She saw me, and her face froze.
‘Alison,’ I began. That was all she let me get out.
‘Good afternoon, sir,’ she replied, evenly, then strode on. Grant offered a brief ‘Hello’ but was more or less pulled along in her wake.
Mia didn’t seem to notice the exchange. ‘You haven’t told me where you live,’ she said as we stepped outside into the square.
I pulled myself together. ‘East Lothian,’ I replied. ‘Gullane.’
‘Lucky you,’ she exclaimed, then winced. ‘God, I shouldn’t say that to you, of all people. What I meant was, it’s lovely out there.’
I slid an arm around her shoulders and squeezed, lightly. She was quite tall, even in heels that were no more than a couple of inches high. ‘Mia, you don’t have to treat me like I’m an emotional cripple. It is lovely out there, and choosing to live there is one of the smartest things I ever did.’ I let her go as we reached the pedestrian crossing in Lothian Road, and waited for the green man.
‘Sorry about the transport,’ I said, as I unlocked the Land Rover. I pointed to a sticker that Alex had put on the rear window; it read, ‘My other car is a BMW.’ ‘That’s true,’ I told her.
She peered at the radio as I drove off, heading up Johnston Terrace rather than for the Grassmarket, even though that would have been quicker. I didn’t want to take her past the mortuary, where her brother was still in a cooler. She wouldn’t have known, but I would. She played with the controls until she found Airburst FM. It wasn’t one of my presets. ‘They want me to do a Sunday morning show through the summer,’ she murmured. ‘Ten o’clock to one. We get thumped by Radio One on Sundays, and they want to change that.’
‘I know of at least one listener you’d have,’ I said. ‘How do you feel about that?’
‘For the money I’m on, I feel that five days is plenty, thank you very much.’
‘Can they make you?’ I asked.
‘Under the terms of my contract, they can, but I don’t think they’ll push it. It can be terminated by a month’s notice on either side, and I’ve already been approached by Radio Forth. If they really want it, we’ll negotiate. I’ve got a pay review coming up in a month. If they double my salary, I’ll do the Sunday slot.’
‘Do you have an agent?’
‘I don’t need one, not at this stage of my career. Why pay someone twenty per cent when I know what I’m worth already?’
Beauty, body, brains, I thought. And I felt myself getting hard.
That made me wonder about Alison. I’d have to apologise to her, I knew, but for what? No commitment, she’d said, even more firmly than I had, so why the frost? To hell with it, let DI Higgins stew for a while. Good afternoon, sir, indeed!
We were on the A1, almost at the Tranent junction, when my phone sounded again. I pulled on to the verge to answer, activating my warning flashers. Fred Leggat was excited. ‘We’ve matched that plate,’ he announced. ‘The missing letter is a C; that makes it a Newcastle-on-Tyne number. The van’s red in colour and it’s registered to a man called James Pearson, of South Shields.’
‘Excellent! Fred, standard practice, get a stop-on-sight request out to all traffic cars. We want to be talking to this man as soon as we can, but first, let’s find out about him. Run an NCIS check, and have a word with our colleagues on Tyneside. Who is he and why would he be interested in our territory?’
‘I’ll get that under way,’ Leggat promised. ‘How do you want to play it afterwards?’
‘Ask our friends, very politely, to lift him, and impound his van. If they’re well disposed towards us, they’ll bring them both up to Edinburgh. If they’re not, or they’re tight for manpower, we’ll meet them at the border and take them off their hands.’
‘Very good. Do you want to be involved?’
‘Every step of the way, once we’ve got him in our hands.’
‘Even if it’s tomorrow?’
‘Even if.’ I pocketed the mobile and rejoined the traffic.
‘How do you manage?’ Mia asked.
‘Manage what?’
‘Life. Don’t you ever have any time to yourself?’
‘Not really,’ I admitted, ‘not in the job I do.’
‘Drugs Squad, it said on the card you gave me.’
‘Not any more. I’m Serious Crimes Unit, now.’
‘But you don’t work alone.’
‘No,’ I conceded. ‘I have a team, but I’m two days into the job and I’m still sizing people up.’
