by WHS McIntyre
‘That keep your head still, bend your knees, stuff. It puts you off. I just go up and hit the thing.’
Maybe that’s where I’d gone wrong. I’d listened to my dad too much. If I’d ignored him I’d probably have been on the European Tour by now, instead of an eighteen-handicapper with a swing like an axe-murderer.
‘Aye, you don’t want to go thinking too much about things,’ Malky said. ‘Works for me, anyway.’
‘That’s because not thinking comes easy to you,’ I said.
It took a second or two for the insult to register. He feinted a punch. Instinctively, I stepped back and stood on something soft. Soft and yet quietly crunchy. Somehow, before I checked under my heel, I knew I’d found the missing rabbit, but not before a fox had.
I kicked a piece of chewed head at Malky. ‘Get rid of that before you go, will you?’
Before I could accidentally stumble over any more of Rosie’s mortal remains, I gathered Tina’s scattered golf clubs, put them in her wee pink golf bag, and, taking her by the hand, half-dragged her to the car and her golf lesson.
I shouldn’t have bothered.
‘Maybe you could have a word with her, Robbie. I don’t think Tina’s herself tonight. She’s a wee bit . . . crabbit.’ Steve the golf instructor was a young man with a lot of dark, sticky-up hair and a gift for understatement.
Despite his best efforts, as well as my own vocal encouragements from the rear of the driving-bay, things had not gone well thus far. Tina had hit fifty golf balls. None had flown remotely straight nor travelled as far as the junior seven-iron she’d hurled in rage after her last attempt, and which now nestled in the lush grass of the golf range.
I knew the reason she was upset. I’d felt the reason crack under my heel. I hadn’t told her of course, only mentioned that I didn’t think Rosie would be coming home because she’d run off with some other bunnies to live in a field full of dandelions far, far away.
Steve picked up the empty wire-basket. ‘I’ll get some more balls and we’ll have another go. How’s that?’ He tried to ruffle Tina’s hair, but she wasn’t having it.
I hunkered down and took her wee hands in mine. ‘How about you hit some more golf balls and then we go to Sandy’s for ice cream?’
In response to this, Tina pulled herself free, folded her arms and rested her chin on them. As far as my parenting skills went, the weapon of last resort was the ice cream bribe. Seeing it fail so miserably meant I was out of ammo. Joanna would have known what to do. If only she’d been prepared to let her cold case chill a little while longer, she could have taken Tina to her lesson and let me go to the cup semi-final with my dad and Malky. Come to think of it, why wasn’t my old man here? Why me? Okay, I was Tina’s dad, but the whole golf lessons thing had been his idea.
Thankfully, Tina’s bouts of huffiness, though annoyingly frequent, didn’t tend to last long, a bit like party political broadcasts. I decided to give her a minute, taking advantage of the lapse in proceedings to phone Joanna.
After I’d explained how well things weren’t going, I asked her to do me a favour.
‘I can’t, Robbie, and you shouldn’t be asking me.’
‘I only want to know what’s happening. He’s a client of mine who was arrested at the weekend and for some reason it was decided just to release him on a bail undertaking. Can’t you look it up on the computer and tell me why? His name is Colin McCowan. I can’t remember his date of birth but it’s probably nineteen-fifty-something. He’s got one previous for being concerned in the supply about eight years ago.’
I signed off when I noticed Tina had changed sports and was now playing football with her golf bag. Watching out for sliced shots from adjacent stalls, like a commando under fire, I went and collected the hurled seven-iron. On the way back I picked up a golf ball, placed it on the rubber tee and handed Tina the club. She wouldn’t take it, arms still resolutely folded.
‘One last shot and that’ll be us,’ I said. ‘Just one hit and that’s it. It doesn’t matter where it goes or how far. I don’t even mind if you miss. Just do your best and have one more proper try and then we’ll go see Sandy for ice cream.’
Tina thought about it for a moment. She snatched the club from me. I put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Do you know who the best golfer in the world is?’ Apparently she did. It was her Gramps. She had his word on it.
