Chapter 27
Jay Yuille was waiting for me at Glasgow Airport, with the engine running as usual in the hope that the police and the security people wouldn’t give him a hard time. I tossed my bag on to the back seat, then climbed into the front beside him. I don’t like acting the toff at the best of times, and I wanted to see his reaction close up when he saw the Scotsman report.
He didn’t bat an eyelid; he scanned the story then handed me the paper.
‘What’s this, Jay?’ I asked him as he pulled away, waving to a copper who was peering through the glass at me in the front passenger seat. Automatically, I waved at the guy too. As I did so I saw Wylie H Smith rushing off towards the taxi rank: remembering the way he’d been sweating on the shuttle, I hoped he didn’t sit too close to his client . . . for both their sakes.
I turned back to my minder. ‘Looks like a domestic tragedy to me, boss,’ he replied, quietly.
‘For sure, but . . .’
‘But nothing, Oz: I’ve seen cases like these before. People get involved in something, thinking they’re on to an easy mark and that they’re smart enough to control the situation, take their profit and bugger off. But they’re not that smart, and all of a sudden they find out that they’re not in control. When that happens, the consequences can sometimes be terminal.’
‘But this isn’t any old case, is it?’
‘It is as far as you’re concerned.’
‘Come on, Jay, let’s stop pissing about. I sent you after these people and we both know that.’
I saw his nostrils flare slightly. ‘No, sir. This is how it was. You perceived a threat to your security, you did not want to go to the police, so you asked me,’ he leaned on the word, ‘to look into it. You did not send me anywhere. That’s the way it was.’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Yes, Oz, exactly. You’ll recall also that we agreed no questions would be asked about my methods?’
I nodded. ‘Yes, I remember that.’
‘Well don’t fucking ask any then,’ he said, quietly.
‘You mean I have to live with this, and that’s it.’
‘Yup, live with it. That’s more than the Neiportes are doing. Tell me something; do you really give a shit that they’re dead?’
I felt my mouth twist. (Being me, I probably filed the gesture away subconsciously for use on a future movie. The truth is that art imitates life, not the other way around.) ‘No,’ I admitted. ‘Not one tiny turd.’
‘The truth is that your only worry is that it might come back to you.’
‘I suppose.’
‘Then stop worrying. It won’t.’
‘You certain of that?’
‘Dead certain, you might say.’ He glanced across at me as we headed west along the motorway. ‘But that’s not really your only worry, is it? You’re scared you might have replaced one threat with another; the Neiportes with me.’
Scared wasn’t quite the word, but I murmured, ‘Maybe.’
‘Then don’t be. I came to you recommended, didn’t I?’
‘Yes, highly.’
‘Well you remember that. The report you got on me included the word “loyalty”, and it wasn’t used lightly. I work for you, Oz, and you pay me well. I’m a specialist, and I set my own parameters. When you ask me to do something I’ll do it, and I promise you I will never use it to gain any sort of leverage over you. If you want to give me a bonus down the line, that’s up to you, but I will never ask you for one.’ He took his right hand off the wheel and reached across. ‘Fair enough?’ he said.
I took it and shook it. ‘Fair enough.’
‘Good. So no more questions.’
We could hardly talk about rugby after that, so the rest of the journey back to the estate was spent in silence. When Jay dropped me at the house, it was empty. Susie was still at work, Ethel and Janet were away on a Daybreak Nursery outing, and the contract cleaners weren’t due until the following Monday. The only sound I could hear was that of a mower in the distance. I guessed that Willie was quickening up the greens on the golf course.
I dumped my bag, which held the few clothes I’d brought back with me, mostly for the wash, and changed into a pair of swim shorts. I did a hard half-hour on my gym equipment, enough to work me out, but nowhere near enough to change my body shape, then swam for a bit to cool off. All the time I was thinking, at first about the Neiportes and how the police investigation would go, but gradually I found myself turning back to the week’s first crisis, and Susie’s three rogue house-buyers. If they’d had a couple of people bumped off and dumped on a pig farm, they wouldn’t be bothering about it afterwards, I reckoned.
