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Poisoned Cherries ob-6

Page 18

by Quintin Jardine


  I gave them all up and settled for Radio Clyde One, just as Susie came into the bedroom with wee Jan still attached. Maybe it was all the stuff that had been happening over the last few days, but my heart and my eyes just seemed to fill up at the same time.

  ‘Come here,’ I said, barely able to see them. ‘Come into bed and let’s be a family.’

  We did that, we just lay there, did Susie and I, for about half an hour, with our child between us, talking mostly nonsense. I told her about Ewan and Alison having done their deal, I told her about the rehearsal and the scene set visit to Advocates’ Close, and I told her about meeting Don Kennedy, the famous golfer, and his gloomy prognosis for my slice. But I did not tell her about Anna Chin; that sort of stuff has no business invading a moment like that.

  Eventually we got up, and each of us, while the other showered, took turns at playing with the smiling Janet. Some people say it’s only wind at that age, not a real smile, but that is sheer nonsense. . I have two nephews and a daughter; I know these things.

  It was Ethel’s hard-earned weekend off; she muttered something about going to see her sister in Roseneath and headed off in her all-silver Ford Ka. ‘Right,’ Susie declared. ‘Janet’s fed, now what about us?’

  ‘Saturday morning,’ I replied. ‘Glasgow. I’ll go for the rolls and the papers, like any other bloke. You start the fry-up, and get the tea on, like any other woman.’

  ‘Bloody chauvinist! But I don’t fancy going out looking like an unmade bed. .’ See? Stereotypical behaviour; with her red hair tousled, and her freckled face fresh from the shower, she looked absolutely stunning. ‘. . So we’ll do it your way.’ She took the door keys from the kitchen table and tossed them to me.

  The flat is in a building near the top of Woodside Terrace, so I cut along to Lynedoch Street, and down to Woodlands Road, where I could take my pick of grocer newsagents, each one just like my friend Ali’s place. I went into the nearest, bought four morning rolls, baked that day, the Daily Record and the Scotsman. The woman behind the counter gave me a knowing look, probably marking me as an out-of-towner, because I hadn’t taken the Herald. I had a reason for picking the Edinburgh daily, though.

  I sprinted across the street, and stopped on the other side, turning to glare over my shoulder at a taxi-driver who had blown his horn at me. As I did so, I caught a figure at the edge of my vision, turning away from me. Of itself, there was nothing unusual in it, but something clicked in my head, all the same.

  I looked after the bloke, but he was heading briskly off towards Charing Cross. . yes, Glasgow has one of them too. Paranoia, Blackstone; not everyone is out to get you. I forgot about it and opened my Scotsman. The death was worth a paragraph on page one, and a longer story on page three. That told me that the police had launched a full-scale murder investigation after the body of a twenty-five-year-old woman had been found in the new headquarters building of the Torrent group. The victim, Anna Chin, a doctor’s daughter from Barnton. . If she had been a waiter’s daughter from Leith, would they have mentioned that? I wondered. . was in the habit of working late on Fridays to take weekend returns from the field sales team. Detectives were working on the theory that she had disturbed an intruder.

  Fine, I thought. Ricky’s put them off the trail, for now at least. I knew that it was a matter of time before they tumbled to the David Capperauld connection, but hopefully by that time there would be nothing that would tie Alison to the scene.

  I took out my mobile and called Ricky on his, ship to ship, as a pal of mine used to say. ‘How is she?’ I asked him.

  ‘Okay,’ he replied, in a quiet voice. There was a pause: I guessed he was still with Alison and that he might be going somewhere she couldn’t hear him. Knowing her better by now than I ever had before, I guessed that he was probably getting out of bed.

  I heard the sound of a closing door; Ricky was probably in the toilet. ‘She’s calm now,’ he said, more clearly.

  ‘Did she tell you anything else?’

  ‘Only what we guessed; someone called her and told her that Torrent wanted to see her at the office.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘She doesn’t have a clue. She said that the voice wasn’t clear; the caller said he was passing on a message from Natalie Morgan, that Torrent wanted a quick meeting that evening.’

  ‘What about Torrent? Do we know where he was?’

