That was not to say he had become a pacifist, no way. His boss was a very powerful figure within the city, but every so often someone made the mistake of crossing him. Soon afterwards, the transgressor would be admitted to the Royal Infirmary. We knew pretty much for certain that Lennie had driven the ambulance, figuratively, but none of the patients ever said a word about their misfortune.
‘Fine, thanks. What can I get you, Mr Skinner?’ he asked. His voice was quiet. People like him don’t need to be loud; their very presence commands attention.
‘I’ll just have a Coke, thanks, Lennie.’ I shoved a couple of pound coins across the bar as he filled a glass from a nozzle, but he pushed them back as he laid the glass in front of me.
‘Have you had the radio on this afternoon?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘I know what you’re talking about. Marlon Watson, yes?’
‘Got it in one.’
‘I need to talk to his boss, to eliminate him from our inquiries, so to speak. He doesn’t seem to be around.’
‘That’s self-evident. If he’d been around, nothing would have happened to Marlon.’
‘So they hadn’t fallen out?’
Lennie managed to frown and smile at the same time. ‘No chance. Marlon wasn’t the sort of lad to fall out with people. Besides . . .’
‘Tony shags his mother?’
The smile widened. ‘Among others,’ he said.
‘Do you know where he is, Lennie?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you going to tell me?’
He shrugged. ‘Why not? He’s in the Gran Hotel, in Ibiza Town.’
‘Not on his own, I assume.’
‘No. He’s got a woman with him. They’re away for a week. I can’t give you a name, though, Mr Skinner.’
‘Not even if I insisted?’ I ventured; not that I planned to.
‘No, because I don’t know it.’
‘Marlon told his mother he was going to Newcastle.’
‘He flew from there. But Marlon didn’t even know that. He drove him to Newcastle Station on Sunday morning, and dropped him off. As I understand it, the bird went down on the train and met him there.’
‘I imagine Tony didn’t want Bella to know,’ I said.
‘Not just her,’ Lennie chuckled. ‘He didn’t want anybody to know. Look, he likes Bella . . .’
I was sceptical. ‘She told me she works in his saunas. That’s hardly a sign of his affection.’
‘She might have let you think so, but she doesn’t in the way you mean. He uses her as a sort of inspector. She’ll drop in unannounced, to make sure that the places are being run okay. She takes no shit, and he likes her for it.’
‘How’s he going to take Marlon’s death?’ I asked the giant.
‘How do you think? Badly, very badly.’
‘In that case, Lennie,’ I told him, ‘no offence, but we’ll be watching you for a bit.’
He shrugged again, massively, shoulder-rippling. ‘No offence taken, but you’ll be wasting your time.’
I raised an eyebrow. ‘Yes?’
‘Yes. Work it out for yourself.’
I let the comment lie. ‘We do need to talk to Tony,’ I repeated.
He sighed. ‘I know; but you’ll need to wait till Sunday. He’s due back then. Marlon was supposed to pick him up; from the station again. You could fly out to Ibiza, of course, but I’d have to warn him, so that would be a waste of time too. He’d be gone.’
Plenderleith was nothing if not honest. ‘Okay,’ I conceded. ‘I know you’re going to call him anyway to let him know about Marlon. So, when you do, tell him I’ll be at his place first thing on Monday morning, and I won’t be pleased if he’s not there.’
‘I’m sure he will be, Mr Skinner.’
I finished my ersatz Coke and left. More punters had come in while I’d been talking to Lennie, and more of them studied me as I made my way to the door than had done when I’d arrived. They were the ones who’d made me as a cop; I stared them down so they’d remember me, and recognised a couple as I did so.
As I pulled out into traffic, I was wondering about the big guy. He was closer to Tony Manson than I’d realised, trusted with the secret of his Ibiza tryst, and to know what Bella Watson really did for him. I’d worked out straight away why it would be a waste of time keeping tabs on him as a way to the guys who’d killed Marlon. When Lennie passed on a message from the boss, the recipient always walked away . . . eventually. He was telling me that those two were dead men, and that he wasn’t given that sort of task.
Even as I cruised along Salamander Street, I knew that he would have called Manson by then, and that if he had the faintest idea of who the torturers were, or of who had hired them, then things were liable to happen fast, and I had to keep pace. Of course I did have another option. Shut up and do nothing: stand back, let rough justice be meted out and pick up the leavings afterwards. Sure, and then we might wind up with an all-out gang war on our hands, the sort of mess in which innocent bystanders can get hurt.
I pulled off Seafield Road into the forecourt of a car showroom and called Alf Stein, mobile to mobile. I brought him up to date with the investigation, as it stood, and told him what my team was doing. ‘I should have known,’ he sighed. ‘I move you to Serious Crimes and they get really fuckin’ serious. Press, Bob, press, until something cracks; that’s all you can do. Do you need any more manpower?’
‘For the moment, no. I like what I have. By the way, I’ve addressed the Macken and Reid problem. I’ll send you a memo for the record, but I’ve booted them.’
