Lethal Intent

Forty-six

Paula Viareggio usually lunched alone, in her office, so Mario's call suggesting that they meet in a restaurant near his office had taken her by surprise. The place had looked unimpressive from the outside, but the food, if not delightful as its name suggested, had been good, and value for money too.

'So what prompted this?' she asked, as they sipped the incredibly strong Turkish coffee.

'Nothing,' her cousin-lover replied. 'Somebody at work mentioned it, and I thought it was time we gave it a try, that's all.'

'Who owns it?'

Unobtrusively he pointed a finger at a bald, stocky man standing behind a tiny bar in the far corner of the dining room. 'He does, or so I'm told.'

Paula glanced around her. 'It's just as well his kitchen's better than his decor,' she muttered. The restaurant's predominant colour was red, with garish flock wallpaper that might have come from the seventies, and a thick acrylic-fibre carpet. Even the two overworked waiters wore red ties and aprons.

'You should offer to give him a make-over.' He chuckled. Paula had been mulling over the idea of backing an ambitious young designer in the start-up of an interiors business.

'Ah, but could he afford us? The place is busy, sure, but he's not making much from the lunch trade. Still, I suppose the idea is to entice people like us into coming back at night.'

'Which we're not going to do; I was curious about it, but I won't rush back for a proper meal.' Mario finished his coffee and signalled for the bill. 'Don't base your business plan on it, love,' he advised her. 'Whatever your bright girl advised him, he'll always want this place looking like a harem.'

'You're still not sold on the new venture, are you?'

'If you've got your heart set on it,' he told her, 'I'll go along with it, but it's against my instincts, and Alex Skinner's advice. It's not a natural expansion for the Viareggio group, in that it bears no relation to our existing areas of business. You ask yourself, what would your father or our grandfather have said about it?'

'Nothing,' she conceded glumly. 'They'd just have laughed. Okay, I'll drop it as far as the group's concerned, but… I might put some of my own money into it.'

'Fine, you've got enough since you sold those saunas.'

'Not all that much: your mother had an interest too, remember.'

'That is something I'd rather forget.' He slipped two ten-pound notes into the folder that held the bill, and accepted their overcoats from the owner.

'Thank you, sir,' the man said. 'Are you in business around here?'

'Yes, we are.'

'Then maybe we'll see you again.'

Mario smiled at him. 'That could happen,' he replied.

He held the door for Paula, and they stepped outside into Elbe Street. Snowflakes were drifting gently to the ground, a sign of worse to come, according to the morning's weather forecast.

Her car was parked outside; she offered him a lift back to his office, but it was no more than a quarter of a mile away, and so he chose to walk. 'Are you going out with the boys tonight?' she asked, as she fastened her seatbelt.

'I was, but Neil's working somewhere so he called off. He's asked me if I'll take Spence to the mini-rugby tomorrow.'

'If it's on,' she pointed out. 'They won't let the kids play in the snow, will they?'

'Probably not. But I've thought of that, and if it happens, I've got a fall-back plan for him, and Lauren too if she wants.'

'But you're not doing anything tonight?'

'No, so I'll make dinner at my place, yes?'

She smiled. 'And breakfast.'

She drove the short distance to her office, and parked in her allotted space in the reserved section, on ground that the Viareggio Trust owned. Officially, she and Mario were joint trustees, but in practice they ran the family's enterprises as if they were directors of a conventional commercial group.

She hurried out of the snow and took the lift up to the third floor, stepping out into the small reception area that doubled as her secretary's work-station. Danni was at her desk as usual, but she was not alone. A slim man, with muddy grey eyes, was seated on the couch reserved for visitors; he rose as she entered, stretching out to his full height. 'Hello, Paula,' he greeted her. 'Nice to see you.'

She frowned at him. 'Mr Jay. This is a surprise. What can I do for you?'

'A word in private would be good.'

Paula made no attempt to hide her irritation at his presence. She looked at the wall clock and said, 'I can give you fifteen minutes. I have some important calls to make this afternoon.'

He laughed. 'Come on, lass, you can spare me more than that. I'm important too, you know.'

'Fifteen minutes,' she repeated harshly, 'and you're using them up. Come on through.'

'Would you like coffee?' asked Danni.

'No thanks: I've just had some and Mr Jay won't have the time.' She led the way into her newly redecorated office; it looked out on to the Scottish Executive office building and, from a certain position, to the new Ocean Terminal complex. As she settled behind her desk, she saw that the snow was starting to fall more heavily.

'What do you want?' she snapped, as Jay settled into an easy chair, one of two selected by her designer protegee.

'Don't be so tetchy, lass.'

'Don't call me lass.'

His false smile vanished. 'Very well, Miss Viareggio, if that's the way you want to play it. I'm concerned about your relationship with Detective Superintendent Mario McGuire.'

She started out of her chair, but with supreme self-control, settled back down, fixing the man with a glare that would have chilled the snow outside. 'And what Goddamned business is that of yours?'

'As I said, I'm concerned about it.'

'In what respect? Are you jealous?'

'If I was younger I might have been, but that's a side issue. What you and McGuire do under the duvet doesn't bother me; it's what you do in business that I'm worried about.'

'I'm sorry,' said Paula. 'I think I'm missing something here. Why should I care what you're worried about, and why should my business be any business of yours?'

'Your father didn't teach you much in the way of respect, did he? Whenever I called on him he welcomed me with a smile and a glass of Amaretto… I'm very fond of Amaretto.' Suddenly the muddy eyes seemed to grow hard. 'He certainly had more sense than to talk to me like that.'

She held his gaze, unflinching. 'And what of my grandfather? Think back twenty years, to when you were a sergeant or whatever, and ask yourself if you'd have traipsed in here then, when he was sat behind that big old desk of his.'

'You're right; I was a sergeant, and I can tell you this too. If I'd called on your grandfather I'd have been accompanied by at least one other officer and probably by people from the Inland Revenue, with a search warrant in my pocket to back me up. Your grandfather's connections don't bear close examination, any more than his tax returns did.'

Paula felt her control slip away. 'Right!' she shouted. 'Your fifteen minutes are up. Get the hell out of here, or I'll call a real policeman to remove you.'

Jay remained seated. 'I'll go when I'm good and ready, and I'll be back before too long. When I come, it'll be with specialist officers from another force, and we will go through the records of your businesses with the finest-toothed of combs. And I don't mean just the last couple of years. We'll go back all the way to the old man. When we're done, there will be no way your beloved can stay in the force. Who knows? We might even have the two of you in court before we're done. It won't stop there, though: Mario's been advanced pretty rapidly in the force. I doubt if someone who'd made such an error of judgement could survive either.'

He pushed himself slowly to his feet. 'It's been a pleasure to see you again… lass,' he said. 'But I'm going to enjoy my next visit even more. Goodbye for now.'

Paula stared at his back as he turned it to her; she stared at the door as he closed it behind him. And then she picked up the telephone and called Mario.

He could almost hear the rage build up within him as he listened to her story, without interrupting her once. Even after she had finished, he stayed silent for a while.

When he did speak, his voice was soft, the way she knew it could sound when someone was in the worst trouble of his life. 'That's it,' he murmured. 'I was asked to take it easy on Jay, and I agreed. But now all deals are off. Before I've done with him, I'm going to see that bastard shivering in his own piss.'