Autographs In The Rain Part 4

'I rang her back. She told me that she had called on impulse, for old times' sake; I said I was pleased to hear from her and we arranged to have dinner, last night. End of story.

'She hasn't changed a bit, you know.' He paused. 'No, that's c.r.a.p. If anything she's even better looking than she was as a kid, and she's developed as a person in ways I could never have imagined. But I suppose we all have, have we not. Anyway, when all that nonsense happened last night, I imagined what the papers would do if they got hold of it. Lou does not need that sort of publicity and neither do I, so I got her out of the way.'

He could almost hear Mcllhenney frown. 'Boss, that's

'Improper, at the very least. Obstructing the course of justice at the very worst. I know that, but I'll live with it. You just get back to that boy Crowther and tell him from me to pa.s.s the word up his line that if his commander doesn't want his gonads frica.s.seed, he'll pull that bulls.h.i.t report of his.'

'I've told him that already. Mind you, he wasn't certain that it could be done.'

Skinner sighed again. Til deal with that if it happens.

'The thing is, Neil,' he went on, 'Louise is not the only one I need to protect from too much press interest.16.AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN.

'Apart from the gunshot... sure as h.e.l.l she doesn't need to know about that... there's nothing that Sarah doesn't know, you understand. She was aware that I was meeting Lou all right; I told her as soon as it was arranged.

But she wouldn't be best pleased either if the wrong sort of stuff appeared in the papers.

'The truth is that if any smart hacks did some digging, even though it'd mean going back a quarter of a century, there would still be plenty of people around to tell them that Louise Bankier and I were more than just squash partners.'Theodore Chase gazed down the driveway of the police headquarters building. Normally, every parking bay would have been occupied, and the street outside, even the school playground beyond, would have been thronged with vehicles, but on a Sunday afternoon most of the cars he could see belonged to shoppers at the nearby supermarket.

He stood in Ruth McConnell's tiny office, flicking through her in-trays, of which she had two; his own, which was empty, awaiting the Monday morning mail delivery, and Bob Skinner's, which was piled high with papers waiting for the attention of the DCC on his return from the London conference.

Ted Chase enjoyed lurking around empty offices, as he put it to himself.

There was something about them; they seemed to him to be possessed by the auras of the people who occupied them through the week, each with its own unique signature. Take Ruth McConnell's small room as an example.

She used the same fragrance as his wife . . . Rive Gauche, whatever that meant; not that his nose would have told him that, for his sense of smell had been deadened by growing up close to a brewery. Since coming to Edinburgh he had discovered that he could even drive through Seafield without the faintest wrinkle of his nose. He picked up the familiar blue eau de toilette tube, glanced at it, then put it back on the desk, carefully, on its side, in its original position.

He closed his eyes and he could feel her presence, could see her in his mind as clearly as if she was really sat there, long legs under her chair, close fitting skirt moulded to her thighs, riding just above the knee, her white blouse tucked into the waistband, covering the faintest roll of flesh.

He let his mind roam further until he could actually feel the residual warmth of her body in the room, and sense the strength of her personality, filling its every corner.

In spite of himself he began to imagine her naked, hair tousled, glowing after s.e.x; and then there was someone else in his vision. Sammy Pye? No,18.AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN.not the young sergeant, someone bigger, older, stronger, grimmer, frightening as his head seemed to turn towards the intruder . .. Bob Skinner.

Ted Chase opened his eyes wide, and was a shade embarra.s.sed to find that he was breathing slightly heavily. He thought of Skinner and Ruth; they had worked together for a few years now. She was a woman and a half; he had a past that had made the tabloids. He couldn't believe that she would settle for a lad like Pye. There had to be something there, for sure.

He was startled when the phone rang on Ruth's desk. For a second he thought about letting it go unanswered, but that was against his nature.

