Poisoned Cherries

by Quintin Jardine

  The first thing I read about Martin pulled me up short; the author described him as muscular… I could manage that okay, given the gym work I was in the habit of doing … and as having curly blond hair, and green contact lenses.

  The dye job I could live with, but I saw a problem with the contacts. I can’t stand having even a tiny piece of grit in my eye. I was sufficiently worried to call Miles … the apartment came complete with a phone and cable television.

  He laughed when I told him about my problem. “You say you’re okay about the dye job? Did you ever see the remake of The Jackal? Christ, you might not be flavour of the month with Dawn right now, but I still wouldn’t do that to you. You can forget the contacts too. Dark hair and blue eyes will do for the part.

  “How’s tricks, anyway?”

  His amiability reassured me; Miles had given me an easy time of it as director of my first two projects. I didn’t know if I could handle it if he started to have a go at me on set.

  “Fine. Everything’s fine.”

  “How are the girls?”

  “The baby’s great and so’s her mum. Susie’s going back to work herself in a couple of days, once the new nanny’s settled in.”

  “Nothing changes, eh. She’s a powerhouse, that girl. You two gonna live together?”

  “Part-time, probably. I’ve rented a place in Edinburgh; that’s where I am now. You’ll like it, I think.” I described the apartment.

  “Sounds great,” Miles said, when I had finished. “You’re right; I plan to shoot as much of this movie as possible on location, so we’ll need a place for rehearsals, team meetings and so on.

  “In fact, there’s one I’ll set up right away. I’ve hired a technical adviser, an ex-policeman. He’s got the script, and he knows the book. I want him to brief the cast before we start shooting, but first I want to meet him myself. Your place will bg perfect for that. Dawn and I get into Edinburgh on Wednesday. I’ll arrange it for Thursday morning, ten sharp, then we’ll have a cast meeting that afternoon. Gimme the address and phone number, and I’ll circulate them to him and everyone else.” 5

  I did as he asked then went back to the book. The more I read about the now dark-haired Andy Martin, the more I realised how tough he was supposed to be. I hadn’t lifted anything heavier than Susie for ten days, so I called the Edinburgh Club, the best fitness centre in town, and checked out their opening hours.

  I booked myself in for Monday morning, then went back to Detective Chief Inspector Martin. I’d have read it from cover to cover had I not begun to feel hungry, at around seven o’clock.

  I checked the fridge and found it almost bare, apart from some milk, a few tomatoes and an egg. I was almost out of bread too… Susie and I had only picked up a few groceries and had sent out for pizza the night before.

  I was also out of transport. A car can be an inconvenience in central Edinburgh, but these days not having one is a bigger inconvenience still. I had almost decided to take a taxi to Sainsbury’s, when the obvious occurred to me. I was a lad alone in the city; where else would I go?

  I hadn’t seen Ali in a couple of years, but I knew he’d be there; the boy really was open all hours. His shop was a bit more than halfway down the Royal Mile, round the corner from my old loft and still no more than ten minutes’ walk from my new digs.

  He was behind the counter when I walked in, his back to the door as I closed it silently. As usual he was wearing a turban; if it was meant to be white it wasn’t, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt and decided that it was cream. I don’t know what religion Ali is, and I’ve never asked. I do know that with him the turban is a fashion statement, nothing more.

  “Shop!” I called out; he spun round, eyes widening as he saw me.

  “Hey,” he yelled, startling an old lady who was peering into the frozen food container. “It’s the fuckin’ Oz man; the fuckin’ movie star. Hullawrerr, Big Man, slummin’ it the night, eh! Of all the bastards, eh!” As well as being one of the most accessible grocers in Scotland, my old friend is also one of the most foul-mouthed.

  The old lady looked at me briefly, sniffed, and went back to perusing the frozen peas. I recognised her, vaguely, from the old days in the lounge bar in the pub down the road.

  “Ah saw you wir back in town,” Ali proclaimed. He sells newspapers, so that came as no surprise. “Fuckin’ big dark horse you, eh. You don’t jist dip yer wick, no’ you. You dip it in the richest bird in Glesca’. Some man, right enough. How’s the wean, onyway?”

