Thursday legends - Skinner 10 by Quintin Jardine Page A

you.'
    She
rubbed her forehead on his shoulder. 'Maybe I've been looking for something
too,' she whispered. 'And maybe, just maybe, the first time I saw you, I knew
I'd found it.'

14
     
     
    Detective
Inspector Mario McGuire wore a broad grin. 'Welcome to the shadowy, glamorous
world of Special Branch, Sergeant,' he boomed. 'Welcome to the centre of this
spider's web of intrigue. Exciting, isn't it?'
    Stevie
Steele leaned back in his hard chair and looked around the drab room, with its
bare, magnolia-painted walls, and its single small window. 'Wow,' he said.
    'This
is the reality of the job, Steve. We're the true crime-prevention department;
we keep an eye on potential trouble and even more important, on potential
trouble-makers. That's the way it's always been. Back in the fifties and
sixties, we used to keep an eye on the local communists and fellow-travellers:
trade-union guys, left-wing Labour Party guys and acknowledged CP members. Now
terrorism, more than anything else, is the perceived enemy.
    'Back
in the old days we had help, of course - local journalists who'd go along to
meetings and report back to us for a few quid. We could trust the local
newspaper hacks, they were poorly paid and always needed the money. But there
were journos on the other side too. The NUJ had a communist as its president
back in the sixties: wherever he travelled, all over the country, he had a
Special Branch escort.
    'The
boys in Glasgow, they had a permanent bug in the offices of the Daily Worker, but of course the hacks there knew it, so there
was never anyone in their bloody office.

They
used to do all their business in pubs and send their copy to London from phone
boxes. Everything we did, of course, was to ensure that guys like them couldn't
deliver this great democracy of ours into the slavering Soviet maw.'
    'It
worked, then,' said Steele, dryly.
    'Not
really. Like I said, SB priorities changed in the early seventies when Ireland
blew up. We had to stop playing with the wild-eyed Left to a great extent and
concentrate on the real danger. It's been a different game since then, with a
constant IRA and Loyalist threat for thirty years and, at the same time, the
growth of international terrorism. We haven't always been successful in
preventing attacks, but for every one that's succeeded there have been a right
few others that we've headed off.'
    'Isn't
it quieter now than it was?'
    'No
it ain't. Sergeant. There will always be fanatics with a mission to destroy,
quote, unquote, our decadent Judea/ Christian Western society, and there will
be idiots among us who admire and support them. The Special Branch task has
never really altered; the enemy just changes every so often, that's all.'
    'Have
you always liked politics, Inspector?'
    'It's
Mario in here and in the pub - and I've never liked politics. That's why I'm in
the job. In fact I hate politics. It doesn't matter whether they are the
politics of state, religion, race, gender, or just wealth, they are inherently
fucking dangerous and they can get you killed. There used to be a famous
copper in the West of Scotland who argued that all crime was related to the
theft of non-ferrous metals. I disagree; I believe that all crime is related to
politics of one sort or another. They got me shot, for a start.
     
    'I
tell you, Stevie, politics can be hazardous to your health. Most of the people
who practise them are well meaning, well-educated fools, but a minority of
them, usually those who make it to the very top, are bloody dangerous.
    'That's
why we're the key players in the Alec Smith investigation. Alec moved in this
world and he was good at it - the best, I'm told. He was an apolitical guy,
just like me, like Brian Mackie, like Andy Martin, tasked with keeping an eye
on politicians of all sorts.'
    'Tasked
by whom?'
    McGuire's
laugh was a bellow. 'By politicians, of course; to keep an eye on their
enemies. But from the start, SB has taken the view that there can always be an
enemy