Powerstone (24 page)

‘I do,’ Drew said. He stopped at a
low bridge overlooking the water, with a converted mill opposite. Trees from
the riverbank reached gently over the parapet. ‘Top floor flat with one of the
best views in
Edinburgh
.’

Irene looked at him. She knew that
she was on the rebound, reacting to Patrick’s infidelity and it would be far
more sensible to keep a low profile. She also knew that she had to ask her next
question. ‘With your girlfriend?’

‘I think we both know that I do
not have one.’ Drew’s smile was gentle. ‘If I had, I would not be here with
you, and that would be a great loss.’

‘Oh.’ Irene looked away. She
focussed on a man walking a nondescript dog beside a terrace of houses. The dog
was pulling at its lead, determined to squeeze every last ounce of pleasure
from its outing while the man looked harassed. Which was she, the dog or the
man? More like the lead, she thought, a connection between two worlds, and
unsure to which she belonged.

When Drew slipped a hand into his
inside pocket, Irene thought that he was going to produce a pipe. She could
imagine him as a pipe-smoker, calm and serene among agitated people, but
instead he pulled out a small brown box.

‘I kept this,’ he said quietly. ‘In
case we ever met again.’

Irene snapped open the box.
Sitting on a bed of green silk, the Luckenbooth brooch shone in silver
simplicity. She looked at it for a long moment, aware that its symbolism was
far greater than any intrinsic value that it may possess. In itself the brooch
was nothing, a piece of inexpensive silverware, but if she accepted it, she
felt that she would be making a commitment that she would be reluctant to
break.

Drew shared that knowledge. He
perched himself on the low stone wall with the water beneath him and the
blackbird’s call soft above. He said nothing.

Irene slipped her fingers beneath
the brooch. It felt reassuringly cool, but the silk was the same shade of green
as used by the Manning Corporation. ‘No,’ she withdrew. ‘No, Drew. I do
appreciate the gesture, but I cannot take it. I have work to do, a career to
build.’

‘It’s a brooch,’ Drew said softly,
‘nothing else.’

Irene drew a deep breath. ‘I
cannot accept your gift,’ she said.

‘As you wish.’ Drew retrieved the
brooch, looked at it and snapped shut the box.

There was silence for a long
minute as Irene looked away. The man and his dog passed unheeding and the
blackbird sang with subdued notes.

‘Perhaps I had better be getting
along,’ Irene said.

Drew shook his head. ‘There’s no
urgency. You decided not to wear my brooch, that’s all.’ He smiled, ‘after all,
you haven’t slapped me yet.’

‘I could do that,’ Irene told him.
The thought was there, simultaneous with the desire to kiss him, accept the
brooch and allow him to pin it on her breast. She closed her eyes, fighting
personal images that could only betray her career aspirations. ‘I could so
easily do that.’

‘I’ll walk you back to your hotel
instead,’ Drew suggested.

‘Just point me in the right
direction.’ Reaching out, Irene touched his arm. ‘I should not have contacted
you. I am sorry, but business…’ she shrugged, unsure what to say, and unsure
how she felt.

Drew nodded. ‘I’m not sorry,’ he
said. He nodded up the steep street from where the dog walker had come. ‘
Princes Street
is up that way and straight
ahead. You know your way from there.’

Cursing herself for allowing
emotion to control her logic, Irene stalked up the hill. Why had she contacted
Drew, when all she needed was to keep quiet for a few more weeks? Now there was
a further complication in her life. When she reached the top of the hill, she
realised that she was at the edge of the
Dean
Bridge
, and turned around. Drew was
leaning against the wall, watching her. She did not respond when he raised a
hand in good-bye.

Edinburgh
, July 12

‘Are we all set?’ Irene felt the
tension gnawing inside her. The events of the next few hours would change her
life, one way or another. Either she could present Ms Manning with an addition to
her collection, or she would be staring at the blank walls of a Scottish jail.
Either she would be the heir to immense wealth, or endless years of confinement
would turn her into a broken woman with neither a past nor a future.