‘No, he’s second best,’ I said. ‘The best is your Uncle Malky. And do you know what his secret is? Do you know what he does to make the ball go so far?’
Tina was making a good show of trying not to look interested.
‘He just thinks about nothing. He doesn’t think about his feet, or keeping his head still, or his elbows or anything. He just steps right up and whacks it.’
I heard Steve, who’d returned with another basket of balls, mutter something about the importance of squaring up to the line of flight, but I carried on regardless. ‘Think of something you’re really good at.’ I tickled her. ‘Come on. What are you really, really good at?’
She thought about it. ‘Painting,’ she said at last.
It was perhaps fair to say that the world of fine art was divided on Tina’s artistic genius. On one side there was my dad and Tina, and on the other side there was the rest of us.
‘Okay, then, and when you paint a flower you don’t think hard about it, do you? You just think what a flower looks like in your head and paint it.’ I wasn’t sure if any of this was either making sense or getting through to her five-year-old brain. ‘That’s what you should do here. Imagine the ball flying through the air for miles and miles and then don’t think about anything, just step up and hit it.’
Tina stared down at the end of the seven-iron resting on the green rubber mat.
‘Then we’ll go for ice cream,’ I said.
With a sigh, a roll of the eyes and a deep breath, she steadied herself and looked into the distance, presumably clearing her mind of everything except the vision of a golf ball in flight. Eventually, a determined look on her face, she pulled the club back and up and brought it down again, grunting with the effort.
If my daughter had imagined the ball taking a vicious slice off the toe of her club, striking the driving-bay wall, bouncing back at a tight angle and whacking Steve high on the shin, then she had manufactured the perfect shot.
‘I think we’ll leave it there for tonight,’ I said and, collecting Tina and her clubs, we left the golf instructor rubbing his leg and not looking forward to next Tuesday night.
Sandy was scooping ice cream onto a cone when Jake Turpie called me. It was urgent. I’d never had a call from Jake that wasn’t.
I met him at his cottage on the outskirts of town. The one that he’d bought on Freddy’s advice. By the time we arrived it was getting on for Tina’s bedtime and, apart from the evidence left behind on the front of her sweatshirt, the ice cream was but a fond memory.
Jake came to the door. His new mutt was tied to a post in the front garden and, like the rest of Jake’s workforce, looking miserable and down-trodden. The dog cheered up as soon as it saw Tina, tail wagging, tongue lolling, straining at the length of clothes line that was cutting into its furry neck.
‘How’s the latest recruit doing?’ I asked. The animal that was supposed to be the replacement for Jake’s previous murderous mutt was now rolling on the ground, paws in the air, having Tina rub its tummy.
‘It’ll no’ learn,’ he said. ‘This one’s on borrowed time. There’s plenty more at the pound.’
I untied the dog and gave the end of the clothes line to Tina. ‘Just go for a walk about the garden. Don’t go far,’ I said, and followed Jake inside.
Stepping into that cottage was like stepping back in time. Floral wallpaper, swirly-patterned carpets, dark wood furniture and multi-coloured zig-zag curtains. The whole interior design looked like it was best experienced with the aid of mind-enhancing drugs, and quite possibly had been in the Sixties which, by the look of things, was the last time the pla
ce had been dusted.
Such was the assault on my visual senses that it took me a moment or two to realise that there was someone else in the room, sitting on a chintz sofa, sipping gin from a teacup. Ellen acknowledged my presence with no more than a flutter of her eyelashes before turning her gaze once more to the teacup in her lap.
‘I’m sending some boys round in the morning to give this place a clean,’ Jake said. ‘And I’m bringing in some new bedding and that. I’ve given Ellen money for food and told her she can stay here for as long as she likes or finds somewhere else or until . . . You know what I mean.’
‘Get fed up with all that luxury over at the Balmoral, did you, Ellen?’
‘There was a problem with the bill,’ she said.
The problem, I strongly suspected, now belonged entirely to the Balmoral. ‘Why am I here?’ I asked Jake. ‘I’ve got Tina with me and it’s past her bedtime. Could this not have waited until the morning?’
