‘That’s better,’ she declared, as she took the glass I handed her and made its contents disappear faster than an unsuspecting celebrity snorts a line of coke for the hidden tabloid camera. ‘I couldn’t believe what I saw in the mirror. “Fat old lioness” was putting it mildly; more like a grizzly bear that had fallen through a tree.’
‘What made you so busy?’ I asked.
‘I’ve been on the internet all afternoon.’
I frowned. ‘Trying to trace Patterson?’
‘Hell no. Bugger him. No, I’ve been sorting out an escape plan from this place, and from Alex’s insistence on having cops follow me to the toilet, more or less. If Mr Cowling can do a runner, so can I. I’ve booked myself a cruise. Late booking; I leave tomorrow.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘As far away as I can get. I fly to Singapore first off, get on a ship there and spend three weeks on the ocean wave. Don’t ask me where we’ll visit, ’cos I don’t remember. I’ll be out of here, and that’s the main thing. Let our Alex try and park a police car outside that and see how he gets on.’
‘Do you need a lift to the airport?’
‘Thanks, love, but no thanks. I’m going first class; that means they send a car for me. Bloody decadent, I know, but like they say, I’m worth it.’
I refilled our glasses. ‘You sure are, gal. Now, since you’re going to be waited on hand and foot for the next three weeks, you can burn the burgers and the sausage. I’ll finish the chips and the salad.’
I enjoy my girlie evenings with Shirl, whether they’re at her place or mine, or occasionally on neutral ground; hair is let down, drink is drunk and truths are told. The selfish part of me was glad that Patterson was gone, since his arrival, and Shirley’s absorption in him, had put them under threat, but most of me was sorry for her, and angry with him, whether he’d been at fault or not. We ate and talked and laughed as usual that night, but through it all, his recent presence still hung around, like settling dust in the air after a big storm. I tried not to talk about him, but I couldn’t keep it up.
‘How did you meet him?’ I asked, when the ice-cream dishes had been scraped clean of anything scrapeable, and as Shirley poured Drambuie into two great glass globes, then desecrated it with ice cubes made from tap water.
‘I told you,’ she replied. ‘On the internet, after my best boy Tom showed me how to get on to the site.’ She paused. ‘Here,’ she added, ‘if you ever decide to have him christened, can I be his godmother?’
‘That’s a decision he’d take for himself, but if I were you I wouldn’t buy a new frock for the occasion. You’re his fairy godmother as it is; settle for that. But back to my question: I know he put you on-site, but once you were there, how did you and Patterson get together? Who made the first move?’
She raised her goblet to her lips. ‘He did, I suppose,’ she murmured. ‘It wasn’t one of those sites that works at random. It was much more personal than that. You write a bio, then upload it, with all your details and a photo. You enter criteria: the sort of person who attracts you, and the things that would turn you off. Well groomed, big dong, yes, scruffy, small dong, no; loves classical music, no, tone deaf, yes; that sort of info. You can either be reactive, that’s go a-hunting, or you can be demure, and sit and wait, as I did.’
Demure? I thought, but I let her continue.
‘I wasn’t there long before the site moderator sent me an email saying there was someone who’d like to make contact and asking if I’d like his details.’
‘Like the size of his dong?’
‘No, you daft bat; that comes later. His personal profile, a little bit of background, and his likes and dislikes.’
‘How did they describe him?’
‘Public servant, retired.’
‘I wonder how they vet their clients,’ I mused.
Shirley snorted. ‘That’s self-evident. Not too fucking well. There was I, starting to think that I’d found someone who was capable of looking after me, only for him to be some chickenshit bastard who hasn’t got the guts to tell me to my face that he doesn’t really fancy me, or who fucks off at the slightest whiff of a possibility that somebody might have got on to his past.’
‘Is that what Alex told you?’ I asked.
‘Yes. He said that there was a good chance that pickpocket bloke had been trying to find out who he was. They were working on that theory, and that Patterson had twigged to this. Now I’ve got Starsky and fucking Hutch parked at my back door, suggesting to anyone who might be wondering that I know where he’s gone when I really don’t have a clue, and if I did wouldn’t give a shit. I pointed that out to him, but he said he’d rather err on the side of caution if it was all right by me.’
