She had gone upstairs just after five to grab a couple of hours’ sleep, and a bath. Now, restored, she looked sensational, and very, very dangerous. . As indeed, she is. I wondered just what our hostess was going to make of her, although the newly self-aware Oz didn’t care all that much.
I didn’t feel tired at all. Far from going for a kip, like Susie, I had gone into the gym I had set up in a room in the outbuilding and lifted some weights, then done some serious exercising, following a programme which my friend Liam Matthews, the GWA World Wrestling Champion, had drawn up for me. I don’t think I’ve ever worked harder than I did for that hour, that evening. It wasn’t just self-punishment; the part in the new movie was fairly physical and I wanted to be at my best for it.
Afterwards, I showered. I was towelling myself off when the phone rang. I picked it up in the bedroom; it was Prim. ‘Hi,’ she said, breezily. ‘How are things?’
‘My thing’s fine. How’s yours?’
‘Missing yours,’ she laughed. ‘You sound on top form.’
‘Never been better, my darling. Have you sorted your return flight?’
‘Yes. I can’t get out of LA till Monday. All going well I get back on Tuesday morning, at ten past eleven. Can you pick me up then?’
‘Of course.’
‘How’s Susie?’ she asked.
‘Resting,’ I told her. ‘I took her to Barcelona this morning.’
‘Yes, but how is she now? I mean, is she showing signs of getting over Mike.’
‘Hard to tell. She’s a bit withdrawn, sort of quiet. I’m having trouble getting her to talk at all.’
‘Don’t force it, then. If she wants to unburden herself, she will, in her own time. Got to go now, I’m off to see Mum again. Love you. Bye.’
Now, as I looked at Susie, the thought of her unburdening herself made me smile.
‘Mmm,’ she said, ‘you look pretty tasty.’ I had changed into Burberry jeans, a crisp white shirt and a wool and cashmere blazer.
‘You should know,’ I muttered.
‘Ha ha.’ She took my arm and turned me, so that we could see ourselves in the full-length mirror, which our predecessor had placed beside the front door. It’s a classic vanity thing; one last check to make sure that one looks perfect, and all that. We did, too. There was something about the guy who gazed back at me, something about his expression, that I didn’t recognise. I couldn’t put my finger on it; he just looked. . cool.
Susie reached across to my breast pocket and pulled the white silk handkerchief so that it showed a little more. ‘There,’ she whispered. ‘Now you look just like a movie star.’
‘Hey, kid. I am a movie star.’
‘I know. That’s one reason why I decided to add you to my trophy cabinet.’
‘When did you take this decision? This morning?’
She smiled at me, through the mirror. ‘No, no,’ she chuckled. ‘A while before that; I don’t know when exactly, but at some point a wee voice in my conniving wee head said, “I’m going to have his body”.
‘I must admit, though, I thought it would have been harder than that.’
I gave her my best ‘offended’ look, and she laughed. ‘Sorry. More difficult, I should have said.’ She patted my chest. ‘Like a rock, my darling, like a rock.’
We slipped on overcoats and walked the hundred metres to Shirley’s house, along the dimly lit Carrer Caterina. I’m sure she twigged right away, as she opened the door and saw us there, but she’s too good a hostess to have let anything show.
I introduced Susie, ‘our best friend from Glasgow’. This was only half true, at best; she sure as hell wasn’t Prim’s friend any more, even if Prim didn’t know it. As for me, I wasn’t entirely sure of my new relationship with her, but I was fairly certain that it wasn’t going to last long.
I was surprised to find that Shirley was alone. ‘John gone home?’ I asked her.
‘Yes. I had hoped that he would have stayed till the weekend at least, but he and Virginie left this morning. Now I’ve got that bloody car you sold him taking up half my garage. He started to strip it, but decided that it was too big a job for him. Gawd knows how long he proposes to leave it there.’
‘Does Virginie live with him?’
‘Sometimes. She’s fairly new on the scene, so I think they’re still sorting themselves out in that respect.’
‘Where does she live when she’s not with him?’
