Free Where the Bodies are Buried by Christopher Brookmyre, Brookmyre Page A

here. Mainly I want him to know we’re watching him, so that
     he thinks twice about launching reprisals.’
    Laura made to get out of the car as the trio ambled towards the car park, the sweaty minders now at walking pace with the
     end of their ordeal only yards away.
    ‘Hang fire,’ Catherine told her. ‘He’ll be going into the restaurant for his power breakfast. We’ll let him order, then I’ll
     undo a coupleof buttons and bat my lashes and ask if we can join his table.’
    ‘Power breakfast?’ Laura asked, confused and betraying the years between them. Catherine just hoped the DI realised she was
     joking about undoing a couple of buttons too.
    ‘Paddy Steel was a skint up-and-comer during the eighties,’ she explained. ‘His aspirations got jammed back in adolescence.
     Now that he’s got the money, he thinks he’s in
Miami Vice.’
    They found him at a big corner booth with a dual-aspect view through floor-to-ceiling windows, no doubt his regular spot,
     given that it was unquestionably the best table in the house. Catherine hadn’t doorstepped him here before, but she wondered
     whether he wasn’t sitting a little further in from the glass than normal.
    He was smaller than she’d expected. She hadn’t seen him up close in maybe a year or so, but her impression was always revised
     the same way. He grew in the mind over the intervening period so that the real thing always literally came up short. It wasn’t
     just a proportion thing, given his muscular build; he really was two or three inches smaller than Catherine. You don’t have
     to be big to be the big man, however. His presence was still a powerful one, with a brute fortitude and strength of will crackling
     off him like you were standing under a pylon.
    He looked up neutrally as they approached, maintaining the same expression to hide his recognition and whatever else he felt
     and deduced regarding the arrival of two polis. He was tucking into an omelette, polka-dotted with red, green and yellow peppers,
     a pint glass of fresh orange juice next to his plate. His minders clearly felt they had earned the right to a more traditional
     indulgence, each tackling a fry-up of quite heroic proportions.
    ‘Can we help you?’ one of them said gruffly, speaking through a mouthful of black pudding.
    ‘It’s all right, Bobby,’ Steel told him. ‘These ladies are just here to offer their condolences. Aren’t you?’
    ‘Quite,’ said Catherine. ‘I don’t mean to intrude. I can see you’re all devastated.’
    ‘Loss affects people in different ways,’ Steel replied, still poker-faced. ‘Bobby and Big Nige here are comfort-eating.’
    This drew a grunt of laughter from Big Nige on the right, while Bobby on the left just eyed them warily and kept chewing.
    ‘You knew James McDiarmid what, twenty-odd years?’ Catherine said. ‘Since you were both in your teens.’
    ‘Aye, what aboot it? Is this grief tourism or something? Are you all put oot because you’ve come doon here and you’re not
     getting to see any grown men cry?’
    ‘As you said, Mr Steel, it affects people in different ways. I just thought, given the length of your relationship, you’d
     be keen to assist our efforts in bringing your friend’s killer – or killers – to justice.’
    ‘If I knew anything, you’d be the first person I’d tell,’ Steel replied, before taking a sip of juice. ‘Unfortunately, I’m
     totally in the dark here.’
    ‘Can you think of anybody who might have wished Mr McDiarmid any harm?’ Laura asked, playing the game by responding in kind.
    ‘I’ll not lie to you, hen, we’re nane of us nursery teachers. I don’t doubt Jai had enemies. But this came out of the blue,
     and that’s gospel.’
    Catherine clocked Steel eyeing the salt, about to reach for it, but she got there first, picking it up as though absent-mindedly.
    ‘You’re telling us you’ve no idea what this might be about?’ she asked, toying with the object between