From that, it seemed Alex hadn’t told her about Christine McGuigan’s murder. Why should he? I supposed. It was all over that morning’s press, and the presumed link to the other had been made public, but for all her years in Spain, Shirl can’t read either Castellano or Catalan worth a damn, and he knew that. Why alarm her more than necessary?
‘Did you have any hint he was going to leave?’
‘Course not. I dunno what the hell he thought. That I’d tie him to the bedpost if I twigged he was thinking about it? He really didn’t know me, Primavera, did he? The only thing I wanted from him was commitment. At the first sign it wasn’t there I’d have driven him to the airport myself.’
I nodded agreement, for I knew that to be true.
‘And yet . . .’ She stopped. ‘No, I’m chasing things that aren’t there.’
‘Go on,’ I prompted. ‘What were you going to say?’
‘Nothing.’ She hesitated. ‘It’s just . . . When we arrived at your place for dinner on Friday, there was a moment then, when I thought he was acting as if he’d been rattled by something. But that was all; just a moment, then he was his usual smiling self. You didn’t notice anything, did you?’
‘No, I didn’t,’ I told her. But I couldn’t have, could I? Because they’d barely arrived before I was outside punching lumps out of the soon to be late Christine McGuigan, for a reason that had turned out to be significantly off the mark.
Fourteen
Shirley’s chauffeur-driven lift was coming for her early next morning, so we called it quits around ten thirty, after a stiff coffee for the road. In case you’re wondering, Shirley drank most of the cava and I didn’t finish the Drambuie, so I was okay to drive.
The house was quiet when I climbed the stair from the garage. I looked in on Tom; he was still awake, and reading. He’s a traditionalist in that respect: Susie gave him a Kindle reader for his tenth birthday, but he prefers real books. He had the self-satisfied smile of a winner on his face. ‘Jonny might be a champion golfer,’ he told me, ‘but he’s rubbish at the PGA Tour on X-Box.’
‘What about Uche?’
He shook his head. ‘His thumbs don’t work at all.’
I left him to dream of his triumphs, and went downstairs to the front terrace, to look out on to the square. La Terrassa was still open, and the guys were sitting outside. I went across to join them. Jonny offered me a drink, but I stuck to mineral water, like him, since I didn’t fancy alcohol, and I knew that another coffee would keep me awake.
‘How’s Shirley?’ he asked.
‘Disappointed. Let down. Steaming mad. Mystified. Any one of those, maybe all of them. But she’s not going to brood over it.’ I told him about her cruise plan, then I had to explain to Uche about the crisis, and Patterson’s vanishing act, since Jonny hadn’t mentioned it to him.
‘Perhaps it’s all a charade,’ he suggested. ‘When she gets on board he’ll be waiting for her.’
‘If he is, he’ll walk the plank. You can be sure of that. Shirley doesn’t play silly games, and she doesn’t take prisoners either.’
‘Ouch!’ he chuckled. ‘Remind me to be very polite to the lady when she gets back.’
‘Hey,’ Jonny called out, suddenly, ‘you had a call earlier. Man, English.’
‘Name?’
‘Didn’t leave one. He said he’d tried your mobile, but it was off.’ (True: I didn’t want to be disturbed at Shirley’s, and if Tom had needed me he had the landline.) ‘I asked him if he wanted to leave a message, but he said it wasn’t important.’
‘Journalist, possibly?’ I suggested
‘Don’t think so, he wasn’t pushy.’
‘So not a salesman either. Ah, bugger him. If he’s keen he’ll try again tomorrow.’
The three of us discussed our plans for the next day. I told them about my trip to the winery. The guys were going to Pals in the morning, to practise and for Jonny to confirm his touring pro relationship. His manager had been at work during the evening, negotiating terms on his client’s behalf. He told me what they were: not much money, in the first year at least, but he had pre-emption rights on the practice ground over even the club teaching pro, and he could play the course whenever he liked, with his guests at half price.