  “My daughter is very well thank you, Ali. Eight days old and growing more lovely with every passing moment… more than I can say for yourself.”

  “Hey there, hey there,” he bellowed, in an almost cautionary tone. “Where did you get the patter? You might be a big shite now, Blackstone, but I kent you when you were just a barn pot round the corner.”

  I smiled at him, happily. “Aye, and you still are.”

  He reached across and cuffed me lightly round the ear. “Ach, away wi’ ye.” He looked me up and down, as he rang up a packet of Bird’s Eye fish fingers and a box of McCain’s microchips for the old lady. “You put on a bit o’ weight?” he asked.

  “I’ve muscled up a bit. I work out.”

  “You onna steroids?”

  “Nah.” I felt myself lapsing into Ali-speak. “All protein and weights. Speaking of protein, gimme a pound of Lome sausage, half a dozen eggs and four rolls. I’ll take some beer as well, and a pint of milk…”

  Between us, we filled a box with enough food to keep me going for three or four days. “This still your only shop?” I asked, as he gave me my change.

  “Aye, but it’s no’ my only business. I’m in partnership wi’ ma cousin Sinjit; we do outside catering.”

  “What kind?”

  “Sannies for office meetings, and curries, bahjis, pakora, that sort of stuff; we’re like everyone else around here, making a fuckin’ bomb out of this new parliament. We’re thinkin’ about goin’ after a catering concession in the new building, once it’s finished. Be as fuckin’ rich as you one day, son.”

  “In your dreams, pal. I’ll maybe give you some work though; we’ll be having fairly regular meetings in my place up at the Mound. Give me some menus and I’ll take a look at them.”

  “Thanks. Ah’ll get Sinjit to call you, if you gie’ me the number.” As I wrote it down, his eyebrows rose. “Hey, how’s that fuckin’ alligator of yours doin’?”

  “Iguana, Ali. He’s an iguana; he’s with my nephews now, up in St. Andrews.”

  “Naw, naw. No’ him, Ah ken what he is. Naw, Ah meant that bird of yours, that Prim. Right fuckin’ man-eater she was.”

  I frowned at him; anyone else, I might have done more than that, but Ali had always been an extreme liberty-taker. “You are speaking, sir, of my soon to be ex-wife. I would take exception, only you’re right… not that I knew it back then.”

  “Ah did, but; she had you by the ba’s, that’s for sure.”

  “On and off, Ali; on and off. It’s all over now, though.”

  “Jist as well. Oh by the way, another bird was asking after you. Member that lassie you went out wi’ a few years back? Alison.”

  I nodded. “Of course I do.”

  “She was in here the other day, asking’ after you. She said she wan tit tae get in touch; asked me if Ah hid yir number.”

  “Pass it on tae her then. Ah don’t mind. Shit, Ah’ll have to get out of here, or Ah’ll be talkin’ like you all fucking week. See you.”

  I picked up the box, making sure that my tins of lager were packed tight, and made a sharp exit.

  Twelve.

  I’ve looked all over Canada and California for anything that even approximates to the square, sliced Lome sausage that my pal in the Royal Mile has stocked for years. I’ve never struck it lucky though; North Americans seem to go for quantity, not quality.

  I had been looking forward to a good fry-up since I’d known that I was coming home to Edinburgh. There had been
no chance at Susie’s, since she was watching what she ate, both for the baby’s sake and her own.

  I called her, once I’d demolished my supper, and a can of Harp; the flat seemed empty without her and the baby. I pondered on the fact that here was I, back in what I regarded as my home city, shacked up in the sort of pad I’d dreamed about back in the old days, and I was bloody lonely. Not the sort of all-embracing loneliness that had engulfed me after Jan died, nor the vague sort from my twenties, when I was between steady women, but a sharp, biting feeling that I found unsettling, even when I was indulging myself with my spicy supper.

  “How’s the baby?” I asked, as soon as she picked up the phone.

