As Easy as Murder (18 page)

Jonny broke the moment. ‘If you’ll all excuse me,’ he said, ‘I think I’ll turn in. For all that I’m in the second last group tomorrow, I’ll need to be on the course early. Uche will be up at sparrow fart checking on the pin positions, and I need to support him.’

That was it for Tom too; I’d noticed his eyelids beginning to droop. While he was too old for ‘Time for bed, young man’, there were still times when the suggestion had to be made, but that night wasn’t one of them. He’d been putting on a show on his board for his cousin and it had tired him out. Or maybe he suspected I’d tell him to clear the table, and decided to forestall me.

That left the three seniors alone, for coffee and liqueurs on the terrace. Shirley was past her best by then, so Patterson had slowed up. He was seated between the two of us; on his left, Shirl was slumped back in her chair, with a goblet of amaretto in her cupped hands. When she began to snore lightly, he reached out, took it from her, with touching gentleness, and placed it on the table in front of them. She didn’t stir; when someone can separate her from her drink, you know that she’s asleep.

‘You’re a nice man, you know,’ I told him. I was on amaretto too, but I had tonic and ice in mine, in a tall glass: my version of a highball.

‘I like to think so,’ he said.

‘Have you always been?’

‘Personally, I hope so. My daughters seem to think so.’

‘Professionally?’

‘You shouldn’t ask me that.’

‘I just did, though.’

He leaned back and closed his eyes. For a moment I thought he was taking refuge in sleep, like Shirley. But he wasn’t; instead he was weighing up his answer. ‘Without going into operational details,’ he began, when he was ready, ‘there were situations in which my service was required not to be very nice. But I was never part of those so I remained humane. Humanity is essential to a worthy society. Needless cruelty is inexcusable.’

‘But what if captive terrorists won’t tell the state what it wants to know?’

‘That’s their human right.’

‘Even if people’s lives depended on them talking?’

He sighed. ‘At that point, people like us have to leave the room.’

‘Is that a roundabout way of telling me that when cruelty is necessary, the state needs brutes?’

‘I suppose it is. And you, Primavera,’ he exclaimed. ‘Have you always been nice?’

‘No I have not,’ I admitted, ‘and I’ll bet you knew that already.’

‘I’ve given up on judging people. From what I’ve been told about you, I know you’ve been inside for foolishness more than malice, but I know also that you’re an exemplary mother, and that the Foreign Office trusted you enough to give you a job quite recently, thanks in part to your connection with the former Home Secretary, which not a soul understands. Incidentally, it’ll be kept open for you, should you wish to reconsider your resignation.’

‘Are you sure you’ve retired?’ I laughed.

‘Oh yes, I have, I assure you. But the strings are still there, the access to information, for me to pull if I need to.’

‘Could you pull them for me?’ I asked him quietly.

‘That wouldn’t be proper, Primavera.’

‘Neither was pulling them to run a complete background check on me.’

He smiled. ‘Retaliation. You did it first, remember.’

‘True,’ I conceded, ‘but in any event, I wasn’t asking you to observe propriety. I was asking you to do me a favour.’

‘Depends what it is. Shoot.’

I told him about my story, from my problem in the car park,
leading into my second encounter with Christine McGuigan, and about the way I’d dealt with her.

‘Did anyone see this altercation?’ he asked, hardly giving me time to finish.

‘Jonny arrived right at the end of it. He backed me up, naturally.’

‘Just as well. If you’re right about her sabotaging your tyre, anyone who carries a knife as a matter of routine isn’t to be trifled with.’

‘Maybe I’m not either.’

He frowned. ‘Primavera,’ he said, ‘I’m sure that the mortuaries of the world are full of people who thought that way.’

‘Which is why I’d like to know a bit more about this woman. This afternoon she said she works for something called Spotlight Television, yet this evening I catch her taking telephoto shots of Tom on the beach. I mean what the hell is she?’

