‘The police showed me a photo.’
I’ll swear he went white under his tan. ‘You didn’t tell them who she was, did you?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Will they find out?’
‘Not unless her mug’s on the police computer and they do a check. They won’t, though.’
My Dad stared at the empty fireplace. ‘Let it rest, son.’
‘It’s hard for me to do that. The woman’s tried to extort money from you; now she’s persecuting you.’
‘I know, I know. She’s a nasty piece of work. But I set myself up for it. I should have stopped the procedure when Arthur was called away. Christ, I should never have done it in the first place. I should have told her that if she wanted a general she’d have to go to the dental hospital.’
‘You mean there could be professional implications for you if the story comes out?’
‘It’s possible.’
‘But that’s ridiculous,’ I protested. ‘You’ve practised impeccably for thirty-five years.’
‘Means nothing. If this goes public I could be for the high jump. So please, son. Let’s just hope that she’s got her frustration out of her system. Leave her alone.’
I had never seen him like this before, not even after my Mum’s death, when he hit the bevvy pretty hard. That made me even angrier with Mr and Mrs Neiporte, but I heard what he was saying. ‘Okay,’ I said, eventually. ‘I’ll steer clear . . . until the next time she calls you, or shows up anywhere near me. She does that, and she gets a correction, as a friend of mine used to say.’
Chapter 11
By the time Grandma Mary, Janet and Jay came back from the harbour, I had reassured my Dad as best I could. I’d also given him the bad news about Joe Donn. He was as shocked as I knew he’d be, and he asked me for the funeral details, insisting that he’d be there if it meant cancelling appointments.
I kept an eye on Mary over lunch, but she didn’t seem worried about him. Sometimes, the closer you are to someone, the less likely you are to notice change, if it’s gradual.
Once we had eaten, and Janet had been toileted, we got ready for the road. Rather than going straight back home, we took a detour over the hill to St Andrews. It was Friday afternoon, so Jonathan and Colin would be clear of school and I decided to give them a chance to see the wee cousin on whom they both doted. As I’ve said, I’m very attached to both my nephews, having become a bit of a surrogate dad since Ellen and Allan split up, but I keep a particular eye on Jonny. The older he’s grown, the more of myself I’ve seen in him, and I’m determined that only the good bits are going to come to the surface. Colin, on the other hand . . . well he’s just Colin. He’s as wild as purple heather, but I’ve a strange notion that if either of them takes after his father and becomes a work-obsessed nerd, it’ll be him.
There was a time when Allan Sinclair tried to be a normal family guy. My Dad and I took him golfing with us, but he was crap; he just didn’t like the game. I tried him out at fishing, but all he ever did was fall in. He joined a five-aside group at work, but broke his ankle. He even joined a rough shooting group, but after not very long they asked him to stay away for everyone’s safety. Then the job in France came up; he moved Ellie and the kids out to a remote picturesque village, and left them there all day as he worked longer and longer hours. Finally, my sister did the inevitable; she moved out, went home to Fife and found a teaching job. Allan made a few noises, but the truth was that he was so wrapped up in his computer development work that he hardly noticed.
We found the lads where I’d guessed, kicking a ball around outside their mother’s school, waiting for her to finish her week’s admin so that she could knock off too. If Ellie was surprised to see us, she didn’t show it, but she did button-hole me at the first opportunity. ‘You seen Mac?’ she asked. She’s always been less reverent towards our father than me.
‘Yup.’
‘What’s up with him? I was down there with the boys last weekend and he was like a bloody grizzly. Colin was mucking around, and he actually fetched him a clump round the ear. He’s never done that before. I don’t remember him ever laying a finger on either of us when we were kids. I hit the roof, of course; I took the boys home, and I haven’t spoken to him since. I’m worried about him, though, Oz. Has he said anything to you?’
I hadn’t been ready for that, and I was angered by it, but I busked it as best I could. ‘Yes. He’s got a bit of man’s trouble,’ I said, mysteriously, but as casually as I could make it sound. ‘It’s the sort of thing that comes with age, and it’s nothing serious, so don’t worry about it.’