  “Perfect, as always,” she answered, with a chuckle. “Don’t worry, Oz. I really can look after her, you know.”

  “I know; but I miss her.”

  “I’m sure she misses you too, but I’m not going to waken her to ask her.”

  “I miss you a bit as well, of course.”

  “Glad to hear it. Let me know when you miss me a lot. Now go on out for a Chinky or something.”

  “I don’t need to.” I told her about my visit to Ali, and laid it on thick about the sausage.

  “Stop it!” she said. “You’ve got me salivating. I love square sausage too. If it’s that good, then next time you come through, you can bring me some. Now bugger off and amuse yourself for a while. I’m in the middle of getting things ready for the nanny.”

  I said goodnight, and went back to the Skinner book. The story hooked me, good and proper. Apart from cracking another can of lager, I didn’t put it down until I’d reached the explosive conclusion. By that time I’d got to know Andy Martin pretty well, and I was beginning to look forward to bringing him to life.

  For the first time since I’d left the States, I began to think hard about where I was going with the movie, and how it would be different from the first two parts I’d played. Actually, there was something I’d never told Miles; it wouldn’t be the first time I had played a detective. In our middle and senior years at Waid Academy, in Anstruther, Jan and I had joined the school drama club; we’d worked our way up to the leading parts, and had got ourselves some decent reveiws… albeit only in the East life Mail. We were pretty used to the greasepaint by the time we left for Edinburgh, but although we threatened to join the university theatre society, other things, like study and sex, got in the way.

  I had enjoyed those school day plays, though. I never had any inhibitions as a kid… ‘shy’ is a word that has never been used to describe me … and I didn’t have any trouble getting up there on stage and performing. I never had any trouble learning lines either; I was able to read the script a couple of times and my own part stuck; I could even prompt my fellow amateur thesps on the frequent occasions when they dried up.

  Our acting highlight, Jan’s and mine, came when our group took part in a county drama competition, and lifted the trophy. One of the judges was a Scottish Television producer, who thought enough of us to offer us parts, there and then, as gormless country teenagers in a forthcoming Taggart episode. Filming clashed with the run-up to our Highers exams, though, so we were forced to turn him, and his money, down.

  When Miles gave me my first screen test, somehow it had all come back. He’s still quite chuffed that he’s taken a complete beginner and turned him into a feature player, and I’ve never got round to explaining that it wasn’t quite that way.

  I laid down the book and picked up the script and looked at the cast list; it was impressive, and I felt privileged that my name was on it. Right at its head, was Ewan Capperauld, undoubtedly Scotland’s best known movie actor; apart, that is, from old 007.I had seen him many a time, in the television series that had launched his career, and in most of his films.

  Miles had worked with him before, having cast him, for a ton of money, in a key cameo part in his remake of Kidnapped a couple of years earlier; that film had been Dawn’s big breakthrough, in more ways than one.

  The other feature parts would be played by my old chum Scott Steele, who more or less cast himself as Chief Constable James Proud, by Bill Massey, a smooth English actor who would be perfect as the bad guy, by Rhona Waitrose, an up-and-coming young Scot with big eyes and bouncy hair, just like Skinner’s daughter in the book, and by Masahi Katayama, a celebrated Japanese actor, who had one of the key roles and who would give the project added international appeal.

  I knew Scott well, and Dawn of course, in a professional as well as a family sense, and was comfortable with them, but the idea of working with the others started the hamster running around in my stomach. I didn’t worry about it too much, though; I’d been in the business long enough to know that every performer has some nerves. Those who do best are those who overcome them best, and so far I’d managed.

  There was one other guy on the cast list who would give the movie added value, and might widen its audience. One of the minor roles was a half-Irish, half-Italian detective called Mario McGuire. I’d persuaded Miles to give a test to my friend Liam Matthews, one of the stars of the Global Wrestling Alliance, where I’d cut my television teeth as ring announcer. All wrestlers these days are part-actor as well, and so he had sailed through. His major contribution to the story would be to get shot at the end, but no one can fake being hit like Liam.

