For The Death Of Me (4 page)

‘Can't I take Tom out?'

‘With Conrad, yes, if you insist. But I'd rather you took all three of them, or Janet at least, for Jonathan can be a bit fractious. We've got Tom used to the fact that he's one of a family of three kids, and I don't want anything undermining that.'

‘You don't trust me to take him out on my own, do you?'

‘Not yet,' I told her, honestly, ‘and not for a while. You kept him from me for three years. Maybe in another three I'll be sure you won't run off with him.'

‘I won't, but have it your way. It'll be nice taking Janet out for an ice-cream.'

At first Dylan looked puzzled by this conversation, but as it developed, I could see that he was getting the picture.

‘Good,' I said. ‘Now everybody's as happy as can be expected.' I made the call to Audrey, then handed the Visa card back to Dylan. ‘Michael,' I continued, ‘we're all glad you're not dead . . . okay, that's arguable, but let's take it as read for now. Why don't you tell us about a typical day in the life of Benedict Luker, and how you came to write the book? To be honest, old son, I never gave you credit for having that much imagination.'

He did as I asked, and a strange tale it was, if it was to be believed. It seemed that Rob Willis . . . the persona under which he'd settled in Portugal . . . had posed as a former police officer, retired on health grounds after an on-the-job injury. Actually this was an approximation of the truth, but the Iberian peninsula is so crowded with retired British coppers that he was hardly going to be a sore thumb.

It had never occurred to me to doubt Dylan's account of the undercover adventures he had recounted when we had met up in Edinburgh: he'd volunteered it knowing that I had the contacts to check the story out if I chose. Equally, I took this new account at face value.

What he told us was that he had been working in a bar in a town called Tavira when he had been approached by an ex-pat friend of his named Chuck, a retired haulage contractor from the London borough of Walford or somewhere similar. The guy had told him that he had been robbed. His house, a few kilometres in-country, had been burgled while he and his wife had been on the golf course. The thieves had taken the usual, telly, DVD player and all his movies and CDs. Unfortunately, they had also taken his wife's jewel box, which, on that one day, contained a very special rock that she had neglected to put away in the safe. It was a diamond pendant, a stone with a lustrous blue shine that had come into his family about fifteen years earlier, in circumstances that Dylan's confidant thought best to leave vague, but which precluded his reporting the matter to the local police . . . or any other police for that matter.

Chuck's plea to Dylan was simple. ‘You were a copper, I know that, but thirty years in the East End sharpens your sense of smell, and I can smell something iffy about you, son. So, how about helping me get my stone back?'

How was he to reward such confidence? By saying no, and maybe start Chuck asking a few questions about his past? No way. So he agreed, and the two of them began their own investigation. Dylan had been a half-decent detective in his time, and the thief had borne no passing resemblance to Raffles, the gentleman burglar, so pretty soon they had a few leads.

‘Are you saying,' I asked him, ‘that Blue Star Falling is based on the truth?'

‘Got it in one, Oz,' he replied, with a beam that broke the local smugness record by a mile, and that takes some doing in Monaco. ‘It's all tricked up, of course. The locations are changed, the names are changed, and of course the ending was nothing like that.'

‘How did it really end, then?'

‘I found the diamond with a fence, I got it back off him . . . I threatened him with the police and he believed me . . . and I told Chuck who had stolen it. I didn't want to know any more.'

‘What if Chuck reads the book, and recognises the story?'

‘Chuck's never read a book in his life, nor has his wife. But even if he did, it's well disguised. I have this really talented editor. She's bloody lovely too; I think I may have some standing there.' He smiled. ‘So that's how Benedict Luker, novelist, came to be, and how we all came to be sitting round this table.'

I looked at him with a degree of grudging admiration, something I'd never done in my life before. ‘You're a grade-A fucking nutter, Michael.'

He nodded his silver-streaked head. ‘Anyone who read my CV would be justified in thinking that. And if they were in any doubt, I can always get you to give them a reference.'

‘And me,' Susie exclaimed.

