I gazed up at the familiar floor to ceiling windows that looked down on me and the rest of the city centre. As we came as close as we would, before the bridge dipped down and took us out of its sight, I could just make out the figure of a man standing where I had stood so often, looking down as I had done. For all I knew he could have been looking at Susie and me. I had no idea who he was, whether he was a good or a bad man, a happy or a sad man, and as I looked up at him, tiny in the distance, I realised that I didn’t give a fuck, either.
We rolled on under the Charing Cross flyover; when we emerged into the daylight on the other side, the traffic, as it always does there, began to pick up speed. By the time we passed the great forbidding bulk of Barlinnie Prison, one of the most famous divisions of what is known to some as the Windsor Hotel Group, we were pushing the limit.
Ewan Maltbie’s office junior was waiting for us when we arrived at Crawford Street. She said that she’d been told to wait with us and lock up after we were done, but I wasn’t having that. I told her that we’d lock up and drop the keys off. She left, a little doubtfully, but the proud possessor of an Oz Blackstone autograph, which I’d scrawled on the back of a photo she’d brought with her.
I could tell right away that Susie felt strange to be alone . . . husbands don’t count as company . . . in her father’s house, for the first time in her life. ‘Do you really want any of the furniture, Oz?’ she asked.
‘I don’t give a toss,’ I replied, honestly. ‘If you see anything you’d like, make a note and we’ll buy it from the estate, but to be truthful, I said we’d come simply because I thought it was something you’d want to do.’
She smiled up at me. ‘You’re a big softie, you know: but you were right. Even though there’s nothing here I’m going to want, other than the crystal Joe left me, it’s something I needed to do. It’s important that I feel like someone’s daughter. Understand?’
‘Sure. You take a wander around, and I’ll go and look for Joe’s computer.’ As I walked into the living room, I noticed that the display cabinets that had housed the crystal were empty, and that two big tea-chests marked ‘fragile’ stood in the middle of the room. Two golf bags, their hoods zipped up, lay on the floor beside them; our legacies, Susie’s and mine, from father and father-in-law.
But no computer. There was a table under the window that looked out in to the back garden, but there was nothing on it. I thought back to the last time I’d been in the house, before Joe’s death. No, it hadn’t been there then either. Somewhere else, then. ‘Phone lines, Osbert,’ I said to myself. ‘It must be near a phone point for the modem.’
There was a phone in the hall. An extension lead ran from the jack point. I followed it upstairs to Joe’s bedroom, where a phone sat on the bedside table. Another cable, a DIY effort this time, ran from that point. I traced it round the skirting and back to the door, but there it disappeared under the carpet. I went out to the landing and looked around, but I saw no wire resurface. I opened the nearest door, but that was the bathroom, so I tried the one next to it. Sure enough, just inside that door, the phone cable ran up the skirting and along the top, loosely, for Joe had been stingy with the staples.
No doubt the room had once been a bed-chamber, but its single-man owner had transformed it into a study. One wall was lined with shelving, there was a television set in one corner, with a video beneath, and beside the window, where the phone cable ended, there was a desk with a swivel chair. On the desk there was a phone handset . . . but no computer. ‘Don’t tell me he used an internet café for his e-mails,’ I whispered to myself. But then I looked at the box where the cable terminated.
It was fitted with an adaptor, turning one output into two. One of the sockets held the plug for the desk phone, but the other was vacant.
The desk had deep drawers on one side, and a cabinet in the other. I opened each in turn, expecting to find a laptop, but all I saw were personal files, assorted stationery items and a collection of movies on video. I looked at the titles: Joe had been a closet Clint Eastwood fan, it seemed.
Still, though, there was no computer. I reckoned that my internet café notion must have been right, for all the double socket, and I was about to give up, when my eye was caught by a cardboard container on the lowest of the bookshelves; it was open on one side and I could see the spines of the volumes that it held. I picked it up and shook them out into my hand. They were all soft-covered; one was a registration book for Windows 2000, another was a manual for Microsoft Word, and the third was the owner’s handbook for a seriously powerful Shoei laptop, complete with a fifteen-inch LCD screen and the fastest Pentium processor on the market.
I opened every drawer in that room again. I went back into Joe’s bedroom and searched it, not once, but twice. Finally I went back downstairs and opened every drawer and cupboard there. Susie came in from the garden as I was going through the sideboard. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.
‘Looking for Joe’s computer.’
‘Maybe you were wrong. Maybe he didn’t have one after all.’
‘He had this.’ I showed her the manual.
‘Someone’s had it away then,’ she pronounced. ‘Someone who’s been in the house since Joe died.’ She paused. ‘Unless he lent it to someone.’
‘Get real, love. Would you lend anyone a two thousand quid computer?’
‘I suppose not. But maybe he did. You just never know.’
I did know something, though. I knew that Ewan Maltbie’s throwaway line about a connection between Joe’s death and the fire at the office might not have been as far-fetched as I had thought.
Chapter 15
I reported the missing computer to Maltbie when we took the keys back. I had mentioned its existence in the first place so I felt that I had to. I hadn’t seen his self-assurance shaken before. ‘Are you sure about this?’ he asked me, in a tone that said as clearly as words that this was a great inconvenience and that he wished it would go away.
