Poisoned Cherries (18 page)

Her face brightened; there’s nothing like cash for cheering you up.
 
“That’s great.
 
I was going to have to pay someone off at the end of the month; now I won’t.”

Time for a reality reminder, I thought.
 
“Don’t be so sure.
 
You’re going to be in court tomorrow, and the charge will go public, even if the press can’t report any details.
 
You’re going to have a hell of a job holding your clients in those circumstances.”

Her sudden burst of optimism was hard to suppress, though.
 
“Most of them will stick by me; I’m sure of that.
 
And if I can announce that you’ve become a director, that’ll convince people too, won’t it?”

“Jesus, Alison, it wouldn’t even convince me.
 
What are my skills?
 
I’m a ham actor, that’s all.”

“But they’ll assume you’re investing in the business.”
 
She paused.

“You wouldn’t, Oz, would you?”

That was a shot I hadn’t been expecting.
 
I did some quick thinking.

“What are Capperauld’s shares worth?”

“The auditor valued them at a quarter of a million.”

“Fine, but now he’s dead, and the business is in trouble.
 
Offer his estate fifty grand, on my behalf, and I’ll pick them up, with a formal agreement that you or the company itself will buy them from me at valuation in three years’ time.”

Her eyes narrowed.
 
“You could make a tidy profit on that.
 
When did you pick up the business brain?”

“Along the way.”

“Why three years?”

“If you do go away, I reckon you’ll be out in a year, eighteen months at the most.
 
You draw no pay, other than what it takes to cover your mortgage, and we appoint a manager to run things during that period.
 
I’ll supervise from a distance, and keep an eye on the cash.
 
When you come out, you pick up the reins again, and at the agreed time, I get paid off.”

“What about the bank?
 
My manager’s a grim-looking man; he frightens me a bit.”

“No problem; I’ll tell them to give you someone who doesn’t.”

“How can you do that?”

“I’m not without influence.
 
By that I mean money; it’s the only language these guys understand.
 
I still do most of my banking in Edinburgh; I’ll fix it for my guy to take over your account.”

She looked at me as if she’d never known me.
 
“First Torrent, now this; is there anything you couldn’t fix?”

“I can’t fix your problem with your late ex-fiance.”

“I’ll bet you could if you put your mind to it.”
 
There was a crafty gleam in her eye now.

“Listen, I am here to make a movie.
 
I am being paid a hell of a lot of money for it, I’m still new to the game and it needs my one-hundred-per-cent attention.
 
You want that problem solved, hire a detective.”

“I don’t know any detectives.”

“You fucked one last night,” I pointed out.

Alison did not appreciate that reminder.
 
“Him!”
 
she exploded. “Ricky!

After what he did, I wouldn’t employ him if he was ...”

‘..
 
. the last private eye on earth?
 
Okay, do your time, if you have to.
 
Ross might be a slippery bastard, but he is very good.
 
You don’t get to be a Lothian and Borders detective superintendent without being shit hot at the job.
 
Okay, he set you up today and maybe he shouldn’t have.
 
But he took it hard when he got kicked off the force.
 
I reckon he was trying to prove a point.
 
Still, if you want help and he’ll take it on, he’s the man.”

“It’ll stick in my throat.”

“An unfortunate remark, in the circumstances.”

She giggled, then suppressed it, “Well, if you’ll talk to him for me, I’ll consider it.
 
But where would he begin?”

“With the murder weapon.
 
If you didn’t do it, someone planted it in your flat.
 
You didn’t see any signs of a break-in, last Thursday or later, did you?”

“No; and I would have.
 
All my windows secure from the inside, and I always double-lock my door when I go out.”

“So how was it done?”

“David had a key.”

“Didn’t you ask for it back when he chucked you?”

“Yes, but he still had it.
 
The killer must have found it and used it.”

“Could be.”

“Will that help?”
 
she asked brightly.

“Who knows?
 
But at least, it’s a place to start.”

Twenty-Six.

Ricky wasn’t too keen to take the commission when I told him about it later that evening.
 
In fact his exact words were, “No fucking way!”

He hadn’t been totally pleased to see me when I’d rung his bell; I think he was still smarting over the way I’d rung it earlier on, when I found out he’d recorded my conversation with Alison.
 
I didn’t really feel like apologising for that, but I did, for her sake.
 
“Sorry about that, mate,” I told him, ‘but if I hadn’t belted you, she’d never have believed that I wasn’t in on the act as well.”

“You think that quick, do you?”
 
he grunted, doubtfully, as he dug a couple of beers out of his fridge.

“Sometimes.”

“That’ll be right.
 
I’m still not taking the job, though.”

“Of course you are.
 
Come on, Ricky, you can’t turn down a challenge

like that.
 
I’ll bet that somewhere inside that conniving head of yours

there’s a mad dream that your pal the new chief constable might

reinstate you in the force.
 
If you could pull off something like this

.. .”

He looked at me scornfully.
 
“There’s no chance of that.
 
Anyway, I told you; I’m making too much bloody money to even think about going back in.”

“Fine.
 
So clear Alison’s name, then sell your story to a tabloid.
 
You never know, Miles might even fancy it as a movie plot.”

I saw pound signs rolling in his eyes like two-thirds of a one-armed bandit.
 
“Maybe.
 
But there’s a problem, Oz; she fucking did it!”

“I don’t think so.”

“Don’t give me it.
 
You thought so when you left here; you were as sure as me.
 
So what’s made you change your mind?
 
Did she flash her eyes at you?
 
Did she say, “Hold me, Oz, I’m scared”?
 
Was that it?”

