The Skeleton Road by Val McDermid Page A

executive of the FCB had said, ‘This site is a metaphor for the new dynamism of Scotland. We are based in neither of our great cities, but we look towards both. We are about synergy and energy. We are the future.’
    Unfortunately, the future hadn’t worked out quite as he’d imagined. When the banks hit the buffers following the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, it soon became clear that FCB had abandoned the canny fiscal conservatism of its founding fathers. Along with many other apparently sound institutions, FCB had turned its solid foundations into Swiss cheese by inventing increasingly Byzantine ways to chase an illusory dime. And like many of those other institutions, it was deemed too big to fail.
    Since the UK’s taxpayers now owned 69 per cent of FCB, Karen thought she and Phil should have the right to set up their portable Hibachi on one of the billiard table lawns or Italian marble courtyards and enjoy a picnic with the bank’s enviable views of the Pentland Hills to the south and the Ochils to the north. She snorted with sardonic laughter at the notion. For a start, they’d have to get past guards and gates that wouldn’t have been out of place in a medium-security prison. If she hadn’t phoned ahead to discover the name of the appropriate executive and then insisted on an appointment that morning, she’d have had no chance at penetrating the complex. Not even her police ID would have got her past the hard-faced behemoths in the gatehouse.
    As it was, their photo ID was scrutinised and copied. Karen’s car registration plate was photographed, her appointment checked by phone and then finally they were allowed to enter.
    The smoked glass that separated FCB’s offices from the outside world gave the interior a strange ambience. It was like being in a Hollywood movie where the colour register was slightly off. The effect was not so much futuristic as disconcerting. Gordon Fitzgerald, who rejoiced in the title of Head of External Compliance, was waiting for her as she arrived at the black granite reception desk. She’d expected the sort of tailoring that looked like it had cost as much as Phil’s entire wardrobe, including his exhaustive collection of Raith Rovers shirts. But what she got was high street off-the-peg that wasn’t any more of a statement than the Mint usually managed.
    He thrust a hand out towards her. ‘DCI Pirie, lovely to meet.’ He gave the Mint a cursory nod. ‘Constable. Call me Fitz, everybody does.’
Dream on
, she thought. ‘Hope you were impressed with our security.’
    ‘Anybody would think you had something worth robbing,’ she said, dead-pan, taking his practised hand in hers. Warm, dry, firm but not challenging. Karen would have bet he’d learned it on a training course.
    He laughed, a high nervy whinny. ‘Well, we are a bank.’
    ‘Aye, even if you don’t have any real money on the premises.’
    ‘It’s not about protecting money, the security. It’s because of the personal threats against individuals here at the bank after the financial crisis. Feelings ran high, as I’m sure you’ll remember. We do have your colleagues to thank for protecting us so effectively.’
    Karen sometimes wondered heretically why they’d bothered. It didn’t happen often, but every now and again, it felt like mob rule maybe had a bit more decency at its root than what the ranters were reacting against. But she was a polis; she had a duty of care to members of the public. Bankers and wankers, junkies and jakies, the theory of policing said they were all equal before the thin blue line.
    As if.
    ‘And now you have the chance to reciprocate. Can we go some place a wee bit less public?’ Karen gestured at the foyer. It was hardly a bustling hub of activity, but she wanted to assert herself from the word go. ‘Ideally somewhere with a computer terminal so you can access account information.’
    He looked affronted, as if she had suggested inappropriate sexual contact. ‘I’m