As Easy as Murder (6 page)

‘So Uche’s message did get to you,’ said Johnny. ‘The sod never told me you’d called him back.’

‘I didn’t,’ I replied. ‘Well, I did, but I decided not to leave a message, since I’d no idea who he was. Who the hell is he, anyway?’

‘He’s my caddie.’

‘You’ve got a caddie?’ I gasped, inanely, as if it was natural in my world for a pro golfer to carry his own clubs.

‘Of course I have, Auntie,’ he chuckled. He nodded, over his shoulder, towards the black guy, who had closed in on us. ‘This is Uche,’ he continued. ‘Uche Wigwe. He’s my mate really; we were at Arizona State together. He hopes to join the tour as well, but he’s caddying for me until we can both go to qualifying school.’

‘That’s if we both have to, ma’am,’ Uche intervened. ‘If Jonny makes enough money through sponsors’ invitations, he’ll earn a playing card automatically.’

He was beautifully spoken, much better than Jonny, much better than me for that matter. ‘Your accent,’ I began.

‘African,’ he explained. ‘Nigerian, to be precise. My father is what the British media delight in calling a “princeling”, the implication being that our nobility isn’t nearly as grand or important as yours. It’s a slur that doesn’t trouble us, however, for aside from his old tribal title, he’s filthy rich.’

‘Uche was at Winchester School before Arizona State,’ Jonny added. ‘No scholarships, by the way. In theory we have the same manager, but it’s harder to get sponsors’ invites for him.’

‘Why?’ I asked, naively.

‘Why do you think? I played on the Walker Cup team; he didn’t.’

‘Jonny.’ The posh bag-carrier nudged him, gently.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘Auntie, I have to hit some balls. Stay and watch and we’ll talk when I’ve done. Can we have lunch afterwards?’

‘On one condition,’ I told him. ‘Stop calling me “Auntie”, will you?’

I climbed back up to my perch, and Jonny went to work. From that moment I wasn’t looking at anyone else, not at any of the champions on parade, only my nephew . . . technically he hadn’t been since Oz and I divorced, but I was claiming him anyway. I know a little about golf, from the telly and from playing myself. It didn’t take me long to work out that the swing I was watching wasn’t the one he had learned from his grandfather and his uncle, classic Scottish amateurs both, conditioned to hit the ball low, and under the wind. His flight was high, and long. At first I thought
that his natural shot was a fade, until he started to hit it the other way, drawing from right to left.

I heard Patterson murmur beside me. ‘See how straight his back is?’ he whispered. That hadn’t escaped my notice; everything about him seemed perfectly balanced. ‘He hits it like a dream,’ he added. ‘I wonder what his short game’s like?’

‘If he’s anything like his Grandpa Blackstone, it’ll be deadly. Mac’s a bandit around the greens.’

‘You sound as if you’re still in touch with him.’

‘Why shouldn’t I be? He’s my son’s grandfather too. Mac’s a regular visitor.’

‘Why isn’t he here for Jonathan’s debut?’ he wondered aloud.

‘I can tell you that,’ I said. ‘He and Mary are on a long cruise, out in the Far East. He may not even know about it.’
But if he had, would he even have told me?
I wondered. A loose, unofficial pact had grown up between Mac and me. While he had given me occasional reports of Jonny’s golfing progress, we never talked about events past, and rarely about people from it. Tom was our shared future and we concentrated on him.

The thought was still in my head when I noticed that Jonny and Uche seemed to have been joined by someone else . . . at least I assumed they had, for she, the only woman on the range, was standing beside the caddie, talking to him, but watching Jonny, while filming him with a handheld camera. He stopped, to change clubs and to take on some water, and I managed a look at her in profile. She was well over thirty, maybe even my age. Her hair was blonde, without being lustrous, and her skin was brown, but weather-beaten rather than tanned. She was dressed in pale green
trousers, golf shoes and a polo shirt. Although I couldn’t see the front, it looked a match for the Ashworth that the guys were wearing, and it had the same car manufacturer logo that was on their sleeves. I’d noticed her earlier, near the clubhouse, talking to a large blond guy and two kids. One of the team, I guessed, but who was she?

