Head Shot

'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.'

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?'

She looked up at him, and he saw that her eyes were glazed with tears once more. 'Just stay with me, Mario. Please. I won't threaten your virtue if you don't want me to, but don't go. I can't get the sight of my father out of my mind. Whenever I close my eyes, I can see him lying there, with his arse sticking up in the air and the back of his head blown out.'

'You'l see that whether I'm here or not, love. So will I. I wish I could tell you different, but you'll see it for a while. When someone's murdered, there's usual y more than one victim.'

She seemed to slump against him. 'It's not just that, though,' she cried into his chest. 'What if there is something about the business or about Dad, that we don't know? What if it passes to us now? You're a policeman; no one's going to threaten you. But what about me? What about me?

'I don't want to be next!'

38

Bob Skinner and Joe Doherty stood on the gangway beside Jackson Wylie's mooring, looking at what was left of his boat. Al of the superstructure and the deck had gone, save for the twisted metal framework of some of the fittings; below, virtually all that was left was a black, soggy mess, where the firefighters' hoses had pounded the blaze into extinction.

The exception was a rectangle ofDay-Glo yellow, a tarpaulin laid by the sheriff's deputies over the remains of Leopold Grace's former partner.

'Wel, Bob,' asked Doherty, 'what do you think? Was it a stray spark from the barbecue and it's hooray and up she rises?'

'It's possible,' the big Scot murmured. 'So, I'm told, are interstellar travel, miracle cures for terminal il nesses, and peace in the Balkans. As a friend said to me the other day, it's also conceivable that Motherwell Footbal and Athletic Club could win the Scottish Premier League in my lifetime. But I don't believe that any of those things is actually going to happen, any more than I believe that this was a fucking accident.

'If our theory of a link between the murders of Leo, Wilkins and Garrett is correct, then that thing lying under the sheriff's groundsheet, done to a cinder, is number four. You're not going to tell me any different, are you?'

'No, sir, I am not. We'd better find out all we can about him, quick as we can. How much do you know? You met the guy, after al.'

Skinner shook his head. 'I know nothing about him. Yes, we met one time at my father-in-law's but we didn't exchange life stories.'

'Did Mr Grace ever talk about him?'

'Very little. He mentioned once that he had brought Wylie into the law firm back in the early seventies, and that he had appointed him as senior partner on his retirement on a sort of caretaker basis, a safe pair of hands while the younger guys were gaining more experience.'

'How old was he?'

'About ten years younger than Leo, I'd have guessed. He'd have been looking towards retirement himself now.'

'Married?'

'Widowed. His wife died a few years back. When we spoke he mentioned a son in Florida, a journalist with the Miami Herald.'