‘In a place called Divonne-les-Bains, so she told me; it’s in France, somewhere.’
‘How did they meet?’
‘At a furniture show in Paris, according to John. The way he tells it, he saw her, fell in love with her, and just swept her off her feet.’
‘Aww,’ said Susie, ‘isn’t that romantic? I’m just waiting for someone to do that to me.’
Shirley ushered us into her living room, disappeared into the kitchen and came back with three gin-and-tonics on a tray. ‘I don’t know about you,’ she exclaimed, ‘but in the last couple of weeks, I’ve had so much cava, I’ve got bubbles coming out my ears. So I thought we’d have a real drink before dinner tonight.
‘So how’s Prim’s mum?’ she continued, briskly. I had bumped into her three days earlier and had told her about the emergency in California.
‘She’s coming along. She did have a malignant growth, but the surgeon’s confident that he got it all. They’re going to treat her to try to prevent any spread of the disease, and after that, we all live with our fingers crossed for a while.’
‘Prim staying out there for long, is she?’
‘She’ll be back on Tuesday, I’m glad to say.’
‘Me too,’ Susie murmured, coyly. ‘My idea of a surprise visit backfired on me, and no mistake. Oz has been great though. He’s been showing me the sights; he took me to Pals yesterday, and to Barcelona this afternoon.’
‘If you’re stuck for something to do tomorrow, there’s a Catalan Society cocktail party, at Frank and Geraldine’s place. Three o’clock, a thousand pesetas per skull, and bring a raffle prize. JoJo’s organising the drinks.’ She looked at me. ‘That’s how I knew you had a house guest, by the way. She told Geraldine you were in last night. . they came into the bar just after you’d left. . and she called me this morning.
‘The jungle drums beat fast in this place, as you know. She said that you’d been in with a redhead, and wondered who it was.’ She smiled. ‘I told her it was your sister. That seemed to satisfy her.’
‘I’ll put her right tomorrow if we go to this do. But wait a minute; you’ve met my sister. You know she isn’t a redhead.’
‘Yeah, but if I hadn’t told her something, then the story of Oz and the mystery woman would have been all over L’Escala by now. And who knows? Some bugger might have phoned the British tabloids. There are people everywhere who might try to make a quid by selling a story like that.
‘You’re a celebrity now, my young friend; people are interested in you. You want to remember that.’
She had a point; I couldn’t deny it. ‘Thanks for telling Gerrie a convenient porky, then.’
‘De nada. I knew there would be an innocent explanation, anyway.’ She laughed. ‘You and Prim have a hell of a history, but not even you could get off your mark that fast.’
‘Should I be offended at that?’
‘You wouldn’t have the brass neck to be offended, not after what you did to that girl when you lived here before. Going off and leaving her like that. I’ve never told you this before, but I thought that was really cruel, Oz Blackstone.’
‘Okay, but you don’t know the whole story. It was mutual.’
‘You might have told yourself that at the time, but don’t go believing it now.’
I tried a Catalan shrug, but it didn’t work. ‘Maybe,’ I said instead, ‘but at least she didn’t sit here pining for me.’
Shirley gave me an appraising look.
‘It’s all right,’ I told her. ‘There are no secrets between Prim and me. She’s told
me everything about that time.’
‘Has she now?’ our hostess chuckled. ‘Good for her. I don’t suppose there’s a point to getting even with someone if they don’t ever know about it.
‘She really did too; especially with that Steve Miller bloke, so-and-so’s son, the car salesman. She thought he was a creep, yet she went off to Madrid with him for a week. I asked her why; she told me to work it out for myself. It wasn’t too difficult. You couldn’t stand him, so that was why she did it.
‘Then there was the Spanish guy, what’s his name?’
‘Fortunato?’
‘No, before him. After Steve, after that young fellow from St Albans. . only twenty-one, he was. . and after that racing driver from Sussex. He was a waiter in one of the restaurants in the old town; smarmy, oily chap, always chatting up the female customers.’
