‘Do that,’ Barry grumbled, still gazing out at the rain-drenched Scottish landscape and no doubt wishing it was the sun-drenched vineyards of La Mancha.
I walked to the door.
‘When is it?’ he asked.
‘When’s what?’
‘The party.’
‘Saturday afternoon. Halloween’
‘At least it will be a chance for you to see Tina.’
‘It would be if I was invited.’
‘Vera Reynolds going?’
‘It’s BYOB,’ I said. ‘Bring your own broomstick.’
‘Then I take it Vikki’s going too?’
‘She’s bringing Molly.’
‘How is the girl? She’s autistic, isn’t she? That business with Daisy . . . ’ by which he meant the brutal slaying of Molly’s mum-to-be, ‘does she even understand what happened?’
‘I think she understands a lot more than she lets on,’ I said. ‘And she’ll be wondering what’s going to happen to her now that Daisy’s gone.’ Being Molly’s mum was a dangerous business. Could the wee girl dare hope for a third time lucky?
Barry walked across the room to see me out. ‘Think carefully before you do anything rash,’ he said. ‘Vikki Stark is not someone who easily forgives and forgets. I should know. Remember, option two is still very much a goer. Don’t do anything to spoil your chances. Get on the wrong side of Miss Stark and your only contact with your daughter will be swapping Christmas cards.’
47
It was hardly worth going back to the office. I returned home and spent the early part of Friday afternoon plittering about, always in the back of my mind the nagging thought that I had things I should be doing. When Tina was with me there had been juice spills to wipe up, meals to make, games to play and skint knees needing kissed. Now she was gone, I had nothing to do. Had it been like this before? So much time on my hands.
I sat down at the kitchen table. My dad had left an unfinished crossword puzzle. One question left unanswered. He’d be expecting to come back to it. He was probably turning the clue over in his brain right now, trying to figure it out. Five across, five letters, HIJKLMNO, beginning with W ending in R. What kind of a clue was that? I should crumple the newspaper and toss it in the bucket. That would really annoy him. But not as much as it would if I solved the answer for him. I gave the clue a few minutes’ thought and gave up. I had my own puzzle to solve. Who killed Daisy Adams? I took up a pen and in the margin of the newspaper jotted down all the reasons I could think of why the woman would have been murdered. First up: revenge. Her ex-husband. The florist hadn’t seemed like the vindictive type to me. Not a man you’d want to mess with, true, but he’d seemed genuinely at peace with himself. Then again, a lot of murderers were easy-going. Some of them because they had murdered the one person in their life who really bugged them.
Alcohol. In my experience murders were usually arguments that escalated; more often than not, after drink had been taken. And yet the toxicology results on Daisy and the dead man’s body fluids were negative for ethanol. Rule out revenge and drink and what was left?
Money. Jake had thought it a robbery gone wrong. What did Daisy Adams have worth stealing if she was so skint she’d fallen behind in her payments for a second-hand car? Unless that was just another of my landlord’s lies. If money was the motive, someone must have benefited financially from the lady farmer’s death, but who? What had Daisy owned that was worth someone killing her? The farm that she’d bought both literally and metaphorically? It was nothing more than an old building, a few acres of scrubland and some geriatric livestock. The only actual money I could remotely connect her to was the wad of cash I’d received from the late Sir Stephen Pentecost’s right-hand man and which was now resting comfortably in my office safe. Daisy Adams had been in possession of Zander’s phone number. It was the only number on her phone and he’d been happy to hand over to me what turned out to be £25,000 in cash, no questions asked. Why? Who did he think I was? I remembered his words, ‘We weren’t supposed to meet.’ Why not? Whoever he thought I was, why weren’t we supposed to meet? If you hired a hit man did you need to meet the assassin? It could leave a trail and seriously complicate matters if you did, and there were other more secure ways of communicating than face-to-face. Like a mobile phone. Was it even Daisy’s phone I’d found?
I got up from the table, pushing the newspaper and unfinished crossword aside. Zander wasn’t the answer to my puzzle, but he was the best clue available. I had to find him.
