Bob Skiinner 21 Grievous Angel by Quintin Jardine Read Free Book Online

twenty-eight when we saw the handle turn.

    Bella Watson was better dressed than she had been on my previous visit. She’d never been scruffy, but the casual house-wear that I’d been expecting had been replaced by a short-sleeved blouse with vertical cream and brown stripes, a close-fitting brown skirt, and shiny high-heeled shoes; none of it looked as if it had come from Littlewoods catalogue. It was the first sign she’d ever given me that she had a body, and it took me by surprise. Her hair was different too; the grey streaks that I’d seen before had gone, it was a lustrous auburn and it had a Charlie Miller look about it. She was around fifty, I knew, but with the new style and a tan that was way out of place in her neighbourhood, she could have passed for at least five years younger.

    The mouth was still the same, though. ‘Aw fuck, it’s you,’ she moaned, as she looked up at me. ‘What do you want now? Ma boy’s no’ here.’

    ‘We know that,’ I told her. ‘He’s with us. Invite us in, Bella.’

    She knew it wasn’t a request; and she stood aside to let us past and into the hallway. The house had had a makeover too. There was a new fitted carpet in the living room, and a white three-seater settee and armchair that had a leather look to it. The telly in the corner was bigger than mine. I glanced at the sideboard, at the two framed photographs that stood upon it; Marlon and a boy who hadn’t grown much older than he’d been when it was taken. There wasn’t one of the daughter, I noticed. ‘Marlon’s earning good money, surely,’ I remarked.

    ‘This has got fuck all tae do wi’ him,’ she snapped.

    I stared at her. ‘You’re not telling me you’ve got a job, are you? There would have been a story in the Evening News about that.’

    ‘Smart bastard.’

    ‘So what is the story? Or is this all knock-off? Would you like to show us receipts for this lot?’

    Her eyes blazed at me. ‘Piss off, Skinner!’ she snarled. ‘If ye must know, it’s our Mia. She’s been lookin’ after me. She’s doing all right for herself.’

    I didn’t know Mia; I’d never met her. But as far as I knew she hadn’t broken the mould and gone straight to Oxford from Maxwell Academy. She wasn’t the business of the evening, though. ‘Does Marlon still live with you?’ I asked her.

    ‘Aye. Why? Did he tell you lot different?’

    I shook my head. ‘No, he hasn’t said a word to us. When did you see him last, Bella?’

    Her eyes narrowed. ‘Why?’

    ‘Listen,’ I said, ‘we’re not trying to do him for anything. I need to know, that’s all.’

    ‘Tuesday,’ she muttered, grudgingly. ‘Tuesday afternoon, before he went out.’

    ‘Had he been in all day?’

    ‘No, he’d been at his work.’

    ‘With Tony Manson?’

    She seemed to draw herself up to her full height, about five eight in the heels, and a look of pride shone in her eyes. ‘Yes, wi’ Mr Manson. He’s his prodigy.’

    ‘I think that might be protégé, Bella; who told you that?’

    ‘Mr Manson did.’

    ‘Manson came here?’

    ‘No. I’d to go to his place one day. Marlon had left his mobile at home, and he needed it.’

    A question suggested itself. ‘Are you working for Manson too, Bella?’

    ‘No.’

    I didn’t believe her. ‘Bella!’

    She folded. ‘Okay, occasionally.’

    ‘What sort of work?’

    ‘In one of his launderettes.’

    Tony Manson had a range of commercial interests; they included low-rent offices around the West End of Edinburgh and in Leith, two discos, one in Fountainbridge and another in Bellevue, a pub chain that was incorporated and traded as Bidey Inns, several saunas, a private hire taxi company, and a string of launderettes. It was believed that much of what was laundered there was money from Manson’s other business activities, drugs, prostitution, protection and loan-sharking. I knew all those places and I’d never seen anyone in a launderette dressed as the new-look