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by Quintin Jardine

  ‘Don’t push your luck, wee man,’ I whispered to him.

  Back in St Andrews I called in at the police office. The duty sergeant knew about the incident; he told me that the janitor had been interviewed and had insisted that after he had cleaned the Dungeon, he had put the grille back in place as usual. None of the bystanders were any help; not one of them had noticed the Dungeon or had seen Colin near it.

  ‘As far as we’re concerned, sir,’ the uniformed policeman told me, ‘the incident is closed. If your sister wants to sue Historic Scotland, that’s up to her, but we cannae help her. Are you sure your wee nephew didn’t move that cover himself?’

  ‘We’ll ask him when he’s well enough,’ I said. ‘But unless he’s been doing a lot of weight training for a six-year-old, there’s not a chance.’

  That evening I really did insist that there was to be no cooking. Ellie put up not a moment’s argument, and Jonathan chose the takeaways, which inevitably meant pizzas, with chips on the side. We maintained a certain standard though, by eating at the table rather than from trays.

  ‘What do you think, Oz?’ Ellen asked me, at last. ‘Do you think the people at the Castle are lying?’

  I shook my head. ‘Not for a minute. The sergeant told me that he knows the janitor well, and that he would vouch for him personally. There’s only one person who can tell us what happened. Maybe tomorrow we’ll be able to ask him.’

  Chapter 28

  I hate seeing children in hospital; I hated the experience as a child too. It only happened once, after I fell out of a tree and broke my arm, but I still remember how lonely I felt, lying there sleepless in the half-light of that crowded old ward, listening to other kids crying.

  For my nephew Colin, though, everything in life is an adventure. When we went in to visit him next morning, there he was, sitting on his bed with his back to a mound of pillows, wearing the Winnie the Pooh pyjamas which we had bought him the day before, happy as a Piglet in excrement, and eyeing up everything that was going on around him in the small ward.

  His left arm was bound securely to his chest, and the graze on his temple looked less vivid, although it was surrounded by a big dark bruise.

  ‘Hello, Mum,’ he said as we approached the bed. ‘Hello Uncle Oz. Hello Auntie Prim.’ He gave the three of us a superior look, as if he was enjoying his wounded soldier status, and was determined to make the most of it. Yet, to my surprise he ignored his brother.

  Ellen leaned down and kissed him, taking care not to touch his broken shoulder. ‘How are you, my wee man?’ she asked, laying a bag of assorted chocolate miniatures in his lap. Prim put a bag of apples beside it, and I gave him a new Game Boy, winning Most Favoured status in that instant.

  ‘I’m all right, Mum,’ he answered, proud and brave. ‘My shoulder doesn’t hurt. They give me pills for it, and last night they gave me something to make me sleep.’

  ‘The nurses look nice,’ Jonathan ventured. Colin shot him a look of pure disdain. There was to be only one centre of attraction, I guessed.

  I sat on the edge of the bed. ‘About yesterday, son,’ I began. ‘Tell me, how did you manage to get the cover off the Dungeon?’

  He looked at me as if I was daft. ‘The cover was off, Uncle Oz. I never touched it.’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’ I asked gently.

  ‘Yes,’ he protested. ‘It was there beside it.’

  ‘Did you see anyone take it off?’

  He shook his head, then winced, from a flash of pain in his shoulder. ‘Leave it for now, Oz,’ said Prim.

  ‘No, I can’t,’ I told her. ‘This wee rogue was in my care yesterday. I need to know everything that happened. And I’ll tell you this: if that sergeant’s been covering up for his pal the janitor, I’m going to have him.’

  I turned back to my nephew. ‘Come on, Colin. Tell me how you got down there. Did you try to drop in the way I did? Was the Dungeon deeper than you thought? Look, it’s okay; I’m not going to be angry with you. I brought you a Game Boy, didn’t I?’

  He smiled at me, but it was fleeting and uncertain. ‘I tripped up,’ he whispered.

  Something was wrong with that picture. I couldn’t help it; I frowned at him. ‘What did you trip over, Collie? It’s all smooth around the Dungeon. I looked around the edge, there was no ground scuffed up or anything.’

  ‘My lace was undone. I tripped on that.’

