Poisoned Cherries

by Quintin Jardine

  “I want that stepped up.”

  “Don’t worry, it has been. You’ll need to tell her what’s happening, though. I don’t want her picking up the phone and getting any nasty surprises.”

  I agreed with that. “I’ll call her right away,” I said.

  “I’ve talked to Mr. Grayson,” Ricky continued, ‘and we both think I should step up your cover as well. We should make it more obvious; you should have someone full-time, like him and Mrs. Grayson and Ewan Capperauld. It could be that he’s picked you because you’re the most vulnerable. I thought Mandy could do that for you; she’s well capable and you’ve got spare rooms up there in your apartment. You okay with that?”

  I risked a quick glance at my lady minder; she was dead-pan. “Attractive as that suggestion is,” I replied, “I don’t want that. One; I’ve promised a bedroom to Liam Matthews whenever the schedule brings him to town; he’s all the minder I’ll ever need. Two; I have another plan for Mandy. Three; I don’t want to scare this guy away. I want to meet him. In fact, if he does send a demand for money, I plan to deliver it in person.”

  Forty-One.

  Did that make Ricky’s day? Not by a long way. He tried everything to talk me round; he even got Miles in on the act. But I wasn’t having any of it, and eventually they came to terms with it. Most of all, of course, what I wasn’t having was Mandy O’Farrell in my spare room.

  I did phone Susie, though, as I’d agreed, as soon as I got home. I told her the real reason for my jumpiness the day before and I told her about the photograph. I didn’t expect her to sound frightened, and she wasn’t. I did expect her to sound angry, and she was. But not just at the mischief-maker; she turned the heat on me as well. “Why the hell are you only telling me this now?” she demanded. “Do you think I’m some sort of a bloody wimp? If this guy’s threatening anyone he’s threatening our daughter, and I had a right to know that from the start.” She paused, for emphasis, I guessed. “Now tell me what you’re doing about it… and I’d better be impressed, or I’ll make my own arrangements.” I didn’t like to think what they might be. Lord Provost Jack Gantry had had connections with some euphemistically named security firms around Glasgow, and the survivors were still around.

  “You’ve had cover since last night,” I told her. “One of Ricky’s guys has had you in his sight ever since. I plan to step that up. There’s a woman on his staff; you met her, briefly, the other night. I plan to move her in with you, until this guy’s nailed.”

  “That big blond Amazon?” she exclaimed. “The one you called Mandy?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Can she handle herself?”

  “Oh yes. She wouldn’t be working for Ross if she couldn’t.” I was taking a chance that she could also keep her mouth shut… something she hadn’t been able to do the night before… but I wanted Susie and Janet to have effective close protection and I couldn’t think of anyone who was better equipped to do the job.

  “Okay,” she agreed, just a touch grudgingly. “I’ll give her a try. But the best solution is to catch this guy. Have you reported it to the police?”

  “Ricky’s briefed his contacts; they know what’s happened, but they’re keeping it under wraps.”

  “So what the hell are you and Ross actually doing, apart from giving me a house-guest and sitting on your arses?”

  “The only thing we can, love. We’re waiting for his next move.”

  Forty-Two.

  I had hoped that my day was done, but no such luck. I had just finished speaking to Susie when the phone rang again. “I need to see you,” said Ricky. “There’s been a development on the Anna Chin investigation.”

  We agreed to meet half-an-hour later, in the Oxford Bar, where real detectives are supposed to hang out. Ten minutes after that, I knew that it never rains but it pours. Ricky told me that the police had released Corporal Adam Cruikshank, Anna Chin’s paratrooper boyfriend, pending further investigation.

  “He’s got a petrol transaction slip from a filling station in Canonmills,” he said. “The time on it doesn’t prove absolutely that he couldn’t have killed Anna, but he’d have had to be some driver. They still like him for it, but there’s absolutely no evidence to place him at the scene, so until they find some, they’ve had to let him go.”

