Poisoned Cherries

by Quintin Jardine

  “His name isn’t Ross, is it?”

  The great head nodded. “Yes, it is. Do you know him?”

  “He’s looking after security for the movie.”

  “You’ll be fine, then. He’s a very sound man, is Richard.”

  Fucking tight-lipped as well, I thought. Ricky had known I was going to see Torrent, and he’d said nothing about his connection with him.

  “That’s reassuring,” I said. “I knew him as a copper; he was a real collar and front then, I can tell you.”

  He looked puzzled at my slang for a moment, then worked it out. I stood, and he followed suit. “I mustn’t keep you any longer,” I told him. “I’m grateful to you for putting me right on Capperauld, and for your payment. Alison will be pleased on both scores.”

  “That’s good.” I glanced at him; he seemed genuine. “Oh yes,” he continued, “I should have mentioned this earlier. Please give the young lady my deepest condolences. David’s death must be a terrible blow to her, both in personal and business terms. I had very little to do with him, but I found him a very pleasant young man when we did meet…” He gave a small sad laugh. ‘.. . Even if he didn’t get on with his famous cousin.” He pushed a button on his phone.

  “I’m a great believer in family values, Oz,” he rumbled as he walked me to the door. “I’ve never married myself, but I treat my late sister’s daughter as my own. I couldn’t do without her, in fact.” At that moment, the door opened and Natalie Morgan appeared. “Could I, my dear?”

  “Could you what, Uncle James?”

  “Do without you.”

  She smiled, for the first time in my presence. It was supercharged, and it made her eyes shine like deep blue pools. “Absolutely not,” she said.

  Twenty-Four.

  I drove straight to Ricky’s place, without calling to let him know I was coming.

  “Thanks, pal,” I said, when he opened the door. “You might have bloody told me you work for Torrent.”

  “Why?” he retorted. “I treat all my clients on a confidential basis. I’m in the security business, for fuck’s sake. Anyway, what difference would it have made?”

  “You might have saved me a trip.”

  “How? I don’t bug his fucking office. I don’t know what he did or didn’t tell Alison.”

  He had a point; I cooled down. “How is she, anyway?” I asked him.

  Ross shrugged his shoulders and nodded towards the kitchen, at the back of the narrow hall. “Nervous; we still haven’t heard from Ronnie Morrow. She’s in the kitchen knocking up some lunch; go and ask her yourself.” His tone was as he looked; offhand.

  I did as he suggested. She had her back to the door as I stepped into the room. “Do you want HP sauce on your corned beef?” she asked. There was something in her voice too, and I knew at once what it was. Even in that simple question, she sounded just as she had a few years back, when she and I had been together and she’d been making breakfast at my place. Alison always sounded guilty after sex, as if it was something she shouldn’t have been doing. For some reason, she also consumed large quantities of brown sauce the morning after.

  “I’ll take mustard on mine, thanks.”

  She jumped at the sound of my voice and turned round. She caught me frowning at her, and turned red. “Did you shag him?” I asked her. She turned even redder.

  “That’s…”

  “None of my business, I know. Except for the fact that I’m out there trying to help my old friend, the grieving fiancee, and all the time she’s doing the fucking horizontal mambo with her minder.

  “You know what?” I’m starting to have serious doubts about you, Alison.”

  “Why?” she protested. “I’m frightened, and I was lonely; I needed to be with someone. You made your feelings clear the other night, and Ricky was kind to me, so …”

  I reached out, opened one of the kitchen drawers and took a look inside. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Checking for ice-picks, or other sharp objects,” I told her.

  “Oz!” She squealed my name.

  “No, listen. Did you have any sort of a relationship with David, other than business? Were you really engaged to him?”

  The blush left her cheeks; she looked down at the floor, and gnawed her lip. “Not any more,” she whisphered. “He broke it off a month ago.”

  “Did he tell you why?”

