Lethal Intent

One

Along Princes Street and George Street, the festive lights shone. It had been a good year, memorable in fact, even when measured by the high standards of Edinburgh, which had seen many glorious passages in the centuries of its evolution into a historic and cultural European capital. As always, it was ending with the season of goodwill, but none of that spirit had found its way into the main drawing room of Bute House, the official residence of the First Minister of Scotland.

She glared at its occupant across the table. He looked blandly back at her, his moustache twitching slightly. Like his hair it was an unusual shade of red, and it was rumoured that he dyed both. He liked to keep his distance; if they had been eye to eye she would have looked down on him, and he was sensitive about his height.

'You can't do that!' the Justice Minister exclaimed, her voice raised in protest.

He smiled, then glanced around the Georgian room, as if he had barely heard her. 'You're one hundred per cent wrong there,' he chuckled, eventually, 'as you'll find out tomorrow.'

'What about the Lord Advocate?' Aileen de Marco demanded. 'What does he have to say?'

'Milton concurs with my view. He's already instructed the prison service to make the necessary arrangements.'

'The Lord Advocate can't instruct the prison service.'

'He can on my authority.'

She leaned across the oval table, staring at him until he was forced to make eye contact. 'And just what authority is that, Tommy, may I ask? You are the First Minister of the Scottish Executive, but you're a member of the Cabinet, just like me.'

'Not quite like you. I appointed you, remember? And you should remember: it was only a few weeks ago. I don't need to tell you that I can fire you just as easily.'

She let out a short bitter laugh. 'Better… and bigger… men than you have tried to threaten me, Mr Murtagh, only to find that they were wasting their time. On what grounds would you fire me? Because I object to you riding rough-shod over the Scottish judicial process? You try and argue that one out with me in public and see how far you get. Come off it, First Minister. You're just a wee dog jumping because the big dog's barked.'

Thomas Murtagh stiffened and his eyes grew frosty. 'Maybe you haven't noticed but we're all in the same party, whether it's London or Westminster.'

'That wasn't the dog I was talking about, Tommy: the one you mean jumped just as high as you when his master called. I'll ask you straight out, are you going to show yourself worthy of your post by calling a Cabinet meeting to discuss this, then abiding by its majority view?'

'I've already made my decision,' he replied, curtly. 'I only invited you here out of courtesy, so you didn't learn about it second-hand.'

'Indeed.' She made no attempt to disguise the sarcasm in her tone. 'And here was me thinking that you invited your Justice Minister to meet you so that you could consult her on this unprecedented and quite improper request from Downing Street. I should have known better.'

She picked up her bag from the table. 'Call the Cabinet, Tommy. If you don't I'll have to consider my position.'

'I'm already considering it for you. I don't know if I can have a senior minister who's so openly hostile to me.'

De Marco laughed. 'If that's your criterion for appointment you're going to be lonely in this big room.' She headed for the door.

'Sleep on it, Aileen,' he called after her, with more than a hint of a threat in his tone. 'Maybe you should save me the embarrassment of admitting that I made a mistake when I gave you a seat at the top table, and save yourself the indignity of being told that you weren't up to the job after all. Yes, sleep on it'

She looked over her shoulder with her hand on the door knob. 'I might not get too much sleep, Tommy,' she retorted. 'I may be too busy making phone calls.' As she swept from the room she saw a frown cross his face.