‘She’s probably what she says she is, a journalist. The world’s moved on, Primavera. Fings ain’t wot they used to be, as the old song goes. We’ve moved on from hot-metal presses and inky fingers. Nowadays, would-be reporters who can’t sell their stuff to radio or television can set up their own blog sites then post whatever smears and libels and paparazzi pictures they choose, or they can shoot video and upload footage to abominations like YouTube. Nowadays, every wannabe, can be.’

‘I’d still like to know for sure, though. Maybe I’ve scared her off, but maybe I haven’t. What if she carries on stalking Tom?’

‘What was the name on the passport she showed your friend?’

‘Christine McGuigan, and it was an Irish passport. But she told me her name was Christy Mann.’

‘And she said she worked for . . . ?’

‘Spotlight Television.’

‘Okay,’ he murmured, as Shirley stirred beside him. ‘Leave it with me. I’ll see what I can do.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, but for the first time that night I doubted his sincerity. Instinct told me that I was asking him to wade into waters that he’d rather stayed untroubled.

‘Do ’bout what?’ his partner mumbled.

‘About getting you home, my dear. Primavera has a busy weekend ahead of her.’

W
as he ever right about that!

It began well enough; when I went down to the kitchen, still half asleep, I found breakfast on the table and tea in the pot. Jonny had gone, but Tom had got things moving as soon as he heard me moving about.

I’d done some pondering, as I showered, over whether or not I should tell him about Christine McGuigan and her interest in him. Finally I decided that if he was old enough to bake croissants from dough better than I can, he could handle that too, so I did.

His instant reaction? He laughed. ‘Why would anyone want to take pictures of me? I’m not important.’

‘To some people you might be,’ I explained. ‘Because of what he did in films, your dad had a lot of admirers. People loved him and want to know everything there is to know about him. And that means they want to know about you, and Janet and wee Jonathan. You know Conrad, the man who works for Susie Mum in Monaco?’

‘Yes, of course I do. Conrad was Dad’s assistant; I remember.’

Indeed, he’d been a lot more than that. ‘Yes, that’s right. Well
now he does the same for Susie Mum, and part of his job is to protect the kids’ privacy, and make sure they can grow up without being pestered by well-meaning fans, or by journalists who see them as a means of making money. That’s what this woman is; she’s one of those. We don’t have a Conrad to look after you; I’ve always done that myself. Now you have to help me.’ I described McGuigan, as best I could. ‘If you notice anyone like her around in the next day or so, taking pictures of you, I want you to tell me. If I’m not there, suppose you see someone when you’re at school, tell a teacher. If it happens when you’re on the beach, at Vaive, say, tell Philippe or Teresa or anyone else you know.’

‘What if she tries to speak to me and you’re not around?’

‘Ignore her and walk straight home.’

‘What if she tries to stop me?’

I frowned, worried that I might be alarming him. ‘Tom, don’t be scared by this. She’s not out to harm you; I don’t believe that.’

‘I’m not scared, Mum. Is she bigger than you?’

‘No. A little bit smaller. She’s not that much bigger than you are.’

An eyebrow rose. ‘Did she scare you?’ he asked.

‘No,’ I snorted. ‘I’m careful about you, that’s all. I won’t have her or anyone else drawing attention to you, selling pictures to the press or posting them online.’

‘Like you won’t let me go on Facebook or on Myspace or on Twitter.’

‘Exactly. Same reason. Your privacy’s important, Tom.’

‘Then don’t worry, Mum. If she did try to stop me I wouldn’t let her.’ He chuckled. ‘Neither would Charlie.’ He had a point there;
Charlie might be a big oaf, but he’s Tom’s big oaf. If he turned serious, most people would pause for a moment of reflection. ‘When are we going to the golf course?’ he continued, dismissing Christine McGuigan from his thoughts.

‘In time to see Jonny start his round.’

‘Can we go sooner? He said I could watch him practise.’

And that’s what we did. When we got to the range, just after eleven thirty, he was already there, just starting his practice routine. I had intended not to disturb him and go straight up to the viewing stand, but he spotted us and waved us across. Tom hadn’t met Uche, so Jonny introduced them.

