Assassins

  They shook hands in the car park. Hilary patted her briefcase that held the scroll.

  ‘I’ll keep it safe,’ she promised. ‘This is truly remarkable. I hope you use your powers wisely.’

  Watching her drive away, the scroll now in safe hands, he hoped, Gavin was able to relax… a little.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Holyrood.

  The bugs that Cruid had his agents plant in the smoke detectors and in the phone in the apartment had proved useful. He scowled when he learned that Gavin was to meet up with Kelvin Boyd. He immediately ordered two of his agents to follow the King and find out whet he was up to and then report back to him. His mood wasn’t improved when he heard they lost sight of the King on Cowgate. This wasn’t the only event to darken his day. When his agents played him the conversation that one of them recorded while sitting a few tables from the King’s he felt his blood run cold. He had never heard of this scroll. Scarily he now knew of its potency. It would have to be destroyed of course. Cruid couldn’t understand why the Solicitor General the moment he realised what it was, didn’t bring it straight to him. He could then have made certain that it was destroyed. Now the cat was really among the pigeons. This was really bad news. He listened to listen to the recorded conversation twice and at no time did either of them mention who had the scroll or where it was. Did Boyd have it? He heard the newsman tell the King that Gough had handed it to him but there was no mention of what Boyd then did with it. The only thing Cruid heard Boyd say was he that he wanted nothing more to do with it. Did he pass the scroll over to the King? His agents when he questioned them said they didn’t see anything change hands. His agents did at least get one thing right. They arrested Boyd who was now locked up in a police cell on trumped up charges of intent to supply “Class A” drugs.

  Boyd’s bosses at the TV station, as soon as they were given the news that their top newsreader had been arrested and may face drugs charges, did a deal with the police. Boyd was offered the choice, he could stay here and hope to convince a jury that the cops had planted the drugs on him, or he could go to Syria and cover the war over there. But, he had to fly out today. He flew out the same day.

  Cruid was physical shaken by what he heard. He was in trouble… so too was Mary Dewar. Cruid was thinking that Gavin, the King of melodrama, was certain to let this go to his head. It didn’t bear thinking about what he might do with these powers! Two things he needed to do: first of all, he would go and break the news to Mary who would go ballistic. He couldn’t help that. Secondly: they needed to find and destroy the scroll before it went into the public domain. Shit!

  On the telephone, at his insistence, sounding like he was about to have a heart attack, Mary agreed to cancel her eleven o’ clock video conference call to the European Commissioner and see Cruid and the SG in her office.

  Before taking news of the scroll to the First Minister, Cruid wanted to have a talk with the Solicitor General who was the cause of all this. Simon Cruickshank should have had the bloody thing destroyed. Now he can have the job of explaining to Dewar why he didn’t.

  Cruid watched Cruickshank’s face drain of colour when he played him the recording of the discussion in the Deacon Brodie.

  ‘When were you planning on telling me about the scroll?’ Cruid raged.

  ‘I… I … I wasn’t going to tell anyone. I was thinking, all the while that it remained a secret I didn’t see the need to cause alarm.’

  ‘Cause alarm!’ Cruid snapped. ‘One of your team finds a scroll that could put the lot of us out of work, dismantle Scottish democracy, and put unfettered power in the hands of a megalomaniac, idiot, and all you could think of was you didn’t want to alarm people!’

  ‘Cruid, Gough tricked me,’ Cruickshank pleaded. ‘I was convinced that he had burned it. What he destroyed looked identical to the one he found. How could he be so stupid as to hand it over to the media? What was he thinking? The man had signed the Official Secrets Act. Leave this with me. I will see to it that he is prosecuted. I will make sure that he goes to prison.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid man,’ Cruid snapped. ‘You will do no such thing. We don’t want knowledge of the scroll to get out. If we can find it and destroy it before others find out about it we may just save our necks, although I rather suspect yours is already on the chopping block.’

  The little colour left in the SG’s pallid face fell away like water gurgling down a plughole.