I didn’t like my word or my intelligence being questioned. ‘I’m sure Joe had a spare telephone jack point in his study upstairs. I’m sure I’ve received e-mail from him in the past. I’m sure this was in his bookcase.’ I tossed the owner’s manual on to his desk. Then I reached into my jacket’s inside pocket. ‘Even you can be sure about this,’ I told him, as I unfolded a sheet of pink paper and laid it in front of him. ‘I found it among Joe’s personal files.’ The solicitor picked it up and peered at it through his half-moon glasses. It was a receipt, from PC World, for the purchase around eighteen months before of a Shoei 1900 laptop computer, with optional extended warranty.
‘Damn,’ he said, earnestly. ‘What am I going to do with this?’
‘You’re the bloody lawyer,’ I replied, amiably. ‘You tell me.’ He frowned at me. ‘But if you want a hint,’ I continued, ‘there’s a detective superintendent called Tom Fallon up at police headquarters. You might report it to him.’
‘You really think so?’
‘Too right. This isn’t a box of paper-clips that’s missing; it’s a valuable piece of kit.’
He made a small tutting sound. ‘Do you want to report it, then?’
‘Bugger that,’ I exclaimed sincerely. ‘I’m not the beneficiary here, the nominated charities are, and you’re the executor, so you do it.’
‘But he’ll want to question my staff. It’ll be very inconvenient. ’
‘He’s as likely to question his own bloody staff. They’ve had more opportunity than your people. But the first thing he’ll do is something I didn’t have time to. He’ll check with PC World, to see whether the machine’s in for repair, and if they don’t have it, he’ll go through Joe’s papers for a receipt from another specialist. It’s only after he’s exhausted those possibilities that he’ll start a theft investigation.’
‘You really think I should inform him?’
‘No, Mr Maltbie. I insist that you do.’ As I looked at him I realised that his imagination didn’t stretch beyond the wall
s of his own office. The absence of the computer changed everything. Yes, it was possible that the machine was in a repair shop. Or maybe, as Susie had suggested, Joe had lent it to a friend. But neither of those explanations solved the riddle of the missing CDs.
According to the PC World receipt, Joe’s laptop had been fitted with a CD rewriter, with which he’d have been able to copy files, music, and the like. When I’d gone back upstairs after searching the living room, I’d found in the cupboard in his desk a box of blank Sony CD-RW data storage disks. The trouble was, there were only four in the box, and there should have been ten. More than that, the four were all still in their plastic wrappers, not just unused but unopened.
I had looked for the missing six disks as carefully as I’d looked for the computer; they were nowhere to be found. I’d even checked his CD collection, in case he’d been downloading or copying music. Sure, maybe Joe had lent those to a pal as well . . . and maybe not. And sure, maybe a bent copper had nicked the laptop . . . but almost certainly not.
The theft of the computer shone a completely different light on Joe’s death. Fallon couldn’t overlook it, but the trouble was, a few days before we’d sent the old boy up the chimney at Daldowie, so any reopened investigation would be hamstrung from the off.
Of course there was another angle. If Joe’s death was to say the least suspicious, as I thought it was, did it connect in some way to Susie’s letter-bomb, that I’d been so quick to lay at the feet of the Neiportes? Clearly, that was another line of investigation for Fallon . . . only I’d covered the bloody thing up. Perhaps I’d have been able to talk my way out of it, but I had a feeling that telling porkies to the police might not be all that good for my career.
Chapter 16
When we got back from Motherwell, just after five, I saw that Jay’s car was parked outside his cottage. I wanted to speak to him, urgently, but it had to wait, for Janet was demanding quality time with her parents, and Ethel was showing signs, for once, of being run off her feet.
So the three of us changed into swim gear and jumped into the pool. Susie and I are both strong swimmers, and we had made a point of teaching Janet, even before she could walk. She was a natural, with no fear of water, and although we still made her wear flotation armbands, she didn’t really need them. She and her mother splashed about, while I did a few lengths, then climbed out and pressed some serious weights on the exercise machine in the corner of the pool-house.
When I was finished, so were they, wrapped in towelling robes and looking so cute, the pair of them, that I’d have swelled to bursting point with pride if I hadn’t had some very serious matters on my mind. I took a quick cold shower then went upstairs to change.
When I was ready I called Jay from the bedside phone. ‘I’m going to hit a few golf balls,’ I told him. ‘Fancy?’
Susie was in our bedroom by that time, sorting out her clothes for the evening, while Janet trotted about, still in her robe and flip-flops, chattering happily to herself. I waved to them both on my way out, but they barely noticed me.
I picked Jay up in the buggy and headed over to my mini course. Neither of us said a word on the way there. I stopped in the middle of the first fairway we reached, dumped a bucket of practice balls on the ground and started hitting nine irons to the nearest green. Jay took a seven iron and began whacking away . . . he has one of the clumsiest golf swings I’ve ever seen.
After a dozen or so shots, I looked across at him. ‘Well?’ I asked.
