Deadly Business

by Quintin Jardine

  I didn’t know what to say. I just sat there and looked at him, until once again he was ready to go on.

  ‘I don’t know why the hell I just told you that,’ he whispered, when he was. ‘The only other person who knew the truth was my uncle, and the UDA put a bullet in his head a couple of years later. I’ve never shared that with another living soul, not even Oz, and he was my best friend latterly; Christ, my only friend. If you want to leave now, I’ll understand.’

  I looked at him, making him return my gaze. ‘If Gerard was still here I might tell you to go to confession. You’d probably get off lightly; he’d a similar background, and it messed him up big time. Just you promise me you won’t try and atone by taking holy orders and I’ll stay right here.’

  He smiled. ‘That’s a promise I can make, no problem.’

  ‘Fine, duly noted. You did what you did. I’ve done stuff too that I wouldn’t want to see the light of day, but it’s firmly in the past.’ I smiled at him. ‘You know what I think?’

  ‘No,’ he chuckled, ‘but I do know you’re going to tell me.’

  ‘Damn right. I think you should have kept a connection with the GWA, even after you weren’t fit enough to perform. The thing I remember most about that crowd is that they were a family, and probably the only real one you’ve ever had.’ I did what I’d said I wouldn’t. I reached across the table and took his hand in mine. ‘Miles said I was cool; well, so are you. You’re a cool guy, but you’re also very lonely. You don’t have anybody in the whole damn world, do you?’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m pretty short,’ he murmured, ‘I admit it.’

  ‘Then I’m glad you’ve come here. You were Oz’s friend and this is his place, and mine. You’ll never be alone here … apart from through the night,’ I added, ‘for I’m still not going to sleep with you. Take your past down to the beach, or somewhere else suitable and bury it there. Then get on with the future.’ I paused. ‘And with the fish soup,’ I said as Jose Luis appeared with two bowls and a large tureen.

  We changed the subject over dinner, having confessed as much as either of us wanted to for one evening. Liam told me stories of his wrestling career, from its pretty brutal early days in Japan, to the showbiz of the later years. I told him some, but not all, of what I’d done since I settled in St Martí with Tom.

  The food was brilliant, as it always is in Meson del Conde (indeed in every restaurant in the square), and as the evening wore on I found that the Vichy Catalan was having the same effect on me as a bottle of decent white.

  ‘So,’ I said, once we were at the coffee stage, ‘I’m willing to be your tour guide, as soon as I can. Meantime, do you want some ideas for filling in the next week?’

  ‘I have some plans already. Mainly they involve lying on the beach, and not letting myself get too badly out of shape … and of course being on the end of a telephone just in case you do need some back-up in Scotland. Where are you going?’

  ‘We head for Glasgow initially. Then I have to take Tom to see both of his grandfathers.’

  ‘This thing you’re doing for Susie,’ he asked, ‘is it going to be full-time?’

  ‘Hell, no! Tom is what I do full-time. This, and the job I do for Miles in his wine business, are strictly sidelines. Hopefully, Susie won’t need my help for long.’

  He raised his glass. ‘To Susie.’

  ‘God bless her and keep her.’

  His eyebrows rose. ‘Are you religious?’

  I laughed. ‘I live next door to a thousand-year-old church, and I came close to shagging the priest. How much closer to religion can you be? Seriously? I don’t know, which makes me an agnostic. I suspect it comes with age; hedging your bets and all that. Tom isn’t though. His dad died therefore there cannot be a God. That’s how he sees it, and I can’t find a decent counter-argument.’

  ‘Can I get to know him better?’ Liam asked.

  ‘I’d like you to. It might be good for both of you. You can start tomorrow, if you like; I’ll have some stuff to do in the morning to get ready for our trip, but I plan to take the kids to the beach in the afternoon. Come with us?’

  ‘Sure, which beach?’

  ‘The one beyond your hotel, over the iron bridge. Dogs are allowed on it, and we take Charlie. On the way, we’ll have a sandwich lunch at the beach bar; you can meet us there, at one o’clock. You can’t miss it; it’s called Vaive and there’s a surfboard stuck in the sand outside.’

