Fallen Gods

Thirty-Four

The pervasive example of Bob Skinner, who often said that the uniform was the last thing that had made him join the police service, may have made him less of a stickler, but Sir James Proud still enjoyed wearing his. He felt that it was part of his rank, and also that it let the people under his command know that he had respect for his job, and, through it, for them.

He prepared himself for his scheduled meeting, as always, in the private bathroom of his office suite. He ran a comb through his crinkly, silver hair, checked that his tie was straight, and finally turned to his uniform jacket. He held it up for inspection, then, spotting a flaw, brushed a few specks from the shoulders. Finally, when he was ready, he slipped it on.

He looked in the mirror as he fastened the heavy silver buttons, one by one. There was a time when he had had to strain to fasten the middle one, but the warning shot that nature had fired across his bows a year or two earlier had changed all that. Now the jacket was too slack, if anything; he might have to think about having it taken in, or maybe even order a new one. He would have enough time left in post to get the wear out of it; just as well, for he wouldn't be handing it on. The man who would be his successor was wider in the shoulders than him.

Sir James gave himself one last appraising look; although he intended that it would be brief, this was a meeting for which he wanted to be at his most impressive. "Yes, Jimmy," he said, satisfied at last, 'you are the very model of an old-fashioned chief constable."

Turning sharply on his heel, he strode out of his sanctuary and into his office. The two lawyers were waiting for him, seated at his meeting table; Mitchell Laidlaw, representing Bob Skinner, and Tom

Hogg, a respected solicitor from a small Glasgow firm from which he sought independent legal advice on behalf of the force, when the need arose. He looked from one to the other as he took his seat behind his desk, at Hogg, small, sharp-faced, sharp-eyed, sharp-witted, then at Laidlaw, the physical opposite, bulky… although it occurred to Sir James that he had seen him look more portly… round face, dark-haired, with eyes that seemed never to blink, and a gaze which gave the clear message that here was a mind which never worked at less than maximum capacity.

"Good morning, gentlemen," the chief constable greeted his visitors.

"Sorry to keep you waiting; I was just fixing my make-up. Are the trains running all right this morning, Tom?" he asked the Glaswegian.

"I gave up on them long ago," the solicitor replied. "I use the M8.

For all its uncertainties, it's still a better bet if you have an appointment to keep."

"Sad but true, eh. How about you, Mitch? Traffic moving smoothly in Edinburgh, was it?"

"I took a taxi, Jimmy, just to be sure; no way did I want to be late for this one."

"Your implied criticism is noted." He glanced at his watch. "Is your client ready to join us? I suppose he's paying his respects to Miss McConnell, or checking up on DS McGurk."

Laidlaw pursed his lips. "My client will not be joining us, Jimmy. We discussed the matter of his attendance; on balance he agreed with my view that it might be better if he did not come face to face with Councillor Maley. I'm here to present his position, and also to do any barking that might be necessary. If Bob was present himself, it might prove hard to restrain him from joining in, should there be any resistance to our proposition. Mind you, he was easier to persuade than he might have been, had he not been preoccupied with the death of his brother."

"Yes, that came out of the blue. It must be disturbing for Bob, in all sorts of ways. There's this local problem, his…" Sir James hesitated as he searched for a suitable word '… difficulties in the

States, and then all the old family skeletons this has brought out of the cupboard."

"I never knew Bob had a brother," Laidlaw confessed. "My firm's never handled his family business, or I might have. Alexis did, though, although not from her father. She found out by accident, she told me yesterday, when I commiserated with her over it."

"He didn't tell Sarah: I know that," said the chief constable. "As a matter of fact, I was one of the few people who knew about him, outside the community in which the Skinner family lived. Since Michael disappeared from there thirty years ago, his existence will have come as a surprise to just about everyone. Bob chose to tell me when I made him head of CID. He said that he felt that as such he could not have any secrets from his chief constable." Proud Jimmy sighed. "He could from his wife and daughter, though, which tells you rather a lot about his attitude to his job, and the lengths to which he'll go to defend it. At least we can try to resolve that matter for him today." He glanced at his watch. "Let's see if the ladies are here."

He picked up one of his phones, pressed a button and spoke to his civilian secretary, Gerry Crossley. "Are we ready?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," the young man replied. "The councillors are waiting in reception."

"Thanks. Ask them to join us please, and send in the tea." Since his health scare Sir James had given up coffee; it was no longer served in his office, and if he had had his way it would have been banned from the senior officers' dining room also.

Less than a minute later, the door at the far end of the room opened.

The three men stood as Councillors Marcia Topham and Agnes Maley entered. The contrast between the two women was so marked that it was hard to imagine them as political colleagues. Councillor Topham was middle-aged, but managed to maintain her elegance in the face of the bulk that Proud had watched grow over the years. Councillor Maley was short and squat with short dark hair and distinctly unfeminine eyebrows, below a low forehead. Where the former's manner bordered on diffidence, the latter's was full of undisguised aggression. Agnes Maley had been a councillor for many years, and for most of them she had served on the Police Authority. For a brief dark period in the days of the old regional councils, she had been its chair. Although she had once been famous as a left-wing firebrand, she had somehow moved with the times, and had held on to her city-centre power-base despite the revolution within her party. Proud had succeeded once in having her removed from the Authority, but after the last round of elections she had engineered a comeback, and had infuriated the chief by seizing the chair of the human resources committee by a mix of trickery and intimidation within the majority group. The grapevine had it that, after the next council polls, she would replace the moderate Mrs. Topham as chair of the Authority itself.

