he said. 'That's not going to happen. I've been thinking about it too, don't worry. This day was always going to come, one way or another; Beppe's gone and you're gone. Paula and I are in control of the businesses now, and that's how it's going to stay. It's Papa's wil , and you can't fight that.'
'But won't it conflict with your duties as policeman?'
'It's unlikely, but if it did, there's a way around it. I have a lawyer, someone I know and trust. On Thursday, I had her look at the trust provisions; they allow for me to appoint her, or someone else suitable, as my proxy, to exercise al my powers on my behalf. If I'm advised that it's necessary, I may well do that, but first. . . we're going to find the bugger who made my Aunt Sophia a widow.'
36
'Of al the fatally stupid things I have seen, sir,' said the sheriff's marine patrol lieutenant, 'they don't come any more stupid than that... or any more fatal. Lighting a charcoal barbecue in the middle of a crowded marina, with al that fuel around . . .'
Dwayne Traylor shook his head and looked at Skinner. 'So far, in addition to Mr Wylie's cruiser, we've lost four other boats, and had serious damage to three others. There are no dead .. . other than the guy himself, and he's as dead as you can get. . . but one lady has gone to the emergency room with burns to her arms and face, and with most of her
hair frazzled.'
The young man glanced into the treatment bay, behind the yacht club's reception area. Joe Doherty lay on a long leather-topped table; a doctor was leaning over him, putting stitches into a long gash on his cheekbone. 'How's your buddy?' he asked.
'Okay, I hope,' the Scot answered. 'He was out for three or four minutes after the explosion. I told him he should go to hospital; he told me I should go to hell.' He glanced at the officer. 'Did you call Sheriff Dekker?'
'As instructed, sir. He was on the tennis court, but when I gave him your names and told him what had happened, he said to give him ten minutes to shower and he'd be on his way.' Traylor frowned. 'He called you Deputy Chief Skinner, sir. From where, exactly, may I ask?'
'Edinburgh.'
'As in Edinborough, Scotland?'
'More or less.'
'Deputy Chief of what?'
'Well, I'm not a fucking visiting fireman, however you put it here,'
Skinner snapped, irritably. He stopped, then apologised. 'I'm sorry, son.
No need to bite your head off. I'm a policeman; deputy chief constable.'
'And your buddy, Mr Doherty there; is he Scottish too?'
'Son of a bitch!' came a shout, from the treatment table.
'Does that answer your question?'
146
Lieutenant Traylor grinned. 'I guess so.'
'Tell me,' the Scot asked, 'do you have many incidents involving moored boats?'
'Not like this one, sir, I'm happy to say. Last Thanksgiving I arrested a guy who was drunk and launching fireworks from his boat in a marina complex a little further down the lakeside. He told me they were distress flares. They may have been, but I stil charged him with public disorder and breach of half-a-dozen county ordinances, and took him into custody, for his own safety, and everyone else's.
'That was an exception, though; most boat-owners are responsible people. They have to be. They're indulging in a very expensive hobby.
Apart from the capital cost of these cruisers, the berths in places like this are expensive, and marine insurance doesn't come cheap.'
'So what Jackson Wylie did was exceptional too?'
Traylor hesitated. 'Cooking on deck on an open fire, rather than in an enclosed galley, is stupid, sir, like I said, but truth be told, it's common enough behaviour.'
'Have you seen many accidents like this one?'
'A couple of smal fires, maybe, but nothing on this scale. Do you know if there's a Mrs Wylie?'
'I don't believe so. I heard she died a few years back.'
'Children?'
'None that I know of.'
'In that case, the executors, whoever they are, had better pray that the insurance company takes a sympathetic view, otherwise the other boat owners, and especially that lady with the frazzled hair, will sue the ass off the estate. If that happens, Mr Wylie better leave a hell of a lot of money to pay off al the claims.'
The lieutenant was looking over Skinner's shoulder as he spoke, towards the door to the marina reception. Suddenly he stood, and came to attention. 'Good afternoon, Sheriff,' he exclaimed.