‘The problem has been resolved,’ he said.
‘Effectively?’
‘It doesn’t get any more effective.’ He was looking at the green, but I could tell he was seeing something much further away. I felt a chill sweep over me, far, far colder than the pool had been.
‘What are you saying, Jay?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Are you telling me those people are dead?’ I gasped. ‘I know I said something along those lines at the office on Monday, but there is such a thing as a figure of speech. Come on, man. What really happened?’
He glanced at me. ‘We agreed there would be no questions.’
‘I know, but . . .’
‘You gave me no specific orders.’
‘I know that too.’
‘That’s how it was and that’s how it has to stay. We must not discuss this.’
‘But Jay . . .’
This time he looked me in the eye, dead in the eye. ‘You don’t want to know, boss. Believe me. Just take it from me that your family will have no more trouble.’
I turned away from him and took out my four iron, aimed at a green further away, and let fly. The ball started on the flag, but soon developed an extravagant slice. ‘Fuck,’ I cursed, quietly, and not only at my shot.
‘There’s been another development,’ I said. I told him about the missing laptop.
‘Probably the coppers, boss,’ he murmured, when I was f inished.
‘I don’t believe that. You might divert a case of whisky from a recovered hijacking, but you don’t take a computer from an accident victim’s home, knowing that the whole fucking place is going to be inventoried for his estate.’
‘You might if you were stupid enough.’
‘I don’t buy into that.’ I hit another four iron: this time it stayed straight and landed on the green about ten feet from the flag.
‘Nice shot,’ Jay conceded. ‘So you’re getting round to telling me you think Joe’s death wasn’t an accident, and that whoever did it stole the computer?’
‘That’s about it.’
‘And you’re going to suggest that the letter-bomb might have been sent by that person, and not by the Neiportes?’
‘Possibly.’
‘That’ll come as a great comfort to them, but it won’t change anything.’
‘What do you think?’
For the first time, Jay gave me something resembling a smile; it was a pretty grim one, though. ‘You really want me to tell you?’
I nodded. ‘Go on, I can take it.’
‘Then I think you’re letting the movie business fuck up your head. You’re treating life like a script. Joe’s death was accidental. His laptop was either lost or stolen from his house, or his car . . . the fucking things are portable after all . . . before his death. The Neiportes sent Susie that letter-bomb. End of story.’
I frowned at him, then I made myself laugh, wondering if it sounded as hollow as it felt. ‘Maybe. Okay, probably. Sod it, yes. You’re right.’
All at once, his shoulders seemed a little less tense. He actually hit his next shot more or less towards the green. But as I looked at him, I could not help but wonder whether Jay really believed his version of events, or whether he was making himself believe it, because he needed to.
Chapter 17
I’ve found that the older I get, the more I’m able to compartmentalise. If I have worries or troubles, I can isolate them and put them in boxes, to be taken out and looked at every so often. Rest of the time, I show the world my smiley Oz face, the one that looks out from the billboards outside cinemas and moistens the underwear of ladies throughout the English-speaking world . . . or so a rather overenthusiastic Canadian reviewer wrote after my first Skinner movie.
Whenever the contents of these secret compartments, these emotional safe-deposit boxes, start battering to be let out, I have a routine for handling it. I go into the nearest gym and batter the hell out of myself; if you ever want to gauge how stressed out and worried I am, here’s a handy tip. Squeeze my biceps: the harder they are the more there is going on in my head.
This relationship was actually news to me until Susie drew it to my attention. As I’ve said, she is the only person alive who can read me like the complex book I have become. It was a couple of weeks after Jay’s ‘family crisis’, and well more than half-way through my break between movies when she asked me, one night as we were in our bathroom, getting ready for bed, ‘Are you worried about this next project of yours?’
I
looked at her blankly as she removed her eye make-up; she had chosen an inappropriate moment, my Braun toothbrush not quite having finished its two-minute cycle. When I had, and when I’d completed my obligatory anti-plaque mouthwash . . . once a dentist’s son, always a dentist’s son . . . I said, ‘No. Not at all. What made you ask that?’
‘You’ve been shifting a hell of a lot of weight lately.’
‘Uh?’
‘You’re never out of the gym. Every night I’ve come home from the office lately, you’ve been in that pool-house working out.’
‘I’ve got to be fit for Mathew’s Tale,’ I reminded her. ‘It’s a pretty arduous part.’
‘Oz, you are fit; the way you’ve been flogging yourself lately, anyone would think you’re training to fight Mike Tyson. I’ll bet Liam and Darius don’t train as hard as you, and they’re professional athletes. So? What’s on your mind?’
‘Why should there be anything on my mind?’
‘Because it’s your classic behaviour pattern. You were like that when you came back from Spain, after that thing with the house out there, and the policeman, then when you came back from the States after Prim ran off with that guy, then when there was that problem on your first Skinner movie.’
She was right, of course; it hadn’t dawned on me until that moment, but she was right. I remembered one particular session in Edinburgh, when I had gone to the gym with Liam, and he had put me through hell, working all of the anxiety and aggression out of my system.
Unnatural Justice (Oz Blackstone Mysteries) Page 10