The Tangling of the Web by Millie Gray

Author:Millie Gray
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781845027698
Publisher: Black & White Publishing
Published: 2013-12-05T05:00:00+00:00

* * *

Friday nights in Leith were always busy for the police. Last Friday had been even more so. Thirty-year-old good-looking bachelor Luke, who was everybody’s darling but Sally’s, was doing the back shift – two in the afternoon until ten at night.

He’d just hung up his civvies jacket when the morning constable, John Thomson, looked quizzically at it before saying, ‘Suppose that means you and your pal, Rab, in “B” division, are going for a few pints and a birl around the dance floor when you’re finished.’

‘Sure are,’ replied Luke, doing a soft-shoe shuffle. ‘And who the lucky lassie that will land me tonight is, I do not know.’

‘Know something, you’re like your sister Josie; you’re going to leave it too late to get hitched like me …’

‘With two out-of-control teenagers thrown in.’

‘Aye, and they would help you qualify for a police house in Clermiston and kiss goodbye to that houff …’

‘John, that “houff”, as you put it, is a well-furnished and -maintained home for not only me and McAllister, my half-wild cat that sees to it that no vermin lives longer than a minute if it is daft enough to invade our home, but also my sister Daisy, who bides there when she’s on leave from the hospital.’

‘Aye, somebody told me that your sister Sally had brought down two feral kittens from Inverness way and that they were both great hunters.’

‘They are. One she gave to me, McAllister, named after the man who gave her them, and the other one, Sheba, she kept herself to keep the Four Marys rat-free too.’

Quickly forgetting the cats, John surprised and annoyed Luke when he lustfully mumbled, ‘Here, and talking about your sister Daisy, see the next time I need treatment at Leith Hospital I hope it’ll be your Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do who will be applying the plasters.’

Exasperated, Luke mumbled, ‘Look, just get ringing into headquarters and let them know that you’re going off duty and I’m taking over.’

Within ten minutes of John leaving, Luke was out, where he loved to be, on the beat. One of his first ports of call, which he had to do before 3 p.m. closing time, was the Four Marys. He just reached the door when Sam Steele staggered out. ‘Oh, not you again,’ Luke exclaimed, dodging out of Sam’s way. ‘It’s only two o’clock in the day and by the looks of you I should run you in.’

‘Look, son,’ Sam lisped, ‘that bitch in there …’

‘My sister Josie …’

‘Are you saying the bitch is your sister? Well, no offence meant. But she’s a right Bible-punching git. No sell me ony mair drink, she’ll no.’ Luke remained silent. Sam went on, ‘So I’ll meander ower to the the Ship Inn – and do you ken when you ask for a nip and a pint in there that’s what you get with naebudy trying to get you to change your mind and hae a plate o’ soup or mince and tatties instead.’

Sam spat on the ground.

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