‘What, you mean getting up to pee in the middle of the night, that sort of man’s trouble?’
‘You get the idea.’ Being a good actor is an advantage in many ways. ‘Make allowances for him; give him a wide berth for a while if you think it’s best. I’ll give him a bollocking and tell him to make it up with Colin. He seems to be growing by the day too. Is he needing a new bike?’
‘In-line skates,’ she replied. ‘You know, roller-blades. They’re the rage in St Andrews right now.’
I slipped her a hundred from the roll in my pocket. ‘Buy them and tell him they’re from the Old Man. I’ll get the dough off him next time I see him.’
She took it, but snorted. ‘It’ll cost him more than that. Jonny’s still upset with him; you know how he looks out for his wee brother.’ Without a word, I peeled off another hundred and handed it over. My Dad’s tab was building up, and I’d make sure he paid it too. He hadn’t told me about clouting the wee fella, because he’d have known for sure how I’d react. ‘Colin’s the safest kid in St Andrews, you know,’ she continued, with a strange, soft, un-Ellie-like look of pride in her eyes. ‘He’s a little bugger, but he gets away with it, because none of his pals would dream of tackling Jonny.’
‘Jonny? He’s as nice a kid as you’d meet in a day’s march. I’ve never seen him lift a hand to anyone.’
‘He doesn’t have to. There’s just something about him behind all that niceness that says “Don’t. You wouldn’t really want to do that, would you.” It’s not threatening, but it’s just as persuasive. You were the same when you were his age, you know.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes, you. Maybe you never realised it, but you were a man of respect at secondary school. Big Man on Campus, that sort of thing, although you never, ever threw your weight around. And of course at primary, you had me to look out for you.’ A job she’d done very well, I conceded.
‘Maybe it’s me the lads don’t want to cross now,’ I suggested. ‘Or big Darius. Are you still seeing him?’
My sister has a boyfriend. Darius Henke is one of the top performers in the Global Wrestling Alliance, a team-mate of my friends Everett Davis, Jerry Gradi and, of course, Liam Matthews.
‘Yes, but not in St Andrews. I don’t want to be the talk of the town. When he’s free, I park the boys in Anstruther and we go somewhere nice. I’ve seen quite a bit of him lately, ’cos he’s been on the injured list.’ I’d heard that from Liam. ‘Anyway, it’s neither him nor you. Jonny doesn’t stand in anyone’s shadow.’
I looked across at him as we spoke. If anything, he seemed even taller than the last time I’d seen him, not that many days before; his features were taking on an adult cast and his shoulders seemed to be widening, taking on the bony look that comes with adolescence. ‘Has he got a girlfriend yet?’ I asked.
‘There’s someone in his year that he’s friendly with, a lawyer’s daughter. I don’t encourage it, though. They’re too young.’
I grinned at her. ‘When they stop being too young, there won’t be a fucking thing you can do about it. Want me to have a chat with him?’
It was my sister’s turn to smile. ‘There was a time, not that long ago, when I’d have said that would have been like sending him to the Casanova school for chastity. But you seem to have mellowed as a thirty-something. Aye, go on, if you want.’
‘Bring them down to
see us then. Come next weekend, in fact, before Darius gets signed off the crocks’ list.’
Ellen pursed her lips, looking doubtful. ‘Oh, I don’t know about bringing Darius. We’ve never done the deed, so to speak, under the same roof as the boys.’
‘Bloody hell, sister,’ I laughed. ‘Do you want me to have a talk with you as well?’
Chapter 12
Joe’s funeral was a strange affair from Susie’s point of view. He was her father and yet she gave a sort of precedence to his sister-in-law Mira . . . her aunt, although I don’t believe that she had any idea that she was. The crematorium chapel was full to overflowing; I knew that the old boy had been popular, but the turnout of colleagues, golf buddies, friends and neighbours took me by surprise. After the service was over and the curtains had closed . . . I always find that sort of send-off a bit theatrical . . . I took the precaution of calling the hotel in Bothwell that we had booked for the reception, and telling them to double the order of sandwiches.