I called Mar Hall. He wasn’t taking calls. No one from the House of Pentecost was. Dame Ursula and her entourage were packed and all set to check out in the morning. Before that they’d be celebrating the end of their fortnight-long fashion-shoot with a party at a nightclub in Glasgow. The club was called Diamond Dave’s. It was invitation only. I really needed to get in and there was only one man I knew who could open the door for me.
48
‘Robbie, it’s half past nine. I was working today and I’m just back from five-a-sides. I thought I’d have a quiet one.’
Which, translated, meant that he’d been blethering a lot of rubbish on his radio football phone-in for an hour or so, played a game of football with some of his pals, most of whom could hardly run the length of themselves unless it was last orders at the bar, and he was now wanting to crack open a few frosty ones and crash out in front of the telly.
I walked past him into the well-appointed Glasgow city centre apartment that his weekly sports punditry somehow managed to support. ‘A quiet one? It’s Friday night. What happened to my brother Malky the party animal?’
Invitation or not, Malky was welcome on any licensed premises in Glasgow. Well, perhaps not some in the east end that had shamrock motifs on the signage, but footballers were royalty in Glasgow, especially legends from the Old Firm and if anyone could blag our way into the Pentecost party it was my brother.
‘What happened was that I turned forty last month and much more recently someone gave me a dead leg.’ He rubbed a thigh. ‘I can hardly walk.’
‘You could hardly run, but it never stopped you being a footballer. Come on, Malky. This is really important. Do this and I’ll definitely owe you one.’
‘Has this got anything to do with your work?’
‘ . . . sort of.’
‘Then definitely no.’
‘Listen, it’s about that murder case. The one up past East Riggburn. I’m acting for Jake Turpie and you know what he’s like. He’s never going to believe my investigations have been stymied because you refused to go out partying on a Friday night.’
Malky grunted. ‘A murder in East Riggburn? Why bother? Even CSI Miami couldn’t solve that. There’s nobody up there with any dental records and their DNA’s bound to all be about the same.’
I gave him my best laugh. ‘Are you coming then?’
‘Robbie . . . ’
‘It’s going to be full of fashion models.’
‘ . . . Go on.’
‘It’s Ursula Pentecost’s party. It’s at somewhere called Diamond Dave’s. It’ll be swarming with girls dying to meet the great Malky Munro.’ Was my brother big-headed enough to believe that? Of course he was. He’d have been thinking the exact same thing before I’d even said it.
He left the room, returning in a remarkably short time wearing a black silk shirt, a sharp shiny-grey suit and too much cologne.
‘You going like that?’ he asked, looking me up and down.
‘What’s wrong with jeans and a T-shirt?’ I said. ‘It’s a timeless combination.’
He grabbed a trouser leg and pulled, almost toppling me over. ‘Is that blood?’
I wrenched my leg away and studied what looked to be a splash of red paint from one of Tina’s art sessions. ‘It’ll come off with a bit of a scrub.’
It didn’t.
Luckily I owned a suit for every day of the week. I’d brought it with me in the car just in case Malky didn’t approve of my preferred ensemble. I put i
t on over a borrowed white shirt, no tie. Malky still wasn’t happy, but I was going to have to do.
‘Leave this to me,’ he said when we pitched up outside the door of the nightclub to be met by two men in formal evening wear and heavy black coats, one at the mouth of the silver canopy leading off the pavement, the other standing further back at the front door.
‘Evening gents,’ said the nearer of the two, a Cockney.
‘Evening,’ Malky said. ‘Could you do me a favour?’
‘What’s that then?’
‘Nip inside and tell them they can start the party. I’ve arrived.’ Smiling, my brother stepped forward and immediately bumped into the flat of the bouncer’s outstretched hand.
‘Name?’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah,’ said the bouncer. ‘Really.’
Sensing there might be a problem, the other dinner-suit marched down to meet us. He stopped a few feet away and peered at my brother. Realisation dawned slowly. ‘Ho, look who it is. Malky?’ Glaswegian accent. ‘Malky Munro, how’s it going?’
‘Better late than never, eh?’ Malky said. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at me. ‘My agent. I was going to give it a miss, but he insisted I come along.’
