‘No, that’s true,’ he agreed. ‘You were here in Spain, with him. And wasn’t that convenient for both of you.’
‘How the hell did you know that?’
‘Susie let it slip, and a friend of Oz’s, Everett Davis, confirmed it.’
That made sense, but I was conceding nothing. ‘So what?’
‘It’s interesting, that’s all, the fact that you were both clear of the scene when the … accident … happened. But what about you anyway? Did my description hit the spot?’
‘Was I angry with Oz? Yes. Twice in my life; first when he chose Jan over me, and then when he two-timed me with Susie. Did I hit back at him? Yes, but I regret it now. Duplicitous, manipulative? Hurt and betrayed sums it up.’
‘Which leads us to that plane crash in the US,’ Culshaw said, ‘the private plane that Oz was supposed to be on. That’s a matter of record, for he was listed as missing, presumed dead, until he showed up in New York. You, on the other hand, were listed as missing too, and you didn’t surface again until after Oz was dead.’
‘That’s true,’ I admitted, ‘but I had my reasons.’
‘I’m sure. But what if I suggest that your “reasons”,’ he smirked, ‘for staying underground were to plot and bring about his death? What if I suggest that you were never on that plane either, that you slipped away first, and that Oz realised this, smelled a rat and got off himself?’
‘Then I would suggest to you that you are crazy.’
The smirk became a beam, a great self-satisfied beam. ‘That’s not how the publishers will see it when I use it as the basis for the completion of my novel, as I intend to do, now that we’ve had this conversation. They’ll buy it and you know it. As I said, I could do a deal today, even without that ending.’
‘And I’ll sue.’
‘On what basis?’
‘That it’s a thinly disguised defamation.’
‘Of whom? Oz is dead, and remember, you can’t libel the dead.’
‘Of me, you idiot. And your book will only be bankable if you can throw out the hint that it’s about Oz and me, without saying as much.’
He shrugged. ‘So go ahead and sue. I’ll defend, and the case will go to trial, with ensuing publicity that will be truly global. Is that what you really want, Primavera?’
‘Fuck you, boy,’ I barked.
‘Come on,’ he persisted. ‘Is that what you really want, your name dragged through the courts, for everyone to read, including your son, your precious boy?’
‘And what if I don’t?’ I asked, tentatively. ‘How can I avoid that?’
He leaned across the table. ‘You could buy the manuscript yourself. Then all your problems would disappear.’
We’d finally got to where I’d known from the start that we were heading. ‘Mmm,’ I murmured. ‘And how much is it going to cost me?’
‘Two million,’ Culshaw answered. ‘Sterling. I know that the time you spent with Oz has left you a wealthy woman, even if you’re not in Susie’s class. You can come up with that; if you’re short, I’m sure your wealthy brother-in-law would chip in. That’s why I thought you might like to show him the manuscript. Otherwise …’
He left the alternative hanging in the air, but he didn’t have to spell it out: otherwise, we’d go to trial in a libel suit and Oz’s real life story, and mine, would be laid out before a jury. Undoubtedly, investigators would be employed to go digging, and there were things that I did not want them to uncover, not least the real story behind that shotgun. If I went to court, that would happen. If I didn’t, the book would publish, I’d be smeared for certain, and my privacy in the nice wee world that I’d built for Tom and me would be shattered for good.
‘Why are you putting the bite on me?’ I asked him. ‘As you say, Susie’s a lot wealthier than I am, in her own right.’
‘Susie’s a peripheral figure in this story.’ He paused. ‘Besides, I have other plans for her.’
‘Such as marriage?’ I guessed.
‘We’ve discussed it.’
‘You publish, she’ll blow you out.’
‘I publish I make a fortune, so I’d get over that.’
I nodded. ‘You’ve got all bases loaded, eh Duncan?’
‘And a pitcher on the mound with a very weak arm.’
‘So it would seem,’ I agreed. ‘But let’s forget the baseball analogies. What you’re really doing is extorting two million pounds from me.’
He laughed, the insolent bastard. ‘No, I’m selling you global rights to a work of fiction. Once you’ve bought it it’ll be up to you whether you exploit it or not.’