  “Mmm.” I muttered. “Still, it keeps them away from Alison.”

  “Aye, but…” said Ricky, ominously. “There’s something else. Even if this lad had found out about his girl and David Capperauld, he couldn’t have killed him. I made some enquiries of a close-mouthed military source of mine. When the boy David was done, Corporal Cruikshank was jumping out of a plane on a training exercise in the Middle East.

  “Only we know about that connection. Only we know about the attempts to set up Alison. They still mean that the same person committed both murders. The police are barking up the wrong tree with the soldier. I can’t tell them that, but sooner or later they’re going to find out.”

  The guy with the beard had become my big concern, but he wasn’t my only one; as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t forget about Alison. I had hoped that the corporal was the end of our troubles on that score; now he had been hit on the head as a likely suspect, and she was still a thorn in my flesh.

  It wasn’t that I was too worried about her, though. Hell no, I had my own position to think of. After all, Ricky and I had messed up the crime scene and we had hidden information from the police that would have led them straight to the most obvious suspect.

  Yes, we had done it for the best of motives … we believed that Alison was innocent… and I was cool about that. We had also done it very well, so there was no reason why anyone should ever find out; unless, of course,.. . and this was my one niggling doubt… the police found out about David and Anna and put the thumbscrews on Alison herself.

  Ricky had told her to deny everything and say nothing else, if it came to that, but still, she was flaky under pressure.

  All in all, I reckoned, and I said as much to Ricky, the sooner the real killer was caught the better it would be for everyone.

  “That depends who it is,” he muttered darkly. The Oxford was busy, as always, but we had wedged ourselves into a quiet corner.

  “What the hell do you mean by that?” I demanded.

  “The real killer’s got it in for Alison, Oz. He’s done two people and tried to frame her for both of them. To all intents and purposes he succeeded the first time, and if it hadn’t been for a police car being in a traffic accident, she’d be remanded in prison right now, and wouldn’t be coming out again until she was past fifty.

  ‘ Whoever’s done that had a bloody good reason for it; when we find out what it is, we might not like it.”

  “Have you asked her about it? I know you two have been pillow-talking, after all.”

  “Yes, I’ve asked her, as directly as I could. She swears she hasn’t a clue who or what could be behind it.”

  “And do you believe her?”

  He looked down into his beer and nodded.

  “If that was me talking,” I said, ‘you’d bloody laugh at me. You’d go on about the power of the furry purse to blind you to the obvious, and in the end I’d agree with you. Jesus Christ, for years I thought Prim was Mary Fucking Poppins.”

  Ricky chuckled. “Aye, and that you were Bert the chimney sweep, I suppose. You’re right, though; that’s exactly what I have told myself. And I still believe her. So do you, come to that. You never thought she killed Capperauld, and you know she didn’t kill Anna Chin, because someone set her up to be caught.”

  “Sure, but believing that she doesn’t have a clue why all this has happened, that’s something else.”

  “Nonetheless, I do.” He finished his pint, went up to the bar and ordered two more. “You’re right about something else too,” he said, when he returned. “Two correct in one night; that’s good going for you.”

  “Thanks. What is it?”

  “We do need to catch this character
. He knows about the connection between David and Anna; clearly he does, because he’s killed them both. At the moment, as far as we’re aware, he’s the only one who does, but if the police don’t tie in Alison in the next few days, then, sooner rather than later, he’s going to find a way to let them in on the secret.

  “If we allow that to happen, my famous friend, for all I’ve told Alison to act wide-eyed and innocent, chances are we are all waist-deep in the shit.”

  “So where do we begin to look for him?”

  “Stick a pin in a map of the city. That’s as good a way as any in the circumstances. Do you have any bright ideas?”

  “What connects the two killings?”

