Bob Skiinner 21 Grievous Angel Read Online Free Page B

by heart, the book and how to play everything by it without ever risking his head above the parapet. After a closer look, he stepped aside and moved a traffic cone.

    Jay was waiting for me on the pavement outside the old building, sucking on a cigarette. Even now, it’s difficult for me to paint a word picture of the man. He came closer than anyone I’ve ever known to being a walking definition of ‘nondescript’. The only feature that stopped him from going all the way was the colour of his eyes, as grey as the stone of the bathhouse behind him.

    They flickered as Alex stepped out of the car, and I didn’t like what I saw in them. She was tall for her age, and dressed as she saw fit. That evening her choice had been jeans, ripped at the knee, and a baggy, custom-made, white T-shirt that one of her friends had given her the Christmas before. It had ‘WARNING! CID brat!’ emblazoned on the front.

    ‘Bob,’ he said, his face twisting into what passed for a smile. ‘Glad you could come. It might help us get a head start.’

    ‘I know that.’ There was a cop standing in the doorway behind him, a PC in his mid-twenties, around my height, six two. Modern police tunics make some officers look fat, but not this guy; he just looked massive. He had to be McGuire, even if he did look a lot more Italian than Irish. His hair was darker than dark, the purest jet black, and his eyes, a complete contrast to Jay’s limpid puddles, were deep blue pools which twinkled with laughter and excitement. I’d seen him around but hadn’t put a name to him before. He was usually to be found in the company of another young plod, his equal in size if not in temperament.

    ‘Mario?’ He nodded. ‘You’ve got an important and dangerous job.’

    ‘What’s that, sir?’

    ‘Look after my daughter while I’m inside.’

    He beamed. ‘She couldn’t be in safer hands, boss.’

    ‘It’s your safety I’m worrying about.’ I winked at Alex. ‘I won’t be long.’ She shrugged; at that moment she was more interested in her new minder than she was in me.

    ‘Come on then,’ Jay grunted. He led the way inside, past what had been the ticket booth, and up a few steps into the pool area. There was plenty of natural light, from a window that ran along the full length of the roof, but not enough for the scene of crime people apparently; four big lamps, on stands, had been set up in the drained pool. I took a look around, reacquainting myself with my surroundings. I had been in the baths a couple of years before, as a user. When I had taken over command of the drugs and vice squad it had been based in Gayfield Square, and I had gone there to swim on a few lunch breaks. The pool was flanked by individual changing cubicles, women on one side, men on the other. The designer had left gaps at the top and bottom of the doors, a sign that the building dated back to a time before electric lighting. There was an upper tier, with more cubicles, for individual baths, relics of the days when all there was in many homes was a tin tub in front of the fire.

    A ladder had been placed at the deep end, where the tiled floor was flat. A red-haired guy stood at the top, a DS called Arthur Dorward; he was a graduate, as was I, but his degree was in chemistry. He was wearing a scene of crime suit, and handed one to me. ‘What about you?’ I asked Jay, as I put it on.

    ‘I’ve seen all I want to see down there,’ he retorted.

    I climbed down the ladder, jumping off with a couple of rungs to go. The body was lying as the superintendent had described it; it was that of a young man, a big bloke, white, dressed in black trousers and shirt, with shiny lace-up brogues and patterned socks. It was face down, the limbs were splayed out and the head was at the sort of angle you’d expect from a well-executed hanging. There was a little blood, but no more than a smear.

    I looked up, towards the diving platform which jutted out above my head, a solid structure