  I was smiling at the thought when the phone rang; so far only Susie, my Dad and Miles had the number, but I’d put my cellphone on divert when I’d come back in. I picked it up; Liam must have known I’d been thinking about him.

  “How’re you doing?” I asked him. “Word perfect yet?”

  “Christ, man, it’s hardly going to take me long. I’ve only got about ten lines, then I go down in this big gunfight. I’m not exactly playing Hamlet.”

  “No, but you get your leg over, and that’s more than he does.”

  “True; it has its compensations. Actually, I’m a bit worried about that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, when she gets her kit off, what if I sort of… You know what I mean, man.”

  “Become aroused, you mean?”

  “That’s the polite term, yes.”

  “Try to think of something else, like Jerry Gradi throwing your arse across the ring.”

  “Mmm. It might take more than that, depending on the lady’s appearance.”

  “Look, man,” I told him, ‘it’s not a problem. They put something in your tea; that’s what happened in Toronto.”

  He bought it. “Christ, man, are you fucking serious! How long does it take to wear off?”

  “Not long. After a couple of weeks, you should see the first signs of life.”

  I heard him gasp. “A couple of weeks …” He stopped. “Fuck it, I think I’ll just wear baggy pyjamas.”

  When I stopped laughing, I asked him why he had called. “To wish you all the best,” he began, ‘to ask after your new child, who is all over the funny papers… you never do anything conventional, pal, do you… and to pass on a message.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The office took a call today, while we were all on the way back from a show in Cardiff. It was a girl, and she was looking for you. She said her name was Alison Goodchild; and that she was an old friend of yours. She said she needs to get in touch with you, and that it’s urgent.” Liam paused. “You haven’t got another one up the duff, have you?”

  “We took great pains not to do that,” I told him. “But that was a few years back now. Did they take a number?”

  “Yes.” He read it out, after I had grabbed a pen; it was a mobile, not a landline. “She asked if you could send her a text message; she said she doesn’t like speaking on the thing.”

  Funny, I thought, then I remembered that Alison had always been a touch weird.

  “If it makes her happy. I’ll do that. Have you been told about the cast meeting yet?”

  “No. When’s that?”

  I gave him the date and time, and told him how to find the apartment. “
See you Thursday.”

  “Sure. Hey, were you serious about the stuff in your tea?”

  “Nah. Did you mean it, about the baggy pyjamas?”

  “What do you think?”

  “A pair of boxers is probably all you’ll need.”

  I hung up, and thought of Alison; our thing had been doomed from the start. I could never take her as seriously as she had taken herself. I used to call her “Tomorrow’; she thought it was after the song “Tomorrow Belongs to Me’, but actually, it was because she never came. Eventually I found someone who did, and that was that. Okay, I was a rat in those days; I admit it.

  I looked at the number Liam had given me; then I switched on my mobile and keyed in a text message giving her my landline number and inviting her to call me.

  I switched on the telly and was getting into David Attenborough telling me how important field mice are to the ecosystem, when my cellphone bleeped twice to tell me that I had an incoming text message.

  I accessed it and read. “Can’t phone. Can we meet?”

  Strange, I thought, but I sent back, “OK. Where? When?”

  Two minutes later, I bleeped again. ‘9:30 tonight? Cafe Royal?” I read. I frowned; I was getting into those field mice and there was a rerun of the afternoon’s premiership match on Sky afterwards. Also, I didn’t fancy the Cafe Royal; it’s always busy and I’m at the stage of being recognised and accosted by punters I don’t know. I don’t mind, but they can be hard to shake loose. So I thought about it, then sent another message. “Time okay, but not CR. George Hotel bar.” I waited, only partly focused on the mice. It took her less than a minute this time. “OK. C U’.

  There is no doubt about it; text messaging is changing the face of the English language, as it is rote.

  Thirteen.

  The great thing about my new temporary home was that it was less than ten minutes’ walk from anywhere in central Edinburgh. As I had hoped, the George Hotel bar was quiet; there were a couple of Japanese tourists and a table of loud American golfers, but otherwise only the barman and me.