True to his word, my Dad came through from Fife. He and Mary stayed close to Susie and me in the chapel, and we were well into the reception before I was able to isolate him for the word I wanted to drop into his shell-like. He took the rocket I gave him with appropriate contrition, promised to make a fuss of both Colin and Jonny, and even promised to send me a cheque for two hundred quid. ‘Consider it a fine for being a grumpy old bastard,’ I told him. ‘And it’ll be double for a second offence.’
I had hoped that Joe’s send-off would draw a line under the unpleasantness in my life, and it did . . . for a day or two, at least. I worked on my movie script but enjoyed my break at the same time, getting a round of golf in at the new Loch Lomond course. It isn’t too far from the estate, so I’d become a member. Pricey, but it’s a great course.
I was able to play at home too; the previous owner of the place was a golf nut and he’d laid out three holes in one corner, well away from the house. It had been a real selling point as far as I was concerned. Old Willie, the gardener, grumbled about having to keep the greens cut, but he was a master at it. I’d even inherited a golf cart, an electric buggy which joined the ranks of my favourite toys . . . and Janet’s too. The pair of us liked nothing more than jumping into it of a morning and cruising the place, and if you have a garden that’s the size of a small county it helps to have something to get around in.
The estate’s one deficiency, from a Janet point of view, was its lack of outdoor facilities. This was brought home to me by my younger nephew, when Ellie brought them . . . and Darius . . . for the promised weekend. ‘You know, Uncle Oz,’ said Colin, as he climbed up beside me for a trip in the buggy, ‘it’s a pity Janet doesn’t have a proper playground.’
I blinked at him in surprise. ‘What are you talking about, young man? This whole place is her playground. She’s got a swimming pool, and a wee golf course and everything.’ As I spoke I looked across the field and saw Jonny, with a better action than mine, hit a near perfect wedge shot to about four feet from the pin; as I watched him I decided I’d give him Joe’s Callaways, since he looked good enough to handle them. The lad seemed to have set out on a futile attempt to teach Darius the basics of the game . . . it was bound to be futile because when you’re six feet ten, golf is bloody nearly impossible.
‘But she doesn’t have a swing,’ Colin countered, bringing my attention back to him, ‘or a slide, or a climbing frame.’
‘Which you would also find useful?’ I suggested. He gave me a wide-eyed, innocent, ‘Who? Me?’ smile.
He had a point, though. When I mentioned it to Susie she agreed with him, and so we told Jay to hire a contractor and get it done. ‘I’ll build it myself,’ he volunteered. ‘Give me a shopping list of the things you want and I’ll source them. Installation won’t be a problem; it’ll just be a matter of setting them in a solid foundation. We’ve got a cement mixer here and all the other tools I’ll need.’
That evening Colin and I went net-surfing and found a website called ‘rainbowplay’, which offered a fantastic range of climbing frames, sandpits, picnic tables, club-houses, and even tree-houses ‘for gardens that don’t have trees’. I was as hooked as he was, so I called their enquiry number and ordered the lot, plus a small club-house for delivery to Ellie’s garden in St Andrews. (What’s the point of being a rich uncle if you don’t act like one?)
That was a great weekend, a time of idyllic, undisturbed existence . . . and then the bombshell hit.
To be exact, it came through the front door of the Gantry Group headquarters building, in a padded envelope addressed to Susie and marked ‘personal’. She’d have opened it too, only she didn’t go to the office that morning, but straight to a site meeting at a major housing development that we had launched on the outskirts of Glasgow. This project was so big, it was more new town than housing estate, with retail units and a new primary school, towards which the Group was contributing a large chunk of money. It was called New Bearsden, and it was to have the prestige to match the original version, one of Greater Glasgow’s swankiest suburbs.
The parcel lay unopened in her in-tray, on her secretary’s desk, until, at just after eleven am, before the eyes of an astonished Denise, it gave a soft ‘crump’ (at least that’s how she described it) and burst open of its own accord, sending a sheet of flame high into the air. By the time she stopped screaming and recovered enough composure to grab the nearest fire extinguisher, the package was reduced to ash along with the rest of Susie’s morning mail, and the in-tray was a lump of melted plastic on a badly scorched desk.