I left them to enjoy the prospect of a quiet day, and hit the sack. I slept like a brick, and woke early the next morning, clear-headed and full of enthusiasm, feeling as if I had a hangover in reverse. I wondered about it for a little, then remembered Jonny’s home truth over dinner at Can Roura, about me having withdrawn into my place of safety. The trip to the winery, even though it wasn’t very far, only to the slopes on the far side of the bay, was a step outside, and it was exciting me, without giving me the hang-up that the consulate job had, through the requirement that it involved handing over Tom’s care to someone else.
I chose a business suit for the visit, a lightweight dark number but with a skirt rather than trousers. There’s power dressing and then there’s overpower dressing: I was the absent owner’s sister-in-law, and however enthusiastic the manager had sounded on the phone, I didn’t want him to get the idea that I was there to intimidate him.
As it turned out, I couldn’t have even if I’d been so inclined. The boss man, whose name was Manolo Blazquez, would not have been intimidated by Attila the Hun. He was the manager by title, but he had owned the company before selling it in the hope of extra investment, and of access to new markets. He was also its principal oenologist, its production director, one of the most respected in all of Spain.
Miles had tied him into a five-year earn-out, with the final price related to performance. They had spent the first eighteen months or so getting to know each other. One thing my brother-in-law had learned about Manolo was that he was a better wine-maker than he was a manager, but he didn’t want to take the risk of antagonising the heart and soul of his investment by parachuting in some guy with an MBA and an attitude. That’s why he had asked me to take on the role. ‘You’ll be a director,’ he’d told me, ‘but I don’t want you to direct. Support, suggest, cajole where necessary, but don’t give him the impression that he’s no longer the man in charge on the ground. This is a three-generation family business, and he’s proud of it.’
He was indeed. The former owner of Bodega Blazquez was a stocky man in his fifties with hair that was more pepper than salt, and with wine in his blood. He had an eye for the ladies as well, I could tell, but he had the good sense to keep it hooded as he welcomed me to his oak-furnished office, in a stone building that had once been a farmhouse. In fact, his father had been born there, as he told me during a quick lecture on the foundation and evolution of the business. The tour he gave me showed that it had grown indeed, into something pretty substantial, with factory sheds that were less than twenty years old, and modern equipment, some of which had been bought with new money injected into the business by Miles.
‘At this moment,’ he told me, when it was over and we were lunching in the boardroom, ‘I sell pretty much one hundred per cent of my annual production as soon as it is confirmed. Most goes to our major wholesaler in Emporda, but I hold some back for direct sales to the public and to supply local specialists like your friend Ben Simmers. Often, though, I sell whole vintages years ahead of their maturity date, to hotel groups across Spain. However, I believe that our quality is such that we can double our sales and our profits by tapping into new foreign markets, through Mr Grayson’s connection with the business.’
‘That’ll mean doubling your production, won’t it? Is there spare capacity in this site?’
‘No,’ he admitted, ‘but I have plans. They will involve more investment, and the purchase or leasing of more land so that we can increase our capability. I have mentioned this to Mr Grayson, and he has told me to put it before you.’
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Go ahead.’
‘Not now,’ he replied, ‘not today. I would like to put formal proposals to you and to Mr Bravo.’ He was another guy I had still to meet; he was at sub-board level in the bank that represented Miles in Spain. ‘What I would like to do, Mrs Blackstone, is to have meetings with you every fortnight, either here, or I will come to you in St Martí.’
‘Here will be fine,’ I declared, ‘unless I can’t make it across for any reason; if my son were to need me, for example.’
‘Very good. In that case I will make my presentation to you and to Mr Bravo in two weeks’ time.’
I thought over what he had told me on the drive back to St Martí. Blazquez had, it seemed to me, something of the entrepreneur in him, but he didn’t strike me as being a gambler. His insistence on having the finance guy sit in on our meeting struck me as prudent. He had plenty to gain by increasing profit, but as much to lose by under-performing. Bravo’s role would be that of a risk assessor, as well as a banker.
