‘Okay,’ I told her, finally, as I worked the truth out in my head, ‘it’s the aftermath of that letter-bomb incident. It’s been getting to me. If you hadn’t been at Bearsden that morning . . .’
‘I’d have told Denise to go ahead and open all my mail.’
That hadn’t occurred to me at all. I felt a sudden flash of relief, followed by guilt at the thought of what might have happened to the secretary if the thing had flared up in her hands.
‘Maybe, but the mere fact that it happened. Makes me angry, makes me anxious.’
‘But we’ve got security in place now, at the office and here, and there have been no more incidents. We thought the thing was a one-off at the time and that’s the way it’s been. The only effect was a wee slide in the share price when the story hit the Herald, but that’s corrected itself. You know what the stock market’s like. Most of these analysts have about as much logic in them as do bloody astrologers.’
She made me smile, as the thought of ‘Smith and Jones, stockbrokers and fortune-tellers: tarot cards by appointment ’ ran through my mind. ‘I suppose. Okay, I promise, from now on, I’ll only worry about the next movie, and about the impending arrival of our son.’ I looked down at her as she stood beside me, naked in front of her mirror. ‘Speaking of whom, dear, your profile is changing by the day.’
‘Don’t I know it,’ she muttered. ‘This is going to be a big lad. I was nowhere near this size at this stage with Janet.’
‘You still look fantastic, though.’ It was true, she did.
What was not nearly so certain was the promise I’d just made. I’d said I’d stop worrying about the letter-bomb and its aftermath, but that was going to be a hell of a lot easier said than done.
As time passed, I’d thought about what Jay had said to me, about my actor’s imagination. I had forced myself to think as he did. The police had looked into the disappearance of Joe’s computer, but without success. However a check of his insured property had revealed that a Piaget watch and a valuable carriage clock were also missing. The supposition they had reached, as Tom Fallon had explained, was that the thefts had happened not before, but after Joe’s death. This was far more likely, since the house had no alarm system, and since PC ‘Cash’ Money had admitted to CID colleagues that she might have left the kitchen window open after the house had been locked up on the day Joe’s body had been found. Details of the watch and the clock, plus the serial number of the computer, had been circulated with no success at that point, but the underlying, unspoken message was that no way did the police see grounds for reconsidering the official verdict of accidental death.
The probability was clear. The attack on me at the premiere had been, we knew for sure, the work of Andrea Neiporte. The incendiary had to have been her also; the fact that her husband had worked in a university science lab and so had access to chemicals was a pretty damning pointer. Top that off with the fact that everything had been peaceful since Jay’s trip to Fife.
No, it would not be easy to put all that out of my mind, for it sure as hell hadn’t been until then. For the previous few days, I had been looking at the Courier website, the electronic version of the newspaper that covered Tayside and Fife. I had scrolled through every issue, looking for stories of missing couples, until, just the day before, I had found one. It wasn’t much, not the sort that other papers were going to follow up on. All it said was that Fife police were looking for information on the whereabouts of a Pittenweem couple, Mr and Mrs Walter Neiporte, after Mrs Neiporte’s mother had reported them missing. Subsequent checks had revealed that the couple had both been absent from work for several days. The police spokesman was quoted as saying that there was nothing to indicate suspicious circumstances, and that a number of bills remained unpaid, the implication being that the couple had done an old-fashioned moonlight.
But I knew they hadn’t. I didn’t know exactly what had happened to them, but I could guess it hadn’t been peaceful. I knew also that I was responsible. As Jay had said, I hadn’t given him any direct orders; that was his way of telling me that any unfortunate consequences, if they developed, would stop with him. There would be a cost, I supposed, but I was a rich man.
Except . . . Gerry Meek had been there when I had made a very specific threat in Susie’s office, and he had heard it. If the police were to interview him . . .
The plain fact of the matter was that I was more than a little anxious. I didn’t give a monkey’s dump about the Neiportes. As I saw it they had tried to ruin my old man’s life, and if their own had been trampled as a consequence, that was tough on them. I’m a believer in retribution, make no mistake.