“She tried that last Sunday and it didn’t work.
 
No, she swore to me, on her life, that she didn’t do it.
 
She’s taking the plea, but she still maintains that she’s innocent.”

“Silly lass.
 
She’d better shut up, or the crown office might hear her and call off the deal.”
 
He sighed.
 
“Okay, if you’re convinced, I’ll give it a go.
 
I owe her, I suppose.
 
I feel a bit shitty about the way I set her up.”

“Did you bug the bedroom as well?”
 
I asked him, jokingly.

“Of course I did.”

I’m not easily surprised any more, but that one made me gasp.
 
“You’re serious, aren’t you?
 
You were banging her, and all the time you were hoping she’d confess to murder.”
 
Ricky looked at the floor.
 
“Go on.” I said, ‘get the tape out and play it.
 
I’ve got to hear this.”

“I wiped it afterwards,” he muttered.

“Very sanitary of you; now get the tape.”

“Give it up, Blackstone.
 
I feel guilty enough without you taking the piss.
 
Especially now that I’m starting to like the girl.”

“What?
 
After she went for you with that knife?
 
Mind you that’s appropriate, I suppose; you bone her, she tries to bone you.”

“I’ve told you, chuck it!”
 
he shouted, but a smile crossed his face at the same time.
 
“She’s got spirit in her, has Alison; she can hide it well at times, but it’s there.
 
Right, I’m going to help her, and what’s more, I’ll do it for free.
 
So where do we begin?”

“You’re the detective.”

“I know that.
 
I was talking to myself, not you.
 
We start with the murder weapon; she didn’t kill him, so someone must have planted it at her place.
 
We’ll go there and look for signs of a break-in.”

I shook my head.
 
“No.
 
You’ll go there.
 
I’m not involved in this. But you’ll be wasting your time; there were no signs of a break-in, and there was no need for one either.
 
David Capperauld still had a key to Alison’s flat.”

Ricky scratched his chin.
 
“Had he now?”
 
He was even starting to sound like a copper again.
 
I know that chin trick; I worked for a lawyer once who did something similar.
 
In his case, he used to light his pipe in the middle of a discussion.
 
What he was actually doing was giving himself time to think.

“I’d better get into his place,” Ross said, eventually.
 
“If the key’s missing, we need to know.
 
That could be a bugger, though; I don’t want Ronnie Morrow to hear I’m doing this, or it could put Alison’s deal in jeopardy.
 
But I can’t break into the place.”

I recalled that once, not that many years in the past, the same guy had broken into my flat, but I let that pass.
 
I also let him off the hook.

“Not a problem,” I told him.
 
“She had a key to his place as well, remember.
 
That was how we got in last Sunday.

“It was on the bunch of keys she gave me today, so I could pick up her stuff... although as it happened, I didn’t need them.”
 
I took a brass Chubb key from my pocket, laid it on his kitchen work-surface, and slid it across to him.
 
“It isn’t there any more.”

Ricky whistled, and smiled.

Twenty-Seven.

He was still smiling when he stepped out of the lift next morning.
 
I wasn’t, though; I had phoned Susie as I was having breakfast and told her how the Alison thing had developed; all of it.
 
Not to put too fine a point on it she had done her nut.

“You’re telling me that this woman, one of your many old flames, is about to plead guilty to killing her boyfriend, you’ve taken his place on the board of their company, and you’re in the process of buying his shares in the business, at a knock-down price?
 
How the hell do you think that’s going to look to the police when they find out?
 
Are you completely off your head?”

That aspect hadn’t occurred to me for one second.

“Put it that way, and the answer’s yes; I probably am.
 
But I’ve made the offer, love.
 
I can’t back down now.”

“Don’t “love” me.
 
You’re a director of the Gantry Group; what’s trouble for you is trouble for me.
 
Tell me straight; are you still lusting after this woman?”

“No, I’m not; I never did, either.”

“Just as well for you, or I’d cut your balls off.
 
Now you must get out of this daft agreement, now.”

“How am I going to do that, without leaving her in the lurch?”

“I’ll put up the fifty grand, or whatever figure the boy’s estate settles for eventually.
 
I’ll advance the money to her solicitor, in confidence, and he’ll buy the shares on my behalf.
 
She can repay me on the same basis you agreed.
 
I’ll protect myself by putting my own accountants in place to oversee the business.”

“But...”

“No arguments, Oz; that’s what’s going to happen.”

“But why would you do that for her?”

“I wouldn’t.
 
I’m doing it for you.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re the father of my daughter and I won’t let you make such an arse of yourself.”

“And that’s all?”

An intake of breath so deep that it sounded like a wave winding up to crash on to a beach.
 
“No.
 
Because I love you, and I don’t want you to get into any more trouble than you can help.”

After that, I had to agree.
 
I was still thinking about it when Miles phoned from the Caledonian Hotel, to say that he and Dawn had checked in, and when Ricky Ross rang the entry phone buzzer at ten minutes to ten.
 
What I was thinking about, was being my own man.

“What’s tickling you?”
 
I asked him.

“I went to David Capperauld’s place,” he answered.
 
“He had her key all right.
 
He’d still have it, if he was alive.
 
It was in his kitchen cupboard, hanging on a row of hooks with lots of other keys.
 
Every one of them was on a ring with a plastic tag, with a label in it.
 
Hers said “Alison”.
 
I took it up to her flat and tried it, to make sure, then I put it back where it was.

“His door key was hanging there too, labelled “spare”.
 
Whoever killed him must have taken a look around, or known where to look, found Alison’s key there, and used it to get in to plant the awl at her place.”