Head Shot

58

He flashed her a smile. 'Where did you get the money to buy them anyway? Go on, tell me.'

Paula sipped her wine; the air between them was sizzling, and they both knew it. 'If you insist,' she said. 'But don't blame me if you don't like it. Your mother gave it to me.'

It was Mario's turn to gasp in astonishment. 'You what?'

'Sorry, but it's true. Are you imagining the headlines? Detective's Mammy Bankrol s Brothels. Is that it?'

'Could be,' he retorted.

'Well relax; there's nothing to connect her with the businesses.'

'So how did you talk her into it?'

'I didn't have to. Your mother and I aren't strangers, you know. She's my favourite aunt, and we talk. We were sharing a bottle in a restaurant in Leith one night and a prostitute walked past the window. Auntie Chris gave one of her classic humphs; I thought she was disapproving, until she started on about a society that forced women to walk the streets like that, and about how anyone who thought you could make prostitution disappear by outlawing it was off their head.

'She said that what we should real y be doing was giving women like that decent working conditions and regulating what they did, rather than arresting them for it. I said that to an extent that was what was happening in the saunas, but that the danger there was that the wrong sort of people might get to own them. I mentioned Tony Manson's saunas being for sale, and she said why didn't I buy them then, and run them the way they should be run.

'I said, "Buy them with what?" And that's how it came about. She put up most of the money, and I bought them through a shell company. No one knew about it but Auntie Chris and me, til you started sniffing around.'

Mario's eyes narrowed slightly. 'You mean you really didn't tell your father?'

'No way did I; he'd have raised merry hell if I had done, and got my mother al worked up too. My dad might have liked a bit of skirt, but he was prudish too. Al right, he did find out on the grapevine, eventually; he wasn't best pleased, to put it mildly. He said I was on my own, that he'd never set foot in such places, and that if I came a cropper he wouldn't bail me out.'

'Then why the hell…' He frowned. 'Paulie, remember that wee girl I asked you about, the one who said she knew you?'

'Ivy Brennan? Yes, she asked me straight out one day what I had to do with the Bonnington sauna. She said she'd seen me going in there a few times. At first I thought she was implying I was on the game, but actually she asked me if there would be any chance of a job there.'

'What did you tell her?'

'The truth. I told her that she looked about fifteen, and that she'd attract the wrong sort of customer. You know what I mean; there are guys out there who have a physical need to get their ashes hauled every so often, and my places cater for that. But there are other guys too, perverts, and I won't have any truck with them. Anyway, what about Ivy?'

'Maybe nothing; only I'm trying to work out why she told me she had seen Uncle Beppe having a shouting match in the doorway of the Bonnington place with someone inside.'

'You're kidding.'

'No.'

'Then she was. Not only would my dad not have set foot in one of my places; he wouldn't have had an argument in public either.'

'No,' Mario mused, 'he wouldn't, would he; not Uncle Beppe. Yet that's what she told me; she cal ed me yesterday and said she had to see me. That's what it was about.'

Paula smiled. 'Is that all it was about?'

He took a deep breath and grinned back at her. 'Well, no. She did have something else in mind.'

'But she had to tell you something to get you to see her, so she made up that story, knowing that the place was mine.'

'I suppose so.'

'Hey, Mario… you didn't, did you?'

'Certainly not. The fact is, with her kit off she stil only looks about fifteen.'

Gradual y, his frown deepened; he sat in the chair facing his cousin, but staring into the far corner of the room.

'What's up?' asked Paula, breaking the silence. 'Do you wish you had now?'

'No, just a thought that occurred to me, that's al.'

She shook her head. 'Bloody policemen; you never stop working. I went out with a copper for a while, a bloke called Stevie Steele. He was exactly the same; in the middle of God knows what, he'd be away in another world.'

'Mmm,' he murmured. 'Our Stevie, eh. He never told me that when we worked together.'

'Probably because I told him I stil fancied you something rotten.'

'What else did you tell him?'

'Nothing that didn't happen,' she answered, mischievously.

'Are you kidding me?'

She raised an eyebrow and smiled. 'Maybe yes, maybe no.'

'Well if you're not, he's discreet: I'l say that for him. But back to this world; did Uncle Beppe ever mention to you anyone cal ed Magnus Essary?'

'Never.'

'Sure?'

'Certain.'

'Or Ella Frances?'

'No. Why?'

'We're trying to find them, that's all.' He saw her stiffen momentarily.

'Are they suspects?'

'No. They're just a lead we're having trouble fol owing up.'

'Sorry I can't help then.'

He stood up from his chair. 'Never mind. But if you do find anything to do with either of them, let Greg Jay know.'

'I wil do, promise.' She gazed up at him, and candle-flames twinkled in her eyes. 'You sure you have to go?' she whispered.

He took a step towards her, leaned down and kissed her, long, slow, soft, breathtaking, until eventual y she broke off, with a cross between a gasp and a sigh. 'Yes, Paulie,' he murmured, wickedly. 'I'm absolutely certain.'