  “He was seeing someone else.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And all that carry-on on Sunday night; getting me to thump on his door. What was that about?”

  “I was hoping she’d be there, whoever she was. I wanted to cause a scene, to embarrass him.”

  “So you used me?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry.” A spark of the new Alison flared up in her. “But why should I be? You used me often enough in the past.” She had me there.

  “I taught you bloody well, then,” I shot back at her. “Okay,” I went on. “So David dumped you a month ago. How did you manage to conduct a business relationship after that?”

  “We didn’t. He walked out of the business as well, and he demanded half the assets.”

  “What assets? You told me the business had a cash problem.”

  “It’s still worth quite a bit, though, as a trading entity. David had the shares valued by our auditor. He was insisting that I buy him out or that the company bought his shares in. I couldn’t afford that and neither could the business. Anyway…” her voice rose, and hardened; ‘… it wasn’t fair. I would never agree to that. He never pulled his weight at work. I won most of the clients, and I serviced most of them myself.”

  “I’ll bet you did. That’s probably why he chucked you.”

  She ignored my wisecrack. “He did ten per cent of the work yet he wanted half the value. I wasn’t going to let him away with that. I offered him one fifth of what the auditor claimed his shares were worth. He laughed at me, and told me that if I didn’t give him what he wanted he’d withdraw his personal guarantee of our overdraft, and the bank would pull the plug on everything.”

  “Oh shit,” I heard myself bellow, just as the kitchen door opened again behind me, and Ricky Ross walked in.

  “Indeed,” he said. “I’m afraid you’re cooked, dear.”

  I stared at him. The offhand look had gone; now he looked very interested, and bloody pleased with himself too. “You son of a…” I hissed. “You might not have bugged Torrent’s place, but you’ve done your own, haven’t you?”

  White teeth gleamed. “Once a copper, Oz, always …” That was as far as he got before I sank my right fist deep into his gut. The breath rushed out of him and he folded up. Alison just stood there, bewildered, staring at us, both hands pressed to her mouth.

  “Ohhh,” Ricky groaned, then bizarrely, he smiled up at me from the floor. “Sorry, Oz,” he gasped. “I couldn’t tell you, though; not with you having been close to the girl.”

  “Did you and Morrow cook this up?”

  He pulled himself to his feet. “No, it was all my idea. If I’d got Ronnie involved, the tape probably wouldn’t have been admissible as evidence. Maybe yes, maybe not, but it wasn’t worth the risk.”

  “What?” Alison screamed. We both turned to look at her. She was holding the big kitchen knife with which she had been slicing the corned beef, and pointing it straight at us. “You…” She screamed again and rushed at Ricky. He dived for his life, but slowly, as he was still feeling the effects of my punch. He might not have made it, but I grabbed her arm as she went past, and twisted it up and round behind her, compressing her wrist until her hand went numb and she dropped the blade.

  “Keep her here, Oz,” said Ricky, breathlessly, as he picked the knife from the floor. “I’ll get Ronnie. “Alison was still struggling against my grip, straining, wild-eyed, to get at him. Once, her head twisted round and down as if she was reaching for my hands, to bite them. I didn’t fancy that at all, not with the fleck of foam in one corner of
her mouth.

  “You keep her here yourself,” I suggested. “I’ll make the call. That seems like a better deal to me.” He wasn’t that daft though; he was through that door like a greyhound out of a trap, leaving me wondering how long I could hang on to this mad woman and wondering whether there were any more lethal kitchen implements lying around within easy reach.

  She muttered something incoherent, then snarled a bit, then gradually began to calm down. She still twisted and wrenched against me, trying to free herself, until finally she ran out of strength. I still held her tight, though, keeping her arms pinned from behind; I couldn’t be sure she wasn’t faking it and that she wouldn’t go for my throat.

  “That bastard,” she exclaimed, the words punctuated by a great gasping sob. “He made love to me, and it was all a trick.”