I was still in the pool when the phone rang. There was a hands-free unit near at hand, so I heaved myself out and picked it up just before the automatic answer cut in. ‘Yes?’ I said, breathing only a bit harder than normal.
‘Oz, is that you?’ It was my Dad, and he sounded agitated. It didn’t take a quantum physicist to know why.
‘It’s me.’
‘Have you seen the papers?’
‘Yes, of course, it’s tragic, isn’t it. Those poor people . . . and from Pittenweem too, that’s assuming they are who they think they are.’
‘Oz . . .’ Mac the Dentist said heavily, but I talked right over the top of him.
‘Look Dad, I know you’re upset, with the thing happening on your doorstep, but I really don’t have time to talk to you just now.’ I hung up on him.
We all have paranoid tendencies, but they’re multiplied many times over when we have things to hide. At that moment all I could think about was Princess Diana, Prince Charles and their various bugged telephone conversations, which surfaced so embarrassingly in the tabloids. I could tell that my Dad was on his mobile, out in the garden, I imagined, and I’d been using a phone that worked on a radio signal. The last thing I wanted was a detailed conversation being intercepted by some radio ham in Auchtermuchty and sold to the press.
I dried off, went through the house to the office conservatory, and called his surgery number on a more secure line . . . I’m reasonably certain I’m not on the MI5 surveillance list, and I know he isn’t.
‘I’m free now,’ I said, breezily, when he answered. I checked my watch; it was five minutes short of four. ‘Fancy a few holes at Elie? If I leave now I can get there for quarter to six.’
Chapter 28
Susie wasn’t best pleased when I got home at ten thirty. I’d left her the briefest of notes as I’d rushed out, forgetting that I’d said I’d pick her up from the office. I’d fixed that by calling Jay from the road and asking him to collect her in the Freelander . . . she was getting too big to drive comfortably, or even safely . . . but she still had a petted lip on her when I walked in.
There was only one thing to do, and that was to kiss it better. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said when she had softened. ‘It was a spur of the moment thing; I hadn’t seen my Dad for a while, and the way things are I wasn’t sure when I’d have another chance.’
‘It’s all right,’ she whispered. ‘You’re a big softy, that’s all. Truth is I envy you. I wish I could bugger off on the spur of the moment to see my father.’
I wrapped her in my arms again. ‘I know, love, and I’m so sorry you can’t. But, here, you can nip off and see mine any time you like. How about that?’
She smiled. ‘I like the thought of that. I’ll go and see Mac any time . . . just as long as I don’t have to sit in his dentist’s chair that is.’
‘No chance of that.’ Like me, and many of our generation, Susie has perfect teeth. Macabre I know, but in that instant I found myself wondering how they’d identify us in a plane crash.
She might not have enjoyed visiting my Dad that afternoon, though. He’d been as agitated as hell when he’d arrived, a couple of minutes after me even though I’d come from the other side of the country and he’d come from Anstruther. I’d said nothing to him as we’d changed, although I could see him boiling.
He’d
demonstrated his discomfort by carving his tee-shot out of bounds, then barely clearing the hill with his second, causing the starter to avert his eyes in sympathy. (I, on the other hand, had popped a three-iron over the top, nice as you like.)
He took it until my par putt rattled into the cup, and no longer.
‘Right!’ he said.
But I shook my head. There’s a thick plantation behind the second tee, and you never know. I hit a nice five wood; there’s no need to risk a full driver, although my Dad did and found the rough. I won the second with a bogey five . . . I took too much club for my second, knocked it through the green and had to chip back up . . . and only then did I turn to Mac the Dentist.
‘Nothing, Dad,’ I told him. ‘You have nothing to be concerned about.’
‘But son, what the hell have you done?’
I gave him my best incredulous look, hoping that it would fool him. ‘What are you saying? Just fucking think about what you’re saying here?’
He reddened before my apparent anger. ‘But . . .’
