Aileen put both hands on the lectern, looked around the chamber, at Bob Skinner in the public gallery, then at the Presiding Officer. 'So, sir, there is really only one question to be considered, an almost rhetorical question, most people in this chamber would say. Is it conceivable that any First Minister would not exercise these powers impartially, impersonally, and without bias of any sort?'
She picked up a sheaf of paper from the desk in front of her. 'That is the question which I now propose to answer.'
The chamber, she noticed with satisfaction, had gone deadly quiet.
Eighty-nine
As he looked at him across his massive desk it occurred to Andy Martin that there must be many better ways to spend one's life than working for Brindsley Groves. He was happy that he was doing one of them as he felt the wave of impatience and hostility emanating from the man.
'I have to tell you, Mr Martin,' he boomed, 'that I do not take kindly to unannounced visits from anyone, either to my office, my golf club or my home. I thought that your intrusion into my evening last Friday was a piece of cheek; it was quite obvious to me that you coerced my brother-in-law into introducing you. It was improper and unnecessary, as a simple phone call to my secretary would have got you a meeting. I have it in mind to complain to Graham Morton at Rotary tonight.'
The deputy chief constable smiled at the rebuke. 'I'm sorry if I upset you, sir, but I'm pleased that you're not blaming Rod for it.'
'Apology accepted,' Groves growled. 'But don't get above your station in future. Now, what can I do for you, and who's this?'
'This is a colleague of mine, Detective Inspector Steele.'
'Steele? Don't know you.'
'I'm from Edinburgh, sir.'
'What the hell are you doing here, then?'
'Actually,' Martin told him, 'he's here to interview you. He wanted me to have you brought to our headquarters, but don't worry, I poured cold water down his trousers and made him come to you.'
'I should bloody think so,' Groves muttered. 'What's it about, then?'
The DCC looked at him. 'Before we get into that, there's something I have to say. I have a daughter, and if anyone harmed her, I know what I would want to do to them. For all that I wear this uniform, I can't say honestly that I'd be able to restrain myself. I can say honestly that I wouldn't let my rage lie boiling for ten years before I let it out, in whatever way it found to express itself.'
'What are you talking about?' Brindsley Groves's eyes were slits, his shoulders bunched as he leaned on his desk, his big hands clenched together.
'He's talking about you, sir,' Steele retorted. 'I'm not from around here: I don't have to impress you. I'm here to question you about an attack on a boy just outside Edinburgh last Saturday afternoon. Can you tell me where you were on that day?'
'Shopping with my wife,' the man barked. 'I'm sure she'll confirm that.'
'I'm not,' said Martin quietly. 'Not after Rod's told her about Tommy and Cleo, your secret children by the late Rachel Murtagh.'
'Where were you last Wednesday?' Steele asked, before Groves could react.
'I don't know, ask my secretary.'
'And the Sunday before that?'
'Same answer!'
'We believe that you were in Edinburgh, sir. We believe that on that Sunday you abducted and killed George Regan, junior, having followed him from his home, which you had probably been observing over a period of time. We believe that three days later you returned to the city, broke into Ross Pringle's room on the Riccarton campus, and booby-trapped her gas heater, as a result of which she died of carbon-monoxide poisoning.'
'Rubbish!'
'Our scene-of-crime officers are very good, sir. In the lock on her door, they found traces of a strange lubricant. This was subsequently identified as a type of very fine oil used by clock-makers. I believe that's your hobby, sir.'
'Enough!' Groves shouted. 'Get out of my office!'
'We're not going to do that, sir.'
'In that case I'm saying no more without my lawyer present.'
'That's prudent of you, sir. When he gets here, we'll ask you both to accompany us to your home, where officers from the local force will undertake a search. We'll be looking for a match for the lubricant we found.' He leaned sideways in his chair so that he could take two plastic-wrapped objects from his coat pocket. He held up a grubby white sock. 'We'll also be looking for a match for this.' He showed Groves the granite. 'Later we'll go to your company's stone-cutting yard where we'll compare this with the stock that you have there.'