  “Come on now,” I said, ‘be fair. He didn’t make love to you; you shagged him. That was the way it came out earlier. And if the guy wants to plant listening devices in his own house, I suppose he’s got the right to do that. Let’s stop blaming other people here, Alison. If you hadn’t killed your bloody ex, none of this would have happened.”

  “But I didn’t kill him!” she said. Her voice was weak now, with a wheedling, frightened tone to it.

  “What?” I had to laugh at her. “After you try to fillet the two of us with that boning knife, and after the story you told me about what David was trying to do to you, you expect me to believe that?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, ‘because it’s the truth.” She tried to look back at me, over her shoulder. “I wasn’t trying to stab anyone, Oz. I was just furious; I’d forgotten I was holding the knife. Let me go, please.”

  “I can’t do that,” I told her. “Ricky’s calling the police; apart from anything else, you’re on bail and we have to hand you over.”

  “Well at least stop holding me so tight; I won’t do anything silly, I promise.”

  I thought about it for a bit, then finally relented. “Go and sit on that stool,” I said, ‘and keep your hands where I can see them. If you try to run for it, or have another go at me, then I promise you, girlie or no girlie, I will knock you into the middle of next week.”

  She nodded; I let her arms go and she did as I had told her. She looked up at me through blotchy eyes. “I really didn’t do it,” she whispered. I could see that she was desperate for me to believe her, but I couldn’t.

  “Sure,” I replied. I crossed to the kitchen door and shouted to Ricky. “Is that tape switched off?”

  “Yes,” he called back. “Morrow’s on his way. I phoned Charlie as well; he’ll go straight to the nick. He’s not exactly speaking to me. Oh aye,” he added. “The lab report’s in. That was the weapon all right.”

  I closed the door and turned back to Alison. She was still on the stool, behaving herself; I guess she’d believed what I’d said about thumping her. Wise girl. “Now listen to me,” I told her, ‘before the coppers get here. You should say nothing at all to them until you’ve spoken with Badenoch again.

  “Then you should come up with a story that he can use to persuade the fiscal to reduce the charge to culpable homicide, rather than murder. You went to his house to plead with him, he laughed in your face and you just lost it. The awl was there, on the hall table; you just picked it up and swung at him, blind with rage. You were in such a panic that you took it home with you, where it was found by the police.”

  I paused to let her think about it. “That is how it happened, isn’t it?” I asked.

  Tears started to run slowly down her cheeks. She shook her head. “No, it isn’t. I really didn’t do it. You have to believe me, Oz.” Again, I thought that if she was acting she was worth a BAFTA.

  “Okay. Let’s say, for the purposes of this discussion, that I do. That doesn’t matter a damn. This is what will happen. You’ll be charged with murder, on the basis of what’s on that tape, the fact that the weapon was found in your house, and the fact that you can be placed in the vicinity at the time of death.

  “I’ll almost certainly be called as a witness to what you said earlier and I’ll have to confirm that the tape hasn’t been doctored and that it’s a true record. If I try to add that you’re a good wee lass really, and that you didn’t do it, the judge will give me thirty days for contempt.

  “Long before I’m out, the jury will have brought in a fifteen-nil verdict of guilty and you’ll be in Cornton Vale, starting a life sentence. It’s time for damage control, Alison. If the Crown offers you a plea to culpable homicide, take it. Charlie will instruct the best criminal QC in the business; he’ll put in a plea in mitigation that will make David Capperauld sound like Bill Sykes and you like Nancy. With a lot of luck … a hell of a lot, but it’s happened before… the judge might just take a fancy to you and put you on probation for a couple of years.”

  “But I can’t do that,” she wailed. “I’m innocent.”

  “Until you’re proved guilty? That’s not the way it works, love. The way the evidence is you’re as good as in the prison van already. You’ve got one way to protect yourself; use it. Co-operate and Charlie might just get you out on bail, until the trial at least.”

