As Easy as Murder (10 page)

‘Afternoon?’ I repeated.

He nodded. ‘Twenty past two, tenth tee. The very last group.’

‘That’s a bit tough,’ I complained. ‘You’ll be out in the hottest part of the day, and the forecast’s good for the rest of the week.’

‘I’m the new boy, Auntie P; I’m lucky to be in the field, so I’m not complaining. You’ve got to earn the good starting times out here. Don’t worry about the weather either; it’s like this in February in Arizona.’

I was still narked, though. ‘It’s not fair,’ I grumbled. ‘This is the last proper golf you’ll be able to play for two whole days!’

‘She’s got a point, boss,’ Uche added. ‘The dice are a little loaded.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said. ‘We can always go and hit balls somewhere.’

The obvious caught up with me. ‘We can play Pals,’ I declared. ‘I’m a member. I get priority there.’

‘What’s it like?’

‘Nice. It’s the oldest course in this part of Spain. They have played tournaments on it, but not for a while.’

‘But is it similar to this course?’

‘It’s got trees,’ I offered, lamely.

Uche laughed. ‘That’s all you need. You can practise missing them; that’s going to be very important on Thursday.’

‘Fuck off,’ Jonny retorted, amiably, taking me aback, yet pleasing
me at the same time, because it showed that he was genuinely relaxed in my company. Yes, you could say that he was treating me like one of the boys, but I didn’t mind that. It’s usually my position of choice.

We had barely finished before I had to leave. I didn’t broach the subject of accommodation with Uche until we’d stepped off the eighteenth green and he’d finished tidying Jonny’s bag. When I did, and told him what I’d lined up; he was pleased, and easy to please still further. ‘Which would you choose?’ he asked.

‘The penthouse studio; no question. But don’t you want to know what it’ll cost?’

‘No. I’ll take it.’

‘I’ll tell the owner. You can probably move in whenever you like.’

‘Sunday evening will be perfect; thank you very much, Auntie P.’

I wasn’t sure how to take that. Uche was a very presentable young man; the realisation that he saw me as an aunt figure brought me up sharp.

So I ignored it. ‘I’m sure we’ll be able to book the one next door for your parents, if they want to come and visit you.’

His slightly cautious smile suggested a couple of things, either that if his parents did come to visit they’d be booking the best suite in the best hotel in town, if not a whole floor, or, that even if they were the chummy types, their son might prefer to keep them at a greater distance.

Business concluded, I headed on up the road, and made it home just before Tom. He has his own key now, but I don’t yet
feel comfortable about leaving him unminded too often, unless I’m within shouting distance. I’m much more relaxed about leaving Charlie, on guard in the garden, although he was pleased to see me, for he was running out of water. He needed exercise too, and so did Tom, having been cooped up in school all day, so they left for their usual run, along to Vaive and back, while I gave some thought to what I might lay on the table before my extended family.

I had just dug three steaks out of the fridge, and was starting to chop onions when the phone rang. ‘Bugger,’ I said as I picked it up with two fingers, trying not to smear it and leave it ponging for days.

‘Thank you,’ said Alex Guinart. ‘I’ll take that to be a term of endearment in English.’

‘Sorry, Alex,’ I replied. ‘Awkward moment. And no, in case you get the wrong idea, I’m in the kitchen, not on the toilet. What can I do for you?’

‘Nothing you haven’t already done. I thought I should call to tell you that our specialists got a decent image from your phone picture. Just for fun I persuaded a friend of mine to feed it into the national computer, to see if we got a facial match. We didn’t; not even close.’

‘Did you try databases anywhere else?’ I asked him. ‘Although Tom was dead certain that he wasn’t one of ours.’

‘No, I didn’t,’ he laughed. ‘I’m an inspector in a regional police force in Spain. I’d have had to go through our HQ in Barcelona for that sort of access, and I’m not about to do that. Look, Primavera, I’ve done as much as is reasonable, and a bit more. The photograph
is out there, in Mossos stations across Catalunya, with a note that it came from a report by a concerned citizen. So thank you again. If we should happen to put a name to it, I’ll let you know.’