  ‘The records in his office showed that he signed out at three, with Natalie. The police tried to get hold of him last night; eventually they found them both at a dinner at Gleneagles Hotel. I called someone I know there afterwards. They checked in at four-fifteen.’

  ‘Separate suites?’

  ‘Of course, she’s his niece.’

  I couldn’t help laughing; there are some things that coppers can’t contemplate. ‘Cynical bastard, Blackstone,’ he muttered. ‘Even if they were, they still wouldn’t just take one suite.’

  He had a point; I wasn’t as smart as I thought. No need to let him know that, though. ‘It could still have been Natalie who made the call,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Sure. I’m betting it was.’

  ‘She couldn’t have killed Anna, though,’ I said. ‘She must have been alive when the last person signed out.’

  ‘She could. She could have checked in, driven back, done the girl and been up there again for dinner.’

  ‘And why would she want to do that?’

  ‘That’s a question I’d love to ask her, but I can’t risk it.’

  ‘Then get one of your tame policemen to ask.’

  ‘I can’t do that either; they’re off chasing intruders, remember.’

  Yes, I remembered. We were boxed in, good and proper. Or at least, Ricky was; I had to remind myself that this investigation had nothing to do with me.

  I had almost put it out of my mind by the time I got back home to the family. I had got the best of the deal all round; Susie’s a much better breakfast cook than me, and she always uses olive oil when she’s frying. I’ll use anything.

  We stuffed the four rolls with fillet steak and egg. . decadent, eh. . and ate them in front of the telly. The tasty bird with the tattoo on her bum had finished, and we were into previews from around the grounds.

  ‘That’s enough of that,’ said Susie, once we were finished. She grabbed the remote and switched off. ‘We are taking our daughter out for an airing.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I thought that Kelvingrove would be nice. We could walk there.’

  That sounded good to me. ‘Okay,’ I agreed, ‘if I can do the Transport Museum as well.’

  Susie got the baby dressed for the outdoors, we did the same, and we headed out into the bright autumn day. We walked Janet, in her pram. . a sort of multi-purpose vehicle for kids. . down Elderslie Street, and turned into Sauchiehall Street, the most famous thoroughfare in Glasgow, if not the nicest. We strolled along at no great pace, but it didn’t take us long to come to the old Kelvin Hall, which houses the city’s museum of transport. When I had lived in Glasgow, before, and Jonny and Colin, my nephews, came to visit, they always made me take them there. I took no persuading; I love those old Glasgow trams and I’d love to have ridden on one for real. My Dad did, on a visit to Glasgow as a child, and he still talks about it. The city was all the poorer when they were replaced by giant electric trolleybuses; Whispering Death, they became known as, as they came rolling silently up behind a number of unwary Glaswegian drunks who had chosen exactly the wrong moment to step off the pavement.

  Wee Janet was a bit young for the trams, and Susie’s an unromantic Weegie, so we didn’t stay there long. We had just left the building and turned into Argyle Street, heading for the crossing to Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery, when I saw a man step swiftly back into Blantyre Street, on the far side of Kelvin Hall. He was in my line of vision for less than a second, but I was dead certain that it was the same bloke I’d seen earlier, in Woodlands Road. I saw a little bit of face this time, or at least a flash of beard, a
nd the glint of the sun reflected from dark glasses.

  For a moment, I almost set off after him, but that would have alarmed Susie, so I held myself back. Instead, we crossed the road and, carrying the pram, mounted the steps to the entrance to the big, baroque building.

  At the top, I glanced over my shoulder, quickly, while Susie was looking the other way, but I saw nothing out of the ordinary.

  Inside, seats were laid out in rows, and a man was playing the big pipe organ, above the central hall. ‘Sit there for a minute,’ I told Susie, as wee Janet stirred in her MPV pram. ‘I’m going to the gents.’ I found a sign showing the two matchstick people, one legs apart, the other legs together. . Shouldn’t they be the other way around? Ah, never mind. . and followed it.

  I wasn’t sure I’d get a mobile signal in the toilet, in the great sandstone building, but I did. When Ricky answered, I could hear the unmistakeable sound of domesticity in the background. ‘Have you got someone following me?’ I asked him.

