“Sometimes, yes . . . There’s a nursery he goes to, too . . .”
“Does Laura work nights?” Siobhan asked.
Mrs. Dow looked down at the floor. “Sometimes, yes.”
“And you stay here with Alexander?” Siobhan watched the woman nod slowly. “Thing is, you didn’t ask why we’re here, Mrs. Dow. That would be the normal question. Makes me think Laura’s had a few run-ins over the years, and you’ve become used to it.”
“I might not like what she does for a living, that doesn’t mean I don’t understand her reasons. Lord knows, I’ve been through plenty of hard times myself.” She paused. “Years back, I mean. When Donny and his brother were young, and no money coming in . . . Who knows now whether that thought ever crossed my mind back then?”
“You mean you thought of going on the game?” Linford asked coldly. Siobhan could have slapped him, but had to content herself with a glower.
“I apologize for my colleague, Mrs. Dow,” she said. “He has all the sensitivity of a goat.”
Linford looked at her, seeming shocked by this pronouncement. Just then a door opened and closed. Feet on the steps.
“Just me, Thelma,” a voice called. Moments later, Laura Stafford walked into the living room, carrying two bags marked SAVACENTRE — the name of the supermarket at the bottom of Dalkeith Road. Her eyes went from Siobhan to Linford and back again. Saying nothing, she walked into the kitchen and started emptying the shopping. It was a small kitchen, not enough room for a table. Siobhan stood in the doorway.
“It’s about Edward Marber,” she said.
“I wondered when you’d come.”
“Well, here we are. We can talk now, or make an appointment for later.”
Stafford looked up, sensing that Siobhan was doing her best to be discreet. “Thelma?” she called. “Think you could go play with Alexander for five minutes while I get this done with?”
Mrs. Dow got up without a word and went into the garden. Siobhan could hear her talking to her grandson.
“We haven’t said anything to her,” she said. Laura Stafford nodded.
“Thanks,” she said.
“Does she know about Marber?”
Stafford shook her head. She was five foot four, slim, late twenties. Short black hair in a neat cut with a side parting. She wore a little makeup on her face: eyeliner and maybe some foundation. No jewelry, and a white T-shirt tucked into faded blue denims. Open-toed pink sandals on her feet.
“I don’t look like a whore, do I?” she said, making Siobhan aware that she’d been staring too hard.
“Not the stereotype, anyway,” Siobhan admitted. Linford was in the doorway, too, now.
“I’m DI Linford,” he said, “this is DS Clarke. We’re here to ask you a few questions about Edward Marber.”
“Of course you are, Officer.”
“He pays for this place?”
“Until the payments stop.”
“What happens then, Laura?” Siobhan asked.
“Maybe I’ll keep the place on. I haven’t decided.”
“You can afford it?” Linford asked, with what to Siobhan sounded almost like a hint of envy.
“I make enough,” Stafford said.
“You didn’t mind being a kept woman?”
“His choice, not mine.” She leaned back against the kitchen countertop and folded her arms. “Okay, here’s the story . . .”
But Siobhan interrupted her. She didn’t like Linford standing so close to her. “Maybe if we sat down first?” she suggested.
They moved into the living room. When Linford settled into the sofa, Siobhan took the chair, meaning Laura Stafford had to sit next to Linford, a move which seemed to make him uncomfortable.
“You were saying . . . ?” he said.
“I was going to give you the story. It’ll be short and to the point. Eddie was a client of mine, as you’ve already gathered.”
“At the Sauna Paradiso?” Siobhan interrupted. Laura nodded.
“That’s where I met him. He came in every couple of weeks or so.”
“Did he always ask for you?” Linford asked.
“As far as I know. Maybe he came in sometimes when I wasn’t on shift.”
Linford nodded. “Go on, please.”
“Well, he was always wanting to know about me. Some of the punters are like that, but Eddie was different. He had that quiet, insistent sort of voice. In the end, I started talking. Me and Donny had split up. I had Alexander and we were in this poxy place in Granton . . .” She paused. “Next thing I know, Eddie says he’s fixed me up. I thought it was some kind of con. That’s another thing the punters do: they’re always offering you stuff that never comes to anything.” She had crossed one leg over the other. There was a thin gold chain around her right ankle. “Eddie seemed to realize that. He gave me the address and number of this lettings agency, told me to head down there myself and pick out a flat for me and Alexander.” She looked around her. “So here we are.”
“Nice place,” Siobhan said.
“And what did Mr. Marber want in return?” Linford asked.
Stafford shook her head slowly. “If there was a catch, he didn’t stay around long enough for me to find out what it was.”
“No home visits?” Linford asked.
Stafford bristled. “I don’t do anything like that.” She paused. “I’m still not sure why he did it.”
“Maybe he just fell for you, Laura,” Siobhan said, further softening her voice, prepared to play “nice” to Linford’s “nasty.” “I think there was a bit of the romantic in him . . .”
“Yeah, maybe.” Stafford’s eyes were glinting with emotion, and Siobhan knew she’d said the right thing. “Maybe that’s what it was.”
“Did you ever go to his house?” Siobhan asked. Stafford shook her head. “You knew what he did for a living?”
“He sold paintings, right?”
Siobhan nodded. “Some of the paintings he owned, they were taken down from the walls — any idea why he’d do that?”
“Maybe to send to his place in Tuscany.”
“You know about it?”
“He told me about it. It’s true then . . . ?”
Stafford had obviously heard a lot of stories and boasts in her time. “He has a place in Italy, yes,” Siobhan confirmed. “Laura, one of his paintings seems to be missing. He didn’t give it to you, did he?” She held up the photo of the painting. Stafford looked at it, but wasn’t really concentrating.
“He talked about Italy,” she said wistfully, “how he’d take me there one day . . . I thought it was just . . .” She lowered her eyes.
“Eddie opened up to you then, Laura?” Siobhan asked quietly. “He talked about himself?”
“Nothing too personal . . . a bit about his background, stuff like that.”
“Problems he was having?” Stafford shook her head. “Nothing troubling him recently?”
“No, he seemed happy enough. Had some money coming to him, I think.”
“What makes you say that?” Linford asked brusquely.
“I think maybe he said something about it. When we were talking about this place, how he could afford it.”
“And he said he had money coming?”
“Yes.”
“Could he have meant the exhibition, Laura?” Siobhan asked.
“I suppose so . . .”
“You don’t really think so?”
“I don’t know.” She looked out through the conservatory. “It’s getting cold out there. Alexander needs to come in . . .”
“Just a couple more questions, Laura. I need to ask about the Paradiso.”
Stafford looked at her. “What about it?”
“Who owns it?”
“Ricky Marshall.”
“You don’t believe that,” Siobhan teased her. “He might run the desk, but that’s all, isn’t it?”
“I’ve always dealt with Ricky.”
“Always?”
Stafford nodded. Siobhan let the silence lie between them for a minute.
“Have you ever come across a man called Cafferty? Big Ger Cafferty?”
Stafford shook her head. Again, Siobhan let the silence lie. Stafford shifted on the sofa, as if about to say something.
“And all the time,” Linford broke in, “that Marber was paying for this place, he never asked you for any extras?”