Allan Guthrie - Killing Mum

The padded envelope contained a note and a bundle of cash. The note read:

Charlie -

Advance for Valerie Anderson. You know her address.

Second half of payment on completion of job.

It wasn't signed.

Carlos Morales counted the cash. He counted it again. Ten thousand pounds. He stuffed the money back in the envelope and placed it on the counter.

He was alone in the tanning studio today, which was just as well. He snaked out from behind the counter, grabbed the nearest rack and pulled it over. It crashed to the floor, crushing tubs of tanning lotion and beauty products that burst and spewed and leaked all over the previously squeaky clean floor.

" Mierda," he said, out of habit.

He stepped over the debris, walked to the door, locked it, switched the sign to 'closed'.

He slid his mobile out of his pocket and called home.

Maggie answered. "What's wrong?" she said.

"Just wanted to see how you were."

"At ten past nine? What's wrong, Charlie?"

There it was, the name on the note. He couldn't bring himself to think it might be her. There had to be some other explanation. Other people called him Charlie. Well, one other person.

He breathed in. Hadn't had a cigarette in ten months, but when he dreamed, he always had one in his hand. He wished he was dreaming right now. "How's my little girl?"

"She's fine, misses her daddy."

"Tell her to hang on. I'm closing up. I'll be there in twenty minutes."

Carlos climbed in his car, got the engine purring, thumbed through his CDs and couldn't find anything he wanted to listen to.

He sat there, the envelope on the passenger seat for company.

He looked away, out the window. People walking past looked blurred, as if he'd been crying. He rubbed his eyes. They were dry.

To his left, a grassy patch with a handful of trees. He focused on a squirrel, watched it sprint across ten feet of open ground and up the trunk of a tree. It stopped a few feet up, clung there, turned its head and stared at him.

Valerie Anderson, he heard it say. Nothing but a lonely old woman who's a little too fond of the bottle.

Carlos thought hard as he stared back at the squirrel. Someone knew his business. That was bad enough. But someone knew his private life, too, and that made Carlos extremely uncomfortable.

When he pulled up in his driveway, Maggie was at the door, waiting for him, Sofia in her arms.

He turned off the engine, pinched the envelope between thumb and fingers, climbed out of the car.

Maggie sauntered over to him, her flip-flops clacking against the soles of her feet, kissed his cheek. "What's so bad you had to come home?" she said, quietly, her eyes too bright and more purple than blue.

He leaned in, saw that Sofia was asleep. He ran his thumb lightly over her scalp, stroked the fair downy hair she'd inherited from her mother. "In the garden," he said, leading the way round the side of the house, towards the back.

"Grass needs cut," Maggie said.

"So cut it," he said.

"I'm just saying," she said.

"Well, don't."

"What the fuck's wrong?"

"Don't swear at me."

"Jesus, Charlie." Her chin dimpled.

He sat down on the bench at the back of the house. "Go put this in the safe." He held out the money. The finances and the paperwork and all that, Maggie's job. He struggled with numbers. No, that wasn't true. He could do it all right, he just chose not to. It bored him, whereas Maggie seemed to get something out of it.

"What is it?" she said.

"Deposit."

"Nice," she said. "You better take Sofia, then."

Once Maggie'd gone, he turned Sofia to face the garden. Little stretches and a pop of her lips and her lips widened and she smiled and then it was gone. She was still asleep. "Shame your daddy's not much of a gardener," he whispered to her. "Mummy neither." Not many little girls in Edinburgh had their own garden.

Pity you rarely got the weather to take advantage of it. Usually raining or windy or both. Today was dry and the wind hadn't come out to play yet.

One day, when she was older, they'd appreciate it together.

For now he'd sit here with her and she could sleep and he could enjoy his garden. He'd worked hard enough for it.

He closed his eyes after a bit, but the inside of his head was too busy. His eyes sprang open again.

"It's okay," he said when Maggie returned.

"What is?"

"The grass. Doesn't need cut. Not yet."

"Charlie," she said.

He said nothing.

"Carlos, look at me," she said.

He looked at her. He liked looking at her. She was pretty, didn't need make up. She was half his age, twice as smart. She'd gained a little weight having Sofia and it suited her. She was sexy even with baby sick on her sleeve.

She said, "Are you going to tell me what's going on?"

He took a breath through his nose, smelled her perfume, something delicate, rising above Sofia's sweet milky smell.

"Mum spoken to you recently?" he asked.

"Only once since I told her to sober up. She phoned. Wanted to know if you'd fix her tap."

He smiled. "That again. No mention of Sofia?"

"Yeah." Maggie glanced at her feet. "Said she was sorry."

"I don't doubt it."

"Neither do I. You don't think I'm wrong, do you?" Her tongue flicked out, licked her lips. "Is that what this is about?"

"How can you think that?" He shook his head.

"So why all the interest in your mother?"

"You won't believe this," he said. He didn't believe it himself. He took hold of Maggie's hand. "Someone wants her dead."

His mother answered the door, eyes red-rimmed like she hadn't been sleeping. She looked like she'd just thrown her clothes on. Her cardigan was buttoned up all wrong.

" Madre," he said. It annoyed her when he spoke Spanish.

She didn't let on, asked, "What are you doing here?"

"You still got that leaky tap?"

"The one in the bathroom?"

He shrugged.

"Well, yes," she said.

"Then I'll try to fix it."

"It's not the washer."

"Did I say it was?"

She shrugged.

He said, "I'll take a look anyway."

"Oh," she said. She straightened up, maybe realising he hadn't come here to chastise. "This is an unexpected surprise. What's brought it on?"

He looked away. "You phoned."

"That never worked before."

"Well, you've been going on about it long enough."

She peered at him down her long nose, kinked in the middle where she'd broken it on a skiing holiday, along with her leg.

"You want the tap fixed?" he said. "Or should I go?"

She folded her thin arms, nibbled her pale lower lip. "You're not working today?"

"It's slow," he said. "Left Dan to take care of things."

"Maggie said he was on holiday."

Maggie hadn't mentioned that. "You spoke about Dan?"

"I asked how things were going at the salon."

"Well, Dan's back, as of this morning."

"Must have been a short trip."

"Yeah," he said. "Couple of nights. All he could afford on the salary I pay him."

She nodded, unfolded herself, tucked her lip away. "Come on in."

The sitting room was a shrine to seventies bad taste. Bucket seats, white leather couch, brown and orange shag carpet and stripy psychedelic wallpaper. Reminders of her prime, no doubt.

She said, "You want coffee before you start?"

" Si," he said. Before he started what? The decor was fucking with his head, making him dizzy. Oh, yeah, fixing a leaking tap. Which he had no intention of doing. He wouldn't know where to begin.

He moved a magazine off the settee. It squeaked when he flopped down into it. Placed the magazine on top of the glass coffee table, next to the old-fashioned dial-operated red telephone, one of those models that once upon a time everybody used to have.