  ‘We need to find Gough and have him silenced but only after we get out of him what he did with the scroll.’ Cruid said.

  ‘I’ve been trying to call him on his mobile and on his home phone,’ Cruickshank bleated. ‘He never showed up for work this morning. I even called round to his flat but he wasn’t there. He appears to have gone missing.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Holyrood Palace.

  Before faced Mary Dewar to explain his part in the debacle over the missing scroll, Cruid thought it might be worth tackling Brewson to see if he was stupid enough to tell him where it was. On the way over to Gavin’s Palace apartment, Cruid wasn’t holding out much hope of the King being in any way compliant, not after he had confronted him and Mary over their plan to trick him into signing the bill to end the need for Royal Assent.

  After ringing the doorbell to the King’s apartment five times, Cruid let himself in using the key that he wasn’t supposed to have. Going from room to room he checked the smoke alarms that he had bugged shortly after the Brewson’s moved in. They looked fine, no sign of any disturbance. Coming out of the dining room he was confronted by the King who glared at him.

  ‘How’d you get in here Cruid? You must have a key. Give it here.’ Gavin waggled his outstretched hand.

  ‘I had this key Sire,’ Cruid said, not fussed about losing this key, ‘because ultimately, I am responsible for your wellbeing and your safety. I was merely checking on the housekeeping, making sure that the cleaners are doing their job.’

  ‘Really?’ Gavin said bluntly, ‘two things: One I don’t believe you, and secondly, I don’t appreciate you or anyone else invading our privacy. Have I made myself clear?’

  ‘Abundantly.’ Said Cruid, a rare blush forming on his velum-skin face.

  ‘So, explain why I find you skulking about in my apartment Cruid?’

  ‘Sire, I hate to remind you but I thought that we’d agreed if you went out, anywhere at all, you would be driven there, and you would always have an escort.’

  ‘That was your idea Cruid. I don’t recall me agreeing to it. I will not be kept like a caged rabbit.’

  ‘But you are the King Sire.’

  ‘I am not your King Cruid and I am not Mary Dewar’s King. I am the King of the people.’ Gavin hadn’t intended that to sound so pious. It was just the way the words came out. Good job Fi, hadn’t heard him.

  It was like the two of them were playing a cat and mouse game.

  Gavin began probing Cruid, trying to find out what he knew about Boyd’s disappearance and if he had known about the scroll, while Cruid was quizzing Gavin to see if he knew where Gough was hiding out, and did he know the whereabouts of the Charter.

  Finally Gavin had had enough. Facing the Minister he made his position clear.

  ‘Let me tell you how I see things Cruid,’ Gavin said squaring up to the man who even with his stooped back and his drooping neck stood a good six inches taller than he. ‘You turn up, late at night on my doorstep in Marbury with a proposition. You say to me, would I like to become King of Scotland… yeah? Let me finish… You said that I could be the leader of a proud nation. And stupidly, I believed you. What you hadn’t told me was the only reason you needed a king was to sign off a single bill that would end your reliance on the need for Royal Assent. All the while that was in place you were stuffed. The British Government had you over a barrel after you went ahead with UDI. Be truthful for once Cruid and stop treating me like I am an idiot.’

  Cruid shrugged. His brilliant plan was all starting to unravel. As much as
the thought scared him he was going to have to take this to Mary to sort out. She was after all, if you didn’t count King Robert, Scotland’s head of state. He then decided this was Cruickshank’s cock up. He can tell her. First off he needed to get out of the King’s apartment.

  ‘Your Majesty, might I be excused? I am due to address parliament in fifteen minutes.’ He lied.

  Slamming the front door on the retreating Minister, Gavin was left with his frustrations and a very confused picture of what was going on.

  Gavin felt certain Cruid had known about him and Boyd meeting up. In which case he must have had him followed. Then, if that were true, did it matter? Not really, not unless, by some means of trickery he had somehow managed to overhear what they had spoken about. Thinking back to the brief exchange of words with Cruid was there anything the Minister had said… done, that hinted he had known about the scroll and more importantly, the King’s Charter? Gavin was getting angry again… and worried now, for Boyd. Why had he left so suddenly?

