‘Wouldn’t that be professional misconduct, since you’re going to be a prosecution witness?’

  ‘Good point,’ she chuckled, ‘but one, no one will ever know, and two, if you were to cross-examine me as if I was in the box, that would probably be ethical.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said, smiling, ‘let’s do it that way.’ He reached across to a coat stand and took his jacket from a hook. ‘I think I’ll head home now, in fact. I’ve nothing left to do here. See you later.’

  He slipped the phone back into its socket, picked up his document case, and headed for the door. Six floors below, in the street outside the Saltire building, his movement was mirrored.

  Leaving his office, he headed for the lift, pausing only to wave to June Crampsey, who was at her desk. She waved back, beckoning him into her office.

  ‘Do you know where Paco Fonter and Chaz Baker are?’ she asked, as he stuck his head through her doorway. ‘My people are having no joy in tracing either of them.’

  ‘No to the first,’ he replied, ‘to the second, no comment.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Bob,’ the editor protested. ‘Give us a break.’

  ‘I would if I could, June, but I’ve got a conflict of interest.’

  ‘What sort of conflict could you have?’ she retorted, but as she spoke, her expression changed. ‘Wait a minute,’ she exclaimed, ‘I get it. Your Alex is representing Baker, isn’t she? Tell me I’m right!’

  ‘I’ll tell you, no comment. I don’t discuss her professional life with anyone, not even you, unless I’ve got her express permission. In this instance, I don’t.’

  Crampsey beamed. ‘I’ll take that as a yes. How’s he going to plead?’

  ‘June, the case is sub judice . You can’t report anything until the next court appearance, and de Matteo’s warned you all off Baker.’

  ‘As they say in the newsroom, fuck the Solicitor General, and the interdict he rode in on. I know more about media law than he does; I know what’s contempt of court and I know what isn’t.’

  ‘I’m sure you do, but I’m still saying nothing.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Crampsey conceded, ‘but you should mark her card about this. Cisco Serra’s hawking exclusive rights to his client’s story, once the case is over. I had a call this morning, as did everyone else. Just a courtesy, though, in my case; he knows that the Saltire won’t be bidding against the London tabloids.’

  ‘Which client?’ Skinner asked.

  ‘Paco Fonter, of course.’ Her eyes widened as the weight of his question hit her. ‘Hold on, are you saying that Serra represents Baker too?’

  ‘As I understand it, yes, he does.’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ she said, ‘and I don’t think our sports guys do either, or one of them would have been bound to mention it. There’s a story in that, never mind anything else.’

  ‘Then good luck with it; but . . . and you can regard this as a board level request . . . make sure if you run it that Alex’s name doesn’t appear in it, anywhere. I want no implication that it came from her.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Crampsey conceded. ‘Thanks, Bob.’

  ‘De nada ,’ he chuckled, as she reached for her phone.

  He was still smiling as the lift door opened and he stepped inside.

  Unusually the ride to the basement car park was uninterrupted, with no stops at the editorial floors, from which there were countless comings and goings during the day. The park was empty of people also, although more than half of the bays were full.

  He approached his Mercedes and felt in his pocket for the key, pressing the unlock button as his thumb found it, seeing the lights flash and hearing the horn give one brief ‘beep’. Reaching it he gripped the door handle . . . and then his head seemed to explode.

  There was no sensation, only a sound from somewhere followed by a time of . . . nothing. It passed, after how long he had no clue, and he was vaguely aware that he had hit the ground, hard. His mind was fuzzy, his thoughts confused as all the possibilities hit him in the same second. ‘What? Why? Heart attack? Pacemaker failure? Oww!!’ Finally a blast of pain hit him, behind his right ear, in the same moment that he felt a trickle of something that had to be blood flow round his jawline.

  He stirred. Less than two seconds later fire swept through his body as a foot slammed into his kidney. His back arched, helping him absorb, partially, a second kick when it thudded into the centre of his spine. A third would surely be aimed at his head.

  Pure animal instinct took over. Skinner rolled backwards and over, wrapping an arm around the black-shod foot as it came towards him, then rolled again, putting his full body weight on his attacker’s knee and sending him tumbling backwards. Before the other man had a chance to gather himself, he attacked, keeping him pinned down as he heaved himself forward, covering his face with his large right hand and slamming the back of his head into the hard concrete of the garage floor.

