that there are things on it that I'd rather not know.'