‘Good grounds?’ he murmured.
‘They’ll hold up.’
‘Okay, I’ll deal with it.’
‘Macken’s got to go from CID, completely,’ I added.
‘I get the picture. Shitty job in uniform.’
I headed back to Gullane. I picked up some stuff in ASDA and made it home by six forty, later than usual, but not enough to start Daisy fretting. ‘Alex is excited,’ she told me, as she put a sketch pad into her bag.
‘Why?’
‘Let her tell you. She’s in her kingdom.’ I’d guessed that; I could hear the radio.
I went upstairs to the attic as soon as Daisy had left, and knocked on her door. ‘Clear!’ she called, her way of saying ‘Come in’. She had a school pal with her, a lass called Susie something, whose dad was in PR, and whose mother taught in another village school along the coast.
‘What’s the story?’ I asked.
‘Didn’t Daisy tell you?’ She had her impressionable child face on, the one I didn’t see too much of any more, and her eyes were gleaming. ‘I had a dedication on Airburst. Mia Sparkles played a song for me. “Wonderwall”. Did you ask her to?’
‘No, it never occurred to me. That was off her own bat.’
‘What’s she like, Mr Skinner?’ Susie bubbled.
It was on the tip of my tongue to say that she was one of the most attractive women I’d met in a long time with a body that not even a radio station T-shirt could disguise, but I cut that down to, ‘She’s very nice. Alex,’ I told my daughter. ‘We’re having company for dinner.’
‘Same as last night?’ She’d become a bold adolescent in an instant.
‘Same. She’ll be here soon.’
Susie took her cue. She looked at the clock and exclaimed, ‘Gosh, is it that time?’ and jumped to her feet. I led the way downstairs and went into the kitchen while Alex walked her to the door.
‘What’s for dinner?’ she asked.
‘Smoked salmon, fillet steak and salad, then ice cream.’ Typical menu for a single man when entertaining.
‘Can I cook the steak on the George Foreman grill?’
‘No way. You might burn yourself, then the cruelty people would be after me.’
‘There’s more chance of you doing that.’
She had a point. ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘but remember to ask Alison how she wants hers done.’
I’d laid the smoked salmon on p
lates and was slicing Chinese leaves for the salad when the bell sounded. Alex beat me there. ‘Hi, Alison,’ she said, as she opened the door, like someone greeting a peer, not someone who was eighteen years older than her. ‘Nice to see you again.’
‘And you. Sorry I’m a bit late,’ she added, looking towards me, at the back of the hall. ‘There was more traffic than I expected.’ She had a small bag in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. She held it up. ‘I brought this. Is it okay?’ It was Spanish; Sangre de Toro, by Torres. I’d bought a couple of the same in ASDA. She knows me, I thought.
‘Perfect. Ideal for what we’re having.’ I kissed her, chastely, took both from her, dropped her bag in my bedroom and went back to the kitchen. Alison came with me, leaving Alex to switch on the television.
I offered her a beer, while I finished assembling the salad. ‘Help yourself if you want one,’ I said. ‘They’re in the fridge.’
‘Can we go for a walk?’ she asked. ‘It’s a lovely night.’
She was right. Through the window I could see my back garden flooded with evening sunshine. ‘Why not?’ I said. ‘We’ll need to take Her Ladyship, though.’
‘Will she mind?’
She didn’t. She was so intrigued by Alison and by the possibilities of a relationship that if I’d said, ‘Get your jacket, we’re all going to the dentist,’ she’d have followed without a murmur. We walked the short distance to Gullane Bents, then, instead of going down on to the beach, took the path that runs along the fringe of the golf course, then climbs up to the summit of Gullane Hill. I’d brought a pair of binoculars, so that Alison could enjoy the view properly, a panorama stretching from Berwick Law, along the Fife coast, to Edinburgh, the Forth bridges and the distant Trossachs beyond.
Once she’d had her fill, we headed back, down the southern side of the hill and along the Main Street. We were all hungry by the time we reached home, so Alex switched on the Foreman and set it to warm up while we attacked the starter, and the Sangre de Toro . . . at least Alison and I did; I allowed my daughter an occasional small taste of wine with dinner, but only white, so she was restricted to Shloer apple juice. She did a damn good job with the steaks . . . three medium, but not bloody . . . but she left the cleaning of the grill to me, as I’d told her to. She and Alison did most of the talking around the table, their chat ranging from school, to pop culture, to fashion, and to village life. I let them get on with it, for I felt a weight upon me that I hadn’t anticipated. As I looked at the two of them, and listened to them talk, I realised that it was the first time I’d ever heard my daughter in conversation with a woman who was old enough to be her mother, other than Daisy, and when I was around they never said much more to each other than ‘Hello’ and ‘Goodbye’. I was overcome by a wave of the sort of sadness that I’d thought was behind me, and, hard as I fought against it, I could not prevent myself from seeing Myra in Alison’s place.