  Gavin went into the lounge and flopped down on the sofa. He dug his mobile phone out of his pocket and speed-dialled his wife.

  ‘Hi Gav.’

  Fiona sounding cheerful worried him.

  ‘Fi, is Penny with you?’

  ‘Yes. Did you want to speak to her? She is in the fitting room trying on some clothes.’

  Gavin now worried about listening devices hesitated. He took the phone from his ear and studied it. Faintly he could hear Fiona yelling down her phone. ‘Gav you still there?’

  Gavin was thinking, he did know! Cruid must have their apartment bugged. He looked about him. Where would he have put a bug? He looked up. There, that smoke detector. There was one in each room.

  ‘Gav?’ Fiona sounded worried. ‘You there?’

  He inspected the casing of his mobile phone looking for any indication that it had been tampered with and saw nothing untoward.

  ‘I’m here honey,’ Gavin said trying to sound normal for the benefit of anyone listening in. ‘Sorry I lost you for a second.’

  ‘I could hear you breathing hard Gav, you sure you’re ok?’

  ‘I’m fine. Never better. I just wanted to chat with you about that thing we talked about earlier.’ He was hoping that Fiona picked up the need for secrecy. ‘Did you ask Penny?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘What we spoke about?’

  Hesitation. ‘Oh that. Yeah, She’s absolutely fine with it. So is her friend.’

  What Fiona was telling him, as if they shared the same brain, like many married couples do, was Penny and Henry were both on their side. Good. He was going to need them both for his next plan of action.

  ‘Oh, that’s great,’ Gavin said cheerfully. ‘Ask Penny if we can meet up in Henry’s apartment, say around five ‘ish?’

  Cagily Fiona replied. ‘Ok, Gav, ‘I will arrange something. See you soon. Love you.’

  ‘Love you too.’ Gavin ended the call and then as if it were toxic, he dropped the phone down on the sofa.

  The very next thing he did was to pull up a table beneath the smoke detector in the lounge. He climbed up and unclipped the cover and there it was, a tiny receiver tucked inside a gap in the wiring. He knew that it had to be a bug because it wasn’t connected in any way to the circuitry of the smoke alarm. He removed it and dropped it in his pocket.

  Moving the table from room to room he removed eight bugs. He couldn’t be certain there were no others. He would need a bug sweeper, like the one that James Bond had to find anymore. Going into the bathroom he dropped the bugs into the washbasin filled with water and then watched with interest as they made a fizzing sound and then went quiet. Cruid would soon know that Gavin had found his listening devices. That no longer mattered. The gloves were off now.

  Chapter Twenty

  Holyrood apartment.

  Gavin, Henry, Penny, Fiona, and Iris met up in the Houseman’s basement office. In case it was bugged, Gavin had left his mobile phone back in their apartment. He planned to get a new one. And being extra cautious, should his clothes be bugged, he had changed his clothes, his shoe too. They were drinking coffee when Gavin asked Henry.

  ‘These empty rooms down here Henry, could I turn them into offices?’

  Henry shrugged. ‘Yeah sure, that’s not a problem. They haven’t been used in years. Offices, you say, what sort of offices?’

  Gavin explained. ‘I want to bring in my own team of lawyers and legal secretaries and perhaps one or two specialists in Scottish law. I am planning on a programme of legislation.’ Gavin smiled at the looks of confusion on their faces.

  Gavin then told them about the trick that Dewar and Cruid had tried to pull on him. He told them about his meeting with Kelvin Boyd. He then explained about the scroll and the Rights Of Kings Charter that gave him supreme powers to rule over Scotland. He told them how Hilary Chambers had excitedly called him up to tell him that the scroll was absolutely genuine. He went on to say how this changed things. He saw a different future for Scotland. One in which he could use these powers to benefit the ordinary people of Scotland. He stressed that such a venture carried risks and that the powerful people might employ any means to stop him. When Gavin offered each of them the option to walk away from this risky venture they each in turn expressed great excitement. So, it came about that, Fiona, Henry Pyke, Penny Braithwaite and his mother agreed to join him in this quest.