I didn’t let him go on. ‘What makes you fucking special?’ I asked him, as I took a seven iron out of my bag and tossed my ball on to the ground behind the marker posts. ‘What makes you think you have to be the only person they’ve blackmailed? These were nasty people; neither you nor I have any idea what else they were into. The only thing we know is that somewhere they’ve messed with the wrong guy and wound up dead for their bother.’
I took a deep breath, focused and hit a gentle faded shot to the front of the third green. Then I turned back to him. ‘There was nothing unpredictable about that. What is incredible is that you actually think it was me who bumped them off.’
‘No,’ he protested. ‘I don’t think that. But you know people, son; that sort of people. That was my first thought.’
I didn’t want him to get any nearer the truth, or I’d have had trouble keeping up my act. So I shut him up, as Jay Yuille had silenced me.
‘And your last,’ I said, icily. ‘I warn you, Dad, don’t ever talk to me about this again, or it’ll be many a day before you and I stand up on this tee again. Let the police get on with their investigation, for I promise you it will not come back to you. If they phone you looking for dental ID, send it to them without a word. Yes?’ I snapped. He nodded, looking at the ground like a chidden schoolboy.
‘Right. Now in case you’ve forgotten you’re two down and I’ve got a twenty-footer for a birdie waiting down there.’
‘How did your golf go anyway?’ Susie asked.
I smiled. ‘My Dad played shite. Never won a hole; he didn’t even manage a half till the sixth.’
‘That’s not like him. He’ll be losing to Jonny next.’
‘He does that already.’
‘I suppose so. I always forget how big he’s getting.’ She squeezed my arm as we lay on the couch, nursing a couple of glasses of Gran Sangre de Toro . . . one of the best sleeping potions we know. ‘Sorry I was grumpy when you came in. It’s been a trying week.’
‘I know it has, love. Did you go for your check-up, by the way?’ She nodded. ‘All okay?’ She nodded again, but avoided my eye. ‘Susie?’ I demanded.
‘It’s nothing. My blood pressure was a bit raised, that’s all. Only a wee bit, honest.’
I put down my glass and turned her to face me. ‘What did your consultant say?’ I asked her, a little urgently I guessed, for she twisted in my grasp.
‘Och, Oz, it’s all right, really. She said she’d keep an eye on it, but it was only a couple of points up.’
‘Well it’s getting no higher. That’s it; now that Culshaw’s agreed to deputise for you, you’re off on maternity leave as of now.’
‘I knew you’d say that. I’m all right, really, and so’s the baby.’
I made her look at me again. ‘Susie, my love, I usually think four or five times before trying to lay down the law to you, but not this time. You are out of there.’
She must have been tired, for she gave up the fight. ‘Okay,’ she conceded. ‘It’ll take me a few days next week to hand over to Phil, but once that’s done, I’ll stay at home.’
‘You mean that?’
‘I mean it; cross my heart.’ She settled down beside me again on the couch. ‘Now, how was the rest of your day?’ she asked. ‘Anything interesting happen?’ She giggled. ‘Apart from making a movie, that is.’
‘As a matter of fact . . .’ I told her about my encounter on the Glasgow plane with Mr W H Smith of Kendall McGuire.
‘There’s a coincidence,’ she murmured. ‘I wonder how he managed that?’
‘What?’
‘To get sat next to you.’
‘Aw come on, that was pure chance. You can’t just go to the checkin and ask to sit next to someone.’
‘Maybe he saw you check in, then went up and asked for the same row.’
‘No way.’
‘Oh no? Were all the window seats taken?’
I thought back to the flight. The plane had been less than half full. ‘No, but not everyone likes one. Anyway, the guy was sweating like a horse when he got on board, as if he’d had to run for it.’
‘That means nothing. You know how hot that departure lounge can get.’
That was true enough, I conceded; it had been like a furnace at lunchtime. Then I stopped myself. She was as paranoid as I was. ‘Maybe so, but I still don’t think the guy was a plant.’
‘Maybe he just saw you and took a chance.’
‘Forget it. He didn’t strike me as that smart.’
‘What did you talk about?’ Susie asked.