I was still pumped up by the meeting when I put the car away and climbed up and into the house. It was three thirty and the place was empty; that didn’t surprise me, since Jonny had warned me that he and Uche were likely to spend all day at Pals, on the range and in the small gym that the club’s owners had just installed.
I fed and watered Charlie, priority number one, then took a bottle of water from the fridge and strolled out on to the front terrace, my mind still full of product ranges, output volumes, margins and so on. I wasn’t thinking of anything else as I glanced down into the square, and so it took me a while to realise that someone, a lean, grey-haired man, was waving at me from a table in front of Esculapi.
I did a triple take. On first glance I thought, vaguely familiar, on second, no, it can’t be, and on the third time of asking myself, Jesus Christ, it is!
‘Mark,’ I shouted. ‘Wait there!’ I left the water bottle on the table, ran downstairs and out through the front gate. Charlie decided that he was coming too and I didn’t have time to argue, so the pair of us crossed the square to where he was sitting.
He smiled and glanced at the bouncing Labrador as I took a seat. ‘Faithful hound, huh?’
I looked for the elbow crutches that he’d used the last time we’d been together, but I saw only a stick. Knowing him, I reckoned it probably had a sword in it ‘That’s him, but what the . . . Mark, what are you doing here? How did you get here?’
‘Eurostar to Paris, then TGV to Perpignan, and finally by hire car down here. My consultant in London isn’t keen on me flying. The remission is stable for now, but we don’t know enough about the new drug regime to be certain of its reaction to air travel.’
‘There are worse ways to travel than French trains,’ I said. ‘But what about my first question? Why are you here?’
His MS has affected his facial expressions; the muscles seem to work more slowly than those of a well person. He became sombre, in stages, as if he was taking off one mask and putting on another.
‘It’s necessary,’ he replied. ‘I was asked to come. Those people you asked me to find, the soldier surgeon and her sister, the daughters of your mate’s missing boyfriend. I traced them, no problem, but when I did I rang alarm bells like you would not believe. You are into something, Primavera, that nobody wanted stirred up. Now it has been, I’ve been engaged, retained, to get all the bees back into the hive.’
‘What do you mean, retained?
And why you?’
‘By whom? Her Majesty’s Government, and others, including Interpol. Why me? Because it’s what I do. I call myself a security consultant, as you know. That has a multitude of meanings and connotations, but among them . . . I’m a freelance. My background is military intelligence and the security service. I haven’t been in the field for years, since way before the MS thing developed, but in this case, I’ve been asked to come out here, first to put you right about a few things, then to go on from there, as far as I need to. All of them revolve around your friend’s absconded partner.’
‘Patterson Cowling?’
He looked around, checking that there was nobody else in earshot: early summer Tuesdays are quiet in St Martí, so there wasn’t. ‘That’s the guy,’ he murmured.
‘The retired spook.’
‘That’s your assumption,’ he said, ‘but you’re wrong; about this man at any rate. Patterson Cowling was a specialist in pro-Palestinian groups in the Middle East. He was MI6, but he was an analyst, never had a foreign posting, and worked anonymously at Vauxhall Cross, the HQ building in London. He did indeed have two daughters, Major Fleur Cowling and Ivy Cowling, now Mrs Victor Benson. I called my Ministry of Defence contact yesterday and asked where Fleur was based. Reasonably enough she wanted to know why I wanted to find her so I told her that something had come up involving her father. An hour later, no more, I had a home visit from two guys, a detective chief superintendent and a DI. We had a bit of ritual dancing, but they’d been briefed on my status, and on your earlier approach to your mate Dale, so all they wanted to do was tie the two of us together. Once they understood the background, they were able to open up to me.’
My mouth felt dry, possibly because it was hanging open slightly. I mouthed the words, ‘Agua con gas’ . . . fizzy water, in English . . . to the tall waiter standing in the doorway. He understood and nodded.
‘Open up about what?’ I demanded. ‘If Patterson isn’t, or wasn’t, a spook, then what the hell is he and why is everyone so excited about him?’
As Easy as Murder Page 22