'Okay, kid,' he whispered, feeling her tears dampening the front of his tunic. 'Let it out, let it out.'As they stood there, embracing, his own grief for his dead, clownish, clumsy, but ultimately likeable uncle came to him. He buried his face in Paula's silver hair, kissing it gently. 'Okay, okay, okay,' he murmured, over and over again, feeling her hold tighten on him, feeling the warmth of her al the way down his body, feeling himself reacting, involuntarily, to it.
The weight of Greg Jay's hand on his shoulder brought him back to the time and place. 'Mario,' said the superintendent, gently, 'the doctor's here.'
He blinked and nodded. 'Paula.' She looked up at him, her face a mess of smeared mascara and eye shadow. 'Go see your mother,' he told her.
'She's in the bedroom.'
'Okay,' she agreed, beginning to gather herself together once more.
'Thanks, cousin. Look, take care of things, will you? Viola's going to be out of it, that brother-in-law of mine will be no better, and Mum's going to need me. Can you do that?'
'Of course. I'l handle everything.'
She kissed him on the cheek. 'Thanks,' she murmured. 'Love you for it.'
He turned, steering her towards her parents' room; as he did, he saw Sarah Grace Skinner standing in the doorway, waiting for him.
'Sarah,' he exclaimed, 'thank Christ it's you. I'm so glad you were able to come.'
'No problem,' she assured him. 'I haven't retired you know. The nanny's living in, for now at least, so I could leave the kids.'
She frowned at him. 'This is your uncle, Mr Jay told me.'
'Yes.'
'Should you be here?'
'Try to keep me away,' he grunted. 'Should the Boss be with the FBI?'
'You got me there,' she admitted. 'Let's get to work, then.'
'Okay, but first, could you talk to my aunt? She needs a sedative; then Paula and Maggie can take her out of here.'
'Paula? Oh yes, that was your cousin; I remember her now, from your wedding reception, a striking-looking woman, isn't she. How's she taking it?'
'She's made of solid steel inside; she'll be all right.'
'I'll decide that; I might just stick a needle in her anyway. You wait here.' She turned, medical bag in hand, and fol owed in Paula's footsteps, going into the bedroom after a gentle knock on the door. Mario heard the sound of his aunt's sobbing as she entered.
He stood in the living room for several minutes, watching Inspector Arthur Dorward and his crime-scene team beginning their task of gathering all the tiny pieces of potential evidence that the room might hold, watching the photographer as he took picture after picture of Beppe's body.
Final y, Sarah reappeared, looking sombre. 'This is unusual for me,' she confessed quietly to McGuire. 'In fact it's unique. Invariably, when I arrive at a scene the grieving relatives are long gone, but not this time.'
The detective looked at her with a trace of alarm in his eyes. 'You want us to get someone else?' he asked.
'Oh no. I'm ready to go to work… once your aunt and cousin have gone.'
'Okay. I'l see to that. Meantime you real y should talk to Greg Jay; this is his division, and his investigation.'
'Sure. But isn't Andy here?'
'No. He ruled himself out of this one; technically he might still be in post, but that's only for another day or so. As for his successor, he'd had a couple of pints too many at the leaving do. Please, go and talk to Greg.'
Sarah did as he asked, while he went back into the bedroom to take charge of Sophia and Paula, and escort them down to Maggie in the waiting car.
When he returned, she had put on a white overal suit and was waiting for him, standing beside Beppe's body with Detective Superintendent Jay. She looked at McGuire. 'You absolutely sure you want to see this?' she asked him.
'Absolutely certain.'
'In that case, to business, gentlemen.' She took a smal tape recorder from her pocket and switched it on. 'First of al, I need to know if the body has been moved.'
'No,' Jay replied.
'I understand that Mrs Viareggio found her husband. You're sure she didn't touch him?'
'No way,' Mario volunteered. 'My aunt's a nervous woman; she's 6k scared of her shadow. She told me that she took one look, screamed and ran to the downstairs neighbour.'
'How about him?'
'Her. She's a single lady; her name's Dr Alexander, and she's a civil service medical adviser. She came up and took a quick look to verify that Beppe was dead, then closed the door and cal ed the police.'
'She didn't touch him in checking for life signs?'
'No,' said Greg Jay. The Leith divisional CID commander was tall and pear-shaped, with shoulders that appeared narrower than his waist, and a small round head. His manner was as ponderous as his appearance. 'She didn't need to, doctor. Take a look.' He pul ed back the sheet from the body.
Beppe Viareggio lay on his stomach, with his backside sticking up in the air, and his arms by his sides, palms facing upward. His forehead was on the birchwood floor, in the centre of a smal, round pool of blood, which had run in streaks down both sides of his face. Sarah whistled quietly. 'This was not a suicide,' she murmured.
'No gun at the scene,' Jay told her.
'You could have found an arsenal here, and stil that couldn't have been self-inflicted, not from that angle. Look at that.' She knelt and pointed with her tape recorder at a great wound, just at the point where the spinal column descended from the skul. She peered at it closely, taking in a mass of congealed blood, hair and bone matter. 'To shoot yourself there you'd need to be a contortionist, not a fat man on the 134 threshold of the third age.' She pushed herself up and walked around the body, slowly looking at it from every possible angle.
'Okay,' she said finally. 'Has the photographer finished?' She looked across at the red-haired Inspector Arthur Dorward, who was lifting fingerprints from the front door. He nodded in reply. 'Then turn him over, please, gentlemen.'
McGuire and Jay did as she asked, Mario flinching slightly as he rol ed his uncle on to his back, expecting to see a grotesque exit wound.
But there was none; apart from the blood on his forehead and his cheeks, Beppe's dead face was unmarked.
Sarah read his thoughts. 'Whoever did this used a hol ow bullet, and probably a large calibre firearm. This was an execution, pure and simple; very similar to a case we had a couple of years back. I'd say from the way he's fallen that the victim was forced to kneel and was shot once through the base of the skul. The bul et flattened out on contact with the first and second cervical vertebrae, shattered them and passed on through into the brain, pulverising it. I wouldn't look to get bal istic markings when it's recovered; it'll be pretty much destroyed.
'This wasn't a contact wound, or else it might well have blown the man's head clean off. The kil er probably fired at a distance of two or three feet.'
Sarah looked at Jay. 'Was Dr Alexander in all night, do you know?'
'Yes,' McGuire answered her.
'And did she hear anything at al that could have been a gunshot… or hasn't anyone interviewed her yet?'
'I spoke to her, and I asked her that. No, she didn't. The only unusual sound she remembered was a thud coming through the ceiling at around nine thirty, as if something heavy had been dropped in the flat above.'
She leaned over and touched Beppe's waxy face. 'He isn't stone cold, and there's no rigor as yet, so that may well be the time of death. The thud could have been your uncle falling forward as he was shot, Mario.
Big gun like this, he must have used a silencer, otherwise she would have heard it.
'There's no doubt in my mind, gentlemen,' she said, firmly, 'that this has all the signs of what the media love to call a gangland-style killing, or a contract hit. For what it's worth, I haven't had anything like this on my autopsy table.'