Gerry Meek was the first of the senior executives on the scene. He had the presence of mind to do two things: one, lock the office door behind him so that no one else could see what had happened; and two, call me. Jay and I were in the car, the Lotus Elise that was another of my toys, in less than two minutes and heading for Thornliebank. Gerry had been for calling the police straight away, but I had told him to do nothing until we got there. Jay drove, and managed to break my unofficial world record for the trip. All the way there, one name kept repeating itself in my mind.
It must have showed on my face. ‘That woman?’ he asked, as we pulled up at the office. ‘The paint-chucker?’
‘I can’t think of anyone else,’ I told him.
He gave me a long look. ‘Boss,’ he murmured, barely above a whisper, but audible in the car’s tiny cockpit, ‘are you going to tell me the story?’
So I explained. Since I trusted Jay with my safety and that of my family, I felt that I could trust him also with the truth about my Dad’s predicament. He listened, with neither comment nor question until I was finished. When I was he nodded his head and pursed his lips. ‘Yes,’ he exclaimed, ‘I can see why they’d be frustrated, and why they’d want to get back at you. What do we know about this couple?’
I told him the little that my Dad had told me. ‘He’s a lab technician, is he?’ he mused. ‘Come on, let’s see what he might have been up to.’ He opened the car door and twisted himself out. I followed suit; I’m a bit bigger than Jay, so it took me a second or so longer.
I led the way inside and made straight for Gerry Meek’s office. He looked scared, understandable in the circumstances. ‘Before we go any further,’ I began, ‘is there anything about this company that I don’t know about? Are there any secrets that you and Susie might have kept from me? Have any threats been made against the business? Have we crossed the wrong people?’
‘No, Oz, nothing at all. I’ve been racking my brains for a reason for this but I can’t come up with one.’ He sounded desperate with worry. I wished I could put him out of his misery, but I couldn’t.
‘Let’s see the mess, then.’
He took us through to Susie’s outer office and unlocked the door. ‘Where’s Denise?’ I asked, as we surveyed the black, soggy morass on the desk.
‘I sent her home. She got the fright of her life. The thought of what could have happened if she’d opened that envelope . . .’
‘
It was addressed to Susie,’ I reminded him, ‘and marked “personal”. Denise wasn’t meant to open it.’ I had been on auto-pilot until then, keeping everything under control, but in that instant a huge wave of rage surged through me. ‘The bastard who did this is dead,’ I said. ‘As good as in the fucking ground.’
I hadn’t been speaking to him, but I think I scared Gerry even more. ‘Oz, we’d better get the police.’
‘Why?’ I snapped back at him. ‘Because of a small accidental office fire that was put out inside a minute?’
‘But it wasn’t,’ the finance director wailed. ‘You know it wasn’t.’
‘I know fuck all of the sort. I’m looking at a pile of wet black ash here, that’s all. Denise is a smoker, isn’t she?’
‘Yes, but not in the off . . .’ He caught my look and stopped in mid-sentence.
‘When’s Susie due back?’
‘This afternoon, I think. She said she’d have lunch with the guys at the site.’
‘She hasn’t called in? You haven’t said anything to her?’
Gerry’s expression was all over the place as he looked at me; he was seeing someone he’d never met before. ‘No, she hasn’t been in touch.’
‘Good. That gives you a chance to get that desk out of here and off to the scrapper.’
‘But what’ll I tell Susie?’
‘Nothing. That’s my job. I’ll decide what to tell her, but I do not want this incident going public. Understood?’
I’ve come to believe that life is a constant stream of irony, of gut-wrenching, jaw-dropping perversity. I’d no sooner given Gerry Meek the heavy message than the sound of sirens invaded the office, growing louder and louder until there was no doubt about their destination. I looked out through the Venetian blinds, and gave a crazy laugh as a police traffic car, all day-glo flashes and blue lights, drew to a halt right outside the window.
Unnatural Justice (Oz Blackstone Mysteries) Page 8