I knew him. But before I had a chance to dwell on him, Shirley went on. ‘You might not think so, but Fortunato was good for her. She was really off the rails after you left, but the policeman straightened her out, even if he was messed up himself, with his wife having left him for our mutual friend.’
‘What?’ She had lost me now.
‘Didn’t you know that? Mind you, Prim might not have known his name then. She never met him; I know that. It was Reynard Capulet. The policeman’s wife left him and went to Paris with Rey.’
I gave a light laugh. She didn’t know it, nor I imagine did Susie, but all the way through Shirley’s revelation I was honing my acting skills. ‘She got the short straw then,’ I said. ‘He was going to take you to Florida, wasn’t he?’
Another woman might have been hurt, but Shirley’s tougher than that. ‘Too right. Nothing but the best for me, and he knew it. Knows it, maybe. He could be living down the road, for all I know.’
I had a lot to think about over dinner. . in my Mum’s day, ‘supper’ was a cup of hot chocolate and a biscuit just before you went to bed. . but I kept myself in conversational mode. I told Shirley about Susie’s business back in Glasgow, and even mentioned casually that she’d been looking at something in our part of Spain.
‘Does the name Jeffrey Chandler mean anything to you?’ I asked her.
‘Big grey-haired bloke,’ she replied, ‘in the movies like you; built like a brick outhouse, was always playing cowboys, or soldiers and sometimes Indians, because he was naturally dark-complexioned. Been dead for donkey’s years.’
‘This one isn’t; he says he’s a property developer, but he’s really a con man and a thief. I wondered if he’d surfaced socially around here.’
‘What does he look like?’
‘He’s early forties, six feet odd, dark-haired, well-spoken,’ Susie told her. ‘He’s got a scar on his forehead. That’s all I remember about him.’
‘The streets are full of ’em, but I can’t say that name’s familiar. Ask Jo next time you see her; if he’s been around here, she’ll know. Did he do you wrong?’
‘A couple of million wrong, and no, I’m not talking pesetas, or even euros; real money.’
‘My God,’ said Shirley, after a mouthful of souffle. ‘What are you going to do when you catch him?’
‘Oz is going to have him killed,’ she answered, with a grin. ‘Aren’t you, Oz? You know people who do that sort of thing.’ It was a chilling thing for her to say, given recent history, but Shirl didn’t know any of that, so she took it as a joke.
‘Worse than that,’ I retorted. ‘I’m going to make him watch my new movie.’
We finished dinner, drank a couple of shots of chilled peach schnapps, then said ‘thanks’ and ‘good night’ to Shirley.
‘See you at the do tomorrow?’ she asked as we were leaving.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Why not? We’ll give you a lift down in the new bus.’
Back at Casa Nou Camp, I checked the alarm settings and bolted the doors. When I came out of the kitchen, Susie was nowhere to be seen. I didn’t have to search for her, though. I knew where she’d be. I didn’t even think about telling her to go back to her own room. I was as horny as hell, and I wanted her. I undressed and slipped under the duvet. She was smiling at me again.
‘You’re a master of deviousness, all right,’ she said. ‘You’re way beyond my league. The way you got all that stuff about Prim out of her, without her even knowing she was being questioned, or that any of it was news to you.’
‘And was it news to you?’
‘No, of course not. Prim told me the whole story a while back. I guessed she hadn’t told you that much, though; if she didn’t tell you the way it really was with the policeman, she was hardly going to confess to all the rest of it. What’s this guy Miller like, really?’
I felt my teeth clench. ‘A twerp. A real wee twerp. Shirl was right, I detest him.’
‘Yeah,’ Susie whispered, laying the palm of her hand on my belly, and sliding it downwards. ‘That’s what she told me too. She said that every time she did it with him, all she could feel was her hatred for you. He was your penance; that’s how she put it.’
What she was telling me was cutting into me like a knife. I didn’t want to hear any more.
‘Hey,’ I said, rolling over and into her in a single smooth movement, drawing a great deep gasp from her. ‘Enough about her. This one’s for you, and no one else.’
24
Susie was demanding but I gave her everything she wanted, everything she asked for. We made love until we fell asleep. Then, in the morning we wakened, and we had some more.