Ellen poured herself the last from a green bottle and set it down on the stone tiles in the hearth, eyes fixed on it like it might magically refill itself. ‘I’m cutting Freddy out of the will and leaving everything to Jake,’ she said.
Ellen still hadn’t got it into her head that she didn’t have anything to leave to anyone.
‘It was you who made me find him and bring him back. Now that he’s here it’s not possible to cut him out of your will,’ I said.
‘How come?’ Jake wanted to know.
‘Because Freddy is Ellen’s husband. When she dies, he’ll be her widower and he has legal rights to at least some of her estate, and that’s not her only problem.’
‘What do you mean?’ Jake asked.
‘Ellen’s biggest problem is that she doesn’t have any estate.’
‘Not yet,’ Jake said. ‘But you’re sorting that out. Remember?’ He jabbed a finger at me. ‘You’re going to see to it that she does have something and that it gets left to me.’
‘No, I’m not,’ I said.
Jake squinted, as though I hadn’t made myself perfectly clear.
‘I’m not doing it. I’m out. It’s got nothing to do with me. Ellen has told me nothing but a pack of lies from the start. I won half a million on the lottery, no, actually, it was only fifty grand, well, really, I didn’t win anything and I borrowed the money from Jake, but all I wanted was to see my husband, but now I don’t want to see him again. I’ve had it. I wanted to help her, but that was when—’
‘When you thought I was a lottery winner.’ Ellen drained the last from the teacup and put it down by the bottle of gin in the hearth. ‘Before that you wouldn’t even take my phone calls.’
I walked over to the window to check on Tina. Her bad mood was gone and she and the dog were taking it in turns to chase each other. ‘I’ve already said I’ll put you onto somebody that I know who can help, but after that I’m out. Is that understood?’
‘Sammy Veitch? That rip-off merchant?’ Ellen snorted as though what we were talking about wasn’t ripping off an insurance company for half a million.
‘He knows what to do,’ I said.
‘So do you.’
‘But he’s prepared to do it. I’m not.’
Ellen lowered her head and stared at the gin bottle. It was still empty.
‘How much is Veitch wanting to do this?’ Jake asked.
‘Fifteen grand, something like that. You can sort that out with him yourself,’ I said.
‘And what about you?’
‘What about me?’
‘Are you expecting to be paid?’
‘What are the chances?’
‘Not too good.’
‘Then, in that case,’ I said, ‘I’ll settle for something else.’
40
Tina was in bed and asleep, Linlithgow Rose were through to the Scottish Junior Cup Final, my dad was celebrating in the Red Corner Bar and Malky had gone back to Glasgow.
Joanna arrived home around ten looking exhausted. She staggered through to the kitchen and put the kettle on before flopping down beside me on the sofa.
‘What are you looking so pensive about?’ she asked.
‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing? You’re sitting staring at a blank TV screen. You’ve either forgotten how to switch it on or you’re thinking about something.’ She pecked my cheek and snuggled into me. ‘Go on. Tell me what you’re thinking about.’
Women are always very keen to know what men are thinking about, even though the range of subjects is fairly limited and therefore highly predictable.
‘I’m just thinking about stuff. Anyway, how are you getting on with your cold case? Warmed it up yet?’ But I wasn’t sidetracking Joanna quite so easily. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I was thinking about another woman.’
Joanna unsnuggled herself.
‘Ellen Fletcher,’ I said. ‘Remember I was telling you about her life insurance plan?’
‘The plan I told you to have absolutely nothing to do with? Yes, I remember that very clearly.’
‘I was hearing an interesting story about her tonight.’
‘Really?’
‘It’s more a piece of gossip.’
Joanna sat up. ‘Even better. But first I’ll go check on Tina.’
‘No need,’ I said. ‘She’s only just gone to sleep. If you wake her she’ll be up all night.’ The kettle boiled and I went through to the kitchen and made tea. ‘Do you want some toast with that?’ I asked on my return with two steaming mugs.
‘Yes, but in a minute. I want to hear the gossip first.’
And so I told her what I’d learned.