‘Football at first, then business. Actually, when I think of it, I began the business chat. I clocked him as a lawyer; it was only after that that he told me who he was with. We got talking and I asked him who they represented; the interesting thing was that he denied any knowledge of a Torrent link.’
‘That was a lie for a start, if he’s a partner like he said.’
‘I don’t think so. I’m an actor, remember; I should know when someone’s hamming it up. Has it occurred to you that Duncan Kendall might have been representing someone else at Natalie’s Atrium lunch?’
‘It might have, if Ricky hadn’t told me that she’s been to his office half a dozen times over the last week or so. No, love, that confirms what we already knew; the bitch is at it. They’re playing it really close to their chest, especially if Kendall’s keeping secrets from his partners. Did you talk to the guy all the way up to Glasgow?’
‘No, he told me that he’d met Nat Morgan socially, I gave him my opinion of her, and that more or less terminated our discussion.’
Susie grinned. ‘I should imagine it would have. Now, are you going to ask about my day?’
‘Yes. Consider yourself asked.’
She pinched her nose. ‘Four highlights, really. First, your son has been kicking hell out of me all day.’
‘Good for wee Mac. Now you know what sleeping with you’s like just now.’
She gave me a mock frown. ‘Second,’ she said, heavily, ‘about three tons of crated up playground equipment arrived this afternoon. So you and Mr Yuille can spend this weekend drawing up a plan of how it’s going to look, and deciding where you want to put it.’
‘We more or less know already. We just need to size the stuff up.’
‘Fine, you do that. Oh yes, and your sister phoned, wanting to know, and I quote, “what the bloody hell” she’s supposed to do with her delivery . . . I told her to get a local builder to set it all up for her and Uncle Oz would pay. Highlight three, we’ve been invited to a posh Scottish Enterprise Dinner on the Saturday after next, in the Old Course Hotel in St Andrews. I’ve said we’ll go, provided I’m not in labour. I’ve turned down the accommodation they offered, though. It was just a double en suite, so I’d rather stay with Mac and Mary.’
‘Me too. And fourth?’
‘Mrs Perry’s lawyer called Greg. He said that he thought our offer was an insult, but that he’d co
nsult his client and see how insulted she felt.’
‘Did Greg get the impression she’d find ten grand less insulting?’
‘He didn’t know. All he said was that we’d have an answer by Monday or Tuesday.’
‘Let’s hope it’s the right one.’
‘Fuck ’em if it isn’t. I’m past caring. Last and finally, but this isn’t a highlight. Fisher’s investigation has ended, like the dampest of squibs. He’s cost us a good agent and a couple of foremen who’ve gone as well as Aidan, but he hasn’t got near finding our mole.’
‘If there ever was one,’ I muttered.
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I don’t know,’ I confessed. ‘But it’s been a week. You’d have thought he’d have popped up for air by now.’
‘Are you saying that this might not have been information leaked, but something set up from the outside all along?’
I shook my head, trying to clear it as much as anything else. ‘To be truthful, my darling, it’s been a long, hard week. I don’t have a fucking clue what I’m saying.’
Chapter 29
We didn’t have to wait till Monday or Tuesday to find out the reaction of the Three Bears’ wives to the compensation offer. That fine organ, the Sunday Herald, told us twenty-four hours later.
It had been a quiet Saturday; Jay and I had obeyed orders and completed our detailed planning of Janet and wee Mac’s playground. It was going to look pretty good, I reckoned, and I had no safety worries with the equipment. It was all first class and solidly put together . . . Clyde-built as they used to say, when that meant something.
We had done more than that, actually. I had helped him fit a new double gate to the back entrance to the estate, making sure that the lock worked and that the bolts held it secure. It’s not that it’s used much, indeed hardly ever, but there’s some pretty dangerous boggy ground near Loch Lomond, and the track which leads from the gate down to the road runs through some of the worst of it. It’s said to be virtually bottomless; when they were building the new golf course, they lost an earth mover . . . and almost the course architect himself.
Unnatural Justice (Oz Blackstone Mysteries) Page 16
