‘You’re not an idiot, Dad,’ I told him, quietly. ‘You’re a very nice man who knows nothing of the dark side of human nature. So what do you plan to do? Go to the police yourself ?’
He shook his head, firmly. ‘Doing that would get you and Susie all over the bloody tabloids just as quickly, and inevitably mud would stick to me. I can’t have that, for Mary’s sake, or your sister’s, or the boys’.’
‘You’re not thinking of paying them, are you?’
‘If it comes to it.’
I could feel my eyes pulling at the corners as they narrowed. ‘What’s his name? This wee blackmailer, what’s his name?’
‘Neiporte.’ He spelled it out. ‘Walter Neiporte. He sounded American. The wife’s name’s Andrea; I’d say she was English. She said she works as a secretary in a hotel up behind Kingsbarns, and I believe that he’s a lab technician at St Andrews University. They haven’t been on my list for very long. This was only the third time the woman had been to the surgery. He’s never been.’
‘Address?’
‘They live in Pittenweem. Do you remember me slowing and looking at someone on the way through here? If you do, that was her.’
I had had only a brief glimpse, from a distance, but I could remember her, and also the fact that my Dad had noticed her: tall, dark-haired, maybe thirtyish, although it had been hard to tell from so far away.
‘How did your discussion finish?’
‘With me grabbing him by the scruff of the neck and running him through the door. But then he phoned me that night. He said that he wasn’t kidding, and that if I hadn’t agreed to pay him off by next Monday at the latest, then he’d do what he’d threatened.’
‘Mmm.’ I looked down at my pint. My Dad was almost through his second, but mine was untouched. I shoved it across to him. ‘You drink that. I’ll drive back.’ I picked up a filled roll . . . tuna mayonnaise . . . and walked over to the bar. There was a pay-phone in the far corner, with a telephone directory beside it, a year out of date and dogeared from heavy use, but still in one piece. I picked it up and scrolled through it to the letter ‘n’. The Neiporte clan is not thick on the ground in the East Neuk of Fife, but there was one, forename Walter, listed as residing at Grizelda Cottage, Main Street, Pittenweem. I knew exactly where it was; the name had fascinated me when I was a kid: it made me think of witches and stuff. In those days I thought they were fun, but now I knew different.
The third pint was gone when I got back to the table. I picked up the last roll and motioned my Dad towards the door, returning the empties as we left. (Bartenders like that small courtesy; it makes them more likely to fill your glass right up to the top next time.)
We collected Jonny, walked back up the winding path to the club car park, dumped the clubs in the boot of the old Jag, changed our shoes, then I drove back to Enster. Back at the house, I stayed in the car as Mac the Dentist climbed out, not showing a trace of unsteadiness.
‘Where are you going?’ he asked.
‘We need Pampers for Janet. I’d better get some, just in case we forget tomorrow.’ If my Dad had thought about it he would have remembered that his granddaughter was two years old, and toilet trained.
As soon as I turned out of the drive, my rage released itself. It flowed through me and there was nothing I could do about it. I felt ferocious, in a way I had only known once before in my life, when I found out the truth about Jan’s death. This was almost as bad. This man, these people, were threatening my father’s good name, and they were using his only weakness . . . me . . . as a lever.
I parked a fair distance from Grizelda Cottage, round the corner, past the legendary Pittenweem fish and chip shop, and walked the rest. Just as I turned into the main street, I saw the woman again, leaving the house and walking away in the opposite direction; going for the fish suppers, maybe. Closer to, I could see that she looked pretty tasty. By the time I reached the gate, all the old Oz was back, cold and calculating and in control. It did occur to me that there might be kids in the house, but if there were I’d give them a tenner and send them after their mother.
I rang the doorbell; as I waited I glanced around the front garden. It was untidy, but there were absolutely no signs of youngsters, no toys, bikes, footballs or anything like that.
The door opened and a man looked out at me. ‘Yes?’ he said in a slight drawl.
‘Walter?’ I asked politely.