‘I’d still call it extortion.’
He held up his hands, palms outwards, as if in surrender. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I concede, it’s extortion. You pay, and you keep your reputation and Oz’s unblemished. So, are you going to come up with the two million or not?’
‘I don’t think I’ll have to.’ I picked up my phone, put it to my ear, and said, in Catalan, ‘Have you got all of that?’
‘Yes,’ a voice replied. ‘It’s all recorded.’
For the first time since I’d joined him, a frown of uncertainty furrowed Duncan Culshaw’s forehead. As he peered at me, he didn’t see two men come out of the café through the door behind him and walk towards us. In fact he didn’t notice them at all until they took the two vacant seats at our table.
‘What the …’ he began.
‘People I asked to join us,’ I explained. ‘This is Alex,’ I nodded sideways, towards the man on my left, then forward towards the other, ‘and this is Marc.’
‘Oh. Really? You’ve brought heavies along? Come on, Primavera, this is a public place, and unless I read it wrong when I arrived here, that’s the police station right behind us.’
Alex nodded. ‘Yes it is,’ he conceded in accented but assured English, ‘but it’s only the town police, and they look in the other direction when they see us.’
Culshaw looked around him, as if he was counting the number of potential witnesses to what might happen next.
‘Senora Blackstone didn’t introduce us properly,’ Alex continued. ‘I am Intendant Guinart and this is Sergeant Sierra. We are officers in the criminal investigation division of the Mossos d’Esquadra, the Catalan police force. You have just described what you have just tried to do as extortion. We agree with you, and for that we are arresting you.’ As he spoke, Marc Sierra took Culshaw by the arm, stood, and drew him with him.
‘Senora,’ Alex said, formally, as he rose, ‘you will also need to come with us to make the denuncio …’ he looked at their prisoner, as he had become, and added, in explanation, ‘… the official complaint.’
I nodded. ‘If you say so, Intendant.’
They took him away in the Mossos car that was parked round the corner on Carrer Enric Serra (I’ve no idea who Enric was but he must have been important to have a street named after him, especially the one that runs in front of the church) and I followed in mine.
Traffic flow in L’Escala is quirky and so I arrived at the nick before they did, and was climbing out of my jeep when Marc Sierra pulled in and parked two bays along.
Culshaw was as white as a sheet when Alex helped him out of the car; he had to, because they’d handcuffed him. He glared at me; I looked back at him, my eyes trying to say, ‘You try to do me over in my own town, idiot, and this is what happens.’
I followed as he was led into the building, past the reception counter and through a door behind it. The duty officer made a move as if to stop me, but Alex stopped her instead, with a glance and a brief shake of his head.
We went upstairs, and into a room that was the polar opposite of those drab dirty interview boxes beloved of TV drama, the kind where you can almost smell the sweat. Yes, it had a table with two seats on either side, and a recorder, but it was bright and air-conditioned with a big window looking over the medical centre on the next plot and on to the Mediterranean beyond.
I stood to the side as they sat Dunc
an on a chair facing the door, then removed the cuffs. He seemed to relax a little in the surroundings, until Sergeant Sierra dropped the venetian blind and shut out the sun and the view, making us completely private.
‘Empty your pockets, please,’ Alex requested.
‘I want a lawyer,’ his guest exclaimed. ‘I want to phone the British Consulate.’
‘I’m sure you do, and in time we may allow that, but first, please put what’s in your pockets on the table.’
‘If you insist.’ He reached into his jacket and produced, from various pockets, a set of Oakley sunglasses, a mobile phone, a wallet, a few coins, a car key with a Hertz fob on the ring, and a British passport.
Alex picked it up, and opened it, turning to the identification page. ‘Señor Duncan William Culshaw,’ he read. ‘Age, let me work it out, thirty-four, born in Kil … Kilmack … I don’t know how to say that.’ He glanced at me. ‘Where is it, Primavera?’
I completed the place name, with correct pronunciation. ‘Kilmacolm; it’s in Scotland.’
