‘Then don’t,’ he challenged. ‘If you and Vanessa can get something agreed right away, you can take him home tonight and she can pick him up from school tomorrow.’
She frowned. ‘Do you think we could?’
‘I’ll drive to Glasgow; you talk to her on the phone. If you can sort something out, we can pick up Jakey once we’ve seen the lawyer woman and dealt with whatever that throws up.’
‘The in-laws won’t like it. Arnold will yell about his appointment at the Academy.’
‘Let him. What are they going to do? Refuse to hand the child over to his mother?’ He grinned. ‘If they tried that, we might have to get the polis.’
‘Mmm. I don’t like the idea of Jakey being caught in the middle, Dan.’
‘He is in the middle. We . . . you have to get him out of there. You cannae give in to these people, Lottie, otherwise they will take the laddie off you.’ He held out his hand. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Gimme the car keys, and you get on the phone.’
Thirteen
The Blacksmith proved easy to find. Skinner had programmed it into his satnav, but even as the helpful voice told him to bear left at the next exit, he saw it, isolated on the crest of a hill.
Half a dozen small bungalow-style units were arranged around the main hotel building, given extra privacy by several screens of trees. A larger plantation stood to the west of the complex, sheltering it from the prevailing wind that blew strongly across the surrounding moorland.
The car park seemed full, but as he approached, a car pulled out, leaving a space in the second row. ‘Sunday,’ he murmured as he parked. ‘Lunch. Of course.’
As if to confirm his conclusion, he spotted four AA rosettes displayed proudly beneath the anvil logo on the signage above the main entrance. He strode into the reception area, to be greeted by a wave of noise from a large room to his left, a constant restaurant buzz given a hard edge by the strident voices of the inevitable few who believed that volume guaranteed attention.
‘I’m afraid we’re not seating anyone else for lunch, sir.’
Skinner glanced to his left at the speaker, a tall young man in a dark suit. He reminded him instantly of the star of a TV drama he had seen a few days before, but his lapel badge announced him as ‘Matthew Quayle, Manager’. ‘That will not ruin my day,’ he replied. ‘However good the food is, I value my hearing more. I’m looking for one of your hotel guests, Ms Letts, an American lady.’
‘I’m not sure that Ms Letts is seeing anyone, sir,’ Matthew Quayle said. ‘She’s had a terrible shock. As indeed have we all,’ he added. ‘Our owner has just passed away.’
Skinner nodded. ‘I know. That’s why I’m here.’ He showed his plastic ID badge to the manager, watching as the man studied it, taking in his puzzlement.
‘Security Service? Would that be private security?’
‘Most people call us MI5.’
Confusion and panic were woven together in Quayle’s expression. ‘In that case . . .’ he murmured. ‘Can you wait here, sir? I believe Ms Letts and her daughter are in their bungalow. If you’ll let me . . .’
‘Sure,’ Skinner agreed, ‘you check, but I’ll come with you.’
Deciding not to argue the point, the manager led the way out of the main hotel building, turning right, away from the car park, and heading for a group of bungalows that stood side by side on the most secluded part of the plot. He stopped at the second and pressed a buzzer on what appeared to be a video entry system. He spoke too quietly for his companion to hear clearly, but the word ‘police’ did float back to him. Eventually there was a click, and the door opened.
‘I told her you were a cop,’ Quayle said quietly. ‘Less complicated that way. Will I come in with you?’
‘Thank you, no, but I may want to speak with you again, so stick around, please.’
He stepped inside the bungalow, and came face to face with one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. She wore no make-up, and her thick black hair was restrained by a headband, but her skin seemed to shimmer like bronze, and her brown eyes were wide open and mesmerising as she gazed at him. She wore a white shirt and close-cut black shorts, which emphasised the slimness of her long legs, even though her feet were encased in a pair of loud red rubber Crocs. Everything about her seemed perfect, and then she spoke.
‘You’re a police officer?’ Her voice was her only imperfection; it was high and nasal, and tremulous.
‘Of sorts.’ He flashed his badge once more, but she barely looked at it. ‘I’m looking at Leo’s death from a specific angle.’