He nodded, and I saw the light of recognition in his eyes, just about half a second before I hit him and they glazed over. I caught him in the middle of the forehead, a good spot if your hands are hard enough. I pulled it a bit, so I didn’t knock him out, just stunned him. I shoved him into his hallway, then closed the door after myself as he tripped over his feet and fell backwards.
‘Whose idea was it?’ I asked as he scrambled back up. For a moment he thought about squaring up to me; maybe there was something about my smile that put him off that idea. ‘Whose idea?’ I repeated. ‘Yours alone, or both of you.’
‘I dunno what you’re talking about.’
I started another right-hander; he swayed back from it and as he did I sank my left fist well into his flabby gut. He groaned and sat down again, hard.
This time I jerked him to his feet, easily, to let him see how strong I was. ‘Don’t piss me about,’ I said evenly. ‘You and your wife threatened my father, you arsehole. You tried to extort money from him. But what you’ve got is me instead. Somehow or other, you thought that nice old Mac was a soft touch. Maybe you thought that guys like me will do anything to keep our names out of the paper. If that’s so, you were wrong twice. My Dad isn’t a mug, not at all. As for me, there is nothing I will not do to protect him.’ I had him by the lapels, his back against a door.
‘I could simply beat the shit out of you. That would be no problem. But it wouldn’t be enough. So I want you to listen to me, very carefully. I have a lot of money, and with it I have a lot of power. Being a Yank, you can probably understand that concept. So what I’m telling you is that if either you or your wife ever go near my father again, and if you go anywhere near the police or the press with this wicked story of yours, something very bad will happen to you. I’m not just talking about a good thumping here, you have to understand. I’m talking much worse than that; concrete Timberlands, that sort of stuff.’
The way his eyes widened, I knew right away that he was a believer. I smiled at him again. ‘You know something? I’m offended that you only asked him for fifty grand. If he’d paid it and I’d found out about it afterwards, that wouldn’t have been nearly enough to protect you from me.’
I let him go. ‘Don’t ever forget,’ I told him, knowing that he wouldn’t.
As I left the cottage, Andrea Neiporte was approaching the gate. She was carrying a parcel wrapped in shiny brown paper. Her mouth dropped open as I nodded to her on the way past. ‘Enjoy those,’ I said to her, ‘while you can still chew.’
As I walked into my Dad’s house he was waiting for me in the living room. I could hear Mary and Susie, Jonny and Janet, in the kitchen. ‘What did you do?’ he asked. ‘You didn’t pay him, did you?’ He had worked out about the Pampers all right.
‘I gave him what he was asking for, Dad, that’s all. Now forget it, unless he bothers you again.’
He looked at me as if I was someone he didn’t know quite so well. ‘And what will you do if he does?’
I laughed out loud. ‘What do you think I’ll do? I’ll have him killed.’
Chapter 4
It was all bluff and bluster, of course . . . at least I assumed my Dad thought it was . . . but it seemed to work. The threatened call on the following Monday didn’t happen, and he and I were able to breathe easier. I didn’t forget about the Neiportes, of course; I began to think about what I would do if they did resurface, but mostly it was at the back of my mind.
At the forefront was the world premiere of Skinner’s’s Festival, which Miles had decreed would be in the relatively new multiplex on Pi
cardy Place, in Edinburgh, on a Monday evening a couple of weeks into my gap between f ilming.
Susie was really pumped up for it; she had never been on my arm at one of these gala events. She was so determined to look good that she put in extra hours in the gym and the pool, just to tone herself up.
There was no way she could hide wee Mac, though. He was the product of my pre-Christmas break and a small but noticeable bump was already in evidence. (Actually, it was too early for a scan that would have told us for sure, not that we really wanted to know, but given that I was younger brother to a sister, we just assumed that he was going to be a boy.)
Wee Janet sensed something was up. As soon as she saw us dolled up, she knew for sure, and demanded to be taken with us. In fact she screamed bloody murder. If she had only said, ‘Pwease, Daddy,’ I might have relented and taken her with us, but she overdid it and Susie put her foot down. So she was promised another trip to the Magic Kingdom before the year was out . . . that’s what Susie calls being firm . . . and we headed off for Embru in our new BMW 7 series, with Jay at the wheel.