'Do all that,' the man growled, 'but you'll never prove that Patsy was my daughter. Without that, where's the motive?'
'We'll prove it all right, sir,' Steele replied. 'There's the payments from the Groves Foundation to your son-in-law for a start, but just to make sure, we'll do a DNA comparison.'
'Using what?'
'Using the lock of hair that her husband cut from her head before she was cremated.'
Groves sank back into his chair.
'You should have kept your mouth shut, Brindsley,' Andy Martin said, coldly. 'You know, I can't help dwelling on that ten-year gap. Why wait that long? You know what I think? I reckon that you waited for Chris Aikenhead to get back onshore from the oil rigs so that he could take the blame. I mean to say, where else was Stevie meant to look? It's just a pity you didn't keep in closer contact with him, for in the end your planning fell a foot short of perfection.'
Ninety
'With your indulgence, Presiding Officer, I assure you that what I'm about to say is relevant to the issue.'
The chair nodded.
She held up a document. 'This is the official biography of the First Minister, as circulated by both the Labour Party and the Scottish Executive press office.' She heard a splutter from a seat nearby, and a few gasps around the chamber; her eye flashed to the public gallery and caught Bob Skinner's smile. She read the resume, loudly and slowly. When she reached the reference to his parents, she stopped. 'Members of this House, however indelicate this may sound, I have to tell you that there is one significant inaccuracy there. Mr Murtagh's mother never married; there was no ill-fated motor mechanic. He was born not in Derbyshire, but in York.' She paused as fresh murmuring arose, letting it subside. 'However,' she continued, 'this deception wasn't perpetrated just for mere propriety.'
She held up a piece of paper. 'This is a public document, but it's the kind that hardly ever comes to light unless someone has reason to go looking for it. It's a list of beneficiaries of a fund set up years ago for members of the Groves family of Dundee. Mr Murtagh's name appears on this list, as does that of the husband of his sister, who died in sad circumstances ten years ago. Members will note that his biography describes him as an only child.'
'Aw, Jesus! Enough of this hatchet job.' Tommy Murtagh's face was almost as puce as his hair.
'First Minister!' The rebuke from the chair was sharp and clear.
'Mr Murtagh misunderstands me,' said Aileen. 'I will demonstrate a conclusion shortly.'
She picked up a third document. 'A few weeks ago, the First Minister made a new appointment that was not announced to this Parliament or to the press. Sir John Govan, the eminent and universally respected former Chief Constable of Strathclyde, was replaced as his security adviser by Mr Greg Jay, who was at that time a serving detective superintendent here in Edinburgh. Mr Jay's appointment was not disclosed to his colleagues, neither at that time nor on his retirement from the police service. Members will be interested to know that his job remit was a little different from that of Sir John.'
She waved the paper in the air. 'I had no advance knowledge of his appointment,' she said. 'However, last night, his letter of resignation from the post, addressed to me, was delivered into my hands. I also received his sworn statement, affirming that on the direct instructions of the First Minister, he conducted covert surveillance directed against me and against Deputy Chief Constable Robert Skinner. During this operation, Mr Jay intimidated my civil service secretary, and compelled her to give him information from my private diary. There was a clear purpose to this: the First Minister knew that Mr Skinner, a close personal friend, was likely to be outraged by the surrender of five untried remand prisoners to the US military, although that country had no legal claim upon them. Mr Murtagh used the information gathered. Although our relationship is entirely innocent, he threatened to leak it in such a way that it would have been sensationalised by the tabloid press, to my embarrassment and to that of Mr Skinner's family. Mr Murtagh sought to silence Mr Skinner; he also sought to coerce me into lending public support to this bill and, indeed, into adopting it as my own. He knows now that he has failed.'
A wave of noise swept across the chamber and the gallery, silenced only by Sir Stuart MacKinnon's roar of 'Order!'
'Ms de Marco,' he advised her, sternly, 'I think it would be as well if you drew this unusual speech to a swift conclusion.'