‘All set.’ Desmond tapped the
transmitter at his side. He looked more nervous than Irene had expected. She
had thought that men with a history of armed struggle against the British state
would be completely composed, but instead his hands were trembling, and sweat
filmed his forehead.
Hollywood
was never like this.

This time they had booked into two
separate hotels, with an arrangement to meet outside the Canongate Tolbooth.
Irene had insisted that they arrive at different times, and drift into their
pre-arranged rendezvous at Panmure Close as though they were strangers.

‘Plenty people here,’
Bryan
said, looking around at the
crowds that were gathering all along the Royal Mile. Most were tourists,
enjoying this additional spectacle to add to their holiday memories. A few
hundred were elderly citizens of
Edinburgh
, come to watch their queen. One small group carried
placards protesting about the royal presence and demanding a
Scottish
Republic
. The republicans pushed through the crowd, and for a
moment they surrounded Desmond. A blonde woman thrust a red leaflet in his hand
and kissed him briefly, before they moved slightly uphill.

‘Freedom for
Scotland
,’ they chanted. ‘End the rule of
privilege!’

A man opened a can of Irn-Bru and
took a long swallow, while a family argued about where they should best stand.
There was none of the intense patriotism that Irene had witnessed when the
President drove in his motorcade, no forest of national flags or outpouring of
sentiment that the press loved to capture.

‘What a place for a bomb,’ Desmond
muttered, licking his lips.

Irene glanced at him. ‘What do you
mean?’

‘Just what I said. Look: dense
crowds, dozens of shop fronts to provide glass splinters, a public event to
ensure media coverage. This is the sort of event that I would hit.’

‘Nice thought,’ Irene looked away.
She could not afford any distractions from the task in hand. ‘Concentrate on
your timing.’

More people came, jostling forward
to the simple metal barriers that the yellow-coated police patrolled. There
seemed a forest of cameras, a constant barrage of noise as fingers pointed up
the length of the Royal Mile in the direction from which the cavalcade would
come. Irene put her hand to her face, adjusting the sunglasses that covered her
eyes and nose. Together with the blonde wig over her black-dyed hair, they
helped disguise her face. The theory was simple: anybody spotting the wig would
not expect the hair beneath also to be dyed. The long white coat with its thick
padding was intended to conceal her body shape, but it drew curious stares on
such a warm day.

‘There are the TV cameras.’
Desmond lowered his head and turned away, as if sheltering to light a
cigarette. ‘Jesus, I forgot about them!’

‘I didn’t,’ Irene reminded.
‘That’s why we’re disguised. They will be concentrating on the Queen, anyway.’

‘Listen,’ Desmond held up a hand.
‘Can you hear it?’

Irene had been mildly disappointed
not to hear bagpipes played every day in
Scotland
, but there was something so distinctive about the sound that she
could not help raising her head. Drifting between the tenements, the sound
seemed not to belong; it was as if an entity from a wilder world had intruded
on the safety of civilisation. Now more heads were turning, more voices
exclaiming.

‘It’s the pipes,’ an elderly
Edinburgh
man stretched across the grey
metal barrier for a better view. A young policewoman ushered him back, smiling.

‘The Queen must be coming,’ a
Yorkshire
voice said. ‘She’s got her own
pipe band, you know. They play for her every morning.’

‘Do they? Poor woman. That’s a
horrible noise.’

Irene watched as the Scottish
Republican group moved closer to the barrier, watched closely by the young
policewoman.

The music was increasing,
accompanied by the rattle of drums and a rhythmic thunder that Irene decided
could only be the marching of hundreds of men. Suddenly she felt sick. Why was
she here? Was it too late to call the entire thing off? She was a
businesswoman, not a master criminal.

‘Jesus,’ Desmond breathed harder.
He looked upward at the overhanging clock of the Tolbooth and crossed himself.
‘They’re four minutes early!’