  It was eleven thirty when we left the restaurant. There were still a few people around, a few more heads to turn. I allowed my date to walk me to my door under their gaze, and kissed him chastely on the cheek before stepping inside. Charlie surveyed us with his usual slightly bewildered expression.

  The house was locked up and shuttered, and in darkness, apart from one small light in the hall that had been left on for me. I went straight upstairs, kicked off my shoes, slipped out of my only garment and hung it carefully in its wardrobe. I was tingling. For a while I thought I might be having a hot flush, until I realised that, no, the Change wasn’t upon me. No, I was simply as horny as hell. It had been so long since that had happened that I’d almost forgotten the feeling.

  I put my jewellery back in the safe and took something else out, a flexible and versatile friend that I’d picked up one day in Barcelona, on a very wild impulse. It had been in the safe ever since, unused, me having been overcome by matronly embarrassment when I took it out of the box, and saw all the things its makers claimed that it could do, with some careful placement and four working AA batteries.

  They were right about its capabilities; in fact, they may have been understanding them.

  Ten

  Did I feel guilty next morning? No. I may have felt a little intimate tenderness, but no guilt. Why the hell should I have? I’d come like an express train, and I could recall nothing in the bible to say that was a sin. Okay, there is something in the Old Testament about a bloke called Onan, but I didn’t believe that his case was at all pertinent.

  That’s what I tried to persuade myself, but I couldn’t quite cut it. What I actually felt was confusion. When I analysed it, I realised that I’d believed that I was in complete control of my life, and that included my sexual appetite, which, I’d assured myself, had become non-existent. I’d been wrong. One night out in a posh dress with an attractive man had thrown all that on its head. As I put my friend back in its box and back into the safe, I wondered what I would have done if Liam had made a move on me.

  I still hadn’t answered that question by the time I’d dressed and gone down for breakfast. The three guys were up before me; I knocked on Janet’s door, but heard her shower going and left her to it … courtesy of her gallant half-brother who gives up his en suite when she’s with us.

  ‘You were out late,’ Tom remarked, as I dropped a couple of slices of bread into the toaster.

  ‘With respect, young man,’ I replied, ‘I was out later the night before, with you and your sister.’

  ‘But …’ he began, then realised he wasn’t going to get any further, and abandoned his interrogation. I hid my smile, as I recalled my father making exactly the same comment on another Sunday morning almost thirty years before. He hadn’t pursued it either; just as well, as I’d just had my cherry cracked by my first serious boyfriend … a poor second, I must say, to my Duracell bunny from Barcelona.

  Conrad said nothing. He was at the table, reading, or making a show of reading, the online Daily Telegraph on his laptop.

  ‘Did you hear any more from Audrey?’ I asked him, as I took a seat beside him, with my toast and a mug of tea.

  He nodded. ‘She called just after you and Liam left. You’ll find an email in your box with your tickets attached. You’re booked into the Glasgow Malmaison for two nights. She asked me if she should book a twin for you and Tom or separate rooms; I said separate. Okay?’

  ‘Definitely. We need our own space now.’

  ‘What rooms?’ Tom asked from across the kitchen.

/>   ‘We’re going to Scotland tomorrow, you and me. For a week.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ve got things to do, and I’m taking you with me, so you can see your grandpas.’

  He shrugged. ‘Okay, but what about Charlie?’

  Good question, boy; I’d forgotten about him. ‘I’ll ask Ben if he’ll look after him with his two; otherwise we’ll have to put him in the slammer for a week.’ I knew it wouldn’t come to that, and so did Tom: he and Ben run an informal Labrador retriever collective, taking care of each other’s dogs as required.

  ‘And what about Janet and Jonathan?’

  ‘We’re going home tomorrow,’ Conrad chipped in. ‘Susie Mum will be back by the time we get there.’

  ‘Will Duncan be there?’ wee Jonathan asked, nervously.

  ‘So what if he is?’ I replied. ‘You’ll be back with your mum and that’s the most important thing, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ he conceded, but it was grudging.