‘Don't leave me out,' said Primavera.

3

No question about it, that was the most bizarre and embarrassing lunch of my life. I actually found it necessary to go across to the archbishop's table and apologise for any offence that my friends' unguarded tongues might have caused. Untypical behaviour for Oz, you may think, but my family and I live in the damn place: the last thing I need is to be denounced from the high altar.

Nobody wanted dessert . . . well, Prim and Dylan might have, but I wasn't going to offer it. I knew I had to get Susie out of there and back home, away from the contrived, artificially civilised atmosphere, so that she could sit down on her own and come to terms with the sudden storm that had turned the smooth waters of her life into a white-capped sea.

I called Conrad as soon as I could and summoned him to the hotel to pick up Susie; then, in one of those changes of plan which are my trademark, I summoned a taxi to take Prim, Dylan and me to the Columbus. In the hotel, I waited by the desk as he checked in. The receptionist looked more than a little surprised that he had no luggage, but she didn't query it, maybe because he was with me. I guess that must have been it, otherwise she'd have taken one look at that shirt and turned him away. As soon as he had completed the formalities I walked him the short distance to the hotel shop and made him buy a couple of polos with the Columbus logo and its slogan, ‘Live Life, Love Life', some boxers, white socks, a pair of tailored shorts, and a baseball cap. Cowboy hat, indeed!

‘This trip's costing me a fortune,' he grumbled, as he signed the card slip. ‘You'd bloody better be prepared to deal.'

‘I won't even sit down with you till you look respectable,' I told him cheerfully. ‘I've got an image to protect: I can't be seen around town with a fucking tramp.'

He stared at me. ‘Is this the same guy who used to chum me to the Horseshoe Bar in Glasgow for a pie and a pint?'

‘No, it isn't,' I replied, ‘so get used to it.'

Prim was waiting in Reception when we returned: the green number had gone, to be replaced by a sleeveless white shirt, loafers and pedal-pushers. As it always was with her, she managed to look a hell of a lot tastier than in more formal get-up. As Dylan went off to his room to transform himself into something more acceptable, I called Conrad to come and pick her up, then walked her down the steps to the front door to wait for him.

‘You all right?' I asked her.

She smiled up at me, almost shyly. ‘I'm better now,' she said.

‘Have you got over being in the nick?'

A shadow crossed her face. ‘You never get over a spell in Cornton Vale. It's not that it's a menacing place, it's just that there's so much sadness there, so much hopelessness. There were no suicides when I was in, but you can understand why there have been.'

‘There are suicides everywhere, love, even here.'

‘What, as in lose the lot in the Casino then throw yourself in the harbour?'

‘I wasn't thinking of that, but it's a possible scenario, I'll grant you.'

‘Do you ever go there, you and Susie?'

I laughed. ‘That's a good one. In all the time we were together, did you ever know me to gamble on anything other than the lottery?'

‘No, but we won the lottery. Didn't that encourage you to risk some more?'

‘Hell, no! It encouraged me to quit while I was ahead. Anyway, there are other risks in life than money, and I take plenty of them. Accepting a script that might send your career on to a new level, or set it on irreversible decline: that's a risk. Boarding a plane: that's a risk. Spending ten minutes alone with you: that's a risk.' Hell, where did that one come from, and what did I mean by it?

She didn't ask me either of those questions, though. Instead she smiled, looking at me slightly askance through her Versace shades . . . I always wear Vuarnet myself . . . with the sun glinting off her hair. ‘Meeting Mike's a risk too, I suppose.'

I considered that one for a moment. ‘No,' I told her, decision made. ‘I'm in control there.'

‘You think?'

‘Sure. As always, Dylan hasn't thought everything through. If I walk away, I lose nothing more than the cost of one posh lunch. He winds up with major financial indigestion.'

‘And will you walk away?'

‘That won't be my decision, not entirely.'

‘You're not going to kick him when he's down, are you?'

I stared at her. ‘And if I did? Jesus, you've got a short memory.'

