At times like this, sir, d'you never wish you were back in the clean air of Special Branch?'
Detective Sergeant Neil Mcllhenney leaned his broad back against the drab grey wall of the windowless room. It still smelled of its last occupant, and perhaps, of two or three earlier ones.
Andy Martin smiled. 'Come on, Neil. We're doing a worthwhile job here too!
`Maybe so, sir, but these low-lifers. . It's the constant procession of the miserable bastards that wears me down. Shifty-eyed, lying so-and-sos, and every one o' them in need of a good scrub. At least the agitators and general nutters we used to keep tabs on in the SB had nothing, against underarm deodorant.
`Christ, that last tart we had in here — she was fuckin' honkin'.'
Martin laughed out loud. 'Aye, it must be working in a sauna that does it! All that sweat! Still, I wasn't kidding when I asked you to come to Drugs and Vice with me. I said it'd be a challenge.'
`Fine, but what you didn't say was that the challenge would be in keepin' down your lunch!'
Martin and Mcllhenney had been interviewing non-stop for six hours in the Torphichen Place office, near Haymarket Station. Since nine a.m. they had seen and questioned a constant stream of managers and staff from Tony Manson's four saunas. The managers had all been picked up early that morning and ordered to provide complete lists of their staff — present and recent past. The responses of the four managers to Martin's questions about Tony Manson were so similar that it was clear the men had been well schooled.
`Mr Manson? A gent.'
`Mr Manson? Used to drop by every now and again to check on the takings. No, no, he never handled cash himself.'
`What d'ye mean, did he use any particular girls? Ah don't run that sort of place.'
The women had been a different story. Although none would say, it was clear that they regarded Manson's death as liberation from a form of bondage. Most were ready to talk.. within reason. But one went way beyond that.
Martin had recognised Big Joanne at once. When he had first encountered her on a street corner off Leith Walk — he in his uniform, she in hers — she had been more than something of a looker. Ten years on, he had been impressed to note that, even with her thirtieth milestone a year or two behind her, and hauled out of bed early after a hard night's work, she was still holding it together.
`Ah remember you! PC Martin it wis then. My, youse has fairly come up in the world.' Her transplanted Glaswegian tones were a contrast to the clipped Edinburgh accents with which Martin and Mcllhenney were used to dealing.
`Tony Manson? Good riddance. Every workin' girl in Edinburgh should chip in a pony for the guy that did it. A fuckin' brute, he was. Once a lassie went tae work in one of his places, she wis dogmeat. There were only three ways out: get knocked up, get the clap, or get marked by a punter. Tony, he wid use the places like a harem, any time he felt like gettin' his end away. .
Away games? Sometimes. Every now and again, he'd pick up a lassie and take her out tae his place. A Tony takeaway, he used tae call it. Ah've been there a couple of times myself..
Did he have any specials? If you got out tae Barnton more than once, ah suppose ye might have thought ye were special … until the next time he came in and took some shy;one else! There was supposed tae be one lassie, though, that he did fancy. She didnae work in the same place as me. She was in that one down near Powderhall. Her name wis Linda somethin' or other. Apparently she was out at Tony's place a lot. Eventually she only did turns at the sauna fur Tony's pals. Too good fur the ordinary punters, so they said. Ah did hear that Tony kept her frae somewhere else. She's no there ony mair though. She must have got knocked up, or got the clap, or got cut, 'cos she stopped workin' awfy quick. .
`Drugs? Know nothin' about that, Mr Martin. Nothin'..
`How much did he pay us? Where did ye get this guy, Mr Martin? We paid Tony, son. The workin' girls paid him!'
And that had been that. The sum total of six hours' work. They had checked the staff lists of the Powderhall sauna, but there was no mention of any girl named Linda. They had brought the manager back in, but he had been as tight-lipped as before. 'Linda? Linda who? Linda bloody Ronstadt for all I know. Never had anyone by that name working at my place.'
Mcllhenney pushed himself off the wall against which he had been leaning. The heat of his body left a sheen on the dirty paint. 'That's us finished wi' the low-life, sir. What do we do next?'
`Just 'keep on looking for Linda, Neil,' said Martin. 'That's all we've got.'