‘Honoured, young sir,’ the caddie said, at his most princely as they shook hands. ‘The boss tells me you’re a whizz on a sailboard,’ he went on. ‘I’ve tried it; I’m not. Sometimes on the golf course I can walk on water, but I can’t float on it. I just sink.’

Tom frowned, wrinkling his nose. ‘I float well enough,’ he said, ‘and I swim pretty well too, but I always wear a life jacket on my board.’

Jonny laughed. ‘Uche would need at least two of those,’ he said. ‘He can swim, but like he says, only in one direction, straight down.’

As he spoke, Lena Mankell arrived, and the atmosphere changed, as if a cold wind had blown down from Sweden. Again Jonny introduced us. She acknowledged us, politely, and then ignored us completely. In other circumstances, I might have taken that badly, but we were in her workplace, so I didn’t interpret it as rudeness, only professionalism. I left them to it and headed for the stand. I was going to take Tom with me, but Uche asked him to
stay. ‘You can be our runner,’ he said. ‘Fetch more balls when we need them. Otherwise that’s my job.’

So he stayed with them on the range, he watched and he ran, whenever it was necessary. To his disappointment, though, he couldn’t go inside the ropes when the round started. He had to stay in the crowd with me. Luckily, it wasn’t vast; the main galleries were with the leading twosome, and with an all-Spanish pairing a couple of groups further back. Plus Jonny’s playing partner was Thai, and there weren’t a lot of them around to follow him. Because of that we saw every stroke, all sixty-eight of them, for Jonny shot another four under par round, taking him to fifteen under par for the tournament, still two shots behind the Irish kid in the lead but alone in second place. As soon as the last putt had dropped and I was able to switch on my phone, I found a voice message from Ellie asking me to call her back.

‘How’s he doing?’ she demanded, as soon as I did. ‘I won’t be able to speak to him for another hour at least.’

‘I haven’t spoken to him myself yet.’ I’d stayed clear of him as he left the eighteenth green, just in case Christine McGuigan was lurking somewhere, in disguise. ‘But I did bump into Lena Mankell and she was smiling. Trust me, you can take that as a positive.’

‘He’s not getting too excited, is he?’

‘Ellie, on an excitement scale of ten, I’d say he was just short of three. He’s not going to choke tomorrow, I promise you. Tom was on the range with him this morning, acting as Uche’s gofer; he says nobody else has got a chance.’

She laughed. ‘Good lad; but what do you say?’

‘You know what golf’s like. Nothing’s certain until all the scores
are recorded, and the boy in the lead is a terrific player. But whether Jonny wins or not I’m sure he’s going to do what he really came here to do and that’s make a lot of money. He says that third place here would be enough to get him his tour card for next year . . . but that’s not to say he’s thinking of finishing third.’

I thought I heard a stifled sob on the other end of the line. ‘To be honest,’ Ellie admitted, ‘he’s done better already than I thought he would. I mean, he’s just my wee boy. Remember him when you first met him? As wild as the purple heather, he was. He’s calmed down a lot, but I still see him that way. Is he sleeping all right?’

‘That is something I would not know for sure,’ I reminded her. ‘But he’s eating well. I had a look in his bag on the range. Uche had more bananas in there than Tesco’s fruit counter.’

‘That Uche!’ She let out a cracked chuckle. ‘He’s some boy. Maybe I’ll get to meet his dad, one day, the aristocrat. If the son’s anything to go by, he must be an interesting bloke.’

I’ve never known a Saturday evening like the one that followed. Jonny was so laid-back when he arrived home that I reckoned I’d placed him a point too high on that excitement scale. So was Tom; he could see only one outcome, so it didn’t occur to him to be any more worried about the final round than he had been about the first three. No, it was me who was strung out.

I’d started putting a meal together, but only succeeded in slicing my finger instead of an onion. Jonny walked in on me as I was stopping the bleeding with a piece of kitchen roll. ‘Auntie P,’ he declared, ‘I don’t know what sort of sauce you were planning to
make, but I don’t fancy it. Anyway, you’ve cooked enough this week; I’m taking us all out.’