Quintin Jardine - Deadly Business

The book wasn’t warts and all; it was plain fucking warts, pure and simple. Culshaw had done his research on Oz, that was for sure. The story proper began with what purported to be a news article in the Saltire , a fictitious Scottish daily newspaper. It said that workmen dismantling an outbuilding on the Perthshire property that Al and Sheila Greystock had owned had found a shotgun encased in the foundations. To the police its origins were a mystery, and they could trace no record of its registration anywhere in Britain.

That got my attention, for Oz and Susie had lived beside Loch Lomond, and indeed a shotgun had been found there when the next owner had demolished the playground they’d built for the kids. I knew this because Susie had told me about it, after the police asked her, politely, if she had any idea where it had come from. She hadn’t, but Oz had. I knew because he told me.

Culshaw offered no theories in the early part of his story; instead he went back and gave a brief account of the so-called Al’s early life in Newport on Tay, highlighted by a story told by one of his classmates, about him going mental and beating the shit out of two guys in his year because of a casual schoolboy remark about Maureen, his childhood sweetheart. That wasn’t fantasy either; that happened, not in Newport, but in Anstruther, where Oz was raised. He told me about that too, very early in our relationship; eventually he told me everything.

The scene changed to Edinburgh and Al’s early life there, first as a trainee fireman, and later as a self-employed journalist, as he was said to style himself, who made extra money singing with an up-and-coming rock band.

That was the point at which I made my first appearance. ‘Phyllis’ turned up at one of his gigs, and sank her hooks in him straight away.

‘The boy Al was okay until he met her,’ a guy called Saeed Nawaz was quoted as saying. Saeed had to equal Ali Patel, the neighbourhood grocer in Edinburgh, and Oz’s pal.

‘Him and Maureen, his bird from when he was a kid in Fife, they were fine, an item, although they didnae live together. Then she turned up, that Phyllis. She was in bother of some sort or other, he helped her out, and she helped herself. They went off together on some business trip that she’d lined up, only for a week like, but when they came back everything was different. They went off again, but for a while this time, then just when I thought he was gone for good, he came back, out the blue, and things were all right wi’ him and Maureen again. They got married, he selt me the flat and they moved tae Glasgow.’

True, all of it, and he’d got Ali’s accent right as well; but then it drifted into pure fiction.

‘Al made it big in the music business; he got lucky, ken, became a big star overnight. A wee bit later, Phyllis came back. Ah don’t know how, but she’d missed all that. I was in one night, there was a ring at the doorbell and it was her. She looked at me, surprised like, and asked where Al was. Ah telt her he didnae live there any more, that him and Maureen had got married and moved tae the Wild West. The look she gave me scared me shitless. Then she turned on her heel and went off. A wee bit later, Ah heard that Maureen was dead, that she’d been electrocuted by a dodgy washing machine or something. Accident? Maybe so, but the timing was a bit funny.’

Another outright lie soldered on to some truth; that doorstep exchange never happened. The truth was that when Jan died, I was in Spain, and Oz was with me. We’d met up completely by accident, and there were people around who could prove it.

I read on, into the night as the story moved on. In some ways it was a pretty accurate account of Oz’s life, with only the names, geography and occupations changed. There was a chapter that was based on an incident when Oz was making a movie, and a real-life drama developed, involving the kidnapping of my sister Dawn … an actress, of course, not a politician. He had some of that story right on the button, but not all of it; my guess was that his source had been Susie, and that she’d held back a part that related to her. But ‘Sheila’ came into the narrative, right on cue, paying a visit to Al and Phyllis in St Tropez, where they had bought a mansion and were starting out on married life.

‘Al was pathetic then,’ her ‘account’ read. ‘I think he realised that he’d been drawn into something that he didn’t really want, a relationship in which he had no control. He made a pass at me, one night when Phyllis was away … fucking up somebody else’s head, no doubt. It seemed to me like a plea for help more than anything else. In normal circumstances, I’d have told him to get lost, but he was so wasted … I suppose I took pity on him.’

‘Hah!’ I snorted when I’d finished that section. ‘The poor little innocent had her knickers in her handbag from the moment she stepped through our door.’ For Al and Phyllis, read Oz and me and for St Tropez, read L’Escala, in the house where Tom was made … and Janet too, as it happened.

The last time Oz and I were alone together, in the Algonquin Hotel in New York, he spent a good chunk of the night filling in all of those parts of his life to which I hadn’t actually been a witness. His confession: that’s all I could call it, made to the only person he knew would keep all his secrets, since some of them were mine too. His account of that get-together was rather different from the fictionalised version in Culshaw’s manuscript, and much later Susie had pretty much confirmed it to me.

I went back to the ‘book’ and continued until, as I knew it would, it came back to that shotgun. Then it really did go into wonderland. The premise of the story was that Sheila’s family steel stockholding business was under attack by Glasgow gangsters, who were looking to drive down the share price so they could take it over, and that with Phyllis urging him on in the background, no longer part of his family, but still part of the scene, Al had taken matters into his own hands … with the shotgun.

Of course, that was nonsense. Culshaw had missed the point. ‘Al’ might have done that, but no way Oz would. No, he’d have paid someone else to take the guys out. As for my alleged involvement … I was too busy living on my own in London and looking after a two-year-old at the time.

I pushed a keyboard button to move on, but there was no more. The story came to an abrupt end; nothing about Al’s life after that, or his death, or even about Phyllis, the Wicked Witch of the West.

I checked my watch; it showed 2.30 a.m. I was on the point of calling Susie regardless, but her illness had manifested itself by that time, and she was on medication. It would have been cruel to waken her, and probably pointless, as her head would have been like mush.

But I wanted to be cruel to Culshaw, as cruel as I could; waking him in the middle of the night was pretty tame, I know, but it was a start. I called the hotel. The night porter must have been catnapping, for it took him a minute or so to answer. I recognised his sleepy voice as one of the long-term staff members who’d drawn the short straw.

‘Hello, Andoni,’ I said, in Castellano, for he’s from Asturia and doesn’t speak the local tongue. ‘It’s Primavera. I’d like you to put me through to Mr Culshaw’s room, please.’

‘But Madam,’ he exclaimed, ‘Primavera, it’s very late. He’ll be asleep. He was in the bar till midnight; he’d had a few drinks by the time he asked for his key.’

‘Nevertheless, he’ll be expecting me to call. Connect me, please.’

I had another wait, but not so long this time. ‘Mmmm.’ The voice that came on the line could only grunt, at first. ‘I thought you’d wait till morning.’