barrette and shook out her long, russet tresses, watching under her lashes for some reaction. Men had always remarked on her hair, finding something fascinating in the way it cascaded round her shoulders, falling onto her breasts.
'Maybe we could find a movie? Or something?' she asked, hearing the deliberate huskiness in her voice, watching the man's face to see if such boldness was overstepping the mark.
When Max smiled and nodded, Marianne let out her breath, her cheeks glowing with a mixture of relief and pleasure.
As they rose to leave, Marianne accidentally swept the two saltand-pepper ducks off the table.
'Oh!' she cried, her hand flying to her mouth in horror as one of the ducks shattered into bits on the stone floor.
'Come on. Someone'll clear that up. Don't worry about it,' Max told her, a slight irritation in his tone.
Marianne nodded and hurried out after him, but for some reason the incident had cast a shadow over her spurt of optimism like a cloud suddenly covering the sun.
He knew that she was looking at him even in the darkness that shrouded them from all the other cinema goers. That was good. As his lips curled upwards the hit man wondered what the woman would make of the thoughts that prompted that smile. He had hardly mentioned Brogan; just a couple of questions thrown out casually Hope my old pal Billy might be around next time I'm up in Glasgow. And, later, When did you last see your bad wee brother? That had been said with a grin that was meant to tell her that Max knew the score with Billy Brogan. He'd seen something like relief in Marianne's face: this old friend, Max Whittaker, was straight but didn't hold Billy's wayward lifestyle against his sister. It had been a nice little conjuring trick, letting her think that he understood how she felt.
His grin widened. If only she knew what had really prompted that smile. Should she manage to make contact with Brogan, the dealer would be happily surprised that Max Whittaker had turned up out of the blue. Billy Boy hadn't seen or heard from Max for years, thankfully.
The hit man chuckled to himself. Private Whittaker might he dead and gone, one of the casualties of the Afghan conflict, but his name still had its uses.
He laid a casual arm across the back of the seat, fingering Marianne's long red hair, feeling her body edge closer to his own.
This was a different sort of war he was involved in now, and there would doubtless be more casualties before the end, but whether this woman was to be numbered amongst them depended on his new paymasters.
Sahid Jaffrey. Aged forty-nine. Lived at 20 Maxwell Road. No previous convictions,' Detective Sergeant Wilson looked up at the team as he recited the dead man's statistics. 'And that's just because he was good at ducking and diving,' he continued grimly.
'How's that?' DC Fathy asked, puzzled. `Ach, Jaffrey was pretty well known to us,' Wilson explained.
'Used to be a small-time dealer. Rumour has it his missus threatened to turn him in so he went straight. Sort of. But we know he'd maintained links with some of his old mates. Worked to our advantage and he was one of the more reliable snouts on our books. In fact,' he sighed heavily, shaking his head as he turned to address the entire team, 'he was the one who was instrumental in telling us about Brogan.'
'But I thought it was from a call box,' Fathy frowned.
'Aye, that was just for the record, son. See, we don't give away our sources that easily. One trip to court and Jaffa would have been a sitting duck for the bad guys.'
'Well it looks as though it was one of the bad guys who found out that he'd been dealing with us,' Lorimer broke in. 'Those knife injuries to his knees suggest a very personal sort of punishment.'
It was two days since the discovery of Jaffrey's body. The officers from K Division had sent in a forensic team to the Gleniffer Braes where the body had been examined then taken to Glasgow City mortuary. The SIO on the case, DI James Martin, had been astute enough to recognise DS Wilson's name from the stack of cards inside the dead man's wallet. Now the two divisions were collaborating on the man's death since it could very well have some link to Scott and the men in Brogan's flat.
'DI Martin's Family Liaison Officer has told us something else that might be of interest,' Wilson went on. 'Seems like Jaffrey junior's been doing his gap year over in Spain.' He paused to let his words sink in. 'A place in Mallorca called Cala Millor.'
'So that's the link with Brogan!' DS Cameron exclaimed. 'I wondered how on earth he had that sort of information.'
'We need to speak to the boy as soon as possible. Family Liaison have advised us of his return flight,' Lorimer nodded to Wilson. 'We have to lift him the moment he steps off that plane.
Okay?'
Thomson Holidays had asked their passengers returning from Palma if any of them would give up their seat to a young man whose father had died suddenly. The airlines had a special budget for such acts of compassion and an obliging lone traveller could sometimes find himself with an extra day's holiday plus a few hundred quid to spend. Such a person had not been hard to find and Jaffrey junior was now booked to fly home, arriving at Glasgow International Airport later that evening.
'What about Mrs Jaffrey?' DC Irvine asked. 'Do we know what she's told Family Liaison so far?'
Wilson shrugged and spread his hands in a who knows gesture.
'She certainly didn't report him as a missing person. And the pathologist reckons he's been dead for several days.'
'I think it's a good idea to speak to her before the boy gets home. Otherwise he'll maybe do all the talking for her,' Lorimer said.
There was a murmur of agreement in the room. It was well known that many Asian families continued the tradition of the male being head of the family, the woman often choosing to be subservient to him. With the death of her husband, Mrs Jaffrey might well look to her teenage son to speak on her behalf.
Annie Irvine made a face. There weren't many women nowadays who'd let their men folk get off with that sort of behaviour. She thought back to Mrs Galbraith. There was one mother who hadn't minced her words. Would Mrs Jaffrey have the courage to tell the police anything she knew about her dead husband and his secrets?
She was suddenly aware that the DCI was looking in her direction.
Irvine.
You and DC Fathy go and see her,' Lorimer told them.
'See what you can find out.'
Mrs Jaffrey opened the door just wide enough to let the chain tighten. DC Irvine saw a tiny woman, caught sight of a dark purple sari banded with a design of red and gold, a matching scarf covering her head. But it was the expression of fear in the woman's eyes that caught the policewoman's attention.
'DC Fathy, DC Irvine, Strathclyde Police, ma'am,' Fathy said, holding his warrant card out in front of him.
The woman was silent as she fiddled with the chain, hands visibly shaking. The two officers exchanged glances. She was still in a state of shock and no wonder. A missing husband who had turned up brutally murdered was enough to numb the mind of any anxious spouse. The door was pulled back as though by a tremendous effort and as they stepped in, Mrs Jaffrey swayed where she stood.
Annie caught the woman's sleeve before she could collapse.
'Come on, dear, through here,' she whispered, guiding her back along the corridor to where she could see a glint of light under a door. Under Annie's grip, the woman felt like a thin bundle of bones hidden beneath the swathes of clothing. There was no one else in the house and Annie wondered when this woman had last eaten anything. The brightly lit room turned out to be the woman's bedroom and Annie reckoned from the state of the place that Sara Jaffrey had been lying in her bed, fully clothed, when they'd rung the doorbell.
'Here, sit down, are you okay?' Annie asked, helping the Asian woman into a chair beside her unmade bed. A tumbler of water lay on the bedside cabinet and Annie picked it up, setting its rim to the woman's lips, letting her swallow until she began to splutter.
Mrs Jaffrey gave a little cough then murmured something that Annie couldn't catch. As though exhausted, she leaned back, her eyes staring wildly at the two officers.
'Have you got him?' she asked, clasping her hands to her chin in a gesture that was so pitiful that it made Annie bite her lip.
'Have you found my husband?'
