Butcher Read Free Page B

of cuts. So now I think, what’s a bit of scrub?’
    â€˜Counting shaves is a sign of …’ Scullion didn’t complete the sentence.
    â€˜I know already.’ Perlman looked at the menu. ‘Why do chefs put soy and bok choi into everything these days? Take a perfectly good omelette and turn it into an oriental egg fuck.’
    â€˜You prefer we go where you can get a deep-fried Mars bar?’
    â€˜Death by grease.’ Perlman put the menu down and looked at the inspector. His thinning sandy hair, which he used to comb with a side parting, he now wore cut short into his scalp. He looked harder, tougher, more polis-like. His pink skin had a glow of good health and good deeds. He was happily married, and there were two kids. Scullion had a full life. He could switch off when he went home at nights. Crime wave, what crime wave? Perlman had never been able to put work behind him. Even now, when he was on ‘sick leave’.
    â€˜How’s the shoulder, Lou?’
    â€˜Some days nothing. Other days I take a painkiller.’ He didn’t want to talk about the bullet that had passed through his shoulder. He dreamed sometimes about the way he’d been shot, and in the dreams the bullet always found its intended target, his heart. He died and saw his own funeral. Miriam wasn’t among the mourners, but his aunts wailed in the background like a bad Greek chorus.
    He scanned the menu again: smoked haddock and ratatouille en croute . ‘Does anybody ever ask about me, Sandy?’
    â€˜Superintendent Gibson always does.’
    â€˜A sweetheart. She phoned me once a while ago.’
    A waitress with dyed black hair and a tiny silver nostril ring stopped at their table.
    Scullion said, ‘I’ll have the pasta with tomato and basil. Lou?’
    â€˜Burger and chips,’ Perlman said. He looked at the waitress. ‘I don’t want any fancy sprinkle of soy and mustard on my plate.’
    The waitress smiled. ‘Burger and chips is burger and chips.’
    â€˜I’ll also have a lager, please,’ Scullion said.
    Perlman asked for sparkling water.
    â€˜Right away.’ The waitress went off.
    Scullion propped his elbows on the table. ‘Mary Gibson’s always had a completely inexplicable soft spot for you. But Tay – he’s like a cat with a lifetime supply of free cream. He’s delirious he doesn’t have your, er, troublesome presence around Pitt Street.’
    William Tay, chief superintendent, a dour concrete man who was rumoured to smile every ten years or so, had been marinating all his life in joyless Presbyterianism. He was a Christian soldier in the Onward sense, battling the forces of darkness in Glasgow in God’s name.
    â€˜He’s an anti-Semite,’ Perlman said, and made a phooo sound.
    â€˜Rubbish.’
    â€˜He reminds me of Goebbels. I always feel he’s about to lecture me on the master race … I could go back to work tomorrow, Sandy. For Christ’s sake, I’m OK. Really.’
    â€˜It’s not going to happen, Lou. Tay has the medical people dancing to his flute. They wouldn’t wipe their arses without his say-so. You won’t pass a physical in the near future. Count on it. Tay’s never liked you. And he likes you even less ever since Miriam’s trial.’
    â€˜I’m ostracized,’ Perlman said. He didn’t want to rehash Miriam’s trial. Anything to do with Miriam was like cutting a vein. ‘So what the fuck am I supposed to do with myself?’
    The waitress appeared, set the drinks down.
    Perlman looked at her apologetically. ‘Pardon my language.’
    â€˜I’m the brass monkey that hears no bad words. Your food’s coming right up, guys.’
    Perlman watched her go. ‘I like her. Leave her a sizeable tip, Sandy.’
    â€˜You said on the phone this was your treat.’
    â€˜A Jew and a Scotsman haggling over who pays the