‘Listen, Malky,’ said the Weegie bouncer. ‘Your name’s not on the door list. I woulda noticed.’
Malky laughed. ‘That’s all right, I can lend you a pen and you can write it in.’
The bouncer laughed too and then was serious. ‘If it was down to me I would, but security is rock solid the night. This place is full of super-totty and celebs.’
‘That thing work?’ Malky pointed at the Bluetooth headset in bouncer’s ear. ‘Give one of the Pentecosts a shout on it.’
‘You mean the one who ain’t dead?’ Cockney said. He gave Malky a shove. ‘Go on, beat it.’
A red sports car pulled up at the kerb and its doors opened to an accompaniment of bright flashes.
‘Where were the paparazzi when I arrived?’ Malky wanted to know.
‘Waiting for someone famous,’ the Cockney bouncer said, trying to usher us out from beneath the canopy towards the pavement. ‘Beat it. If your name’s not on the sheet, you’re out on the street.’
‘How long did it take you to think that up, Shakespeare?’ Malky sneered, standing his ground. ‘Bet you’ve been waiting all night to use that line on someone.’
Cockney growled.
‘Easy, easy,’ the Weegie bouncer intervened, ‘I’ll check with Mr Skene. If he says Mr Munro’s in, he’s in. Okay? We all happy with that?’
Cockney gave a reluctant shrug and took a step back, not lifting his malevolent gaze from Malky.
Mr Skene? That was Zander. I didn’t want him to know I was here. Not yet. I needed the element of surprise.
‘Malky!’
My brother and I turned around to come face-to-face with Joey Di Rollo – like my brother, another has-been footballer. Unlike my brother, a very rich has-been footballer. Joey’s career had spanned a good number of years and he’d been the subject of more transfers than an Airfix Spitfire. Malky’s professional career had been cut short by injury and he’d stayed with the same club the whole time. At the end of their respective playing days, both Joey and Malky had invested a lot of money in pubs and clubs, but while Joey had gone for bricks and mortar, Malky had been more interested in purchasing liquid stock. That was why Malky was out with his brother, while at Joey’s side, looking more gorgeous than ever, if that were possible, was my former chauffeur, balanced on a pair of high heels, her lithe body encapsulated in a flimsy garment that was no protection from a cold October night.
‘Who’s this?’ Joey asked, after he and Malky had shaken hands and slapped backs.
‘The man with no fashion sense is my brother,’ Malky said.
I put out a hand. None came in my direction.
‘Oh, is that right?’ Joey made a face like a fist and stepped right up to me. ‘This your brother, is it?’ We were about the same height. His forehead touched mine.
The cockney bouncer was straight in there. Hands like shovels pushed us apart.
‘Hold on,’ Malky said. ‘If this is about Robbie and your girlfriend, that was all a mistake. You know what Wee Gus is like. They don’t pay him to wash football kit because he’s got a degree in rocket-surgery.’
Grudgingly, and with the assistance of the Cockney bouncer, Joey backed off, still glaring at me.
‘I told you that, Joe,’ said the gorgeous one. In a flap of diaphanous material she flounced past the door staff and into the club unhindered. If you looked like she did, no one bothered to check if your name was on a list.
‘That’s you on a yellow card,’ I said to Joey. ‘Make a change from all those straight reds you collected.’
It wasn’t funny, it wasn’t meant to be, and it didn’t help matters a lot. Joey threw a punch that was intercepted by Cockney like a weak baseball pitch into a catcher’s mitt. Unfortunately, in doing so, the bouncer’s elbow caught Malky in the face. He doubled over and soon blood began trickling through the gaps in his fingers.
A flash of bright light.
‘Now the buggers want to take my photo,’ Malky muttered.
‘Get them inside,’ roared the Weegie, his SIA licence no doubt flashing before his eyes. He knew how this would look in the morning papers. Two famous ex-footballers battling it out on the very doorstep he’d been paid to guard.
Three seconds later Joey, Malky and I were being pushed up the steps and through the doors of Diamond Dave’s into an overly warm foyer with silver walls, a silver ceiling and some kind of silver-laminated flooring. It was like being inside a microwave oven. I was expecting the floor to revolve at any second.