'Certainly, sir. I know that your own office certified this bill as fit for presentation, and I have no problem with that, for you didn't have grounds for refusal. The measures it contains are not inflammatory of themselves… given the certainty of good will and responsibility in the exercise of the powers it would confer. However, its opponents will argue that there can be no such certainty. In all honesty, I have to admit that my experience over the last ten days or so leaves me unable to disagree with them. In particular I have to ask myself whether I as an elector would want to entrust effective command and control of the police to a man who plots behind his colleagues' backs, and who, in addition, carries the burden of the knowledge that his sister died a suicide in prison, the victim of an apparent miscarriage of justice.'
She picked up the slim volume that was the Police Appointments Bill, Scotland. 'At this point,' she exclaimed, measuring her words, 'it would normally fall to me to commend this measure to Parliament. However, I find that I can only commend it to the dustbin.'
She let it fall to the floor, gathered up the rest of her documents, bowed briefly to the Chair and walked out of the chamber.
Ninety-one
Tommy Murtagh's downfall was swift and sour. Less than an hour after his public denunciation by Aileen de Marco, and after a round of meetings and telephone conversations with those who had been his backers, he called on Sir Stuart MacKinnon in his suite and tendered his resignation as First Minister, to be succeeded temporarily by his deputy, the leader of the coalition partners.
As the news was breaking around the Parliament building, the Justice Minister was driven away in an official car, through a throng of frantically snapping cameras. She had declined, politely, interview requests by the political editors of the BBC, Scottish Television, and Sky, explaining to each of them that she had said in the chamber all she intended to say that day.
The car took her along Abbeyhill and up Regent Road, but it did not stop at St Andrews House. Instead it carried on along Princes Street, past the Christmas lights, turning at the end past the Caledonian Hotel and into Rutland Square.
Bob Skinner was waiting in the entrance hall of the Scottish Arts Club; as usual, it was quiet, and so nobody saw him take her in his arms as soon as the door closed on the street outside. 'You were wonderful,' he whispered. 'None of those people in there, MSPs, journalists and the rest, have ever seen anything like that before.'
'And hopefully never will again,' she told him sincerely. 'Did I look nervous?'
'Nervous? You looked like the Iron Lady herself.'
'God forbid! I was shaking like a leaf in there, all the way through. After it was over, I locked myself in my room. It was almost an hour before I'd got hold of myself again.'
'He's gone, you know; quit'
'I know. I heard before I left. His private secretary told Lena that he's going to resign his seat as well.'
'Just as well,' Bob muttered. 'You don't want the wee bastard on the back benches throwing daggers into your back every time you're on your feet. When do they choose his successor?'
'The party will choose its new leader; that's how it'll be done. It'll take a few weeks, I guess.'
'Will there even be a contest? Who'll oppose you after that?'
She looked at him, seriously. 'Who says I'm standing? Let's go and grab a coffee.'
They found their way into the deserted lounge, where Aileen poured two cups and brought them to two chairs by the fire. 'Why wouldn't you stand?' he asked at once. 'It's the natural progression of your career.'
'Not everybody might see it that way. I know my party: I scared a lot of people in there today. Sure, the west of Scotland lot might back me, but Tommy's cronies will be out to get even. Plus there's another factor: you and me, and how the press handle it. I laid a lot of personal stuff on the line in my speech, because I had to. I tried to lean as heavily as I could on the word "friend", but the red-tops won't take that at face value.'
'They'll have to,' said Bob, grimly.
'Oh, yes, and when they start probing into your marriage, what happens?'
'They get told to piss off. I'm not discussing that with any hack. Eventually, word will get out, but not yet.' He told her of Sarah's decision to settle in New York, and of the agreement they had reached.
'When will she go?' asked Aileen.
'She stays till Christmas, as we promised the kids. In January, she leaves for Manhattan.'
'And until then how do you co-exist?'
He laughed. 'Do you mean will we sleep together? Are you getting jealous already?'
'You haven't slept with me yet,' she pointed out, 'so I suppose I don't really have grounds for jealousy.'
'If you did, you wouldn't, if you get my drift. Sarah's chosen the spare room, and none of the kids is old enough to notice the difference. Anyway, I'm going to be away for a couple of weeks.'