The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
I never imagined you as a petrolhead, sir. They say you don’t even own a car
I t was a good deal later that Mclean waved off a taxi filled with inebriated constables and scene-of-crime experts.
Big Andy had left earlier, headed home to his wife and young child, leaving just Grumpy Bob to walk Mclean home, and judging by the state of him, sleep in the spare room.
It wouldn’t be the first time, and it wasn’t as if Mrs Bob was waiting up for him either; she’d walked out many years since.
“She’s a nice girl, that Emma, don’t you think?” “Don’t you think you’re a bit old to go getting hitched again, Bob?” Mclean expected the playful punch to the shoulder, and wasn’t disappointed. “No’ for me, you loon. I’m talking about you.” “I know you are, Bob, and yes, she’s nice. Odd taste in music, but that’s only a minor point. D’you know anything about her?”
“Only that she transferred in a few months back. She’s frae Aberdeen.” Grumpy Bob rolled out his terrible Aberdonian accent again.
“Yeah, you said that already.”
“Not much else to know. The SOC crowd think well enough of her, so she must be good at her job. And it’s nice to have a pretty face around the place instead of the usual bunch of sourpusses.”
Blessing
They fell silent for a while, walking up the street in step, like a grizzled old sergeant and his not-so-young constable pounding the night beat.
The air was cool, the sky overhead dark with a hint of orange; you could never see the stars anymore, too much light pollution. Without warning, Grumpy Bob stopped in mid-stride.
“I heard about your gran, Tony. I’m sorry. She was a great woman.”
“Thanks, Bob. You know, I find it hard to believe she’s really gone. I feel I should be wearing black and tearing my hair.
“Perhaps wailing and gnashing of teeth might be in there somewhere too. But it’s odd. I feel more relieved than sad. She was in a coma so long.”
“You’re right. It’s a blessing really.” They resumed walking, rounding the corner into Mclean’s street.
“I saw her solicitor today. She left me everything, you know. It’s quite a tidy sum.”
“Christ, Tony, you’re no’ going to leave the force are you?”
The thought hadn’t occurred to him until that moment, but Mclean took all of five seconds to answer. “God no, Bob. What would I do? And besides, if I left, who’d cover for you while you were reading the paper all day?”
They reached the front door to the tenement block and Mclean noticed the same strategically placed stone defeating the lock.
“You all right for getting home, Bob, or d’you want the spare bed?”
“Nah, I’ll have a bit of a walk, get some air. Who knows I might even be sober by the time I get home.” “OK then. Sleep well.”
Grumpy Bob waved without turning as he walked away down the street. Mclean wondered how far he’d get before he decided to flag down a taxi.
Featureless
Penstemmin Security Systems occupied a large area of reclaimed land down on the edge of the Forth between Leith and Trinity.
The building itself was a featureless modern warehouse. It could have been a DIY store or a call centre, although those weren’t usually surrounded by razor-wire fences, motion sensors and more CCTV cameras than the average prison.
The walls were painted in battleship grey, and a strip of darkened glass ran around the whole building, just under the eaves of the wide, shallow roof. In the near corner it extended down to the ground, and a small entrance foyer.
Constable Macbride parked the pool car in the only space marked “Visitors”. The white Vauxhall Vectra looked very much out of place alongside the shiny BMW and Mercedes four-by-fours.
The director, Mclean noticed, could afford to come to work in a brand new Ferrari.
“Looks like we’re in the wrong business.” He followed the constable across the car park, enjoying the cool morning breeze coming in off the Firth.
Macbride’s face was pale, his eyes hooded after the previous night’s celebratory excess. No doubt the tequila slammers he’d been matching with PC Kydd had robbed him of a few million of his functioning brain cells.
He looked bemused at first, then finally noticed the collection of expensive machinery.
“I never imagined you as a petrolhead, sir. They say you don’t even own a car.”
Mclean ignored the desire to investigate just who “they” were. There were worse things to have said behind one’s back.
“I don’t, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know anything about them.” Having already checked in at the gate to the whole fenced-off complex, they had to confirm their identities through an intercom and CCTV system before they could enter the building.
They were met, finally, by a smartly dressed young woman with aggressively short hair and a pair of heavy-framed rectangular spectacles so narrow she must have seen the world as if peering through a letterbox.
“Detective Constable Macbride?” She held out her hand to Mclean.
“Er, no. I’m Detective Inspector Mclean. This is my colleague, DC Macbride.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Courtney Rayne.”
Hands were shaken and then the young woman led them through a series of security doors and into the heart of the building.
It was a vast cavern of a place, open up to a ceiling supported by a spider-web trellis of beams high overhead.
Monitoring
Industrial-strength air-conditioning units pumped frigid air into the huge space, sending a shiver down Mclean’s spine.
The room was divided into small squares by office partitioning boards. In each one, a dozen or more people sat at individual computer screens, telephone headsets strapped to their heads, talking to small microphones that hovered like picnic wasps in front of their lips.
The noise was a loud hubbub, punctuated by occasional bursts of action as a team leader bustled over to one workstation or another.
“Our centre monitors over 20,000 alarm systems throughout the central belt,” Ms Rayne said.
Mclean decided that she was definitely a “Ms”, even if she was married.
“I’d no idea Penstemmin was such a large organisation.”
“Oh, they’re not all Penstemmin systems. We run monitoring services for perhaps two dozen smaller companies.
“The pods on the far side of the hall are dedicated to Strathclyde police region, these two here are monitoring all alarm systems in Lothian and Borders.”
“Pods?”
“It’s what we call our teams, inspector. Each group is a pod. Don’t ask me why, I haven’t a clue.” More on Monday.