Head Shot

70

Mario McGuire hated plastic coffins, the containers the mortuary guys brought with them to murder scenes. Whatever little dignity they allowed was more than offset by their odour; a mix of polyurethane and disinfectant, and by the brutal truth that they had been used on uncounted occasions in the past, to carry victims of all shapes and sizes.

He had seen people being crammed into these things. One corpse, that of a man stabbed to death in a pub fight early in the career of young PC McGuire, had been so gross that the crew of the meat wagon had simply left the arms hanging over the buckling sides as they had carried it away.

As they lifted her into her container, Ivy Brennan, who had been Baldwin, looked like nothing more than a broken dol. There was something especially tragic about her, the tiny, flawed innocent who had deserved so much more from life than to be the victim of George Rosewell, that even the black humour of the attendants was silenced.

Mario had banished his earlier weakness; grateful that only his friend had been there to see him overcome. It had been replaced by a huge, towering rage, which seemed to emanate from him in waves as he thought about everything that had gone wrong so suddenly in his life, and contemplated what he was going to do to the man who had brought it al about.

'Are you absolutely sure,' asked Mcllhenney, forcing his way into his musing, 'that Ivy couldn't have been El a Frances?'

McGuire turned away as a mortuary porter placed the lid on the coffin; he walked across to the window and peered through the slit between the drawn curtains. 'I'm as sure as she's dead,' he answered harshly. 'Ivy lived her odd life with her old sugar daddy next door, but she had no idea of what he was really up to.

'If she had, she wouldn't have pointed me at him with the tip about the beard, or made up that daft story about Uncle Beppe; no, she'd have done the opposite of those things. What she might have done, though, innocently, was set up the Viareggios.'

'Uh?'

'Maybe. I asked Paula some more about her last night. She started coming about the deli in Stockbridge when Rums was no more than an infant. Talked nineteen to the dozen, according to Paulie; she asked all sorts of questions about the shop. She told her that she didn't just come to buy stuff; she said that she liked being there, she liked the smell of it.

She said that she liked just to stand there and breathe in because it reminded her of where she used to live… although she never said where that was, and Paula never asked.

'She asked her about the special wines we stock as well, and whether you can buy them anywhere else. Paula remembered telling her no, that we imported our own, and that we owned a commercial warehouse where they were bonded.

'There was a man too,' said McGuire. 'She told me that once or twice, at weekends, a bloke came into the shop with Ivy; an older bloke, stocky, swarthy, hard-looking, with a grizzled beard. Paulie thought he might have been her father, but she never asked about that either. She said that she was happy to talk to the kid… she liked her well enough… but she didn't want to get involved in her life, so she always tried to keep her at arm's length. She never spoke to this man, and he never spoke to her.'

'But you think he was listening?' asked Mcl henney.

'Chances are that he was. Maybe he told Ivy what to ask, maybe not, but the likelihood is that's how he came to know about our warehouse and to know Paula Viareggio by name and sight.'

'I agree; that's probable. But you've stil got to convince me that Ivy wasn't involved. Everything you've told me about her makes it seem that she was quite an actress.'

'Okay, I'l convince you. There's some more checking I want you to do, then a man I want you to see.'

'Who's that?'

'Walter Jaap, funeral undertaker. He's the only man alive I know who's actually met El a Frances, as such.'

'Okay,' said Mcl henney, 'but I'm not doing it, we are. I've got orders from very high up not to let you out of my sight.'

'Is that right? In that case I might have to sleep with Paula tonight, if you're going to be on the sofa.'