  He pushed himself to one knee; his rival moaned, but moved, until Skinner extinguished the last of his resistance by punching him, just once, but very hard, in the middle of the forehead.

  ‘Will you never fucking learn, Grigor?’ he gasped.

  He unfastened the unconscious Russian’s tie, rolled him on to his side, and used it to lash his wrists together, then removed his belt, looped it around his ankles and used it to hog-tie him. Grigor came back to semi-awareness just as the process was complete. He struggled, and yelled, in his own language, what the Scot assumed was a curse.

  Spotting a black extendable baton lying nearby, Skinner picked it up, and pressed its tip against the back of Grigor’s neck. ‘Now here’s what’s going to happen,’ he barked. ‘You’re going to lie there very quietly and you’re going to do it of your own accord, or by the time the police get here you will be anyway, and you’ll be crying salty tears.’

  As he spoke he heard a movement behind him; he glanced over his shoulder and saw a woman. She was staring at the scene fearfully, over the tip of a mobile phone she held out before her. He recognised her: Lennox Webster, the Saltire crime reporter.

  ‘Are you filming this?’ he barked, incredulous.

  ‘I thought,’ she mumbled as she approached, lowering the phone, ‘I just thought, evidence, you know.’

  ‘How much did you see?’

  ‘All of it.’

  Skinner pressed the baton into the Russian’s neck once more, harder. ‘Your lucky day, mister,’ he murmured, and then looked back at the reporter. ‘Did it occur to you to give me a shout, Lennox, to warn me?’ he asked. ‘Or were you too busy covering the story?’

  ‘I only saw him just as he hit you, and you went down,’ she protested. ‘I should have shouted, I know, but to be honest I was afraid he’d come for me. So I videoed it; it was all I could think to do.’

  He sighed, showing her a half-smile. ‘Journalist first, citizen second,’ he said. ‘As a director of InterMedia I suppose I should be impressed. If you reckon you’ve got enough footage and you don’t want a close-up, do you think you could spare me some battery time. I fear my phone may have come off badly in that ruckus.’

  ‘Of course,’ the reporter agreed. ‘What would you like me to do?’

  ‘Jesus!’ he exclaimed. ‘Calling the police would be a good start. Use my name and tell them to put you through to Chief Superintendent Mary Chambers, the area commander. I want this bastard to feel the full weight of the righteous anger of my former colleagues . . . at least those that aren’t pleased to see me get a kicking,’ he added.

  ‘I will, right away. But after that, don’t you think I should call for an ambulance? You really are bleeding very badly.’

  Twenty-Seven

  ‘How many stitches did they put in?’ Sammy Pye asked.

  ‘It’s staples these days,’ the man in the hospital bed replied. ‘I stopped counting after six. How did you get involved in this?’ he continued. ‘Or did you just happen to be passing?’

  ‘No, I’m involved; through the high heid yins.’

  The vernacular explanation was enough. He had been sent, by those on high. Skinner nodded understanding.

  ‘CS Chambers called the chief to tell her you’d been attacked. When she said that we have a Russian in custody, well, she knew about the incident in Fettes Avenue on Sunday and made the connection to the Bordeaux case. She phoned me and told me to get along to the Royal to check that you’re okay, then to take charge of the investigation into the attack on you.’

  ‘What’s to investigate?’ the patient grunted, shifting awkwardly in his hospital gown. ‘Your man Grigor and I had a run-in; he finished second and he isn’t the type to leave it at that. There’s only the most tenuous connection to the King Robert Village murder, in that the guy minds the Merrytown owner. When I told Ms Webster to speak to Mary, I didn’t expect CID involvement.’

  ‘I know,’ the detective agreed. He grinned. ‘We like to show we care, that’s all.’

  ‘All I wanted was to be sure that the bastard is on the first plane back to Moscow. If he came after me he might have had it in mind to visit Alex as well.’

  ‘As it happens, I’m taking it a lot more seriously than that,’ Pye countered. ‘Sauce is with him now charging him with attempted murder.’

  ‘Hey, Sammy,’ Skinner protested, ‘that’s over the top, is it not?’