Yet a mistake had been made, and I had made it, when I had allowed things to get out of my direct control. I had come up against bad people before, and on a couple of occasions I’d been forced to do something about them. In each situation, I’d asked myself one question: ‘What’s the downside for Oz?’ On each occasion the answer had been, ‘None’, and I’d done what I’d considered to be right at the time.
This was different, though. I’d let someone else do my dirty work, and thus I’d put myself in his power. I trusted Jay, but my life was literally in his hands. And what a life. I looked at how much I had to lose: my career, my marriage, my children, and my wealth, not to mention my liberty for about half of my remaining life expectancy.
No wonder I was knocking ten bells out of my exercise equipment. No wonder my body looked and felt as though it had been carved out of marble. No wonder I had awakened, sweating and on the edge of panic, on each of the last several nights. No wonder the dark edifice of Barlinnie Prison loomed large in my thoughts.
No wonder I was beginning to look at Jay Yuille in an entirely different light. If he ever became a problem to be solved, I was damn certain that he was one I wouldn’t delegate.
Chapter 18
There was no sign, though, that Jay was looking at me any differently. He behaved towards me in exactly the same way he had before the Fife episode. That had not been mentioned since, or even hinted at. As the days and weeks went by without further mention of the Neiportes in the Courier, or any other newspaper, my bad dreams began to ease, and I began to feel more secure.
In the last few days before shooting began on Mathew’s Tale, I decided to go up to Enster to visit my Dad. I hadn’t seen Mac the Dentist since Joe’s funeral, or heard from him, and I wondered how he was. So I stuck my clubs in the passenger seat of the Lotus . . . there’s nowhere else for them to go, and headed east.
As it turned out he was in good form all round, even on the golf course, although my new, home-tuned game was too much for him in the end. After our round, we paid a return visit to the Golf Tavern . . . it’s more my style than the Elie club-house . . . where the atmosphere was much easier than on our previous visit.
I didn’t raise the subject of his problem: I’d never intended to. But he did. Just as I was finishing my pint of orange squash and picking up my second crab mayonnaise roll, he reached across and squeezed my arm. ‘Thanks, son,’ he said, quietly.
‘For what?’
‘For helping me through that thing, for putting some backbone into me and showing me the way.’
‘Nada,’ I muttered. I assumed he’d read the Courier, although he didn’t say.
‘It wasn’t nothing at all. It was . . .’ He paused. ‘It’s a funny thing, Oz, we go through our lives thinking of ourselves as role models for our children, and then a day can come when we realise that they’ve outgrown us, and that it’s the other way around.’
‘Bollocks,’ I responded, cheerfully.
‘I don’t know about them,’ he remarked, and the moment had passed.
‘How’s Susie?’ he asked me suddenly. ‘How’s Janet? And how’s my next grandson?’
‘The first one’s still working her socks off, although I’m trying to get her to slow down. The second seems to have appointed herself class captain at her nursery school. The third may actually be an elephant, g
oing by the size of his mother.’
He laughed. ‘Naw, he’s a Blackstone male, that’s all. You were exactly the same. Your mother was like an elf with Ellie, but she was like a fucking pillar box when she was carrying you.’
‘Don’t say that to my wife, for God’s sake.’ I looked across at him. ‘How about your other grandsons? Fences mended?’
‘With Colin, certainly. He’s a corruptible wee sod, right enough; those skates did the trick: them, and a sincere apology. As for Jonny, he still acts a bit different towards me. Sometimes I wonder if it’ll ever be the same with him.’
‘Probably not, Dad, but don’t put it down to what happened. Jonny’s growing up fast; the absence of a father has . . . I won’t say it’s robbed him of his childhood, but it’s accelerating his adolescence. I’ve got great hopes for him, you know. He’s a special kid.’
‘He’s you.’
‘So Ellie says, but he’s not. If he was I’d know everything that’s in his head, but I don’t. There’s something in him that wasn’t in me when I was his age. I see it in the way he looks at his mother, and his brother. It’s a sort of worship.’
‘You mean you didn’t worship me?’ my Dad asked, quietly.
