Head Shot

12

DC Alice Cowan was in the office when Mcllhenney stepped into the small Special Branch suite. 'Morning, sir,' she said, with just a shade of caution in her voice.

'And a good morning to you. Constable,' he greeted her. 'If you haven't heard, I'm the new broom.'

'Yes, I had heard, sir. Mr McGuire told me yesterday afternoon.'

'Told you, but has he asked you yet?'

'What do you mean?' she asked, stil in a cagey tone.

'You know damn fine. Has he asked you whether you'l go to the Borders with him? I know he rates you.'

Her cheeks turned a delicate pink. 'Yes. He's asked me.'

'So?'

'So I told him that I'd like to stay here. That's if you want me,' she added. 'I know that Special Branch commanders sometimes like to bring in their own people.'

'Their cronies, you mean? Their yes-men, like the guy you replaced, Tommy Gavigan? Relax, Alice; that's not my style. If my friend McGuire rates you, that's all the more reason for me to want to keep you.'

He nodded towards the door of the inner office, which would soon be his. 'Is he in yet?'

She shook her head. 'No. He's a bit late; it's not like him.'

'Ah, he and Maggie'l have been out on the razzle last night.'

Bang on cue, the door swung open, and a slightly bleary-eyed Mario McGuire strode into the room. 'Sorry, Alice. Sorry, Neil,' he boomed.

'Traffic.'

'Traffic, my bottom,' Mcl henney grunted. His marriage to Louise had resulted in a moderation of his language that had surprised his friends, male and female alike. 'If you can't make it to Fettes on time, how are you going to manage the commute down to the Borders?'

'Mags and I were talking about that over breakfast,' he said. 'We might move further out; maybe to somewhere near the city bypass.'

'As long as you don't actually have to go on the thing!' In common with most Edinburgh car-owners, the big inspector regarded the constantly overcrowded ring road round the capital as a bad joke.

'How much time have you got?' McGuire asked him.

'The rest of the day, more or less. I've gone through the Boss's mail and there was nothing spectacular. Plus, he's up in the sky somewhere over the north Pacific, so I won't be getting any surprise phone cal s.'

'Any progress on that, by the way? Have the Americans caught the guy who did it?'

'Not that I've heard. They'd better get their acts together, though.

They'l be under scrutiny in a few hours.'

'I just hope they're taking it as seriously as he thinks they should.'

'I'm sure they are; Sarah's old man was quite a local heavyweight.

Anyhow, apart from that, I'm clear. If anything unexpected crops up, Ruthie knows where I am.'

'Fine. This isn't going to be a short hand-over. The mysteries of Special Branch are many and complex; I've got to teach you al the secret handshakes and code words, and of course the safe combinations

… which you'll have to change once I'm gone, so I don't know them any more.'

He led the way through to the inner office. 'So what's it really like, this Special Branch?' Mcllhenney asked.

His friend looked him in the eye. 'The truth, as between buddies?'

'Of course.'

'It's a rucking anachronism, most of it; a hold-over from the Cold War days. In some ways it's a wonder we're stil here, because you would not believe how amateur this place used to be back in the fifties and sixties.

Tommy Gavigan told me a story about a guy back then, name of McGinley, the bloke he fol owed into the job, who actual y used to go around local newspaper offices offering to pay journalists for private reports on Communist Party meetings… who was there, who said what and so on.

'Some of the stuff he got's still on file, and it's rubbish; it's obvious to a blind man that the joumos just took the piss out of him, and took the money as well. Mind you, a couple of the informants are interesting.

Back then they were juniors on local papers, but now they're senior guys, one in newspapers, the other in telly.'

Mcl henney smiled. 'Do they know you know?'

'Too fucking right they do. When I found the file, I went to see them both and gave them back the reports they had sold McGinley. They were both deeply embarrassed, I can tel you. And of course, since they can't 46 be a hundred per cent sure I didn't keep copies… although I told them I didn't, and that's the truth… I now have two bloody good contacts as a result. So that money turned out to be a long-term investment.

'I'll give you their names and contact numbers; you might like to pay them a call when you've settled in.'

'I wil do. Okay, where do we start?'

'I'll brief you on the Special Branch network around the country; you'l know some of the names through your job with the Boss, but I'l give you the inside on them. But first, I've got a bit of private enterprise to do while I'm stil here. You never heard any of this, okay?'

Mcl henney nodded. 'As long as it's not treason, fine.'

McGuire unlocked a door in a pillar of his desk, and took out a drum like object, which his col eague recognised as an old-fashioned Rolodex.

'This thing is the Bible,' he said. 'All sorts of surprising people are in this box. It's been part of this office for donkey's years and soon, my boy, it wil be yours.' He spun it until he found a card, and dial ed the number printed on it.

'DSS,' he whispered, as he waited.

'Ron?' he said at last. 'Mario McGuire. I need a favour. Usual thing; I'll give you a name; I need to know if he's still alive and if so, where he is. How soon? End of the week will be fine.

'Okay? The guy's called Jorge Xavier…' He spelled out both forenames '… Rose. UK national, Portuguese mother. Last known address, Wellington Street, Leith, in the mid to late 1970s. He'll be early sixties now; too young to be drawing a state pension.

'Good. Thanks.' He paused. 'Oh you saw that, did you? Yes, I'm off soon. DI Neil Mcl henney's going to be my successor. What's he like?'

He glanced across the desk and winked. 'Imagine, if you can, a grizzly bear with haemorrhoids.'

The big inspector gazed at him as he hung up. 'Okay, I never heard any of that. But if it's who I think it is, why do I doubt that, if you find him, you're going to invite him to your place for Christmas?'

McGuire shot him a mournful look, and shook his head slowly. 'What I'm going to do, mate, is make sure that he never turns up at our place … at any time of year.'