  ‘That sounds likely enough, Oz,’ said Ellie. ‘I’m always chasing after him to do his laces.’

  I ignored her. ‘No you didn’t, son. Your laces were tied tight. I did them myself, remember, and when I found you I checked to make sure they were still secure. Then later, in the ambulance, I undid them and took your trainers off. There’s something you’re not telling me. Isn’t there?’

  He looked at his lap, and picked up the Game Boy. I took it from him. ‘Not until you tell me, Colin.’

  His face had gone white, making the bruise on his temple seem even more vivid. As I stared down at him he glanced at his brother. ‘Jonny shoved me,’ he mumbled.

  ‘What?’ Ellen and I spoke together.

  ‘It was Jonathan. He pushed me in.’

  ‘No!’ my older nephew protested, his knowing eyes suddenly frightened. ‘Uncle Oz. .’

  I laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘It’s okay, son, it’s okay.’ I looked back at his brother. ‘Colin, Jonathan was with me all the time. He didn’t push you. What on earth made you think it was him?’

  ‘He’s mad at me.’

  ‘Why’s he mad at you?’

  ‘Because I started a fight at the school wi’ a bigger boy. He was bashing me and Jonny saw him and bashed him up, and a teacher saw him and he got lines to do, and he was mad at me. .’ The wee chap’s voice tailed off, and a big tear ran from his right eye down his cheek. I looked at my sister, and she at me; Colin had described an identical incident from our own primary schooldays. Ellie was the best fighter in the school.

  ‘I can well understand him being mad at you,’ she told her son, ‘but he didn’t push you into that Dungeon.’

  ‘But somebody did, Colin?’ I asked. ‘Is that what happened? ’

  He nodded, then winced again. ‘Yes, I was standing on the edge of the Dungeon, trying to see in, and I felt a hand in the middle of my back, and then someone shoved me. I remember falling, but I don’t remember anything after that, till you and Jonathan and the ambulance man.’

  ‘Before then,’ I asked him. ‘Did you see anyone?’

  ‘Just an old man and an old woman, but they were on the other side of that green bit. I didn’t see anybody else.’

  ‘But you’re sure someone pushed you?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, firmly. I gave him back the Game Boy.

  ‘You might have to tell this to the police, wee man. I’m going to see them as soon as we get back to St Andrews. I promise you, when we catch this character, he’ll be for a dungeon himself — for a lot longer than you.’

  Chapter 29

  Mac the Dentist is a formidable sight on the very rare occasions when he gets angry. Prim and I had called in at Anstruther after leaving Ellie and Jonathan in St Andrews. He had listened with mounting fury as I had told him Colin’s story.

  ‘What sort of animal would shove a wee boy down a twelve-foot drop?’ he barked. ‘If I could get my hands on the bastard, I’d give him a free root canal job — no anaesthetic, though.

  ‘What did the police say?’

  ‘Just about what I expected, Dad. I blew out the sergeant; I insisted on dealing with CID, and made a formal complaint to a Detective Inspector. He took it seriously — by which I mean that he didn’t just write it off as Colin’s imagination — but he was honest with me too. He took a look at the original report, then he told me straight out that unless the janitor turns out to have been lying about being on his break, they’ve got bugger all to go on.

  ‘There are no witnesses, none of the other visitors reported anything, and they’ve lost contact with them now
; no one thought to take their names and addresses. The guy promised me that he’d put out appeals on Radio Tay, Kingdom Radio, and in the local papers for anyone who was in the Castle at the time and who might have seen something, but he didn’t hold out any hope.’

  ‘Okay,’ said my Dad. ‘Don’t you worry about it any more. You get off to Glasgow; I’ll keep on top of the police. The Head of CID’s a patient of mine and he’s coming in on Thursday. I’ll make bloody sure he pulls out all the stops.’

  He turned as Prim came into the room carrying a tray laden with four mugs and a plate of biscuits. ‘Hello lass,’ he boomed, ‘and how are you? Bloody silly question though. I can see damn well how you are; you’re looking great.

  ‘How are the wedding plans coming along?’

  She grinned. ‘They’re taking shape. Oz has a quiet week ahead, before he goes to London to finish his part in the movie, so I’m trusting him to go up to Gleneagles and make the final arrangements — taking my mother with him, of course.’