  He hesitated. ‘Yes,’ he admitted at last. ‘Alan Graham’s looking out for you. I had to, Oz, it’s in the contract. If you have an emergency, someone has to be on hand to respond. You shouldn’t have seen him though; I warned him not to disturb you.’

  ‘This isn’t him; this is someone else.’ I told him about the man I had now seen twice in a few hours. ‘Tell Alan to stop looking out for me, and concentrate on him. I want to know who this guy is and what he wants. If he comes near Susie and the baby, I’ll bloody well kill him, and I’m not joking.’ I must have been shouting, because a guy standing at a urinal looked over his shoulder at me, with a degree of alarm. I glared at him and he went about his business.

  ‘Okay, Oz, calm down,’ said Ricky, in his reassuring voice. ‘I’m on to it. If I have to I’ll send someone else through as back-up, plus I’ll leave Alan on Susie when you come back to Edinburgh, at least until this man is identified and eliminated as a threat, if he is one. Give me a description.’

  ‘Tallish, long hair, dark beard, age. . I didn’t get a good enough look to tell; wearing jeans and a bomber jacket, and shades.’

  ‘Okay, that’ll do; I’ll get after him. But please, and I mean this; if he does confront you, do not touch him yourself, leave him to my people. When you said that just now, I really did believe you.’

  Chapter 36

  There were no more sightings of the stalker, if such he was. A couple of times people tapped me on the shoulder and asked me if I was me, then asked for my autograph, but they didn’t bother me. I had a hunch that the watcher knew bloody well who I was.

  Susie hadn’t a clue what was going on, of course, so she sat and listened happily to the organ recital for a while, then she and I walked around the museum. . the art gallery side is without a highlight now, since they moved the Dali.

  I tried to stay a pace behind her all the time, because it was easier than keeping up an unconcerned appearance. It didn’t fool her, though, even if she did get the wrong idea.

  We were hardly back in the flat, and I had hardly finished changing wee Jan. . it was my turn. . before Susie punched me lightly in the ribs. ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Away you go back to your movie. You’ve been like a cat on hot bricks all afternoon.’

  She really did take me by surprise; I thought I’d been pretty cool about the thing.

  ‘No, I haven’t.’

  ‘Yes you have.’

  ‘Well, okay, maybe I have; but I get a bit jumpy in public places, especially today, when I was trying to have a normal family day out.’

  She laughed. ‘All you wanted to see were your trams. You couldn’t wait to get home after that.’

  She was right, even if she didn’t know why.

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ I said. ‘Why don’t we take hospitality boxes at Ibrox and Celtic Park? We could go to each one on alternate Saturdays, and teach our daughter true ecumenicism.’

  Susie frowned. ‘What are you talking about? I’ve got boxes at Celtic and Rangers, through the company. My managers use them every week for clients and suppliers. You can go any time you like. You’re a director, remember? Just don’t expect me to join in, and don’t expect to expose our daughter to the sort of language those crowds use.’

  She tugged my sleeve gently, drawing me towards her on the couch. I was holding the baby, so I sat down carefully. ‘Speaking of religion, loosely,’ she said, ‘how do you feel about having the baby christened?’

  Belief was a subject I’d never discussed with Susie; it’s a subject I don’t discuss with anyone as a rule. I was an atheist pure and simple until my mother died, then things changed, but I’ve never gone in for denominations or such stuff. As far as I’m concerned they’re only another excuse for people to fight.

  ‘I feel she should make up her own mind, when she’s old enough.’

  ‘So do I. Let’s just try to set her a good example, okay.’

  I leaned across and kissed her; not a let’s-go-to-bed kiss, just a simple show of affection. Then I picked up the remote and switched on Gillette Soccer Saturday on Sky Sports. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘let’s.’

  We watched as the pundits described the games from television monitors, and as the final scores began to appear on a ribbon at the foot of the screen. Eventually the East Fife score came up, a four-nil home gubbing by East Stirlingshire, and my Saturday afternoon was over.

  While Susie fed the baby again I made supper for the two of us. I found all the ingredients for a very nice stir-fry; onions, chillies, shitake mushrooms, bean sprouts and chicken breast. I cooked them all up in a mix of olive oil, soy sauce and Lea and Perrins, and right at the end, I cracked in a couple of large eggs and beat them in firmly, to help bind the lot together.