‘So our Marlon’s murder is a serious crime.’
‘All murders are, Mia. But his becomes of interest to my unit because of the job he did.’
‘Driving for my mother’s fancy man?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Is he a killer, this man?’
‘Not personally, no more than the Governor of Texas.’
She twisted round in her seat and gazed at me. ‘What do you mean by that?’ she asked.
I considered my reply. ‘Well, when George Bush Junior,’ I began, ‘signs off on the execution of some unlucky bastard on his death row list, he doesn’t go along to Huntsville and give the injection himself, but it happens as surely as if he did. It’s the same with Tony Manson, and people like him. They give the word and somebody dies. The man your Uncle Billy shot, Perry Holmes, he was the same as Manson.’
‘Why did Billy shoot him? I was a journo in Aberdeen then. I wasn’t party to the details, and my dad didn’t discuss it.’
Shit! I thought. Why did I mention Holmes? She doesn’t know anything about it.
‘You don’t want to go there, honey.’
‘I think we’re beyond that option, Bob, aren’t we?’
We were. If I clammed up, she’d find out. ‘We believe that it was Holmes who had Gavin and Ryan killed. He had them executed; they’d been freelancing drugs, and to him that was a capital offence. Billy hadn’t been involved, but we understand he made him watch what happened to them.’
‘And Billy executed him in his turn?’
‘It didn’t work out that way, not quite. He killed his brother, but Perry survived. He’s a basket case, though, and out of that life. Now please, let’s not talk about it any more. These are the people I have to work amongst. I’m nearly home now, and I don’t allow that part of my life in there.’
She reached out and squeezed my hand. ‘Poor love. I’m sorry.’ At that moment, we were passing the bend where Myra died.
The mood had changed by the time we passed the quarry corner and the Gullane skyline, beyond the golf courses, came into sight. ‘Oh!’ Mia exclaimed. ‘That’s beautiful.’
‘That’s what most people say the first time they see it. I remember I did. We had to put ourselves in hock to live here, but not doing so wasn’t an option.’
‘I’ve been here before,’ she confessed. ‘When I was about eight. Gavin brought Mum and us out here one day. I remember, he left us all on the beach and came back for us after a couple of hours. It was about this time of year, ’cos it was quiet. I wanted to go in the sea, but we didn’t have swimsuits or anything, not even towels. I made such a fuss, though, that eventually Mum told me to go in the nuddy if I was that keen. So I did, then ran up and down the hard sand till I was dry. Gavin did his nut when he came back and saw me. I remember him screaming at Mum that she was letting me make an exhibition of myself, even though there was hardly anybody else there but old couples walking dogs.’
‘I could hazard a guess about why he got humpty. He was probably out this way on business, and didn’t want attention drawn to himself in any way.’
‘You don’t have drugs in Gullane, do you?’ she exclaimed.
I frowned. ‘My ego isn’t so big that I’d assume there are none just because I live here. But I do keep my eyes and ears open. If anyone was pushing hard drugs I’d know about it, and I’d come down on them so hard that folk would talk about it for years afterwards. There was one clown a few years ago, along in North Berwick, selling pills t
o kids out of the back of his car. A concerned parent told me about it, and he’s still inside.’
Instead of going straight home I cruised past Daisy’s place and blasted the horn. A few seconds later, Alex appeared in the doorway, Tesco bags in both hands. I waved to Daisy, then reached behind me to open a back door. I wish I’d taken a photograph, for the expression on her face, as she saw that the front passenger seat was occupied, should have been preserved for posterity. It was a mix of curiosity and concern. I could read her mind; no women for eight years and now two in two days. Was her old man having a mid-life crisis?
‘Hi, kid,’ I said, as if it was just the two of us. ‘Had a good day?’
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘Tesco was heaving, though.’ Her eyes were fixed on mine in the rear-view. Her reaction puzzled me until I worked out the obvious, that Mia was a radio star and relatively new on the scene, so there was no reason why she should recognise her.
‘This is Miss Watson,’ I told her, deadpan. ‘She’s come to visit us. Miss Watson, this is my daughter Alex.’
