Poisoned Cherries (14 page)

“You and I’ll do it then, Oz,” the solicitor declared.

I almost agreed, then I thought of the movie.
 
“I’m sorry, but I’ve got good professional reasons for not being involved any further.”

“Fuck me,” Charlie Badenoch moaned.
 
“Is that all I get for a pound?
 
Okay, I’ll do it myself; I’ll take my secretary with me as a witness.”

“We could arrange for Morrow to go with you,” I suggested.
 
The lawyer and the ex-superintendent both looked at me as if I was daft.

“Well?”
 
I demanded.

Charlie took my elbow and led me towards the window, so that our backs were to Alison.
 
“What if there was no call?”
 
he whispered.
 
It must have been a flash of the old Blackstone; a poor, sad, gullible, trusting idiot where women were concerned.

“True,” I muttered.

We turned back to face the others.
 
“Let’s not get too excited about this.
 
If Alison was set up, whoever did it was probably clever enough to use a call-box.
 
The police may argue that Alison could have gone out and made the call to herself and had it picked up by her answering service.”

“Yes, but if that was the case why didn’t she volunteer that story to Morrow?”

“If I was going to kill David,” Alison interrupted, ‘why did I take a taxi at all?
 
And why did I book one that could be traced through the company contract?”

“The Crown could argue that you were either stupid or very, very clever, that you set up the whole call-out thing to explain your presence in the area, just in case you were seen.”

“What about the meeting with me?”
 
I asked.
 
“If she set me up to find the body, then all that discussion would have been phoney; the James Torrent problem could all have been bullshit.”

“Oz!”
 
Alison protested.

“Shut up,” I told her.
 
“The police haven’t even started on you yet. It won’t be Ronnie Morrow who interviews you next time; it’ll be someone nasty, like Ricky here.
 
If we’re going to keep your bum out of jail for any longer than a day or two we’re going to have to have all these questions answered before you meet whoever that is.”

I ignored her and looked back at the other two.
 
“If the James Torrent story is true, it helps, yes?”
 
They both nodded.
 
“In that case, I’ll follow that up.”

“Are you sure about that?”
 
asked Charlie.
 
“It’s iifvolvement, Oz.”

“Sure, but if the story is genuine .. .”

“It is!”
 
Alison shouted.

“I told you before; shut up.
 
If it is, I’m the guy who’s supposed to be delivering Ewan Capperauld to open this bloody office, so it would be natural for me to come to see him.
 
If anyone else turns up and starts asking him questions he might react by firing Alison and her firm on the spot.”

“You’ve got a point,” Ricky conceded.

“Besides,” I added, ‘there’s something else.
 
I want to meet the guy who was brave or stupid enough to try to rip off my girlfriend.”

Twenty-two.

I knew one thing when I left Ricky’s that afternoon; I had had enough of taxis for a while.
 
Okay, Edinburgh may be a bit of a pisser of a city for a car-owner, but I can’t help it.
 
Ever since I’ve been eighteen I’ve had something at my front door into which I could jump and drive off at my whim.

The cab that picked me up from chez Ross was twenty minutes late; the driver pleaded traffic.
 
“Don’t blame me, pal,” he moaned, when I shot a glance at my watch.
 
“Blame the fuckin’ cooncillors.”

I wasn’t interested in blaming anyone; I just decided that if I couldn’t beat the problem I would add to it.
 
So instead of taking me home I had the guy drop me at the Western Automobile showroom in Willowbrae Road, where an exceptionally friendly sales executive called Simon sold me a nice blue Mercedes demonstrator, with leather seats and all the toys, in about five minutes flat.

The smile only left his face when he asked me how I’d be financing it and I replied, “Credit card.”

“You serious?”
 
he said; surprised although still managing to be polite.
 
I was quite chuffed to know that, clearly, there was still someone in Edinburgh who’d never heard of me.

“Absolutely.”

“It’s a bit unusual.”

“I’ll bet it is.”

“There’s a surcharge.”

Once a Fifer, always a Fifer; I couldn’t let that one pass, or my Dad would have turned in his grave, and he wasn’t even dead yet.
 
“Why?”

“The companies charge us, we pass it on to you.”

“Do you hear me haggling over the price of the vehicle?”
 
I asked.

“No,” he admitted.

“So?”
 
?

“I’ll need to ask my sales manager.”

Simon disappeared into a glass-walled office at the far end of the showroom and spoke to a thin-faced man.
 
He turned to look at me; I gave him a wave and a smile and saw the slight inclination of his eyebrows that told me that he did go to movies, or watched satellite television wrestling.
 
He looked away, and I saw him nod.

The surcharge disappeared; my gold card was authorised and I signed the paperwork.
 
I called Greg McPhillips’ office, which also deals with my insurance business, and told them to have a cover note at the dealership next morning so that Simon could register the vehicle, and I could pick it up.

By the time all that was done, there was no point in phoning James Torrent’s office to make an appointment.
 
In any event, I still had to work out a line to get me in there; I didn’t think I’d make it on my name alone.
 
Back at the apartment, I sat down and gave it some thought, until eventually I settled on a pitch.

I called Alison at Ricky’s.
 
“How’s your business set up?”
 
I asked her.
 
“Partnership or incorporated?”

“We’re a limited company.
 
David and I are ... were ... the directors.”

“Fine.
 
You’ve just got yourself a new board member.”

“Eh?
 
Who?”

“Me, you daft bat.
 
I don’t think it would be a good idea to lie to this man Torrent, and I have to give a stronger reason for visiting him than the one we discussed earlier.
 
That okay with you?
 
It’s a temporary measure, mind.”

“Of course it’s okay.
 
I’ve just had a one-woman board meeting and you’re appointed.
 
I’ll minute it later.
 