  Nobody taught me to do that, but ever since I heard a dodgy comedian claim on telly that whatever blokes cooked, no matter what they called it, it was always bloody stew, I’ve made a point of being able to do other things. Who knows? Maybe if I’d liked that comedian, rather than being annoyed by the smug sod, the world would have lost a great stir-fry chef.

  ‘This is great,’ said Susie, as she tucked into a small mountain of the stuff. She looked at me, appraisingly, across the table. ‘I think you’re hired.’

  I couldn’t think of something to say, so I just shrugged my shoulders. The thing was, I wasn’t one hundred per cent sure that I’d applied for the job.

  I stayed for as long as I could, but given my flying start next morning, and a growing streak of professionalism which demands that I’m at my best when going to work, I announced around eight-thirty that I’d better hit the road.

  I thought about telling her that she had a minder, but I decided against it. If I’d done that, I’d have had to tell her why, and I reckoned that would have scared her. . not for herself, but for the baby. Besides, the first time I’d seen the guy he’d been following me alone; as I saw it, they were probably safer with me out of the way.

  I had confidence in Ricky’s people, but I was half hoping that my friend would have a go at me. Okay, maybe he was no more than a fan trying to get close, but he’d interfered with my family time and I didn’t like that.

  I found myself thinking about him for most of the way back to Edinburgh and I didn’t like that either. I was starting work on my most important movie in the morning. . it’s like football, but you’re only as good as your next game, rather than your last. . and here I was having to force myself to concentrate on it. No, I was annoyed, and given half a chance, the cause of it would pay.

  When I got back to the Mound, I thought about calling Ricky, but he’d know where I was, and I knew that if he’d anything to tell me, he’d have been in touch. So I parked the Mercedes and walked up the slope to the tall grey building. I let myself into the apartment, and went straight to my bedroom, flicking on the light when I got there, dropping my bag on the floor, and heading straight for the shower, ripping off clothes as I went.

  I must have stayed in there for a good ten minutes, trying to wash that man right
out of my hair, I suppose. Eventually I succeeded; I towelled myself dry, brushed my teeth and headed for bed, focused fully on next morning.

  I stepped out of the bathroom into darkness. At first I thought the bulb had blown, but then I sensed movement on my right. I spun towards it. . then felt my world turn upside-down.

  I call myself a wrestler. I mean, I’ve been trained, I know proper holds and throws and everything; the real stuff. I hadn’t a chance: my legs were kicked out from under me, and a slim but very strong arm went across my chest in the same instant, driving me down. I landed on my back, hard enough to wind me for an instant. My arms spread out wide as I fell. As I hit the ground, I felt them pinned down, and a weight pressing on me.

  There wasn’t much moon but a little light was creeping in from the outside, through the slatted blinds. I could see. . and feel. . that my attacker was naked, and at the same moment I could feel. . and just about see. . that she was female. She was straddling me, trapping my upper arms with her feet, pressing my thighs to the ground with strong arms.

  My eyes grew more accustomed to the light; I couldn’t believe what they were seeing, close up. Then I felt something else, and I heard a voice that was more of a loud mumble. ‘Lie still,’ Mandy O’Farrell ordered, ‘or I may bite.’

  I flexed my biceps and used my leg strength to lift her clear of the ground and to pull the part of her that was nearest to me even closer still. ‘I could say the same to you,’ I pointed out. In the end, we called it a draw.

  The apartment was warm; we were both covered in sweat from our brief struggle when she rolled off me, and swung herself round. She was grinning. ‘Think you’re so tough, eh?’ She was right; half an hour before I had been thinking about filling in my stalker.

  ‘Do you realise’, I asked her, ‘that I could have you f ired?’

  She gave me a look of pure innocence. ‘But Mr Ross,’ she exclaimed in a girlie voice unlike her own, ‘I was only obeying your orders.’

  I stared at her in what must have been amazement, for she laughed out loud. ‘Ricky told me that you were heading back to Edinburgh on your own, and that I was to get here and stay as close to you as I could. Couldn’t do better than that, eh?’

 

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