  She frowned at me. “After Ricky tells them I went for him with that knife?”

  “That never happened. He won’t say a word about that, otherwise I’ll tell the world about him giving you one last night. He’s spent too long rebuilding his reputation to want that to happen.”

  As I looked at her, I could almost see her brain start to work again. I could almost see her start to pick up the pieces of herself and put them back together. “You really believe that’s what I should do?”

  “Yes. But don’t do it on my word; ask Charlie what he thinks.”

  “What if he doesn’t agree with you?”

  “Then get another lawyer.”

  Twenty-Five.

  Badenoch did agree with me, though. Once Morrow had let him read the lab report and had played him what was on the tape, he knew what the score was, and he advised his client to face the facts.

  I wasn’t there when they had that conversation, but he told me later that when she protested her innocence, he had said straight out that if he found it hard to believe, any jury was going to find it impossible.

  He didn’t let her make a formal statement to the police, but they didn’t expect that. Instead, Charlie went to the fiscal and told her what the defence would be if she proceeded with a murder charge. She weighed the cost of a full-scale trial, took an educated guess at the likely verdict and agreed to take a plea to culpable homicide.

  She even told the police not to oppose bail, which they had been inclined to do. He’s some operator, that Charlie Badenoch.

  Once the deal had been cut, they let me in to see Alison again, to deliver her some clothes for next day. She had to make a formal court appearance next morning, and she had opted for a night in the cells rather than the alternative, which was still open, of going back to Ricky’s place. I hoped that, to quote the King, one night of sin was all he’d been praying for, because I reckoned, sure as hell, that was all he was going to get after his trick with the tape.

  I saw her in the usual interview room in the Gayfield Square office; a constable stood on guard outside the door, but they gave us privacy, after they had checked what was in the bag I’d brought. The police had still been at her house when I’d got there, and they had watched me pack it, then it had been searched again at the police station. I thought that in the circumstances, a cake with a file in it was an unlikely find, but they’d given the stuff a going-over nonetheless.

  She was calm, even if she still seemed slightly stunned by what had happened. “Do you really think I’ll get probation?” she asked me, quietly.

  “I don’t know,” I told her, honestly. “There are plenty of precedents, but it still comes down to what the judge thinks is the punishment that mo fits the crime. There are a couple of women on the bench now; maybe you’ll get lucky and draw one of them.”
>
  “But I could go to prison?”

  I had to tell her the truth; I mean, I could only jolly her along so far, couldn’t I. “Yes, you could.”

  “Even though I didn’t do it?”

  I sighed. “Okay. If that’s the way you want it, plead not guilty; go back on Charlie’s deal with the fiscal. But if it goes to trial and you’re convicted, even if it’s only of culpable homicide, the judge’ll throw the book at you. You fancy ten years?”

  “No,” she whispered; her eyes glistening again. “That’s why I’ve agreed to do as Mr. Badenoch said. But it still doesn’t make me guilty, Oz. Please,” she begged, ‘believe me.”

  I have always been a sucker for a crying woman; plus, she had agreed to the plea. She was going to get off lightly, so why keep up the pretence now? “Suppose I do,” I said, grudgingly. “What difference does it make?”

  “It’ll make a big difference to me; it’ll mean that there’s someone in the world, other than my dizzy old mother, who’s on my side.”

  “I’ve never been against you. I’ve never thought you killed him in cold blood. I was prepared to accept that you did it in a flash of blind rage at his deceit and his threats to destroy your business, just as you’re going to admit to in court. But if you promise me on your heart’s blood that you didn’t, then I’ll believe you.”

  “I swear,” she burst out, in a voice loaded with relief. “Even if I have to go away for a while, it’ll make it easier just knowing that. Even though I’ll have nothing when I come out, and I’ll have the bank on my neck, I’ll get through it somehow.”

  “When you get out tomorrow, and go back to the office, you might find that you’re suddenly in good standing with your bank.”

  “What do you mean?”