Somehow, it would have made him feel like a sneak. He picked it up, and was taken aback to hear Bob Skinner's strong, steady voice. 'Afternoon Ted,' he began. His tone was neutral, neither friendly nor hostile. 'Your wife told me I'd probably find you in the office.' Chase waited for the DCC to ask what the h.e.l.l he was doing there, as, probably, he would have done himself in reversed circ.u.mstances. When he did not, he felt almost a sense of letdown.

'I've had a call from Ruthie,' he continued, instead. 'Asking if it would be all right for her to have a couple of days off. Her uncle's died, and she has to make all the funeral arrangements and stuff.'

'Yes,' said Chase, abruptly. 'I knew about that. I was in the Ops Room yesterday afternoon when Martin's man Pye called in after finding the body.'

He heard a soft chuckle at the other end. 'How the f.u.c.k did we manage without you, Ted? I really don't know.'

The ACC felt himself flush. 'I'm still getting the feel of the place, Bob, that's all.'

'You could have fooled me, mate, but let's not get into that. I told her that it was okay, and that I'd square it with you.'

'Yes, of course. In the circ.u.mstances, it's okay with me.'

'That's good. As it happens, the Chief's chairing an ACPOS committee meeting in Glasgow tomorrow, so Gerry Crossley'll have some time on his hands. We won't be neglected.'

'Ah, yes.' Chase did not approve of male secretaries, and could never keep the distaste out of his tone whenever the efficient young Crossley's name came up in conversation.

'He's a good lad, Ted,' Skinner said quietly. 'As you might find out for yourself, one day. See you tomorrow.' There was a click; the line wentdead, then buzzed as the c.u.mbrian stared at the receiver, taken off-guard by his colleague's throw-away remark.

It wasn't that he disliked Bob Skinner, Chase told himself, as he replaced the receiver; he was an affable enough bloke. It wasn't that he was jealous of him; he took enough pride in his own career achievements not to feel jealous of anyone. It wasn't that he doubted his ability; he was one of the most famous policemen in the country, and the Queen's Police Medal wasn't awarded lightly.

No, he told himself, his concern was based on his distinguished colleague's att.i.tude to The Book. There were accepted ways of policing, and these had been developed practically over many years. The relationship between police and public, in the eyes of Theodore Chase, was one in which the uniformed body had to stand aloof to command the respect which he saw as essential to efficient operation. Nevertheless, by no means did he see himself as being stuck in the past. He approved wholeheartedly of the new style of uniform, which was more comfortable, and had been designed to meet modern needs. He recognised the value of the Panda car, although he stuck to the view that walking the beat still had its place, especially in the inner city areas.

His problem with Bob Skinner was simply that he seemed to see it all differently. For example, the man had a little-disguised dislike of wearing the uniform ... so little-disguised that it was a standing joke throughout headquarters. Chase saw the dark blue tunic as the basic symbol of authority.

For example, for his Sat.u.r.day drop-in to the Ops Room, he had worn it. A quiet Sunday in the office; well, that was something else.

Skinner had an overtly sloppy att.i.tude to reporting channels also. It was one thing for ACC Operations to pay unannounced visits to his own Ops Room to keep everyone on their toes, but quite another for the DCC to involve himself in active criminal investigations. There was even a story about him taking his baby son on a stake-out of premises in the course of a hunt for a murder suspect.

Then there was his lax att.i.tude to rank. He accepted that it was for the Chief Constable to determine whether he and his two a.s.sistants should be on first-name terms, behind closed doors, as they were. However, Skinner's easy familiarity with the men under his command posed in his view a clear and present danger to good discipline. He and DI Mcllhenney played football in the same five-a-side group every Thursday . . . and sometimes, Chase understood, his daughter baby-sat the Mcllhenney20.AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN.

children to allow them to do it. He and DCS Martin had a fraternal rapport ... so much so that Skinner had been best man at the Head of CID's wedding. He allowed McGuire, the Special Branch man, virtually open access to his office.