  The DCI shook his head, emphatically. ‘I’ve seen Lennox Webster’s video, sir, you haven’t. If you had, and it was someone else involved, you’d take exactly the same view as us. The man hit you on the head, twice, with a prohibited weapon, a German-made hardened steel expanding baton.’

  ‘Twice?’

  ‘Yes, once to knock you down, then he hit you again when you were on the deck. You were obviously unconscious the second time you were struck. That’s what makes it attempted murder, for me and for the fiscal. Then he put the boot in for luck.’ Pye grinned, impishly. ‘Only it wasn’t so lucky for him.’

  ‘Where are you holding him?’

  ‘He’s still here, in another part of A and E. They did a head CT scan, just as they did with you, to make sure there was no unseen damage. There isn’t, but they want to keep him in overnight.’

  ‘Does he have a lawyer?’ Skinner asked. ‘If I press charges, he’s going to need one.’

  ‘One of the senior people from the Russian Consulate General in Melville Street is with him. But what’s this “if” about? He has to be charged, Chief. If you don’t, we will.’

  ‘I keep telling you guys, stop calling me Chief. It unsettles me, plus it’s disrespectful to Maggie Steele. Sammy, I don’t want to be involved personally in a high-profile case. If the guy’s deported and put on a watch list so he can never get back into Britain, that’ll be enough for me.’

  A laugh rang out; the curtain that closed off the cubicle parted and Sauce Haddock stepped inside. ‘You are involved personally, sir, like it or not,’ he chuckled. ‘The Saltire posted Lennox Webster’s video in its online edition two hours ago. It’s been picked up by all the TV channels for their news bulletins, and it’s trending on YouTube. I saw one comment suggesting that you’ll be getting an offer to fight in the UFC.’

  Skinner put a hand to the back of his head, fingering the thick dressing, gently. ‘Bloody hell,’ he moaned. ‘Why did June Crampsey do that?’ He sighed, then answered his own question. ‘Because she’s the best damn journalist I know, that’s why.’

  ‘She was also extremely upset,’ Pye volunteered, ‘and only authorised publication when she was sure you were okay. ‘

  ‘Everyone else is desperate to catch up,’ Haddock continued. ‘There’s a small army of press outside, looking to talk to you when you leave. The hospital put out a statement saying that you’re being kept in overnight, but they’re still there.’

  ‘The hospital can stick that one,’ the patient grunted. ‘I’m going home, as soon as Sarah gets here. She’s a doctor, so I’m covered. Cuts, bruises and mild concussion, that’s all I’ve got. I’ll stay for four hours as the consultant asked, but then I’m gone.’

  ‘We’ll smuggle you out the back way,’ the DCI volunteered.

  ‘You’ll smuggle me nowhere. I’ll speak to the press as I leave, get it over with. If I don’t they’ll turn up at Gullane and I’m damned if I’m having that. Mind you,’ he added, ‘I’m not going anywhere until I get some new clothes. My shirt’s soaked in blood and my jacket’s not much better. They’re bound for the hospital incinerator.’ He tugged at the gown. ‘I’m not walking out in this thing.’

  ‘How many staples did they put in, sir?’ Haddock asked.

  ‘Plenty. I didn’t count, just lay back and thought about Scotland.’ He grinned. ‘I have to tell you, guys, it’s a walk in the park compared to being shot, or stabbed. Just another scar, and this one’s above the hairline. My one small regret is that the Russian bastard was carted away without a mark on him.’

  ‘He’s got a seriously sore head though,’ the DS observed.

  ‘Oh, me too,’ he admitted. ‘In fact I feel another Tramadol coming on. I can only hope Grigor feels the same.’

  Haddock smiled. ‘He does. He’s still badly concussed. There’s a lump on the back of his head, and one the size of a golf ball in the middle of his forehead. But those are the least of his worries. The Russian vice-consul has a gleam in his eye. He just told me that his name isn’t Grigor Yashin at all. His passport is phoney.’

  ‘Forged?’