‘Mmm. More Scottish, eh. Let’s see where else you’ve been.’ He flicked through the passport, checking the pages. ‘Singapore,’ he read, ‘USA, Ecuador.’ He smiled. ‘You’ve been to Ecuador? That’s unusual. Why did you go there?’
‘I had an airline magazine assignment. All those trips were for airline magazine articles.’
‘So it’s a coincidence that Ecuador is where Senor Oz Blackstone died?’
Culshaw nodded. ‘That’s right; a complete coincidence.’
Alex tossed the passport on the table and picked up the wallet. ‘Money,’ he murmured, ‘Mastercard, American Express, Priority Pass, driving licence …’ he stopped, squeezed a finger into a compartment behind the card slots, and drew something out, something I couldn’t see.
He looked up at his colleague, and smiled. ‘Preservativos,’ he chuckled. ‘Con sabor y aroma manzana verde. Condoms,’ he repeated, his eyes returning to their owner, ‘green apple flavour.’ He shrugged. ‘You’re not married, senor, are you?’
‘No.’
‘Girlfriend?’
‘I’m in a relationship.’
‘And your lady is in L’Escala?’
‘No, of course not.’ He looked across at me, and smirked. ‘But one takes one’s opportunities as they arise, so it pays to go prepared. And after all, this morning, I was meeting a single mother,’ he drawled, ‘a popular lady by all acc—’
He was stopped in mid-sentence by the back of the cop’s hand, cracking him in the side of the mouth. I’d never seen Alex move so fast; nor had I ever seen him hit anyone before.
‘You’re in enough trouble, mister,’ he growled, ‘without making it worse. Yes, Primavera is a popular lady here, but not in the way that you infer. She is an important member of our community and she is also the godmother of my daughter.’
Alex’s clout had left a vivid red mark on Culshaw’s cheek.
‘Okay,’ the intendant snapped, ‘we get down to business.’ He tapped the recorder on the table. ‘Everything you said this morning, your entire conversation with Senora Blackstone, was transmitted to us through her phone, which was active all the time. It was recorded and we have it here, all of it, including your admission to your attempt at extortion. We’re not here to negotiate, or even to interrogate. The evidence of our ears and of this tape shows that you have committed a serious crime. Under Spanish law that will earn you a minimum of three years in prison, but given the amount of money involved here, it is likely to be much more. What will happen now? Primavera will make a formal complaint against you and you will be held in jail while I report to the public prosecutor. From then on it’ll be in her hands, but I warn you, she’s a very tough lady.’ He looked round at me. ‘Primavera, will you write the denuncio, in Catalan of course, or would you prefer to dictate it?’
‘I’m literate enough to write it myself, Intendant,’ I replied. ‘If you give me a form, I’ll complete it.’ I stepped towards the table.
‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘The spelling doesn’t have to be one hundred per cent; the meaning has to be clear, that’s all. Marc, would you fetch a denuncio paper, please.’
Finally, as the sergeant left the room, Culshaw seemed to realise that he wasn’t involved in any sort of a game, that the cops were not bluffing and that I wasn’t either. He looked up at me. ‘Primavera, can we talk about this?’
‘We’re done talking, chum,’ I told him.
‘I was joking, only joking,’ he protested, but so weakly that he didn’t even fool himself, for his voice faded as he spoke.
‘Well, we ain’t.’
‘Please.’ He was begging, pure and simple.
As I looked at him, the anger that I’d been nurturing since I’d read the first few pages of his manuscript began to subside. I paused and began to think rationally. Duncan’s entire pitch had been based on the premise that there are things in my past and in Oz’s that might not stand up to detailed examination and that I would not want exposed to the full glare of publicity. He’d been right about that; he’d been a complete bloody idiot in the way he’d tried to exploit it, that’s all.
If I went ahead with a complaint, and it entered the Spanish judicial system, I wouldn’t be able to claw it back. Their courts might work very slowly, but eventually they do work. If Duncan got himself a decent lawyer and sought to defend himself in a trial, then everything would come out. More than that, even if he was locked up in Spain pending trial, bail denied, he’d still be able to do a book deal through his agent. Indeed the thing might become even more valuable.