‘You’re a fucking dentist,’ I reminded him. ‘There have been, and are, people on this planet who’ve worshipped cows, birds, cats, the Sun, the Moon, their ancestors, living emperors, money, precious stones, graven images, actors, musicians, racing cars, and the people who drive racing cars. But never across the great span of human history and endeavour will you find a case of anyone worshipping a fucking dentist.’
He was still chuckling when he waved me off, after I had driven us back to Anstruther in his Jag and said ‘So long’ to Mary. I could hear his laughter all the way home. I had been lying, of course. I did worship him.
Chapter 19
Although movie-making’s a high-pressure business, I always like to get back to work. There may come a day when I’m blasé about the whole business, but I’m a way short of it yet. I love turning up for a new project, meeting my fellow actors, the guys and gals behind the scenes, the caterers, and even the publicity people.
I have to say that since I’ve moved out from under Miles Grayson’s hugely generous and protective wing, I’ve enjoyed it even more, since I’m beginning to feel like a real actor, as if I’m with my peers. That even includes Ewan Capperauld, the British star most respected by everyone in the business, including himself.
Ewan has played just about every type you can name, and played them all brilliantly. For all that Miles did a great job in the part, I was sorry that in the end Ewan didn’t get to play Bob Skinner, for that role could have been written for him, or he for it. But in my professional opinion, he’s at his best whenever he plays the bad guy. Of course that may be true of all good actors, for as they’ll often tell you, the villain is usually the meatiest role in a movie.
That isn’t necessarily the case with Mathew’s Tale, for the hero part, my character, has loads of meat about him, but Ewan’s guy, Sir Gregor Cleland, an amazingly nasty baronet, is one of the ‘best’ baddies I’ve ever encountered.
‘How’s it been with you?’ I asked him, after we’d greeted each other at the first cast meeting. You can never be sure how Ewan’s going to react at times like that. He has a habit of dropping unconsciously into whatever character he’s playing; on this occasion, Sir Gregor was still in his box, for he answered affably.
‘Fine, thank you. I’ve been working my butt off, though. I’ve just come off a month playing Hamlet at Stratford-on-Avon. The offer was made, and I decided to do it one last time, before I got too ridiculously old for the Prince’s costume. The Bard’s a progression for an actor, you know. One starts with Hamlet and Henry the Fifth, then moves on to Richard of Gloucester and his kin, until finally, one is offered Lear. That’s when you know you’re over the hill. Have you ever done any Shakespeare, Oz?’
There was a time when I’d have thought he was taking the piss if he’d asked me that . . . and probably he would have been . . . but not any more. Now I’m taken seriously, even by people as eminent as him.
‘As a matter of fact I have,’ I told him. ‘I played Romeo, once; Jan, my first wife, played Juliet. Doesn’t count, though. It was at school.’
‘Of course it counts. It all goes on the CV, my lad.’
‘Speaking of wives,’ I began, a shade tentatively.
‘The divorce is final,’ he replied. Ewan’s private life had turned chaotic a while back; that was what had forced him out of the Skinner movies.
‘Sorry.’
‘Thanks, but don’t be.’
‘Are you still seeing Natalie Morgan?’ She had been the start of his trouble.
‘Not for a while. I’ve been going around with Rhona Waitrose.’
‘You and the Scots Guards,’ I thought, suppressing a smile. Rhona was known as one of the friendliest girls in town; I’ll never forget the night she turned up at my place for a spot of ‘rehearsal’ wearing nothing but a raincoat. Neither will she, I suspect; Susie had turned up just after her.
‘Nat’s totally committed to her company now.’ Actually, I’d known this, for Natalie Morgan had succeeded Susie as Scottish Businesswoman of the Year, after succeeding James Torrent, her late uncle, as head of the office supplies giant that bore his name. ‘You should keep your eye on her, Oz,’ he added, quietly.
I looked at him, surprised. ‘Why? She doesn’t fancy me, does she?’
Ewan gave a deep theatrical chuckle. ‘Far from it. She hates you, actually.’
Surprise turned to astonishment. ‘Me? What have I done to deserve that? Come to think of it, I seem to recall saving her life once.’
