'Listen, I've got to go out. There's something I have to do and someone I have to see. If I'm wrong, I'll look like a bloody idiot. If I'm right, I'll have lived up to all that bullshit of mine on Radio Forth. I tell you, my love, there is one thing a detective should never take lightly and that's a Bob Skinner hunch.'
She stared at him, smiling in astonishment. 'Andy, what the hell is this about?'
He beamed back at her. 'You know, maybe we should rethink your resignation from the force,' he said, 'because you're playing a hell of a good game tonight.
'Don't wait up for me. I could be pretty late.'
71
'How the hell did you get in here?' Spike Thomson's face was a picture of surprise as he turned in response to the tap on his shoulder to see Andy Martin standing before him.
'I showed my warrant card,' the detective replied.
'Even so, the doormen here have instructions to call the management if the police turn up, not to just let them in.'
'Ahh, but I can be persuasive, Spike.'
'I'll bet you can,' Thomson grinned, raising his voice still louder over a sudden surge in the volume of the thumping music. 'It's just as well you're plain clothes, though. Otherwise people would die in the crush, trying to get out of here.'
Martin frowned as he looked around the big, smoky, former warehouse, which had been transformed into House 31, Edinburgh's trendiest underground night-club. 'Why?' he asked, his voice raised above the din. 'Is there a drug problem here that we should know about?'
'If there was,' the disc jockey replied, 'I wouldn't be here. No, this place is very respectable; properly licensed for entertainment and drinks, fire-safety inspected, and everything else. We have our own undercover drugs police on patrol all the time. Any dealer caught here is always handed over to you boys, so they don't risk it.
'No, it's just that these punters like to think they're doing something daring when they come to an unconventional place like this, so they're conditioned to run at the first sight of a uniform.'
The policeman grinned. 'The whole world used to operate like that; not any more though. The good people run, the bad ones stand their ground and dare us. Here,' he observed. 'I noticed a "we", back there.'
'I have an interest in the place.'
'How big an interest?'
Spike Thomson leaned towards him, speaking in as close to a whisper as he could manage. 'One hundred per cent. Don't tell anyone, though. The bright young things might not like it if they found out that the operation was actually owned by a middle-aged, middle-of-the-road AM presenter. "Ma granny listens tae Forth AM." That's what one kid said to me one night, with scorn all over her face. No, the presenters here are all FM jocks; some from Forth, the odd one from further afield, and quite a few just trying to impress me, in the hope I can get them into radio somewhere… anywhere.
'What brings you here anyway?' he asked. 'You never said when you called me on my mobile.'
'I'll tell you, if you can find a place where I won't be telling the whole fucking world.'
'Sure. Come on through here.' Thomson led the way from his place beside the dee-jay's booth, moving quickly through the ranks of twisting, jumping sweating dancers, with the detective at his heels, until they came to a small door marked 'Private'. He nodded to the security man standing guard and stepped inside.
The room was sparsely furnished: a desk, two chairs and a table, on which sat a row of monitors, each showing a different part of House 31, and each linked to a video below, on the floor.
An elderly man sat behind the desk, counting cash into piles. 'Give us a minute, Uncle Bob,' said Spike.
Martin looked after the old man as he closed the door. 'He really your uncle?'
'Sure; my mother's brother. He's my book-keeper. It's great, because I can trust him not just with the cash, but to supervise the ticket sellers and keep an eye on the bar, too. If anyone was at it, he'd know.'
The detective nodded towards the neat bundles of money on the desk. 'What's that?'
'Tonight's takings at the door.'
'Jesus.'
'No, I'm not; but when He comes back, He's promised me that He'll make a personal appearance. Now, what can I do for you?'
Martin sat on the edge of the desk and gazed at him, evenly. He glanced at his watch; it showed a quarter to one. 'I've had a busy few hours, Spike. I began by reading a report into the suicide of one Dafyd Ogston Lewis. Then I interviewed two men, Ronald Johnston-White, of whom you've probably heard,' he looked quickly at Thomson as he mentioned the name and saw that his guess had been correct, 'and Luke Heard, of whom you probably haven't, although you may have come across his daughter, Sophie.'
'In the nicest possible way, you mean?'
He took out a small tape recorder, checked the battery and recording levels, and set it down beside him on the desk top. 'I doubt that, chum; I really do.' He switched it on. 'Anyway, now there are a few things I have to ask you about… starting with that bloody parrot.'
72
Gazing at her as she stood there, holding the door open, he wondered whether Juliet Lewis had ever, in all of her life, looked even slightly dishevelled. She returned his gaze calmly, as if it was the middle of the evening, rather than the early hours of the morning and as if she was dressed for a night on the town, rather than standing there in a pink, silk, dressing gown.
She smiled at him; she actually smiled. 'Andy,' she exclaimed, with a hint of a laugh in her voice. 'Did you forget your keys? Did you ring the wrong bell?'
He shook his head. 'No, Juliet, no,' he replied. 'Every bloody bell I've rung tonight has come up trumps. I'm in the right place. Are the girls home?'
'Yes, but they're asleep. I wasn't; I don't, not much anyway, when Spike's not here.' She looked at him again, a gleam in her eye. 'What is this, anyway? Are you having second thoughts about dumping Rhian?'
'No,' he answered, roughly. 'It's the first thought I regret; the fact that I got involved with her in the first place, and wound up setting up my best friend.'
She frowned, taking in a long breath. 'I see. I don't think I like the tone this conversation's taking.'
'We'd better carry it on indoors, then.' He stepped past her uninvited, closed the door, then took her arm and eased her upstairs, in front of him, to her living room.
She turned towards him, without a word. He had known that he was right before ringing the doorbell, but it was almost unnerving to see the truth confirmed in the sudden iciness of her stare.
He walked across to the stand by the window and whipped off the white covering sheet. 'Hello, Juliet’ he said.
'Hello, Juliet! Hello, Juliet!' the bird echoed back. He threw the drape back over the cage and turned back to face the woman.
'You were crazy enough to tell me,' he exclaimed. 'Right at the very start. "His name's Hererro." Remember, you said you thought it was some South American reference. You know bloody well that it means "Blacksmith" in Spanish; only that should be two words, shouldn't it? Black Smith; black-hearted Alec!
'Why did you take it, for God's sake? You couldn't have thought that it would blurt out your name to the first copper to come though the door. The bird's a great mimic, but it's got no fucking memory. For sure, it would have made a lousy witness in a murder case.
'I know that you took the cage down from its hook to string Alec up there, but why did you take it with you afterwards?'
'To remind me of him!' Her sudden hiss chilled him even more than her eyes. 'I look at Hererro and I think of him, hanging up there. That beast tortured my husband to death; you cannot imagine how good it felt to do the same to him.'
He had known, of course. He had thought that he might have had difficulty making her confirm the truth, but she seemed eager to tell of it, to boast of it, even.