Read Online The Sea Detective by Mark Douglas-Home - Free Book Online

well. You know the score, David.’
    Ryan did. Recently the Justice Minister had announced an inquiry into the ‘structure and funding of the Scottish police’. It was being led by a judge and the usual collection of great-and-good. Should Scotland’s eight forces be merged to make a single national police force? Ryan would have phrased the inquiry’s remit differently: should the gravy train for Chief Constables and Assistant Chief Constables be brought crashing off the rails? Of course the ACC wanted to be at Ryan’s meeting with Reynolds. Any officer above the rank of Chief Superintendent jumped at the mention of the Justice Minister’s name nowadays. Every ACC in Scotland recited the same mantra, ‘It’s important to retain the proud local traditions of the separate forces.’ Blah, blah. It’s important to retain the proud local traditions of large salaries and pensions for pen pushing ACCs was more like it, Ryan sneered.
    But the wind was blowing and Ryan was happy to be blown with it. It was why he’d applied to the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency. Its portfolio of responsibilities already included organised crime, people trafficking and drugs. Ryan was positioning himself for promotion at its next inevitable expansion.
    As he walked back to his office Ryan’s mobile rang. ‘What is it?’ he said irritably. Jamieson answered, ‘Sorry to bother you sir.’
    ‘Well?’
    ‘Sir, we’ve identified the Dryas Octopetala in the minister’s garden.’
    ‘Which minister, Jamieson?’ McGill had visited at least eight.
    ‘The Environment Minister’s, sir.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘Well sir, the minister’s wife has asked if she can keep it.’
    ‘Did you tell her it was impossible; that it’s evidence in a criminal case?’
    ‘I tried sir. But she said nonsense.’
    ‘So where is the plant now?’
    ‘It’s still in the minister’s garden sir.’
    ‘Well dig it up, Jamieson.’
    ‘Yes sir …’ Jamieson let the ‘sir’ trail on as though she had something else to say.
    ‘Well?’
    ‘Well sir, the minister’s wife thought the Dryas Octopetala was very pretty and she wondered if she could purchase two more from Mr McGill. She’s got the perfect place for them in her rock garden.’
    ‘For God’s sake!’ Ryan ended the call.
     
    Ryan’s conversation at 6pm with Alasdair Gordon, the Environment Minister, didn’t improve his mood. It started badly – Gordon’s assistant put Ryan on speaker phone – and deteriorated thereafter. Ryan spent most of the call trying to interrupt a private conversation between the minister and his assistant. He told the minister about Cal McGill’s arrest and overnight detention which failed to draw any comment from either of his listeners. He reassured the minister that McGill wasn’t a thief or a terrorist ‘more of a beach-combing eco-nut really’. It was at that stage Ryan heard the assistant say something indecipherable after which the minister asked, ‘And you say you’ve charged him with vandalism to my fence?’
    Ryan heard the minister ‘shushing’ his assistant. ‘Yes, Mr Gordon. It’s a holding charge. We expect more serious charges to follow.’
    Then the assistant addressed a question to Ryan. ‘What about the perception of this, charges, a court case? Ok he shouldn’t have been there, but he was making a political statement, one that the minister is in agreement with. Isn’t there some other way?’
    Gordon’s grating voice added. ‘Couldn’t there be reparation for the fence – £10 or something – and that’s that?’
    Ryan forced himself to hold his temper.
    ‘There are others Mr Gordon, the Justice Minister for example.’
    ‘I understand the problem Detective Inspector. It’s just a sensitive area of politics that’s all.’
    Once more the assistant said something Ryan didn’t catch but Gordon said, ‘Good point, Richard. Detective Inspector my assistant was reminding me that I’ve been invited to go to the Arctic