I was surprised by the size of the crowds outside the cinema, contained behind barriers on either side of the entrance. Miles was there first, waiting in the doorway to welcome us and the other cast members. I’d been in live situations often enough before, in my days as a wrestling announcer, but I was astonished by the cheering, the screaming even, as I stepped out of the car, holding my hand out to help Susie exit gracefully, without showing too much leg . . . or any knicker, as she put it. ‘Listen to that,’ I whispered to myself, as the sound washed over me. ‘There was a time when you walked around this city, and nobody knew you.’
Then I looked over my shoulder, saw Liam Matthews emerging from a limo behind us, and my ego was deflated: he’s a real babe magnet, is Liam.
Jay came round the car to join us as we stepped on to the red carpet. I had my left arm around Susie’s shoulder as I waved to the crowd on the left, then turned to the right where the photographers were banked up. We paused there for a minute or so; Liam and Erin, his girlfriend, joined us, and we gave the snappers a ground shot, then Susie and I moved off towards Miles and Dawn at the door.
It was pure chance that I saw it when I did, a flash of yellow, out of the corner of my eye. I reacted instinctively, turning Susie away and putting my body between her and whatever it was. I sensed movement behind me as Jay dived to cover us, then I felt the splash of liquid hitting my shoulders and a sticky sensation on the back of my head. Then Jay had his arms around us both and was rushing us towards the door, past Miles and Dawn, both of them astonished, anger beginning to flare in his eyes.
‘What the fuck was that?’ I demanded as soon as we were safe inside. I put my hand up to feel the back of my head, but our minder stopped me.
‘Don’t touch it,’ he said, ‘it’s only paint, but you don’t want to get it all over you.’
‘Only!’ I barked. Osbert Blackstone is not known for losing his cool, but there are exceptions.
‘Try shit,’ Jay murmured, ‘or acid, or phosphorous. I’ve had all of those chucked at me in the army.’ I looked away from the door and at him for the first time. At once I saw that he had taken most of it. The side of his face and the back of his suit were plastered with the thick yellow substance. I looked down at Susie. I was relieved to see that she was untouched, but she was not a happy lady.
‘What the hell was that about?’ she exploded. ‘Don’t tell me that was yet another of your old girlfriends making a statement.’
I shook my head. The only one who might have fallen into that category was Alison Goodchild, but she and I had squared accounts a couple of years back. But old girlfriends’ new boyfriends, now that was another matter.
Miles and Dawn appeared by our side, with Liam and Erin. ‘Are you okay?’ asked my ex-brother-in-law, anxiously.
I nodded, beginning to rein in my anger. ‘Fuck me, man,’ I exclaimed, ‘wouldn’t we have had enough coverage, without pulling a stunt like that?’
For half a second his eyes narrowed, then he laughed. ‘Yeah,’ he said, in that Aussie-meets-LA drawl of his, ‘you’re okay. What about you, Susie?’
‘I’m fine,’ she snapped, ‘which is more than you’ll be able to say for the bastard who threw that stuff when I get hold of him! Have the police caught him?’
It was Liam who answered. ‘Not a chance. That lot couldn’t catch the clap. Whoever did it vanished into the crowd. I spoke to a couple of people behind the barrier, and to a couple of the security guys, but none of them saw anything but yellow paint.’
‘Bloody hell, Jay,’ exclaimed a voice from the side. ‘You look like a no parking zone.’ For all his levity, Ricky Ross looked anxious. ‘I’m sorry about that, Mr Grayson,’ he said . . . for an ex-detective superintendent, Ricky’s good at being deferential to the clients. He had a right to be sorry, too, as security chief for the event.
Miles shrugged. ‘Don’t worry about it. There’s not much you can do about something like that; it’s happened before now at my events. Last time it was in Melbourne; a couple of pop stars had their fur coats sprayed with creosote.’
