‘How much do we know about Morelli?’ Clarke asked.
‘He’s studying English lit, comes from a well-to-do family in Rome, father an industrialist and mother a countess or suchlike.’
‘Did any of them know each other before they parachuted into Edinburgh?’
‘That first time we spoke to Morelli and Meiklejohn, didn’t they say something about meeting at a party?’
Clarke nodded, deep in thought. ‘That’s how the three of them met specifically, which isn’t quite the same thing. Maybe it’s just my prejudice showing again, but the rich are the original networkers, aren’t they? Same Caribbean beaches in summer and alpine ski resorts in winter. And when families end up there, the younger members tend to congregate. There are only so many party invitations after all...’ Her eyes met Fox’s. ‘Did anyone ask them during their interviews?’
‘I’ve not listened to the recordings; just looked at the edited highlights. Are you saying we head back to Lady Isabella’s?’
‘I doubt she’d let us in this time.’
‘But we could insist.’
Clarke was shaking her head. ‘It can wait,’ she said.
One further room on this floor: a large bathroom with jacuzzi bath and a shower big enough to share. Then up a further flight of stairs to a couple of guest bedrooms, both en suite, beds made, towels and robes laid out, never to be used.
‘Salman had a cleaner, right?’
‘A local company. They told us he was great to work for, a complete charmer, et cetera.’ Fox followed as Clarke headed back downstairs to the sitting room. ‘We’re not ruling out that this was just a random hate crime — wrong time, wrong place — or connected somehow to the other attacks on overseas students?’
‘Come on, Malcolm, this is different. He wasn’t slapped about and called a few names — he was stabbed to death in a part of town where he didn’t belong.’ Clarke’s eyes were sweeping the room and its contents one last time.
‘And the attack on Morelli — is that connected to the muggings or the murder?’
Clarke picked up one of the photos. ‘Is that Stewart Scoular in the background, talking to the woman in the dress that seems both backless and mostly frontless?’
Fox peered at the print. ‘Looks like,’ he conceded.
She exhaled and put the photograph back. ‘We should talk to him again.’
‘Scoular?’
‘Morelli,’ she corrected. ‘You’re right — we need to find out if there’s something in his friendship with Salman that led to both men being attacked. Let’s get him down to the station tomorrow.’
‘Rather than his home?’
‘I think we’ve maybe been tugging the forelock, Malcolm. We need to start making people feel a lot less comfortable — cop shop’s a pretty good place for that, wouldn’t you say?’
Fox considered for a moment, then nodded his agreement.
21
‘You,’ Cole Burnett told Benny through lips cracked with dried blood, ‘you are fucking dead, my man.’
Burnett was strapped to a rickety metal chair, the kind you’d find tossed into a skip when an office building was being refurbished. One of his eyes was swelling nicely and, stripped to his underpants by Benny, you could see where the bruises were starting to appear on his ribs and kidneys. Face pockmarked with acne; close-cropped gelled hair. It had taken longer than hoped to track him down, and then instead of getting into the car when told, the teenager had turned and fled. He was faster than Benny, and knew Moredun and Ferniehill better, heading down footpaths and across parkland, neither of which the car could deal with. After which he had become invisible. It had taken favours and a bit too much cash for Benny’s liking before the neighbourhood started to whisper in his ear. Texts came and went; rumours turned out to be unfounded. But eventually Benny had prevailed.
Not that the boss was entirely happy. The club was open for the evening, meaning Benny’d had to bring Burnett to a garage workshop down a lane near Tollcross, a garage whose roller-shutter door was seldom seen open, except in the dead of night when a car might arrive requiring a change of number plates and maybe even a paint job. Place wasn’t soundproofed, but the locals knew better than to pry or complain.
Burnett’s clothes sat in a pile near the chair. Benny had been through them, not finding much. A bit of grass and some tablets — now safely stowed in his own pockets. Couple of hundred in cash, ditto. The bank cards he’d left, along with the condom. Couldn’t take a man’s last condom — maybe Burnett would get lucky later, though Benny doubted it. He finished his latest cigarette and stubbed it out against the oil-stained concrete floor. The garage was empty tonight, the inspection pit covered over. Most of the tools were kept in a series of padlocked metal lockers, which was why Benny had brought his own bag from the boot of the Merc. It sat on a workbench, directly in Burnett’s line of sight.
‘Gie’s a smoke then,’ Burnett said, not for the first time. His other greatest hits included ‘Freezin’ here, man’ and ‘You know who I am?’ He was putting this last one to Benny yet again when Big Ger Cafferty arrived, giving Benny a moment’s withering look as he passed him on his way to the chair. The boss was dressed in a black puffa jacket, zipped to the neck. Steel-toecapped shoes, the kind you’d wear on a construction site. Black leather driving gloves. Black baseball cap. Without bothering to remove the cap, he crouched slightly so his face was level with that of the seated figure.
‘You know who I am?’ he asked.
‘You’re that cunt that used to be somebody.’
Cafferty half turned to smile in Benny’s direction. ‘Some baws on the boy, eh?’ Then he swiped Burnett’s face hard with the back of his hand. The force was enough to send the chair toppling sideways, Burnett’s head connecting with the floor with a thud.
‘Bastard,’ the teenager spat.
Cafferty squatted next to him. ‘Bastard is the right word, bawbag. But a bastard who knows all about you. Knows you think you’re the dog with two pricks. Right now I could slice both of them off and leave you howling at the moon. Cockless Cole, your old comrades will call you. How does that sound?’
‘Better than being an old sweaty bastard with a gut.’
‘I sweat when I get excited. And to tell you the truth, I’d almost forgotten how the anticipation of GBH gets me excited.’ He placed one hand around Burnett’s throat and started to squeeze. Burnett tried twisting himself free to no effect, his eyes bulging as he gasped for air. Cafferty gave it a good twenty seconds before easing off. ‘Got your attention yet, Cockless?’
‘Untie me and try that again.’ Burnett’s eyes were filled with rage. Cafferty turned once more towards Benny.
‘He reminds me what I was like before I learned better.’ Then, to Burnett: ‘Anger’s all well and good, but there’s such a thing as the survival instinct too — you might want to start using it.’
‘Fuck is it you want?’
‘We want a phone.’
‘A phone? Is that all?’
‘The phone you took from the wee Chinese girl you thumped.’