'Afternoon, Dwayne,' said Bradford Dekker, barely glancing at him.
Instead he looked anxiously at the big Scot. 'Bob, how are you? How's Mr Doherty?'
For a second Skinner's inbuilt cynicism came to the surface, and he wondered whether the sheriff's concern was for his friend or for the potential fall-out from the FBI if its deputy director had been injured seriously in a sloppily managed facility in his territory.
'I'm fine,' he answered. 'Joe's got a hole in his head, but they're stitching it up right now.'
'What happened? Traylor gave me the outline, but. ..'
'There wasn't much more than an outline, Brad. We were walking towards Wylie's boat when it went up like a fucking candle.'
'There wasn't any warning?'
The DCC shook his head. 'Not that I can remember. Al I saw was the fireball.' He frowned as the recollection of his dizzy spell came back to him. For a second he thought he was about to have a recurrence, but the feeling passed. 'I can't really swear to anything.'
The neither,' said Joe Doherty, from the doorway to the treatment room. 'I remember turning to talk to Bob, then coming round in here.
Was there anyone else on Wylie's boat?'
Traylor sucked in his breath. 'We have no reason to think that there was, sir. None of the other owners saw anyone else. However, we won't be able to say for sure until we've been over what's left of the Hispaniola.'
'You mean it's still afloat?'
'Just and no more. They have pretty good fire-fighting equipment here, and the local volunteer crew responded quickly. They got the fire under control before she burned down to the waterline.'
Doherty raised his eyebrows as he looked at Skinner, wincing as the gesture tugged at the fresh stitches along the side of his head. 'That's a break, eh, Bob?'
'Maybe, but if it is, it'll only be a small one .. . and none at all for Jackson Wylie.'
'What. . .' The young lieutenant looked at them, puzzled.
'Tell your technical people to stand down. Sheriff,' said Doherty to Dekker. 'I'm bringing my best team up from Quantico to go over that wreck.'
'You think there's a connection to Mr Grace?' exclaimed the police chief.
'God preserve my country from elected public officials,' Skinner bellowed. 'Of course there is, Brad. They were partners in the same law firm, they're both bloody dead, and neither from natural causes!'
148
37
His cousin's house was a bit like the lady herself; all designer chic and soft furnishings on the bits that showed, but rock-solid underneath ... or so Mario McGuire had thought until that moment.
The Paula Viareggio who sat in the passenger seat as he drew up outside the converted warehouse just off Great Junction Street was someone he had not seen since they were children, after her pet rabbit had been eaten by the cat next door.
She was sobbing quietly into the handkerchief that he had given her not long after he had driven away from Murrayfield, leaving Nana to comfort her daughter-in-law, and her daughter.
'We're here,' he said, gently; not knowing what else to do, he reached across and patted her on the shoulder. 'Come on; I'l see you inside.'
'Okay,' she mumbled, through the handkerchief, and then waited . . . Un-Paula-like again, he thought...
as he walked round the car to open
her door.
She took his arm as they walked towards the building. Normal y he would have driven into the courtyard, but it was Saturday, and he had guessed, correctly as it happened, that the car park would be ful and t
hat maneuvering would have been difficult.
As they turned in off the street, two figures were waiting, both young men, one of them holding a camera, the other what looked like a smal tape recorder. They turned to look at them, and as they did McGuire heard the reporter exclaim, 'That's her.'
Before the photographer could fire off a single frame, the big detective stepped slightly in front of his cousin. 'Don't do that, mate,' he warned.
The man moved to his right, hunting for Paula with his lens, but he was too slow. Mario's hand shot out, grabbed the camera and ripped it from his grasp.
'Hey, gimme that! You can't do that!'
'I just did. Now stop shouting or I'l give it back to you piece by piece.'
'Want me to get the police?'
'He is the police,' said the reporter quietly. Close to, he looked a few years older than the photographer, as if he had left his thirtieth birthday behind him on the road. As he turned back to the couple, the evening sunlight seemed to glint on his designer jacket. 'You're Chief Inspector McGuire, aren't you? I'm Christian Sanderson, of the Sunday Mail. I'd like to talk to Miss Viareggio about her father's murder. We've just come from Mr Pringle's press conference at Fettes. Are you involved in the investigation, Chief Inspector?'