She bridled when she saw the two lawyers, and would have tackled the chief constable head on, had not Maisie, the dining room waitress, forestalled her by rolling in a trolley loaded with cups, a big steel teapot, and plates of plain biscuits.

It took only a few minutes for the tea to be poured and distributed, and for the biscuits to be passed round. As soon as Maisie had left the room, Councillor Maley opened fire. "Right, chief," she demanded brusquely, ignoring Topham completely. "What's this about?"

"And a good day to you also, Ms Maley," said Sir James, with glacial courtesy. "And to you, Marcia." He softened visibly as he nodded to the Authority chair. "Thank you for coming, on short notice. This meeting has been called at the request of Mr. Mitchell Laidlaw, of Curie, Anthony and Jarvis, who is acting for Deputy Chief Constable Skinner. Tom Hogg's here to advise me, and you ladies, if necessary, on the Authority's legal position."

Maley twitched with inner fury at the gender reference. "Councillors, please," she muttered. "Why wasn't I given notice of the agenda?"

"Because I chose not to give you any. Mitchell, do you want to open?"

Laidlaw nodded. "Thank you, Sir James," he said, noticeably more formal than before. He took five documents from his briefcase and gave one to each person at the table. "I'd like to begin by asking you to read that report, carefully. It's an exhaustive report on the present physical condition of Deputy Chief Constable Skinner, prepared by Mr. Peter Patience and Mr. Hugh Hurley, consultant cardiologists at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, following an examination which took place yesterday evening at the Murrayfield Hospital."

"Mmm," Marcia Topham murmured, nervously.

The chief gave the lead, picking up his copy and beginning to read, but Maley left hers on the table. "This isn't relevant," she protested.

"The deputy chief constable has to be examined by the force's official medical officer. He's said that he's going to give him a month more to recover before he looks at him."

"That is not strictly true, councillor," Proud intervened. "It was your subcommittee that instructed the MO to wait for a month. Your minutes may not be publicly accessible, but I can see them at any time."

"Thank you, chief," Laidlaw said. "That was my understanding also, from my client. It is his position that a delay is unnecessary and unreasonable. Further, it is his belief that it has been imposed to give your subcommittee time to rush through changes to local standing orders which would ban arbitrarily any officer who underwent the procedure that he experienced recently from ever returning to work, regardless of their physical condition, or prognosis."

He fixed Maley with a piercing stare. "I'll be blunt with you. If you refuse to read that report, I'm going to ask Councillor Topham, as chair of the Authority, to assume executive responsibility for this matter, and to exclude you from this meeting. If she refuses, I will be in the Court of Session at two p.m." where I will be granted, I promise you, an interdict compelling the Authority to deal with this matter now."

"You can't do that," the dark-haired councillor shouted. "This is a committee matter."

"Nonsense," said the chief constable, sharply. "This is not an appointment; it's an administrative matter, and either of you have executive power." He turned to the other solicitor. "Tom. What's your advice on the matter at issue? Do you think Mitch is bluffing when he assures us he'll get his interdict?"

Hogg picked up the report. "If this says what I assume it does, I think it's ninety-five per cent certain that interdict would be granted ordering you to deal with this now. I think it is one-hundred-and-ten-per cent certain that the court would forbid you from making any changes in your regulations that might affect Mr.

Skinner, in advance of receiving a report on his medical condition: My advice is, read the report now, and deal with it now. To do otherwise would be seen as perverse and might even lay individuals open to a civil action raised by DCC Skinner."

Proud looked directly at Councillor Topham, ignoring Agnes Maley completely. "Marcia," he said, 'you've had independent legal advice.

Now, I'm not asking you to get into the issue of whether the subcommittee's decision to defer Bob Skinner's medical might have been motivated by antipathy towards him by certain members. We don't really want to go there. I am asking you, as chair, to consider the reputation of the Authority, and your own position should you find its actions condemned by the Supreme Court. Are we going to deal with this matter now?"

Mrs. Topham glanced to her left. "No, councillor," the chief exclaimed, firmly. "I'm asking you alone. Will you read that report?"

She looked at the document, then up at Sir James once more. "I suppose," she murmured. "I suppose we must."

Agnes Maley slapped the table. "Ah, bugger the report," she snapped.

"We all know it's a whitewash without even reading it. Okay, councillor, okay Sir James, you reinstate the man. But just you remember this; my time's coming, and it won't be in the chair of the Police Authority either. There's a by-election for one of the Edinburgh seats in the Scottish Parliament due next month, and guess who's going to be nominated as the Labour candidate as soon as it's called? Once I'm an MSP, I'll sort you buggers out." She glared at Laidlaw. "And your client will be top of my list: I promise you that!"

She threw the report back across the table and stalked from the room.

In the echo of the slamming door, the chief constable looked at Mrs. Topham. "Is that true, Marcia?" he asked. "Is that woman really going to the parliament? Surely to God your party organisation can't let that happen?"

The councillor was trembling slightly, as she replied. "I don't think it can prevent it, James. Agnes Maley has a pretty effective power base in Edinburgh; none of the new brooms in our headquarters, or even in London, have been able to sweep her away. In theory her selection for the vacancy could be vetoed, but it won't be. There aren't the grounds."

She pursed her lips. "Agnes is a dangerous woman, all right, and she'll be even more so, when she gets to Holyrood."