‘What are they saying?’ she twanged. ‘Gino just called. They’re sayin’ it’s suspicious? What the goddam does that mean?’
‘It means he didn’t die naturally. That’s the official line, but he was murdered, Ms Letts. There’s little or no doubt about that.’
‘Murdered,’ she repeated. ‘You sayin’ someone killed my Leo?’
‘That’s how it looks.’
The brown eyes were glazed with tears. She put her hands to her face. ‘Jesus,’ she mumbled. ‘It’s bad enough I’ve gotta tell my baby her daddy’s dead, but this . . .’
‘How old is your daughter, Ms Letts?’ Skinner asked.
‘Two,’ she replied, wiping her eyes with the back of her left hand. ‘Won’t be three till August.’
‘In that case, she’s not going to understand death, and you don’t need to introduce her to the concept, not yet. Tell her she’s not going to see her daddy for a while, let her get used to the idea of him not coming back. My daughter was four when her mother died; she didn’t get it straight away. That was a long time ago now. She told me she was eight or nine before she really accepted it.’
‘How’s she grown up, without a momma?’
‘Pretty damn well.’ He paused. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, and my apologies if I am, but you and Leo didn’t actually live together, not full-time, did you?’
She shook her head. ‘No.’ She sighed, and her shoulders sagged. ‘Come on through, Mr . . . er . . . What you say your name is?’
‘I didn’t, but it’s Skinner, Bob Skinner.’
‘Then come into the living room, sir. Raeleen’s napping, and if we stay here talkin’ we gonna wake her, and I don’t want that.’
She led him into an apartment that was a smaller version of the area where Leo Speight had died, and through to the conservatory area. He was certain that the same architect had worked on both projects.
‘You like a drink?’ she asked.
He declined. ‘Thanks, but I’m driving.’
‘Yeah, but you’re a cop.’
‘All the more reason to take care. There are cops all over Scotland who’d love to bust me.’
‘How did you piss them off?’
‘That’s a long story. What about you and Leo?’
She frowned; a wrinkle appeared above her nose, the only line on her face, he realised. ‘That’s a short one. I could say that we lived together when he was in Vegas. He bought us a house on the lake when I got pregnant . . .’ She paused, as her mind went off on a slight tangent. ‘Hell, I don’t know how we can stay there now he’s gone. Gonna have to move back into the city and get out my dancing shoes. He said he’d always look after us, but he didn’t plan on bein’ dead.’
‘Wait and see,’ Skinner said. ‘He sounds like a man of his word, from what I’ve heard. You said “He bought us the house”. Us being you and your daughter?’
‘Yeah. It’s in my name; so is my car. Leo had a condo, an apartment, when we first got together.’
‘How did you meet?’
‘I was a backing singer in a show at Caesar’s; Leo was training for a marquee fight in the Grand, and one of the big wheels from the pay-TV company brought him along. Afterwards he brought him backstage, and we were introduced. It went from there. I knew there was som
eone in Scotland; he was open about that, and about the fact that he had kids there. Anyone else, I’d probably have told him to get lost, but I guessed that nobody would ever get a hundred per cent of Leo, so I decided to settle for my share. I moved into his apartment after six months, when he came back to train for his next fight, and lived there after he left. A year later, I got pregnant with Raeleen. He said our kid wasn’t growing up in no apartment block; next thing I knew, he’d bought the house. You ever been to Vegas, Mr Skinner?’
He smiled. ‘My wife’s American. She made me go, before our first child was born. I’ve seen the lake, too; flew over it in a chopper on the way to the Grand Canyon. I imagine it’s all changed since then.’
‘It’s always changing, and it always will. That’s what Leo liked about it.’
‘I get the impression that you two were really close.’
‘We were, and I loved him. He loved Raeleen, and he said he loved our quiet time together . . . but never once did he tell me he loved me. I didn’t expect that we’d be as we were forever. The last few months, I sensed a change was coming.’
‘Did that upset you?’