‘That counts for nothing. She blames you for getting involved in that business in the first place. Don’t ask me why, but she does.’
I shrugged. ‘I can live without her love.’
‘I’m sure you can, but that’s not why I say you should keep an eye on her. She’s a very ambitious lady, and she is not content simply to run her company in its present form. She wants to use it as a base for expansion by acquisition, and one of her main targets is the Gantry Group.’
I whistled. ‘Is it now? She’s wasting her time then. Susie has a controlling interest in the business, and I can tell you now, selling out ain’t in her plans, or in mine.’
‘There are minority shareholders, though, aren’t there?’
‘Yes, but very much a minority.’
‘Nonetheless. I don’t know a lot about company law, but if a significant offer came in, your wife might be told that she had an obligation to all the shareholders to accept.’
‘Who’d tell her?’
‘The courts, possibly.’
‘Do you know this is going to happen?’ I asked him.
‘Not at all,’ he insisted. ‘I know that the thought has crossed Nat’s mind, that’s all, because she told me. Talk to Susie, Oz. If I were you I might be thinking about buying out the minority interests and taking the company private again.’
I could see the logic in that, and the sense; I even knew how it could be financed. But then I thought of Jack Gantry, and his newly recovered interest in the Group, and realised that it wouldn’t be as easy as it sounded.
Chapter 20
To say that Susie did her nut when I told her about Natalie Morgan’s ambitions would be akin to describing the Eiffel Tower as a big television aerial. I’ve seen her angry before, but her reaction was one of sheer unbridled fury.
‘The bitch,’ she yelled. ‘That arrogant, conceited, jumped-up twat!’ I was glad that I’d delayed telling her until Ethel had taken Janet off to bed. ‘She thinks she’s going to take over my company? In her fucking dreams she is! She’s a bloody glorified photocopier sales girl and she thinks she can turn me over? Let her try, that’s all. Let her bloody try.’ ‘What are you going to do about it then?’
That silenced her for a while. ‘Nothing,’ she said finally. ‘Nothin
g that I’m not doing already. I’m going to build up the Gantry Group until it’s absolutely invulnerable, and until no conceivable offer could ever match the company’s potential.’
‘How about buying out the minorities?’
‘And hamstring myself financially? If I did that I’d wind up working for venture capitalists, and that is something I’ll never do. It’s an option I rejected when we went public. No, my love,’ she said, tight-lipped. ‘I’d go in the other direction first. I’d make a hostile bid for her.’
‘Torrent’s big, Susie. You’d have to do the deal with shares; you’d lose personal control of an expanded business.’
‘I know,’ she conceded. ‘And there’s another consideration. I don’t want to be a photocopier sales girl.’ I was pleased to see that her brain was starting to work again. ‘Just because Natalie Morgan thinks that diversification is the way to go, doesn’t mean that it is. So let the bitch come, and let her try to swallow me. She’ll choke.’
It was a while before the subject was raised again over our dinner table. Her anger abated, and her judgement restored, Susie did a couple of typically well thought out things. She hired a firm of investor relations consultants to raise the profile of the business in the City, and she filled the vacancy on the board created by Joe’s death by appointing Sir Graeme Fisher as non-executive chairman of the company.
Fisher is said to be Scotland’s only genuine billionaire, having built his fortune, along with a formidable reputation for plain speaking, in the direct insurance business. He once said, famously, that he did not know a single Scottish company, other than his own, of which he would consider becoming a director, and so, when Susie sweet-talked him into joining the board of the Gantry Group, the announcement made the front page of the Financial Times, and was reported in every other business newspaper in the UK.
Graeme Fisher’s appointment was as big a surprise to me as it was to the rest of the country. Susie didn’t discuss it with me at all. I could tell that she was up to something, and for a while I worried that she had changed her mind about having a go at taking over Torrent. She told me eventually, though, five minutes before she told Gillian Harvey and Gerry Meek at a board meeting, held on a Saturday morning to fit in with my filming schedule.
Unnatural Justice (Oz Blackstone Mysteries) Page 11