Shit, the guy was on a winner either way, but he hadn’t realised it. I frowned at him, severely, but I asked Alex, ‘Would you leave us alone for a couple of minutes?’
He agreed; he was reluctant, but he agreed.
‘Okay,’ I said, when we were alone, ‘this is what it will take. You give me a document, which Alex will witness, transferring copyright ownership of your book to me. You do that now. Then you give me the device that holds the original … a laptop? …’ he nodded, ‘so that I can erase the entire hard disk. Then you disappear; you get out of Susie’s life and stay out. It’s that or you spend the next ten years being rogered up the arse by the cellmate of your choice, and I can promise you he won’t be using apple-flavoured condoms. Deal?’
He considered it for all of two seconds, and croaked, ‘Deal.’
‘One other thing,’ I added. ‘Should you stash away a copy and try to use it in the future, or should you even stick your head above the parapet, I can still make the complaint and Alex will still have that recording. That would be if you were lucky. The alternative would be that I would send Conrad Kent after you, with a free hand to do whatever he deems necessary. That’s where your thinking was flawed, Duncan. You should have realised that when you threaten my wellbeing, you threaten my son. If anybody does that, there are no limits to what I would do to protect him. You got that much right about Phyllis, and me.’
We were out of there in fifteen minutes, and he was out of town within an hour, taking with him a laptop with a completely blank hard disk.
Three
‘Duncan?’ I repeated. ‘What makes you think she’s gone anywhere with Duncan? She doesn’t see him any more, Jonathan.’
‘He went away on business, Mummy said. But I think he’s come back.’
‘What makes you think that, son?’
‘I saw him in Monaco, before Mummy went away; one day Conrad was driving Janet and me back from school and I saw him sitting in Casino Square. Janet didn’t see him, though, and I haven’t said anything to Conrad. She’d be upset if he came back.’
‘Are you sure it was him? When you’re travelling in a car and you only get a glimpse of somebody, it’s easy to make a mistake.’
His mouth set in a hard line. ‘It was him,’ he muttered. ‘Why don’t you believe me, Auntie Primavera?’ There were tears in his eyes.
I ruffled his hair, and took his hand.
‘I do believe you, wee man,’ I said, gently. ‘If you’re certain, that’s good enough for me. Was he with anyone?’
‘No, but there had been somebody else at his table, because there were two glasses on it.’
‘Maybe they were both his?’
‘No. One was a beer and the other was a long pink drink, with straws and things in it. And there was a bag on the table, a lady’s bag not a man’s bag, and it was red, like one that Mummy’s got. And when we got home, she wasn’t there, and she’d said she would be. Auntie Primavera, I don’t like Duncan. He’s not a nice man. When Mummy and Conrad aren’t there he’s rude to us, and shouty. And he hit Tom once.’
‘He did what!’ I exclaimed. If I’d known that when he was in Alex’s custody …
‘When?’
‘One day last summer when Tom was with us. He and Janet were playing scrabble, in Catalan … Tom was teaching her … and Duncan told Janet to get him a beer. He didn’t say please or anything; he’d had lots of beers before that. Tom said that he was nearer the fridge so couldn’t he get his own, and Duncan pulled him to his feet, and said that just for that he could get it. And he swore, he used that rude word that Conrad got angry at me for using. Tom said no and Duncan hit him, on the side of the head, quite hard.’
‘Did anybody see this?’ I murmured.
‘Only Janet and me. Janet shouted at Duncan, but he told her to shut up or she’d get the same.’
‘Didn’t either of you tell your mother, or Conrad?’ I asked him.
‘No, because Tom said we shouldn’t.’
‘He did?’ Poor kid, I thought, he must have felt shamed. He’d never been hit in his life before. Oh, what I would do to Duncan Culshaw if our paths ever crossed again.
‘Yes, because …’ He looked up at me and a small precious smile lit up his face. ‘After he’d hit him, Duncan asked Tom if he’d get him his beer now. Tom said, “No chance,” and Duncan tried to hit him again, but Tom made him miss and kicked him in the stomach.’
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