The brown eyes widened very slightly. ‘As in did it upset me enough to make me want to kill him, Mr Policeman? No, it didn’t, because I always knew how things were. I know damn well that if he had told me he loved me, it would only have been because he knew I’d like to hear it. That wouldn’t have been honest, and Leo was the most honest man I ever met. The business he was in, Jeez, there is some shadiness there, but he was above all that. There’s a woman wants him to write his life story. Leo said to me, “She might not like what she got; a hell of a lot of people wouldn’t like it and some of them are dangerous individuals.” I don’t care what Gino thought; Leo wouldn’t have taken that book deal, whatever the money on offer. He told me he wasn’t ready, and that’s it.’
‘I want to ask you about the party on Friday,’ Skinner continued. ‘I don’t imagine that you knew many of the people there.’
‘Maybe more than you’d think,’ Rae Letts countered. ‘Gino I knew, sure. And the fight guys: Bryce Stoddart, the promoter; Gene Alderney, the matchmaker. I met all of them in Las Vegas. They’ve all been to the house. The only guy I knew who wasn’t there was Charlie Baxter, the property guy; he visited when Leo was training for the Fonsecco fight to get him to sign off on a property deal in the Bahamas. And Leo’s other kids, of course; I knew the kids.’
‘Leonard and Jolene?’ Skinner exclaimed, surprised.
‘Yes. Leo brought them over for Raeleen’s birthday party. It was their school vacation. Gordon, too, the grown-up one; he came as well.’
‘What about Faye?’
‘The little ones’ mother? No, I never met her before Friday night.’
‘How did you get on?’
‘Not well, with her bein’ an abusive racist bitch. Imagine, her kids have Leo’s blood in them and she’s racist. But I can rise above that; what really annoys me about the woman is the fact that she calls herself Mrs Speight, when she isn’t, never was and never would have been. This settlement she was hassling Leo about; damn thing was never necessary. I dunno why she hired that lawyer man, can’t figure that out. Leo would always have looked after her. It’s not as if he left her. He never lived with her full-time, no more than he did with me.’
‘How did Leo feel about the legal action?’ he asked.
‘Amused. Yeah, that covers it. Leo didn’t get angry. He wasn’t stressed about it. He had his own lawyer, QC he called her, whatever the hell that stands for, and she said they were going straight to the top court, because Faye’s guy didn’t stand a chance. The only thing that Leo said, and he laughed, was that no way was he paying for her such-and-such lawyer, and that if his cost didn’t leave Faye with too much, that was her lookout. The plan was that he was going to settle a ton of money on the kids, but not a hell of a lot on Faye.’
‘Did she mention any of this to you?’
‘Hell, no.’ She smiled for a second. ‘She and I didn’t compare notes, sir.’
‘There was a man there named—’
Skinner stopped in mid sentence as a door creaked ajar and a child toddled into the room, a tiny version of her mother. She was rubbing sleep out of her eyes. ‘Mamma,’ she cried. ‘Hungry.’
‘Okay, honey,’ her mother exclaimed, gathering her up in her arms. ‘Come ’n, I’ll fix you something up. What you like? Got bananas here, and mango, and raspberries. How about I put them in the blender and we’ll all have some?’
The toddler beamed and nodded. Skinner stood silent and watched as Rae peeled two mangoes and carved them off their stones, chopped bananas, and washed raspberries in a fine-mesh sieve, then put them all in a mixer, with most of a large carton of Greek yoghurt, before turning it on at full power and leaving it to run for a full minute as she dropped four slices of bread into a toaster.
When all was ready and the toast spread with syrup, he accepted a serving dutifully. The smoothie was perfect; mentally he noted the ingredients.
‘Sorry about that interruption,’ Rae murmured as they ate, ‘but when this one wants fed, you best take care of it before all H E double L breaks loose.’
‘I know,’ he assured her. ‘I have three daughters; there’s thirty years between the oldest and the youngest. What you say is true, and it doesn’t change with age.’
She stared at him. ‘Sir, I am impressed. You must have led an interesting life.’
He nodded. ‘I have. Just as well I didn’t get home more often.’
‘You were gonna ax me about a man,’ she said, pouring coffee into two mugs.
‘Yes, I was. His name is Aldo Mosca; he was a guest, but nobody seems to know a hell of a lot about him.’