  ‘Okay,’ I announced, as Janet came into the room, her hair still damp from the shower, ‘that’s tomorrow. This afternoon we’re going to the beach, all of us, and Charlie … well, not you, Conrad, if you don’t want to.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I do have things to take care of. I reckon they’ll be safe with you.’

  ‘And Liam,’ I added. ‘He’s coming.’

  ‘In that case, they’ll be even safer.’

  I had things to take care of also; first of those was to retrieve our e-tickets, and print them out. It seemed that company chairs and their companions fly business class. I’d have been happy to fly budget air, but in the circumstances I wasn’t complaining. I was just under an hour short of being able to check in online, and so I spent it jamming the washing machine full of everyone’s cast-off clothes, apart from Conrad’s which he insisted were his business alone, then sorting out clothes for the trip for both Tom and me. There was no point in asking him to choose his own. He has no clue about the vagaries of the Scottish climate and would probably have packed half a dozen T-shirts and no socks.

  When finally I’d checked us in I had to take a quick trip into L’Escala to buy cosmetics and other personal gear for the trip, top up the food stocks so that I could make packed lunches for Janet and wee Jonathan’s road trip home, and fuel the jeep for the drive down to Barcelona Airport, to save time in the morning. Back home again I had to load the tumble dryer …

  I could go on, but I won’t; suffice it to say that when it was all done I was knackered and sweaty, and had to take another shower, to make myself fresh enough to go to the beach. Yeah, work that one out; I took a shower in preparation for covering myself in lotion and lying on a sunbed. Would I have done that if it had just been Tom and I? No, but it wasn’t, was it? We had company, company who was making me feel more than a little confused, and who had shaken up all my certainties like a kaleidoscope by doing nothing at all, other than being nice, and gentlemanly, and pretty damn attractive.

  Once I’d fixed my hair for the second time that morning. I chose a bikini … nothing skimpy, mind, a nice blue one with a halter top … with a pair of cut-off denim shorts worn over.

  The kids were ready to go when I got downstairs, with my towels, lotions and change clothes in my beach bag. Tom had dragooned them into shape, although wee Jonathan looked less than ecstatic about the whole venture. For a moment I thought about letting him stay with Conrad, but decided against it. The boy needed taking out of himself, dammit.

  ‘You got the tent?’ I asked my son. It’s a pop-up windbreak really, but it has a zip-up front that gives privacy for changing. We were going to a beach with a nudie option, but I was taking it with Janet in mind.

  ‘Yes, Mum,’ he said, wearily. ‘It’s in the hall with the rest of our stuff. Now can we go? Vaive will be busy today and we want to get a table.’

  I let him lead the way. He wasn’t wrong about it being busy. As we passed the car park, I saw that it was jammed full, and opportunists were squeezed into anything that looked like a space. We arrived at the beach bar ten minutes late but Liam was there already, in swim shorts and a white V-necked T, waiting for us at a table which otherwise we wouldn’t have had. They don’t do reservations.

  ‘Hi,’ he said, rising.

  I sensed that he was unsure how to greet us, so I put him at his ease by kissing him on the cheek as I’d parted from him the night before. ‘You didn’t meet wee Jonathan yesterday,’ I remarked. ‘This is him, Oz and Susie’s younger. We only call him wee Jonathan to distinguish him from his cousin, Jonny.’

  ‘The golfer?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He’s doing very well for himself. Rookie of the Year in Europe in his first season.’

  ‘He lived with us for a while,’ Tom told him. ‘Now he has a house of his own, quite near here. Mum,’ he continued, ‘I want a chicken pig.’

  Chicken pig? That’s Vaive’s most celebrated sandwich, half a baguette stuffed with chicken, bacon, salsa and lots of other stuff.

  ‘Fine,’ I replied. ‘Mine’s a sobrasada. See what everyone else wants then go and order.’

  Liam seemed to give the specialty some serious thought, but stuck to his principles and settled for a salad in a bowl. He looked around as Tom went up to the counter. The beach was crowded, but not as much as the one by the Greek wall would have been. There was a light wind coming off the sea, enough for novice windsurfers but boring for the experts. ‘This is terrific,’ he said. ‘Do you guys come here a lot?’