  I looked at my father. ‘Did you know that “Mother in law” is an anagram of “Woman Hitler”?’ I asked him.

  ‘No, I did not; but I’ll grant you that it’s an interesting concept. A bit like, “Ascend in Paris” being an anagram of “Princess Diana”. Coincidence can be remarkable sometimes. Look at you, for example; everywhere you’ve gone lately, disaster seems to dog your footsteps.

  ‘Anyway, what about the date of this union of yours? Christ, here you are planning it, and I don’t even know whether Mary and I’ll be free or not.’

  ‘We’ll give you a clue,’ Primavera laughed. ‘It’ll be within the next two months and it’ll be on a Saturday.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ said Mary, coming into the room after tidying up in the kitchen. ‘I’ll keep them all free. Give us enough notice so that I can shop for a new outfit. Gleneagles demands it, I think. Don’t you agree, Mac?’

  If my Dad had been wearing glasses he’d have peered over them at her. ‘Frankly, my dear,’ he answered, disdainfully, ‘I doubt if Gleneagles gives a stuff. But if I’ve learned one thing in this life, it’s never to get in the way of a woman when she’s set course for a frock shop — not unless, as sure as twelve plus one is an anagram of eleven plus two — you want to end up with footprints on your chest.’

  Chapter 30

  We were back in Glasgow for six o’clock, having been invited to dinner by Everett and Diane Davis, in their big, comfortable villa in Cleveden Drive, in Glasgow’s West End. The house could have been custom-built for them; it dates from a time when high ceilings and wide doors were a standard feature of domestic architecture. In most modern houses, Everett would have difficulty standing up straight.

  Liam Matthews was there when we arrived, with his steady girlfriend, Erin Doyle, an Aer Lingus hostess who tried to fit her schedule round his. In its early days, the relationship between Liam and the Boss had been difficult — even I had had trouble with the Irishman then — and it was only his exceptional talent that had kept him in a job. But since Erin had come on the scene the mercurial Mick had straightened out his attitude, and had become one of the most popular members of the troupe.

  ‘How has your quiet weekend gone, you guys?’ Diane asked, as she handed us a drink. The Princess, as they call her on the show, is an absolute stunner. Her own relationship with Everett had known its problems too; there had been one huge crisis, but somehow it had served to bring them closer together, and to strengthen them as a team.

  ‘Not so quietly, I’m afraid,’ Prim answered. ‘Oz’s nephew managed to get himself dropped into a hole in the ground, up in the Castle in St Andrews. We’ve spent a good chunk of the last two days in and out of hospital.’

  ‘Is that one of the little lads you’ve had at some of the shows?’ Liam asked.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Careless of him, then.’

  ‘Careless of me, maybe, to let it happen,’ I told him. ‘But it wasn’t Colin’s fault. The poor wee chap had help; he was dazed after it, but he’s dead certain that someone shoved him in.’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Erin. ‘Who would do that?’

  ‘That’s the big question. The police are investigating, but there are no definite leads yet. We did have a call from them though, just before we came out tonight. They’ve found a local resident who says she saw a couple of kids horsing about in the area at the time. St Andrews isn’t all that big a place, so they have a fair chance of tracing them; that is if they’re locals, and not tourists.’

  Liam whistled. ‘The curse of Oz strikes again,’ he proclaimed. ‘First, those two guys down in London try to beat you up, and wind up in hospital. Now it’s your nephew ends up in an ambulance. Are you safe to be around, I asks myself?’

  I frowned at him. ‘You’re the second person today to make a crack like that. I’ve got to tell you, chum; my sense of humour’s wearing thin.’

  Chapter 31

  Outside, Glasgow moved slowly through the night, gearing itself up for the start of a new week. Our apartment sits high above the city, looking south towards and beyond the River Clyde. No one can see in, and the view from the big windows, which reach down to floor level, is too interesting and too beautiful for us to think of closing the curtains.

  Sat up in bed with my back against the high wooden headboard, I could see the traffic as it made its way across the Kingston Bridge. The main Clyde crossing is never quiet, not even in the middle of the night. A steady stream of cars, vans and heavier vehicles flowed in either direction on business legitimate, and no doubt in a few cases, slightly dodgy.