As if
, I thought as I hung up. I was still curious, though. I was flattered that Alex had gone that far, but I knew that it had been mostly PR. No, what I wondered was . . . had Patterson come up with anything?

Had it not been for the half-chopped onion, I might have called to ask him, but the onion took priority, and so I went back to the kitchen instead.

P
als was quiet next day, so I didn’t have to muscle my way into a starting time. In fact the club superintendent was very pleased to see us, even more so when Jonny showed him his European PGA membership card. These days pros are offered the courtesy of the course by most good golf clubs around the world; it’s only a few, the nineteenth-century relics, the sort that still don’t admit women as members, that won’t allow them to play.

When I tee-ed off at the first, it was for the sake of appearance; I hadn’t meant to play all the way round, but the boys insisted. As it turned out I’d have been bored if I hadn’t, for Uche was meticulous in calculating the yardage for each shot, using the course guide and flag placement chart that the starter had given us, so that he could give Jonny the right club every time. I know the caddie is a team player, but I hadn’t appreciated until then that it was a practice round for him as much as for his boss.

Although I’d watched Jonny hit a few hundred balls by that time, it wasn’t until then, until I saw him in the context of my home course, that I realised how long he was. I’d played with his grandfather and his uncle often enough, and they could send it
out a fair distance, especially Oz, but Jonny, he seemed to be knocking it into another province.

‘It’s not only about distance,’ Uche replied, when I remarked upon this, as we set off down the long par five eighth after another rifling tee shot . . . Jonny’s not mine; that one had gone a hundred and twenty metres. ‘It’s about hitting it the same distance every time with each club in the bag, and it’s about accuracy.’

‘And how good is Jonny at that?’

‘He’s up there with the best. The trouble is, there are a hell of a lot more of the best than there used to be.’ He grinned. ‘They’re in for a shock this week, though. We’ve arrived.’

‘You think he’ll make the cut all right?’

‘I know he will. I’ve been watching the other guys on the practice range. We weren’t out of place there. We’re going to make money.’ He smiled. ‘Ninety per cent to Jonny, ten per cent to me; I’ve got a real interest in giving him the right club every time.’

‘Is that after this Brush character has taken his twenty per cent?’

Uche shook his head as we stopped at my ball. Jonny’s was miles ahead; he was standing twenty metres away, engrossed in the yardage chart. ‘Nope. Mr Donnelly isn’t on the course, so he doesn’t earn there. His commission comes from all the ancillary deals he does.’

I hit a fairway club in more or less the right direction; when it stopped it still hadn’t caught up with my nephew’s. I glanced at him, noting the logos on his clothing. The boy was a walking sales pitch.

‘He’s got some good sponsors,’ I said. ‘Do all young players turn pro with that sort of backing?’

‘Some do. For example, there’s a young American guy who was on the college circuit with us until a year ago. He looks like a rainbow on legs. But most of them? No, they need private money behind them, someone to stake them, and to carry the losses they’re going to make . . . and quite possibly never recover them.’

‘So why has Donnelly done so well for Jonny? Yes, he played in the Walker Cup, but so did quite a few other guys, and I haven’t seen anyone else from our team lighting up the circuit. I know he’s good, but I’m biased; I’m his aunt. Those badges he’s wearing, they’re all top companies. How did this man Brush get them on board when he hasn’t even hit a shot yet, professionally?’

We’d reached my ball. I pulled out another club and clipped it forward again. A good one: another like that and I’d be on the green. As I set off towards my playing partner’s tee shot . . . I read a distance marker on the fairway and worked out that he’d hit it two hundred and eighty-two metres . . . I sensed an unusual hesitancy in his caddie.

‘Come on,’ I insisted. ‘No bullshit. How did he do it? Or is all this for show? Has Jonny just bought the gear?’

