Quintin Jardine - For The Death Of Me

‘A journalist? Is that true?’

I smiled. ‘It is, Sly, in a manner of speaking.’

The real truth was that I hadn’t given any thought to the central question of how I’d approach Harvey’s ex-wife. But as Sly Burr forced me to think about it, a rudimentary and very simple plan began to form in my mind.

There would be a ‘journalist’: Conrad Kent.

I didn’t say anything to him, though, as we checked out of the hotel. I was still fine-tuning the approach in my mind.

I said farewell to Mary in a corner of the foyer: she’d decided to stay in Edinburgh for another day, then go back to Anstruther to adapt the house so that my dad could live on the ground floor for a while. Walking would be part of his recovery regime, but it would be on the level, for a while at least.

We hadn’t spoken about Jan since that long night in the hospital, but I couldn’t let it go at that. ‘You’re not going to let anything slip, are you?’ I asked her. ‘You sure you’ll be strong enough to keep the secret?’

‘I’ve kept it this long, haven’t I? Don’t worry, Oz, it’ll die with me. Your father will never know he was Jan’s father too.’

‘With respect, Mary, the truth won’t die with you. . unless you outlive me, that is. I’ll have to carry it with me.’

She looked up at me. ‘How do you feel about Jan now?’ she asked me.

I felt my forehead knot. ‘I don’t know. How am I supposed to feel?’

‘Before you knew the truth, what was she to you?’

‘She was the one, the one above all others.’

‘Then let her still be that.’

‘She was my half-sister, Mary.’

‘That’s not what it says on her birth certificate, or on your marriage certificate, or on her gravestone.’

‘I know, but now I feel as if I loved her under false pretences, somehow. It’s doing my head in. If she’d known the truth, it wouldn’t have been that way. . we wouldn’t have been that way.’

‘That’s where you’re wrong. She did, and it was; you were.’

I felt myself sway; I glanced at Conrad in case he’d noticed, but he had his back to us. ‘Jan knew?’ I whispered, incredulous.

She nodded. ‘I didn’t tell you the whole truth at the hospital. She guessed; I don’t know how, but she guessed. Sometimes I think she had special gifts.’

I’m in no doubt about that: I’ve seen Jan a couple of times since she died. Before, I didn’t believe in the transcendence of the human spirit beyond this plane of existence; I do now.

‘When did she find out?’

‘When you were in your mid-twenties; she came to me and asked point-blank if you were her brother. She told me she’d had a weird experience. She’d been washing one day when she looked in the mirror and saw your face; quite clearly, she said. She stared for a while, until you winked at her, then altered, but only slightly, and she was herself again. I couldn’t lie to her: her insight was too strong.’

‘What did she say?’

‘Nothing. I told her and she turned and walked away. We only discussed it once more after that.’

‘Mid-twenties,’ I murmured, ‘just when we drifted apart for a while.’

‘That was why. She was very clever: she made you think it was mostly your idea, but if you think about it, I’m sure you’ll realise that it was hers. She kept you at a distance, but not too far away. House-sharing with the woman Turkel was a kind of screen she built between the two of you.’

I thought back to those days and I smiled. ‘It didn’t stop her ringing my door at midnight a few times.’

‘I know; she couldn’t really live without you.’

‘What made her stop trying?’

‘Isn’t it obvious? Primavera. All your other flings she regarded as harmless, but when you met her, Jan saw that it was different. When you went off to Spain with her, she came to me; that was the only time I ever saw her cry as an adult. She said to me, “I don’t care, Mum. I don’t really care about anyone or anything but Oz.” And so I told her, “Then get him back.” And she did. And she was happy again, until the day she died.’

She reached up once more, and touched my face, as she’d done in the hospital. ‘Let it rest, Oz. You were very special together, you two; you should be proud of that. Bloodlines aren’t everything: it’s love that counts. Cling on to that thought, and enjoy what’s left of your life: there’s at least half of it in front of you, with luck.’

‘Susie?’ I asked. ‘Did she ever tell you what she really thought of Susie?’

Mary laughed lightly. ‘As a matter of fact she did. She said she thought of her as the other side of Primavera; that they were much the same person, only one was a cherub and the other was an imp.’

‘No prizes for guessing which was which. She was pretty generous, though, describing Primavera as a mere imp. Horns, pitchfork and a tail fit her better when she goes off the rails.’

‘In that case you can be sure that Jan’s glad you’ve wound up with the right one.’

I squeezed her hand. ‘Look after my dad,’ I said. ‘Get him through to Loch Lomond as soon as he’s ready for it.’

‘I will, I promise. Go and catch your plane now.’ Actually it wasn’t a matter of catching it: the aircraft was at our disposal. Nevertheless I wanted to see Susie and the kids again, and I had to catch up with old Benny Luker, who was, no doubt, running up a monster tab in the Columbus at my expense.

In the taxi to the terminal and eventually on the flight itself, my mind turned back to my mission for Harvey and to Madeleine January. I looked at Conrad, and imagined him trying to pretend to be a journalist. The more I did, the more trouble I had with the notion. My security manager is a very straight guy; there’s no duplicity about him.

Fortunately, I had a ready alternative, someone who was absolutely full of it.

I’d been phoning Susie several times every day, of course, so I knew that there were no crises at home. Prim was still there; she said that she had intended to leave the previous Sunday, but she had agreed to stay on until I got back. Susie hadn’t seen Dylan since I’d been away. I was glad to hear it, but I never doubted that I’d find him in the hotel. He had fifty thousand green-backed reasons not to leave the principality.

The flight was as uneventful as the first, but this time Conrad and I were in a mood to enjoy the personal service that came with the charter deal. As soon as we landed in Cannes, I switched on my cell-phone; the Citation was still taxiing to the terminal building when it rang.

‘Oz, where you been, son?’ Sly Burr exclaimed in my ear. ‘I been trying to get you.’

‘I’ve been a bit up in the air. What is it, Sly?’

‘I asked around about your lady,’ he said. ‘She ain’t with Billy Dorset any more, or with Bart Mawhinney. Billy fired her last year, and she dumped Bart after I shopped her for trying to poach him.’

‘What about Sandy Wilde? Are you sure he’s out of the picture?’

‘As far out as you can get without being dead: he met up with another Aussie, a dancer in a TV show they worked on together. They went back down under together; last I heard Sandy had a part in another soap, and the other fella. .’

‘Fella?’

‘Sandy’s a switch-hitter, I told you. His pal’s dancing in another show.’

‘So the trail’s cold.’

‘Did I say that? Billy told me that he sacked her because he had another complaint from an agent, Renee Danziger, about her having it off with her talent, an actor called Lee Kan Tong. That’s his real name, by the way: professionally, he’s Tony Lee. A lot of these Orientals anglicise their names. This time, Madeleine didn’t try to talk the guy away from Renee, but she had a reputation for it and that was enough. Billy decided she was a liability.’