Skinner's festival

8

From the privacy of his own office in the command suite. Skinner made six quick fire telephone calls. The first two were to the divisional detective superintendents at the Torphichen Street and St Leonards police stations, who were, respectively, the line officers Maggie Rose and Mario McGuire. He told them that each would be losing his best sergeant for an indefinite period. He expected no questions or protests, and received none. The third call went to a private number.

The phone was answered on the second ring, and a familiar deep voice sounded on the line. 'McGuire.'

'Hi, Mario. ACC here. Are you alone, or is anyone I know there with you?'

'Well as it happens, sir, DS Rose is watching a video in the living-room. Me? I'm in the kitchen as usual.'

'In that case. Sergeant, I've got good news for you, and bad news for Maggie. You heard about this morning's bang in Princes Street?'

McGuire grunted assent.

'Well, I'm setting up a unit to co-ordinate the search for the cowboys who did it. I want my best on it, so you two are in. Get yourselves down to Fettes right away, and meet me in the SB suite.'

Next he dialled the mobile number of Detective Inspector Brian Mackie, his personal assistant. As Mackie answered. Skinner could hear the din of a crowd.

'Where are you, Brian?'

Tynecastle, sir. Kicked off five minutes ago. The Jam Tarts are one down already.'

'So am I. Give the rest a miss and get into the office.'

For his fifth call. Skinner switched to a green scrambled telephone on his desk. Seconds later he was connected to an MI5 duty officer. He identified himself, and asked the woman to call him back in confirmation. When she did so, he asked her to do everything necessary to have Captain Adam Arrow report to him personally at police headquarters in Edinburgh by 10:00 am the next morning.

Finally, he called his own home number in Edinburgh. Sarah and he had just moved into a bungalow off Queensferry Street, even closer to Fettes Avenue than the flat in Stockbridge from which they had recently moved. He assumed that Sarah herself would answer his call, but he was wrong.

'This is 957 0825. Alex Skinner speaking.'

He smiled at the unexpected sound of his daughter's voice.

'Hi, kid. I thought you were rehearsing up to the last minute.'

'No, Pops. Our director decided that we could only get worse, so he gave us the afternoon off, to rest up. Curtain goes up at 8:00 sharp. Will you be able to get to it, with all this bomb stuff and everything? Sarah told me about it. In fact will you get home at all this evening. Pops? There's someone here I'd like you to meet. My new leading man, you might say.'

'Don't think so. Better postpone the introduction. But unless something else happens, I will make it tonight. So you be good, and if you can't be good, just be sensational. Now put your stepmother on, okay.'

'I think she's in the shower. No, I lie. Just a sec. Sarah! It's your old man!'

Moments later, he heard Sarah's soft New York drawl. 'Hello. honey, where are you?'

'At HQ. Did you get everything cleaned up at your end?'

'Eventually. No other serious casualties. That poor girl looked in worse shape than actually she was. A bad scalp cut; lots of blood – most of it ended up on me. God, was I a mess. I've just done washing it off. Next I'll have to wash the shower-curtain. It looks like that scene from Psycho. When will you be home?'

'Not for a bit yet. But, that's not why I've called. Look, I want you up here now. I'm putting a team together and I want you on it. I need somebody with your sort of expertise, so why not you?'

'Well…' she tried, but failed, to sound matter-of-fact. 'See you in twenty minutes.'