  “It’s a triangle. That’s what we’re meant to think. Maybe it is. Maybe Alison knew about it from the start. Maybe we’re just a pair of saps and she is just playing us along. Maybe she made those anonymous phone calls to herself…”

  “And maybe she fixed that accident to the police car?”

  “Yes. At the end of it all, that’s the one lucky break she’s had, and that’s why I believe all the rest of it. So to come back to your question, what connects the two killings?”

  “Torrent.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He was a client of Alison and David’s; he was Anna Chin’s employer; he was putting pressure on Alison when all this happened. And he’s dodgy in business, as we know from Susie. Yet when I spoke to him, he was as nice as nine euros, handing out treats like he was Scrooge on Christmas Day.”

  “But so what?”

  “But so it’s all we’ve fucking got! We need… bugger it, you need to get in there and see what you can find. You’re his security consultant; start a complete review in the wake of Anna’s murder, and while you’re at it, look for anything that might help us here.

  “Otherwise, we’re not just waist-deep in the shit. Any minute now the tea-break’ll be over and it’ll be back to standing on our heads.”

  Forty-Three.

  Actually I was in it already, as I found out when I left the Oxford. I had switched off my mobile while I was talking to Ricky; when I turned it on again, outside in Young Street, it flashed at me impatiently : to tell me that I had a voice message.

  It was Susie, terse and to the point. “Call me back.”

  I obeyed, trying her mobile first, since its ringing was less likely to disturb Janet. “You might have warned me,” she said, as soon as she answered.

  “I thought I had,” I protested, not knowing what the hell she was on about. “Is Mandy there with you?”

  “Yes,” she replied, ‘and that made it worse, having her in the house. She knew who she was, when the buzzer went and she answered it.”

  The third pint of lager had fogged my brain. “Who?” I mumbled.

  “Prim, you idiot, who else? Your wife came to see me and our daughter. You might have bloody well warned me she was around.”

  “But she only turned up this afternoon,” I heard myself protest, lamely. “And when she left I thought she was going up to Perthshire to see her folks. I’d no idea she’d go to see you, or I’d have told her not to.”

  “Fat chance she’d have listened,” said Susie, scornfully.

  “So what did she say? Did Mandy have to referee?”

  “Mandy wasn’t there; I sent her into the kitchen while we had our chat.”

  “And?”

  “And she was as nice as only Primavera can be when she puts her mind to it. She asked if she could see the baby, and when I showed her

  J to her she got all misty-eyed. She’d even stopped in at a shopping centre and bought her a present.

  i “Then she said that the way things had worked out were probably for the best. She hoped that you and I would be very happy together and she wished us both luck. What do you make of that?”

  “What should I make of it?” I replied. “I’m relieved, I suppose. She didn’t know about Janet until she turned up in Edinburgh this afternoon. It came as a real shock to her. I’m pleased that she’s taken the news so well.”

  “She didn’t know? She told you that? And you believed her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, you poor, gullible lad; she’s a better actor than you are … not that it would be hard.”

  “Come on, Susie,” I protested, stung by her critical review, ‘what’s your problem with all this?”

  “I know her,” she shot back. “Her turning up like this was not spur of the moment, and as for her best wishes, they were a declaration of war. I was always wary of Prim at the best of times; as things are now, I wouldn’t trust her an inch.”

  “Ah, come on. Sometimes you have to take people at face value.”

  “She isn’t people! She’s your wife, and she’s got the biggest down on me any woman could possibly have on another. So when she swans into my house, goes gooey over my baby, and wishes me long life and happiness, no way will I believe a bloody word she’s saying!”

  “Well I do, okay?”

  “Sure you do, like you believed her in the past, when she was having it off with half of Spain in your absence.”

  “She didn’t really lie to me, though. I just assumed. Anyway, all that time was none of my business.”

  “Yeah? And what about her and Mike? When she was with you and he was with me? What about that?”

  Young Street grew blurred all around me; I held the phone away from my ear and looked at it until my eyes focused. “What did you just say?” I asked her, when I could find the words.