Mia reached back and they shook hands. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ Alex said, but I wasn’t convinced. She liked Alison. I began to wonder if I’d made a big error of judgement.
I was still unsure when we arrived home. I pulled the tank alongside the BMW. ‘The window sticker does not lie,’ I pointed out. Our guest smiled, but said nothing. I guessed that she might have been spooked too by my daughter’s reaction, so I put an end to the game.
‘Alex,’ I said, ‘Miss Watson has a first name, and I don’t think she’d mind you using it. She’s called Mia.’
She stared at me and dropped the bags, then looked at Mia and back to me. ‘Mia Sparkles?’ she exclaimed.
‘You got it in one. I told her all about you and she wanted to meet you. She doesn’t get too many chances to meet her listeners.’
‘Why didn’t you say so from the start?’ she scolded me. ‘Instead of playing childish bloody games!’
Maybe I should have told her to mind her language, but mine wasn’t always perfect around her, so all I did was wink and say a very meek, ‘Sorry.’
I unlocked the front door and ushered Mia inside. I didn’t think that the cottage was anything special, but it seemed to appeal to her. I’ve never thought of myself as a romantic, but it struck me that the feeling was mutual. With her in it, my comfortable but well-worn living room seemed to be enhanced. Or had it become again what it once was, was that it? Or was it all my imagination?
‘I’m going to put the kettle on,’ I announced. ‘Alex, show Mia around the house. I’ll be in the garden when you’re done, with tea on a tray… if that’s all right with you ladies.’
‘Fine by me,’ Mia responded. She fished the envelope out of her bag and presented it. Her fan’s eyes lit up again.
They were talking, animatedly, when they rejoined me, ten minutes later. By that time I’d dug the garden chairs out of the shed, their first airing of the year, and made a pot of Darjeeling and Earl Grey blend… to me, tea is tea, but Alex liked that mix.
‘What do you like most about the station?’ I heard her new friend ask, as I passed round the mugs.
‘I only listen to you,’ she replied with the candour that she’s never learned to tone down. ‘You play the music I like, you talk about interesting things and you don’t treat me like a kid.’
‘Interesting things?’ I butted in. ‘Such as?’
She frowned at me. ‘Things I can’t talk to you about. Clothes, because you’re all stuffy and conservative when we go shopping. Movie stars, because you think they’re all a bunch of useless tossers. Women’s things, because you’re my dad and it makes you uncomfortable.’
She was right, on every count. ‘You talk about all those things?’ I asked Mia.
‘Of course.’
‘Including…’
She smiled, and her eyes seemed to engulf me again. ‘Including that. Bob, my audience are predominantly young women; that’s what our research shows. Young women have periods. They’re an inevitable part of life, so why shouldn’t I talk about them on radio? Puberty’s easy for you guys; your voices squeak for a bit and that’s it. One day you’re Macaulay Culkin and the next you’re Tom Cruise.’
‘I’m much too tall to be Tom Cruise,’ I complained.
‘Okay, Russell Crowe, if you prefer.’
‘Who the hell is Russell Crowe?’
She laughed. ‘Wait and see. But take my point; no problem for boys, once it’s done it’s done. But for girls it’s still a taboo subject with most people… even some girls themselves, because that’s the attitude they inherit from their mothers, or in this case from Dad.’
I didn’t have a counter-argument. Daisy had seen Alex through the onset of puberty and I had left them to get on with it. I’d never even bought her Tampax while doing the supermarket shopping. Thinking back, it hadn’t been a topic of conversation between Myra and me either.
‘I’m not blaming you,’ Mia added, ‘or saying you’re failing as a dad. It’s the way a girl’s life is. As a result, it’s a valid topic, so I air it.’
‘What about your boy listeners?’
‘It’s got to be good for them too,’ she argued. ‘If you talk about issues in a matter-of-fact way, it takes any silliness out of them.’
It had been dawning on me all afternoon, and finally I was convinced. Mia Watson was like very few women I’d ever met. There was a depth to her, a seriousness, that was contagious, even across the airwaves, given the empathy between her and my daughter. ‘Your father must have been a hell of a man,’ I remarked, quietly. She looked at me, suddenly self-conscious.
