Quintin Jardine - As Easy as Murder

He smiled once more, but a little awkwardly. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘that’s the thing. And this is what you probably will find weird. I’ve never actually met him, not face to face. Everything’s been done by email or by phone.’

‘No,’ I replied, ‘that is not weird. That transcends simple weirdness and moves into surrealism. You’re saying that you’ve put your career, your potentially high-earning career, into the hands of someone, and you don’t even know what he looks like?’

‘Oh, I know what he looks like, Auntie P,’ he assured me. ‘His photo’s on his email heading and on his letterhead. He looks like a pleasant forty-something bloke.’

‘As do conmen around the world, I’m sure. Where’s he based?’

‘Chicago. His mail goes to a post office box address in East Ontario Street.’

‘Phone?’

‘He has a mobile: US number.’

‘Does he have a website?’

‘No, he says he doesn’t want one; he wants to choose his own clients, not have them approach him. But he’s going to set one up for me, to give me a presence for potential sponsors.’

‘Have you pressed him for a meeting?’

‘I’ve suggested it, sure, more than once, but he says that he prefers to be reclusive and that anyway, he gets hay fever any time he goes near a golf course, which is where I should be spending all my time. Lena and Uche are my people on the ground, he says, and when we need to meet, we will.’

‘Has Uche met him?’

‘No.’

‘Doesn’t that concern him?’

‘Why should it?’ he countered, easily. ‘He’s my mate, I picked him, and I gave him a job that’s going to help him get on tour.’

‘How about Lena?’

‘I’ve got no idea. I’ve never asked her. She works with me, not him.’

‘What does your mum say about this? She told me Harvey checked him out, and came up with a different explanation for his nickname.’

‘Hah!’ he laughed. ‘Yes, when I asked him about that he said it probably did fit him when he was younger, but that was a while ago. Harvey’s fine about him; if he hadn’t been I’d have told him to back off, but it didn’t come to that. Grandpa would pester the man to death if I let him near him. And as for Mum, if Harvey’s happy, so is she.’

I frowned. ‘That’s fine. But after a lifetime of odd relationships, I’m not so sure I am.’ His smile didn’t waver, but it occurred to me that I had overstepped the mark. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Forget that; it’s got bugger all to do with me. We only met up again today for the first time in donkey’s. What I think doesn’t matter; I’m just your long-lost auntie.’

‘No. You’re a lot more than that already. I’m sure that Brush and I will have to meet some time soon. When we do, I’ll make sure you’re-’

‘Hey!’ He was interrupted by a shout from Tom. I looked at him to see him twisting in his seat, holding someone’s wrist: male, white, with blue veins showing clearly. The hand to which it was attached was in the inside pocket of Patterson’s jacket, which he had draped over the back of his seat. The rest of its owner was outside the fence that marked the boundary of the terrace restaurant.

The man reacted, instantly. He tore himself free from Tom’s grasp, but my son had the presence of mind, and the youthful strength, to lock on to Patterson’s wallet and rip it from the would-be thief’s grip. Jonny was out of his chair in a second, brushing Shirley aside as he vaulted over the fence. He would have set off in pursuit, had it not been for Patterson’s shout of ‘No!’ laced with an imperious authority that seemed totally alien to such a mild-mannered man. . if you believed that’s what he really was, of course.

Jonny stopped in his tracks, and turned, staring at him like a chastened schoolboy.

‘It’s not worth it,’ he said, in a tone that was almost apologetic. All the people at the surrounding tables were staring at us, but he calmed them with palms-down gestures, until gradually their interest subsided. (Only Charlie was unaffected. Some bloody guard dog: he slept through the whole drama.) ‘He didn’t get anything,’ he continued, looking at my nephew, ‘and you never know with these guys. Thank you, Jonny, but if you’d caught him and he’d been carrying a knife. .’ He shook his head. ‘No, it doesn’t bear thinking about.’ He smiled at Tom, who was holding out his wallet, like an offering. ‘Well done, young man,’ he murmured, as he accepted it, and slipped it into his trouser pocket. ‘It’s not like me to be so careless. It just goes to show; you should never take your surroundings for granted.’

‘But here you can,’ I protested. ‘This is St Martí, not bloody Barcelona. We don’t have pickpockets and petty thieves here.’ I was furious, partly because I’m very proud of my home village, but mostly, I’m sure, because my son had been involved in a situation way beyond his years. Later, after I’d gone to bed, I shed a few tears of pride over the way he’d handled it, but at that moment, all that registered was anger. ‘I’m not having this,’ I declared, digging out my mobile.

‘What are you going to do?’ Shirley asked.

‘I’m going to call my pal Alex Guinart, and report the son of a bitch to the police.’ He is one, a detective, based in Girona.

‘And what are you going to tell him? To look out for a running man, and that’s it? ’Cos I never saw him.’

‘No, more than that; for a start he was. . white,’ I added, lamely, realising that I could offer little more than her by way of a description.

‘He was wearing Lacoste pirate pants, and a Def Leppard T-shirt,’ Jonny volunteered. ‘Dark hair, skinny. Tom was able to get a good grip of his wrist, so it couldn’t have been that thick. I think he’d a Mont Blanc wristwatch on the other. . they’re one of my sponsors, so I recognised it. And New Balance trainers. . they aren’t, but I had a pair in Arizona, so I know the logo.’

‘He has blue eyes,’ said Tom, firmly, ‘a gold tooth, a scar on his chin,’ he touched his own to demonstrate. ‘He needs a shave and his hair’s grey as well as dark. And he’s not British,’ he added, as a postscript, ‘or Spanish, or French, or German … and he’s too short to be Dutch.’

Patterson frowned at him, curiosity engaged. ‘How do you know that?’

‘It’s a game we play, Tom and me,’ I explained. ‘We reckon that seven times out of ten we can tell a punter’s nationality just by looking at them, and at their body language, before we ever hear them speak. Apart from their clothing, and that’s a big give-away, especially among the youngsters, we can tell the Dutch by their height, the Germans by their build, the French by their frowns. . very serious people; always worried about something. We know the Spanish because they seem most at home here. . and they’re most likely to be smokers. Our lot, they’re easiest of all. They might as well have “British” tattooed on their foreheads.’

‘You’re British yourself,’ he pointed out, ‘you and Tom. That must give you an advantage.’

‘No,’ I contradicted. ‘Tom’s lived hardly any of his life in Britain, yet he’s better at the game than I am. I didn’t get any sort of look at the guy, but if he says he isn’t a Brit, then trust him; he isn’t. Not that I’d expect it,’ I added. ‘That job that I had for a couple of years: I was based in the consulate general in Barcelona. I was in and out of there, but I still heard things. For example, I know that up to twenty people a week need passport replacements because theirs have been stolen. For example, I know that it’s quite common for British youngsters to get themselves lifted by the Mossos d’Esquadra for drunkenness, brawling, and other loutish behaviour, but hardly ever for petty theft. And I have absolutely never heard of a British pickpocket, in his thirties, wearing designer gear and a thousand quid watch; not anywhere, and most certainly not here.’