He handed me his notebook, I read his scrawl, and felt as if I’d had another shot of Alf Stein’s coffee. I knew the address all right: it was Mia’s.
‘The other number,’ he continued. ‘It’s a mobile, I haven’t been able to find out whose it is, but… you know you can send text messages between these things now?’
‘So my daughter tells me.’
‘Well, there’s a message on Marlon’s phone, from that number. It says, “My place 9 tonite, chat. M.” And it’s timed at ten past noon, on the day that Marlon died.’
I felt the blood leave my face. ‘Thanks, Andy,’ I said. ‘Leave it with me.’ I didn’t bother to ask for a note of that mobile number; I knew that it was logged into my own phone.
I walked out of the office, and left the building, and climbed into my car… the BMW, for I’d decided that the Discovery really had served its purpose. I drove out to Sighthill, and was waiting, still behind the wheel, outside the Airburst FM studio when Mia arrived for her show. I waved to her, signalling that she should join me.
We had a brief discussion; no, that’s not true, I talked and she listened. When I was done, she got back into her Mini and drove away. I tuned into the station at four; there was confusion, but they coped like professionals. Mia hasn’t been seen in Edinburgh from that day on.
I had one more informal meeting that day, at five, at Tony Manson’s place. Bella was there as I’d requested, for there was something I wanted to know. ‘When Mia left home,’ I asked, ‘did you know where she’d gone?’
‘No,’ she replied, ‘and I didn’t care. I didn’t expect to see her again, but when I did, after Marlon saw her in the street and followed her to where she worked, then talked to her and told me about it, I thought she owed me. That’s the truth, Mr Skinner.’
I nodded. ‘I know it is.’ Then I told her where her daughter had been for twelve years, under the protection and in the tender care of Perry Holmes. ‘Just as you reckoned she owed you,’ I said, ‘so she believed that she owed Perry.’ I paused, to let that sink in, then continued.
‘And guess how she repaid him. Do you know what happened to Marlon, how those brutes from Newcastle got hold of him so easily? He’d given Mia his mobile number. She sent him a message and asked him to come to her place that night, for a wee chat. He went, all excited I’m sure, and they were waiting for him. I don’t have pictures, but I know that’s what happened. Because Perry Holmes asked her to, your daughter set her own brother up to be killed, and she never batted an eyelid. And why? All because you, Tony, were screwing his daughter.’
‘Where is she?’ Bella murmured. The way she said those three simple words told me that if she could find her, then she’d be childless.
‘I don’t know, but wherever that is, she’ll be out of your reach. Don’t go looking for her. I wouldn’t like that.’
I left them to chew it over.
Vanburn is another who hasn’t been seen in Edinburgh since that time; he left town a couple of days later, without giving his agency a forwarding address. He may have taken my advice, and found himself a new job in a safer environment. On the other hand, Manson may have paid him a lot of money to be absent while Dougie Terry, or someone similar… but not Lennie, not for something like that… drowned his patient in his therapeutic pool. Or he may have paid him even more money to do the job himself.
Perry’s funeral was private, even smaller than Marlon’s, and without anyone like Lulu, anyone who’d loved him. Alafair was there, and a priest. Hastie wasn’t allowed to go, and Derek Drysalter was still in hospital. No, Mia didn’t show up. I did, though, with Alf Stein. Our main interest lay not in paying our respects, but in ensuring that they filled the grave in properly, after the undertakers had lowered him into it, since there were no men to take the cords.
Life returned to its usual pattern after that. Alex missed Mia for about a week, then realised that the best influences were those around her, not voices from her radio. Alison and I settled into a routine too, living separately, and together, as we chose; it lasted for a couple of years and then it just… stopped. Not my doing; Ali never said, but I reckon she’d wanted me to buy that boat after all. We stayed friends beyond the split, but she insisted, and I agreed, that our professional relationship should be entirely formal from that point on.
Me? Well, you know about me. A failed second marriage with the consolation of two lovely kids and one adopted boy, until I was way luckier than I deserved, and another soulmate came along. Now I’m never lonely in the dark of night.
And Mia? What about her? I would say, ‘Who knows?’ only…
A couple of years ago I was playing about online, after everyone else had gone to bed, when I happened upon an English-language radio station that was based in the south of Spain. There was a female presenter on air at the time, with a mature, smoky voice, and an accent that was vaguely Scottish.
I’d clicked on the link because of her name: she called herself Mary Whitehouse. I’m sure that meant nothing to her younger listeners, and I imagine that the older part of her audience thought only that she was having a laugh at the old decency campaigner’s expense.
She talked for a bit, about the weather on the Costa del Sol, about which of yesterday’s entertainers were appearing at which exclusive night spots, and then she cued up a song. ‘This for old friends, old lovers, and even some old enemies,’ she breathed. ‘You out there, you know this is for you. It’s Gram Parsons: “Return of the Grievous Angel”.’
‘God,’ I whispered. ‘I hope not.’