Ellen and Jake Turpie had been an item years ago when in their teens and early twenties. Jake had been all set to pop the question and then the incident with her brother took place. She and Jake separated. Whether that was to be a permanent arrangement or not was decided by the arrival on the scene of the older and more sophisticated Freddy Fletcher. He swept young Ellen off her feet with promises of travel and riches and not a life counting wrecked cars in and out of a scrapyard.
Until very recently Ellen had not believed Freddy guilty of conning Jake out of his money. She knew Freddy wasn’t the brightest, but didn’t think even he was stupid enough to pull a stunt like that. Moreover, she knew Jake and that he needed scant excuse to rid the world of the man who’d stolen his true love. Whether that true love was Ellen or the £150k was open to debate.
One night, with her husband off making himself extremely scarce, Ellen had invited Jake round to her house for the evening, hoping to talk him out of doing anything hasty.
‘That was brave of her,’ Joanna said. ‘What made her think he’d listen?’
I wasn’t sure, except apparently Ellen had thought removing her clothes would improve Jake’s hearing. That was when Freddy had made a surprise appearance, returning home to collect a few things.
Joanna knew the rest of the story. Or thought that she did. Cheated-Freddy had left Ellen and fled to Europe, ending up in Prague.
‘It turns out that wasn’t quite the whole story,’ I said.
‘Nothing is with that pair,’ Joanna said.
‘Freddy had another woman all the time. Whether or not he meant to con Jake, the fact is he cleared out and moved to Prague with the new love of his life. Now that Ellen’s found out the truth she isn’t happy. She’s writing him out of her will.’
‘Does Ellen have anything to leave to anyone?’
‘You don’t want to know,’ I said.
She emptied her mug of tea. ‘That’s right. All I want to know is that you’re out of it. Whatever it is.’
I kissed her in confirmation.
‘Then I’ve got some news for you on your drugs man. What was his name again?’
‘McCowan. Colin Toffee McCowan.’
The headlights of a taxi bringing my dad home flashed against the curtains of the front window.
‘It’s good news for him and bad news for you if you needed the business,’ Joanna said. ‘His ba
il undertaking has been cancelled and the case is marked for no further proceedings. The cops don’t have enough evidence. There was a small bag of cocaine in a toolbox in the boot of the car, but it was well concealed and there’s nothing other than his ownership of the car to link it to him. He made no comment during his interview and the vehicle’s had lots of previous keepers, some with very shady pasts. The last one, Lee Conway, I think his name was, also had a conviction for dealing coke.’
I remembered Lee. Six feet five, skinny with a daft wee moustache, he’d been one of Stan Blandy’s boys too.
‘Conway died a couple of months ago. Your client bought the car from his widow. For all anyone knows Conway might have been dealing again and what was found in the car could have been his.’
It was good news. Great news. I sensed the looming presence of Stan Blandy lifting like mist off a mountain.
The front door opened as Joanna continued.
‘They also found some fingerprints on the plastic bag the drugs were in. But they weren’t your client’s, they belonged to a female. I thought I recognised the name. Freda, no Freya. Yeah, Freya someone. I didn’t bother to check into her.’
Was she talking about Andy’s client? She couldn’t be, could she? ‘Not Freya Linkwood?’
‘Yes, I think that might have been the name. Who is she?’
‘I’ll explain later.’
‘Explain now.’
‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘Not right now. Do you know what’s going to happen to her?’
‘Nothing. There are too many variables to pin the drugs on anyone in particular, Apparently, this Freya person has another case pending anyway, and so the marking depute has just asked for the drugs to be confiscated and otherwise put a red pen through the whole thing. Now do you care to explain why you were so interested in the case?’
‘I’d rather not.’
‘So, you want me to snoop around trying to find out what’s happening to your client, but you won’t explain what’s so important?’
‘I’d like to explain, but I just can’t. Not right now.’
The living room door opened and my dad entered, maroon and white scarf knotted loosely around his neck, and in less of a celebratory mood that one might have expected. ‘Would someone care to explain why there’s a dog sleeping on the bairn’s bed?’
