Slip of the Knife by Denise Mina Page A

Skye for a holiday after Pete got out of hospital because he was still on oxygen and they couldn’t go far. It was full of dodgy wiring and gay pornography.
    “Come on,” said Paddy, “I’ve had a bit of a grim weekend. I could do without this.”
    “Terry?”
    She nodded. “Terry.”
    “Sad,” he said and meant it.
    Paddy frowned at her plate. “Yeah. Sad.”
    In a little cheering display of bonhomie, McVie shook his napkin jauntily at his side, pulled it across his lap, took the end of his cream silk tie, tucked it loosely into his shirt pocket, and touched the cutlery on his place setting with his fingertips, a concert pianist greeting the keys. He sighed and looked up at her.
    “God, I’m hungry.”
    “You sent a child to my door last night,” she said.
    “That young man said you’re a bitch.”
    “Did he?”
    “Yes.”
    “He grilled me pretty hard.”
    McVie hissed at his place mat. “What can I say? When the boy gets the scent there’s no stopping him.”
    The Mail journalists shouted at the waitress for more wine. One of them was humming, drumming his fingers on the table edge, trying to remember a song from his youth. They were on the jagged verge of singing.
    “Tell me about Terry,” said McVie.
    “God. It was awful. I had to go and look at the body, say it was him for sure. He was shot in the fucking head. His face was all over the place.”
    The waitress brought his gin and tonic over and he took it from her hand, acknowledging her only by waving his free hand to dismiss her. She hesitated in surprise and Paddy smiled a weak apology. She backed off.
    McVie sipped his drink. “He was working for me, freelance.”
    “Who? Terry?”
    “Yeah, on nothing stories, local bullshit. Waiting for a war commission from London. We’ll organize the memorial service. Will you speak?”
    “God, no.” She couldn’t speak about him. Everyone there would know she’d chucked him. “The police said it was the Provos.”
    McVie sipped. “My source in the police said it wasn’t.”
    “Bit of a coincidence though, his body being found out on the Stranraer road.”
    “Why’s that significant?”
    “The ferry for Belfast leaves from Stranraer. Anyone who travels to Ireland regularly would be familiar with it, know the cutoffs, where’s busy, where’s quiet. It suggests it was an Irishman who killed him.”
    “Well, I heard it was a mugging or something.”
    “A robbery?”
    “Aye.”
    “Was he missing anything?”
    “They never found his clothes and his wallet.”
    She looked at him. “Bit elaborate for a mugging, isn’t it? The guy could afford a gun and a car; he’s hardly going to kill someone for their trousers.”
    She knew that McVie was just playing her for clues: the other newspapers would want the Daily News to be wrong about the Provos because they had blown the other papers off the stands.
    “Your contact wouldn’t happen to be Knox, would it?” she asked McVie.
    “Christ, don’t start that shit again.”
    “He is bent.”
    “I don’t give a fuck. No one gives a fuck except you and him.” He stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette messily, chasing the scarlet tip around the ashtray. “Terry was involved in a lot of things. When he started out he didn’t mind the danger, but I think he got to like it.”
    “I suppose. Who wants to be a war reporter?”
    “Yeah, exactly. Ambitious young men who don’t know any better and old men with a death wish.”
    The Mail journalist had remembered his song and was giving it his all. His head was tipped back, eyes shut tight as he murdered Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold.” It probably sounded better in his head.
    “Right, Meehan, come on: Callum Ogilvy. When’s he getting out?”
    “No one knows, do they?”
    He was looking at her, a smile somewhere in his eyes. “You do,” he said quietly.
    “No, I don’t.”
    The waitress brought them some bread and individually wrapped butter portions, fresh from the freezer.
    “But you