Bob Skiinner 21 Grievous Angel Read Free Page B

Alex was watching me, with a frown on her face. ‘In that case, Constable McGuire,’ I replied instead, ‘. . . what’s your first name?’

    ‘Mario, sir.’

    ‘Now there’s an odd mixture.’

    ‘Father Irish, mother Italian.’

    ‘Indeed? Well, Mario, please give Detective Superintendent Jay my compliments and tell him that my arse is going nowhere until he calls me himself and gives me a good reason why it should.’

    ‘Will do, sir.’ Something in the lad’s tone hinted that he would enjoy it too.

    ‘And one other thing,’ I added.

    ‘I know, sir. Forget the number I just called.’

    My daughter looked at me, a little anxiously, as I came back to my seat. ‘Can you do that?’ she asked. ‘He’s a superintendent and you’re only a chief inspector.’

    ‘Nobody’s “only” a chief inspector, love,’ I told her. ‘Nobody’s “only” anything. “Only” isn’t a word I like to tag on to people.’ That said, I could have added that if you made chief inspector at thirty-three . . . I’d held the rank for three years by that time . . . then somebody who’d taken twelve years longer to make super would know that at some point down the road he’d be calling you ‘sir’, and thus wouldn’t be taking too many liberties.

    I didn’t say it, though; instead I concentrated on finishing my lasagne before the phone rang again. I felt myself grin as I wondered whether that young constable had the stones to deliver my message verbatim, suspecting that he did.

    It didn’t take Jay too long. I was in the kitchen when he called; Alex picked up in the dining room, before I could stop her. She answered in the same way I did, number only, as I’d taught her.

    ‘Yes, my father is at home,’ I heard her say. ‘Who’s calling, please?’ She paused. ‘I’m sorry,’ she continued, switching into young woman mode and sounding frighteningly like her mother. ‘Either you tell me who you are or I hang up. That’s what my father says I should do with anonymous callers.’ She waited, taking the phone away from her ear slightly, as if she was getting ready to put it down. ‘Thank you,’ she said, eventually, then turned to look at me. ‘Dad, it’s Detective Superintendent Jay.’

    ‘How soon can we start her on our switchboard?’ he drawled, as soon as I took the phone.

    ‘We’ll be minding hers before she’s done,’ I told him.

    ‘You finished your tea then, Bob?’ The sarcasm in Jay’s tone was only one of the reasons for my dislike of him.

    ‘And done the dishes.’

    ‘You ready to obey orders now?’

    I didn’t want to upset Alex, so all I did was grin, when I really wanted to bite his ear off. ‘Since when were you my line manager?’ I asked him, quietly. ‘You’re at St Leonards, CID; I’m drugs squad commander. So please stop puffing out your chest and tell me exactly what the hell it is you want.’

    ‘Listen . . .’ he growled.

    ‘I’m listening.’

    I heard a deep breath being drawn. ‘I’ve got a crime scene,’ he continued, eventually.

    ‘Infirmary Street Baths,’ I said. In the Victorian era Edinburgh’s civic leaders built several public swimming pools to combat the scourge of cholera. When I was young, my father took me to see his grandfather’s grave in a cemetery in Wishaw, Motherwell’s neighbouring town; as we approached it he pointed out a green area, without memorial stones, and told me that it was the site of a mass grave for victims of a cholera epidemic.

    ‘That’s right,’ Jay confirmed, brusquely.

    ‘I thought they were closed.’ A hundred years on, we weren’t so bothered about Biblical plagues.

    ‘They are. They were shut down about a year ago; they’ve been mothballed while the council tries to find a new use for the building, or for the site, if it comes to that. There are jannies going in every so often, to check the place out, make sure that everything’s all right.’

    ‘But today something