When I couldn’t stand it any longer, I stood up, abruptly. ‘Alex,’ I said, ‘isn’t there something on TV that you wanted to watch?’ It was twenty-five to ten, and we both knew that there wasn’t, but she took the hint.
‘Oh yes,’ she exclaimed, maybe a wee bit theatrically. ‘I’ve missed the start. Good night, Alison. Good night, Pops.’
‘Night, kid. Remember you’re going to Daisy’s at nine tomorrow.’ I’d fixed it before she’d left.
‘Yes. I’ll be ready.’
‘You working tomorrow?’ Alison asked, as she left, and I set about wiping down the grill.
‘A couple of doors to kick open. Doesn’t mean you have to rush off though.’
She frowned. ‘Yes, it does. You’ve got a lovely kid, Bob, but I don’t want her to start making assumptions. That’s how you drift into places you might not really want to be.’
‘That’s a fair point. Honest truth, Ali, after eight years I still haven’t a fucking clue where I want to be.’
She put her hands on my chest, palms flat. ‘Right now,’ she said, firmly, ‘you want to be with your daughter; any woman would have a tough time wedging in alongside you. In four or five years’ time, once she’s off to university, it’ll be different, but until then, you have to finish what you had to start when her mother died.’
‘You reckon?’
‘I know so. Now, what about the story you were going to tell me? What about my transfer?’
I smiled. I’d forgotten about that. ‘You pour us some more wine,’ I told her, ‘take it into the sitting room, and I’ll join you when I’m squared up here.’
‘That sounds like a plan.’ She waited while I uncorked a second bottle of Sangre de Toro, picked it up and went off to find our glasses.
I was putting the last of the cutlery in the dishwasher when my mobile sounded. I took it out, flipped it open and looked at its small screen. No name, which meant that the caller wasn’t logged in, and the number meant nothing to me. I thought about rejecting it, until I realised that it might be Mackie or Steele, or any one of my new boys.
But it wasn’t a boy. ‘Is that Mr Skinner?’ the voice asked.
‘Yes. Enlighten me.’
‘This is Mia, Mia Watson.’
Out of the blue. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘I was doing that autograph for your daughter, and I thought it might be safer to send it to your home address rather than to the office.’
I didn’t hand that out to strangers, not even when they were drop-dead gorgeous, with a chest that got the most out of the word ‘Airburst!!!’ On the other hand, she was doing me a favour. I compromised. ‘Send it “Care of the Mallard Hotel, Gullane”. That’ll get to me.’
‘Okay, no problem.’ I was about to thank her and end the call, when she continued, a little less confidently. ‘Mr Skinner, when I saw you earlier on, I’m sorry, I wasn’t very helpful. To be honest I was still in shock; it still hadn’t sunk in. Maybe there are things I know that might help you without me even realising it. So, if you’d like to meet me again . . .’
‘If you think it would help,’ I replied; not too enthusiastically. If only I’d stayed that way.
‘Who knows? It might, it might not.’ She sounded vulnerable, alone.
‘Do you have a time in mind?’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘Okay. At the studios?’
‘No, I don’t go in there at weekends. Could we meet in town, somewhere discreet? How about the foyer of the Sheraton? I go there for coffee quite often. The sort of people who’ll be there on a Saturday aren’t going to recognise the likes of me.’
I thought about my plans for the morning. A couple of calls. How long would they take? ‘Twelve thirty?’
‘That’ll be fine. I’ll see you there.’
I closed the phone and went to join Alison. ‘Trouble?’ she asked. ‘You’re frowning.’
‘No. Someone I have to interview for the Marlon investigation, that’s all.’ I don’t know why I didn’t tell her that it was his sister, unless it was because I didn’t want any questions that I couldn’t answer.
She didn’t follow it up. ‘So,’ she said, instead, ‘my surprise transfer. If you weren’t behind it, who was?’
‘Indirectly, Greg Jay.’
She sat up straight, her mouth falling open. ‘You mean he had me bumped!’
I shook my head. ‘You’re not listening. “Indirectly”, I said.’ I told her the story of Greg Jay’s visit to the head of CID, of his litany of complaints about me and of his accusation of an improper relationship between the two of us. I left out the part about his early morning drive-by. If either of us chose to make that a disciplinary matter, Jay might have found himself wearing sergeant’s stripes again. Alf didn’t want it to go that far, but I couldn’t be sure that Alison wouldn’t insist on it if she knew.
As it was she was angry enough. ‘The swine,’ she hissed. ‘Next time I see him . . .’
I turned her face towards me. ‘You’ll say nothing, and you’ll think how lucky you are not to be working for the s
on-of-a-bitch any more.’
‘Are you going to let it lie?’
‘What did a friend say once? “All rights reserved, all wrongs revenged.” A nice turn of phrase, but it’s not necessary in this case. The boss has dealt with it, Alison. He threw Jay out of his office and he got you out of his reach. What more should I do?’
She sighed, pouting a little. ‘I suppose . . .’
Bob Skiinner 21 Grievous Angel Page 9