  ‘No, not forged, but phoney. I gave the consul access to his fingerprints, at his request. He sent them to the database in Moscow, and got an instant hit. His real name is Valentin Afonin, and he’s the subject of half a dozen arrest warrants in Russia, all for violent crimes, including murder. He was convicted of shooting a banker in St Petersburg, four years ago. While he was being transported east to begin a life sentence he was sprung, by a gang of specialists. He’s been on the run ever since, only he hasn’t been, it seems. He shaved off his beard, had a few tattoos removed, got blue contact lenses to disguise his brown eyes, and with his new look he’s been gainfully employed as Dimitri Rogozin’s bodyguard.’

  Skinner glanced at Pye. ‘You see, Sammy? What’s a wee attempted murder charge in Scotland compared with the stuff his own people have on him? You know what’s going to happen now, don’t you? The Crown Office will keep the charge against him open, but we’ll send him back home and let the Russians feed him for the next thirty years.’

  ‘There’s no extradition treaty between us and Russia,’ the DCI pointed out.

  ‘We don’t need one. Sauce says he’s in the country under false pretences, so he can be put on a plane and sent back home. And he will be. Isn’t that right, Rocco?’

  The detectives turned, eyes focused on a man who had entered the cubicle unnoticed: early forties, sleek black hair, dark eyes . . . could be Dimitri Rogozin’s brother , Skinner’s sluggish mind told him.

  ‘Have you met the Solicitor General, lads?’ he asked. ‘What’s up, Rocco? Did you drop by hoping that the rumours of my survival were false? Or are you thinking of charging me with assault?’

  ‘Come on, Bob,’ the law officer protested, with a grin. ‘We’ve had our differences in the past, but I wouldn’t wish either of those outcomes.’

  ‘Rocco’s an old stablemate of my ex-wife, politically and nationally,’ he explained. ‘De Matteo, de Marco, they almost sound related. How is the dear Aileen?’ he asked. ‘Now she’s on the Labour front bench at Westminster I see a lot of her in the media, but I haven’t heard from her in months.’

  ‘She’s very well, thanks. In fact, she called me as soon as she’d heard you’d been attacked, wanting reassurance that you’re all right.’

  ‘Thank her and tell her I am.’ He picked up on a look of caution in de Matteo’s eyes. ‘It’s okay, I mean it: I don’t hold any grudges. She may have been part of the gang in the Holyrood Parliament that ended my police career by forcing the fucking awful national force on us, but she wasn’t the prime mover.’

  He pointed at a flat device that the Solicitor General was clutching. ‘Can you get YouTube on that tablet? I’d like to see the video that Sauce says is making me a star.’

  ‘Sure.’ De Matteo nodded. He tapped the screen of his iPad several times, until he was satisfied, then handed it over.

  Skinner hit the play button and watched intently. He winced as he saw himself struck down and again as he was hit while on the floor, but as the movie progressed a thin smile of satisfaction appeared on his face.

  ‘Yes,’ he whispered when it was over. ‘I can see how that might make good TV.’

  ‘I don’t know how you did that,’ Sauce Haddock said, quietly.

  ‘I did it because I fucking had to, son. The alternative wasn’t acceptable.’

  He played the video again, then handed the tablet back to its owner. ‘Very interesting, Rocco, thanks. Educational, too.’

  ‘What did it teach you?’

  ‘That Lennox Webster’s a liar. She told me she didn’t have time to yell and warn me, but she did. The video starts with Grigor, or Afonin if you want to call him that, moving in on me. She had time to set it up, select video, hold it steady and start to film.’

  The Solicitor General frowned. ‘You’re right. I could almost make a case for that being criminal conduct, given that she’s benefited from it. Should I?’

  ‘Hell no,’ Skinner replied, firmly. ‘Leave it with me. Once Xavi Aislado, the Saltire ’s big boss, sees that, he’s going to realise the same as me. When he does, his instant reaction will be to fire her. I’ll need to have a conversation with her editor; it might take both of us to save her job, that’s if June wants to.’

  ‘And you do?’

  ‘Fuck yes! We’re in the age of online newspapers, mate. This is the biggest boost the Saltire ’s ever had. You can make a case for charging the woman; I can make a case for giving her a bonus.’

  ‘You’ve changed, Bob,’ de Matteo observed. ‘The man I used to know would have thrown the book at her.’

  ‘The guy you used to know sees a wider world now . . . and maybe he knows himself a bit better too.’