‘What? Are you still carrying a grudge because I had a fling with him? I thought you didn't care about that, or about me, any more.'

‘I . . .' She'd misunderstood me, but I let it lie. ‘Never mind. I'm not going to put the boot in, don't worry.'

‘Your choice.' She shrugged, then frowned suddenly. ‘Does Tom miss me?'

‘I'm sure he does. But he's happy, Prim. He doesn't cry for you, if that's what you mean. Still, I'd like you to see as much of him as you can, within the context of his wider family.'

She wrinkled her nose, and gave me that look again. ‘Why don't I just move in with you? Make Ethel redundant and I'll be the nanny.' She laughed as she said it. That made it even more unsettling: over the years I'd found that Prim never said anything casually. Sometimes she'd look me in the eye and tell a flat-out lie, like, ‘I don't care about you any more.' Other times she'd say something incredibly flip, like the line about Ethel, but underneath it she'd be saying exactly what was in her mind.

I brushed it off with a laugh of my own, then changed the subject completely. ‘Where are you living?' I asked her.

‘With Dad, in Auchterarder. I sold my place in London and moved in with him. For the moment at least he needs me: he's been a lost soul since Mum died.'

‘I'm not surprised. Elanore left a big space behind her. Is he still working?'

‘He is now. He did nothing for a while, but I've managed to nag him into going back to his model-making.'

‘So you've got no social life to speak of?'

‘In Auchterarder?'

‘Okay, it was a daft question. Stay here for a few days, and I'll see if we can introduce you about town.'

She gave me the gauche look again. ‘Thanks, but I don't know if I'm ready for that yet. All I really want to do is spend time with Tom, but maybe we'll see.'

Two things happened at once to end our discussion. First, Dylan emerged from the hotel, looking presentable in polo shirt, shorts, and baseball cap, although his legs were obscenely white and his trainers were a disaster. Second, Conrad pulled up in the S-class, bang on cue. For a moment the commissionaire looked annoyed . . . probably by those trainers . . . until I stepped forward and opened the door for Prim, and until I pressed a twenty-euro note into his hand.

We stood and watched her as she waved from the rear window of the departing car.

‘Will she ever be seen again?' Dylan asked.

‘What?'

‘Joking, Oz, joking. It just looked like a movie scene, that's all.'

‘You've still got a weird sense of humour, mate. Or you've been watching too many movies.'

‘That's all Benedict Luker has to do in his sad life,' he said, with a bland smile. ‘Where are we going?'

‘For a walk. You look as if you could use the exercise. Then we'll talk.'

I led him away from the hotel, past the car museum that is Tom's favourite place in the entire charted world, and up an escalator to the road that leads to the rock on which Monaco was founded. It was a steep climb, and by the time we reached the square in front of the Grimaldi Palace, Dylan was breathing hard. (We could have taken a bus, or even a taxi, but I didn't tell him that.)

‘This is very nice,' he croaked, as we looked out across the city, ‘but it's fucking hot.'

‘Appreciate it, Mike,' I told him. ‘It's part of the joy of being alive.' To cool him down a little, I walked him through the cathedral . . . hoping that we wouldn't bump into the archbishop . . . pausing for a moment's reflection at Grace Kelly's grave, one movie star paying his respects to another, until finally we turned into the network of narrow old streets and found a shaded bar.

I ordered a couple of bottles of Sol and leaned back in my chair. ‘Well, Benny,' I began, ‘what do you want for the rights?'

‘A million dollars.'

I laughed so hard that the waiter looked hesitant about bringing me the beer.

‘A million dollars, just like that. You really have been living in a fantasy world, pal. This isn't The Horse Whisperer or Gone with the Wind that you're offering me. Let me explain something to you. Every movie project is a risk, and every investor participates in that risk. As the author of the original work, that's what you'd be, an investor just like me. This is the way it plays: I buy an option to develop Blue Star Falling as a cinematic work. If it goes all the way, the option price is an advance against a production fee, which is a percentage of the gross budget.'