Quite Ugly One Morning Read Online Free PDF Page B

stools at the bar of the Barony on Broughton Street, Parlabane sipping a tomato juice with Worcester, Tabasco and quite definitely no vodka. It was late afternoon, the sun bathing the wooden surroundings in a slow-fading glow.
    ‘And as for this, fuck’s sake.’
    He flipped over the Evening Capital from the sports section at the back so that his picture was staring up from the front page under the headline: MAN HELD AFTER RITUAL SLAYING, with the strap: GORY FIND: Police question half-naked suspect over Maybury Square bloodbath.
    ‘“Half-naked suspect"? What are the sub-editors on at that bloody place?’
    Parlabane distastefully examined the photograph again, his profile visible next to the back of Dalziel’s head, which she had turned away from the camera in sharper anticipation. If he looked very closely he could make out the smudges of spew on the sleeve of his T-shirt as well.
    ‘I’m supposed to be turning up there to get some shifts in a few days,’ he said bemusedly, his companion trying not very hard to suppress a laugh.
    ‘Well, Jack, I did tell the news editor you’d fill the front page in no time.’
    ‘Oh, very fucking amusing. And what’s this: “Police believe the murder may have been the result of a burglary-gone-wrong – although as both the victim and the suspect were found in states of undress, they have not ruled out a sexual motive.” I fucking hate when they do that. I have never done that.’
    ‘Done what?’
    ‘Say that something has not been ruled out when you knowfine that no one ever ruled it in. And I would just like to stress that I was not a suspect. I volunteered to assist the police with their inquiries.’
    He stared angrily at the byline again. ‘Who the fuck’s Finlay Price?’
    Duncan shook his head and sighed. ‘You don’t like it up you, do you, Jack?’
    ‘What, is this you finally propositioning me, Duncan?’
    ‘No, I’m just thinking about your unfettered glee as you stuck it to all those people on all those front pages when we worked together through in the West. The words “taste” and “own medicine” keep inexplicably popping into my head.’
    ‘Yes, but they all did it. Those fuckers were all guilty. I wasn’t.’
    Duncan spluttered a mouthful of his Guinness back into the glass and put it down on the bartop, wiping his mouth.
    Parlabane put a hand up in a gesture of backing off.
    ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll take it like a man. But Christ, you could enjoy it all a little less.’
    Duncan folded up the newspaper and handed it to one of the bar staff who put it back on the rack by the door, next to the Evening News, Daily Record and Shavers Weekly, a self-styled pisshead fanzine which enjoyed greater editorial clarity than any of its neighbours.
    ‘Forget about it,’ he said. ‘Come on, have a pint, chill out. You’re back in the old country. Haven’t you seen the beer adverts?’
    Parlabane shook his head distractedly.
    ‘Somebody tried to kill me, Dune. Chilling out is going to be a protracted process.’
    Duncan gaped. ‘Last night? Here?’
    ‘No, in LA. That was the emergency. That was why I came home in such a hurry.’
    ‘Jesus, sorry, Jack. I had no idea.’
    Parlabane sipped at his tomato juice and looked around the pub, the motes of dust and smoke swirling in the dying rays through the big window at the front. He was catching his breath for the first time in seventy-two hours, eight time zones and Christ knew how many thousand miles. The Barony was beautifully placid, comfortingly calm, inescapably Edinburgh. Shining, polished pump handles priolling along the bar, open fire being stoked up in anticipation of a cold butclear night, single malts glinting in pale gold on their shelves. He couldn’t imagine anything less LA; in the difference there was distance, in the distance there was safety. The cops, the spew and the dead guy were just temporary inconveniences. He had survived.
    ‘You know, we must have joked about it a