‘Maybe not,’ the security consultant muttered, ‘but my guys are trained to react a sight faster than they did. We don’t even have a description of the assailant. I’ll catch up with it, though. The police will inspect all the telly footage and still shots that were taken. With luck, they’ll put a face to the paint-chucker and take it from there.’
‘I want to see it,’ I said. ‘When the police look at the tapes and the photos, I want to be there.’
Ricky looked at me. If he thought about telling me to forget it, he didn’t bother; he knew me better than that. ‘I’ll see what I can do. They might play ball.’
‘Of course they will. If it’s someone with a grudge against me, I’m liable to know them, am I not?’
‘True,’ he conceded, ‘but that’s for later. Right now we’d better get that stuff off you and Jay before it dries, and get you a new jacket befitting your status . . . sir.’
Chapter 5
As someone almost certainly did not say, ‘Apart from that, Mrs Kennedy, how did you enjoy your visit to Dallas?’
Apart from having a can of yellow paint chucked at her, Susie thought the premiere was great. She and I had never been out as a showbiz couple before, and once she recovered her composure and her temper . . . with the help of a couple of Jack Daniels and Coke in the hospitality suite . . . she settled into the role like the true star she is. She’d never shown any sign before of liking the limelight . . . she found her Businesswoman of the Year awards more embarrassing than anything else . . . but when we picked up early editions of the Daily Record and the Daily Mail on the way home, and found ourselves on the front pages, it topped off her night. The fact that I was plastered in paint, and being hustled inside by security, didn’t depress her at all. In fact, it made her laugh.
I read through the reports in both papers. The incident was reported, but not overmuch, because there wasn’t much to tell, and I had ordered the publicists to laugh it off by saying that quite a few of my old Edinburgh friends had been my fellow-members of the Idiot Tendency when we had all been lads together, and that I was looking forward to renewing acquaintance with one in particular, when I traced him. I wasn’t kidding; I had a mental shortlist of who the chucker might have been, and I was intending to find out. Having stuff tossed at me, and my pregnant wife, was no longer my idea of a laddish prank.
Susie, on the other hand, was so chuffed by the coverage that, first thing next morning, she called Mary, my stepmother, Ellie, my sister, and Joe Donn, her dark secret, to make sure they bought copies. The girls were suitably impressed . . . or made appropriate noises, at least . . . but Joe didn’t answer his phone. ‘Must have gone to get them already,’ Susie muttered.
I was working at home that day, having fixed a session with my dialogue tutor to take a first look at the script of Mathew’s Tale. I was working out
in the gym that’s part of the pool conservatory when Susie left for her office, on the South Side of Glasgow, across the Erskine Bridge . . . yes, some people really do use the damn thing. She had a board meeting that day and I was a director, but the agenda was routine and so she had said she would write my apology into the minutes. Joe wasn’t so lucky, though; he was needed to make up the quorum. I hoped he hadn’t forgotten; he was an even keener golfer than my Dad, and it took a lot to keep him off the course on a fine day.
My fine day was screwed almost as soon as I’d showered and dressed after my exercise programme. I was having breakfast with Janet and Ethel in our big kitchen, and looking forward to a game with my daughter in our enormous new garden. (Our games usually involve a ball. The way I see it, women’s football is going to be a big thing in years to come . . . it’s there already in the US . . . and there’s no harm in giving wee Janet as many career options as I can.) Our new numbers were ex-directory . . . of course . . . so when the phone rang, my instant assumption was that Susie had forgotten something and was calling from the office, or the car if she was stuck in traffic. No such luck; it was Ricky Ross.
‘What are you doing this morning?’ he asked, with no preliminary banter, which isn’t like him.
I told him.
‘Can you scrub it? Postpone it? The police want to see you.’
‘Uh?’
‘About last night, man. About the paint-chucking. I’ve leaned on young Ron Morrow at Gayfield, told him it was a fucking disgrace that it happened on his patch and that Miles Grayson will be asking questions of the chief if nobody’s apprehended. So now the boy’s taking it very seriously. He’s come up with a couple of images on video and still shots and he wants you to look at them.’
Unnatural Justice (Oz Blackstone Mysteries) Page 3