My mobile sounded. ‘Bugger!’ I swore, and dug it out as I pushed myself from my chair, and walked to the far end of the garden.
It was Fred Leggat. ‘Progress?’ I asked him.
‘Ever have one of those days when you can’t believe your luck?’ he replied, question for question.
I looked back towards the table. ‘I think I’m having one.’
‘So did I,’ the DI sighed, ‘until about fifteen minutes ago. NCIS came up with nothing at all on Mr James Pearson of South Shields, but the Newcastle police did. He’s dead. He was a plumber, he developed mesothelioma, from exposure to asbestos, and it killed him, last year, aged fifty-four. His widow sent his van to auction. It was sold, but the change of ownership hasn’t been registered yet. I’ve asked them to find the manager of the auction yard to get the details of the buyer, but they’re not hopeful of tracing him before Monday.’
‘How hard are they trying?’
‘As hard as they can, Bob. They know this is a murder inquiry. We’ll probably have to sit on it until Monday.’
I was frustrated but I knew that he was right. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘You’d better stand down. See you on Monday.’
Mia read my mood as I returned. ‘Problems?’
‘Delay,’ I replied. ‘We’re trying to trace the owner of a Transit van; I thought we had him, but now we don’t.’
‘Has he gone into hiding?’
‘In the arms of the Almighty. So he’s not part of it; the van still is, though.’
I didn’t elaborate, not with Alex there; she’d been in at the start of the investigation, but I didn’t plan to take her with me all the way through it. Instead I sat down again and listened to them talk about radio, about Mia’s daily routine, and about which music stars had visited the station and which ones were expected. ‘I’m having a new band as guests on Wednesday,’ she said. ‘They call themselves the Spice Girls. There are five of them and their first single’s due out next month. Their management sent me a couple of demo copies, on condition that I don’t play it on air any sooner than a week before the release date. It’s amazing; you’ll love them. Would you like the spare copy? I’ve got them both at home; if I left them lying around the studio they’d be nicked.’
‘Yes please!’ Alex squealed, childlike again.
I wasn’t aware that it had clo
uded over until I saw goosebumps forming on Mia’s arms. I looked at my watch and saw that it was just after five thirty. She saw me. ‘I must go,’ she said. ‘What time are the buses?’
‘You’re not taking the bus,’ I declared. I didn’t want her to go at all.
‘I am,’ she insisted. ‘I didn’t come out here meaning to let you run me back home. I’m a big girl; I know how to get on and off a bus.’
‘Train would be better,’ my pragmatic daughter pointed out. ‘There’s one from Drem at ten past six.’
‘That’ll do then.’
I was tempted to ask her to stay and eat with us. We always went out on Saturdays, usually somewhere within walking distance, so that I could have a glass of wine, or two, or three. That evening we were booked into the Roseberry and I knew that they’d have fitted in a third, but I didn’t want to push it with her. I drove her to the station, with Alex in the back seat.
‘It’s been a lovely afternoon,’ Mia said, as we saw the approaching train in the distance.
‘Would you like to do it again?’ I asked. ‘Maybe just the two of us,’ I suggested, ‘to give you a break from the interrogation?’
‘What about your girlfriend?’
I thought about the doorway of the Sheraton. ‘I’m not sure she is any more. In any event, the accent’s always been on the friend part of it.’
‘So you tell yourself, I’m sure,’ she murmured. ‘Tell you what, call me at the studio on Monday, when we’ve both had time to think about it. Unless you’re too busy, that is.’
‘I’ll do that,’ I promised.
Alex was silent, all the way home, and for a while after that. I switched on the TV and caught up with the news. The weekend offered a break from stories of parliamentary sleaze, but the news bulletins were dominated by a disaster on Mount Everest, where storms had killed up to eleven climbers, while the main sports headline was Manchester United’s victory over Liverpool in the FA Cup final, thanks to a late goal by Eric the Red. I’d forgotten that the game had been on telly, live.
My preoccupation wasn’t lost on my daughter. ‘You like Mia, Dad, don’t you?’ she ventured, finally.
Grievous Angel bs-21 Page 12