  ‘In the holidays, yes. Weekends when school’s in.’

  ‘Does Tom windsurf?’ he asked.

  ‘He does, but he prefers free surfing. He’s pretty good. That’s not Mum getting carried away either. His Uncle Miles says so too, and he should know. He was a lifeguard when he was young, in Australia and California. Have you ever done any?’

  ‘A little, but only the kind with the sail. We don’t have big waves where I live.’

  ‘Where do you live, Liam?’ We’d got through the whole of the previous day without me asking that or him volunteering.

  ‘I have an apartment in Dublin,’ he replied, ‘but my main base is in Toronto. It’s the city I liked best when I was on the road with the crew, so I made it home. Ever been there?’

  ‘Yes, I have, but very briefly, only for one night, in fact. Not long enough to form a view about the place.’

  ‘Then you must give it another try.’ For a moment I thought a definite invitation was coming, but he left it at that.

  ‘Hey,’ I said quietly, as Tom returned with bottles of still water for all of us, ‘about last night. I enjoyed it very much. We’ll do it again before you leave, but on me next time.’

  He peered at me over the glasses (someone told me once, firmly, ‘One drinks from glasses, one wears spectacles,’ but she doesn’t speak Scottish, so I disregarded her advice) and murmured, ‘Likewise and okay.’

  As we waited for lunch he asked me about the history of the region … ‘Preliminary research for the book,’ he said … and I gave him a quick rundown, the standard stuff about the Greeks arriving first and establishing a colony, then being succeeded by the Romans, and in the modern era by just about every other nation in Europe and a few beyond, most recently the Chinese who probably do a bigger retail turnover than anyone else in L’Escala these days.

  ‘Sounds just like Toronto,’ he laughed. ‘We’ve got everyone and everything there.’

  ‘I’ll bet you don’t have chicken pigs,’ Tom chipped in, with a smile. He seemed to be losing his initial wariness of Liam, and that pleased me.

  ‘You may well be right, young man,’ he replied, ‘but we’ve got loads of other stuff. And our own wine too. Ontario’s becoming a pretty big producer; they’re quite proud of some of it too.’

  ‘Why don’t we see more of it in Europe?’ I asked.

  ‘Because the Canadians drink it all. They have a strange attitude to alcohol, but they’re pretty damn good at brewing and now wi
ne-making. Not that I would know any more,’ he added.

  ‘Mum makes wine,’ Tom said.

  ‘I don’t,’ I protested. ‘I’m a director of a company that does, that’s all.’

  ‘So you make wine.’

  I sighed. ‘If you insist. When it comes to arguing a point, you’re as determined as your father … even when you’re wrong.’

  He looked at our companion. ‘Is that true, Mr Matthews?’

  ‘First, chum,’ he replied, ‘you call me Liam. Second, yes, your old man was a pretty determined guy … but I don’t recall him ever being wrong, not in his eyes anyway. Once he made up his mind about something, he wasn’t for changing it.’

  I realised that Tom was pleased to be able to talk about his father with someone other than Susie and me, with an impartial witness as he probably saw it; the flaw in that was that Oz was never a guy to inspire objectivity. You either loved him or the opposite; at times I did both.

  The discussion was ended by the arrival of lunch, Liam’s salad, bikini toasties for Janet and wee Jonathan and massive sandwiches for Tom and me. We ate in silence, for they demanded concentration. When we were finished, we were full and it was definitely time for the beach.

  I gave my son a fifty to pay for what we’d had then led the way over the iron bridge that crosses the little river from which the beach beyond takes its name. As soon as we were on the other side, Janet, who’d been leading Charlie, let him loose, and he went scampering down to the water, riding the small waves that were breaking on the shore. The rest of us walked on, for fifty metres or so, until Tom decreed that there was enough free space for him to pitch the windbreak.

  ‘Who wants to swim now?’ he asked, after he’d erected the structure. The question was directed at his younger brother more than anyone else. I’m not sure the kid wanted to go into the water, but Tom had become an authority figure, so he took it as a command. He and his little bag disappeared into the tent-ette, and he zipped the front up while he changed.