‘If only I could take your word for that,’ I told her, honestly. ‘But I can’t. I tell you now that we’re going to be looking at your bank accounts for cash withdrawals, we’re going to be looking at your phone records for contacts and we’re going to be following up every possibility.’
‘Then do that,’ she snapped, ‘but you’ll find nothing, I promise you. Now please leave. I have to get ready to broadcast this afternoon.’ For the second time running she was throwing me out of her house.
If Alison had sensed any frisson between Mia and me, she said nothing about it. ‘Do you think we’ll come up with anything?’ was the only question she asked.
‘Honestly? No. But we’ve got to do it.’
‘Is it possible,’ she wondered, ‘that she doesn’t have anything to do with the murders?’
‘They say that time travel’s possible,’ I replied, ‘but don’t go booking your trip to the twenty-first century and expect it to take any less than three and a half years to get there.’
Twenty
I had to leave Alison and her small team to begin the trawl through Mia’s private life, because I had other things to do. There was the matter of Hastie McGrew to be resolved, but more immediately, there was Marlon Watson’s funeral at Seafield Cemetery, only an hour away by the time we left Davidson’s Mains. I dropped Alison off at her office then headed for mine, to pick up a companion.
Andy Martin was head down at his desk over a pile of mobile phones, and of course the clumsy Jeff Adam, who’d never have been handling a ram in the first place if there had been room for another large body in the chopper, was at home with his foot in plaster, so I pointed at Mario McGuire. ‘You. With me.’
The lad was irrepressible. He jumped to his feet. ‘Yes, boss. Where are we going?’
‘A funeral.’ He smiled, and followed. If I’d told him I was taking him to the zoo to be fed to the lions, he’d have done the same, although that might have been bad news for the king of the jungle.
We made it to the depressing boneyard with ten minutes to spare. The prepared grave was easy to spot. To my surprise there were a few mourners there already: a middle-aged man, fifty-something, probably, four guys, all around the age that Marlon would never exceed, and three women, one of them in black, and ready for a good cry by the looks of her. On closer inspection, the other two seemed to be supporting her. That interested me; Bella had never mentioned a girlfriend, but Bella never mentioned anything to the police, so no real surprise. The younger set knew what we were, if not who. The guys edged away from us as we approached, but the girls stayed where they were. ‘Big shock, I expect,’ I said to the tearful one. She nodded and dabbed at her eyes. ‘Did you see a lot of Marlon?’
One of the ladies-in-waiting actually sniggered… at a graveside. I looked more closely at her pal and noted that she was either pot-bellied or pregnant. The dy-nasty’s assured, I thought. ‘He was my fiance,’ she mumbled.
‘What’s your name, love?’ I asked her.
‘Lulu. Lulu Ford.’
‘Were you with him on the day he died?’
‘In the afternoon, later on; he came to see me. He could, because his boss was away.’
‘When did he leave?’
‘About five; a wee bit after.’
‘Do you know where he was going?’
The sniggering girl decided to intervene. ‘Hey, leave her alone, you. Can ye no’ see she’s upset.’ McGuire leaned forward and whispered in her ear. She turned, stared at him and backed away. I repeated my question to Lulu.
‘To the pub,’ she whispered. ‘The Vaults.’
‘That I know, but afterwards.’
She gnawed at her bottom lip. ‘He said he’d a meeting. I asked him what it was about, but he wouldnae say. He said he’d tell me if it worked out all right. He was lookin’ forward to it, though. I could see that.’
McGuire tapped me on the shoulder. I glanced round, and saw the cortege approaching: a hearse and a single limo. As it grew closer, I could see that Manson had done well by his late employee. The coffin was solid wood, not chipboard, and there were a couple of wreaths on it that must have set him back a few quid.
The small procession drew up a few yards away and the living passengers emerged. Six of them: Bella, stone-faced, in a black suit and hat, Manson, Dougie Terry, Tomas Zaliukas, a surprise to me, and Lennie Plenderleith, newly returned from his wee holiday. They were followed by a minister in a long white robe.
The bereaved mother looked around. She nodded in my direction, more reaction than I’d expected, and beckoned Lulu towards her. And then her eyes fell on the other mourner, the fifty-something bloke. I’d never seen Bella look anything close to tender. In any encounters I’d had with her she’d always been stern-faced, occasionally combative, but when she saw that man her face showed all sorts of stuff I’d never seen on it before. I’m good at reading expressions, but even I was challenged to take it all in. There was shock, instantly; it was replaced by fear, and by curiosity, until they merged together into a grimace of pure hatred. Then she seemed to tear her eyes away from him.
Manson walked round the grave and approached me; his right cheek was bruised, just below the eye. ‘For once,’ he whispered, ‘I’m glad you guys are here. I’m a couple short with the cords. Will you take one each?’
There’s a thing we do at funerals, in Scotland at any rate, maybe elsewhere too, I don’t know. The deceased is lowered into the grave by up to eight family members and friends, traditionally male, although at Myra’s funeral Jean had insisted on being one of the number. There were McGuire and I, on duty at what was, for want of an alternative description, a gangland funeral, and we were being asked to bury the victim. I could have shaken my head and stepped back. Those four would have been enough, and in any event the coffin is always supported by straps held by the undertakers, just in case. But the request wasn’t made on practical grounds, or as some bizarre peace offering on Tony’s part. It was made out of respect, so that Marlon could be buried by a more or less full complement rather than a scratch team, and so that his mother would have something to remember. ‘Okay,’ I said. He handed each of us a card with a diagram and a number on it.
And that’s how two of the CID’s finest came to stand round a grave with four guys most generously described, at that time at least, as pillars of Edinburgh’s darker community, an experience which both McGuire and I have kept to ourselves until now. Well, I have, anyway; I suspect there’s nothing that Mario hasn’t told Paula by now, and that some of it I wouldn’t want to know.
The God-botherer was competent, if nowhere near as familiar with his subject as Thornie’s minister had been. The service was short and the committal of the coffin to the grave went smoothly. I had cord number two, at Marlon’s feet. Manson held number one. As the burden neared the ground, I glanced up and along its length. For an instant, his eyes met mine. I don’t know what sort of message we exchanged, but I never thought of him quite so badly after that.
There were no pleasantries afterwards. The hearse was driven away to pick up its next load, and the passengers returned to the limo. Plus one: Bella squeezed in Lulu to join them at whatever post-funeral wake Manson had laid on. I wondered whether she’d known before that afternoon that she was going to be a granny.
That left just McGuire and me, and one other, the man whose appearance had unsettled Bella so much. He was heading for the exit when I called after him. ‘Excuse me!’
He stopped and turned, patiently and a shade wearily, as if he’d been hoping to get away unchallenged but recognised that was never going to happen.
‘We’re police officers,’ I told him as we caught up, ‘investigating Marlon’s murder. Would you mind giving us your name?’
‘Not at all. It’s Watson, Clark Watson. That was my son you just helped bury.’
Once upon a time, I was in Spain, in L’Escala. Alex was in a cafe with her grandpa, and I was standing on the headland. The Tramuntana, the north wind, was blowing strong and the sea was wild all around me. I’d been looking back towards the beach; in the very instant that I turned, I was hit full on by a giant wave as it broke over the rocks. When Marlon’s father revealed himself, I had much the same feeling. I’ll swear that I swayed on my feet.