Once again, Patterson came up with the goods. ‘That’s impressive too,’ he remarked. ‘That must be Lena Mankell. She’s Swedish, a swing coach . . . the only woman doing that job on the men’s tour, so it’s got to be her . . . and she’s reckoned to be one of the two or three best around. If she’s working with Jonny, and it looks as if she is, that’s a statement in itself.’

From then on, I watched her as well. Two or three times she stopped Jonny to play him back the video she had shot, and once adjusting the position of his hands at the top of the backswing, but otherwise she seemed happy with what she was seeing.

They worked on; that upright swing never seemed to vary, but gradually I could spot the slight differences in the set-up that triggered the differences in ball flight. When the session ended, and Uche put Jonny’s driver back in his bag, I checked my watch and found that they had been at it for well over two hours. By that time I was on my own, Shirley having pleaded a combination of sore bum and hunger before dragging Patterson off to find refreshment in the clubhouse.

As his caddie shouldered the enormous bag and headed for the locker room, Jonny was left in conversation with the big blond guy, who had joined him just before his practice broke up; it didn’t stop him waving me down to join them. ‘This is Lars,’
he said, ‘Lars Martinsson; he’s married to my coach, and he’s a pro as well.’

‘By the skin of my teeth,’ his companion added, in comfortable, if accented, English. ‘I don’t play so much these days. Lena’s work takes her to the big events, mostly. I don’t get to play in them very often, but I don’t like to be away from her and the kids, so I don’t spend too much time on the minor circuit. The one time I did win, seven years ago in Malmo, she wasn’t there to see it.’

Nice
, I thought,
a golfer who follows his wife, rather than the other way around
.

‘Come on, Auntie,’ Jonny interrupted. ‘Let’s go to the players’ catering. I need to take on some carbs for this afternoon’s session.’

That sounded like a good idea, so I bade farewell to Lars, and fell into step alongside him. ‘You’re not finished?’ I said.

He shook his head. ‘I have to take advantage of today. It’s going to be really busy here tomorrow, so I want to get out on the course while I can. I’m due on the tee at two fifteen in a four-ball with . . .’ He rattled off three names; one of them was the former US Open champion, another had been captain of the previous year’s Ryder Cup team, and the third was likely to be his successor. ‘They’re curious,’ he explained. ‘They want to see how I shape up. Plus they’re all good guys, to be sharing practice time with a newcomer like me. But this is a generous sport, Auntie Primavera.’

I smiled. ‘Hey, I told you not to call me that.’

‘I like calling you Auntie. You’re the only one I’ve got.’

‘Not so,’ I pointed out. ‘There’s your Auntie Susie, in Monaco.’

He stopped smiling. ‘She doesn’t count. I don’t like her. Now that Uncle Oz is dead she’s off the list.’

‘That’s a bit harsh, Jonny.’

‘No it isn’t. Mum can’t stand her either, and Grandpa and Mary only tolerate her because of the two grandkids, Janet and my namesake. They’ve never forgiven her for the way she came between you and Uncle Oz. I was too young to know what was happening at the time, but now I do, and I feel the same as them.’

I was still pondering this as we walked into the catering tent, the only part of the tournament’s canvas village that appeared to be working. I chose a salad from the buffet table, but Jonny helped himself to an enormous plate of rigatoni, with a rich meatball sauce.

‘You know,’ I told him, ‘your grandpa’s never said a word against Susie to me.’

‘He wouldn’t, for Tom’s sake, but that’s how he feels, trust me. Mum and him always liked you, Auntie P. Mum says that Susie’s man, the one she was engaged to before, was hardly in the ground before she set her cap at Uncle Oz.’ He grinned, and I could see the kid that still lived within him. ‘She doesn’t actually say “Set her cap”, but you know what I mean.’

‘I know,’ I admitted, ‘but I put that behind me a long time ago. It’s history. Yes, Susie might have thrown herself at Oz, but he didn’t have to catch her, especially not since we were technically on honeymoon at the time. But the truth is I wasn’t perfect either. Your uncle managed to get the both of us pregnant at the same time, but I was so mad with him that I kept my condition to
myself . . . for four years, as it turned out. It wasn’t really Susie he left me for, you see, it was her baby. If I’d told him about mine . . . about ours . . .’