'That's Detective Superintendent, Mr Sanderson,' Mario told him. As he looked at him he could see the front page of the fol owing day's Sunday tabloid, but he knew that if he held back the truth and Sanderson found out, the headline would be that much bigger. 'And the answer's no; I'm not part of the CID team. This is a family matter; Beppe Viareggio was my uncle.'
He heard the reporter's gasp above the sound of a van roaring past on the street outside. 'Mr Pringle and Mr Jay never told us that.'
'Why should they? I'm as entitled to privacy as the rest of the family.'
'Aye, but now it's known, can I talk to you about it?'
'No!' McGuire bellowed. 'Don't be daft. I might be family, but I am stil a copper, and I couldn't tel you anything about my col eagues'
enquiries, suppose I knew anything.'
'It's been suggested that this was a contract kil ing,' said the journalist. 'Is that right? Was Mr Viareggio involved with the Mafia?'
'You. . .' He heard his cousin, standing beside him now, begin to explode, but he squeezed her arm hard enough to silence her outburst.
'What bright spark suggested that?' he asked.
'My news desk had a phone call half-an-hour ago. A guy rang in and told us that it was.'
'And did he leave his name and number?'
Many a journalist would have looked sheepish at that question, McGuire knew, but Sanderson kept a straight face. 'No. It was anonymous.'
'Surprise, surprise.' The big detective laughed, but only for a second.
'Right,' he said, abruptly. 'I wil give you a statement, but it's not from the police, it's from the victim's family, represented by my cousin and by me as the Viareggio trustees. My uncle was an honest, upright, wel respected businessman, as was his father before him. Anyone who suggests otherwise in the press or elsewhere, will find themselves dealing with our solicitors.
'You give that to your news desk, word for word.' He looked Sanderson 150
in the eye. 'Now the policeman's back; this is private property and my cousin is asking you to go.'
'Fair enough,' said the journalist. 'But what about my col eague's camera?'
'Sure, here you are.' He held out the Nikon to the photographer, pressing the shutter button as he did so and hearing the whirr of the motor drive as the rest of the film inside was exposed. 'By the way,' he cal ed after the two men as they left, 'don't approach any other members of my family. You've been fairly reasonable so far, but you don't want to piss me off
'Thanks,' Paula whispered as he took her key and opened the door to the building. 'I don't know what I'd have done if I'd come in on my own.'
Mario grinned. 'Probably the same as you did to that copper on the door last night. It would have made a great photograph.'
'Bloody vultures,' she muttered.
'Nah,' he countered. 'Just guys doing a job.'
'What? Acting on an anonymous phone cal ?'
'No, just checking it out. The police get anonymous tip-offs all the time. Do you think we don't follow them up just because the caller doesn't leave his name? To tell you the truth, cousin,' he said, 'the thing that worries me about the call to the Mail is that it was bloody close to the mark. Your father's murder did look like a professional job.' They stopped at the elevator and he pressed the call button; the doors slid open at once. 'I think I'l come up with you; there are a couple of calls I should make.'
Paula's flat was on the top floor, not unlike her parents' in that the living space was open plan. Mario had never been inside in the two years she had lived there; he looked around, taking in the fabrics wound round the pillars, the tasteful modern paintings on the walls, and the expensive lighting which hung from the high ceiling.
'The sauna business must be good,' he chuckled.
She bristled at once. 'Not bad, thank you very much. God, you sounded just like my dad, there.'
'Never in my life have I sounded like your dad, rest his soul.'
'Wel , stop going on about it, then. I saw a chance to get a wee business for myself, and I took it. What's wrong with that?'
'In principle, nothing; it's the "wee business" you chose to get into that I don't like. You know what these places are, Paula; they're knocking shops.'
'They're all licensed by the city council,' she protested.
'Which turns a blind eye to what goes on in them because it gets the girls off the streets. Tell me this. Do you pay the girls who work there, or do they pay you?'