The bouncers presented us to another dinner-suited man who was standing at a chrome lectern. He was older, slimmer, face bronzed and moisturised, less Marine Corps more Diplomatic Corps. He nodded to the grunts and they returned to their stations without a word.
I gave Malky my hanky. ‘I want to speak to whoever’s in charge,’ I said, before anyone else could say anything.
The man with the tan smiled a calming smile. Unlike Weegie and Cockney, he was there to handle not manhandle the punters. ‘Let’s all settle down, shall we?’ He took a look at Malky, hanky pressed against his nose. ‘Now, Sir, do you require medical treatment?’
Malky removed the hanky, dabbed it once or twice against his face to check that the blood was drying up and then shook his head.
‘Good. He turned to Joey Di Rollo. ‘I don’t think we need detain you further, Mr Di Rollo.’
‘Eh?’
‘You can join the party,’ the doorman clarified.
With a slap to Malky’s back and a sideways glower at me, the ex-footballer sauntered off in the direction of the thumping bass line of a techno track.
‘Now then Mr . . . ’
‘Munro, Malky Munro.’
‘Mr Munro, let me show you to a room where you can freshen up,’ the doorman said, and he led us down a side corridor into a small dressing room. A large mirror faced us, LED lights around its perimeter and a shelf crowded by bottles of lotion and bags of cotton-balls. After he’d finished pointing out the sink and some white towels he made to leave.
‘Not so fast,’ I said. I pointed a finger at my brother’s bloody nose. ‘This man is a former employee and personal friend of Dame Ursula Pentecost. He invited me along and when I arrived, firstly, I was accosted by another guest while the door staff stood back and did nothing, then when my brother intervened on my behalf he got a bouncer’s elbow in his face for his trouble. Correct me if I’m wrong, but after all that, you seem to think he should settle for a sink to bleed into?’
‘Well . . . ’
‘I don’t think so. Get the manager. No, in fact, I want to speak to Mr Skene. If he’s organised this do, he should know what’s happened and apologise in person.’
The doorman weighed up the situation for a moment and then left with a curt, ‘Wait her
e.’
I waited a full ten minutes, trying to keep a lid on Malky who, face washed, was now raring to go. For him the bump on the nose was a small price to pay for entry. Voices in the corridor. I ducked behind the door as it opened and Zander was shown into the small room wearing a cream suit with wide lapels. The thick-framed sunglasses were missing.
‘I am so terribly sorry for what’s happened, Mr Munro,’ he effused, having obviously been briefed en route. As he homed in on my brother, I stepped out and into the doorway, thanked the doorman and said we’d take things from here on, closing the door after him.
Still smiling, Zander turned to see who else was present in the room and in the instant it took for him to recognise me and his friendly expression to change to one of abject fear, I had a hand across his mouth and was forcing him up against a wall.
‘Stop it,’ Malky hissed. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
‘Shut it,’ I said. ‘I told you I was here on business. Now get outside that door and make sure I’m not disturbed.’ He hesitated. ‘Now!’
When Malky had gone, I manoeuvred Zander to the stool in front of the big mirror and forced him down onto it. ‘I only want to talk, but one squeak from you and I’ll . . . ’ I looked around for some kind of weapon to threaten him with. Other than face cream and cotton wool there was nothing. ‘Understand?’
Fortunately, it seemed he did. Slowly I withdrew my hand, ready to clamp it back over his mouth at the first sign of a cry for help. None came.
‘Right,’ I said, ‘I’ll make this quick.’ A dark patch had developed in the groin area of the cream suit. ‘Would you stop that? I’m not here to hurt you.’ I realised how unlikely that must have sounded. I selected a big fluffy white towel and threw it in his lap.
Zander wiped tears from his eyes with the corner of the towel that he hadn’t clamped to his groin. If this was the man who’d arranged for the murder of Daisy Adams, then he deserved all he got. By now Jake would have been feeding him light bulbs or squashing his fingers with a mash hammer. For the moment I had fear on my side. I had to use that and be quick. Soon enough someone would wonder where the host had got to.
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