There were only two lines in Chase's controversial paper on the Force's command structure to which the DCC had taken outright exception; one had been a reference to 'the cult of the personality', as he had put it .. and that was at the heart of his problem with Skinner. He would not... did not dare... suggest that the big Scot had built his own legend deliberately. No, he accepted that he was trapped within it. Yet that was the greatest obstacle to his efficiency as a chief police officer.

The Book of Proper Policing, Ted Chase's imaginary Bible, had been written by many people over many years. It had come under attack in a variety of ways, from direct a.s.sault by terrorism to insidious undermining tactics by those people to whom Chase referred most commonly as 'liberals', yet as he saw it, the solid dependable man and . . . yes, now, he had to concede... woman in uniform still stood, in spite of it all, as the cornerstone of society.

Image and perception were all-important; no personality could be allowed to overshadow either, yet that was what Skinner seemed to do. He was rarely seen in public in uniform. He was not the Chief Constable. And yet whenever anyone in Edinburgh . . . anyone in Scotland, probably, many people in England, perhaps ... thought of a policeman, they were likely to think of him.

In his heart of hearts, Ted Chase disapproved of devolution. He was British first, c.u.mbrian second, and like many of his compatriots, English third; he had a niggling fear of anything which threatened the composition of the flag he saluted, and a downright dislike of anything which claimed to be an alternative to the National Anthem, which he took pride in bellowing l.u.s.tily on public occasions.

However, he had accepted the political situation, and the prospect of working in a devolved Scotland, when he had decided to apply for the Edinburgh job. He had reasoned that it gave him his best chance of rising to command his own force. Now that he was in place, he had come to realise how different Scotland was, and how great was its potential for change. Virtually all of its inst.i.tutions were under the control of a new breed of politician, able to tackle their manifesto objectives with none of the constraints of parliamentary time which hadbedevilled the old Scottish Office at Westminster.

In particular, he had come to realise how easy it would be for his own views on policing, which had held sway under the old regime, to be swept away by the new administration, which he saw as a soft-centred coalition, committed to reform for its own sake. Nothing was beyond them.

And who better to serve as a model for a new Scottish breed of policeman than the home-bred hero, DCC Robert Morgan Skinner?

Chase was n.o.body's fool; he saw the danger more clearly than the man himself . . . and there, he saw also, might lie the saving grace. Skinner's intense dislike of politicians was a matter of record, certainly within the police force, and to an extent in the wider world, thanks to the circ.u.mstances which had led to his giving up his former responsibility as security adviser to the Secretary of State.

Yet what political power he could command through his reputation and his public profile, if only he realised it... 'Thank G.o.d,' the ACC thought, 'that he doesn't.'

He was so immersed in contemplation that he gave a small, involuntary jump when the phone rang for a second time. He picked it up, expecting Skinner once again, only to hear the voice of the security man on weekend duty at the main entrance.

'There's a UPS guy, here, sir, wi' a delivery for the Chief Constable.

Since you're here, dae you want to sign for it?'

The ACC frowned. 'I suppose so. I'll be down in a moment.'

He left his secretary's office and walked briskly along the Command corridor, then down a flight of stairs which led more or less directly to the front door. The brown-suited messenger stood waiting, with a big brown envelope and the inevitable clipboard.

'Print your name there, sir, then sign ablow it,' he said.

Chase made a mental note of yet another Scots word, and did as the man asked, thanking him as he took the package. He glanced at it as he walked back upstairs, his curiosity aroused. The address was clear and simple: 'Chief Constable Sir James Proud, QPM, Police Headquarters, Fettes Avenue, Edinburgh', and it bore two red stamped injunctions, one 'Urgent', the other, 'Confidential'.

'But not, "personal",' he murmured to himself as he stood at Gerry Crossley's desk, holding the envelope poised over the in-tray. 'And Bob did say that the Chief isn't in tomorrow.'

He picked up a letter-opener, slit the envelope open and slid out its22.AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN.contents, three A4 pages, stapled together with a covering letter, on Metropolitan Police notepaper.