She shook her head. ‘No, not Aldo Mosca; that was what Leo called him on the guest list he showed me. His proper name is Aldorino Moscardinetto, and he was very touchy about anyone cutting it short, other than Leo. He’s Italian. He visited in Vegas a little while back. I spent some time with him on Friday. He was, like, quizzin’ me about Vegas and the people who hang out there, the fight people, the MMA crew.’
‘Was it idle interest?’ Skinner asked. ‘Was he just making small talk? Chatting you up, as we say in Scotland?’
She laughed softly, a much gentler sound than her voice. ‘I’m the wrong gender for him, Mr Skinner. He didn’t say as much, but he’s gay, I could tell. No, he was serious, a really intense little guy. He has piercing little eyes behind those big glasses that he wears. He was really interested; he even said he might call on me again in Vegas when he was there.’
‘How did he get on the invitation list?’
‘Leo put him there. I asked him why, but he didn’t tell me much. He just winked at me and said, “Mischief”, whatever the hell that meant.’
Fourteen
‘When I was in Australia,’ Dan Provan mused, ‘a couple of my daughter’s pals tried to sympathise with me about the hard times in Britain, wi’ all this Brexit shite. They really think we’re on our uppers, on the slippery slope to Third World status.’ He smiled. ‘I had to say to them, yes, things have been better, and we’re no’ a hundred per cent sure how it’s going tae go when we do leave. But if it’s that bad, how come our pubs and restaurants have so many young Aussies in them working as bar staff?’
He gazed down Buchanan Street as they stepped out of the Galleries shopping mall, down at the throng of Sunday shoppers listening to the mingling sounds of half a dozen and more street entertainers. ‘Glasgow Sunday afternoon,’ he said. ‘There was hardly a space in the car park; now look at this. If we’re keepin’ poverty at bay, we’re bloody good at it.’
He glanced to his left, at Lottie. ‘Are you going to phone the in-laws tae tell them we’ll be picking up Jakey?’
‘No,’ she replied. ‘I’m not inclined to have a stand-up shouting match in public.
I’ve just sent Nana Mann – that’s what she makes him call her, Nana bloody Mann – a text saying I’ll be there at six and to have him ready.’
‘I’ll enjoy that.’ His smile gleamed.
‘No, you won’t,’ she told him firmly. ‘Sorry, Dan, but I’m going on my own. You’d be like a red rag to them.’
‘Hey,’ he protested. ‘I’ve missed the wee guy.’
‘Then miss him for a couple more days. It’s got to be that way. Arnold would go off at you, and you’re not one to stand there and take it.’
‘What if they won’t hand him over?’
Her eyebrows came together. ‘It won’t come to that. I know that Scott’s on home leave all weekend. Arnold won’t want a fuss with him there.’
‘Today as well? You’re bloody joking! What’s the bloody jail coming to these days?’
‘That’s the way it is; he’s nearly at the end of his custodial sentence. Suppose they said I wasn’t having Jakey, I called for uniform support, and it got messy. No, they wouldn’t want their precious son in the middle of that. There will be clenched teeth and muttered imprecations, but my boy will go home with his mother.’ She trotted down the last three steps. ‘Come on now, let’s find this woman.’
The office of Herbert Chesters, Solicitors, was as discreet as the service it provided to its high-net-worth clients. It occupied part of the second storey of a sandstone building that gazed across George Square – which is actually rectangular, a truth unobserved by most of its denizens – at the opulent City Chambers, a memorial to the Victorian era, when Glasgow was the second city of both Scotland and the British Empire. The detectives noted that an orderly queue stretched from its entrance to the furthest corner of the Square and round into Cochrane Street.
Joy Herbert was waiting for them in the outer office of her firm’s suite. Provan had been expecting a thirty-something woman in a power suit. Instead he found himself facing a lady in her early sixties in a loose-fitting long-sleeved floral dress, bespectacled, her hair dyed a shade that was somewhere between red and auburn. ‘Decent weather,’ she observed as she greeted them. ‘It’s brought the crowds out.’
A Brush With Death Page 10