Hour Of Darkness

Eleven

Bella Watson!

That was a name from the past, and one that I’d hoped would stay there. On the other hand, I reasoned, if Mario and I were right in our shared hunch, then she wasn’t going to be part of my future, so no real worries.

Bella’s path hadn’t crossed mine this century, nor had I even heard word of her. The last time I’d seen her had been in the lair of one of her men friends, a serious Edinburgh gangster by the name of Tony Manson. He had gone to hell a few years later, whereas Bella, as seemed likely, had gone to Caledonian Crescent, a better neighbourhood altogether.

If I was given to florid comparisons, I might say that Bella Watson had been to homicide in Edinburgh as Mary Mallon was to typhoid in New York. She had two brothers and two sons, and every one of them was a murder victim.

Brother Gavin and son Ryan, who was then aged no more than fifteen and a drug pusher like his uncle, had ripped off a major crime lord, bigger even than Manson, and both had paid the price of their stupidity, age being no mitigating factor with those people.

Brother Billy had set out to avenge them but had found out that not all gunfights end like High Noon.

Son Marlon, a few years later, he had somehow got himself jammed between the proverbial rock and hard place, and wound up squashed.

After my second conversation with Mario, I had been so preoccupied with my thoughts about the Watsons and Spreckleys that I’d said nothing about it to Sarah, and she had left me to it, until we were on the train and halfway to Barcelona.

‘Are you going to tell me about those calls?’ she asked, eventually. ‘All I know is that it was Mario McGuire who rang you, but I couldn’t really hear what it was about once the engine started.’

‘Yeah, of course,’ I said. ‘Sorry, love. I should have said before now; not least because you’ve got a professional interest. It took me completely by surprise, that’s all. Mario thinks his people have put a name to that last autopsy you did before we came away, the woman in the water. It looks as if she’s someone I used to know.’

I gave her a rundown on the violent life and likely death of Bella Watson.

‘What a family!’ she exclaimed when I was finished. ‘The poor woman. How tragic can you get?’

I nodded. ‘Agreed, but don’t get the tissues out for Bella. She was the hardest of them all. We were never able to prove that she sent Billy out to get the crew who killed Gavin and Ryan, but I’m quite sure that she did.’

‘A real Ma Barker, from what you’re saying. What about Mr Watson?’

‘He left them to get on with it.’ I paused. ‘No, that’s not being quite fair to him. He was a straight guy, and didn’t like what was going on. Eventually Gavin put a gun to his head and told him to get out of town. Most people, me among them, thought he was dead, but he showed up at Marlon’s funeral. On the day, that affected Bella more than anything else.

‘It was a bizarre event, that funeral,’ I recalled. ‘There weren’t enough men there to take all the cords of the coffin; Jeez, there were no men left in the fucking family by that time. Mario and I, we’d gone along out of duty, no more, and we wound up helping bury the poor lad. It was surreal, with Tony Manson, the gangster Bella was involved with, and me at either end of the grave, lowering him down. I’ll never forget the look on Manson’s face. He was a real swine, but that day he showed me that he had a human side. He went the same way in the end.’

‘Did you go to his funeral?’ she asked.

‘Tony’s? No chance. I did solve his murder, though.’

‘Did I do the autopsy? I can’t remember.’

I laughed. ‘No, love, you were too busy at the time, having James Andrew.’

‘That’s right! I do remember now; I’d forgotten the name, that was all. You showed me the photographs when I was in the Simpson Maternity Unit and I showed you how I thought he’d been killed. I told you that when you found the killer he’d have scratch marks on his wrist from where the victim had resisted him, trying to stop the last knife thrust.’

‘And you were right, as it turned out.’

‘They won’t find any marks like that on whoever killed this woman,’ she pointed out. ‘He had her restrained and stabbed her from behind, over and over again, until he hit the spot.’

I’ve been a cop for going on thirty years and for most of that time, a detective. I’ve known the aftermath of violence, many, many times, far more often than has been good for me, so that now, when I see it, or when it’s described to me as Sarah did then, it’s as if I’m right there at the crime scene watching it happen.

‘I don’t get this, you know,’ I told her. I wasn’t puzzled by the manner of the murder, but by its motive.

‘What’s not to get?’

‘Why would anyone want to kill Bella Watson now? Once upon a time, sure, when she was at the heart of the action and every bit as bad as her two brothers, it wouldn’t have surprised me, but now, with her well into her sixties, it does. Back then her enemies would have filled a good-sized pub, but today most of them are dead and those that aren’t are decrepit. She’s been living quietly since her younger son died. . and trust me, if she hadn’t been, I’d have known about it one way or another.’

‘Perhaps it was just a random attack,’ Sarah suggested.

‘After which the body was stripped of any identification and dumped in the Forth? That’s more than a wee bit doubtful in my experience. . but then again I’m not part of the investigation. I’m sure that Mario only involved me so that I could confirm what he suspected.’

It was her turn to laugh. ‘Don’t kid yourself. He knew it would get your juices flowing.’

She had a point, but. . ‘If that’s so, it won’t do him any good. It’s Maggie’s force now, not mine, so I can’t, I won’t get involved.’

I really did believe that at the time.