‘That’s what Mum says too. She says your problem then was being too nice about it.’

I chuckled. ‘That’s not something I’ve ever been accused of before. So anyway, how is your mother? I haven’t seen her for years, since the last time I saw you in fact.’

‘She’s still the same; fearsome as ever. She hasn’t changed a bit.’ He paused. ‘Well, she has in one respect. She’s Lady January, now that my stepfather’s a Court of Session judge, and a lord. She and Harvey live mostly in Edinburgh now, since my brother left to go to university.’

‘And how’s he? How’s Colin? He was a wild little bugger, as I remember.’

‘He’s tamed. He learned to wipe his nose when he was about fourteen and got all serious with it. He’s doing a maths degree at Oxford; I hardly ever see him.’

I thought of the Sinclair boys when first I’d met them, in the French village where their father had parked them and Ellie while he worked all the hours God sent. Urchins, both of them. What fifteen years could do. ‘Will that be two graduates in the family?’ I asked. ‘What do you golf students come out with? I don’t know.’

He smiled. ‘I’ve got a Bachelor’s degree in agribusiness; majoring in golf course management. If I don’t make it on tour I can fall back on that; maybe I’ll do an MBA, and go to work for Brush, or somebody like him.’

‘No worries there, son. You’ll make it all right. With a swing like that, how can you not?’

‘We’ve all got swings like that, Auntie. That’s why we use people like Lena Mankell. You saw her, did you?’ I nodded. ‘This is the first pro event I’ve ever played, and Brush has got me invitations to six more here in Europe, that’s as many as you can have, and another five in the States.’

‘Who’s this Brush you keep mentioning?’ I asked.

‘He’s my manager.’

‘Our Jonny; with a manager.’ I shook my head and smiled. ‘You do realise you’re making me feel ancient?’

‘Not you,’ he said, gallantly, and quickly enough for it to sound sincere. ‘We all have, even as amateurs, some of us. His real name’s James Donnelly, but everybody calls him “Brush”, because he sweeps everything up.’

‘Sounds handy. So how does the invitation thing work? Who invites you?’

‘The event sponsors; it gets you past pre-qualifying. Like I said, I can have up to seven this year, but if I manage to finish in the top ten in a tournament, I get automatic entry to the one the next week, and I don’t have to use up an invitation, if I have one. In theory, I could be playing full time for the rest of this season, and make enough money to get my playing card for next year. But on the other hand I could use up all my invites, miss every halfway cut, and not make a cent, then go to tour qualifying school and get cut again halfway through. If that happens, the sponsors that Brush has got for me will disappear,’ he snapped his fingers, ‘just like that.’

‘Do you believe,’ I asked, ‘that is what’s going to happen?’

‘No.’ His answer was instantaneous, and firm. ‘I believe I’m going to win this week and never look back. I really mean that. I did sports psychology in my degree; if you can’t manage your head, you’ll never manage your game.’

‘Is your mum coming to see you?’

He frowned. ‘She can’t. She had a hysterectomy a couple of weeks ago, and she’s not cleared to travel yet.’ He saw my expression. ‘Don’t worry, it’s nothing life-threatening. It was serious, though. She developed a condition called endometriosis, a couple of years back. It really floored her. They tried all sorts of treatments, lasers and things, but nothing did much good, and finally, surgery was recommended as the only way. She’ll be fine now, they say.’

I’d heard of that complaint, and thanked my lucky stars it hadn’t come my way. Anything that could floor Ellie Blackstone January was not to be messed with.

‘I’m glad to hear it’s sorted,’ I told him, and I was, very glad. I’d assumed that Ellie had set her face against me forever, and was hugely pleased to learn that she hadn’t. ‘So, since she’s not here, can I come and watch you?’

‘I hope you will. That’s one reason why I asked Uche to try to get in touch with you. I’m sorry if he confused you, by the way. Grandpa’s out of touch, so I couldn’t get your number from him. All Uche did was look up the local Yellow Pages and call the first number he found with an address in St Martí.’

That filled in all the blanks. ‘No worries. It’s a date, then. I’ll bring Tom at the weekend too.’