  Prim stirred beside me; she sort of snuffled in her sleep, then mumbled, ‘G’roff. .’ I couldn’t help smiling at her as she lay there. It’s the only time she ever looks vulnerable, like a kid. Awake, she’s always in control, always in charge of herself; at times, I confess, I look at her with a sort of private awe.

  I love her for all of it, though, and I respect her. Most of all I like her. I’m a lucky man, blessed with a host of interesting, intelligent and amusing friends, but above them all is Primavera Phillips. When she came into my life the effect was explosive; at first I was overwhelmed by it but when the shock waves died away the landscape of my life was different, and I could see things more clearly than ever before.

  She took me from Jan, yet she led me to her also; a lesser woman would have been embittered by the unwitting cruelty I showed her then, yet when that was over and I needed a crutch to keep moving, there she was propping me up. She didn’t push herself back into my life; indeed she wouldn’t have come if I hadn’t asked her. Yet I hadn’t hesitated. There’s a Paul Simon song, ‘Something so Right’; if I’m ever on Desert Island Discs, or anything like it, I’ll have them play that for Prim.

  Right then, looking down at her, I saw the lids of her left eye unstick themselves. ‘S’up?’ she mumbled. ‘Heartburn? Y’ know you shouldn’t eat garlic.’

  ‘What’s up with you?’ I chuckled. ‘You sounded as if you were giving someone the message there. What did I do?’

  ‘Not you,’ she said, awake now, and rolling over on to her side. ‘My Mum. I was having a dream about our wedding; I was in this fluffy white dress and she was fussing all over me.’

  ‘Fluffy white dress? You never told me that.’

  ‘Of course not. That’s women’s work.’

  ‘Fine, but you? In a big flouncy dress?’

  She smiled. ‘It’s okay, it won’t be a Royal Wedding job. It’ll be tight-fitting and simple, like I usually dress when we go formal. I’m even going to have it re-modelled afterwards so I can wear it again.’

  ‘Very economical. But what if I hadn’t overheard this dream of yours and I’d turned up in jeans, alongside you in the white dress?’

  She snorted. ‘As long as you turn up, I don’t care if you’re in your M and S boxers. But don’t worry about that; Susie’s helping me with the dress, and it’s Mike’s job to make sure that you turn up appropriately clad. The white tux that you
wear on the telly sometimes, that’ll be fine.’

  ‘Sod that. You’re wearing new — I’m wearing new.’

  ‘That’ll be good news for Slater’s,’ Prim murmured. Then she yawned. ‘But come on. You still haven’t answered my first question. What’s keeping you awake?’

  ‘My brain.’ I told her. ‘My over-active brain. I’ve been thinking about my Dad’s throwaway line today, and about what Liam said tonight. They’re right, both of them. Just lately, everywhere I’ve gone, mayhem’s dogged my fucking footsteps.

  ‘Susie comes to see us, and someone cremates her car right on our doorstep. I meet Noosh in Aberdeen and some gangster takes a shot at her. I go down to London with the GWA and two guys turn up looking to break my arms. I take the boys out for the day and someone shoves wee Colin into a bloody great hole.

  ‘On the basis of all that, my love — and I’m not even going to think of some of the other things that have happened over the last couple of years — am I, or am I not, an unlucky guy to be around?’

  Prim laid her left hand flat on my stomach. ‘On the basis of most things that have happened to me since I met you — and I’m not just talking about the silly money that seems to flow in our direction all the time — I’d say you’ve brought me more luck than anyone I’ve ever met.

  ‘Don’t get paranoid over a couple of silly remarks, Oz, please. Luck had nothing to do with any of those things, anyway, and none of them save one had anything to do with you. Someone — Stephen Donn, from the looks of it — had made a very specific threat to Susie before her car blew up. Noosh What’shername seems to have brought some heavy baggage back from Russia. As for Colin, we had that report of youngsters being seen in the vicinity, and shoving the wee chap into that Dungeon was so reckless and stupid that it only makes sense as a kids’ prank.’

  She paused, stifling another yawn. ‘The only thing that concerns you directly, is the London incident. We don’t know for sure who sent those men to do you. Maybe it was Stephen Donn giving you a warning not to get too close, maybe it was your rejected admirer or her husband, maybe it was someone completely different.