  “Nothing I ever planned to,” she replied. “I never intended to tell you, but the two of them had an affair, in Glasgow.”

  “Prim and Dylan? You’re making that up; you have to be.”

  “I wish I was, but I’m not. After he died, I found a letter she wrote him; the daft bastard kept it, inside the birthday card it came in. It was wishing him many happy returns, in more ways than one.”

  “So,” I said slowly, ‘when you turned up in Spain, and we got it together, you were getting your own back too?”

  Susie fell silent. “No,” she answered eventually. “I didn’t plan it that way. But it made it a hell of a lot easier, I can tell you.”

  “So why didn’t you tell me about her and Dylan until now?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see the need, I suppose. You liked him and he’s gone. What was the point of telling you?”

  “And did you tell Prim you knew?”

  “No. I’m keeping that in reserve for when I need it.”

  “And when will that be?”

  “When she tries to get you back, as she will.”

  “She won’t; she knows better.”

  “I know better; she will, believe me. Maybe she’s started already.”

  I thought about our encounter that afternoon, and Prim’s willingness to put the couch to good use. Susie latched on to my silence. “She has, hasn’t she!” she exclaimed, almost triumphantly.

  “Well if she did, she failed. And when she saw that she had she went to see you and wished you all the best.”

  I heard her laugh. “In your dreams, big boy. Tell me something. This man who’s been following you, the guy who took our picture and planted it in your room; has it ever occurred to you that he might be working for your wife? Did it never occur to you that she was being far too compliant over the divorce?”

  No, it had not; never, until that moment. I told Susie as much. “Well maybe you should give it some thought. You’re trying to make a movie, which she knows all about because her sister’s in it. Out of the blue, dodgy things happen. Why shouldn’t she be behind them? Why shouldn’t she be behind all of them?”

  Forty-Four.

  I thought about what Susie had said for the rest of the night. I started thinking about it again, as soon as I was wakened next morning by the sound of the door buzzer.

  I checked my watch as I answered; it was five to nine. I’d overslept and Liam Matthews was at the door, ready to begin rehearsals for his big week
of being a movie star. Having shot the beginning of the movie the day before, we were scheduled to film one of the climactic scenes, a complicated shoot-out in Edinburgh University’s McEwan Graduating Hall, which had been made available to us for a full week.

  As I waited for the lift to come up from the street, I ran through what Susie had said. Could Prim have sent the stalker? Could she have planted that photo herself? She’d had the chance. Sure, if she had she’d put on a terrific act when I’d told her about the baby, but she’d put on some A-list performances for me in the past… not least keeping me totally in the dark about her having it off with Mike Dylan, God rot his bones.

  Yes, I told myself, as I listened to the whoosh behind the sliding steel door, she could be behind the man who followed me. I wouldn ‘t put that past her. But to be behind all of it…

  Then the lift opened, and there he was, the GWA World Heavyweight Champion, a true superstar of wrestling. I half expected him to have the big leather and gold title belt slung over his shoulder but, thankfully, he was out of character for the week.

  When I first met Liam, I took an instant dislike to him. He was pushy, arrogant, playing all the stuff in his ring persona in real life, pissing off just about everyone around him, and surviving in his job only because of his exceptional physical gifts, his technical skills … he was a world championship medallist as an amateur… and his natural acrobatic talent. Pound for pound, because he’s much smaller than most of his enormous colleagues, Liam is as good a sports entertainer… wrestler, that is … as the world has ever seen. Happily,

  he’s also worked his way though his difficult period, found himself a nice girl, and let the nice guy within him work his way to the surface.

  He filled a void in my life when Dylan’s death left me short of a best pal; given what I’d learned in the last twelve hours or so, was I glad to see him right then.

  He looked me up and down. “Jesus, boy, what have you been up to? You look frazzled. You’ve got eyes on you like piss-holes in the snow.”