‘Work it out,’ Uche whispered. ‘It’s not just what he can do, it’s who he is.’ He left me gazing after him as he stepped towards his pro. ‘Take a little off a three metal,’ he called out, ‘rather than a five. You want to hit it low. We’re sheltered down here; you don’t know for sure what the wind’s doing above those trees. Watch for the bunker front right, otherwise it’s a clear approach.’

‘Just what I was thinking,’ Jonny replied. ‘I may need that shot a lot this week.’

As he took the club he was handed, and surveyed the distant flag, I lined up a few things myself, in my head. The fact that he was Oz Blackstone’s nephew was, it seemed, still a highly sellable attribute.
And why shouldn’t it be?
I realised. I, of all people, ought to have known that.

Oz might have been dead, but his career was still alive. He’d had three posthumous movie releases, all hits, including the one he’d been working on when he’d done that last fatal stunt. That, of course, had lent it added marketability, even if the last few scenes had been shot in shadow with a body double and his lines voiced over by an impersonator. Then there were DVDs; some of his films, most notably the cricket blockbuster
Red Leather
, had done huge business in that format, and sales showed no signs of slowing. On top of that the download market was just beginning to take off, and was being exploited very well by his near genius agent, Roscoe Brown. Yes, my late ex was still very big business, and consequently, anything to do with him just had to smell of money.

I knew all this, because I see the figures, twice a year. I didn’t believe for a second that Oz foresaw his own early death, but he’d have been crazy not to have made a will, and he was more calculatingly sane than anyone I’ve ever known. Apart from individual bequests to his nephews, and a tithe that went to a small charitable foundation administered by Roscoe, his estate had been divided equally between his three children, Tom, and his two by Susie, Janet and ‘wee Jonathan’. That split applied equally to all future income; ten per cent to the foundation, thirty per cent
each to the three kids. The money was all tied up in trusts, a complicated structure put together by some very expensive accountants, and the will specified that the trustees should be ‘the children’s legal guardians’. I don’t believe that he envisaged me being one of those when he signed off on it, but that’s the way it had panned out: another reason why Susie and I should stay on good terms, whatever the rest of the Blackstone family thought of her.

For all that Tom and I go on about careers, the fact is that my son will never have to do a day’s work in his life, unless he chooses. He doesn’t know that, though; nor does anyone else outside our tight little family group. The last thing I want is for him to grow up complacent, or worse, under the constant eye of a bodyguard.

Jonny hit his three, with a little off. I couldn’t see exactly where it finished, but the boys seemed satisfied. Their eyes were twenty years younger than mine, after all. We walked forward to my ball, I hit another fairway metal . . . Mac still calls them woods, for some reason . . . into the middle of the green, not too far from the pin. We took two putts each; birdie four for Jonny, bogey six for me, a result, since I was getting a shot at the par three holes, two at the par fours and three at the par fives. Eight holes played and I was only three down, not at all bad, since my ‘opponent’ was four under par at the time.

I must explain that I don’t regard life as a competition. I’ve always hated being idle, and if I see something to be done I’ll do it: for example, the tourist information service that I set up in my early days in St Martí. However, I’ve never felt the need to be better, only to be as good as I can. I was that way when I was
nursing, to the extent that some people thought I was pushy. In truth the person I was really pushing was myself, but if I saw someone with a laissez-faire attitude to standards, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. As a mother, I don’t care how Tom compares with the rest of his school class, only that he does his best. (
Mind you
, she added smugly,
that’s pretty damn good
.)

All that changes when I step on to a golf course.

There I become the most competitive bitch you will ever see. Even Shirley says that my talons come out as soon as someone puts a score card in my hand, or as soon as a match-play opponent tees off. Not even my son is exempt from this. I don’t swear or chuck clubs when he’s around, but when we play for real, other than for fun, as we do more and more, the older he gets, I Do Not Let Him Win! (More often than not, he does anyway; if my evil side didn’t dematerialise as soon as the last putt drops, or misses, as is often the case, he’d have gone to bed without any supper many a night.)