‘It’s OK,’ Irene reached for his
arm, her management skills forcing her into calmness. ‘We’ve allowed for some
time deviation. Relax and focus.’ She looked into his eyes, seeing only the
unashamed fear that mirrored her own.

‘Here they come!’ The crowd pushed
to the barriers, staring up the long corridor of the Canongate as the high lilt
of the pipes increased in volume. There was a rattle of drums, and then a body
of tartan-clad men appeared, marching solidly down the street. The pipes fell
silent.

‘Pretty, aren’t they?’ Desmond
fingered his transmitter. A bead of sweat trickled down the side of his face.

‘Lovely. Watch what you’re doing.’

The band was level now, a mixture
of young men and more mature NCOs, all made tall by their feather bonnets.
Tartan kilts swung around bare knees, light reflected on bright buttons and
buckles. Irene watched, wondering if Mary, Queen of Scots had stood in this
very spot watching a similar spectacle hundreds of years ago. It all seemed
very archaic in this world of computers and advanced electronics, but there was
still something fascinating about these sights and sounds. She touched the
glittering Luckenbooth brooch that Patrick had pinned on her coat.

‘For luck,’ he had said.

‘If you wish,’ she had replied,
but her smile had been hollow and she had to turn away to hide her hurt anger.
As soon as the Honours were secure, she would tell him exactly where to go. The
thought gave her a thrill of pleasure amidst her anxiety.

‘Now?’ Desmond poised his finger.

‘Not yet!’ Irene snatched at his
hand. ‘I’ll say when.’

The band marched past, drums
tapping, and the crowd buzzed. Cameras clicked busily. The policewoman guided
an elderly man across the street, his feet shuffling slowly. Irene smiled as
the urgent sound of police sirens sounded in the distance. That was the first
part of her plan in operation.
Bryan
had
withdrawn to the depths of the close, from where he was making a number of
telephone calls to divert the police to different sites around the city. A
child began to cry.

‘Here’s the next lot!’

There was the sound of horses,
hooves ringing on granite setts that had been re-laid to enhance the appeal of
the street. With their breastplates gleaming and horsehair plumes jigging, a
score of cavalry walked slowly between the tenements. The crowd were cheering,
but Irene noticed that at least one rider had difficulty controlling his mount,
and a sergeant eased beside him with less-than-gentle words of advice.

Irene’s cell phone rang. She
jumped, berating herself for not turning the damned thing off. She tried to
ignore the sound, concentrating on the time, but the ringing was insistent and
an elderly woman in front turned round.

‘I think that’s your mobile,
dear,’ she said helpfully.

‘Thank you,’ Irene bit back her
temper. She put the phone to her ear.

‘Amanda?’ Drew sounded concerned.
‘I’ve just heard that there might be trouble at the procession today. Best
avoid it.’

‘What?’ Irene nearly bit her
tongue with agitation. She was very aware of Desmond beside her, his hands
twitching. She pushed the phone closer to her mouth and bowed away from the
crowd. ‘What sort of trouble? What have you heard?’ She looked around, expecting
to see armed police descending upon her, or black-hooded SAS men abseiling down
from the rooftops. Sweet Lord, was there some way out of this?

‘I can’t say. Just be careful. All
right?’

‘Yes, yes,’ Irene could feel the
increased beating of her heart. ‘I’m waiting for the parade now. What sort of
trouble? What should I watch for?’

‘Now! It must be time.’ Desmond
was glaring at her.

‘Not yet!’ Irene reached over just
too late to prevent him from pressing the red button on his transmitter.

‘Not yet? What do you mean?’

But Irene had no time to answer Drew’s
question as the loud bang of an explosion echoed down the Royal Mile.

‘You’re too early! It’s not here
yet!’ She reached for the transmitter, but Desmond stepped back as the crowd
surged toward the barrier, eager to see what this new spectacle could be.
Desmond jabbed his thumb on the button a second time and another explosion
sounded. The noise seemed to cascade upon them, deeper than the sudden roar of
the crowd, so loud that it vibrated from the ancient buildings and rattled the
windows of the shop fronts.