Fallen Gods

Twenty-six

If pressed, Neil Mcllhenney would admit that he had preferred his former job as Bob Skinner's executive assistant to his new role in Special Branch. But he knew that nothing was forever and so when the move had come about, following Mario McGuire's promotion to head the Borders CID division, he had taken it in his stride.

The death of Olive, his first wife, still hung over him like a black cloud. It was his constant companion, and he knew he would never shake it off, but to offset it he had his totally unexpected romance, and his second marriage, still new, fresh, and, to him, astonishing.

He knew from personal experience, bitter and sweet, that nothing in life was to be taken for granted, and when he thought about it he realised that he was better at his job as a result.

Alice Cowan was behind her desk as usual when he swept into his office suite. She was a keen one, that girl; however early Neil came to work, he never seemed to beat her to the punch. "Morning, constable," he said, brightly.

"Morning, inspector," she replied, returning his friendly smile.

"How did your wee bit of overtime go yesterday, then?"

"Money for old rope, boss. We found a face, we got a name, and she's got nothing to do with us."

"No? But is she someone we should have known about?"

"I wouldn't say so. She seems to be a sad lass, with a screw loose when it comes to religion, but not someone who represents any threat to the fabric of the state."

"Is that right?" he exclaimed, with raised eyebrows. "Does the name al-Qaeda mean anything to you?"

Cowan smiled. "This girl's strictly a lone operator, sir."

"If she has the skill to make and plant a device like the one that torched the Vargas painting, she could manage to stuff her trainers with explosives and get on a jet."

"Not at Edinburgh she couldn't. Not since we started them examining the soles of their shoes at the barrier check."

"Maybe not, Alice, but just as all knowledge is power, every small gap in knowledge is a potential weakness. Just you keep an eye on the progress of Ms Rose's investigation, and if this woman turns out to be the one, let's have a file on her. In fact… does she have form for this sort of thing?"

"Attempted, yes."

"Then open a file anyway."

"Very good, sir."

He walked over to the coffee machine, which, like Alice, was always fired up and waiting whenever he came into the office, and poured himself a mug. "Before you do that, though," he said, 'grab yourself a coffee and come into my room."

The strapping young woman declined the coffee and followed him through into his private office, taking her usual seat beside his desk.

"I've got a job for you," he told her. He reached into his jacket, drew out a sheet of paper, laid it face up on his desk and slid it across to her. "I want you to dig out the files we hold on all of these people."

Cowan picked up the paper, and saw a list of eight names. She looked at the first and gasped, then scanned her way down the rest.

"Councillor Maley," she began. "Boss, these people are all on the joint police authority. Should we be doing this?"

Mcllhenney smiled at her again, but this time there was no humour in it. "We're Special Branch, kid. We can do what we bloody well like."

"But these are politicians, and I'm not stupid. I know what they're about right now. Wouldn't we be abusing our position?"

"That's just what I suspect these people have been doing. If they have, I'm going to find out. When I do, I'm going to rein them in."