'They don't pay me a penny, and they get decent wages! The punters pay for their saunas, cash or credit card. What happens between them and the attendants is their business, but I do not take a cut.' She stepped up to him, her dark eyes flashing, with real anger. 'I'll tell you what I do, though; I insist that they use condoms and I make them have monthly blood tests . . . not just for the clap, but for drug use. If someone's working just to feed a habit, she won't get through the door.
If someone's working to feed her kids, she's welcome.'
'That's very moral, cousin, very moral,' he flared back, his gaze as fiery as hers. 'You're a madam with a heart of gold! But what about the guys whose kids go short because they spend their dough getting blown on your massage tables? What about them, eh?'
'Would you rather have them prowling the streets looking for it?
Better they pay for it, otherwise even some of those kids you're talking about might not be safe.'
'You . . .' He stopped himself short, as a vision of his wife filled his mind; until then he had been at pains to keep it at bay, but in the heat of the argument it managed to sneak under his defences.
Paula turned away from him. 'Let's cal a truce, Mario. Just make your phone cal s, then you can go.'
'Fine,' he agreed, 'but tell me this. Did Uncle Beppe know about those places?'
She paused. 'I never told him,' she answered. 'You only know because you're a clever bastard copper. But my mum doesn't know, nor does Nana.'
Mario smiled at her. 'The latter goes without saying. I'll tell you this too; if she ever finds out she'l boil you down for soup.'
'That's your hold on me.' She grinned back; her olive skin had a weary, yellowish tinge. 'Who've you going to phone anyway?'
He walked over to a big soft armchair, sat down, and picked up the mock-fifties telephone that lay on a table beside it. 'Listen in.'
He made two calls. The first was to Greg Jay, to advise him of the anonymous tip-off to the Sunday Mail. The second was to John Hunter, a trusted veteran freelance journalist, to whom he repeated the statement that he had given to Christian Sanderson. 'There,' he said as he put the big black handset back in its cradle. 'John'l put the word around. If that bastard's cal ed any other papers, he won't go unanswered.'
152
> miAU anui
She stood in front of him, laying her hands flat on his broad chest, running them up under the lapels of his blazer. Raising herself slightly on her toes, she kissed him, quickly, on the lips, then again, longer, then a third time, drawn out, her tongue flicking his teeth.
At last he gripped her by the elbows and held her away from him.
'Hey,' he whispered, 'what was that for?'
'It was for not being such a bad guy after al .'
'Don't tell anyone else, though.'
'I promise. Would you take me to bed, please, cousin?'
'We've been over this before ... and I was single then.'
'We have indeed,' she murmured, pressing her body against him. 'And I wasn't as drunk as you either. You do owe me one, you know. There is absolutely nothing worse for a girl's morale than when a guy fucks her and can't remember it next morning .. . unless it's when they're in bed together and he doesn't fuck her at all.'
'So which was it then?' he asked, eventual y. It was a question he had put off asking for years.
'Actual y. . .' She gave a deep throaty chuckle. 'Truth be told . . .' She looked up at him with laughter in her eyes. 'It was more a case of me fucking you, big boy ... or as I remember, very big boy.' She slid her right hand down, searching for him: he did nothing to stop her. 'Oh yes,'
she hissed. 'That's the fella, all right.'
She gave him a quick squeeze then slid her arms around his waist.
'Come on. Find out what you snorted and mumbled your way through last time. Who was Bridget, by the way?'
He frowned. 'She was the barmaid in my local. Why?'
'That's what you kept calling me.'
She took his hand in hers and turned, pul ing him towards a door off the big pil ared room. He stepped into her bedroom, but then tugged her back towards him. 'Don't play games, Paula. Al right, we gave each other one when we were youngsters, and I'm sorry I wasn't more up for it. . .'
Her laugh cut across him. 'What do you mean? Even in your sleep, you were as up for it as you could get.'
'Maybe so, but it isn't going to happen again, and you know it. Listen, it's been a hellish twenty-four hours, I know. Why don't you just have a big drink and get some sleep?'
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