“It’s just that we have a few more questions,” Siobhan said. “To do with Mr. Marber’s private life.”
“Oh?”
“Could you tell us how often he resorted to prostitutes, Mrs. Bessant?”
Siobhan thought she could see the woman flinch. Hynds glared at her. His eyes seemed to say, Don’t use her to get at me. But now Bessant was speaking.
“Eddie didn’t ‘resort to’ anything.”
“Well, how would you put it?”
There were tears in Bessant’s eyes, but she straightened her back, trying for resilience.
“It was how Eddie chose to order his life. Relationships always got messy, that’s what he said . . .” She seemed about to say more, but stopped herself.
“So did he cruise Coburg Street, or what?”
She looked at Siobhan in mild distaste, and Siobhan felt a little of her own hostility ebb away. Hynds’s eyes were still on her, but she refused to meet them.
“He used a sauna,” Bessant said quietly.
“Regularly?”
“As often as he needed. We weren’t quite so close that he felt he had to share every detail.”
“Did he shop around?”
Bessant took a deep breath, then sighed. She remembered she was holding a glass of wine and tipped it to her mouth, swallowed.
“Best way to get through this is to tell us everything, Cynthia,” Hynds said quietly.
“But Eddie was always so . . . so private in that way . . .”
“I understand. You’re not breaking any confidences, you know.”
“Aren’t I?” She was looking at him.
He shook his head. “You’re helping us try to find whoever killed him.”
She thought about this, nodded her head slowly. The tears had cleared from her eyes. She blinked a couple of times, focusing on Hynds. For a moment, Siobhan thought they were going to hold hands.
“There’s a place not too far from here. Whenever Eddie dropped in, I knew he was either on his way there or on his way home.” Siobhan wanted to ask if she could tell the difference, but she stayed silent. “It’s up a lane off Commercial Street.”
“Do you know what it’s called?” Hynds asked.
She shook her head.
“Don’t worry,” Siobhan said, “we can find it.”
“I just want to protect his name,” Bessant said imploringly. “You do understand?” Hynds nodded slowly.
Siobhan was rising to her feet. “If it has no bearing on the case, I can’t see a problem.”
“Thank you,” Cynthia Bessant said quietly.
She insisted on seeing them to the door. Hynds asked if she’d be okay.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said, touching his arm. Then, with the door open, she shook his hand. Siobhan stood just over the threshold, wondering whether to stretch out her own hand, but Bessant had turned back into the room. Davie Hynds pulled the door closed.
“Think she’ll be all right?” he asked as they descended the echoing stairs. The walls were brick, painted pale yellow. The steps themselves were metal, vibrating tinnily. “Bloody creepy place to live.”
“Check on her later, if you like.” Siobhan paused. “Once you’re off duty.”
“This is a new side of you I’m seeing,” Hynds said.
“Stick around,” she told him. “I’ve got more sides than John Rebus’s record collection.”
“Meaning he’s got a lot of records?”
“More than a few,” Siobhan admitted.
Back on the street, she sought out a newsagent’s and bought an evening paper, opened it to the classifieds.
“Buying or selling?” Hynds asked. She stabbed her finger at a list headed “Saunas,” then ran the same finger down the page, checking addresses. “Paradiso,” she said. “VIP suites, TV and on-street parking.”
Hynds looked: the address seemed right. It was two minutes away by car. “We’re not going there?” he asked.
“Too right we are.”
“Shouldn’t we give them some warning?”
“Don’t be soft; it’ll be fun.”
The look on Hynds’s face told her he didn’t quite believe this.
The “commercial” aspect of Commercial Street had long ago withered, but there were signs of rejuvenation. Civil servants now had a sparkling glass edifice to call home at Victoria Quay. Small restaurants had appeared — though some had already been forced to close — catering to suits and expense accounts. Farther along the road, the Queen’s old yacht Britannia attracted tour parties, and a huge new redevelopment was penciled in for the surrounding industrial wasteland. Siobhan guessed that Cynthia Bessant had bought her warehouse conversion in the hope of being one of the early settlers in what would become Edinburgh’s equivalent of London’s Docklands. It was entirely possible that the placement of the Sauna Paradiso was no accident either. It seemed, to Siobhan’s thinking, that it was placed halfway between the money and the working girls in Coburg Street. The working girls kept their prices low but attracted the dregs. Sauna Paradiso was after the more upmarket punter. Its frontage had been boarded over and painted a Mediterranean blue, with palm trees and surf prominent. The VIP suites were again advertised. It had probably been a shop of some kind at one time. Now, it was an anonymous door with a square of one-way mirrored glass in its center. Siobhan pressed the buzzer and waited.
“Yes?” came a voice.
“Lothian and Borders CID,” Siobhan called out. “Any chance of a word?”
There was a pause before the door opened. Inside, the cramped space was mostly taken up with armchairs. Men had been sitting there, dressed in blue toweling robes. Nice touch, Siobhan thought: the blue matched the paintwork. The TV was on, showing a sports network. Some of the men had been drinking coffee and soft drinks. Now they were on the move, heading for a doorway at the back where Siobhan guessed their clothes were hanging up.
Just to the side of the front door was a reception desk, a young man seated on the stool behind it.
“Evening,” she said, showing him her warrant card. Hynds had his open, too, but his eyes were elsewhere, scoping the room.
“Is there any problem?” the young man asked. He was skinny, wore his dark hair back in a ponytail. There was a ledger book in front of him, but it was closed now, a pen sticking out of it.
Siobhan brought out a photo of Edward Marber. It was recent: taken on the night he’d died. He was in his gallery, a sheen of sweat on his face. A nice big smile for the camera, a man with not a care in the world and about two hours to live.
“You probably don’t go in for second names around here,” Siobhan said. “He might’ve called himself Edward or Eddie.”
“Oh?”
“We know he was a customer.”
“Do you now?” The young man glanced at the picture. “And what’s he done?”
“Someone killed him.”
The young man’s eyes were on Hynds, who was over at the back doorway.
“Did they now?” he said, his mind elsewhere.
Siobhan decided enough was enough. “Okay, you’re not telling me anything. That means I have to talk to all the girls, find out who knew him. You better call your boss and tell him the place is shutting down for the night.”
She had his attention now. “This is my place,” he said.
She smiled. “Sure it is. Every inch of you’s a born entrepreneur.”
He just looked at her. She held the photograph in front of his nose. “Take another look,” she said. A couple of the sauna’s customers, dressed now, brushed past, averting their eyes as they escaped to the outside world. A woman’s face appeared at the back doorway, then another.
“What’s going on, Ricky?”
The young man shook his head at them, then met Siobhan’s gaze. “I might have seen him,” he admitted. “But that could just be because his face was in the paper.”
“It was,” Siobhan agreed, nodding.
“I mean, we get a lot of faces in here.”
“And you take down their details?” Siobhan was looking at the ledger.
“Just the first name, plus the girl’s.”
“How does it work, Ricky? Punters sit in here, choose a girl . . . ?”