place was known locally as the War Office, but those days were over. They had ended when Manson had installed a new manager with instructions to clean things up.
He was behind the bar, with two of his staff, when I walked in. He registered my arrival before the door had swung behind me, and nodded a greeting. It was five fifteen, the weekend had started, and it was busy; the customers were all regulars, for they stood in groups, drinking and talking. Every one of them was male. Tradition died hard in that part of the city. I made my way to the far corner of the bar, drawing the occasional look, but ignoring them all. ‘How’re you doing?’ I said.
His name was Lennie Plenderleith, and his height was a matter of debate. He was either six feet seven, six feet eight, or six feet nine, by varying accounts, but one thing was not in dispute: he was built like a whole row of brick shithouses. He had been a gang leader in Newhaven in his youth, not that he had needed the gang. He’d picked up the usual string of convictions, until finally he had come to the attention of Manson. He’d gone to work for him and had been clear of arrests for almost ten years.
That was not to say he had become a pacifist, no way. His boss was a very powerful figure within the city, but every so often someone made the mistake of crossing him. Soon afterwards, the transgressor would be admitted to the Royal Infirmary. We knew pretty much for certain that Lennie had driven the ambulance, figuratively, but none of the patients ever said a word about their misfortune.
‘Fine, thanks. What can I get you, Mr Skinner?’ he asked. His voice was quiet. People like him don’t need to be loud; their very presence commands attention.
‘I’ll just have a Coke, thanks, Lennie.’ I shoved a couple of pound coins across the bar as he filled a glass from a nozzle, but he pushed them back as he laid the glass in front of me.
‘Have you had the radio on this afternoon?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘I know what you’re talking about. Marlon Watson, yes?’
‘Got it in one.’
‘I need to talk to his boss, to eliminate him from our inquiries, so to speak. He doesn’t seem to be around.’
‘That’s self-evident. If he’d been around, nothing would have happened to Marlon.’
‘So they hadn’t fallen out?’
Lennie managed to frown and smile at the same time. ‘No chance. Marlon wasn’t the sort of lad to fall out with people. Besides…’
‘Tony shags his mother?’
The smile widened. ‘Among others,’ he said.
‘Do you know where he is, Lennie?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you going to tell me?’
He shrugged. ‘Why not? He’s in the Gran Hotel, in Ibiza Town.’
‘Not on his own, I assume.’
‘No. He’s got a woman with him. They’re away for a week. I can’t give you a name, though, Mr Skinner.’
‘Not even if I insisted?’ I ventured; not that I planned to.
‘No, because I don’t know it.’
‘Marlon told his mother he was going to Newcastle.’
‘He flew from there. But Marlon didn’t even know that. He drove him to Newcastle Station on Sunday morning, and dropped him off. As I understand it, the bird went down on the train and met him there.’
‘I imagine Tony didn’t want Bella to know,’ I said.
‘Not just her,’ Lennie chuckled. ‘He didn’t want anybody to know. Look, he likes Bella…’
I was sceptical. ‘She told me she works in his saunas. That’s hardly a sign of his affection.’
‘She might have let you think so, but she doesn’t in the way you mean. He uses her as a sort of inspector. She’ll drop in unannounced, to make sure that the places are being run okay. She takes no shit, and he likes her for it.’
‘How’s he going to take Marlon’s death?’ I asked the giant.
‘How do you think? Badly, very badly.’
‘In that case, Lennie,’ I told him, ‘no offence, but we’ll be watching you for a bit.’
He shrugged again, massively, shoulder-rippling. ‘No offence taken, but you’ll be wasting your time.’
I raised an eyebrow. ‘Yes?’
‘Yes. Work it out for yourself.’
I let the comment lie. ‘We do need to talk to Tony,’ I repeated.
He sighed. ‘I know; but you’ll need to wait till Sunday. He’s due back then. Marlon was supposed to pick him up; from the station again. You could fly out to Ibiza, of course, but I’d have to warn him, so that would be a waste of time too. He’d be gone.’
Plenderleith was nothing if not honest. ‘Okay,’ I conceded. ‘I know you’re going to call him anyway to let him know about Marlon. So, when you do, tell him I’ll be at his place first thing on Monday morning, and I won’t be pleased if he’s not there.’
‘I’m sure he will be, Mr Skinner.’
I finished my ersatz Coke and left. More punters had come in while I’d been talking to Lennie, and more of them studied me as I made my way to the door than had done when I’d arrived. They were the ones who’d made me as a cop; I stared them down so they’d remember me, and recognised a couple as I did so.
As I pulled out into traffic, I was wondering about the big guy. He was closer to Tony Manson than I’d realised, trusted with the secret of his Ibiza tryst, and to know what Bella Watson really did for him. I’d worked out straight away why it would be a waste of time keeping tabs on him as a way to the guys who’d killed Marlon. When Lennie passed on a message from the boss, the recipient always walked away… eventually. He was telling me that those two were dead men, and that he wasn’t given that sort of task.
Even as I cruised along Salamander Street, I knew that he would have called Manson by then, and that if he had the faintest idea of who the torturers were, or of who had hired them, then things were liable to happen fast, and I had to keep pace. Of course I did have another option. Shut up and do nothing: stand back, let rough justice be meted out and pick up the leavings afterwards. Sure, and then we might wind up with an all-out gang war on our hands, the sort of mess in which innocent bystanders can get hurt.
I pulled off Seafield Road into the forecourt of a car showroom and called Alf Stein, mobile to mobile. I brought him up to date with the investigation, as it stood, and told him what my team was doing. ‘I should have known,’ he sighed. ‘I move you to Serious Crimes and they get really fuckin’ serious. Press, Bob, press, until something cracks; that’s all you can do. Do you need any more manpower?’
‘For the moment, no. I like what I have. By the way, I’ve addressed the Macken and Reid problem. I’ll send you a memo for the record, but I’ve booted them.’
‘Good grounds?’ he murmured.
‘They’ll hold up.’
‘Okay, I’ll deal with it.’
‘Macken’s got to go from CID, completely,’ I added.
‘I get the picture. Shitty job in uniform.’
I headed back to Gullane. I picked up some stuff in ASDA and made it home by six forty, later than usual, but not enough to start Daisy fretting. ‘Alex is excited,’ she told me, as she put a sketch pad into her bag.
‘Why?’
‘Let her tell you. She’s in her kingdom.’ I’d guessed that; I could hear the radio.
I went upstairs to the attic as soon as Daisy had left, and knocked on her door. ‘Clear!’ she called, her way of saying ‘Come in’. She had a school pal with her, a lass called Susie something, whose dad was in PR, and whose mother taught in another village school along the coast.
‘What’s the story?’ I asked.
‘Didn’t Daisy tell you?’ She had her impressionable child face on, the one I didn’t see too much of any more, and her eyes were gleaming. ‘I had a dedication on Airburst. Mia Sparkles played a song for me. “Wonderwall”. Did you ask her to?’
‘No, it never occurred to me. That was off her own bat.’