  Fiona patted his knee. ‘I am proud of you Gav.’

  Iris said. ‘Gavin, you must do whatever you think is best. Your father never ran away from anything,’ Iris had quite forgotten that Gavin’s father the minute he found out that she was carrying his child ran for the hills. ‘Your Father would have stayed. He’d have sorted these people out.’

  There was no dissent… no hesitation… no question they were up for the fight.

  Putting their heads together they formulated a plan.

  Meanwhile over at the Parliament Building, Cruid, with a reluctant Cruickshank in tow, without knocking, crashed through the door of Mary Dewar’s office.

  From behind her desk Mary studied the look of miserable fear on both their faces. Evidently something had happened.

  Addressing Cruid she said. ‘Whatever it is Cruid doesn’t excuse you from knocking on my door.

  ‘Sorry First Minister,’ Cruid said wringing his hat in his hands. ‘This is a matter of great urgency.’

  ‘I will be the judge of that, ‘ Mary said coldly. ‘Anyway, what is this all about?’

  Cruid went back and shut the door that Cruickshank hadn’t bothered to close. With his crumpled fedora he indicated one of the guest chairs.

  ‘May I?’

  Dewar shut down her laptop and then sat back.

  ‘I was hoping this wasn’t going to take more than thirty seconds Cruid.’

  As if they were naughty schoolchildren been sent to the Head teacher’s office, both men seated by side, faced Dewar’s desk. Cruid cleared his throat.

  ‘Ahem, this concerns the King,’ Cruid began. He flinched when Mary slammed the palms of her hands down on her desk.

  ‘I knew it… I knew it, the minute the two of you walked through that door I knew that bloody King was making trouble for me. What’s he done now?’

  ‘If I may be permitted to continue Mary?’

  ‘Get on with it Cruid. I hate the way that you pussyfoot around.’

  Never a fan of the monarchy, her venomous dislike of Gavin Brewson had become undiluted hatred. ‘What’s that nasty little man been complaining about now?’ She sneered. ‘Is his bed not soft enough, are the nasty Scot’s putting salt in his porridge? I’d like to poison his bloody porridge. And if I didn’t need him to sign that bloody Royal Assent bill I might already have done so.’

  ‘You don’t mean that Mary.’ Cruid said not entirely convinced that she wasn’t capable of murder.

  Mary was eyeing up the SG. She didn’t entirely trust him so she had to be careful what she said. ‘Don’t worry, he wont be around too long now.
I have a marvellous plan that will force him to sign that bill and then abdicate. He has to go before he causes me any more trouble.’

  Cruid looked round at the SG to give him a nod as if to say get on with it. Cruid saw his face had gone white. It was clear Cruickshank wasn’t going to mention the bloody scroll. He was going to have to do it.

  ‘You know what sticks in my throat?’ Mary said like she had a bad taste in her mouth. ‘It’s a pity the English hadn’t the guts to do what the French did back in the seventeen hundreds, lop off the heads of all their aristocracy.’ Mary sighed. ‘So, go on then, tell me, what’s this great urgency about?’

  Cruid started hesitantly, the words that he had rehearsed on his way over here were now jumbled up inside his head. ‘Let me start at the beginning…’

  ‘Just get on with it Cruid, ‘Mary said, sighing. ‘Spare me for God’s sake the, “once upon a time,”‘ crap.’

  Ignoring the interruption, Cruid continued. ‘Recently the King has been complaining about the very small role that we have allocated him. He has been saying that he wanted to have more involvement in the governance of Scotland. He feels that he should be doing more to help his subjects.’

  Mary’s mouth went ovoid. Her eyes widened.

  ‘And he actually used the word, subjects? My God! This really has gone to his head Cruid. Didn’t I warn you it would?’

  ‘If I may be allowed to get to the point Mary…’