As for the length of your directorship, we’ll have to see.”

Ross took the phone back from her when we were finished.
 
“Charlie called,” he told me.
 
“He and his secretary checked Alison’s phone and it does show a call logged in at around the time she said.
 
I checked out the number with a contact.
 
It’s a box, and it’s in the entrance to Meadowbank Stadium.

“That helps, Oz.
 
If it had been just round the corner from her place, the CID would just have laughed at her.
 
The fact that it was further away even than her office gives it a wee bit more credibility.”

“It’s pretty tenuous, though, isn’t it?”

“Aye, it is that.
 
A lot’ll depend on what the lab turns up.”

“When will we know that?”

“I know it now.
 
I’m dead certain they’ll match the hair and blood to the boy.
 
How else would they have found the thing at her place, if it wasn’t hers like she says?
 
And if it was .. .”
 
He snorted.
 
“However it turns out, that’ll be the murder weapon; either she’s lying, or someone planted it there.”

“Which do you think?”

“I don’t know, and that’s the truth.
 
If I was Morrow... or rather if I was Morrow’s boss like I used to be ... I’d probably sling it all to the fiscal and let the crown office decide whether or not to charge her.”

twenty-Three.

The bedside phone woke me at seven-forty-three next morning; as I reached for it, bleary-eyed, I thought that it might have been Susie, but it wasn’t.
 
It was Miles, calling from the V.I.P lounge in Heathrow.

“How’s tricks up there?”
 
he asked.
 
“Any more headlines we don’t need?”

“No,” I told him, trusting that nothing had blown up overnight.
 
“Your security adviser’s got it well under control.”

“That’s good,” said my soon-to-be-ex-brother-in-law.
 
“Kravitz said he was a solid guy, and well-connected too.
 
How you feeling, anyway?”

I suppressed a yawn.
 
“Rubber ducked,” I told him, lapsing in to Edinburgh rhyming slang.

Miles chuckled.
 
“If that means what I think it does, then it goes for me too.
 
Any way you cut it, that is one long haul flight.
 
I’ll be wrecked by the time we get to Dawn’s folks’ place.
 
Age is catching up with me, my man.”

“How’s Brucie handling it?”

“Like it’s an adventure; he slept most of the way across.
 
Now it’s just another new day to him.
 
How’s your little one doing?”

For some reason I thought of a tabloid feature that had appeared when we were in Toronto; Miles and Oz, men about town.
 
If they could hear us now..
 
. “She’s great,” I told him.
 
“She’s mastered the typical ten-day-old’s repertoire; eats, sleeps and shits, and that’s it.
 
Speaking of which, I have a couple of those to take care of myself.”

“Sure.
 
I’ll have my assistant call you as soon as she gets to

Edinburgh, to set up the arrangements for tomorrow.
 
See you when I hit town myself.”

“Okay.”
 
I hung up and rolled out of bed.
 
I felt a bit stiff, a late reaction to my gym work, so I did some stretching exercises, then followed up with a quick hundred sit-ups, the same number of press-ups and fifty chins, using the top of the heavy bedroom door as a bar.

Q1

I was going to give shaving a miss, and was heading for the shower when I remembered that, with luck, I’d be meeting Mr.
 
James Torrent later.
 
I still had half a face full of shave gel when Susie called.
 
We talked about nothing much, other than the baby, for about ten minutes; the second half of my shave wasn’t quite as smooth as the first.

By the time I had showered, dressed and eaten a healthy breakfast of whole meal toast and black coffee, it was close enough to nine o’clock for me to take a chance on phoning Torrent to set up a meeting.

My call was picked up on the second ring, then I had to sit through one of those really annoying automated multiple choice responses.
 
I didn’t want to rent office equipment, nor did I want to buy it.
 
I didn’t want to buy specific items of office furniture, nor did I want to take advantage of their space-planning service.
 
I didn’t need any other office supplies, and since I didn’t have any of their equipment, I didn’t need their technical help-line either.
 
However I did have a miscellaneous enquiry; I pressed button seven.

They must have had a few of those that morning, for I was told that I had been placed in a queue, without the option of listening to Lou Vega singing “Mambo Number Five’, or those two old geezers doing the Macarena.
 
The Trio Los Bravos performing their only hit, “Black is Black’, were at the point of doing my head in completely when finally I heard a real, female voice on the other end, but by that time I had begun to work something out about Mr.
 
Torrent.

I asked for his office.
 
“In connection with what, sir?”
 
the operator asked.

“His new suit,” I told her.
 
“This is his tailor speaking.”

I don’t know if she believed me, but she put me through anyway.
 
“Mr.
 
Torrent’s office,” said another woman; she pronounced the name with the emphasis on the second syllable.
 
“How can I help you?”
 
Her voice was slow and cultured; for some reason she reminded me of an ad for Galaxy chocolate.

“By making an appointment for me to see your boss; this is Oz Blackstone speaking.”

There was a silence, of a sort I’d experienced before.
 
“The Oz Blackstone?”
 
she asked, in a tone which implied doubt.

“There’s only one of me, as far as I know.
 
I’ll be carrying Oz Blackstone’s driving licence when I come to see your boss.
 
That’ll mean either that I really am me, or that I’ve killed me and stolen it.
 
Oh yes, and I’ll also look remarkably like me.”

“What would you like to discuss with Mr.
 
Torrent?”
 
she asked, without as much as a chuckle.
 
This woman had no sense of humour.

“That’s something I’d prefer to discuss with Mr.
 
Torrent,” I told her.

“I am his executive assistant,” the woman said, humouring the mystery caller.

“But you’re not mine.
 
Now do I get to see the man or not..
 
.”
 
I paused for effect.
 
‘..
 
. Or do I have to pursue other means?”