I was lying face down, my left cheek buried in the pillow, looking at her out of my right eye alone, when she ran a nail gently down my spine. ‘I’ll promise you something, Oz,’ she murmured. ‘Even though you haven’t asked me.
‘After I go, that’ll be it. I’m not going to hold anything over you, or threaten your marriage.’
‘What if that isn’t the way I want it?’
‘Don’t make me laugh.’ She did, nevertheless. ‘You’re too smart for that,’ she chuckled. ‘You’re not going to dump Dawn Grayson’s sister, or your movie career will be over almost as soon as it’s started. You’ll work it out with Prim; at least you will for as long as it takes you to become established. And isn’t this the man who told me twenty-four hours ago that he loved his wife dearly?’
‘A lot of things can change in twenty-four hours. I feel like I don’t know her any more.’
‘So get to know her. Maybe you’ll find that, inside, she’s even better than the woman you thought you knew. Did you really think that she was just a little innocent who’d forsworn men for ever after you dumped her? Are you that naive? No, I don’t believe that for a minute.’
‘Yeah, but I chose to believe what she told me. If she’d told me the truth … Ah, I don’t know. But come on. Answer my question. What if, just suppose, out of all this, I want you?’
‘You can’t have me. Simple as that. I’m going to be no one’s second string. I’m going to run my business for a few more years, then either sell it or take it public and become incredibly rich in the process. Somewhere along the line I’ll find a suitable husband, with a title, preferably, who’ll give me a couple of nice kids then bugger off.
‘I’ve just had one narrow escape; I nearly became Mrs Mike Dylan. No way would I get myself tied up with somebody as volatile. . and as easy to seduce. . as you.’ She jumped out of bed and stood there, red hair tousled and tangled. ‘I will do one thing for you. I’ll make you breakfast. Fancy some freshly squeezed orange juice, scrambled eggs and coffee?’ She took my robe from behind the door and put it on.
‘Yeah, okay. You do that, I’ll have a shower.’ I tossed her the remote alarm control and told her to press the ‘disable’ button from the top of the stairs, so that she didn’t set the thing off.
I was towelling myself down when I heard the front door bell ring. I had no idea who it could be. Shirley would have phoned, and I couldn’t think of anyone who’d be calling on me at quarter to ten on a Saturday morning, apart from Fortunat
o, perhaps. Automatically I headed for my robe, then saw the empty hook on the door.
Faint sounds came from downstairs, the clop of wooden-soled sandals. . Susie had borrowed Prim’s. . the squeak of a rusty hinge as the door opened. I strained to hear, but couldn’t pick up any conversation. Then I heard footsteps trotting upstairs and drawing closer.
She appeared in the doorway and looked at me, frowning. ‘Oz,’ she said, severely, ‘there’s a prostitute at the door. Go and deal with her.’
‘How do you know she’s a prostitute?’
‘I’ve lived in Glasgow for long enough to know what a prostitute looks like.’
‘So can’t you deal with her?’
‘She doesn’t seem to speak any English; nothing but Spanish. Now go on; see what she wants.’
I finished drying, and dressed quickly.
Susie had closed the front door on our caller, reasonably so, I suppose. If a mysterious prostitute presented herself at your premises, you’d hardly ask her in then go off and leave her alone, would you?
She was still there when I opened it again: a tiny girl, as bizarrely turned out for the first Saturday in January as anyone I’ve ever seen. Her oily black hair was piled up on top of her head and lacquered stiff, she had blusher on her cheeks and her eyelashes buckled under what must have been a whole thingy of mascara. She was wearing a yellow gypsy-styled top, trimmed with red and showing most of what little chest she had, a short, fluffed-out white skirt, white tights with gold spangles and red shoes with dangerously high heels.
It was a cold, grey morning, and a light skin of rain was falling. She stood there, a black umbrella clutched in her right hand, with goose pimples standing out on her damp shoulders. In her left hand she carried a small suitcase.
On Honeymoon With Death ob-5 Page 15