Head Shot

'One way or another, Bob, the floppy or the hard disk, I've got it.'

The big Scot sighed, as Doherty finished. 'Cowboy,' he exclaimed,

'have you any idea how far this shit's going to fly off the fan?'

'Have I ever!'

'What about your career? Do you think you're going to get a medal for this?'

'Maybe; unless the director decides to grab all the glory for himself when I tell him.'

'If I were you, pal,' said Skinner, heavily, 'I would let him.'

57

'You don't need to ask me how close to my father I was, Mario. You know quite well. I inherited his pushy gene, while our Viola takes after my mother all the way. They're both classic types; keep outa ma kitchen,' she mimicked in harsh Scots Italian, 'but keep me outa the rest of the world.'

He looked at his beautiful cousin; her silver hair glinted in the flickering light of the candles arranged around the spacious apartment.

She was seated in a deep armchair, barefoot, her long legs tucked up under her, with a goblet of red wine warming in her hands.

'You know something else? I've never asked my mother about it, mind you, but I think their marriage was arranged, by Papa or Nana, or maybe even both of them.'

Mario laughed, quietly. 'Sure, kid, I know that; I've known it since I was fifteen years old. Papa Viareggio told me himself. He said that when Beppe was a lad they didn't trust him an inch, and even less when it came to fixing himself up with a wife. So the two old devils looked around for a nice quiet girl from a suitable Italian family… in other words, one with no money, folk who would just be grateful for the match and wouldn't try and influence the family business… and they found Auntie Sophia, from the Belmontes in Dunfermline. Nana knew your other granny as a girl; she made the approach and a meeting was set up between your dad and mum.

'They both knew the score; plus, your mother was a very attractive girl… as she still is.'

Her mouth gaped open. 'Is that right?' she exclaimed.

'That's what our grandfather told me. You know, Paulie, it's a shame that you never real y got to know the old man, but you were just too young for him to take you under his wing, the way he took me. Plus, of course, you're a girl. That's why the trust was set up as it was; with Beppe in ultimate control, then me.'

She smiled; in the candle-glow, she looked devastatingly beautiful.

'So Papa was an old chauvinist, was he?'

'Yes, but no more than your father was. They were both wary of women with ambition… which is ironic, since Papa was ruled by the most ambitious woman I've ever met.'

'Nana?'

'Too right; our granny is the archetypal matriarch. That's why my mother made her way outside the family; she knew that our hive could only support one queen. With every respect to Beppe, my mum's forgotten more about business than he ever knew, yet Papa only gave her the minor role in the management of the trust, and he ensured that ultimately it passed to me, rather than you, regardless of how we grew up.'

'You're just like him, you know,' said Paula. 'I looked through my dad's office today, and I found an old piece of cine film that had been transferred to video. It was a family thing, a holiday in Italy when Dad and Aunt Christina were kids; Papa must have been around the age you are now, and honest to God, Mario, it could have been you. I was a bit scared of him when I was a kid, and of you, too.

'I imagined all sorts of things about him; I real y did think he was a Godfather type, and I thought that you were a sort of apprentice.'

'He wasn't, though,' Mario told her, 'he was one of the most honest men I ever met, even if he was one of the craftiest, too. You were wrong about him, and you're wrong about yourself as well. You're just like my mother; you've got Nana's blood flowing in your veins too. That's why she doesn't trust you.'

She stared at him in amazement that might just have been genuine.

'What! My own granny doesn't trust me?'

'It's true, she doesn't, because she knows she can't control you. She even told me to keep an eye on you.'

'Hah! Doesn't she know that you've been keeping an eye on me for years?'

'Only discreetly; and I haven't real y been keeping tabs on you. I'd rather you thought that I've been looking out for you. I was worried when I heard that you'd gone into the sauna business; especial y those ones. The guy who used to own them was the biggest fucking hood in Edinburgh, until he got topped.'

'Are you happy now?'

'Now that I understand why you did it, yes, I am.'

58

He flashed her a smile. 'Where did you get the money to buy them anyway? Go on, tell me.'

Paula sipped her wine; the air between them was sizzling, and they both knew it. 'If you insist,' she said. 'But don't blame me if you don't like it. Your mother gave it to me.'

It was Mario's turn to gasp in astonishment. 'You what?'

'Sorry, but it's true. Are you imagining the headlines? Detective's Mammy Bankrol s Brothels. Is that it?'

'Could be,' he retorted.

'Well relax; there's nothing to connect her with the businesses.'

'So how did you talk her into it?'

'I didn't have to. Your mother and I aren't strangers, you know. She's my favourite aunt, and we talk. We were sharing a bottle in a restaurant in Leith one night and a prostitute walked past the window. Auntie Chris gave one of her classic humphs; I thought she was disapproving, until she started on about a society that forced women to walk the streets like that, and about how anyone who thought you could make prostitution disappear by outlawing it was off their head.

'She said that what we should real y be doing was giving women like that decent working conditions and regulating what they did, rather than arresting them for it. I said that to an extent that was what was happening in the saunas, but that the danger there was that the wrong sort of people might get to own them. I mentioned Tony Manson's saunas being for sale, and she said why didn't I buy them then, and run them the way they should be run.

'I said, "Buy them with what?" And that's how it came about. She put up most of the money, and I bought them through a shell company. No one knew about it but Auntie Chris and me, til you started sniffing around.'

Mario's eyes narrowed slightly. 'You mean you really didn't tell your father?'

'No way did I; he'd have raised merry hell if I had done, and got my mother al worked up too. My dad might have liked a bit of skirt, but he was prudish too. Al right, he did find out on the grapevine, eventually; he wasn't best pleased, to put it mildly. He said I was on my own, that he'd never set foot in such places, and that if I came a cropper he wouldn't bail me out.'

'Then why the hell…' He frowned. 'Paulie, remember that wee girl I asked you about, the one who said she knew you?'

'Ivy Brennan? Yes, she asked me straight out one day what I had to do with the Bonnington sauna. She said she'd seen me going in there a few times. At first I thought she was implying I was on the game, but actually she asked me if there would be any chance of a job there.'

'What did you tell her?'

'The truth. I told her that she looked about fifteen, and that she'd attract the wrong sort of customer. You know what I mean; there are guys out there who have a physical need to get their ashes hauled every so often, and my places cater for that. But there are other guys too, perverts, and I won't have any truck with them. Anyway, what about Ivy?'

'Maybe nothing; only I'm trying to work out why she told me she had seen Uncle Beppe having a shouting match in the doorway of the Bonnington place with someone inside.'

'You're kidding.'

'No.'

'Then she was. Not only would my dad not have set foot in one of my places; he wouldn't have had an argument in public either.'